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Imminent Domain Could
Environmental Treaties or Global Governance Actually Trump By Perry Hicks Now, in a widening sphere of
decisions, the costs of error are so exorbitant that we need to act on
theory alone, which is to say on prediction alone. It follows that the
reputation of scientific prediction needs to be enhanced. But that can
happen, paradoxically, only if scientists disavow the certainty and
precision that they normally insist on. Above all, we need to learn to act
decisively to forestall predicted perils, even while knowing that they may
never materialize. We must take action, in a manner of speaking, to
preserve our ignorance. There are perils that we can be certain of
avoiding only at the cost of never knowing with certainty that they were
real. Arguably, cost is the hallmark trait of any environmental effort. By design, there never seems to be a cheap ecological solution. If the cost of human activity can be raised sufficiently high enough, that activity will be reduced, if not curtailed. Therefore, the environmental movement can get an extra bang for their buck by requiring massive monetary outlays for impact studies, technology, and legal defense. Obviously, both of the civil and economic cost for implementing something like the Wildlands Project would be staggering. Entire cities would go out of being. Huge populations would not only have to be relocated, they would have to be relocated by centralized planning; permitting people to choose where they would live simply would not be feasible. It is also just as unlikely that people would voluntarily surrender their freedom. Force would have to be applied and in this country force can only be applied under the rule of law. So, could something as radical as the Wildlands Project ever be implemented under the authority of the United States Constitution? The short answer is both yes and no. The long answer is a bit more complicated. The Cloak of Goodness Falls"'Protecting the Environment' is a
ruse. The goal is the political and economic subjugation of most men by
the few, under the guise of preserving nature." Few in America would argue in favor of dirty air and water. However, in regard to environmental clean up, the devil is in the details. Once people realize the personal and economic costs, resistance begins to mount. The environmental movement had come to grips with this decades ago and so the legal specialty of environmental law was born. Much of the environmental agenda has been advanced, not through legislation, but through either litigation or the threat of litigation. The basic tenant of civil litigation is that for one to sue, one must have an interest in the case. That is to say, one must be directly impacted in order to have standing. So, if I were to merely witness someone slipping on a banana peel, I could not sue for injuries that someone else sustained. Likewise, I could not sue for someone else’s divorce. However, in 1965, a precedent was set when the Sierra Club won non-economic standing to stop a power project in New York State. Since then, environmentalists have sought the “remedies” in court that they could not win in the legislature. For example, the 10 major California wild fires that have, at the date of this writing, extinguished more than 3400 homes, scorched 750,000 acres, killed 20 people and forced 100,000 to flee emptying entire towns, have been blamed on poor forest management: a management forced on forestry by particularly litigious environmental groups. As we have pointed out earlier in this series, the environmentalists have claimed that we have fewer trees today than in the time of Christopher Columbus. According to the University of Washington, prior to the arrival of the Europeans, there were only 30 to 60 large trees per acre in Okanogan and Freemont National Forests. Today, the University of Washington puts the tree density at about 1000 trees per acre and in some cases as high as 3000! Fighting forest fires, in dollar terms, is very costly; perhaps more than $2000 per acre. California is facing a firefighting bill that is expected to fall somewhere between 2 and 12 billion dollars. This can be ill-afforded when the state is also facing a 10 billion dollar budget shortfall in 2004. This has left many Californians infuriated at how “special interest” groups have had undue influence in the state legislature. To make matters worse, at least one of the fires has been reported to have been started by the environmentally approved “prescribed burn” method. Others may have been started by arson; it is being openly speculated in some media that the perpetrator could be a deranged environmentalist. This is not as far-fetched as it may sound. On August, 20 SUVs were burned at a West Covina, California, car dealership and the FBI has opened an investigation into nine attempts to bring down high voltage power transmission lines throughout the North West. In one of the attempts, a man now identified as Devylin Poulin, 62, of Spokane, Washington, was caught removing a number of very large bolts from a tower leg. Mr. Poulin, who was reported by Fox News to also have a violent criminal record, claimed he was only trying to “highlight” the vulnerability of the nation’s power infrastructure. Regardless of Poulin’s motivation, it is interesting to see the media’s initial suspicions raised at the identity and motivation of the perpetrators. The cloak of goodness has evidently fallen from the environmentalist’s shoulders; “Eco-terrorism” is now a familiar term. Balance of Power "The move toward controlling less and
less pollution at greater and greater expense -- until you are spending
everything to control nothing -- is one of the big water quality problems
we are facing in the future." The speculation of environmentally motivated violence aside, could the more mainstream elements of the environmental movement force the Wildlands Project on a uncooperative public? Washington D.C. Constitutional Attorney Ira Nichols Burke says that such a thing is technically possible through imminent domain. However, Burke goes on to say that taking an entire city the size of Denver in order to return the land to wilderness is sheer fantasy. “I can just see one of Denver’s congressmen going to Washington and voting to eliminate his district”, said Burke. Even if this were to happen, by law, land owners would have to be compensated fairly. The cost of buying half of the Unites States would be prohibitive. How about a treaty along the lines of the Kyoto Protocols being signed and so forcing the Federal Government to set aside Constitutional guarantees? “Nothing trumps the United States Constitution”, Burke stated flatly. He is also very confident the U.S. Supreme Court would strike down any treaty denying citizens their constitutional rights. The legal community, he asserts, would simply not tolerate undermining the Bill of Rights. The Cost of Freedom "Isn't the only hope for the planet
that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our
responsibility to bring that about?" If the problem is not an end run on the U.S. Constitution, then what about the high cost of environmental litigation? I asked my own attorney, Robert L. Isaacs of Richmond, Virginia. “Rob” doesn’t see an easy remedy to this dilemma. While some of the litigation may be filed with good intentions, others may be fairly criticized as being more extreme. Each case must be analyzed individually. When I suggest that the more extreme examples serve only to drive up the cost of doing business, a kind of legal way of reaching ELF’s goals of taking profit out of capitalism, ultimately hurting us all. “It is very difficult to prove malicious prosecution”, said Isaacs. Indeed, the whole subject of the environment is fiendishly complicated. Rob goes on to say, “Environmental law is very specialized. The environmentalists will offer a defense that is based their facts and the opponents will attack from a position they say is based on their facts.” Wait a minute! Both can’t be “facts”. A fact is a truth, not an assertion. One side’s argument or the other must have a preponderance of truth. “Courts sort that out,” says Isaacs, an attorney I can personally affirm who is very comfortable in a courtroom. In other words, it is highly unlikely that it can be proven that an environmental argument was known to be baseless. Indeed, Isaacs likens the process to the free market where “civil litigation has become part of the market cost system that allocates limited resources”.
Part III - Just What Temperature Should The Planet Be? Environmentalists Seek So Much Authority Over Our Everyday Lives, Fears Are Rising That The Real Agenda Is All About Power And Control - By Perry Hicks Part V - Starting On The Road To Kyoto - The Radical Left Takes Up Global Warming As A Club To Beat Down The Industrialized Nations - By Perry Hicks Perry Hicks is a former Mississippi Coast resident and was a correspondent for the old Gulfport Star Journal. He has appeared on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor.” Perry has also hosted his own radio talk show on the auto industry with a mix of politics, and is a former Ford Motor Company technical trainer. He currently works as an Associate Professor of Automotive Technology at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Richmond, VA. Contact the Author: royalenfieldcrusader@hotmail.com |
