A New European

Since 1970, carbon monoxide emissions in the U.S. are down 55%, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Particulate emissions are down nearly 80%, and sulfur dioxide emissions have been reduced by half. Lead emissions have declined more than 98%. All of this has been accomplished despite a doubling of the number of cars on the road and a near-tripling of the number of miles driven, according to Steven Hayward of the Pacific Research Institute.

Mr. Hayward compiles the “Index of Leading Environmental Indicators” published around Earth Day each year by PRI and the American Enterprise Institute. It serves as an instructive antidote for the doom and gloom that normally pervades environmental coverage, especially of late.

Huh, mir geht’s plötzlich besser.

Aber das Problem der Ökos ist, dass sie sich schon einmal auf einem hohen Niveau lächerlich gemacht haben:

In the 1970s, prominent greens were issuing dire predictions about mass starvation, overpopulation and–of all things–global cooling. Since then, population-growth estimates have come way down, biotechnology advances have found ways to feed more people than the doomsayers believed possible, and the global-cooling crisis has become the global-warming crisis without missing a beat.

Dabei tun sie schon Gutes:

There’s no doubt the greens have succeeded in promoting higher environmental standards, which in turn have contributed to cleaner air, water and land almost everywhere you look. Today, game fish have returned to countless American streams and lakes, the Northeast has more forestland that at any time since the 19th century and smog is down dramatically in places like Los Angeles. But environmental activists don’t want to believe their own success, much less advertise it. They need another looming catastrophe to stay relevant, not to mention to keep raising money.

Im Prinzip sind sie also wie die Pfannen- und Messer-Verkäufer von den Dauerwerbesendungen. Mit einem kleinen Unterschied: Die Leute, die ihnen nichts abkaufen sind… Ihr habt es erraten, Nazis!

As Mr. Gore puts it, Katrina “may have been the first sip of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us over and over again until we act on the truth we have wished would go away.” If that language sounds familiar, that’s because Mr. Gore borrowed the image from Winston Churchill, who used it to describe the Nazi menace in Europe in the 1930s.

The comparison between global-warming skeptics and Nazis or their sympathizers is not an idle one, as full-scale demonization of anyone who questions the global warming orthodoxy is now under way. MIT’s Richard Lindzen recently described in these pages how this intimidation is stifling scientific debate.

Um Churchill noch einmal leicht abzuändern: »You ask, what is their aim? I can answer in one word: It is fear, fear at all costs, fear in spite of all facts, fear, however long and hard the road may be; for without fear, there is no survival.«