“This is really an outrageous letter in that it equates legitimate differences of opinion with an attack on state policy. The implication, of course, is that ‘undermining’ is illegal. There are real costs to these promotions. People’s careers and livelihoods are affected. Not only is this sort of warmist intolerance affecting individual careers, it is also depriving groups – even whole continents – of the right to a broad energy marketplace. As in other areas, warmist tactics and intolerance increasingly polarize issues and make rational discussion difficult to pursue. When political interactions become marginalized, or even criminalized, then authoritarianism inevitably expands.”
Tag Archives: Watermelonism
Widespread abandonment of farming changes Italy’s landscape
“Centuries after it was colonised by Vandals and Visigoths, Italy is being invaded again – this time by trees. A report released yesterday revealed that the widespread abandonment of farmland, particularly in mountainous areas in the south of the country, has led re-afforestation on a massive scale. Italy now has more forest and woodland than it has had in modern times – 35 per cent of the country is covered in trees. The south of Italy is also now increasingly wooded. It is there that the decline in upland farming has been most pronounced, after small-scale farmers gave up their hard-scrabble properties and moved to towns and cities, or left Italy altogether.”
Government Mismanagement Causes California Water Crisis
“California Central Valley has a water crisis, not because the state doesn’t have enough water, but because government agencies have allowed massive amounts of water to flow out to the ocean instead of storing it for future need.”
Feds May Cut Off Water For Legal Marijuana Crops
“Some cannabis growers may soon find themselves with a lot less irrigation water if the U.S. government decides to block the use of federal water for state-legal marijuana cultivation. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees management of federal water resources, ‘is evaluating how the Controlled Substances Act applies [to] water being used to facilitate marijuana-related activities,’ said the bureau. Local water districts in Washington state and Colorado, where recreational marijuana is now legal, contract with federal water projects for supplies. Officials from some of those water districts said they assume the feds are going to turn off the spigots for marijuana growers.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/19/federal-water-marijuana_n_5335219.html
San Francisco’s Dumb Ban on Bottled Water
“San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted to ban bottled water from city property and events, as well as food trucks regulated by the city. The legislation is widely acknowledged to be among the strictest bottled-water bans in the country, and in the environmental community at least, it’s being hailed as an important step in ridding landfills of the scourge of plastic bottles. A tad smugly, David Chiu, the city supervisor who authored the legislation, underscored that the ban was intended to change behavior, too, not just packaging. ‘I want to remind people that not long ago, our world was not addicted to plastic water bottles,’ he said. ‘For centuries, everybody managed to stay hydrated.'”
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-14/san-francisco-s-dumb-ban-on-bottled-water
Ron Paul: Nevada Standoff a Symptom of Increasing Authoritarianism
“A government that continually violates our rights of property and contract can fairly be descried as authoritarian. Of course, the politicians and bureaucrats take offense at this term, but how else do you describe a government that forbids Americans from grazing cattle on land they have used for over a century, from buying health insurance that does not met Obamacare’s standards, from trading with Cuba, or even from drinking raw milk? That so many in DC support the NSA spying and the TSA assaults on our privacy shows the low regard that too many in government have for our rights.”
Cows shot from helicopters, mass graves constructed at Bundy Ranch
“It is now emerging that scores of Bundy’s cattle were abused and killed, with many being dumped into mass graves. This story was first revealed by 21stCenturyWire.com. This is on top of the tasering, beating, wrong arrests and threatening of citizens with attack dogs during last week’s standoff. In all, some $3 million of taxpayer money was spent by the government to illegally steal those cattle, only to sell many of them across the Nevada state line in Utah and California, according to 21st Century Wire. Here’s just one photo of the cattle slaughtered by the BLM. The mass graves are being exhumed right this minute, and the findings are heartbreaking.”
http://www.naturalnews.com/044746_animal_atrocities_mass_graves_Bundy_Ranch.html
Solar energy plants in tortoises’ desert habitat pit green against green
“Plans to create two solar energy plants on public lands in California and Nevada are pitting renewable energy advocates against environmentalists who fear the facilities will endanger federally threatened desert tortoises in the area. Federal officials on Wednesday announced the approval of two plants expected to supply 550 megawatts of renewable energy, enough to power about 170,000 homes. Environmentalists voiced concerns that construction will negatively impact populations of desert tortoises in the Ivanpah Valley. In November the group Defenders of Wildlife filed a notice of intent to sue the government under the Endangered Species Act to block the projects.”
Federal agents surround Nevada ranch in desert tortoise standoff
“A two-decades-old battle between a Nevada rancher and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has resulted in officials armed with machine guns surrounding the ranch and forcibly removing the owner’s cattle, according to the rancher’s family. Cliven Bundy, the last rancher in Clark County, Nev., has been fighting a ‘one-man range war’ since 1993, when he decided to take a stand against the agency, refusing to pay fees for the right to graze on a ranch run by his family for centuries. After years of court battles, the BLM secured a federal court order to have Bundy’s ‘trespass cattle’ forcibly removed with heavy artillery, the family said.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/apr/9/feds-surround-nevada-ranch-latest-standoff/?page=all
Wendy McElroy: A Vast Land Grab to Grouse About
“Some time this month, the Department of Interior will decide on whether to list the Lesser Prairie Chicken as an threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Listing the grouse would give government the ‘right’ to protect a habitat of 40-million-acres that spreads over five states: Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico and Kansas. Much of the land is privately owned, and it includes rich pockets of oil and gas as well as active ranch and farm land. The land grab is being engineered in a manner that has become a signature of the Obama administration: quietly, autocratically and by sidestepping established restraints. In this case, the tactic is called ‘sue and settle.'”
http://www.thedailybell.com/editorials/35152/Wendy-McElroy-A-Vast-Land-Grab-to-Grouse-About/