We’ve told you before about the sought-after cow tax that would penalize dinner for eating, breathing, and whatever other functions need to occur. Since cows are not a favorite for the folks at PETA and because environmentally minded advocates know cows produce greenhouse gases like they’re going out of style, beef may be what’s for dinner — but the activists want it to come at a higher cost.

The Business and Media Institute is on the case, and it has some helpful figures. It seems the tax would come to about $175 per head of cattle under a possible new EPA rule:

Indirectly it could be considered a cheeseburger tax, but one of the suggestions offered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act is to levy a tax on livestock.

The ANPR, released early this year, would give the EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas for not only greenhouse gas from manmade sources like transportation and industry, but also “stationary” sources which would include livestock.

It’s worth noting that this one single proposal could raise the cost of a gallon of milk by as much as $0.08. Makes you wonder where we’ll feel the costs of a massive new federal bureaucracy if cap-and-traders get their way.

• “State of the Sun for year end 2008: all’s quiet on the solar front - too quiet”
• “How Al Gore Saved Christmas”
• “Why was the world hotter 700 years ago in the ‘Medieval warm Period’?”
• “Green Comes Clean”
• “2008: Another Grim Year for the Global Warmers”
• Examiner’s Mark Tapscott: “Coal Lies From A Progressive Fable Factory”

And one longer quote for your consideration:

Environmentalists, in their opposition to coal of any kind, may provide the coup de grâce. Greenpeace, riffing on James Bond, is hawking a “Coalfinger” spoof on the Internet and is deep in a campaign to stop all new coal plants. U.S. environmental groups recently announced a campaign to expose clean coal as a chimera. Thanks to such efforts, in the United States it’s now nearly impossible to build any kind of coal plant, including tests of clean technology. As the world economy recovers, nations will once again turn to their old stalwart, dirty coal.

Paul Driessen has these facts worth your consideration:

There is no such thing as “clean coal,” environmentalists insist. Burning coal to generate electricity emits soot particles that cause respiratory problems, lung cancer and heart disease, killing 24,000 Americans annually.

It’s the kind of claim that eco-activist Bruce Hamilton says “builds the Sierra Club,” by generating cash and lobbying clout for his and similar groups.

It’s also disingenuous, unethical and harmful.

Since 1970, unhealthy power plant pollutants have been reduced by almost 95% per unit of energy produced. Particulate emissions (soot) decreased 90% below 1970 levels, even as coal use tripled, and new technologies and regulations will nearly eliminate most coal-related pollution by 2020, notes air quality expert Joel Schwartz.

… is the cuddly koala. The logic seems a bit dodgy, but it’s always interesting to see how the deaths of cute animals can be attributed to climate change. We suspect 2009 will be the Year of the Newborn Puppy (they can’t pant fast enough to cool their core temperature!) rather than the Year of the Smelly Water Buffalo. We could be wrong, we’re just saying we see a trend for the propagandists.

It will be interesting to see how people respond to the Times of London column by Christopher Booker, who writes:

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

The practical effect, for Booker, is something Americans may need to take more seriously:

As 2009 dawns, it is time we in Britain faced up to the genuine crisis now fast approaching from the fact that – unless we get on very soon with building enough proper power stations to fill our looming “energy gap” - within a few years our lights will go out and what remains of our economy will judder to a halt. After years of infantile displacement activity, it is high time our politicians – along with those of the EU and President Obama’s US – were brought back with a mighty jolt into contact with the real world.

We think the same is true for global warming science.

For months (if not years), we’ve been told by scientist/activists, non-profits needing sympathy donations, and Al Gore that we must change our ways immediately if we are to avert an apocalyptic climate change scenario. How did that work for the forces of panic? Not well. A massive economic downturn has changed peoples’ priority sets and put global warming on the back burner.

You can almost imagine the strategy meetings taking place right now. What do we do? People aren’t in any mood to throw their economic growth away to serve our eco-nightmares? Well, let’s tell them it’s not so tough after all!

And here you go. From Reuters, recognized as the clear leader in media perpetrators of climate change panic (the New York Times is a close second):

Tough targets for avoiding dangerous global warming may be easier to achieve than widely believed, according to a study that could ease fears of a prohibitive long-term surge in costs.

You see, Scrooge, there is still time to save Christmas … and at half the cost!

Had this not been so predictable it might seem more persuasive. Then again, had the enviros not changed their position their big-government solutions would have been dead in the water.

We came across this thought from the Union of Very-Hyper-Concerned Scientists — an activist group that has been forewarning of the end of the world for several decades. Apparently their doctorates were not earned in Economics, Political Science, or even in How To Guess Right By Plain Old Dumb Luck. Speaking of the super splendiferous energy team to be appointed by the incoming administration, the doctors-cum-activists told Reuters:

“If this team can’t advance strong national policy on global warming, then no one can,” said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, referring to Obama’s picks for the top energy and environment jobs in his administration, which takes office on Jan. 20.

Hmm. So many thoughts.

First, doesn’t that create something of an incentive for people trying to block terrible energy and environmental policy? (Ha ha, we’ve done it!)

Then again, we suppose “strong national policy” is in the eye of the beholder. A strong policy could, oh say, take into account the crippling economic effects of creating a cap-and-trade slush fund. Or it could take a “strong” stand and say the climate may be changing but there are honest people who don’t think 1) it’s coming from man’s activities or 2) won’t be worth the crippling economic costs to address.