Great Democratic Strategy -- That is Bad Policy, and Will Backfire PoliticallyThis is vintage Democrat strategy: If we pass a bad bill that the right hates (which, in this instance, they actually have good reasons, unlike most of the reasons expressed when the idea was first introduced early last year) and many moderates and several noted Liberals also hate, it will help us!

"The word “environmentalist” usually conjures images of dreadlocked campaigners in tie-dyed T-shirts who eat only organic muesli and never travel by car." Really? To who, the far far right? Particularly since a majority of Americans identify themselves as environmentalists.

But the author of this report then notes that this is so "70s." (Except back in the 70s, who knew that muesli was actually pretty good stuff? Probably just a bunch of tie dyed wearing dread locked hippies who never travelled by car.)

More seriously, among other intriguing arguments put forth in this article in the always intriguing (and sometimes quite good) "American Conservative" magazine, the author postulates that the "green industrial complex" (you have to read the article to see what that is) "implicitly denigrates production, since all forms of modern manufacturing emit CO2."

This is a flawed, and important enough, concept, that we thought we'd briefly address it here. All forms of manufacturing emit CO2, since we were not concerned about excessive CO2 emissions. But all forms of manufacturing do not have to emit CO2, to put it mildly. In fact, the manufacturing of that which helps produce other energy sources not only does not have to produce CO2 (if non CO2 energy sources are utilized therein) but in turn helps render other manufacturing non CO2 emitting, while itself contributing further to economic growth.

The article talks about "stagnating economies," when what we are really looking at, is stagnating ideas of what growth necessarily has to be circumscribed, defined, and enabled by. There is a whole new world out there of non carbon emitting energy possibilities. But it's pretty old school not to see it, particularly when one of the main sources, the sun, is staring us in the face some dozen or so hours each day.