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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#0000ff><SPAN
class=171330720-30052007>Note that the author has not done much research as
Matilija Dam produces no hydropower. I find it to be a pretty annoying Op Ed but
obviously an argument we need to deal with.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#0000ff><SPAN
class=171330720-30052007></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face="Comic Sans MS" color=#0000ff><SPAN
class=171330720-30052007>My sound bite (pardon the provincialism-substitute your
own examples): "Due to global warming, we will need to work harder to
protect and restore our natural heritage across America and around the
world. But we do not plan to dam the Grand Canyon or harness Old faithful
in Yellowstone for its kilowatt hours. And we can still find ways to undertake
important restoration projects, such as restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley in
Yosemite National Park, as we reduce the emissions that cause global
warming.</SPAN></FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV><BR>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left>
<HR tabIndex=-1>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B>
env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us
[mailto:env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] <B>On Behalf Of
</B>Byron Leydecker<BR><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, May 30, 2007 12:17
PM<BR><B>To:</B> fotr@mailman.dcn.org; Trinity List<BR><B>Subject:</B>
[env-trinity] Wall Street Journal May 30<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=Section1>
<P><B><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=5><SPAN
style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 18pt">Dam the Salmon
</SPAN></FONT></B><o:p></o:p></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Shikha
Dalmia.<BR>Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition).<BR>May 30, 2007. pg. A.19
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Al Gore has
been hectoring Americans to pare back their lifestyles to fight global warming.
But if Mr. Gore wants us to rethink our priorities in the face of this mother of
all environmental threats, surely he has convinced his fellow greens to rethink
theirs, right? <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Wrong. If
their opposition to the Klamath hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest is
any indication, the greens, it appears, are just as unwilling to sacrifice their
pet causes as a Texas rancher is to sacrifice his pickup truck. If anything, the
radicalization of the environmental movement is the bigger obstacle to
addressing global warming than the allegedly gluttonous American way of life.
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Once
regarded as the symbol of national greatness, hydroelectric dams have now fallen
into disrepute for many legitimate reasons. They are enormously expensive
undertakings that would never have taken off but for hefty government subsidies.
Worse, they typically involve changing the natural course of rivers, causing
painful disruptions for towns and tribes. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">But tearing
down the Klamath dams, the last of which was completed in 1962, will do more
harm than good at this stage. These dams provide cheap, renewable energy to
70,000 homes in <st1:State w:st="on">Oregon</st1:State> and <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:State></st1:place>. Replacing
this energy with natural gas -- the cleanest fossil-fuel source -- would still
pump 473,000 tons of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.
This is roughly equal to the annual emissions of 102,000 cars.
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Given this
alternative, one would think that environmentalists would form a human shield
around the dams to protect them. Instead, they have been fighting tooth-and-nail
to tear them down because the dams stand in the way of migrating salmon.
Environmentalists don't even let many states, including <st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>, count hydro
as renewable. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">They have
rejected all attempts by PacifiCorp, the company that owns the dams, to take
mitigation steps such as installing $350 million fish ladders to create a salmon
pathway. Klamath Riverkeeper, a group that is part of an environmental alliance
headed by Robert Kennedy Jr., has sued a fish hatchery that the California
Department of Fish and Wildlife runs -- and PacifiCorp is required to fund -- on
grounds that it releases too many algae and toxic discharges. The hatchery
produces at least 25% of the chinook salmon catch every year. Closing it will
cause fish populations to drop further, making the demolition of the dams even
more likely. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">But the end
of the Klamath won't mean the end of the dam saga -- it is the big prize that
environmentalists are coveting to take their antidam crusade to the next level.
"This would represent the largest and most ambitious dam removal project in the
country, if not the world," exults Steve Rothert of American Rivers. The other
dams on the hit list include the O'Shaughnessy Dam in Yosemite's <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Hetch</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Hetchy</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Valley</st1:PlaceType> that services <st1:City
w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:City>, <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Elwha</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">River</st1:PlaceType>
dam in Washington and the Matilija Dam in <st1:place w:st="on">Southern
California</st1:place>. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Large hydro
dams supply about 20% of <st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:State>'s power
(and 10% of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s). If they are destroyed,
<st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>
won't just have to find some other way to fulfill its energy needs. It will have
to do so while reducing its carbon footprint to meet the ambitious CO2
emission-reduction targets that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has set. Mr.
Schwarzenegger has committed the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Golden</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">State</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> to cutting greenhouse gas emissions
80% below 1990 levels by 2050 -- a more stringent requirement than even in the
Kyoto Protocol. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">The effect
this might have on <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>'s erratic and overpriced energy
supply has businesses running scared. Mike Naumes, owner of Naumes Inc., a fruit
packing and processing business, last year moved his juice concentrate plant
from <st1:City w:st="on">Marysville</st1:City>, <st1:State
w:st="on">Calif.</st1:State>, to <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State> state and cut his energy bill in
half. With hydropower under attack, he is considering shrinking his farming
operations in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Golden</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">State</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> as well. "We can't pay exorbitant
energy prices and stay competitive with overseas businesses," he says.
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Bruce
Hamilton, Sierra Club's deputy executive director and a longtime proponent of
such a mandate, refuses to even acknowledge that there is any conflict in
closing hydro dams while fighting global warming. All <st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State> needs to do to
square these twin objectives, he maintains, is become more energy efficient
while embracing alternative fuels. "We don't need to accept a Faustian bargain
with hydropower to cut emissions," he says. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">This is
easier done in the fantasy world of greens than in the real world. If
cost-effective technologies to boost energy efficiency actually existed,
industry would adopt them automatically, global warming or
not.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">As for
alternative fuels, they are still far from economically viable. Gilbert Metcalf,
an economist at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Tufts</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>, has calculated that wind
energy costs 6.64 cents per kWh and biomass 5.95 kWh -- compared to 4.37 cents
for clean coal. Robert Bradley Jr., president of the Institute for Energy
Research, puts these costs even higher. "Although technological advances have
lowered alternative fuel prices in recent years, these fuels still by and large
cost twice as much as conventional fossil fuels," he says.
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">But suppose
these differentials disappeared. Would the Sierra Club and its eco-warriors
actually embrace the fuels that Mr. Hamilton advocates? Not if their track
record is any indication. Indeed, environmental groups have a history of
opposing just about every energy source. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Their
opposition to nuclear energy is well known. Wind power? Two years ago the Center
for Biological Diversity sued <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>'s Altamont Pass Wind Farm for
obstructing and shredding migrating birds. ("Cuisinarts of the sky" is what many
greens call wind farms.) Solar? Worldwatch Institute's Christopher Flavin has
been decidedly lukewarm about solar farms because they involve placing acres of
mirrors in pristine desert habitat. The Sierra Club and Wilderness Society once
testified before Congress to keep <st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:State>'s
<st1:place w:st="on">Mojave Desert</st1:place> -- one of the prime solar sites
in the country -- off limits to all development. Geothermal energy? They are
unlikely to get enviro blessings, because some of the best sites are located on
protected federal lands. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Greens, it
seems, always manage to find a problem for every environmental solution -- and
there is deep reason for this.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Since its
inception, the American environmental movement has been torn between
"conservationists" seeking to protect nature for man -- and "preservationists"
seeking to protect nature for its own sake. Although early environmental
thinkers such as Aldo Leopold and John Muir were sympathetic to both themes,
Leopold was more in the first camp and Muir in the second. Leopold regarded
wilderness as a form of land use; he certainly wanted to limit the development
of wild areas -- but to "enlarge the range of individual experience." Muir, on
the other hand, saw wilderness as sacred territory worthy of protection
regardless of human needs. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">With the
arrival on the scene of Deep Ecologists from <st1:place
w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> in the 1980s, Muir's mystical preservationist side
won the moral high ground. The emphasis of Deep Ecology on radical species
equality made talk about solving environmental problems for human ends illicit
within the American environmental community. Instead, Arne Naess, the revered
founder of Deep Ecology, explicitly identified human beings as the big
environmental problem. "The flourishing of nonhuman life requires a decrease in
human population," his eight-point platform to save Mother Earth serenely
declared. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">This
ideological turn, notes Ramachandra Guha, a left-leaning Indian commentator and
incisive critic of Deep Ecology, has made American environmentalism irrelevant
at best and dangerous at worst for the Third World, where addressing
environmental issues such as soil erosion, water pollution and deforestation
still remains squarely about serving human needs. By turning wilderness
preservation into a moral absolute -- as opposed to simply another form of land
use -- Deep Ecology has justified wresting crucial resources out of the hands of
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s agrarian and tribal
populations. "Specious nonsense about equal rights of all species cannot hide
the plain fact that green imperialists . . . are dangerous," Mr. Guha has
written. <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Besides
hurting the <st1:place w:st="on">Third World</st1:place>, such radicalism had
made the environmental movement incapable of responding to its own self-
proclaimed challenges. Since nature can't speak for itself, the admonition to
protect nature for nature's sake offers not a guide to action, but an invitation
to inaction. That's because a non- anthropocentric view that treats nature as
non-hierarchical collapses into incoherence when it becomes necessary to
calculate trade-offs or set priorities between competing environmental goals.
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Thus, even
in the face of a supposedly calamitous threat like global warming,
environmentalists can't bring themselves to embrace any sacrifice -- of salmons
or birds or desert or protected wilderness. Its strategy comes down to pure
obstructionism -- on full display in the Klamath dam controversy.
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Yet, if
environmentalists themselves are unwilling to give up anything for global
warming, how can they expect sacrifices from others? If Al Gore wants to do
something, he should first move out of his 6,000 square-foot <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nashville</st1:place></st1:City> mansion and then
make a movie titled: "Damn the salmon." <o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">---<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Ms. Dalmia
is a senior analyst with Reason
Foundation<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV></BODY></HTML>