Greens vs. Energy

[Geee]

American Thinker:

This April 22, if you find yourself frustrated at rising gasoline prices, or rising electricity prices, or rising natural gas and heating oil prices, make sure you place plenty of blame on the environmentalists behind Earth Day; for decades they have found a reason to oppose every practical form of energy in the name of "saving the planet."

Start with their opposition to fossil fuels, including the oil that fuels our vehicles, the coal that powers our factories, and the natural gas that heats our homes. Environmentalists have long thwarted drilling and mining projects on the ground that fossil fuels "destroy the environment." What they neglect to mention is that over the last 200 years, fossil fuels, in fueling industrialization, have improved our environment in life-changing ways -- industrialization has brought far cleaner air and water, with far less susceptibility to poisons or diseases, and with far less vulnerability to climate. Fossil fuels, to this day, provide more than 80 percent of the ample, affordable energy industrial civilization uses -- and yet environmentalists propose legislative caps to virtually eliminate these vital energy sources in favor of expensive, impractical "green" alternatives. Imagine what that would do to your energy prices.

Environmentalist opposition to vital energy sources goes beyond fossil fuels; for decades environmentalists have worked tirelessly to stop the most practical non-fossil-fuel sources of power: nuclear power and hydroelectric power, neither of which emits CO2 when producing energy.

In recent weeks, environmentalist hysteria about "high radiation levels" coming from Japan would have you believe that nuclear power has been proven unsafe. Just the opposite; we should take solace in the fact that numerous high-powered reactors, subjected to a once-in-a-century natural disaster, have not caused any deaths due to radioactive material. Compare that to the hundreds or even thousands of deaths that can result from a dam breaking or from a natural gas explosion. Today's hysteria is part of a long history of demonizing nuclear power.