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Environmental Ammo

by William F. Jasper

Environmental Overkill: Whatever Happened to Common Sense?, by Dixy Lee Ray with Lou R. Guzzo, Washington DC: Regnery Gateway, 1993, 260 pages, hardcover, $19.95. Available from General Birch Services Corp., P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI 54913. Add $3.00 for postage and handling.

Dixy Lee Ray has done it again. In 1990, she blessed us with Trashing the Planet, a superlative exposé of the popular delusions, myths, lies, and disinformation concerning all things "environmental." And it came not a moment too soon. Hers was a voice of calm reason and common sense amidst the chaotic chorus of professional disaster lobbyists and Chicken Littles prophesying imminent, global, ecological destruction. With facts, logic, wit, and brilliant perspective, Dr. Ray devastated the pet theories of the technophobes and eco-apocalyptics who would have us believe we must fear everything and accept totalitarian controls over every aspect of our lives to "save the earth."

Scientific Offensive

In Trashing the Planet, Ray marshaled the evidence of science to puncture the flimsy hot air balloons of the global warming, ozone depletion, and acid rain theorists. With scientific facts and sound thinking she also demolished the nonsensical arguments behind the hysterical crusades against pesticides, alar, dioxin, PCBs, radon, asbestos, and nuclear power. Few of us have escaped the green propaganda onslaught unscathed; virtually everyone has been victimized with needless worries over alleged dangers lurking in the most common and benign substances in our homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Few of us have the academic background, the access to the scientific data, and the time to investigate the validity of the continuous outpouring of environmental doomsday scenarios.

The sensational headline on the cover of a national magazine recently asked, "Is My Electric Blanket Killing Me?" Well, is it? Are the world's forests on the verge of extinction? Is the "ozone hole" growing? Are CFCs from our air conditioners threatening to expose us to deadly ultraviolet rays? Is the northern spotted owl truly endangered? Does the government do a better job than private property owners of protecting the environment? Is man-made CO₂ causing global temperatures to rise? Is world population outstripping food production and natural resources? The answers to these and hundreds of other vital questions are to be found in Dixy Lee Ray's marvelous new book, Environmental Overkill.

And who better than Dr. Ray to lead us through the labyrinthine maze of half truths, lies, bogus statistics, and crank "science"? In her long, distinguished career as a scientist and a public official, Dr. Ray has ever exemplified the virtues of courage, honesty, and integrity. Unlike far too many of her colleagues in academe and politics, she has eschewed the temptation to cave in to the forces of political correctness. Whether serving as governor of the state of Washington, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, assistant secretary of state in the U.S. Bureau of Oceans, or as a longtime member of the zoology faculty of the University of Washington, she has repeatedly shown the fortitude to stand up for, and speak out for, the truth, regardless of the harangues and harassment of the purveyors of political correctness.

Ultimate Goal

Ray launches into her new book with a chapter entitled "The Future According to Rio," a sobering look at the frightening plans for planetary control emanating from last year's UN Earth Summit in Brazil. It was my good fortune to meet up with Dr. Ray many times in Rio during my coverage of that farcical Eco-Woodstock that was presented to the world by the doting Establishment media as a legitimate conference concerned with serious matters of science affecting global survival. Together with an international panel of renowned scientists, she participated in a privately sponsored "Earth Summit Alternatives" conference that exposed the fraudulent claims and the totalitarian "solutions" of the UN summiteers. The "alternative" voices were like sweet music amidst the cacophony of fright peddlers clucking, cooing, and chanting their save-the-earth slogans and Gaia-worshipping mantras. Unfortunately, it was the raucous humbuggery of the greenies, globies, and warmies and the ludicrous pontifications of international socialists such as Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Bründtland, former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, and UNCED chief Maurice Strong that carried the day — thanks to the "objective" reporting of the Rather-Brokaw-Jennings-Time-Newsweek-New York Times-AP-Washington Post media axis.

Dr. Ray recognizes that the ultimate goal of Bründtland, Rocard, Strong, et al, is to undermine and destroy national sovereignty — especially American sovereignty — and she cites many statements by these principals blatantly advocating exactly that. "The objective, clearly enunciated by the leaders of UNCED," Ray notes, "is to bring about a change in the present system of nations. The future is to be world government, with central planning by the UN. Fear of environmental crises, whether real or not, is expected to lead to compliance. If force is needed, it will be provided by a green-helmeted police force...."

She asks, "Are environmental issues so serious and imminently catastrophic as to require that we give up a significant part of our independence, our liberty?... Must we destroy our nation in order to 'save the planet'?"

For those uncritical, mushy minds that follow the prophets of doom, the answer, of course, is an unequivocal "yes." Many of these dupes are beyond help. But for the millions of literate Americans who still retain a modicum of common sense, Dixy Lee Ray's Environmental Overkill is a godsend that will serve as a reliable guide through the bewildering welter of claims and counterclaims that typify every environmental debate.

Those Frightening Scenarios

Dr. Ray has taken on all of the current environmental "crises" that daily assault our senses from the newspaper headlines and the evening news. Starting with the biggies — global warming and ozone depletion — she revisits familiar territory with fresh and updated scientific data.

Anthropogenic (man-made) CO₂ is estimated to total some seven billion tons annually worldwide. Sound like an enormous sum? Well, nature — through volcanoes, geysers, and the respiration of countless organisms — contributes an estimated 200 billion tons annually. Man-made CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) contribute roughly 750,000 tons of chloride to the atmosphere per year. Mother earth contributes 600 million tons of chloride through sea water evaporation alone. Volcanoes provide many billions more.

Not that any of these effluents —natural or man-made — matter that much one way or the other. When it comes to the "greenhouse" effect — a phenomenon essential to life on our planet as we know it — CO₂ plays a relatively insignificant role. "Indeed," notes Ray, "although carbon dioxide is getting all the attention in greenhouse discussions, it is really water — the water vapor of the atmosphere, and droplets in the clouds — that is the main greenhouse gas. Water is responsible for 98 percent of all greenhouse warming." And the evidence, from voluminous temperature measurements taken from weather-monitoring stations throughout the world over the past hundred years, as well as the continuous temperature readings taken by the Tiros II satellite, shows no current global temperature trends either up or down.

But that is only part of the picture. The good professor surveys the frightening scenarios and frantic statements of the global warmies from a number of different angles, applying common sense and the facts of science so deftly that their perfervid bleatings are completely exposed for the utterly absurd and fraudulent ravings that they have always been.

In similar fashion, she methodically examines the emotionally and politically charged doomsday predictions of the self-appointed guardians of the ozone layer. A major problem with their theory, she points out, "is that ultraviolet radiation levels at the earth's surface are going down, not up." Just the opposite of what the ecofanatics tell us is happening as the result of man' s pumping of CFCs into the atmosphere. Moreover, how do these CFCs rise into the stratosphere when the CFC molecules are four to eight times heavier than air? Answer: There is no evidence that they do reach the stratosphere. "At least 192 chemical reactions and another 48 photochemical reactions have been identified in the stratosphere," observes Ray, "but none involves CFCs."

Nevertheless, because the U.S. Senate ratified the UN's Montreal Protocol on ozone depletion, Americans will be paying hundreds of billions of dollars and suffering untold refrigeration and air conditioning headaches as the CFC ban — including freon and halons —goes into effect. This is a crime. As Ray points out, "Not only are CFCs safe, but all of the proposed substitutes have turned out to be very expensive, and some are toxic, flammable, and corrosive. All are inefficient compared to freon." The cost of this one mad act, she notes, "may be as high as $5 trillion worldwide by the year 2005." The cost in human lives is even more grim. Because of the severe effect on transportation and storage of food due to the loss or greatly increased cost of refrigeration, avers Dr. Ray, "estimates indicate that between 20 to 40 million people will die yearly from hunger, starvation, and food-borne diseases."

Survival Handbook

This is a survival handbook that every thoughtful American should have readily available to fend off the never-ending deluge of Luddite propaganda so prevalent in our contemporary culture. Are you concerned about the claims that electromagnetic fields (EMFs) produced by electric power lines or electric appliances may be causing cancer? Dr. Ray takes the mystery and quackery out of the issue, explaining in common layman's terms the results of all available research into the health effects of EMFs. Unlike her emotionally overwrought counterparts, however, she does not assert dogmatically that there are no dangers from EMFs. As in other areas of inquiry, if evidence arises to lend support to the worries of the perpetual hand-wringers, she is more than willing to concede that prudent remedial policies and actions should be implemented. But she is not willing to join the stampede to impose costly, precipitous, counterproductive — even dangerous — programs on the public based on the histrionics of the enviroalarmists.

In like manner, she deals with the real and imagined problems associated with urban air pollution, population growth, endangered species legislation, wetlands policies, forest management, and food production. Especially important are her chapters on the governmental assault on private property and the comparisons of environmental policies (and results) on government-owned versus privately owned lands. Her chapters on "The Gospel According to Gore," "Governing by Regulation," and "Who's Responsible for Overkill" are also power packed.

Dixy Lee Ray recognizes that there are global stakes involved in the battle against the environmental extremists. "More and more it is becoming clear that those who support the so-called 'New World Order' or World Government under the United Nations have adopted global environmentalism as a basis for the dissolution of independent nations and the international realignment of power," she warns.

Environmental Overkill is a powerful and much welcomed reinforcement in the freedom fight. Superbly researched and well crafted, it will be a highly valued and most useful resource for a long time to come. · is a powerful and much welcomed reinforcement in the freedom fight. Superbly researched and well crafted, it will be a highly valued and most useful resource for a long time to come. ·

 

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