The Wheels Are Coming Off Politically Correct Environmentalism
Commentary by Harold Hough 

In case you haven’t noticed it, the wheels are coming off the politically correct environmentalist bandwagon.  And, it isn’t just the fact that some environmental scientists were fudging global warming figures.
            One broadside came from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that said wind power wasn’t as friendly as once thought.  Ron Prinn, TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science, and principal research scientist Chien Wang of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences say that using wind turbines to meet 10 percent of global energy demand in 2100 could cause temperatures to rise by one degree Celsius in the regions on land where they're installed.  Consider the problems given the fact that the US Department of Energy is expecting wind power to account for 25% of the US’s electricity supply by 2030.
            Of course, that didn’t stop Energy Secretary Chu, who advocated a starvation diet devoid of additional fossil fuels that are to remain under the ground and seabed. Instead, he supports 53% more funding for wind research and a 22% jump for solar research – all this during a serious economic slowdown.
            There is also more evidence that “green jobs” won’t help the economy at all.  But, don’t expect to hear that from the Department of Energy.  The Energy Department worked closely with the wind industry lobby to discredit a Spanish report that criticized wind power as a job killer, internal DOE e-mails reveal.  The e-mails obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request show how, starting last April, lobbyists at the American Wind Energy Association became alarmed that lawmakers were citing a study by Spain's King Juan Carlos University. The study found that Spain's massive investments in wind power cost 2.2 jobs for every "green" job created.  The study came out in early 2009 just as the wind lobby was building up its presence in Washington, hoping it could score big in an energy bill then being debated in Congress. Industry lobbyists feared the Spanish study would halt momentum for pro-wind legislation.
Nor is this inefficiency limited to the wind industry.  A study commissioned by the Institute for Energy Research (IER), found per worker subsidies for solar industry jobs are as high as $240,000. 
            Other embarrassing data has also been surfacing.  England’s newspaper The Telegraph noted a new study, funded by NASA that has found that the most serious drought in the Amazon for more than a century had little impact on the rainforest's vegetation.
The findings appear to disprove claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest could react drastically to even a small reduction in rainfall and could see the trees replaced by tropical grassland.
            There are other IPCC failures.  Sea ice around Antarctica has been significantly increasing—a behavior that runs counter to climate model projections of sea ice declines.  The evidence suggests that IPCC authors, who were warning of declining sea ice, were promoting their own work in lieu of other equally legitimate (and ultimately more correct) findings and were being guided by IPCC brass to produce a politically correct view.  No wonder UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has ordered a newly formed outside scientific panel to review its "procedures and practices" — and more significantly, its management.
            Of course, the IPCC has been at the heart of the controversy.  It has faced a torrent of criticism since November, when leaked e-mails raised doubts about its handling of climate data and its fairness. At least five significant errors have been reported in the panel's findings, and its credibility has been severely undermined both among scientists and the public.  There have even been some demands that its Nobel Peace Prize, that it shared with Al Gore, be returned.
The good news about all of this is that people are becoming more skeptical about environmental scaremongering.  A new Gallup poll finds that "over the last two years [Americans have] become less worried about the threat of global warming, less convinced that its effects are already happening, and more likely to believe that scientists themselves are uncertain about its occurrence."  Forty-eight percent of respondents said that the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated, up from 41 percent in 2009 and 31 percent in 1997. By contrast, fewer people now believe that climate changes are due to human activities. 50 percent of respondents in the latest survey said climate change is due to human activities, while 46 percent say they are not. In 2003, 61 percent of respondents said such increases were due to human activities, with only 33 percent saying they were natural.
Now some states are going on the offensive.  Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is suing the EPA.  He notes that with recent revelations about fiddling the climate warming data, “It does, however, show that the process used by the EPA in deciding to regulate greenhouse gases is riddled with errors that render its conclusion untrustworthy.”  We can only hope the courts agree.
            The bottom line is that the days of unquestioned belief in manmade global warming are ending.  Unfortunately, we can only wait until environmentalists find another environmental cause to restrict our freedoms and industry.