MYTH: Global warming isn’t really occurring—it is just another phenomenon made up by the crazy people on the left.

 

Crichton himself used to worry about global warming. But then he spent three years researching it. He concluded it's just another foolish media-hyped scare. Many climate scientists agree with him, saying the effect of man and greenhouse gases is minor. (John Stossel, “Give Me a Break: State of Fear,” Town Hall, 4/1/05)

 

Sadly, he's right. When "scare stories" fit reporters' preconceptions, we rarely check with the skeptics. On the subject of global warming, reporters often listen to alarmists and don't take the trouble to survey the scientists who really know. And even if they do, it's a mere fig leaf of fairness. U.S. News, for example, buried its one skeptical voice under a shrieking headline, after paragraphs predicting disaster, and between two quotes from alarmists -- astoundingly presented as voices of reason -- dismissing dissenters. (Stossel)

 

All this leads to an obvious conclusion. Southern Greenland, Glacier National Park and the Himalayan glaciers are on their way out, with little or no nudging needed from people. They're relics of the Big Ice Age that ended 11,000 years ago. It's too bad, though, that in the fight to hype global warming, the truth is also rapidly becoming another relic. (Patrick J. Michaels, “Himalayan Snow Job,” The Washington Times, 4/1/05)

 

This [claims of global warming] is one of those repeating news stories, like "Strife in Haiti" or "Irish unrest." It goes like this. "The (glaciers, polar bears, butterflies) of (anywhere) are in dramatic decline because of global warming. Unless the (U.S., U.S., U.S.) signs on to the Kyoto Protocol, their continued decline is assured." (Michaels)

 

REALITY

Global warming most certainly is occurring and to suggest otherwise is feckless. While it is not outside the realm of possibility that some of the warming that the earth is currently experiencing is perfectly natural and a part of the earth’s lifecycle, it is completely naïve to believe that our gas-guzzling SUVs and coal-burning plants are not speeding up the global warming process.

 

The Sierra Club’s website features a wealth of information about the existence and persistence of global warming. In particular they have a report on the effect that SUVs have on global warming. This report cites that “America's cars and light trucks alone produce nearly 20 percent of U.S. CO2 pollution.” As America’s cars get bigger and bigger, the amount of CO2 they produce also goes up. This means there is even more CO2 being spewed into the atmosphere, which will in turn increase the greenhouse effect and lead to even more global warming.

 

Even the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) admits that global warming is a very real and dangerous problem that the world must face and develop a solution in order to combat. The EPA states that going forward, the “rising global temperatures are expected to raise sea level, and change precipitation and other local climate conditions. Changing regional climate could alter forests, crop yields, and water supplies. It could also affect human health, animals, and many types of ecosystems. Deserts may expand into existing rangelands, and features of some of our National Parks may be permanently altered.”

 

The longer the right denies the realities global warming, the worst the problem will become. And the more people like the inhabitants of the island nation of Tuvalu, who have been determined to be the first nation that will fall victim to rising sea levels, will suffer.

 

MYTH: Liberal environmentalists are completely misinformed about the drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and should stop opposing such action.

 

Despite failure of hard-core environmentalist organizations to diminish George W. Bush's convincing re-election victory, their renewed attacks on the president are clear: to obstruct his second-term environmental agenda. (M. David Sterling, “Beyond the ANWR Scare Tactics,” The Washington Times, 4/5/05).

 

Most people now recognize Mr. Bush urges oil and gas drilling in Alaska in order to reduce the massive U.S. oil dependency on unfriendly, unstable and erratic foreign governments. The Interior Department estimates Alaska's 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain has from 10 billion to 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Drilling engineers believe recent technological advances would require as few as 2,000 surface acres to recover the underlying oil and natural gas -- meaning just one acre for every 10,000 acres in the refuge area. Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens and other proponents debunk the doomsday predictions, noting how the Porcupine caribou herd occupying the Prudhoe Bay oil field on Alaska's North Slope increased tenfold -- from 3,000 to 32,000 animals -- since oil production began there in 1977 (Sterling).

 

"This battle is far from over," environmentalists vowed, after the Senate voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling. Indeed, the 51-49 margin underscores the passion of drilling opponents, the misinformation that still surrounds this issue, and a monumental double standard for environmental protection (Pail Driessen, “Alaskan Oil and Wildlife,” The Washington Times, 4/3/05).

 

Many votes against drilling came from California and Northeastern senators who consistently rail against high energy prices, unemployment and balance of trade deficits -- while opposing petroleum exploration in Alaska, the Outer Continental Shelf, Western states and any other areas where it might actually be found. Rarely if ever, do they recognize these bans send American jobs and dollars overseas, reduce U.S. royalty and tax revenues, and harm the environment (Driessen).

 

REALITY

The right claims that the US needs to tap into the supply of oil located under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in order to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. They also claim the oil can be extracted without causing major damage to the refuge. Both of these claims are rubbish.

 

First, drilling in the ANWR will not reduce the US’ dependence on foreign oil by any significant amount. One estimate claims that the oil extracted from ANWR may decrease our dependence by 3-4%. Another site states that ANWR may give the US a 6-month supply of oil. So, we drill in the arctic and live off its riches for 6 months and then what? Go crawling back to Saudi Arabia? Is this really worth the potential damage to the ANWR?

 

The National Resources Defense Council presents a lot of very important information about the potential damage at ANWR as a result of the US’ drilling for oil. Oil producers already spill a tremendous about of crude oil every year in conjunction with the Trans-Alaskan pipeline, which could take centuries to be cleaned-up. However, “in the Arctic, the environmental damage from oil spills is more severe and lasts longer than in more temperate climates. Diesel fuel, for instance -- the most frequently spilled substance on the North Slope -- is acutely toxic to plants. Even after decades have passed, tundra vegetation has been unable to recover from diesel spills.” The Sierra Club also put out a report that backed up this statement and provided a very strong case for why legislation that allows for the drilling of oil in ANWR must be defeated in Congress.

What will it take to convince these neanderthals that the way to decrease our dependence on foreign oil sources is to reduce our use of oil, through conservation, efficiency and the development of alternative energy sources? And what in God's name will take to prove to the flat earth crowd that destroying plants and animals directly threatens human life? Not only that but oil dependence is bad economics.

 

 

MYTH: Illegal immigrants do not represent a cheap form of labor and are in reality a quite expensive form of labor for the United States. The US should not subsidize this labor.

 

But it is not “cheap labor.” It may be “cheap” to those who pay the wages, but for the rest of us it is clearly “subsidized” labor, as we taxpayers pick up the costs of education, health, and other municipal costs imposed by this workforce (Richard Lamm, “The High Cost of Cheap Labor,” Front Page Magazine, 4/5/05).

 

Illegal immigration today isn’t “cheap” labor, except to the employer. To the rest of us it is “subsidized labor,” where a few get the benefit and the rest of us pay. These costs ought to be obvious to all, but the myth of “cheap labor” and “jobs Americans won’t do” persists. It is hard to get an exact profile of the people who live in the underground economy, but the average family of illegal immigrants has 2 to 4 school-age kids. It costs U.S. taxpayers more than $7000 a child just to educate them in our public schools. Now no minimum wage workers, or even low wage workers, pay anywhere near enough in taxes to pay for even one child in school. Even if their parents were paying all federal and state taxes, Colorado’s estimated 30,000 school-age children of workers illegally in the U.S. impose gargantuan costs on other taxpayers (Lamm).

The health care cost of this “cheap” workforce is also significant and subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. The total cost of this “subsidized” labor is impossible to ascertain and difficult to even estimate, but it is immense and growing as our population of these workers grows. A few benefit, many pay (Lamm).

 

REALITY

Most of the illegal-immigrant-as-cheap-labor argument concentrates on the mom-and-pop businesses and individuals who hire illegal immigrants to work on their construction projects, work at their car washes, or act as their nannies. The more distressing trend, however, has been multi-national companies that have started to employ illegal immigrants. In a rather famous case, Wal-Mart employed illegal immigrants to clean its stores.

 

Regardless of who and where illegal immigrants are being employed, the larger question is whether they are damaging the US and making our social services system weaker. One claim is that illegal immigrants drive down wages for everyone. Is this really true? Which do you think has the larger impact in a small community where stores and establishments have an average retail wage of $12/hr—one car wash that employs 5 illegal immigrants for $3/hr or a newly opened Wal-Mart that employs 200+ (mostly) legal US citizens for $8/hr? Which of these establishments is most going to cause non-Wal-Mart retail establishments to cut its wages in order to compete with Wal-Mart?

 

The argument that cheap illegal immigrants cost the US more money, due to the health care and educational resources that they use, is faulty for another reason. What would happen if the car wash businesses, rich people with nannies, restaurants, estates that need gardeners, and the entire myriad of businesses across the country that rely on immigrant labor actually had to pay their employees living wages? The prices for all of these goods would go up. In the absence of being able to stop all employers, ranging from the larger retailer down to the individual home-owner, from paying illegal immigrants below-market wages, isn’t the least this country can do is to offer the children of these workers an education and trip to the doctor? Would people prefer these kids to be uneducated and later turn to drugs or crime? Wouldn’t this be worse than paying for the kids’ school books now?  

 

The other element of this argument is whether the illegal immigrants actually do directly have a negative economic impact on this country. The right’s argument is that illegal immigrants just take, take, take from our country’s limited social services. What about the money these workers put into the system but are unable to take out because of their questionable citizenship status? The New York Times reported on April 5 about this trend among illegal workers. These workers make decent, above minimum wage livings and pay a portion of their money into Social Security and Medicare each month. However, since they are not US citizens, they will not be entitled to receive Social Security disbursements when they turn 65, even though they have helped to fund the system. Is this fair? Or does it help to balance out the system? Many a sound economist has stated that most immigrant populations create wealth. It is immoral and hypocritical to pretend that our economy is not dependent on immigrant labor. It is a real moral sin to not grant citizens rights to those workers.