Enviro Wimps

In the past few days I've received a host of emails about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Republicans are trying to open it up to oil drilling. Even John Kerry is writing to tell me how this is the end of the world.

This really frustrates the Minister. Drilling in ANWR is a bad thing. But ANWR has been a red herring and distraction for the environmental movement for too many years now. It is a nice safe winning issue; always good for riling up the troops and raising some money. For some reason it has been the line in the sand, the one issue that will make enviros go berserk. To save ANWR they will pull out all the stops and compromise on any other issue, from Kyoto to fuel efficiency standards.

Of course, the real issue is global warming. Not only will global warming ruin ANWR as an ecological reserve by turning it into a swamp, global warming will be the end of the world as we know it. But the enviros don't even talk in public about the real scope of carbon reductions necessary to stop global warming. That would scare people. That would be politically unpopular. It's much easier to save some nice reindeer on a mountain in a Sierra Club calendar.

It's about time John Kerry and his wimpy enviro allies get on the stick and start talking about the major changes that will be necessary to avert the economic and environmental disaster that global warming will be and stop wasting their energy and our time on secondary rear guard actions like temporarily preserving this or that particular patch of "nature".