When I read of the plan to put a wind farm in the former
landfill at Fresh Kills, I had mixed emotions. On the one hand,
I've always found the huge windmills in Atlantic City beautifully
mesmerizing, and on an aesthetic level a wind farm is certainly
an improvement on a dump. On the other hand, windmills, like
solar panels, are just another useless "clean energy"
source.
Clean energy joins "organic," "going green,"
"global warming," and "free-range chicken" on
the roster of politically correct terms that trigger in me an
overwhelming desire to roll my eyes and sigh. I can't begin to
count the short-lived bandwagons the gullible have jumped on in
the past few decades - Hollywood celebrities quickest among them.
The good news is the growing number of intelligent and savvy
debunkers who are adept at setting things straight with the
truth.
Earlier this year, I met a cofounder of Greenpeace, Patrick
Moore, and found him to be the kind of environmentalist the world
needs. In response to a new documentary co-produced by Leonardo
DiCaprio, "The 11th Hour," Mr. Moore wrote an essay for
the Vancouver Sun under the headline "An Inconvenient
Fact." In it, Mr. Moore trashes the anti-forestry scare
tactics of the film promoted by Mr. DiCaprio and the founder of
Forest Ethics, Tzeporah Berman, and writes: "As a lifelong
environmentalist, I say trees can solve many of the world's
sustainability challenges. Forestry is the most sustainable of
all the primary industries that provide us with energy and
materials. Rather than cutting fewer trees and using less wood,
DiCaprio and Berman ought to promote the growth of more trees and
the use of more wood. Trees are the most powerful concentrators
of carbon on Earth. Through photosynthesis, they absorb CO2 ,
from the atmosphere and store it in their wood, which is nearly
50% carbon by weight."
Of course, Mr. Moore is a bona fide scientist - the only one
associated with Greenpeace during his years there. Mr. DiCaprio
is hardly an expert on climatology. Likewise, Vice President Gore
is a politician who earned a D in natural science at Harvard,
according to the Washington Post, yet he is regarded as the
arbiter on global warming. Who gets the most attention from the
public?
The fog of deceit, however, may be lifted by the efforts of Thor
Halvorssen, founder of the Moving Picture Institute, the
TriBe-Ca-based film company that is producing documentaries
debunking junk science and liberal bias in the halls of learning.
Mr. Halvorssen was recently described in a New York Times article
as a "maverick mogul, proudly politically incorrect."
Perhaps it's easy for the mainstream press to label him that way,
but I found him to be more a seeker of truth. Mr. Halvorssen was
born in Venezuela and is of Norwegian heritage on his paternal
side. His mother is distantly related to Simon Bolivar, and I was
delighted to hear him pronounce my first name correctly. (It has
four syllables.)
One MPI documentary, "Mine Your Own Business," captures
how radical environmentalists were suppressing progress in some
of the world's poorest areas. An Irish journalist, Phelim
McAleer, filmed the piece with honesty and integrity, allowing
viewers to form their own opinion.
More intriguing, and a must-see for parents sending children off
to college, is the brilliant and frightening "Indoctrinate
U," Evan Coyne Maloney's eye-opening documentary about the
repressive climate of academia in American colleges. I had
first-hand knowledge in it from my daughter's experience at the
College of Staten Island, where one of her instructors often
strayed from the subject of American history to bash President
Bush and demand students read nothing but the Times.
Mr. Halvorssen informed me about some upcoming MPI projects that
left me full of hope. This is not about being politically
incorrect but about love for a free society. I urge those of like
mind to visit the MPI Web site, www.thempi.org, to learn about
the grant program for filmmakers and its mission, or simply to
donate. Mr. Halvorssen is a prime example of how the foreign-born
often readily recognize the gift of freedom that so many of us
take for granted. When I asked him if he had a motto to live by,
he answered: "I am in love with the American experiment and
how it can liberate individuals who wish to take advantage of
their talents so that they can create and produce. Most other
places in the world are not like that. ... America is simply
magnificent."