Recently in Green Elephants Category

Senator Inhofe about 2 hours ago:

“While the House will pass the bill … in the Senate, they’re not going to be able to pass it,” Inhofe said. “You guys – it’s just not going to happen..."

Earlier thoughts here.

Both Democrats and Republicans pull out their faith-based guns during Congressional hearings on climate change. Mayhem ensues.  I used to think having Christians hip-deep in the politico-ecology debate was a good thing. Not so sure now.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, the problem with the GOP is too many religious voters.

Today's the day we give government employees the day off have set aside to honor those men who have led our nation through times of blessing and challenge, from Washington and Lincoln to Obama.

I have the utmost respect for the office of the presidency regardless of who is occupying it, even when I disagree with the occupant politically. Wish that went both ways, but that's OK. In the past century Republican presidents have gotten a bad rap on the environment. But thanks to Al Gore's internet I have a forum to make a small dent in that myth.

For instance...

There's certainly a divide between conservatives and progressives on the environment. Or is there? Anna thinks the difference is less about what we're saying and more about the words we use.

What say you?

UPDATE: I like her bit on conservation as a conservative value too.

Suddenly, everyone has a plan. Veteran oilman T. Boone Pickens is spending millions promoting his proposal to replace foreign oil with massive wind farms and increased natural-gas production. [President] Barack Obama proposes spending $150 billion over the next 10 years to "deploy climate-friendly energy supplies." Sen. John McCain backs plans to build nuclear power plants and open more U.S. waters to drilling, and wants a $300 million prize for whoever develops a breakthrough electric-vehicle battery. And Al Gore believes we can convert our electricity grid entirely to "renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources" within 10 years. Virtually everyone who proposes a grand scheme to overhaul America's energy supply cites as a model John F. Kennedy's audacious 1961 call to put a man on the moon.

So, do we really need an Apollo project for energy? It is tempting to believe that a huge government initiative, backed by ample tax dollars, could solve this problem. But be careful what you wish for.

Yes, the moon landing was a towering achievement. But, as aerospace analyst Rand Simberg notes, it was also a "well-defined engineering challenge, and a problem susceptible to having huge bales of money thrown at it." Retooling America's energy infrastructure is far more complex. It isn't one challenge, it's thousands—a total overhaul of the American lifestyle involving deep changes in every home, vehicle and business in the country.

Read more here.

"The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose and method."

-- President Theodore Roosevelt

"[There is an] absolute necessity of waging all-out war against the debauching of the environment."

--Governor Ronald Reagan, First Earth Day, 1970

From John Berlau's Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism Is Hazardous to Your Health!, pp. 218-219:

The Environment Isn't a Conservative or Liberal Issue

This saying I agree with. But not for the reasons usually stated. I think both conservatives and liberals should reject the tenets of modern environmentalism.

The merging of liberalism with environmentalism is actually a rather new political phenomenon, not quite forty years old. Recall Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech dedicating the Hoover Dam in which he bragged about "altering" the geography of the region and called the area that existed before "catus-covered waste."

[Even] Karl Marx and the early communists and socialists were not against factories. In fact many saw them as liberating to farm drudgery...

Those liberals who really care about humanity...should be the first in line to advocate spraying DDT to combat malaria outbreaks in Africa...It might also help liberals win some of their arguments. It's hard to argue that you're for government-run health care and against Social Security private accounts because you care so much about people when you then turn around and say that people's needs should take second place to those of the snail darter.