Joe Klein

Time's Joe Klein probably thought he was being clever when he wrote his late June essay on the evils of cooling headlined "Kill Your Air Conditioner." Instead, he wrote yet another chapter in the left's book of environmental silliness.

"The unnecessary refrigeration of America has become a chronic disease," said Klein. "Air conditioning is bad for the planet, and for national security, and for our balance-of-payments deficit."

Just how bad it is for these things, he doesn't say. But so sure of his point is he that he even included a fact that refutes his entire premise: At 4%, cooling is but a small part of our energy use.

Predictably, Klein believes Americans should sacrifice. Sounds noble, but he leaves out the part in which sacrifice slowly mutates into government rationing.

Klein might not know any members of the California Energy Commission, but it's a good bet he'd get along well with them. This group has also written a chapter in the left's book of silliness, suggesting that homes and businesses in the state should be equipped with thermostats that the government can control.

Though the proposal was dropped in January, it revealed the left's thinking process about energy issues.

While that idea — temporarily — failed, California keeps churning out the absurd. Beginning with the 2009 model year, new cars sold in the state must have a label showing that automobile's global warming score. New York will have the same requirement in 2010.

Then there's the scientist who links flat-screen televisions to global warming.

Michael Prather of the University of California, Irvine, says the greenhouse gas nitrogen triflouride used in the making of flat-screen TVs should be regulated by a global climate treaty such as the Kyoto accord.

Across the Atlantic, the British government has told people to stop wasting food, not just to help deal with higher food prices, but to blunt global warming.

Last year Environment Minister Joan Ruddock asked Britons to do their part in "averting climate change" by ending their "wasteful habits with food" and "buying less and eating leftovers."

Remember, this is the country in which the media so gleefully covered a scientific report that said eating insects is good for the environment.

Back home, NASA scientist James Hansen wants oil executives put on trial for distributing "misinformation" about his global warming theory. We have to assume that he wants them eventually imprisoned, thereby removing from society the very people who are providing the fuels that keep civilization moving ahead.

Perhaps the best example of the left's worst excesses is No Impact Man. He describes himself as a "guilty liberal" who has sworn off plastic, gone organic, become a bicycle nut, turned off his power and "composts his poop" while living in New York City. His goal: to try to save the planet from environmental catastrophe — one man at a time, we presume.

No Impact Man's project would be fine if he were content to leave alone those who don't share his vision. But the self-described megalomaniac is not.

This "tree-loving lunatic," previously known as Colin Beavan, husband and father of one, is politically active, supporting energy-restrictive initiatives that would have negative effects on others.

He seems convinced his mission is to "try to help change the cultural current and make it easier for everyone" to live as he does.

It all seems so laughable — until we realize that, given an opportunity to run our lives, environmental activists, who clearly have no sense of proportion or respect for liberty, would set back human progress by decades, if not centuries. Failing to take the threat they pose seriously will have heavy consequences.  Source

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