Bruce Braun on Global Warming

Guest blogger Bruce Braun weighs in on global warming:
“Global Warming and Climate Change have become our latest chic-set societal religion and money generating opportunity for politicians and entrepreneurial types. No doubt we need to take care of our environment, and protect our natural resources. How that is accomplished and by what means is what should be questioned.
Anyone remember how Acid Rain back in the 1960’s and 70’s was going to cause the destruction of the planet? Public awareness of acid rain in the U.S increased in the 1970s after the New York Times promulgated reports from the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire of the myriad deleterious environmental effects demonstrated to result from it. Every danger to our society becomes, in the end, a new way to impose taxes where none existed before. How many air pollution taxes emanated from those fears?
In our politically correct society, to even question AGW or Climate Change is no different than suggesting to a fundamentalist Christian that Jesus was not the son of God or that the Bible is not the word of God.
Try it sometime and watch how fast either of these types go red-faced and start sputtering at you with accusations of stupidity, ignorance, and intolerance. They begin acting like a mother bear protecting her cubs from some sort of threat.
In the 1980’s smoking and second hand smoke, the politicians told us were to be our societal demise. Getting rid of smoking and second hand smoke were going to reduce healthcare costs! Remember that lie? Billions went into that movement, politicians in the lead along with their partners in extortion, the trial lawyers. When I was a teenager, the cost of a pack of cigarettes was around $ .50. Today, that same pack of smokes runs around $5 to 7.00. On average, almost 50% of that cost goes towards taxes.
Higher gasoline and fuel oil taxes were supposed to go towards decreasing air pollution, mandating milage standards, and improving roads. My car may get better milage than in 1980 but I now offset that by sitting in traffic longer on roads that are in such poor condition as to wear out my tires more quickly. Thanks, Uncle Sam!
Once the politicians discovered that Global Warming and Climate Change could be a rallying point for generating votes and campaign contributions, the race was on.
Never being ones to miss a chance to corrupt something, the politicians and their useful idiots began funneling tax dollars into the scientific community for their own political ends. He who controls the gold, makes the rules. Should we be surprised that accusations of manipulated scientific data were soon to follow or that political influence would not happen?
Politicians and their power to control scientific research funding and grants, have become to the scientific community what the pro sports leagues are to young athletes. Throw millions at someone and the temptations will follow.
Next on the agenda for politicians is the obesity “epidemic” and yet another back-door way of additional taxation and product liability class-action suits.
You’d have thought our politicians would be students of history and the lessons of “The Noble Experiment”, that period from 1920-1933, during which the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol for consumption were banned nationally as mandated in the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Why police it when you can tax it? Wait! They did learn from history: Tax it!
For our elected officials, AGW and Climate Change are nothing more than an umbrella for 1000 more ways to tax an already over-taxed population. For the trial lawyers, it is their version of new business development. After all there are a lot more Fortune 500 companies that can be accused of sugaring up our children and destroying the ozone layer.
Our president apparently believes we are not taxed enough. Toward the end of a question and answer session at an advanced battery technology manufacturer, a woman named Doris stood to ask the president whether it was a “wise decision to add more taxes to us with the health care” package. “We are over-taxed as it is.” Obama responded with a 17 minute counterpoint. His discursive answer – more than 2,500 words long. In presidential speak, he told Doris she was in fact not over-taxed, ignorant and uninformed, as well as the rest of that audience who felt the same way Doris did.
Perhaps, but most of us, only have to look at our pay stubs, utility bills, phone bills, property taxes and purchase receipts to conclude otherwise.”