Environment

The Democratic party boasts so many heroes, it’s sometimes hard to keep up. Recently, Rep. Andy Kim revealed that he will be donating his J. Crew wool suit to the Smithsonian Institute. An AP photographer captured the congressman in the Rotunda picking up some trash after the January 6 riots. ‘So I found a roll of trash bags, got down on my knees, and just started trying to clean up a place I love.’ This kind of courage begs the question — can an Emmy award be far behind? After all, not all heroes wear capes, but one definitely wore a cobalt blue suit. Such acts of valor above and beyond the call of duty are nothing new in the modern Democratic party. Where were you on that snowy day in 2019 when you first saw that photo of Rep. Eric Swalwell?

President Donald Trump is the best. I already thought he was great, but I became even more convinced of his genius when I saw the updated rules on clothes washers, dryers, and showerheads issued by the Department of Energy on December 15, 2020 (new rules on dishwashers came out recently as well). The new regulations relax stringent regulations on the amount of water and energy consumption permitted in household fixtures and appliances, which save energy but impair functionality.I hear you thinking: do minor regulations on laundry, dishes and showers belong on the measuring stick of presidential greatness? It’s a fair point: the gallons of water per minute issuing from the average Joe’s showerhead aren’t on a par with peace in the Middle East.

For 30 years, Donald Trump regularly visited the Paul Molé Barber Shop in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Adrian Wood, the barber who owns the shop, remembers that Trump would instruct barbers precisely where to snip his mane, and would never allow them to expose his bald spot, as revealed by a report in the New York Post: ‘He’s a complete control freak. He dictates exactly how you cut every hair on his head. “Cut here, cut there. That’s enough.” And you just do what he says.

While Donald Trump appears to have lost the 2020 presidential election, Trump’s agenda of populism focused on the working class and putting America first won, well, bigly. Contrary to the Democrats’ claim that Joe Biden’s razor-thin win gave them a mandate, the only mandate America’s voters gave this year is that they want more Trumpism. To wit, the swing of roughly the same number of voters in a handful of states by which Trump won in 2016 is the gap of Biden’s win. Going forward, Republicans must focus on maintaining that sentiment and fight off attempts by NeverTrumpers and Establishment Republicans to throw Trumpism out with Trump.

Sigmund Freud famously noted that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. In the case of fracking, even Freud would have acknowledged that fracking is about so much more than just fracking. That is why the issue is so important to voters beyond those in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas where so much oil and natural gas is produced. That is also why Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have tried to walk back their positions on fracking from the Democratic primary, when they said they’d ban fracking and cease the use of carbon-based energy sources, as well as push for the budget-busting and progressive utopian Green New Deal. Of course, it’s about jobs.

Oakland, California In April, when spring fever ran high and California saw protests against the unending lockdowns, Gov. Gavin Newsom promised that ‘politics and protests will not drive our decision making. Science, data, and public health will drive our decision making. #StayHomeSaveLives.’ As it turns out, the anti-lockdown movement was right to be suspicious of tyranny. Not only are the decisions about opening up — or, more accurately, not opening up — political, but local and state governments are intent on taking the crisis as an opportunity to alter our way of life forever. Newsom has now tied reopening to ‘racial equity’, through reduction of COVID rates in black, Hispanic and Pacific Islander communities.

I believe it was John Fremont who once exclaimed in astonishment that one could ride a horse at full gallop in the Forests of the Sierras in California. Well, one can do that again now — not among the towering conifers, but over the ashes.Right now I'm seeing the mountains I grew up in — where I went to school, where I hung out, camped, backpacked, boated, cheated death and generally formed the foundation of my character — burning down. It makes me sad and angry.  This didn't have to happen. Once upon a time, forests in California were logged, grazed, and competently managed. It wasn't always perfect, but generally it worked.Fires, which are a natural part of that ecosystem, were generally small — not just benign but beneficial.

This article is in The Spectator’s March 2020 US edition. Subscribe here. What could be more emblematic of the American Dream than fracking, the miracle technology that has created thousands of real jobs, lowered the cost of living, generated wealth and prosperity, boosted competitiveness and helped make the United States not just energy independent, but a net exporter of natural gas and petroleum products for the first time in decades? And what could be more characteristic of the elitist, small-minded, anti-market, anti-blue-collar, anti-growth, green-obsessed liberal-left than that the Democratic party is hell-bent on banning it?

Why do conservatives oppose preserving the environment? Why do they fail to address the pollution of the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink? Why do they oppose regulating the plastic waste that destroys habitats and causes the extinction of species? If ‘conservative’ means conserving a way of life, then protecting the environment is not only helpful but necessary to conservatism. Instead, the environment has become a partisan issue for the progressive left, while conservatives defend the industrial system which causes pollution, deforestation, and animal extinction. According to the World Health Organization, 91 percent of the world’s population live in places where air quality exceeds health guidelines.