The UN is in the world government business, make no mistake about it. And our current domestic regime is more than happy to embrace and comply with UN edicts – oh how they love to embrace and comply.

Planetary Citizens,  meet your new Uncle Sam. And prepare to embrace, comply and bleed, with:

ECO TAXES

Once the richest country on earth, America is hopelessly broke. So it prints trillions at will — each fresh buck devaluing the previous one. Now, the most gargantuan, wasteful, polluting, unsustainable machine ever created – the U.S. Government – must drill for fresh revenue. But where? Greeniacs have the answer. Tax our every breath, because we are all greenhouse gas producers/polluters and therefore responsible for global warming/climate change/Gaia’s suffering.

We must financially atone for our eco sin–living.

One dare not complain. You won’t cooperate and help SAVE THE PLANET? We’ll seize your business/assets/life.

Politicians eye enviro issues like bus depot pimps scoping farm girls – which ones can be whored out and for how much money?

Eco taxes will provide an all-encompassing reason to siphon our paychecks.

A plastic “bag tax” (already law in Seattle) is proposed by the Los Angeles County Board of Super-imbeciles until an all-out ban goes into effect. (Why Super-imbeciles?  Because only super imbeciles could dream up and promote – at taxpayer expense — a 40-hour “Ban on Murder” [April, 2008] during which time there were three homicides and a dozen attempts.)

Meanwhile, Angelenos will continue to endure drive-by shootings, a school system that’s a national joke and Gordian traffic. But they’ll be safe from plastic bags. (No word yet on banning plastic boobs or plastic people.)

Other California municipalities have banned Styrofoam cups and food containers in government buildings – even though Styrofoam is recyclable and plastic-coated cardboard – which will replace all that Styrofoam – is not.

Maybe we all need to carry our own food utility belts equipped with Swiss-army knife and a spork. A tin cup and a plate for mush will come in handy, too. Blinged, portable tableware jouncing around Kardashian hips will make it fashionable and sexy. Restaurants should work like mess halls – line up for your dollop of slop.

The People’s Republic of San Francisco wants to inspect residents’ trash bins to be sure they’re recycling properly. If done incorrectly, they’ll be fined – up to $1,000 and/or lose their garbage pickup service.

Meanwhile, San Francisco has the most acute homeless problem of any city in the U.S. Its streets remain a gauntlet of unfortunates. It doesn’t look as if the City by the Bay is too concerned about them, but goddessdammit, they’re gonna lick the recycling problem.

Maybe the city can give the homeless jobs and badges and let them do the inspections. They know a lot more about trash bins than  politicians.

There will be additional taxes on gasoline and home heating oil, gas and electric. How about taxing the land your home sits on? The structure is blocking the earth, which might otherwise be covered with 0₂ producing vegetation. It’s already under consideration in some municipalities.

Why not mandate all new vehicles be manufactured with GPS that beams your mileage to the federal government so your every trip becomes a toll trip. It’s a great way to keep tabs on citizens.  Insurers already offer  discounts for those willing to spy on themselves with on-board digi-tattlers.

Doesn’t every mode of travel create pollution? Prepare for eco-surcharges on trains, planes, ferries, taxis, roller coasters, toboggans – if it moves, they’ll tax it.

Greeniacs also want to impose taxes on radio frequencies – (cockeyed rationale being the atmosphere they travel through is global property and frequencies are pollution) – like the ones used by your satellite dish, remote units, cell phone, garage-door opener, kids’ walkie-talkies etc., etc. Ditto “ocean use,” whatever that may be.

Your body-size and level of activity will be used to compute the volume of C0₂ and methane you produce. Playing tennis? That will be an additional $10.00 please, to offset your increased CO₂ production. Having the Grande Chimichanga at La Cantina? Watch for a methane offset surcharge on your tab.

How much more authority will Uncle Sam wield when demanding your money not for your safety, but the safety of the planet!?!? Backed up by IRS muscle, he’ll take whatever he damn pleases.

The Antelope Valley is a vast patch of desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, and a segment of the few rugged individualists who live out there increasingly are finding themselves the targets of armed raids from local code enforcement agents, who’ve assembled into task forces called Nuisance Abatement Teams (NATs).

The plight of the Valley’s desert dwellers made regional headlines when county officials ordered the destruction of Phonehenge: a towering, colorful castle constructed out of telephone poles by retired phone technician Kim Fahey. Fahey was imprisoned and charged with several misdemeanors.

But Fahey is just one of many who’ve been targeted by the NATs, which were assembled at the request of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich in 2006. LA Weekly reporter Mars Melnicoff wrote an in-depth article in which she exposed the county’s tactic of badgering residents with minor, but costly, code violations until they face little choice but to vacate the land altogether.

“They’re picking on the the people who are the most defenseless and have the least resources,” says Melnicoff.

Reason.tv collaborated with Melnicoff to talk with some of the NAT’s targets, such as retired veteran Joey Gallo, who might face homelessness if he’s forced to leave his house, and local pastor Oscar Castaneda, who says he’s already given up the fight and is in the process of moving off the land he and his wife have lived on for 22 years. And, while Antonovich declined an interview, we did catch up with him at a public meeting in order to ask the big question at the center of all this: Why the sudden enforcement of these codes against people living in the middle of the desert, who seemingly are affecting no one?

Writer-Producers: Zach Weissmueller and Tim Cavanaugh. Associate Producer: Mars Melnicoff. Camera: Alex Manning and Weissmueller; edited by Weissmueller.

Approximately 9:48.

Music by Audionautix.com.

Visit Reason.tv for downloadable versions of this and all our videos, and subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube Channel to receive automatic notification when new content is posted.

Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a chemical used to harden plastic so it can be used in the countless ways it helps improve countless millions of lives. As it is a chemical, it was only a matter of time before the extremist environmentalists started talking of the “dangers” of it to human beings. Ironically, charges of this nature are always led by people who have no concern of human beings. They are the same type of people who effectively banned the mosquito killing agent DDT. That ban has led to millions of avoidable deaths around the world from malaria. While the banning of BPA wouldn’t lead to deaths, it’s banning wouldn’t save any lives either. But it would put a lot of people out of work.

But work, jobs, livelihoods of individuals has no place in the environmental extremist agenda. They’ve replaced what was known to kill malaria carrying mosquitos with nets to sleep under. So instead of eliminating the problem they’ve reduced the problem…during sleep hours. Malaria’s largest number of victims are infants and children who don’t have the wherewithal to swat mosquitos away when they land on them, and since no one can live their whole life in a net, their exposure risk is high.

The book from which the religion of modern environmentalism sprang is “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson. In many ways it is the Bible of that movement. And even though it has been discredited, the “Silent Spring” model still serves as the modus operandi of the environmentalist cult. Ban first, ask questions later. That’s what they were trying to do with BPA.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Utopia…

While environmentalists have always used their favorite tactic to “discredit” contrary information, their “go-to” arrow has been stolen from their quiver in the BPA fight.

To an environmentalist, the ability to attack the motives of those questioning their statements is their best weapon. Just look at Al Gore and the global warming/climate change debate. People dependent upon government grants to continue their studies find results that A) find results that are in line with those who publicize their “studies,” and B) will justify those grants and ensure the continued “need” for more. It’s almost as though crackheads got grants to study crack smoking and they miraculously get results that require more study. But since the end result of these studies is always the government getting more power to regulate people’s lives, it’s like the government is also a crack dealer and people trying to stop the cycle are the unwanted interventionists.

This circular dynamic was blown out of the water when a new study by the crack dealer, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), found that BPA is harmless. While other large studies found the same thing, those were quickly attacked as being funded by “Big BPA” or some such nonsense. They’ve even helped expose the media bias inherent in these sorts of matters. But now the government itself has completed a large study, and duplicated the results in two separate labs, you’d think the fight would be over. It’s not.

The hardest thing to fight is dogma.

The ban bandwagon still rolls on, without even so much as a passing mention in the “news” stories about the new government findings.

So it seems we do now know what the environmentalists will do when their orthodoxy is proven false…ignore it altogether. But don’t you.

A federal ban, once pushed by Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA), is all but dead…for now anyway. But that hasn’t stopped states, counties and cities across the country from moving forward with them. Is your local government moving to ban it? What will be next? What will it cost us in jobs, more money for “approved” products and liberty?

The environmentalists have an insatiable desire to ban what they, despite the evidence, don’t like. It didn’t start with BPA, and it won’t end with BPA…unless we end it.

When Dwayne Whitney started his trucking business decades ago he had only one truck. Today he has eighteen and 20 employees. But that’s about to change.

“The State of California says my trucks are killing people,” says Whitney. “What do you say to that?”

In a few years, new air quality regulations approved by the California Air Resources Board will render Whitney’s entire fleet illegal.

“New CARB rules are putting me out of business,” he says.

CARB claims that diesel particulates, a type of pollution emitted from buses and trucks, contributes to 2,000 premature deaths in California each year. But UCLA epidemiologist Dr. James Enstrom says the number should be closer to zero.

In 2005 Enstrom authored an extensive study that found no relationship between diesel particulates and premature deaths. He says his study, as well as other evidence that agrees with it, have been ignored by an agency bent on passing ever more stringent regulations regardless of their effect on California’s economy.

Enstrom blew the whistle on CARB for, among other things, failing to publicize that the lead author of the study that was used to justify the new regulations falsified his education history (he purchased his PhD from an online diploma mill).

But UCLA didn’t come to Enstrom’s defense. In fact, officials informed him that, after 34 years at the university, he was out of a job.

“The environmental regulation machine in powerful in California,” says Adam Kissel of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which is defending Enstrom in the fight to keep his job. “When Dr. Enstrom went up against that machine he was retaliated against.”

A hearing that begins on April 4 will determine whether Dr. Enstrom keeps his job, and the final decision rests with UCLA Chancellor Gene Block.

Says Kissel, “If Dr. Enstrom loses his job because he exercised his academic freedom, then it’s a message to other researchers that you’d better not rock the boat because you might be next.”

Approximately 9 minutes.

“The Green Regulation Machine” is written and produced by Ted Balaker. Field Producer: Paul Detrick; Camera: Alex Manning, Hawk Jensen, Josh Swain, Austin Bragg.

Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions of this and all our videos and subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new content is posted.

Approximately 85-90% of the water from this primary source has been shut off to the Central Valley.   The smelt is a fish so insignificant that no one other than the Bezerkely-enviro-wackos and some local fisherman have heard about this tiny fish.

The smelt is fish that is native to California and, for the most part, is known to fisherman simply as “bait”.   The California enviros’ zeal to increase the population of smelt has led to a terrible federal, legal decision that shut down the water to thousands of farmers in the Central Valley; the nation’s largest and most productive farm land.    Thousands of farmers there are suffering with unemployment over 20%, scores of farms have been lost and tens of thousands of agricultural workers are now without jobs.   If California didn’t have enough economic problems, you can add shooting yourself in the foot.  The inmates are now officially running the asylum.   If we needed a poster for enviro-insanity it would be the promotion of the lowly smelt over the interests of: farmers, food production, food prices, jobs and California families.

Fortunately, the GOP is now leading the charge is to cut funding for the programs that help the smelt at the expense of the farmers.  This could lead to turning on the tap to the farmers.  But California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is fighting the farmers; leading the opposition in the Senate and choosing to stand by the smelt over people.    The Pacific Legal Foundation, (PLF) a non-profit public interest group has sided with the farmers was recently successful in obtaining a new federal district court decision to force the state to re-examine its justification for turning off the spigot.

On Tuesday, the PLF made their case in front of the Ninth “Circus” Court of Appeals hoping for permanent relief.  They argued that the Commerce Clause doesn’t allow the feds to regulate intra-state species (species that don’t cross state lines) with no commercial sales.  Let’s just hope the people prevail over the bait, however, with the insane Ninth Circus Court no outcome is certain.

As the EPA readies itself to enforce a handful of rules limiting carbon emissions – a backdoor Cap and Trade policy known as the “Tailoring Rule,” which severely and arbitrarily limits the amount of greenhouse gas emissions many industries are now allowed to produce – the National Journal sleepily wonders what the effect these rules will have on the affected industries.

There are a few responses that take a theoretical approach to the question, but National Journal and it’s guests don’t have to go far to look for a real answer, supported by research. According to a study published recently by the National Alliance of Forest Owners, the Tailoring Rules will have a definite – and immediately felt – negative impact on the economy.

A newly released economic impact study finds that the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Prevention of Significant Deterioration and Title V Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule” jeopardizes over 130 renewable energy projects, between 11,000 and 26,000 green jobs, and $18 billion in capital investment across the country. The risk of reduced capacity also could prevent as many as 30 states from meeting national renewable energy targets.

In addition, the disappearance of the biomass industry, for example, would cut into the US energy supply, sapping over 5000 megawatts of renewable electricity generation from the US grid and eliminating over 50 million tons of wood biomass from the energy marketplace. And that finding follows on the heels of another study, imperil 134 biomass power generators slated to open in the coming years, depriving those states of thousands of jobs. Specific examples of EPA-related delay are not hard to find, either.

Obviously, the answer to National Journal’s question is clear.

These are lofty and laudable ambitions. But it seems that Mr. Obama’s regulatory bureaucrats haven’t gotten the memo. For example, consider the counter-productive impact of their efforts on agriculture.

As any shopper knows, food prices this past year have been rising faster than the overall rate of inflation. “Fears of a global food crisis swept the world’s commodity markets as prices for staples such as corn, rice and wheat spiraled after the U.S. government warned of ‘dramatically’ lower supplies,” the Financial Times reported in early October. “There is growing concern among countries about continuing volatility and uncertainty in food markets,” said World Bank president Robert Zoellick later that month. “These concerns have been compounded by recent increases in grain prices.”

Confronting this looming food-supply crisis is the American farmer. His productivity is such that the United States is the world’s largest agricultural exporter, with $108.7 billion in farm products shipped abroad in 2010. Helping him increase the supply of agricultural products is the key to addressing both rising food prices and global shortages. His productivity is also critical to our country’s broader economic recovery.

So, you would think that the administration’s apparatchiks would be doing whatever they can to remove the regulatory impediments that farmers face. But you would be wrong. Consider several ways in which federal regulators are threatening agricultural productivity, both directly and indirectly.

Inflating Energy Costs. The White House and its allies in Congress have declared open warfare on carbon-based energy sources, such as oil, coal, and natural gas. After an abortive effort to ram a “cap and trade” carbon-tax measure through Congress, the administration now seeks to impose the same anti-energy regimen via edicts by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“The Obama administration is expected to roll out a major greenhouse gas policy for power plants and refineries,” Politico reported, “signaling it won’t back off its push to fight climate change in the face of mounting opposition on Capitol Hill.”

In addition to EPA actions, the administration’s Interior Department has cited the Gulf oil spill as its rationalization to impose a seven-year moratorium on drilling for new oil offshore. This, coupled with its continuing ban on oil exploration in Alaska’s ANWR region and elsewhere, has severely squeezed energy supplies, helping to drive up late-December crude oil prices to over $90 per barrel.

The administration’s war on oil and coal is hiking the fuel and electric bills of farmers and consumers alike. When EPA regulations cause energy costs to soar, food becomes far more expensive to produce and transport, both here and abroad. The impact of these onerous regulations shows up not just in our grocery bills, but also in a reduced global supply of food—the “food-supply crisis” that worried experts are predicting.

Regulating Farmers to Death. In addition to high energy costs, administration bureaucrats confront farmers with many more-direct regulatory obstacles.

On September 23, Senator Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark.) chaired a hearing of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry about “the impact of EPA regulation on agriculture.” She and a panel of speakers recited numerous burdens that the agency has foisted upon farmers: irrational “spray drift” pesticide rules; “wetlands” regulations that place even bone-dry fields off-limits to agricultural use; orders to build retaining walls around fuel tanks in the middle of fields and pastures; consistent bias toward environmentalists in Clean Water Act lawsuits; proposed ambient air-quality standards that would impose impossible dust-reduction requirements on farmers; contradictory orders from a host of federal agencies concerning compliance with the Endangered Species Act; and on it goes.

Among the most intrusive regulatory nightmares faced by farmers are those threatening their use of a host of vital herbicides and pesticides. This is part of a much broader EPA campaign against man-made chemicals as such, in which the agency is working hand-in-hand with radical environmentalists. Banning these agro-chemicals would cause catastrophic crop losses, sharply reduce the food supply, force crop prices to skyrocket, and threaten the world with famine.

Attacking Biotechnology. A similar but more subtle federal assault is underway against genetically modified (or “GM”) crops. This is the fruit of a Supreme Court decision that endorsed a legal claim by “organic growers,” and backed by environmentalists, that GM alfalfa might “cross-pollinate” with organic alfalfa, thus causing economic damage to organic farmers. As a result of the decision, GM alfalfa now must clear a host of regulatory obstacles before it may be planted commercially.

Building on the Court ruling, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it is weighing strict restrictions on GM seed production, as well as the imposition of geographic and isolation distances for genetically modified alfalfa cultivation. The contemplated regulations, as characterized by USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack, would represent a compromise among all the parties—a commitment “to finding solutions that support not only the developers and users of biotechnology products, but growers who rely on purity in the non-genetically engineered seed supply.”

While this sounds reasonable, it would require GM alfalfa growers in two dozen states to “maintain isolation distances of 5 miles between GT alfalfa and conventional [organic] alfalfa.” That limitation would be devastating for many growers—and not just those who cultivate alfalfa. USDA rules on alfalfa cultivation would almost certainly expand to cover other bioengineered crops, which now include the vast bulk of the nation’s corn, soy, and cotton production. These rules would become part of what the USDA calls “a broader coexistence policy for all biotech crops.”

Once again, federal regulations would cause dramatic declines in crop yields, much higher grocery prices, and further threats to the world’s food supply.

The cumulative effects of higher energy costs and harsh federal restrictions on farmers—all stemming from the administration’s regulatory zeal—give the lie to President Obama’s proclaimed desires to expand exports, increase employment, and pull America out of the deepest recession since World War II.

This Christmas season, shoppers struggle to pay rising grocery and heating bills, farmers worry whether federal bureaucrats will let them remain in business, and desperate people in faraway lands fear that they may not have enough to eat. Perhaps they should address their concerns to The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20500. Maybe they can persuade the president to send that memo to his legions of regulators.