Recent reports from the Urban Land Institute and other planning advocates insist that so-called smart growth—a term meaning more compact urban development, combined with heavy investments in mass transit as an alternative to driving—is an essential tool in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In heeding this call, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress want to impose a national land-use planning policy that threatens the property rights of every landowner in the country.
Smart-growth advocates project that miles of driving over the next forty years will grow faster than improvements in fuel economy or development of alternative fuels, so it will be impossible to meet GHG reduction targets unless we coerce people out of their cars. Based on this, they argue that Americans must drive less to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets.…
Continue ReadingEditor’s note: Bradley’s op-ed appeared in the December 8th Washington Times under the title “Alarmists Cold-Shoulder Facts”)
Facts are awfully stubborn things. And global-warming alarmists—who generally don’t let facts get in the way of a good, agenda-driven argument—recently lost a key ally in the run-up to the U.N. global-warming pep rally opening today in Copenhagen. They lost actual data supporting their claims.
In defiant acts of desperation, many out-of-the-mainstream environmental alarmists quickly moved to plan B. Some cite the current El Niño—a natural climate variation—warning of “record” high temperatures just on the horizon.
Others continue to trumpet “studies” that paint terrifying environmental fairy tales if world governments do not immediately criminalize carbon, ban fossil fuels, and ration energy.
But these tactics are not new. Paul Ehrlich’s “population bomb” of the 1960s predicted food riots in the United States and around the world.…
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