Liberal Energy Policy Lies

I was reading Outside magazine this weekend while on a train ride home from NYC. Being such a liberal rag, I don't find all that much of the monthly very appealing. I originally subscribed for the outdoor activity and adventure coverage, then for some of the physical conditioning articles.

However, this month's issue contained an article that really caught my eye.

Recently, as I discussed in this post, on my business blog, Boone Pickens extolled the potential of wind power in the American west. He estimated it could replace up to 20% of American electrical power generation by other fuel sources.

The Outside magazine piece alleged that number is 33% from North Dakota alone.

Now, when a capitalist like Pickens actually puts his money down on a project, I'm going to tend to believe his outlook more than a bunch of wild-eyed Geenies writing for Outside.

The difference is very important, because, by extension, the Outside piece, if accepted uncritically, sort of has you imagining that, gee whiz, maybe could replace all our electrical generating capacity with clean wind, instead of smelly, polluting coal and natural gas!

Not likely in the real world.

Then the Outside piece dismissively noted,

"Despite a few certifiably crackpot questions- for example,

'Didn't the eruption of Mount St. Helens spew more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than mankind has ever produced?' - everyone seems to be genuinely interested in finding the best solution."

While I doubt that the question's ultimately true answer is 'yes,' the question and the person who asked it raise a reasonable point.

Even the also-liberally-tilting History Channel has recently aired a few programs noting that mega-volcanoes which have reshaped our planet would simply wipe out nearly all human life if one occurred now or in the future.

So the point about volcanic eruptions is well-taken. Nature can actually quite easily offset anything man can try to do to influence the Earth's climate.

It's quite possible that a huge amount of the effects of converting human energy sources from petroleum-based to renewable could all be erased in one good blow of a volcano.

To ignore these realities seems to be a hallmark of the Green movement. Overstate, i.e., lie about, the benefits of the green movement's proposals, then catcall and discredit legitimate questions as to just how much control man really has over nature.

It seems liberals now do this all the time in the area of energy policy.