Beware of Environmental Overreach

Polling in Britain indicate strong opposition to increased taxes to combat global climate change. Government efforts to increase revenues in the form of environmental tariffs no doubt played a key role in Labour's humiliating third place finish in yesterday's council elections. Among the casualties appear to London's controversial Mayor Ken Livingstone, also known as Red Ken for his leftist bent and most recently his London Congestion Tax (see Top Gear clip earlier in the week).

Greedy governments and overeager greenies do a disservice to their cause to check corporate excess which is indeed an important one. The extreme environmentalist utopia of a pre-industrialized society is a farcical as it was when conservatives and agrarian socialists teetered on romantically about the loss of pastoral England and other rubbish. Likewise, energy companies and corporations have proven themselves time and time again willing to pollute our air and water until they choke they very life out of us. In case we have forgotten, China and India are there to remind us.

Is it too much for either side to approach us honestly and responsibly?