Not only could you lose your job under the current environmental
regime, but you could also lose your life.
That is one of the inescapable conclusions that can be drawn
from a recently released book authored by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a
scholar with the Manhattan Institute, who was kind enough to
discuss some of her key findings at her office in Washington
D.C.
With President Obama re-elected to a second term, green
activists who hold considerable sway with federal agencies are
well-positioned to advance policies that jeopardize not just the
economy, but also America’s geo-political standing, she
explained.
That last part often gets overlooked, but in reality the
nation’s energy policy is inextricably linked to national security.
Unfortunately, top officials within the Defense Department have
already succumbed to environmental directives that could work to
the advantage of military adversaries, Furchtgott-Roth
observes.
“What many environmentalists view as morally superior, could
have very negative policy ramifications, not just for the economy,
but also for our military,” she said. “If the military does become
more reliant upon renewable energy and biofuels, as opposed to more
traditional energy sources, there are ways this could conceivably
be exploited by a future adversary.”
The Obama White House has already pressured the Air Force and
Navy into becoming more reliant upon renewable energy, according to
the book. While this may be politically fashionable, these plans
could undercut military readiness, Furchtgott-Roth warns.
“Although shipping diesel and gasoline to remote battlefields is
costly, using renewable energy has its own set of challenges,” she
tells readers. “It takes up massive amounts of land to gather very
diluted energy streams. Recharging a laptop with a fold-up solar
panel is plausible, but larger devices would require more
substantial panels, or even windmills, that could be spotted by the
enemy.”
Nevertheless, recent statements from Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta indicate that climate change is now viewed as a pressing
national security threat.
“Rising sea-levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar
ice caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all
raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” he
said during an address to the Environmental Defense Fund in May
2012. The Defense Department’s re-evaluation of its energy use, and
its pursuit of renewable fuel sources is linked to the debate over
climate change.
Furchtgott-Roth’s book, entitled, Regulating to Disaster:
How Green Job Policies Are Damaging America’s Economy, argues
persuasively that it is the anti-energy global warming policies,
not global warming per se, that are the real national security
threats.
Take the Keystone XL pipeline, which environmentalists have
delayed from going into full production. Along with all its
economic advantages, there was a national security component at
work in that the pipeline would provide the U.S. military to
critical energy resources in a stable, friendly region of the
world. But it has not yet been approved by the U.S. State
Department.
“Environmentalists attacked the proposed Keystone XL pipeline
because it would expand the use of the oil sands in Alberta,
Canada, which is a more carbon-intensive form of oil than that
produced from traditional underground reservoirs,” Furchtgott-Roth
explains. “Yet in the State Department’s environmental review it
was noted that ‘Oil sands mining projects have reduced greenhouse
gas emissions intensity by an average of 39 percent between 1990
and 2008 and are working toward further reductions.’ ”
But there’s no point in bothering Team Obama with the facts.
Instead of pursuing policies that would create new job
opportunities, the administration is peddling the concept of green
jobs, an elusive, nebulous concept that is defined differently
across federal and state agencies. There is often a short degree of
separation between the duties and responsibilities of green workers
and non-green workers.
“While you are writing this article it is possible that you have
a green job,” Furchtgott-Roth said. “My book could qualify as an
environmental book since it is about green jobs. Book publishers
are also green if they issue environmental books.”
She added, “Creating new jobs is hard work. It is a lot easier
to simply redefine an existing job as a new job, a distinguished
job. Let us call it a ‘green job.’ And to show we have made
progress, let us say we have made lots of green jobs. Our
government may not be good at creating jobs but it excels at
relabeling existing jobs as green jobs.”
At the federal level, the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS) is responsible for determining what qualifies as a
green job, and what does not. What this means in practice is that
some positions are viewed as environmentally virtuous, while “other
jobs languish in moral inferiority without the benefit of
government subsidies,” Furchtgott-Roth said.
Green jobs include work “in businesses that produce goods or
provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural
resources” or “jobs in which workers’ duties involve making their
establishment’s production processes more environmentally friendly
or use fewer natural resources,” according to the BLS.
Some creates some very odd juxtapositions. For example, farmers
who produce corn for consumption are not viewed as green workers,
while farmers who produce corn for ethanol earn the label. Although
the former may be providing food to needy populations, he does not
enjoy a favored standing.
Furchtogott-Roth’s book delves into the environmental movement’s
view of moral superiority and how it is used to rationalize a
larger role for government often at expense of public safety and
the larger national interest. Consider the new minimum fuel
efficiency standard the President Obama set in July 2011 and the
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulations, first enacted in
the 1970s. In response to these regulatory changes, automakers have
been forced to downsize their vehicles, and add in new technology
that is passed to the consumers in the form of vehicle that are
more expensive and less safe.
Furchtgott-Roth cites a 2002 study in her book from the National
Research Council that found the first CAFE standards were
responsible for anywhere from 13,000 to 26,000 more Americans on
the receiving end of severe injuries on the road because they were
in lighter cars.
Up until now, it has not been made clear to the public how
dangerous green policies can be to their livelihood.
But now that green policies have established a foothold in the
Pentagon, Furchtgott-Roth sees an opening to reframe the debate
over regulatory policy.
“Gambling taxpayer dollars, Americans’ livelihoods, and the
lives of drivers is bad enough, but certainly even the greenest of
environmentalists can admit that it has gone too far when the lives
of American soldiers become the playground of environmentalists,”
she said.
Former Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, who has been nominated by
President Obama to become U.S. secretary of defense, has
expressed skepticism toward the idea that human activity drives
climate; that’s promising. But he also appears open to the idea
that climate change should be linked in with national security;
that could mean trouble. Senators who have misgivings about Hagel’s
nomination ought to inquire about his stance on green
policies.
Photo: UPI.
