Are there no millionaires and billionaires in the Los Angeles Valley? In New York City? Do they all live in Aspen full time? I dare say one hell of a lot more of them live in smog central than in small town America.

Yeah, it's all the fault of those rich bastards again.

Do you think a nation where there are no rich people (dumping most of the cash into the government coffers) can afford to think about hydrogen cars, fields of solar panels, and nuclear power?

Nations that don't have a lot of surplus wealth typically get power from strip-mining coal. They can't afford pollution controls, or bother with containment around nuclear plants.

Does it bother you at all that the worst environmental ravages on Earth have taken place in collectivist nations like the Soviet Union?

There are countries with few or no power plants. Their inhabitants don't usually live long enough to get cancer.

No, no. It's the rich that are the problem, and keep us from doing all the wonderful things we could do if they weren't dragging us down.

Most Americans are on board with things like keeping factory crap out of Lake Erie. But the environmental movement has no upper limit, and pretty soon we're talking laws to make any car that gets less than 50 mpg illegal, or reducing CO2 to 1970 levels.

"Sane laws" is the key phrase in your statement. Let's keep them that way.