I deliberately chose a provocative title to discuss a theory that surprises nearly everyone. Though full of many sincere and hard working people who are trying to make the world a cleaner and more human friendly place, I believe that most of the really big and well-funded non-profit organizations that claim to be working for the environment are really cleverly conceived profit centers for the establishment.
That is especially true for those groups that claim energy production as one of their main “issues”. There is a near unanimity of official positions among those groups – they are adamantly opposed to safe, emission-free nuclear energy and they vigorously advocate wind, solar and geothermal. Most admit that those sources are inherently less abundant, less reliable and cost more than traditional fuels. Their answer for overcoming those obstacles is to encourage people to do without certain popular products and services in an effort to use less energy to avoid the need to increase total energy supplies by building modern new facilities using “non-renewable” fuel sources. (Sarcastic Aside: Unless, of course, they are designed to burn ONLY “clean natural gas”. End sarcasm.)
Last weekend, I engaged in a fairly rapid fire email exchange on this very topic with a friend who shares some of my strong feelings against the use of industrial scale wind energy. He came at the shared issue from a different angle, blaming what he considers to be an illogical effort to support wind on the political strength of “clueless” Environmentalists. I thought it was an opportunity to share my theory one more time. My own situation during the exchange was appropriate – it was a gorgeous spring day here foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains, so my wife and I were out for an exploratory drive in our new home region. We keep a “toy” in the garage for such occasions.

In other words, while writing brief comments about “Environmentalism” I was out thoroughly enjoying the beauties of an amazing slice of the environment (which, for me, includes the contributions of creative humans) with my best friend. I thought you might enjoy reading our conversation. At his request, I have decided to call my correspondent “J”; his comments are in blue while mine are in black. I made a few editorial changed to my part of the thread – after all, I was originally using my thumbs to type.