We Must Stop Progress…Ehr…Save The Plants

I think this story is great job of showing how ridiculous the Luddites in the environmental movement have gotten…

“Environmentalists sued the federal government Wednesday to get the Gentry indigo bush -a rare type of shrub – listed as an endangered species.

Activists said they want to use the listing to fight Tucson Electric Power’s plan to build a 66-mile power line between Sahuarita and Nogales.

The transmission line – meant to improve electric reliability in Santa Cruz County and let TEP sell power to Mexico -would pass by Sycamore Canyon, one of the few places where the indigo bush is known to exist.

“We hope listing of the plant will force them to reconsider these plans,” said Noah Greenwald of the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, which filed the suit along with the Colorado-based Center for Native Ecosystems.

An environmental study of TEP’s $70 million project considered the indigo bush and concluded a few plants might be affected, but overall the power line wouldn’t hurt the species.

“I’m sure we could make whatever accommodations are necessary to ensure the continuing viability of the Gentry indigo bush,” TEP spokesman Joe Salkowski said.

…In January 2002, the Center for Biological Diversity asked the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the indigo bush.

But the agency said all its money for listings is tied up in court cases, many initiated by the center.

“The service’s listing budget is broke,” spokesman Jeff Humphrey said. “Anything that’s not ordered by the courts isn’t getting worked on, and the center is a large part of that backlog.”

So we have a bunch of environmental whackos trying to hold up a 70 million project not save any fluffy animals, but to supposedly save some shrubs. How powerlines can possibly threaten the survival of a species is shrubs to begin with is beyond me. But I’m sure the whackos have concocted some farfetched scenario to explain it. You know, maybe Klingons are actually real and want to conquer earth for our powerlines and because of that, they might show up and fight with the US military, which would cause the shrubs to be destroyed in the crossfire. Who knows?

But back in the real world, where we just had a huge blackout, where we’re supposed to have natural gas shortages this summer, where California spent last summer struggling to get enough power, these nutballs are filing countless nuisance lawsuits that delay these projects for months of years and cost untold millions of dollars. All because they’re dogmatically opposed to any power source that isn’t natural (think anything that generates more power than 5 or 6 rats running around in a hamster ball). Ok, the hamster ball comment was a little cheap, but I’m telling you, if these people got their “perfect world” that’s powered by wind, solar power, & fuel cells, it would cause a titanic power outages and an economic collapse so severe that we’d long for the “good old days” of the Great Depression.

If they want to live like that, let them buy a plot in Montana and write fan mail to Ralph Nader & Michael Moore by candlelight in a shotgun shack. But the rest of us like computers, reliable electricity, TVs, Stereos, refrigerators and all the other conveniences of modern life that are only available on a wide scale because of oil, nuclear power, coal, & natural gas. If only the environmental whackos and the Democratic politicians who cater to their every whim would just accept that and act accordingly…..

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