Category: Economy

BLUF
Extreme environmentalism is an ideology that cares little for human life, even regards it as a blight on the Earth that should be reduced. Its instinctive sympathies are against our species. It wants less economic growth, less entrepreneurial spirit, less development, less energy, less safety, less food, less comfort.

The real-world consequences of green extremism

Glorious pictures from the edge of the universe have arrived on Earth just when events here force us to consider the possibility that governments are run by aliens. They are so out of touch with common sense that they must come from other planets.

The James Webb Space Telescope, a wonder of human ingenuity, resourcefulness, imagination, and creative curiosity, is revealing the birth of galaxies to a world in which, by contrast, overreaching oligarchs and bossy bureaucrats constrict the actions of ordinary people trying to make their own lives and the lives of others better.

Much of the world groans under immiserating rules handed down by a “theory class,” even though they obviously don’t work. The accolade for the most disastrous policy outcome is hotly contested, and Wednesday’s grim revelation of 9.1% inflation shows that President Joe Biden’s spending agenda is a strong contender. But even that might not take the cake.

Worse, perhaps, are the results of hyper-alarmism on climate change. Excessive environmental policies are proving disastrous worldwide. Suddenly, all the green chickens are coming home to roost.

Intolerant “liberals” keen to “save the planet” are ruining it — officiously preventing the poor from lifting themselves out of poverty, forcing wealthy nations to retreat from comfort and efficiency into backwardness, even killing people by the hundreds of thousands.

Humankind long ago acquired the technological ability to thrive in all climes, but citizens of the most advanced nations must now check the weather forecast to know if their fridges and household lights will work or be shut down in an electricity blackout.

In Britain, overdependence on wind turbines built to cut carbon emissions leaves inhabitants at the mercy of the weather . When the wind doesn’t blow, the economy doesn’t work.

Likewise, in Germany, the world’s fourth-biggest economy, calm summer air means turbines stand idle, incapable of producing electricity and jacking up energy prices irrespective of the nation’s equally asinine overdependence on gas supplies from a recalcitrant Russia.

Excessively tight emissions rules, which amount to “anti-farming policies,” have triggered protests across Europe. They started in the Netherlands, where 30% of farms might be put out of business. And they have spread to Germany, Italy, Spain, and Poland, where farmers fear being subjected to the same privations.

If, as expected, bureaucratic meddling slashes Dutch output — the Netherlands is one of the biggest and most efficient farming nations in the world — production will shift to less efficient, more polluting producers elsewhere.

This is similar to the attack that green zealots in the Democratic Party launched against American energy production at the start of the Biden administration. By shutting down energy leases and discouraging investment in the United States because of exaggerated and parochial climate concerns, the green oligarchy transfers production and wealth to dirtier producers overseas, such as Russia.

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The prevailing urban attitude is:
“What do those dumb country hicks know about anything important?”

Rash wolf policy already wrecking ranches.

Don Gittleson’s ranch is situated just south of the Wyoming line near Walden. The ranch itself is surrounded by hills, and there are no big city lights to take your eyes off what matters. This is big country, this is ranch country, and Gittleson has been here for years. He has used good purebred genetics to build a herd of high-performing cattle that can, as they say, go out and make a living. Unfortunately, Gittleson’s ranch is also the epicenter for the wolf mess in which the state is currently elbow deep.

At night, the cow herd lies together, calves at side, gestating, lactating and ruminating, turning stout native grass and feed into beef. The only sound disrupting the soft noises of the night is the idling of Gittleson’s pickup.

Since December, he has spent an excessive number of nights in his pickup, waiting to hear the cattle or burros signal the presence of wolves. The pack, which Colorado Parks & Wildlife estimates at about eight, naturally migrated from Wyoming. Gittleson said he’s seen tracks for a number of years quietly announcing the presence of the apex predators.

Last fall, a collared female began teaching her pups to hunt. They started with deer and elk, killing groups and leaving them where they dropped in the snow. In December, Gittleson lost the first heifers to the pack. Some were killed, others were found bleeding and too severely injured to survive. The most recent kill — a calf — was partially dragged away. Gittleson said he guesses the meat was taken to the female, likely in a den with a new litter of pups. If history repeats itself, those pups will begin learning to eat beef before the new year.

Range riders are present overnight but it’s an expense he won’t be able to continue indefinitely. Right now, they’re on the dime of wolf-advocate groups but he doesn’t expect that to last and with five of the six damage claims unpaid and $5 diesel fuel, it doesn’t pencil. The most recent kill, he said, was while range riders were in the area. The wild burros that were gifted to Gittleson in the hopes that they would serve as guardians are, he said, able to noisily signal danger but certainly don’t fight off wolves.

The bottom line, he said, is that non-lethal hazing methods are ineffective if the wolves don’t have a fear of the use of lethal methods. The wolf pack is emboldened and unafraid. Without lethal methods, the next generation will learn to kill livestock and on and on until there is a large number of problem wolves across a large area. All of this, of course, playing out prior to the first released wolf ever hitting the ground.

The misguided ballot initiative, one that left the hands of actual experts tied, flung wide open the door to out-of-state activist groups and their cash. The state-level protection of wolves has taken more tools out of the management toolbox. It has become, and will continue to be, urban and suburban voters drowning out the votes of the rural areas that actually have to deal with the fallout.

While all of this is happening at Gittleson’s ranch, the CPW Commission is hearing and reviewing the Technical Working Group’s proposed management plan. The TWG, one of two groups along with the Stakeholder Working Group, wants to see the state take a phased approach to wolf introduction, eventually de-listing them, and, clutch your pearls, classifying them as either game or non-game species. The potential of bringing the wolf numbers to a level at which they are no longer fragile and may be managed by lethal methods outraged wolf advocates at the meeting.

The other realization that was brought forth during the meeting is an explanation of the territory each pack occupies. With the proposed 200 wolf population in the state, the wolves would occupy about 10% of the western slope. That means, one expert pointed out, it is more than entirely likely that the wolves will migrate into the Front Range and eastern Colorado. I can only imagine the Front Range voters who approved the measure questioning why the wolves aren’t kept on the other side of the state and not in their backyards.

With CPW required to move forward with wolf introduction, there is no ability for wildlife experts to make decisions based on what is best for wolves in real time but, it appears, that was never part of the equation.