The Sarasota Herald-Tribune (or "Big Green") is touting Governor Crist's proposal to buy 187,000 acres of land near the Everglades from U.S. Sugar for $1.75 billion dollars in their editorial, "An offer that's hard to refuse". This is really an offer that is hard to believe.

Big Green and our Governor are looking to take prime agricultural land that produces sugarcane off the market and put it under government centralized control and management. We believe the cost to Floridians will be much higher than the $1.75 billion, much higher. Big Green asks, "What becomes of U.S. Sugar's 1,700 employees and the South Florida cities like Clewiston whose existence is tied to cane farming?" What happens to all the tax revenue we Floridians lose forever, the jobs, the families, the cities?

But here is the real kicker. Big Green loves ethanol, except the corn based kind of course. Guess what sugarcane is a great source of? Ethanol and alcohol, both of which can be alternative fuels to replace Big Oil. So Big Green is taking fertile sugarcane growing land away from Floridians that could be used to produce ethanol and get us off of Big Oil.

Let's look at what sugarcane bagasse can produce. The fibrous material left over from pressing sugarcane is called bagasse. Bagasse is 35% of the chemical energy stored in sugarcane.

Brazil has since 1973 moved to producing ethanol and alcohol from sugarcane bagasse to fuel their cars and power plants. Here are some facts about their production of sugarcane based alternative fuels:

According to Wikipedia, "Part of the bagasse [in Brazil] is currently burned at the mill to provide heat for distillation and electricity to run the machinery. This allows ethanol plants to be energetically self-sufficient and even sell surplus electricity to utilities; current production is 600 MW for self-use and 100 MW for sale. This secondary activity is expected to boom now that utilities have been induced to pay "fair price "(about US$10/GJ or US$0.036/kWh) for 10 year contracts...The energy is especially valuable to utilities because it is produced mainly in the dry season when hydroelectric dams are running low [Florida gets 1% of its power from hydroelectric plants]. Estimates of potential power generation from bagasse range from 1,000 to 9,000 MW, depending on technology. Higher estimates assume gasification of biomass, replacement of current low-pressure steam boilers and turbines by high-pressure ones, and use of harvest trash currently left behind in the fields. For comparison, Brazil's Angra I nuclear plant generates 657 MW."

Brazil is a great success story and has reached energy independence by using ethanol and alcohol produced from sugarcane coupled with cars that use biofuels.

So Big Green wants us to not grow sugarcane which can produce ethanol, alcohol, and provide excess electrical power because they want us to preserve the Everglades. They do not want us to drill for oil and natural gas off of Florida's Gulf coast because it would damage the environment. They do not want us to use nuclear, coal, oil or natural gas fired plants because they harm the environment. However, they want us to use alternative fuels like ethanol but don't like corn based ethanol.

That leaves solar, wind and who knows what to fuel our transportation industry. Oh, I know we can conserve our way out of this self-imposed mess.

Does anyone else see the insanity of Big Green's ideology and the lack of vision of Governor Crist? We must as a state and nation become energy independent. Nothing can be off the table as we move toward that goal. It is a national security issue.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune using their best Rachel Carson scare tactics is worried about children exposed to lead 30 years ago in their editorial, "Lead's criminal connection".

We all know that the U.S. government banned lead paint and solder in 1978 and 1986, respectively. By 1996, leaded gasoline had been phased out. These efforts resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of U.S. children with blood lead levels considered "of concern" (from 13.5 million in 1978 to 310,000 in 2002). We clearly have a very successful program reducing children's exposure to lead.

Now we have a Cincinnati study of 250 adults that says lead leads to criminal behavior. You have to wonder if defense attorneys paid for this research study. I can see it now, "My client is not guilty because he was exposed to lead at an early age".

So why is the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and other liberal media up in arms about lead? Of course. In the environmentalist mind set they favor nationalization, central planning, and control. They want more regulations, more oversight and more bans of what you and I can and can't do. Today lead is their target.

But wait. There is a greater evil out there than lead. It is synthetic estrogen.

Synthetic estrogen is found in "the pill" and the "morning after pill" in large quantities. So how much are humans ingesting daily of synthetic estrogen? Brace yourself. The medicines used in hormone therapy contribute about 3,350 micrograms per day. The birth control pill contributes about 16,675 micrograms per day. The morning after pill contributes a whopping 333,500 micrograms per day.

So why should we worry about synthetic estrogen?

Estrogen according to a seven-year study funded by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and the American Chemistry Council published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found, "Estrogen that goes down Canadian toilets -- some naturally from women, some from birth-control pills -- is enough to make entire fish species too feminine to reproduce."

Fish scientist Karen Kidd, who conducted the study, dripped small amounts of estrogen into a clean lake in northwestern Ontario over several years, just as if urine with the female hormone were running in via sewage from a nearby city.

This constant hormone bath made male minnows produce eggs in unnatural, part-female sex organs. And even after she stopped adding estrogen and the water turned clean again, the minnows almost completely disappeared for several years. Even small concentrations of estrogen can decimate wild fish populations, the University of New Brunswick biology professor concludes, even at levels found in some Canadian waters. She would not name individual rivers.

And while the minnows were prone to fast extinction because of their short lifespan (about two years), she says bigger fish such as trout or pike might also be hurt if they are exposed for long enough.

The first dramatic news of "feminized" fish came from British rivers in the 1990s where male fish near sewage plants were producing eggs and carrying reproductive organs that were partly female.

"A lot of follow-up studies showed it was the natural estrogens that women excrete and then the synthetic estrogens in birth control pills that were the main causes of feminization in male fish," Ms. Kidd said.

"The Pill is one of the most heavily prescribed pharmaceuticals in the world. There are over a million women on it in Canada."

In 2004 researchers on the Potomac River downstream of Washington, D.C., found large-mouth bass that in most respects were males, but who had eggs in their sexual organs. This phenomenon is called "intersexuality". Scientists from the University of Colorado in 2005 examined the trout and other fish that populate Boulder Creek. They netted 123 fish down stream of Boulder city's sewage plant and found a tremendous imbalance: 101 female, 12 male and 10 intersex fish. One researcher told the Denver Post, "Its the first thing I've seen as a scientist that really scared me."

So why isn't the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and their environmentalist bed fellows raging mad about this clear and present danger to our fish populations and humans? Why aren't they calling for the banning of the use of estrogen? Why hasn't the EPA banned estrogen as dangerous to our environment and fishing industry? Why isn't the Sierra Club up in arms?

According to Iain Murray in his book "The Really Inconvenient Truths", "By any standard typically used by environmentalists, the pill is a pollutant. It does the same thing, just worse, as other chemicals they call pollution." Murray shows in his book that the EPA inexplicably refuses to consider the impacts of contraceptives because "pharmaceutical regulation is a function of the Food and Drug Administration". That is like the EPA saying I won't deal with lead paint poisoning in homes because homes are a function of the Federal Housing Administration.

Murray states, "So government bureaucrats, the enforcement wing of liberal environmentalism, officially refuses to do anything about the contraceptive pollution issue in the United States. All this in marked contrast to the United Kingdom's Environmental Agency, which at least has the decency to label the contraceptive pill a pollutant, even though it appears powerless or unwilling to do anything about it."

So what about environmental groups like the Sierra Club. Surely they must be concerned about the destruction of our fish population and its effects on us humans, right? Wrong.

Iain Murray points out, "The current head of the Sierra Club, Carl Pope, was once political director of the group Zero Population Growth."

Back in 1970, the Sierra Club adopted the following resolution which states in part: "Be it resolved by the undersigned organizations...That we must find, encourage, and implement at the earliest possible time the necessary policies, attitudes, social standards, and actions that will, by voluntary and humane means consistent with human rights and individual conscience, bring about the stabilization of the population of the United States and then of the world..."

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune and their ilk will not attack synthetic estrogen because they are attacking their own. Feminist organizations like NOW, Planned Parenthood, the Sierra Club, Zero Population Growth and the World Wild Life Fund which states on its web site that, "We should supply contraceptives to all those 180 million people in the developing world...even if there is no population problem".

You see humans are the enemy not the environment. We must control the number of humans who are themselves "pollutants". By reproducing we are harming mother earth. So synthetic estrogen, which is destroying our fish populations and humans, is good because we are preventing more humans.

Does anyone else see how sick this ideology really is?

Iain Murray from the Competitive Enterprise Institute has written a most revealing book titled, "The Really Inconvenient Truths, Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want you to Know About - Because They Helped Cause Them".

The book is easy to read and drives home the point in the subtitle that the Environmental Movement has killed tens of millions of humans, done serious environmental damage, is a greater threat to endangered species, and threatens the health and well being of hundreds of millions of humans, primarily the poor, all in the name of helping "mother earth".

But how can this be you ask? Well it is actually so simple as to be obvious. According to Iain, "American values like property [rights], enterprise, and freedom work well to protect the environment; and that the environment suffers when these values are replaced by contrary values like nationalization, central planning, and control."

Iain's premise is straight forward. Historically, we humans take care of our land and its resources better than government.

Environmentalists, their supporters in Congress, at the State level and even those in our counties and cities believe that more nationalization, central planning and control is needed to protect us from ourselves. Environmentalists in the end place a higher value on "the environment" than on the humans who have domain over it. You probably have programs in your county to buy "environmentally sensitive" land. Ever asked is this really the best way to protect that land? Ever questioned whether it is better to have that land in the hands of a private owner who has a vested interest in keeping it valuable? When the government owns land, it and all that is on it is worth zero.

Iain uses a great example of protecting tigers in Africa and Asia. On government land a tiger is worth nothing so poachers take the animals for nothing, they just must avoid getting caught. A tiger skin is worth tens of thousands of dollars on the black market. The poacher has no sunk costs because the tiger was free. He just had to capture or kill it.

Now if someone owned those tigers, breeds them and sells them for a profit there is a vested interest in protecting and growing the population of tigers because they now have real market value. The free market system actually increases the population of an endangered species because the value of the species, in this case a tiger, is at the market rate. Good for the tiger, good for those wanting tiger products, good for the government who gets taxes from the sale of tiger products, and good for the entrepreneur who profits by raising tigers. Its a win, win, win for tigers. Its a lose, lose, lose for poachers.

But you see liberals and environmentalists despise businesses that use public land to make a profit. Substitute the word "tree" in the above example for "tiger" and you get the point.

Iain presents seven clear cut examples of ecological disasters that are directly linked to liberal movements and environmentalism. Some you may know about, some you may not. Many know about how the ban on DDT worldwide led to a dramatic increase in mosquito born malaria which killed tens of millions of innocent men, women and children, primarily in Africa.

However, did you know that the Feminist Movement and their Planned Parenthood allies push for birth control and the "morning after" pills containing estrogen is causing male fish across America to develop female sex organs? Funny how "pro-choice" and "environmentalist" liberals never talk about that.

I highly recommend Iain's book. It is an awakening to the real damage caused by those professing to protect the environment.

Florida is sitting on top of potentially billions of barrels of oil and billions of cubic feet of natural gas. It is sitting there and we are doing nothing to go and get it. This not only makes no sense it is harming our environment, our economy, our residents and our future.

As we pointed out in a previous article China and Cuba are going after Florida's Gulf oil and natural gas. Why aren't we?

According to Breitbart.com Senator John McCain today said the federal moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling should be lifted, and individual states given the right to pursue energy exploration in waters near their own coasts. The current ban on offshore drilling covers an estimated 80 percent of U.S. coastal waters.

Florida needs to drill for its own oil and natural gas. We need to do it now, for our children and grandchildren.

According to a 2006 article by Humberto Fontova of Human Events, "It's high time these hotheads in Florida got with the national program. They need to shed their petty obsessions with the past and start assessing the national interest soberly and in light of current developments, not stale policies enacted in the heat of hysteria almost half a century ago. Most outrageous of all, their policies hurt the very people they claim to help.

I refer, of course, to offshore oil drilling, currently banned off Florida because of rich pressure groups. That shock and awe at the gas pump might wake up a few people. There's something called the law of supply and demand. Rant and rave all you want, bellow and whine all you want, throw as many tantrums as you want, hold as many rain dances as you want, hold as many séances with ghosts as you want, sacrifice as many virgins as you want, burn as many witches as you want -- but no amount of legislation or wishful thinking will abolish it."

When Humberto wrote his article a gallon of gasoline was just over $2.00 a gallon. Now it is over $4.00 a gallon. Oh, if only we had listened to Humberto in 2006!

Gulf drilling is good for the environment.

Actually drilling in the Gulf will reduce the possibility of an oil spill because all the oil spills in the United States to date were from tankers, not off shore drilling platforms. As Humberto points out, "In fact, Florida's gorgeous and tourist-packed beaches have suffered from an ugly oil spill. It happened summer of 1976 off Panama City and Destin, by far the most beautiful beaches in America. That sugar white sand and those emerald waters were fouled from a tanker spill. The current drilling ban will make another such spill more likely. The ban not only puts us at the mercy of shaky sheikdoms and Hugo Chavez for oil, it also means we'll need to keep transporting that oil stateside -- typically to refineries in Louisiana and Texas. This path takes those tankers smack in front of Florida's beaches."

There are 3,739 offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico today and 3,203 lie off the Louisiana coast. There have been no oil spills from an offshore oil platform in the Gulf, none. Even during hurricane Katrina, when over 1,000 platforms were displaced, not one drop of oil was spilled.

Drilling is good for Gulf fish!

Facing high food prices and a growing demand for protein to keep us healthy we learn that drilling is good for Gulf fish. Oil companies have left in place in the Gulf of Mexico platforms from played out wells at the request of fishermen. Humberto points out that , "Marine life had EXPLODED around these huge artificial reefs. Louisiana produces on third of America's seafood In fact a study by Louisiana State University shows that 85% of Louisiana offshore fishing trips involve fishing around these structures and that there's 50 times more marine life around an oil production platform than in the surrounding Gulf bottoms. Louisiana produces one-third of America's commercial fisheries -- because of, not in spite of, these platforms."

According to America's Power Florida gets 29.2% of our power from coal. We get 16.9% from petroleum, 38% from natural gas and 0.1% from hydroelectric. If we had our own supply of natural gas from the Gulf we could eliminate totally our use of coal and oil. Florida power is the 13th highest in the U.S. We could become one of the lowest with our own resources lying a few miles into the Gulf of Mexico.

We believe that nothing should be off the table when it comes to energy production or fossil fuels. Every resource must be explored and developed. Wind, solar, natural gas, oil, coal, nuclear and biofuels are all needed to ween us off of foreign oil, bring jobs to America and provide us with cheap and reliable power. Cheap and reliable power drives our economy!

This is a national security issue. Energy independence is our goal. Energy exploration and exploitation are the clear path to that goal.

Do you remember the Florida recount 2000? Do you remember the close vote in the 2006 Florida Congressional District 13 race. Well those are nothing compared to what the Democratic Party is doing to its own primary voters.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune in their editorial, "Delegate mess continued" do a great job of pointing out the "Democrat Disaster in Denver" scenario that is unfolding.

Democrats are the first ones to scream voter disenfranchisement. They always blame Republicans for this sin of sins. We finally see the ugly face of the true culprits who are guilty of this secular evil - the Democrat Party itself.

As the Herald-Tribune points out, "Florida and Michigan, which held their January primaries earlier than the party designated, were stripped of their delegates by the Democratic National Committee. That left a trail of hard feelings in these two important swing states."

Hard feelings aren't the half of it. What has happened is the Democratic party has a totally dysfunctional primary election process. This process is so flawed that when you add the disenfranchisement of two key swing states into the mix you turn the entire process into a disaster.

As the Herald-Tribune explains, "The voters want to be counted; Florida and Michigan want a voice in the August national convention."

The Democrats do not have, like the smarter Republicans, a winner take all primary. The simple idea that, like in the general election, if you win the majority of votes you win all the delegates from a state. If they had such a process Hillary Clinton would now be the nominee.

If Democrats had a process where if you win the overall popular vote, as they screamed and yelled about in 2000 when Gore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College, you would win the primary that would be fair. If you count all of Michigan and Florida primary voters Hillary Clinton wins again.

If you decide that to win in November you need to take those states that have the most Electoral College votes against Senator John McCain then Hillary Clinton wins a third time. But you must win Michigan and Florida.

We know the Democrats will sort this out because their favorite constituency is now involved - lawyers. Shades of Bush vs. Gore and Election 2000. The Herald-Tribune states, "DNC lawyers say the only option under the rules is to cut the Florida and Michigan pledged delegations by half. The Clinton camp's attorney, by contrast, argues that the rules and bylaws committee has the authority to seat all the delegates, with full votes." Even their own lawyers can't agree.

The editorial gets it way right when they state the Democratic primary process, "may have raised doubts as to whether a party that blunders into such a pickle can be trusted to lead the country." This may be the understatement of the year.

We fully agree with the Herald-Tribune, "When in a hole, stop digging." But you see Democrats are so invested in the shovel industry, because they have been shoveling you know what for so long, they don't know how to stop digging.

We believe the Democratic primary will finally be determined by "Super Delegates" in Denver. Those unelected party bosses will decide on the winner. Not Democratic primary voters.

We are looking forward to the "Democrat Disaster in Denver".

You have got to love the sheer devotion of environmentalists to their cause no matter what the cost in human suffering. We used to call them "tree huggers" in an endearing way. When they used to just hug trees they were harmless. However, since then 1960s they have become dangerous. Their record is one of good intentions but deadly results.

In his Sarasota Herald-Tribune guest column "Florida needs more energy efficiency, not another nuclear plant", Glenn Compton, Chairman of Manasota-88 comes out against nuclear power.

Glenn's standard for building nuclear power plants is, "the nuclear power industry should prove that nuclear plants, fuel and waste would pose no significant danger before a new nuclear plant is built in Florida."

We love Glenn's high standard and wish environmentalists like Glenn kept to this standard themselves. Let us give you just a few examples of the "pose no serious threat" standard as applied to Glenn and his ilk.

The DDT scare of the 1960s. A nationwide hysteria followed the publication of Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring in 1962, in which she labeled DDT a dangerous chemical that might be causing cancer in humans. It was the Sierra Club that led the charge to ban DDT. The Sierra Club went from a little known group of activists to today an international environmental force. They pointed to research, later proven to be totally false, that bird eggs were thinning due to use of DDT. There has never been any research that has linked DDT usage with the death of any animal species or human illness. Their efforts, the banning of DDT here in the U.S. and overseas, particularly in Africa, have directly led to the deaths of tens of millions of men, women and innocent children from mosquito born malaria.

Environmentalists "posed a serious threat" to human life in their race to ban the use of DDT. It should be noted that the UN now supports the use of DDT, finally recognizing the horrible results of banning it.

Next came the nuclear scare of the 1970s with the founding of Greenpeace. As Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace said, "In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands."

The result of Greenpeace's efforts, a total shutdown of the then budding nuclear power industry. This led to the U.S. move to fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) to meet our ever growing demand for cheap and reliable power.

Today, Patrick Moore admits the error of his ways and supports nuclear power. Patrick states, "Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change."

Glenn in his column uses the old Greenpeace scare tactics when he without proof states, "The cumulative health effect from all of the daily individual safe doses of radiation exposure on humans is not known." What Glenn fails to point out is that we have had U.S. Navy nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines for decades with no incidents and no human caused health problems. Our sailors and Marines are living, eating and sleeping just yards away from nuclear power plants with no ill effects.

Finally, we have the big Kahuna of environmental bad boys - Global Warming. This is the greatest environmentalist political movement of all time. It has joined all environmentalist groups with the far left in a coalition to stop the use of oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear power. They actually believe that burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming.

We say political movement because the science behind human caused global warming has been debunked. Go here, here, here and here to learn why human caused global warming is a hoax. Global warming stopped in 1998 even though CO2 emissions have increased dramatically since then.

The human caused global warming hoax promoted by Glenn and his fellow environmentalists have brought us corn based ethanol. Environmentalists and their Democratic partners in Congress were behind the energy bill passed in December 2007, which mandates a huge spike in the biofuel production requirements from 7.5 billion gallons in 2012 to 36 billion in 2022. This means approximately 20 million new acres of U.S. farmland will have to be dedicated to biofuel crops to meet this mandate. What is interesting is that it takes more than a gallon of oil to produce a gallon of ethanol. Go figure.

What has the environmentalist solution to reduce carbon emissions by using ethanol done? This good idea has caused the price of food to rise. The skyrocketing cost of food staples like grain has caused protests involving thousands of people in places such as South Africa, Egypt and Pakistan. These protests turned deadly in Haiti and even led to the ouster of Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis. Rice is being rationed in the U.S. According to the UN the worst is yet to come as we take more and more farmland away from producing food to producing fuel.

So what is Glenn's new solution to stop global warming. Given all the previous great ideas of environmentalism that have killed millions, polluted our rivers, streams and the Gulf of Mexico, caused food riots, destroyed the nuclear power industry, taken coal, oil and natural gas powered plants off the table, raised our gas and energy prices? Conserve.

We love the childish innocence of this solution. We can save the planet by conserving. Sounds so simple, wonderful and naive.

The real solution is nothing is off the table.

When it comes to the production of energy our economy and the global economy demand cheap reliable power. That means we need to develop and wisely use all the resources we have been blessed with. Oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind and solar.

Given their dismal and deadly record it is time for environmentalists to step aside and let the best interests of the human race take precedent.

Just kidding.

Can you imagine what would happen if three prominent Republican governors had major sex scandals? Can you imagine the media outrage. The "culture of corruption" stories. The damning of all Republicans because of the violations of a few. The instant call for investigations and dismissals. The calls from Congress for a special prosecutor.

Well, don't worry you aren't seeing any of these things because the three governors are all Democrats.

What you do see are talking heads, pundits and psychologists coming to the rescue and acting as scandal denyers. We hear that the affairs of Governor and Mrs. Paterson are personal issues and that their coming out and talking about it, after he was sworn in of course, are heroic. Give me a break.

Former Democratic Governor Elliot Spitzer is a hypocrite at best and guilty of multiple crimes at worst for hiring prostitutes over a period of years and paying over $80,000 for their services.

Former Democratic Governor of New Jersey McGreevey had a gay relationship with man who he hired to run the states homeland security program. Then it turns out he, another gay boyfriend (and his personal driver) and his wife had a sexual tryst.

Finally, Democratic Governor Paterson is still in office after admitting having multiple trysts with multiple women, one of whom was a state employee.

Senator Craig's toe tapping is nothing compared to what our friends the Democrats have done in the last few months to make politicians the scorn of all, except the liberal media, social scientists, psychologists, the Democratic National Committee, the National Organization of Women, feminists, gays, teachers unions and labor unions, of course.

The liberal Sarasota Herald-Tribune's editorial board has an interesting article lamenting the removal of Dr. Deborah Rice from an EPA panel titled, "Chemical conflicts".

They and the Democratic leadership are concerned that politics may get in the way of public health and safety because Dr. Rice was not allowed to stay on a panel reviewing the potential dangers of a chemical (olybrominated diphenyl ether [PBDE] known as deca) used in flame retardants in electronic equipment.

What the Herald-Tribune does not tell you is that Dr. Rice is also an expert on the effects of methylmercury exposure to children and adults.

In 2003 Dr. Rice addressed the effects of methylmercury to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. During this testimony she concluded that, "at least eight studies have found an association between methylmercury levels and impaired neuropsychological performance in the child....there is a substantial percentage of women of reproductive age in the United States with levels of methylmercury in their bodies above what EPA considers a safe level."

She when on to say, "As a result of this, over 300,000 newborns each year are exposed to methylmercury above levels US EPA believes to be “safe”....increased exposure to methylmercury may result in atherosclerosis, heart attack, and even death from heart attack in men, suggesting that an additional large segment of the population may be at risk as a result of environmental methylmercury exposure."

This is the same Herald-Tribune editorial board that touted a new energy bill passed by the Democratic Congress this year in their editorial, "Jump start for energy policy".

Dropped into this new energy bill by the Democrat leadership in Congress is a provision to mandate the phase-out of the 125-year-old incandescent bulb in the next four to 12 years in favor of a new generation of trendy, supposedly energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs), pictured above.

These bulbs contain mercury!

Mercury helps create the increased efficiency of a CFL bulb. If the bulb breaks, the mercury will contaminate an area. Secondly, when these millions of bulbs burn out they will be disposed of into our land fills.

Our question is why didn't the Democratic leadership listen to Dr. Rice and the serious health consequences of mercury? Given the current health risks from mercury exposure why did they add this new risk and mandate that the risk be brought into American homes?

It is interesting how the Democratic leadership is concerned when a scientist that disagrees with the chemical industry is dismissed from a panel but that same scientist is not listened to by the Democratic leadership when it comes to the dangers of another chemical made by the same industry that they mandate be put in all our homes.

Democrats mandating the use of light bulbs that contain mercury is like mandating the use of toys or paint that contain lead. There is no difference. Democrats are putting our children, our homes and our lives at risk in the name of the environment.

This is insane. What do you think?

This Friday I attended an event convened by Sarasota Openly Promotes Excellence (SCOPE). It was titled, Summit for Environmental Action or SEA. I signed up for the summit on the SCOPE web site and was vetted by the staff before I was issued an invitation.

Sponsors of the summit were some rock solid businesses in the Sarasota, Florida community including two developers. When I arrived I went around the room to meet new people and say hello to many there who I knew. There were a number of politicians there from the state, county and cities in Sarasota County and beyond.

The introduction was given by good friend, brilliant future thinker and SCOPE Executive Director Tim Dutton. Tim pointed out the diversity of the group. People from business, neighborhood associations, environment groups, government, old, young and us retired.

The opening speaker was Nick Gladding, who's idea it was to hold such a summit. Nick said the purpose of the summit was to come up with an actionable environmental plan for our area.

The issues selected for discussion at the Summit were Florida-Friendly Landscaping, Water Issues, Living Locally and Energy Use.

Each of us participated in small-group sessions about two of the four issues. At the end of the day, all participants came together to hear a review of all issues and voted on the action plans they think are the best.

I was part of the Energy Use session in the morning and the Water Issues in the afternoon. The process was designed to brain storm new ideas and reach consensus.

As I got further into the summit I recognized that while the group was diverse demographically it was generally of one mind environmentally.

I came to the summit as a "bright green". Bright green environmentalism aims for a society that relies on new technology and improved design to achieve gains in ecological sustainability without reducing (indeed, increasing) the potential for economic growth and attending to human needs.

I came to advocate two solutions: for water, the use of Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) systems to solve our water problem and nuclear power to help us conserve our precious fossil fuels. I also came as a believer in global warming but a serious skeptic that it is human caused. I came not believing in carbon footprints, carbon credits and the need to reduce our carbon emissions. I also came believing that individuals and markets create change, not government.

Well I found myself almost alone and my ideas out of the environmental mainstream thinking at the summit. This is why I was disappointed in the summit and am skeptical of its outcomes.

Let me give you some examples.

1. The keynote speaker was Godo Stoyke. He has written several books about how to use technology to save energy, that is good. What is bad is that he is doing it to reduce carbon emissions and part of his belief system is carbon credits, taxes on carbon and carbon trading. All of these are what I call eco-socialism. I went up to Godo after his presentation and asked him what percentage of all green house gases were CO2. He said 70%. This is completely false. In fact, 95% of all green house gases are caused by water evaporation, of the remaining 5% only 1% is CO2. Of that 1% only 3% is produced by using fossil fuels. Human impact is negligible. Godo did not want to hear that.

2. I asked Godo about the many recent studies finding that global warming is caused by activity on the sun. He categorically dismissed these studies as not scientific because they have not been published in journals like Science. This, of course is not true. Godo has a vested interest in carbon based global warming, that is how he makes his money.

3. In casual conversations with some local distinguished environmental activists my idea for solving the water problem using ASR technology was dismissed. One local water expert brushed it off with the comment that when you extract the water for reuse it can have contaminants in it. My comeback was we remove the contaminants. He raised the cost of doing so, I raised the cost of not doing so. So much for ideas to solve our water problem from a local "expert".

4. In the above conversation I said that nuclear must be on the table to provide our long term power needs. I was immediately put upon. When I pointed out that my friend and environmental proponent Dr. Meg Lowman believes as I do the group was taken aback.

5. When I participated in my assigned working group I found the majority favored policies forcing environmental compliance, most wanting to teach their idea of environmental orthodoxy (via education) to our children and citizens, one member advocating tripling the price we pay for water to force conservation, another advocating a building moratorium (he is an elected official) and consensus for more government intervention, policy, and regulation.

6. The vast majority of attendees were, from my observations, committed environmentalists and therefore came with baggage.

7. After the noon break we lost about half of the morning participants. In the morning opening session we had about 190 attendees, by the closing voting we had around 96 attendees. My concern is those who stayed for the afternoon session and final voting were environmental group thinkers. They ended up presenting the final issues and voting on them. As expected the vast majority (75%+) voted "strongly agree" or "agree" with the actions to be taken.

My voice for individual responsibility for environmental behavior, market driven solutions, use of technology and innovation was drowned out by the din calling for more government and a control growth agenda.

I await the published results and action plan. When I have it I will comment again.

I remain concerned that those in attendance only re-enforced their belief system. They will sadly continue to do the same things and expect different results.