On the Environment, Capitalism & Reality

As anyone who has read this blog more than once knows, I own an environmental consulting firm. Mostly centered on remediation and training but as any consultant would tell you, I'll do anything that remotely deals with the environment.

That said, there's a big difference between someone in the environmental field and an environmentalist. I'm not an environmentalist but one that believes in sane environmental policy that will actually, well, protect the environment while not forcing industry to pack up and head for foreign climes.

That also being said, I'm also a capitalist and as such will pursue any work that will make me money. So I'm a bit torn on the Obama administrations sudden, yet expected leftward shift on the environment and environmental issues. I mean, it's a niche that could be highly lucrative but also one that could force good American companies to bolt south or north while leaving good American workers in the lurch. I befuddled and perplexed but as a good conservative and capitalist, I have to pursue the money.

So, the Obama EPA has decided to go balls to the wall and declare "greenhouse gases" a threat to human health that could lead to very strict emissions standards:

By Jim Tankersley WASHINGTON — The federal government's declaration Friday that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health marked a first step toward likely regulation of the tailpipe emissions of cars, power plants and factories that scientists blame for global warming.

The decision by the Environmental Protection Agency was a clear break with the Bush administration, which downplayed concerns about global warming, and set the stage for a possible national standard for vehicle emissions and other federal efforts to curb such pollution.

The Obama administration already is developing a plan to make the U.S. auto fleet cleaner by regulating carbon dioxide emissions from tailpipes. But the move Friday also gives it the capacity to either regulate larger emissions producers such as power plants or prod Congress to set limits, which the administration would prefer.

Now that, of course, flies in the face of this, which says that we are not, in fact, experiencing global warming in the frightful way Al Gore and the Obama EPA want us to believe. A quandary to be sure.

So how to play this; I mean, I could use the administrations actions as cause to scare potential clients into compliance or I could leave this idiocy alone and concentrate on my core business.

What to do?

I guess I'll do what any good capitalist would do. It's ironic that the socialistic Obama administration will help this enemy who is both capitalistic and a global warming sceptic.

Thanks dude.