Taking a page from the rabid teabagging right, Steven Milloy launched into an angry tirade during a speech he gave on Monday to promote his book, Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Ruin Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them, at the Heritage Foundation.
Calling environmentalists doom-mongering “communists” intent on scaring the public into accepting full-throated government control, Milloy warned his audience that the “greens” are “burning with an impatient zeal to begin dictating by force of law your mobility, diet, home energy usage, the size of your house, how far you can travel and even how many children you can have.”
Milloy, who is certainly no stranger to these pages, went on to dispense the usual tired skeptic talking points and incendiary rhetoric, showcasing the swagger and ill-informedness that has made him such an effective tobacco and energy industry shill.
Given his admittedly strong academic chops, it is impressive just how little actual information Milloy was able to squeeze into his one-hour talk – not that this should come as much of a surprise, as anybody who has had the misfortune of seeing him in action will tell you. Campus Progress’ Sarah Karlin had a good take on his speech, noting – tellingly – that Milloy “rarely relied on scientific evidence to refute environmentalists’ claims” (perhaps an understatement).
Milloy also relied on the well-worn skeptic tactic of citing numbers without the proper references. But then what do you expect from someone who can say that “40 years ago before the Clean Air Act was enacted there was no scientific data to show that air quality in the United States, even in New York City was some general public health problem” with a straight face (Los Angeles says hi)? Or that water is “the most abundant substance on Earth. We can’t run out.” Tell that to Australia, California and other states that have already witnessed their fair share of crippling droughts.
As for his book, it has already received the approving imprimatur of no less august a climate “luminary” than EU and Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who lauded Milloy for showing how “to avoid the environmentalists’ vision of our future.”
Other fellow believers, including Steve Forbes and Larry Kudlow, called it a “must-read for anyone who wants to keep America on that [free market capitalism] path and away from Soviet-style command-and-control environmentalism” and “a must-read for those interested in keeping America free and prosperous.” The Deep Economy, this ain’t.
The irony of his entire shtick – using emotionally charged language to go after greens’ emotionally charged language – is certainly lost on him. Of course, it’s hard to take Milloy seriously when he’s still proudly wielding the “Junkman” moniker. Or when he fails to abide by his own self-serving standards. As Karlin wrily remarks:
“Milloy may claim that “greens” are using their supposed environmental concern to advance a hidden political and social agenda, but it appears that Milloy is using his opposition to the greens, not to protect Americans’ liberties, but to pad his own pocket.”
