Credit Where it is Due

I make a point to read many of the angry left blogs; it pays to know what the adversaries are up to.

Mostly, they’re up to bloviating, at best, or, more often, committing the electronic equivalent of bellowing. They rarely even so much as acknowledge the humanity of their adversaries, let alone that dissent from their leftist orthodoxy might, conceivably, be based upon serious thought. I sometimes wonder: where is the leftist George Will or Bill Buckley, an erudite, competent writer who skewers his adversary with logic rather than invective?

So, when one confronts an intellectually honest argument which actually arrives at a totally unexpected – that is to say, correct – conclusion, on an otherwise usually hysterical blog, one must bestow credit where same is due.

On Bluejersey.com, one of the contributors holds forth on global warming. As I noted here a few weeks back, while the science on the causes is not as settled as the proponents aver, and the consequences of same not necessarily disastrous, it behooves us, as CONSERVATIVES – those who believe in conservation – to act with due regard to the possibility and take reasonable precautions. This is especially true when same can be effected relatively economically.

Among the global warming solutions the contributor advances: nuclear power.

(!) Wow. Who would have suspected that?

Kudos to the author. As a general rule, self-appointed "environmentalists" tend to oppose nuclear power based upon wholly speculative possibilities of harm. (Those harms are not impossible, but if the risks associated with global warming are considered essentially certain, same must be considered against the purely hypothetical risks associated with building more nukes). To discover common sense in a wholly unanticipated location is truly refreshing. Although they’re probably too young to remember Tocks Island, perhaps that will be next on their list of relatively benign power projects NJ might pursue.

While most projects NJ might pursue are purely symbolic, having an infinitesimal effect, to the extent that they can be undertaken at little cost, why not move ahead?

For instance, NJ could eliminate all motor fuels taxes on ethanol sales. It could eliminate the sales tax on vehicles with a specified fuel efficiency. It might look into a general exception from local zoning regulations for personal wind turbines (called turbis). It might urge its congressional representatives to eliminate the Hummer tax break, as well as tariffs and quotas on imported ethanol – indeed to completely open up the market to foreign competition. (Iowa might not like that, but it would be good for us AND for relatively poor Carribean countries, which have a good climate for sugar cane production. It would also be pleasing, eventually, to see Chavez and the Iranians drink their oil). We could urge NJ transit to CUT fares, provide free parking at rail stations, and provide more frequent service to more locations (perhaps supplementing heavy rail with lighter, smaller trains, etc.) In larger towns, consider ultra light rail services, preferably connecting with existing heavy and light surface rail.

On a perhaps more controversial note from a conservative – and probably requiring a federal solution – establish a minimum price for gasoline, essentially forbidding its sale for less than (say) $2 per gallon. We’re already accustomed to that price and there’s little price competition among stations now anyway. If we’re successful in reducing demand, or even threaten to succeed, the price of oil will decrease – either as a function of demand or because the Saudis, viewing the threat, reduce prices to destroy the ethanol industry – and it simply will not do go through all the trouble, only to see the effort wasted. A minimum price also has the salutary effect of not being a tax, thereby not providing government with more of our money to waste. Better the money go to Exxon than to Pelosi.

From NJ’s perspective, it requires leadership and vision, a commodity pathetically absent from the political leadership over the course of the past 30 years or so. It requires a leader with a firm idea of where he wants NJ to be, and ideas about how to get there.

But if the right – to wit, me – and the suddenly sensible left, can agree on a few basic steps, such as more nukes, there might just be some basis for a start after all.

Feel Good Economics 101

The illogic of the supporters of minimum wage increases never fails to surprise. Consider the puff piece in The New York Times comparing the experiences in Washington – which increased the minimum wage to highest in the nation levels – with those of Idaho, which prudently permits (relative) freedom to prevail.

While admitting that prices need to increase to pay for higher wages paid predominantly to teenagers, the result has not been economic devastation. The effect has been the families who wish to dine out pay more so that teenagers can make more.

The reporter notes:

"Business owners say they have had to increase prices somewhat to keep up. But both states are among the nation’s leaders in the growth of jobs and personal income, suggesting that an increase in the minimum wage has not hurt the overall economy."

No one ever said it would, as the effect of a higher minimum wage upon professionals, financial services, etc., is essentially nil. That is, a higher minimum wage doesn’t hurt the economy if, in a tight labor market, no one actually earns it.

Of course, it contributes to the higher cost of living generally. Pizza’s more expensive. But not such that most people notice.

One business owner, who once criticized the annual hikes (during a recession), now doesn’t care.
"If you look 10 years down the road, we will probably have no minimum wage jobs on this side of the border, and lots of higher-income jobs."

Translation: in a tight labor market, essentially no one ever makes the minimum wage, because competition for labor drives their wages up.

Or, alternatively, their jobs simply go away. Over time, businesses that can find a way to automate to cut costs by doing so and some positions simply go the way of the dodo, driven into extinction because their value to the enterprise simply doesn’t warrant the expense of the hiring.

Consider the movie Back to the Future. Marty arrives in 1955 and sees a car pull into a service station. Instantly, four employees rush to the car. One cleans the windshield, one pumps the gas, one checks the oil, one checks the tires. Of course, each one of them probably made $.25 an hour. What do you suppose people who fill those jobs make today?

If you answered "nothing", go to the head of the class: those jobs simply don’t exist any more. It became too expensive to provide that service. To the Left, that's probably a Good Thing; better that a job not exist at all than that it pay less than they believe appropriate.

I spent many years working in the fast food industry: Nathan’s, Jack in the Box, McDonald’s, Burger King. Of the hundreds of people with whom I worked, maybe 6 were over 25. At McD’s, during a typical lunch rush, as many as 20 kids manned various stations. Today, the McD’s located in the same mall gets by with about 5. That which was formerly a labor intensive undertaking is now much more mechanized. The people who work there may be better off, but there are 75% fewer jobs.

Minimum wage laws represent the triumph of ideology over evidence. They’re also the epitome of feel good legislation. They benefit the working poor essentially not at all, unless a suburban teen with a gas payment to support counts as "poor". And they indisputably destroy jobs.

By way of example, when NJ passed an increased minimum wage a few years back, the Agriculture Transition Policy Group warned that its effect on NJ agriculture could be devastating. It reported that when the minimum wage last increased, the State taxpayers had to cough up million to subsidize local farmers to keep them afloat economically.

The CBO reported that if all workers making between the old minimum wage and that just passed by the House had, instead, received the higher levy, a mere 15% of the additional wages would have been paid to families earning below the federal poverty level. Conclusion: most of the increased wages are, in fact, paid to relatively middle class teens.

Liberals like to employ governmental mandates to demonstrate how much they care about poor folk. One writer on a blog – why I read this stuff puzzles me – avers that:

"No one who works 40+ hours a week should be hungry, live in squalor, drive a wreck, decided whether to eat or pay the bills, etc."

Nice sentiment. And how is that person well-served if, instead of having a low paying job (flipping burgers), he has no job at all? Or, back to NJ agriculture; how is someone who works hard all day picking veggies at low wages profited if that business closes because its costs are simply too high? Anyone who doesn’t think this happens simply isn’t paying attention.

If the forces of economic illiteracy really believed that minimum wage laws could magically raise the poor from their unfortunate circumstances, they wouldn’t pussyfoot around with a paltry $7.15 per hour. What say you to $10? How about $20? Once one accepts the principle that it’s somehow "immoral" to pay a particular wage – that is, the wage that the position is actually worth – why settle for a wage that keeps people who earn it perpetually poor? Who can live in NJ on $286 per week? Heck, why not mandate that EVERYONE earn $50K? If one rejects the notion that free people should be able to take a job at whatever rate of pay they can command – when one believes that government must "protect" the people from the consequences of their own voluntary decisions – and similarly believes that wages can be increased without consequences throughout the economy, why not go all the way? End poverty tomorrow through governmental fiat!! (The scary thing is that some on the left actually think this would work.)

Will higher pay for low end jobs spell economic ruin? Of course not. In the short run, it will increase prices a bit, which, of course, disproportionately impacts those on the bottom of the economic ladder, but most of us won’t notice much. But, inexorably, as the minimum wage increases, services filled by low wage workers will, increasingly, become mechanized. (How many stores now offer "self check out"? EZ Pass only makes sense when the people taking tolls start costing more than the tolls they take.) Five, ten, fifteen years down the line, many of the services we presently take for granted will no longer exist. Supermarkets once employed people whose sole function was to bag groceries. In the not too distant future, us old codgers will regale our grandkids with tales of the good ol’ days when supermarkets actually employed cashiers.

Props for Hizonor

NJ Governors -- of both parties -- boast a long tradition of high-handedness, arrogance, imperiousness, or simply outright contempt for the Legislature. But today’s gubernatorial performance set a new record for insult, whether intended or incidental.

The State of the State must, by constitution, be delivered to the Legislature. Today, Hizonor used the Legislature as little more than a backdrop, props for his speech, seating the Members BEHIND him, then delivering his speech in a voice barely above a mumble. Most of the audience constitutionally entitled to hear the message could make out little, if any, of the Governor’s talk. Two Members, justifiably frustrated (by both the style and the substance -- or what they could make out of it) walked out.

Perhaps this represented nothing more than almost unconscionable thoughtlessness. Or, perhaps, the Governor intended the slight.

In either case, shame on Speaker Roberts and Senate President Codey for permitting the Members of a coordinate branch of government to be treated with such callous disregard for the equal dignity due the Legislature.

Capital Punishment

PoliticsNJ.com recently named the founder of Bluejersey.com as the "politician of the year". I like to keep an eye on what the opposition is up to, so I read the posts, from time to time. Alas, many of same demonstrate the same "intellectual rigor" displayed on many angry left blogs, ala Dailykos: long on invective and short on intellect. For a site founded by a guy PNJ labels as "summa smart", many of the posts are magna cum dumb.

Take the latest blurb, commenting on the report of the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission arrives under the heading "Republican Blood Lust, Fear and Smear". Pretty strong stuff. Capital punishment, the author opines, constitutes "state-sponsored murder" and "revenge killings". "Senators Henry McNamara and Joseph Kyrillos, like some of their colleagues, thinks (sic) they are God." More strong stuff, especially from that part of the political spectrum in which citing to God is considered bad form.

But you get the point; long on insult, short on analysis. One’s opponents are never merely wrong, you understand; they’re "evil", "practically salivat(ing) at the idea of revenge killings". They're "slime". Our commentator engages in some psychobabble pseudo-analysis, averring that people who happen to disagree with him have "... this need to over-compensate for something" or are "insecure with (themselves)". Glad that’s clear.

If anything even approaching an idea, let alone rational political argument, entered this commentary, the editors obviously deleted it. Indeed, the commentator apparently goes under the heading of "Drinking Liberally", and his work product bespeaks a particularly nasty bender.

Let us commence.

Anyone who unreservedly supports capital punishment needs professional help. That anyone would uncritically support empowering the same government which can’t count votes correctly, deliver mail timely, or provide a decent education economically, with the right to take a life, strikes me as outrageous.

That having been said, most of the critics simply cannot be taken seriously. Most of them have never met the government program they didn’t trust – except, perhaps, the military and law enforcement – and would happily consign 1/9th of the economy – that representing health care – to exclusive governmental control. The overwhelming majority of those who oppose executing the unquestionably guilty display not the slightest trepidation about executing the patently innocent – the unborn. (This does NOT apply to folks like Celeste Fitzgerald, and other "seamless garment" types, for whom I have the greatest respect). Vast numbers of folks who shed oceans of tears for men like Marco Bey can find not an ounce of compassion for the tens of thousands of unborn children aborted in New Jersey each year, often through means so gruesome that employing them on a black bear would get one indicted.

In short, anyone whose morality impels him to oppose executing murderers, but who offers not a word of protest about the wholesale slaughter of unborn children, simply merits very little deference.

(Caveat: I do not here mean to impugn our drunken liberal friend. He said not a word about abortion in his piece; it may be – however unlikely – that he possesses a conscience, but, on a liberal blog, considered discretion the better part of valor.)

He avers, though, that 100 men have been found innocent after being on death row. Wrong. Some got off on legal technicalities, there being little question about their guilt. In comparatively few cases were innocent folks exonerated. But to the extent that they were, that means the system, as flawed as it is, works. And, to my knowledge, not a single one of those cases originated in New Jersey.

Not a single death row inmate in New Jersey makes a plausible case for actual innocence. Every single one of them is patently guilty of outrageous, indescribably evil crimes. Indeed, it’s not entirely correct to contend that no death row inmate has been executed in New Jersey since 1963. One man, abiding the official executioner, found justice at the hands of his fellow inmates, from which there could be no appeal to a sympathetic judiciary.

Which points out one of the problems of the "life imprisonment without parole" argument. What happens if these folks kill again? How can you punish someone who, already, will never see the light of day?

Consider the infamous "Bird Man of Alcatraz". Sentenced to jail for viciously killing a man, he tried to murder a fellow inmate, assaulted a hospital orderly, the succeeded in murdering a jail guard.

What would one say to the family of that dead guard? If he had been initially sentenced to death, was preserving the life of this vicious miscreant worth another, completely innocent life?

Too, what’s to prevent some misguided Governor from issuing a pardon, in the interests of "humanity"? Recollect, Jimmy Carter did precisely that, pardoning terrorists who shot up the House of Representatives. Bill Clinton did precisely that, pardoning terrorists convicted of sedition and weapons offenses. Stranger things have happened.

Bloodlust? Hardly. Again, considering that most opponents of the death penalty object not at all to legally sanctioned killing of the wholly innocent, lecturing others about "bloodlust" partakes of more than a little chutzpah.

Most of the other objections to capital punishment – on assertedly pragmatic grounds – can be easily dismissed. Appeals too costly? That’s more a product of a legal system gone awry then of capital cases. When there exists not the slightest doubt about the defendant’s guilt – when he, himself, does not dispute it – why engage in years of senseless haggling? The point of the criminal justice system, at its foundation, was to assess the guilt of the defendant. When the state clearly has the right guy, when there exists no plausible argument for actual innocence, and when the crime is despicable almost beyond description, why spend years, and waste resources, on wholly academic exercises? (This applies, of course, to more than simply capital cases; they merely represent the epitome of a system which now elevates form, and procedural minutiae, over substance. But such is a point for another discussion)

What about the fact that one man might get life, while another gets death? If the penalty fits the latter’s crime, what cause has he to complain that someone else managed to secure an allegedly somewhat more lenient fate? Is this not as much an argument for broadening the class of murderers subject to execution than constricting it?

Mistakes? While anything is possible, such is hugely unlikely today. Essentially, the system in NJ works to winnow the number of folks eligible for the ultimate sanction down to those about whom there exists not only no reasonable doubt, but no doubt at all, respecting their guilt.

And consider the wholly facile argument that if it’s wrong for a murderer to kill an innocent, it’s equally wrong for society to kill in response. Most folks – indeed, essentially all those who would not be slaves or corpses – agree that killing is sometimes necessary. Put another way, there’s a substantive difference between a potential victim who kills an aggressor and the aggressor who kills his victim. Just, so, the deliberate taking of an innocent human life simply cannot be compared to the taking of a guilty human life.

The question presented with respect to capital punishment should be a fairly simple one: are there some actions for which no other response adequately expresses society’s outrage, and which protects it – and all of its members – from the possibility of repetition?

Revenge? Why not? The Commission noted that some folks assert that a desire for retribution is perfectly acceptable, a contention which the Commission simply acknowledged, while refusing to address. But it constitutes the crux of the issue.

One cannot read the reported cases on death penalty cases without putting the volume down in horror and disgust. Crimes so vile, so cruel, so unspeakable, that one wonders that a human being could even entertain the thought behind them. Justice Scalia once wrote about a case in which an 11 year-old girl had been brutally raped by 4 men, then murdered by having her panties stuffed down her throat. Were I persuaded, by scientific proof, that the accused perpetrated that act, I, myself, as queasy as I am about capital punishment, would act as executioner, and would sleep well thereafter.

How else can a society react to the likes of an Adolph Hitler, a Heinrich Himmler, a Josef Stalin, a Mao Zedong, a Jeffrey Dahmer, a John Wayne Gacy, a Saddam Hussein? Even Israel, which abolished the death penalty in 1954, created an exception for Nazi war criminals, and executed Eichmann when they caught him. The sole question seemingly presented by such morally ambiguous laws is not whether society should execute particularly evil people, but where it draws the line.

The Commission’s report strikes me as a shallow piece of work, which fails to address, to any great degree, the fundamental question presented: is executing a patently guilty murderer wrong?

Obviously, no advocate of legal abortion possesses the slightest standing to opine on the subject. Advocacy of the slaughter of innocents precludes moral revulsion at the execution of the guilty. And such folks should be careful about whom they accuse of "bloodlust"; j’accuse!.

But the thoughtful, deeply moral folks who advocate sincerely in favor of the preservation of all life deserve a more sympathetic ear. Alas, I ultimately conclude – with reluctance – that no other penalty adequately expresses society’s justifiable outrage.

Abolition of capital punishment will not improve our state morally. Just as no one should ever celebrate an execution, however richly the subject deserved it, so one should not celebrate the removal of that weapon from society’s arsenal. Certain crimes, in my view, can be adequately addressed in no other way.

Leasing the Toll Roads

First, a nice word or two about the potential for selling/leasing toll roads.

Putting a private entity in charge would, likely, save the state substantially and, if done right, would provide a steady stream of income, greater than that which presently flows. The Turnpike Commission provides an opportunity for political patronage; its unionized workers probably receive more than private sector counterparts would receive, as they can wield political pressure in addition to their tactics at the bargaining table. Fewer State employees is categorically a Good Thing.

Some Dems, like John Wisniewski, wonder why, if the roads can make more profit, that’s not happening. Simple: they’re run by government, which is inherently incapable of doing anything efficiently.

Too, it seems highly unlikely that tolls would spiral out of control. With the exception of the AC Expressway, virtually every route here in NJ can be easily avoided at comparable cost of time. Already, trucks tend to use 80, 78, and 287 to avoid the tolls on 95 and at the bridges/tunnels. If a private sector operator raised tolls too high, people would simply take other routes to avoid them. At present, as a governmental authority, the entity labors under absolutely no incentive to provide a quality product at a reasonable cost. A private operator, wanting to maximize profits, would, by definition, wish to attract as many customers as possible. Boosting tolls unreasonably, thereby chasing people away, would prove an unattractive business plan.

Furthermore, consider that just a few years back, the Democratic candidate for Governor boasted about his plan to completely eliminate tolls on the GSP. Like every other Dem campaign promise, that one evanesced almost before the words were uttered.

All of which having been said, if we assume the continued existence of toll roads rather then their expeditious elimination, the Dems simply cannot be trusted to effect a privatization plan correctly.

First, the very idea of looking for yet another source of revenue betrays the essential bankruptcy of Democratic thought on property tax reform. The problem is NOT want of revenue, but want of fiscal discipline. We spend too much. If the SOLE goal in the property tax discussion were to pare back that levy, while ensuring political accountability (that is, the voters could strike back at the people who imposed high taxes on them, or who spent more (or less) than they, the voters, thought wise), it would be a relatively easy discussion. The flaw in any such discussion rests on the demand from Dem constituencies – urban residents and public employees – that spending not be cut at their expense. If their piece of the boodle is sacrosanct, reform is impossible.

Second, assuming a sale, or a front loaded lease payment, the Dems would certainly blow it. The amount received would, likely, be less than $10 billion, probably about $5 billion, when one considers the bonded indebtedness of the roads which, presumably, would need to be repaid from the proceeds. While that’s a lot of verschnagels, it pales to insignificance against the funds necessary for any serious property tax reform. Besides, if $5 billion fell into the Dems’ hands, they’d instantly want to spend it building even more educational Taj Mahals in urban areas, or handing out pork to their constituencies. They’d probably reserve $1 billion or so for election year rebate checks, hoping to buy a few hundred thousand votes with taxpayers’ money. That’s what they DO.

If the money were in the form of a continuing lease payment, they’d instantly bond against same, again wasting the money.

Hence, while the concept of a private entity administering the toll roads makes sense -- if we decide we want to keep toll roads -- giving the state more money to play with will do precisely squat for property tax reform. That can only be accomplished by cutting spending.

Fighting Global Warming Locally

Over the weekend, I watched a feature on The History Channel, purporting to detail the seven biggest threats to human survival. Some, while seemingly fantastic – asteroid collisions or super-volcano eruptions – enjoy scientific, historic support. (About the former, the possibility of a defense exists; as respects the latter, pray hard) Others, like a biological-warfare created pandemic, or an all out nuclear war, require us to be vigilant (the forces of good – to wit, us – need to ensure that nut cases like the unlamented Saddam Hussein, the "mad mullahs" in Iran, and Kim Jong Il never obtain an effective force of nuclear or biological weapons – or, if we’re resolute enough – never get them at all.

But the number one threat to human survival, as posited by the sages of cable, is global warming.

Global warming, Al Gore – that noted scientist – informs us, is the direct and proximate result of human activity pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. And Something Must Be Done. Interestingly, the folks at THC avoided suggesting a solution, but during the "solution" section, actually showed a picture of a nuclear power plant, demonstrating that they're actually serious about taking action. Many of the folks most passionately associated with the global warming scare are not.

Now, never being enamored of the Rule of "Experts", I concede Gore’s right to hold an opinion based upon his view of the science. Indeed, an intelligent layman can, in fact, assess the dangers presented by global warming, as well as assess the costs and benefits of any proposed "solution".

That the planet has heated somewhat is essentially beyond dispute. For the purposes of argument – despite massive climate changes on Earth over the eons, utterly unrelated to humankind – assume that human activity causes it. Further assume that the Panglossian view – that we reside in the best of all possible environments and that any change will be catastrophic – is also true. How, then, should we deal with the problem? And, from a local perspective, what action should NJ government take – if any – to contribute to a solution?

This issue merits particular attention, as a clean, safe source of power which does not contribute to global warming is coming under increasing attack right here in New Jersey: our nuclear plants.

A small group of hysterics opposes the relicensing of the Oyster Creek plant (full disclosure; same is about 10 miles from a home I own in Ocean County). They posit all manner of "China Syndrome" scenarios, the chances of which, while not zero, are vanishingly small.

Life involves risk. Unfortunately, many folks fear the infinitesimal risk of a very large catastrophe more than vastly larger chances of more mundane risks. Hence, some folks fear flying despite the fact that one faces infinitely greater danger of death on the highway en route to the airport than on the plane itself. The "environmentalists" play upon this human tendency to gin up opposition to nuclear power, while presenting precisely no options to compensate.

The story in today’s Ledger notes that the groups which oppose nuclear power contend that we can simply rely upon other sources of energy in the region. No, we can’t, and certainly not consistent with meeting other environmental goals. First, mothballing nukes would inevitably increase carbon production, as coal, oil, or gas fired plants must come on line to bridge the gap. Second, those "other sources in the region" may not exist. The New Jersey Wind Panel found, earlier this year, that "New Jersey faces a serious and growing energy crisis that cannot be ignored." They estimate a power gap for NJ at 2,000 megawatts in 2009 and specifically rejected the notion of relying upon power sources elsewhere. Seemingly, shutting down a major contributor to NJ’s power grid constitutes a poor way to address an "energy crisis".

Too, no one truly believes that Oyster Creek will be the last nuke to face hysterical opposition. If the opponents prevail today, they’ll be after every other nuke, too, not only in NJ, but regionally, if not nationwide. From whence will the power come to fill the resulting – massive – gaps?

Not from wind energy, at least, not any time soon. It took fifteen months for the Wind Panel to study the issue and report back to the Governor – that more study is needed. Given the fact that many in the environmental movement believe that ANY construction offshore amounts to a desecration of the planet, such off shore construction will prove controversial in the extreme. Given the inevitable 15 years of lawsuits, we may be talking about fusion before we talk about windfarms.

And, most assuredly, not from solar. While fine for pocket calculators, solar power is simply too diffuse and too expensive to provide a practicable alternative. One advertiser offers a 5000 watt system for $42,000 (according to another site, that’s enough to run your electric oven – and nothing else.). Even with a 50% governmental subsidy through BPU (presently on hold), it would take the average homeowner about 20 years to recoup the costs – not including the inevitable maintenance – assuming it totally eliminated his electric bill, which isn’t likely.

In short, the environmentalist always seem to support technology which does not exist. Or which is hugely expensive and, hence, impracticable. And their answer to questions respecting power is ALWAYS the same: use less. Conserve. Ride bikes. Wear sweaters. Turn up the thermostat in the summer, turn it down in winter. Walk. Etc.

Obviously, conservation makes sense (recollect that the root of the word "conservative" is "conserve"). But it’s also a double edged sword. Much conservation equipment requires a significant up-front investment. (Compare the cost of a fluorescent bulb with a standard incandescent). And people kinda like staying warm in winter, cool in summer. Selfish of them, perhaps, but they’ve grown accustomed to it.

If New Jersey residents wish to be good environmental stewards – and, yet, not wholly abandon modern living – the last thing they should be thinking about is abandoning the cleanest, least problematic form of energy generation based upon wholly hypothetical concerns. NJ is already out of compliance with clean air standards, in no small measure due to out-of-state, coal fired power generation (the power from which the so-called environmentalists suggest we use here instead of clean nukes). We would be trading the completely theoretical possibility of assertedly massive harm – however remote – for the very real and immediate harm associated with additional coal, gas, or oil fired plants.

In short, whether viewed from the perspective of our health, our foreign policy (more imported oil and gas?), our environment, or our lifestyle, turning off the nukes represents the polar opposite of good policy.

All human activity involves trade offs, assessing the costs versus the benefits of a particular action. Handling the environment is no different. Alas, environmentalism has become, as Michael Crichton, of Jurassic Park fame, notes, less a science than a religion, a faith immune to logical argument. One which sees human activity – "development" – as inherently destructive, wholly separate and apart from, and outside of, "nature". One which concentrates wholly on the asserted "harms", refusing to recognize any offsetting benefits, of human activity.

If we treat global warming as the horrendous threat many folks believe it to be, it behooves us to find alternatives for producing power which tread less heavily upon the planet. Nuclear power and hydroelectric power represent our best solutions at present, with wind power (exploring both on grid, with wind farms, and individual units servicing individual homes or businesses) the power of the (somewhat distant) future. If the costs associated with solar power decrease to reasonable levels with new technology, great. Ditto with fusion.

But we need to go with what we’ve got available today. If we’re going to foreswear burning things, that means splitting atoms and damming up streams. And if the State wants to realistically contribute to reducing global warming, its policy should be to encourage both.