Smelling out the green

Tomorrow is Earth Day, the day we need to make unnecessary trips in our Hummer, fire up the charcoal grill for eating various tasty animals, and otherwise poke a finger in the eye of those fringe environmentalists who would tell us what we can do and eat.

Freedom Action points out the hypocricy:

Freedom Action, a new political advocacy group, has launched a new ad campaign blasting environmental groups like World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and the National Wildlife Federation for “spending big bucks to promote global warming as a crisis and to advocate energy-rationing policies.” 

In addition, “major corporations such as General Electric, Duke Energy, Dow, Shell, General Motors, and Exelon stand to reap windfall profits from cap-and-trade,” the ad points out. 

What’s more, the CEOs of such companies won’t feel the pinch from the rise in energy prices resulting from government mandates and taxes on energy use.   “People like Jeffrey Immelt of GE, James Rogers of Duke, Frederic Krupp of EDF, and Frances Beinecke of NRDC can afford paying $7 for gas and twice as much for electricity. On the other hand, average working Americans and unemployed Americans are going to have to suffer so that these fat cats can get fatter.”

I can’t argue with that. One contention I’ve had with these companies is their compulsion to use rentseeking policies at the highest levels to ace out any potential competition. Granted, these companies are seeking a course to maximize profits for their shareholders but it’s obvious they got along well before under the old rules. General Electric can build its products to the market just fine without government help, but they would love to have even more of a stranglehold by gaming the system and that’s where I cry foul.

(The bitter irony is that on the one hand they engage in rentseeking activity which will enrich them and grow government while on the other playing up their onetime association with Ronald Reagan as the 100th anniversary of his birth arrives next year. How about putting that imagination to work on innovation to corner the market instead of lobbying and regulation?)

As for me, I think I’ll celebrate Earth Day by eating some meat then going to a place where thousands of watts of electricity will be spent in lighting a diamond for the enjoyment of several thousand patrons. Sounds like a good celebration to me.

Just as disclosure for those interested: Freedom Action is allied with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, making them a definite ally of monoblogue.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.