Lies & "Damned" Lies

BELIEVING FALSEHOODS
(OR HOW HIDDEN AGENDAS ARE ADVANCED)
by Jim Beers

By “blaming” “global warming” for California fires and warmer Colorado winters these governors can pontificate and legislate about “reducing” emissions and limiting growth and lifestyles for decades into the future. Their politically advantageous (they believe) response is both uncalled for and meaningless. It incrementally harms small groups of Americans over time and passes the issue of what government should do (about fires and snow packs for future water, etc.) onto future generations and administrations while boosting these current politicians image as “bold” and “forward thinking”. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I make no bones about doubting the inevitability or continuance of a warming climate as a result of any man-made activities. There are many environmental effects both good and bad from human activities: changing the world climate is not one of them. Chemical activity on the surface of the sun and cyclical rhythms of ocean currents and air masses and magnetic fields coupled with volcanoes and fluctuations in interplanetary matter in our solar system have had far more real effect on climate changes since before the time of the dinosaurs than all the livestock “emissions” and spray cans of the past 100 years. If anything, for either the short run or for a speculative long-term, government and society should be looking to ADAPTATION to warm periods of various lengths rather than throwing sticks at the tide to hold back a flood. The notion that “more” government power and “more” absolute control of our lives by bureaucrats and environmentalists and academicians could somehow “cool” a “warming” climate is, frankly, the height of ignorance. For those that believe in global warming, you more than any others should be looking to ecosystem engineering and the introduction and use of warmer-tolerant wild and domestic species and adaptable land use techniques and equipment. In fact those that believe in “global warming” are in almost every instance the vociferous opponents of the common sense responses to the “inevitable” and “long-term” warming of the climate that they so believe in. Hidden agendas are the only reason I can imagine for such rejection of reality by any rational person.

Be that as it may, I have suggested what would logically be the role of government if indeed you believed in this “global warming” nonsense in the two previous articles mentioned above. While they are the exact opposite of what the politicians and bureaucrats and academicians and environmentalists are touting, they are common sense and achievable steps to minimize future catastrophes. It is this contradiction between common sense and the hidden agendas of self-serving groups that I suggest we should note and discuss in more depth. Four examples of such hidden agendas shrouded in falsehoods and taken from current events make this point as well as possible.

1. ITEM. Global warming is reportedly causing fires throughout the West to be larger, more expensive to fight, and inevitable: therefore people should not live in rural spots where they are vulnerable to these fires and where firefighting is all but impossible.

TRUTH. “Global warming”, whether you believe in it or not, does not “cause” fires. Warmer and dryer periods all had fires that were fought and contained successfully. Historic catastrophic fires (Hinckley, Peshtigo, etc.) were cataclysmic because of the presence of enormous fuel supplies for fires. Fire fuel ignited by combustion causes fire. Slash left in piles after logging over 100 years ago in Minnesota and Wisconsin differs little from storm-damaged trees or thick stands of insect-killed or overcrowded trees in Wildernesses or Roadless Areas on public lands today. A paucity of firefighters for such fires over 100 years ago was due to sparsely populated rural areas and otherwise differs little from inaccessible burning Wilderness and Roadless tracts on public lands today where firefighting consists of evening news shots of planes dropping water on an ocean of flames as we are propagandized about how people “don’t belong there” and “more government control is the ‘only’ answer”. Fires are larger and more expensive to fight because public lands are no longer managed and used in ways to reduce and eliminate fuel for fires and because more and more Federal land is inaccessible and buried in every manner of designation from Wilderness, Roadless, or some precious “Habitat” of one sort or another under the auspices of bureaucracies that no longer serve the public good. If they (State, Federal, or academic) served the public good they would be managing public lands so as to minimize fire danger.

For instance, look at a map of Southern California from the border to north of Los Angeles. The recent fires all start on and spread from those public lands (National Forests, Wilderness, Sanctuaries, Ecological Reserves, Conservation Areas, etc.) in the midst of urban areas and downwind from ‘Santa Anna’ winds of horrendous proportions and upwind from heavily populated areas. If you believe in global warming or not, to be told there is nothing to do but wait for another 4 or 5 years for the next batch of fires as the fuel (brush and trees) once again increases is stupidity squared. Why aren’t government and “scientists” introducing and establishing less fire-prone plant communities on these public lands to minimize fuel build-up? Why aren’t they researching and creating large and permanent firebreaks between the fuel on public lands and residential areas? Firebreaks could be introduced species of grass or it could be fenced strips (1/4 to ½ mile wide for instance) where sheep and/or goats minimize fire fuel accumulation and provide food and other products to help pay for maintaining the public lands and protecting human habitations. No, we are only told there are “too many people” there, or “they are living in wildlife habitat”, etc. “Our” government tells us that if we don’t “reduce” the population there or dramatically restrict our lifestyles: government is helpless. Like contestants at a carnival, we believe the games are honest and we are being told the truth.

2. ITEM. Oil is up to $100/barrel and heating bills will be enormous this winter. The long-term outlook is bleak unless; we are more strictly regulated by government regarding where we live, what we drive, and how we live.

TRUTH: Government (at the behest of extremists) is blocking access to known oil, coal and gas reserves in Alaska, off shore areas, southern Utah, and various other locations across the nation. Government (again at the behest of extremists and NIMBY supporters) is blocking increased refinery expansions and construction. The current high price of oil (95% of which is controlled by foreign despots and dictators) is spurring the development of oil extraction facilities in Alberta for tar sands and in the intermountain US for oil shale that is profitable at $35 to $40/barrel for the oil product that could supply North American oil need for centuries. Government and extremists can be expected to try and quash this as they campaign for their own hidden agendas. Additionally, have you ever heard anyone (bureaucrat, media, politician, academic, etc.) even mention how lucky we are at this time to be experiencing “global warming” since it should be lowering these high heating bills and helping rural widows and widowers and struggling families to stay warm and healthy? Of course not: that would be being truthful and not serve all those hidden agendas! Better to increase subsidies to wind farms (except where the rich might see them) and pass more restrictions on car mileage and housing development and all the other developments requiring energy before the price collapses or new sources become a reality.

3. ITEM. Rich folks and “important” people (Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, and Robert Kennedy are examples mentioned in recent newscasts) that use private jets and SUV’s as they “get around” “purchase” “carbon offsets” to “replace” the energy they use. For instance, the California Redwood Tree (evidently a beneficiary of these payments and an iconic figure much like the elephants and eagles used to justify passage of The Endangered Species Act”) “stores” the carbon outputs of X numbers of “average” Americans “carbon footprint”?

TRUTH. Anyone that believes such nonsense as there being some benefit from rich folks “giving” (“wanna” bet they take a “tax deduction” that in effect you and I subsidize?) to some conservation PAC or whatever is in anyway “offsetting” their “ carbon footprint” probably believes in the tooth fairy and “global warming”. Be that as it may, let’s pretend for a moment that the vaunted Redwood Tree stores up all that carbon and thereby “reduces” “global warming”. The “answer” to “offsetting” atmospheric carbon suddenly becomes clear. Cut all the redwoods (and pines and spruces and oaks et al) and USE them for construction and replant more trees and cut more trees and use them for semi-permanent products ad infinitum. The carbon stored in the redwood on my deck or in the pine 2x4’s in my house is still “stored” and all those “new” trees can “store” (i.e. “offset”) more and more carbon. Voila, we can all help the rich to “cool” the climate!

4. ITEM. A bill before Congress proposes, “Bear Protection Act of 2007 - Prohibits any person from: (1) importing bear viscera into, or exporting it from, the United States; or (2) selling bear
viscera, bartering, offering it for sale or barter, or purchasing, possessing, transporting, delivering, or receiving it in interstate or foreign commerce.” It goes on, “that nothing in this Act shall be construed to affect state regulation of bear population or to affect the lawful hunting of bears under state law.”

TRUTH. All bears in the United States except for grizzly bears in the lower 48 (protected by the Endangered Species Act) and the polar bear (protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act) are under the jurisdiction and authority of state governments. Recent hunting harvests of bears in excess of 45,000 per year are inadequate as bear damage mounts everywhere from Florida to Oregon. There is no shortage of hunters that would hunt and take more bears. In spite of this, the Federal government prohibits states like Florida from reducing bear populations despite growing harms to Floridians and urban voters prohibit bear harvest methods like dogs and bait and traps that knowledgeable rural residents and wildlife experts know are necessary to control bear populations effectively. Now an environmental activist politician with hidden agendas (Congressman Raul Grijalva D-AZ and Chairman of a Subcommittee of the House Natural Resources Committee who has also introduced two Wilderness Bills to 1. connect a Wilderness on the Mexican border with a US Interstate and 2. to create a large Wilderness block on the border where any effective Border Patrol activities will be all but impossible) has introduced this “Bear Protection Act” claiming it will not interfere with “state regulation of bear population” or “the lawful hunting of bears under state law.” If this were true, what business is it of the Federal government what happens to the “viscera” of those tens of thousands of legally taken bears. The reason is that it is just another of those radical “urban myths” that bears are endangered because the Chinese and Koreans et al are smuggling out their gall bladders for folk medicine and sex potions for old men (ick!). That is an overblown bit of nonsense that has generated millions in contributions for radical organizations both nationally and internationally for years. If it were true, why not allow hunters to register and sell the gall bladders of 45,000+ legally taken bears and any other bear “viscera” (that is just being “tossed” anyway) to that enormous Asian market? Why not tell those state fish and wildlife agencies that whine for “more” money all the time to require that all bear gall bladders be turned over to them (or retrieved by them at check stations or whatever) by hunters as they register their kills. Then let the state agency sell them to the Asians for all those touted “millions of dollars” we are told they are worth to old Asian men. Think of what the state could do with “all” that money. But the esteemed Congressman would preclude all that (while not interfering with state bear programs, right) while getting bouquets from environmentalists and animal rights activists that rightly see this Federal expansion as one more incremental foot on the neck of hunting and wildlife management and guns, but even so he is “saving” the Arizona “Wilderness”, isn’t he?

Whether it is the cynical use of tragic fire destruction of epic proportion, or the shameful exploitation of heating bill costs for the poor and elderly, or the lies to justify “our betters” doing what they tell us not to do, or a proposal to create Federal authority at the expense of state authority and then deny any effect: the end is always the same. More Federal power, state and local authority elimination, more laws, more bureaucracy, more taxes, more increasingly misleading propaganda, less property (private and public) rights, more restrictions on our daily activities, more elimination of traditional uses of animals, fewer liberties, less freedom, and a less honored and meaningful Constitution that is our only bulwark against the growth of tyranny and despotism. And, it is largely based on our acceptance of a steady stream of such simple falsehoods that a myriad of truly evil hidden agendas grow. Ultimately they are intended to make us like East Germans waiting in line for carrots under communist rulers or Russian parents shrugging about how the state controls everything, even their children: while the rulers eat well, spend the weekends in vacation homes and send their children to tutors.

I for one; opt for an America where state and local governments are strong, Federal activities are limited to those few specifically named in the Constitution, and where if you object to hunting or eating meat or wearing fur or slaughtering horses or all the other etceteras - you simply don’t do it and let others live their lives in peace.

Jim Beers
9 November 2007

- If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others.  Thanks.

http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)

- Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact: jimbeers7@verizon.net

- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Centreville, Virginia with his wife of many decades.

Good Neighbor Committee
P.O. Box 155 - La Salle, CO  80645
info@goodneighborlaw.com

| Good Neighbor Law© 2006 |