From: <Saved by Windows Internet Explorer 8>
Date: Thu, 6 May 2010 17:32:57 -0700

Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 8:19 PM

Subject: Worth reading...............

This is a response from Lawrence Kogan, Esq.  to a note (At
the end of all this.)  from an unnamed water attorney.

Roni,

The fact that fossil
fuel sources have long been favored over pie-in-the-sky technologies that were
not yet ripe for prime-time for many years, does not justify irrational
exuberance over ethanol, especially considering that ethanol itself causes
negative environmental AND economic externalities.  It is not the reverse
side of the policy coin because we now know better not to rely solely on one
fuel source if we seek energy security.

Environmental
externalities are a hoax imposed on society by environmentalists who wish to
control the way people undertake their daily lives.  Environmental
accounting is pretty much voodoo and its aim is to undermine long-established
financial accounting precepts that serve as the basis for our capitalist free
market system.  Environmentalists speak glowingly of and essentially
'gross-up' societal-environmental externalities triggered by fossil fuels (using
an accounting function) without netting those costs against gross societal
benefits that fossil fuels have provided.  I suspect that such a 'netting',
which is proper in accounting, would yield less than the dramatic environmental
results that environmentalists like to publicize, and thus, undermine an
important element of their campaign to make people throughout the world more
conscious of their environmental 'footprints, carbon or otherwise.  The
ITSSD has cited several sources knowledgeable about environmentalist antics in
its 2005 book "Exporting Precaution: How Europe's Risk-Free Regulatory Agenda
Threatens American Free Enterprise", published by the Washington Legal
Foundation.

I believe that Czech
President Klaus says it best in his recent Financial Times editorial:

"...I see
the biggest threat to freedom,
democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism,
not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous
evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global)
planning."

See: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/9deb730a-19ca-11dc-99c5-000b5df10621.html
which I think GNF should reproduce in its entirety under the ITSSD section
of the GNF website.

Freedom, not climate, is at risk

By Vaclav
Klaus

Published: June 13 2007 17:44
| Last updated: June 13 2007 17:44

We are living in
strange times. One exceptionally warm winter is enough - irrespective of the
fact that in the course of the 20th century the global temperature increased
only by 0.6 per cent - for the environmentalists and their followers to suggest
radical measures to do something about the weather, and to do it right
now.

Ask President
Klaus

Is climate change just
propaganda? Vaclav Klaus will answer your questions in an online Q&A. Post a
query now

In the past year, Al Gore's
so-called "documentary" film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain's - more or
less Tony Blair's - Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United
Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the
Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather.
Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political
correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in
human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.

The author Michael Crichton
stated it clearly: "the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of
distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda". I feel the same
way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth
versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the "established"
truth, although a lot of people - including top-class scientists - see the issue
of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of
those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human
activities.

As someone who lived under
communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest
threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious
environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and
spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

The environmentalists ask for
immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive
impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future
generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the
wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are
Malthusian pessimists.

The scientists should help us
and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions.
They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how
much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific
evidence.

Does it make any sense to
speak about warming of the Earth when we see it in the context of the evolution
of our planet over hundreds of millions of years? Every child is taught at
school about temperature variations, about the ice ages, about the much warmer
climate in the Middle Ages. All of us have noticed that even during our
life-time temperature changes occur (in both
directions).

Due to advances in
technology, increases in disposable wealth, the rationality of institutions and
the ability of countries to organise themselves, the adaptability of human
society has been radically increased. It will continue to increase and will
solve any potential consequences of mild climate changes.

I agree with Professor
Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who said:
"future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early 21st
century's developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged
temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross
exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible
chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial
age".

The issue of global warming
is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom
than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.

As a witness to today's
worldwide debate on climate change, I suggest the following:
■Small climate
changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive measures
■Any suppression of
freedom and democracy should be avoided
■Instead of organising people from
above, let us allow everyone to live as he wants
■Let us resist the
politicisation of science and oppose the term "scientific consensus", which is
always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority
■Instead
of speaking about "the environment", let us be attentive to it in our personal
behaviour
■Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of
human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow it down or
divert it in any direction
■Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic
forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human
lives.

The
writer is President of the Czech Republic

Copyright The
Financial Times Limited 2007

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roni,

I
thought you might be interested in the reply of  water
attorney:

I would argue that energy prices have
been artificially depressed in the US for years.  I agree that
there is short term dislocation in corn prices, and that corn ethanol is
artificially valued.  However, environmental (and now national security)
externalities of US energy consumption are only now
beginning to be valued in real cost terms.  That scenario (actual market
impact of environmental and security externality) has been on the horizon for
years (at least since the passage of NEPA [1969] and the 1974 Arab oil embargo
and creation of OPEC).  I believe one can easily argue that "politically
charged government policies" (redundancy admitted) which favor ethanol
production are the reverse side of the policy coin which has favored
petrochemical development for decades.  Yes, the political and economic
pendulums swing.