Michael Ryan's Mindless Opposition to New EPA Regulations

Here are some images that show the extent of global warming. The top picture is of Barrow, Alaska. The one on the left is from July 2006; the one on the right is from July 2007. The Bush administration classified this picture because it gave such obvious evidence of global warming. The Obama administration declassified it, and it's now part of the public domain. The bottom images are from NASA's earth observatory. Note that during the summer of 2008, the arctic ice cap almost completely melted and is much smaller than it was in the summer of 1999.

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Re: "Scary, suffocating regulation," from the December 10th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan mindlessly claims that the constitution forbids the government from regulating pollution, yet he cites no part of this document nor any court case that supports his argument. To put it bluntly, he is full of shit once more. If he was correct, there would be no Clean Air Act, no Clean Water Act, and no Environmental Protection Agency. For good measure, Mr. Ryan throws in the Declaration of Independence as another document that somehow outlaws government regulation of pollution. How ridiculous. The Declaration of Independence merely states the U.S. declaration of independence from England and has nothing to do with the rule of law.

Mr. Ryan is mindlessly closing his eyes, shutting down his brain, and pronouncing loyalty to the constitution and the Declaration of Independence. This is an incredibly weak rhetorical method of avoiding debate about a subject he's completely ignorant of.

He calls the EPA's move to regulate greenhouse gases as a "weapon to be used to advance what amounts to a socialist agenda..." There's that word again. Socialist. This is a clear example of more mindless namecalling.

He quotes an anonymous Obama administration source who stated that the move would be used to as a "gun against the head of Congress to exact global warming legislation favorable to the administration's left wing point of view." This is nonsense. There is no political point of view in science. Scientists urge that steps be taken to reduce global warming. This isn't based on political philosophy...it's based on what the science says.

And as usual, Mr. Ryan naively thinks that industry can solve the problem of global warming with "ingenuity, innovation, and entrepreneurship..." As if industry would ever voluntarily reduce pollution. What hogwash. If it wasn't for government regulations strictly enforced, our planet would be uninhabitable from pollution created by unchecked greedy businessmen.