Rethinking the Recycling Racket

Time Magazine breathlessly reports that America's recycling system is "broken" and badly in need of repair. But there's no indication that recycling advocates are prepared to confront the dirty little secrets of the racket, or to seriously rethink this economically- and ecologically-dubious concept.

Recyclists are doing what progressives always do when confronted with failure; they're doubling down on the dumb, while looking to shift the burden onto "business," which ultimately means . . . . consumers.

What "broke" America's sham recycling system? Two things, really.

First, with only a few exceptions to this rule, recycling doesn't make much economic or environmental sense. And it never has. But recycling is all about feeling good and virtue-signaling, so whether it works or not is irrelevant to green panacea-pushers. To pronounce American-style recycling "broken" presumes that it at some point worked. But you can't break something that's been broken from inception. 

The second thing that "broke" the system was China, which exposed this massive scam for what it was by abruptly declining to continue as a dumping ground -- out of sight, out of mind -- for America's "recyclables."

This system doesn't need "fixing." It needs rethinking, which has never been the strong suit of rabid recyclists.

The Green Media Menace

Veteran Wisconsin political reporter Ron Seely is this year’s recipient of the David R. Brower Award, given annually by the The Sierra Club to a journalist for his or her “outstanding environmental coverage.” Seely undoubtedly was honored to accept the award and happy to hang it on his trophy wall. But to me there’s something troubling about this seemingly-innocuous episode, which highlights the near-total demolition of any wall of separation between “environmental journalism” and environmental activism.     

We’ve all heard about the scourge of “yellow journalism.” But these days it’s the green media news consumers should be wary of. 

Let's ignore for now the question of who David Brower was and what kind of role model he makes for journalists. Any review of Brower's story and statements shows that he embodied few qualities a professional journalist should emulate. Let's skip over, as well, the rather ironic fact that Brower was at one point drummed-out of the club, by no lesser a light than Ansel Adams, over ideological differences and alleged financial improprieties.   

  

Today let's just imagine the outcry that would result if the energy industry began handing out journalism awards. No credible journalist would accept such a dubious "honor," for obvious reasons. Liberal pundits would howl in derision at the audacity of Evil Oil trying to pollute the purity of American newsrooms. Enviros would completely freak-out. The recipient would continue his or her career, if she or he still had one, under a constant cloud of suspicion.

Ron Seely wouldn’t think of accepting an award for energy-related writing from BP or Exxon-Mobile. That he’ll gladly take one from the rabidly anti-fossil fuel Sierra Club -- a charter member of America's booming Environmental Anxiety Industry -- highlights a troubling double standard that further blurs distinctions between journalism and activism. That most journalists evidently don’t see The Sierra Club as part of a powerful political lobby, with an agenda that’s due the same journalistic detachment, scrutiny and skepticism any other special interest group is, makes the blind spot (and bias) obvious.

Most of today's "environmental journalists" seem like environmentalists first and journalists a distant second. Alert readers readily detect this just by reading the tone of reporting on that beat. Almost every major news shop now has an environmental beat blogger on staff, whose work product rarely differs from what Big Green's press peeps churn out, making the latter group almost superfluous.  

It's just one of the reasons I long ago dropped my membership in the Society of Environmental Journalists, which has become another news industry auxiliary of Big Green, to no one’s apparent alarm. These days, it's as if The Sierra Club has a presence in every newsroom, which routinely tilts coverage in favor of the extreme green position.

This can also be seen, if one wants further evidence, in the intolerance toward climate skeptics (now routinely derided as “deniers" by many journalists) that a growing number of supposed news organizations are showing, with some effectively banning all expression of doubt and dissent – all deviations from climate change orthodoxy – from their pages. The Los Angeles Times has led the purge by banning climate skeptics from their “opinion” pages.       

News people naturally will deny this bias, like they deny every other obvious bias, but the fact that no one in professional journalism questions or condemns colleagues for accepting The David Brower Award shows that this is a blind spot betraying a double standard, confirming a bias. 

While Bureaucracies Fiddle . . .

A former Forest Service chief coined the term "analysis paralysis" to describe how too much red tape, too much analysis, too many legal fights and too much prolonged public "process" was tying his agency in knots, making it impossible to deal with public lands challenges in a coherent and timely fashion. This Arizona inferno is one result of analysis paralysis. And it might have been prevented, as this report points out, if federal public lands policymaking wasn't such a slow, complicated, belabored process.

The complexity and contentiousness involved in getting almost anything done on federal lands has gotten to the point where managing them has become virtually impossible. Federal agencies therefore have defaulted to a policy of complacency, passivity and non-management. That's made it impossible to get on top of the forest health crisis ravaging the West. And the consequences are becoming even more visible, from runaway wildfires to the bark beetle blight that is browning-up vast swaths of Colorado.

Imagine the public outrage if a rogue band of loggers clearcut 336,000 acres of national forest in an act of mass vandalism. People would be going to jail. But when 336,000 acres is destroyed, due in large part to federal incompetence, mismanagement and paralysis, all we get is a collective sigh. The destruction of America's national forests is a scandal that can and should be laid at Uncle Sam's doorstep. Yet a clueless public thinks these are all acts of nature or God.

Nature is playing a part, but don't let anyone fool you: This is a man-made disaster.

Playing the Kid Card

Having failed in every other attempt to stampede the public into the long-sought overreaction, climate alarmists are now playing the Kid Card, apparently hoping to guilt trip the country into signing an economic suicide pact. If we adults won't agree to destroy what's left of the U.S. economy, in a futile attempt to halt global climate cycles, for our own wellbeing, just maybe we'll agree to do it "for the kids."

It works as a means of selling every other lame idea and government program. Maybe it will work for this one, too.

The mark of a truly despicable mind is the willingness to use old people and children as pawns in political agendas.

A Celebration of Civilization

Americans take reliable and affordable energy so much for granted that they've developed a reckless contempt for the companies and people that provide it to them. They must think their homes are electrified and heated by magic, given the disdain they show for coal mines, drilling rigs, power plants, nuclear reactors, transmission towers and pipelines, and judging from the vilification they heap on the evil energy companies, which routinely are portrayed as the murderers of Mother Earth.

One demonstration of that contempt comes tonight, with the annual celebration of "Earth Hour," when "millions of people around the world" will turn off their lights for one hour in order "to make their stand against climate change." Energy use = global catastrophe: that's the dangerously simplistic equation touted by the dim bulbs who thought up Earth Hour. The only way we can "save the planet" is by turning off the lights, parking our cars and crawling back to the dank caves from whence we came, much to the planet's misfortune. Light has always been synonymous with civilization. It was long believed to be a friend to humankind (thank you, Prometheus). Earth Hour turns it into the enemy of the planet.

Energy providers take this abuse in stride: they've been so badgered into submission by eco-Luddites that they can barely rise to their own defense. They seem apologetic and ashamed -- some probably even sponsor Earth Hour events and distribute pro-Earth Hour propaganda in an effort to placate their implacable critics.

But I have an idea that might help them turn public perceptions around.

I propose a counter-event called "Energy Hour," which would also occur once a year, but at a randomly-selected time. All at once, on cue, all the world's energy providers would suspend operations for an hour (maybe longer if you really want to make things interesting), plunging the planet into darkness, cold and immobility. The lights would go off. The computers would stop. Electric appliances would not work. Gas tanks would go dry. Streets would be gridlocked. Apprehension and uncertainly would grip most of the industrialized world, as the people wait anxiously and prayerfully for the light to return.

Maybe the worldwide standstill that would result -- maybe the disruptions, the danger, the discomfort and the desperation that would occur, if civilization were for even an hour "off the grid" -- would remind disconnected moderns of the debt they owe to energy providers. Maybe they'll understand, once again, that electricity doesn't come from light switches, and that without drilling rigs, their cars become inanimate objects. It probably won't take more than one or two Energy Hours before the Earth Hour movement loses its mojo, and before people take a more rational, balanced and appreciative view of the energy sector. Maybe we'll see a halt to the regulatory warfare waged on energy producers. Maybe we'll get a national energy policy based on realism, not pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams.

Happy "Energy Hour," everyone! Take a moment this weekend to savor all the comforts, conveniences and benefits that come from living in this gloriously energy-dependent society.

Monopolizing Young Minds

The problem with most Americans, I once heard a senior official at the National Geologic Survey say, is that they don't know where stuff comes from. They are the most prodigious consumers of energy, minerals, wood products and other raw materials in world history, yet they're completely clueless about what it takes to procure and produce these things. They appear as if by magic, at the gas station, or in the grocery store, or when they flick on the light switch, and most Americans have forgotten (if they ever knew) from whence they come. And thanks to the eco-indoctrination they receive in schools, many young Americans are raised to have contempt for the individuals and industries -- the evil logger and miner and oil driller -- who produce what they consume.

This disconnect is one symptom of a very confused and self-destructive society.

A group of Utah state legislators hopes to help address the disconnect by using surplus oil and gas revenue to teach school kids more about the benefits of mining and drilling. But environmental groups naturally oppose the idea, arguing that this amounts to an attempt to justify the destruction of the planet. At present, greens have pretty much taken over our education system. Many schools today serve as eco-indoctrination centers, where malleable young minds celebrate Earth Day, say the Pledge Allegiance to the Planet, dutifully learn their recycling rituals, hear the sensationalist spin on climate change and rarely hear a word rebutting the propaganda. But propose bringing a little balance to the discussion? Then its you who stands accused of trying to hijack the curriculum.

It's truly Orwellian.

Totalitarians always make a play for the kids. Greens are no different. And they will vigorously fight any attempt to end their monopoly over young minds.

Federally-Funded Fear

The Bush White House took a lot of heat for "politicizing science," and for allegedly muzzling federal employees who didn't agree with the administration's cautious approach on climate change. But if all the government's in-the-closet climate alarmists were being persecuted, how to explain the perpetually sky-high profile of NASA climatologist James Hansen, whose spokesman work for the Chicken Little Lobby didn't slow down a bit during the Bush years.

If ever a federal employee needed muzzling, or a career change, it's Hansen, who travels the globe, trading on his NASA credentials, while spewing sensationalist climate spin to any audience that will listen. And plenty evidently will. The man is not a "scientist," in any serious sense: he's an extreme ideologue, shilling for a cause. Hansen could earn a very good living trading on fear in the private sector -- it's a big business, as Al Gore can attest. I'm sure any number of environmental groups would pay him a hefty sum to serve as their front man. But as a taxpayer, I resent having to help pay the man's salary, and help pay his future pension, and I fear his association with NASA is threatening the agency's already-shaky stature and credibility.

Will someone in the Obama Administration please fire James Hansen? Even if it makes him a martyr, it would do the tarnished reputations of climate science and the federal government a world of good.

Toward the Separation of Cult and State

Druidry (or Druidism?) has officially become a state-sanctioned religion in the U.K., opening the door, according to CNN, for a similar status change for Pagans, animists and other pantheist or polytheist religions. Traditionalists will decry the move, but I welcome it, as a potential step toward recognizing the only state-sanctioned religion in the United States -- environmentalism -- for what it really is.

Once we acknowledge the fact that environmentalism is a religion, which has wormed its way into government under a secular and "scientific" guise, we can begin fighting for the separation of cult and state.

Save The Planet, Suspend Democracy

Most of the buzz generated by this Guardian piece about climate alarmist James Lovelock focused on his view that humans are too stupid to prevent the predicted catastrophe. But putting down humanity is nothing new in the increasingly-misanthropic climate clique. More alarming is what Lovelock had to say about the obstacle democracy poses to mounting an effective response -- and his suggested that we might have to put democracy "on hold" in order to deal with the alleged crisis.

"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful."

One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", he added. "Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

Lovelock doesn't make any claim to expertise in political science, fortunately, but he's wrong when he says that "even the best democracies agree" that democracy should be suspended in times of war (and this is a "war" to save the planet, in the eyes of some people). This 91-year-old Brit surely must recall a nasty little dustup called World War II. Great Britain didn't take a temporary time out from democracy, or abandon freedom, even when it was being terrorized by German buzz bombs and hanging on by its fingernails. It and other democracies clung to their values even firmer, in response to the tyranny that loomed.

I can't think of a single modern case that supports Lovelock's assertion. Emergencies have led to the restriction or trampling of civil liberties in some democracies under certain circumstances (think of Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War, or the internment of Japanese during World War II). But most modern democracies have remained fundamentally democratic even in wartime.

Maybe we shouldn't care very much about what a climate crackpot says. But Lovelock's moment of candor offers a telling glimpse at the authoritarian tendencies lurking behind the green mask.

"Earth Hour" an Event for Dim Bulbs

Americans take reliable and affordable energy so much for granted that they've developed a mindless contempt for the companies and people that provide it to them. They must think their homes are electrified and heated by magic, given the disdain they show for coal mines, drilling rigs, power plants, nuclear reactors, transmission towers and pipelines, and judging from the vilification they heap on evil energy companies, which routinely are portrayed as the murderers of Mother Earth.

One demonstration of that contempt comes Saturday, with the annual celebration of "Earth Hour," when "millions of people around the world" will turn off their lights for one hour in order "to make their stand against climate change." Energy use = global catastrophe: that's the dangerously simplistic equation touted by the dim bulbs who thought up Earth Hour. The only way we can "save the planet" is by turning off the lights, parking our cars and crawling back to the dank caves from whence we came, much to the planet's misfortune.

Light has always been synonymous with civilization. It was long believed to be a friend to humankind (thank you, Prometheus). Earth Hour turns it into the enemy of the planet.

Energy providers take this abuse in stride: they've been so badgered into submission by eco-Luddites that they can barely rise to their own defense. They seem apologetic and ashamed -- some probably even sponsor Earth Hour events and distribute pro-Earth Hour propaganda in an effort to placate their implacable critics.

But I have an idea that might help them turn public perceptions around.

I propose a counter-event called "Energy Hour," which would also occur once a year, but at a randomly-selected time. All at once, on cue, all the world's energy providers would suspend operations for an hour (maybe longer if you really want to make things interesting), plunging the planet into darkness, cold and immobility. The lights would go off. The computers would stop. Electric appliances would not work. Gas tanks would go dry. Streets would be gridlocked. Apprehension and uncertainly would grip most of the industrialized world, as the people waited anxiously and prayerfully for the light to return.

Maybe the worldwide standstill that would result -- maybe the disruptions, the danger, the discomfort and the desperation that would occur if civilization were for even an hour taken "off the grid" -- would remind disconnected moderns of the debt they owe to energy providers. Maybe they'll understand, once again, that electricity doesn't come from light switches, and that without drilling rigs, their cars become inanimate objects.

It probably won't take more than one or two Energy Hours before the Earth Hour movement loses its mojo, and before people take a more rational, balanced and appreciative view of the energy sector. Maybe we'll see a halt to the regulatory warfare waged on energy producers. Maybe we'll get a national energy policy based on realism, not pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams.

Happy "Energy Hour," everyone! Take a moment this weekend to savor all the comforts, conveniences and benefits that come from living in this gloriously energy-dependent society.

Eco-nomics Comes Out of the Closet

Mike Rosen has an interesting column in The Denver Post, shining a welcome light on the economic underpinnings of the environmental movement. Perhaps those who still believe it's all about bunnies and butterflies will view things differently, when they come to see the strong anti-capitalist, anti-free market, anti-property rights and anti-consumer choice strains that infuse the ideology. Eco-economics isn't often talked about, explicitly (for fear, no doubt, of making skeptics of those who still laugh-off environmentalists as harmless granola-crunchers), so it's helpful to see a few proponents lay their cards on the table and make the agenda explicit.

Anti-capitalism can be found in almost every strand of the movement's DNA (think Edward Abbey's Monkey Wrench Gang), but the shift toward eco-socialism became more pronounced after the fall of the Soviet Union, when hard-core collectivists, suddenly left out in the cold, so to speak, began searching for a new, more politically-fashionable home to inhabit. They were warmly received by the movement, which already saw prosperity, consumer choice, development, property rights and the market economy as threats to the planet.

Thus appeared the so-called "watermelon" -- shorthand for someone who is green on the outside and red on the inside. It's good to see the watermelons come tumbling out of the closet, so average Americans can see that there's much more to this movement than cleaning waterways and saving trees.

Osama bin Loco

"Osama bin Laden sought to draw a wider public into his fight against the United States in a new message Friday," reports the AP, "dropping his usual talk of religion and holy war and focusing instead on an unexpected topic: global warming."

But why is this choice of topic so "unexpected," given that a blind faith in global warming theory has itself become a religion, which true believers adhere to with a holy warrior's zeal. This new religion is called Catastrophism. Its catechism is taught by Al Gore (a former divinity school student, not coincidently) and his ilk. Its messianic mission is "saving the planet," by restoring a lost Eden to this wickedly wasteful and despoiled world. Followers do penance for their environmental sins by reusing grocery bags, driving hybrids and buying offsets for their "carbon footprints."

That Obama's latest tirade echoes the rhetoric and themes of environmentalism should surprise no one. Fanatics of the feather flock together.

Obama's statements, with only slight modulation, faithfully mimic what you hear from many environmentalists, whose agenda is as much about economic revolution as ecological protection. "The world is held hostage by major corporations, which are pushing it to the brink," he said on the latest tape. "World politics are not governed by reason but by the force and greed of oil thieves and warmongers and the cruel beasts of capitalism." Obama decries America's failure to sign the Kyoto treaty. He calls for the "wheels of the American economy" to be brought to a halt. "This is possible," he says, "if the peoples of the world stop consuming American goods."

Obama is saying such things for effect, according to an expert quoted by the AP. "The change in rhetoric aims to give al-Qaida's message an appeal beyond hardcore Islamic militants, said Evan Kohlmann, of globalterroralert.com, a private, U.S.-based terrorism analysis group," reports the wire service. "If you're looking to draw people who are disenchanted or disillusioned, what better issue to use than global warming?" Kohlmann asks.

But environmentalists say such things because they actually believe them. And that, in my opinion, is even more alarming.

The New Religion

No national columnist hits the nail as squarely on the head as consistently as Charles Krauthammer. He does it again today, with a piece about the EPA's attempted takeover of the U.S. economy, through the proposed regulation of CO2.

Of particular interest to me, though, since it echoes my own views on the subject, is Krauthammer's assertion that environmentalism has become "a new religion" -- but a religion that differs in significant ways from most others, and poses a greater threat to our political and economic liberties, because it is embraced by the state and has socialist underpinnings.

Here's the sound of the hammer hitting the nail:

"Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means more than a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses and similar enterprises. (The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority.) Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.

This naked assertion of vast executive power in the name of the environment is the perfect fulfillment of the prediction of Czech President (and economist) Vaclav Klaus that environmentalism is becoming the new socialism, i.e., the totemic ideal in the name of which government seizes the commanding heights of the economy and society.

Socialism having failed so spectacularly, the left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers and technocrats. This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality but saving the planet."

All totalitarian movements need a grandiose mission statement; a goal big enough to justify their abuses of power. Some have marched under the banner of racial purity; others under the banner of the proletarian revolution. In the name of "saving the planet" -- what mission could be more important than that? -- almost any abuses of political or economic liberty can be justified. It's that awareness that explains my strong aversion to the new religion called environmentalism -- and my belief that Americans, just as they insist on a separation of church and state, must also demand the separation of cult and state.

Left Wing Lesson Plan

Wackos, weirdos and radicals of all stripes find welcoming and eager ears on American college campuses (some even burrow in and earn tenure); it's almost as if parents, taxpayers and tuition-payers feel obligated to expose impressionable minds to both the best and the worst of ideas, assuming students can tell the difference. But many students can't tell the difference -- which is why activist-turned-"educator" Annie Leonard received a warm reception at last week's appearance at Colorado College.

Leonard's popular video, The Story of Stuff, "details in a simplistic, almost childlike way, the linear journey that stuff takes to get to our homes and the journey it takes when we toss the stuff out," reports The Gazette. But the film's "childlike" style is designed to deceive. It actually delivers a much more adult message, leveling a wide-ranging critique of capitalism, consumerism, industrialism and Americanism, tied-up in a bright green ribbon to lower a viewer's guard.

Leonard once worked for Greenpeace. The group's extremist ethos permeates the film. "Stuff" was bankrolled in part by The Tides Foundation, which gives generously to radical causes. A quick read of the transcript, or viewing of the film, reveals that "Stuff" is much more than just a primer on resource extraction and mass consumption. It's a context-free broadside against the American way of life, full of fear-mongering distortions and political editorializing. Many of the "facts" presented are debatable. The transcript has footnotes, but most lead back to dubious, ideologically-loaded sources.

If The Story of Stuff were confined to YouTube, and it's creator to the college lecture circuit, it couldn't do too much harm. But the film is being shown in many U.S. schools, where captive and unwitting audiences are clueless about its hard-left subtext. The New York Times reported in May that the film is jumping from the Internet into the classroom, with very little resistance. It's something parents and school administrators need to be wary of.

The Times:

"More than 7,000 schools, churches and others have ordered a DVD version, and hundreds of teachers have written Ms. Leonard to say they have assigned students to view it on the Web. It has also won support from independent groups that advise teachers on curriculum choices. Facing the Future, a curriculum developer for schools in all 50 states, is drafting lesson plans based on the video."

One Montana school district banned the film, following complaints from an alert parent, according to the Times. But the public school establishment seems to be embracing the film as a legitimate teaching tool.

"In January, a school board in Missoula County, Mont., decided that screening the video treaded on academic freedom after a parent complained that its message was anticapitalist. But many educators say the video is a boon to teachers as they struggle to address the gap in what textbooks say about the environment and what science has revealed in recent years.

“Frankly, a lot of the textbooks are awful on the subject of the environment,” said Bill Bigelow, the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools, a quarterly magazine that has promoted “The Story of Stuff” to its subscribers and on its Web site, which reaches about 600,000 educators a month. “The one used out here in Oregon for global studies — it’s required — has only three paragraphs on climate change. So, yes, teachers are looking for alternative resources.”

Environmental education is still a young and variable field, according to Frank Niepold, the climate education coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. There are few state or local school mandates on how to teach the subject.

The agency is seeking to change that, but in the interim many teachers are developing their own lesson plans on climate change, taking some elements from established sources like the National Wildlife Federation and others from less conventional ones like “The Story of Stuff.”

Whether endorsed by curriculum committees, or infiltrating our classrooms one DVD at a time, courtesy of teachers who don't recognize it's political overtones, The Story of Stuff is mind pollution of a toxic kind. Parents need to learn whether their kids are seeing it in school. They should demand that schools stop showing it, unless balance, context and counter-arguments are offered in response. It's left-wing indoctrination, not education -- something as out of place in the classroom as Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, which many U.S. schools passed off as a serious lesson in climate science.

Peddling this kind of "stuff" to college students is one thing; imposing it on K-12 kids is quite another.

Climategate Jr.

The reputation of climate scientists has taken a hit lately, even if a few Obama administration deniers still insist that the Climategate affair is much ado about nothing. But all the focus on the infamous hacked e-mails has overshadowed news of a more overt act of fraud, perpetrated by another "highly-respected" climate scientist -- a case that underscores the danger of putting such people on pedestals.

The accused, NASA climatologist Mark Schoeberl, got a slap on the wrist, as compared to more run of the mill felons, presumably because his long service in government and testimonials to his otherwise good character from colleagues -- including one Nobel Prize winner! -- held sway with the court. His defenders (like the defenders of monkey-wrencher Tim DeChristopher) argued that he wasn't motivated by low motives or ignoble greed, but acted out of an overzealous (but noble) desire to help protect the planet. Whether justice was served, I leave to your judgment.

Here's the story, as told by one of my favorite websites, GovExec.com:

NASA scientist avoids jail in procurement case

A prominent NASA scientist, who has admitted directing thousands of dollars in sole-source agency contracts to his wife's company and failing to report the income on a financial disclosure form, has been spared a prison sentence. The U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., on Tuesday sentenced Mark Schoeberl, 60, of Silver Spring, Md., to one year's probation and a $10,000 fine.

Schoeberl, who was a senior manager and a well-known atmospheric scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland before he retired earlier this year, pleaded guilty in September to one felony count of conflict of interest. At Tuesday's sentencing, Schoeberl, who spent 30-plus years with the agency, expressed remorse for his mistakes and admitted an error in judgment.

Three scientists, including two who still work for NASA, also addressed the court and requested leniency for Schoeberl. More than 50 other scientists, included one Nobel Prize winner, submitted letters praising his character and credentials. Schoeberl's attorney Jacob Frenkel said the sentence was a reflection of his client's "enormous contributions to world atmospheric sciences and anticipated valuable continuing work in support of climate change research."

Prosecutors agreed Schoeberl did not deserve to go to jail, noting in court documents that he quickly accepted responsibility for his conduct, had no criminal history and had a lengthy record of service at NASA. Schoeberl was the chief scientist of Goddard's earth sciences division, which conducts climate research, and the project scientist for the Aura mission to study the Earth's ozone layer, air quality and climate.

Schoeberl's position enabled him to guide funds budgeted for the Aura mission. According to the plea agreement, in mid-2004 Schoeberl began inquiring about ways to direct work to his wife Barbara's company, Animated Earth, a small business that develops and distributes Earth Today, an exhibit displaying near-real-time earth science data. The couple previously had collaborated on a host of projects and presentations for NASA and court documents indicate that the relationship was well-known at the agency.

Prosecutors said Mark Schoeberl initially encountered resistance to a plan that would have directed a $20,000 appropriation to Animated Earth, but later convinced a colleague to approve the funding. In May, Schoeberl prepared a document that justified Animated Earth as the only contractor eligible to bid on a new award for maintenance on kiosks that the company previously had installed on NASA grounds. In June, he provided another sole-source justification directing NASA contracting personnel to award a $60,000 software contract to Animated Earth.

Schoeberl's 2007 financial disclosure form did not include the more than $50,000 in contracts his wife's firm earned that year. Between fiscal 2006 and fiscal 2008, Animated Earth was awarded more than $190,000 in NASA contracts, all without competition, according to data on USASpending.gov, a federal Web site that aggregates date on contract spending.

Frenkel argued that Schoeberl was not motivated by financial gain but rather by a belief that Animated Earth's software was the best product available for earth science education. "Unfortunately, his appreciation of the efficacy and value of the product, and his encouragement of its use, was inconsistent with his professional position at NASA because Dr. Schoeberl's job included responsibility for administering the educational function associated with the satellite program he supervised," the attorney wrote in a sentencing memo he prepared for the court.

"Once a NASA lawyer instructed Dr. Schoeberl that he, in substance, should not even be communicating about Earth Today, it was too late; by then the incidents supporting use of the software already had occurred." In Nov. 20 sentencing correspondence to the court, prosecutors said the government does not seem to have suffered a financial loss because "Animated Earth appears to have completed the work that it contracted with the federal government."

Nontheless, Frenkel said NASA has refused to pay an outstanding bill to Barbara Schoeberl because of the criminal case. The Goddard Space Flight Center did not respond to a request for comment. In the wake of the criminal charges against Schoeberl, agency lawyers reportedly issued a memo to staffers advising them of ethics rules and post-employment restrictions, Frenkel said in his court filings. He said several NASA employees subsequently came forward about similar ethical conflicts. Schoeberl, who has received numerous awards from the space agency and written more than 150 published articles, now finds himself out of work and "radioactive" to potential employers, Frenkel said. "The atmospheric science program has been his life and he has no desire to abandon it," he said.

Why this story received so little media play, in contrast to Climategate, is curious. Maybe fraud undertaken in the name of lining one's pockets is less interesting than fraud undertaken in the name of a cause. But it amounts to the same thing, in my opinion, since climate alarmists are guaranteed to garner more funding, more power, more media attention and adulation than scientists who take a more skeptical tack. No one ever won a government grant, after all, by arguing that everything's alright with the world.

Human, All Too Human

That there might be a money motive behind climate change alarmism is usually dismissed by true believers. Scientists operate in a world of facts and hard data, it's assumed, standing apart from mere mortals, who act subjectively and selfishly, swayed by self-interest. The ClimateGate scandal hopefully will shatter, once and for all, that rather naive perception.

Alarmist-in-Chief Al Gore's profit motives already have been pointed out. But everyone knows he's a political huckster (and a former theology student who found a new religion), not a scientist. But scientists too are human -- all too human, as these e-mails reveal -- making them subject to all the baser motives, petty rivalries and herd-think with which the rest of us struggle. Ideology, political considerations and a craving for celebrity (think NASA's James Hansen) can also color their objectivity and work.

This isn't a slam on scientists, or on science, just a long-overdue acknowledgment that they don't always belong on the pedestal on which we place them. And the sooner Americans recognize this, the safer we'll all be from the dangers of science in the service of political extremism.

The Wall Street Journal has two related pieces on today's Editorial Page -- link and link -- I would highly recommend.

The Separation of Cult and State

Who are "the deniers" now?

The publication of some pretty damning e-mail exchanges between members of the Alarmist School of climate research (e-mails suggesting that they colluded in cooking the books and conspired to freeze-out and discredit members of the Skeptical School) has spawned a new breed of "denier" -- those in journalism and in government who deny the scandal's implications and want to charge ahead with a regulatory overreaction, as if these revelations change nothing.

So wedded are some people to the alarmist interpretation of climate variability, apparently, that nothing will shake their faith -- not even evidence that some of the high priests have been fudging on "facts." It's more evidence that environmentalism has evolved into a secular religion -- the one religion officially sanctioned by the state, perhaps because it enlarges, rather than challenges, state power.

We Americans are careful about upholding a "separation of church and state." Maybe we should think more about maintaining a separation of cult and state.

The Green Lady

The New York Times was once widely known as "the Gray Lady," denoting its formerly staid appearance and tone. Today it might better be called "the Green Lady," given how eagerly it has surrendered any objectivity on environmental issues, and how completely it has joined forces with the Earth-worshipers.

Today's new breed of "environmental journalists" are environmentalists first, journalists second, for the most part. Greens get a pass on the cynicism and skepticism newsies heap on everyone else. But the Times has knocked-down any remaining barriers, and thrown balance to the wind, by re-publishing "news stories" generated by the for-profit website Greenwire, resulting in "New York Times coverage" like this.

I've been a regular user of Greenwire for years, because it's a useful consolidator of news on the environment, energy and public lands. But I also see Greenwire as a major cog in the green propaganda machine. It is not an unbiased news organization or news source, as any objective party would confirm, but an organization that slavishly serves the environmentalist agenda, spinning the news to serve that purpose. That most New York Times readers aren't aware of this, and may be giving Greenwire and New York Times stories equal weight, is troubling, to say the least.

I don't know how long this shared content arrangement has been in place. But after noticing Greenwire stories popping-up in the Times several months back, I registered my objections with the paper's ombudsman, which was met with a non-response. I'll try again in the next few days, but doubt the Times will respond. So enmeshed have the news business and Environmental Anxiety Industry become that there's no recognition of the improprieties involved. "Saving the planet" is a noble cause. Who in her right mind wouldn't join in?

It's hard of late to tell the difference between environmental "journalism" and environmentalist press releases, as already noted. But the Times' unholy alliance with Greenwire obliterates any remaining barriers and distinctions, foisting-off blatant agit-prop as legitimate news. The fact that most readers don't have a clue about what they're ingesting constitutes a serious deception, which further erodes public confidence in the "mainstream media."

Watch Your Behind . . .

The eco-prohibitionists are coming for your toilet paper now: Washington Post

Animal Crackers

The Endangered Species Act to most Americans is just a law they've heard about, which might even give them a warm and fuzzy tickle deep inside. To many Westerners it's synonymous with tyranny -- an all-powerful presence that licenses the federal government to trample property rights, destroy jobs, obstruct energy development and restrict access to supposedly "public" lands, all to "protect" a subsegment of a subspecies that some graduate student says is rare.

It's the law that eco-Luddites use to dictate public lands policies and thwart any sort of development or economic activity they find objectionable. Discover a new natural gas field in the Rocky Mountain region and in no time flat, almost miraculously, a host of rare plants or animals -- all in dire need of protection -- will be discovered there. It's the silver bullet that can stop any infrastructure project: any roadway, dam, reservoir, power plant, pipeline. Even some "clean energy" projects -- the only kinds of energy projects eco-Luddites embrace -- are being stymied by the ESA. All you need to do is identify something allegedly rare living or growing in the targeted project's vicinity and -- voilà! -- you have a reason to say "no."

So whenever most Westerners read about the latest list of species, subspecies, or "distinct population segments" proposed for ESA protections, they greet the news with dread, not delight. It only evokes glee among federal biocrats (biologist-bureaucrats), who will see their power and budgets enhanced when the listings (and the regulatory controls that come with them) take place, and among eco-Luddites and their lawyers, who will use the listings to destroy jobs, drive up energy costs and thwart progress.

"Twenty-nine species in more than 20 states -- from a rare beach-dwelling plant in Yellowstone National Park to a caddis fly in Nebraska -- may need federal protections to avoid extinction, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," reports the Associated Press. "Fourteen of the 29 species appear in Utah, including 10 plant species and a small silvery minnow called the Northern leatherside chub. The agency said Tuesday that 20 plants, six snails, two insects and a fish may warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act."

This stems from a 2007 listing petition made by WildEarth Guardians, which proposed more than 200 new species for protection, most of them in the West. The Fish and Wildlife Service rejected 165 of the candidates and delayed a decision on 38. But the listing of even 29 new species could have profound impacts on Westerners -- and on non-Westerners who get their energy from Western sources -- depending on where the species are found.

Here are the species that made the cut (each of which is of course critical to the survival of the planet):

PLANTS
Yellowstone Sand Verbena in Wyoming
Ross' bentgrass in Wyoming
Hamilton milkvetch in Colorado and Utah
Isely milkvetch in Utah
Skiff milkvetch in Colorado
Precocious milkvetch in Wyoming
Cisco milkvetch in Utah
Schmoll milkvetch in Colorado
Fremont County rockcress in Wyoming
Boat-shaped bugseed in Colorado
Pine springs cryptantha in Arizona, Utah
Weber whitlowgrass in Colorado
Brandegee's wild buckwheat in Colorado
Frisco buckwheat in Utah
Ostler's peppergrass in Utah
Lesquerella navajoensis in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah
Flowers pentemon in Utah
Gibben's beardtongue in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming
Pale blue-eyed grass in North Dakota, Oregon, Washington
Frisco clover in Utah

MOLLUSKS
Frigid ambersnail in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin
Bearmouth mountainsnail in Montana
Byrne Resort mountainsnail in Montana
Longitudinal gland pyrg in Nevada, Utah
Hamlin Valley pyrg in Utah
Sub-globose snake pyrg in Utah

INSECTS
Platte River caddis fly in Nebraska
Meltwater lednian stonefly in Montana

FISH
Northern leatherside chub in Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming

That you've never heard of these plants and animals is irrelevant. That they may seem laughably insignificant, or may seem related to one another (like the 5 or 6 types of milkvetch included), and that their names may sound funny -- none of this matters under the ESA. That some of these aren't actually species, but subspecies of subspecies, also doesn't matter. Such judgments must be left to myopic federal biocrats, who can't see the implications of anything beyond what's on the microscope, and for whom cost-benefit analysis is an alien concept.

All creatures are created equal in the eyes of the ESA, meaning the Meltwater lednian stonefly is as worthy of protection as the bald eagle or a grizzly bear, no matter the cost to taxpayers, no matter the consequences for land owners. It's arrogant species-centrism to argue that some animals are more worthy of federal protection than others. Noah didn't discriminate; we can't either.

This is the insanity of an environmental law run wild. Yet few in Washington have the courage to admit that it's gotten completely out of control, lest they face the wrath of the Environmental Anxiety Industry. And non-Westerners in Congress have little reason to call for ESA reform, since the law's costs and consequences weigh relatively lightly (at least for now) on their constituents.

Past administrations have tried to slow the listing process down a bit, arguing that USFWS was financially and logistically swamped by the species-related work already on its plate. Much of what the agency should be spending on protection it instead spends on lawyers, to deal with the dozens of ESA-related lawsuits going at any one time. But it's doubtful the Obama administration will show any similar restraint when it comes to listing decisions, given the strong political ties it has to Gang Green.

Budget limitations aren't a reason for the agency not to act under this president. Bureaucratic inertia is the only hope Westerners have of slowing the regulatory deluge that threatens. This is one case in which federal red tape, "analysis paralysis" and the natural lethargy of the leviathan might actually be a blessing.