The Double Standards Industry by Paul Driessen
It’s a good thing environmentalists have double standards – or they wouldn’t have any standards at all. Empire State legislators worry that anything above the current 0.0001% methane in Earth’s atmosphere will cause catastrophic climate change, and that pipelines will disturb wildlife habitats. So they oppose fracking for natural gas in New York and pipelines that would import the clean fuel from Pennsylvania. But then they bribe or force rural and vacation area communities to accept dozens of towering wind turbines that impact thousands of acres, destroy scenic views, kill thousands of birds and bats annually, and affect the sleep and health of local residents – to generate pricey intermittent electricity that is sent on high voltage transmission lines to Albany, Manhattan and other distant cities. Meanwhile, developers are building a 600-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from West Virginia to North Carolina, to power generating plants that provide low-cost electricity almost 24/7/365. (Environmentalism is a good and necessary idea But it needs to be done as logically, factually, and objectively as possible. Unfortunately, emotionalism has taken over a huge part of it. When people are emotional they only notice what they want to, whether it's entirely real or not, and absolutely don't notice what they don't want to, no matter how real it is. There won't be any "significant" downsides to solar and wind power in their view, it will all bring in a new age of purity in now we support our energy-rich lives. And that's all they see. I worry that if this doesn't get brought under some level of careful thinking and implementation, we can wind up with a huge mess in the next 30 years. --Del)
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