It’s a green day everywhere it seems.  One can’t listen to a radio or watch TV without being bombarded about joining some green movement, and you are surely going straight to hell if you don’t.

I consider myself a conservationist and have been one all my life.  Apparently I don’t view conservation with the same eyes as the self-appointed experts and talking heads.  

I wonder why it’s bad for me to drive a large vehicle or use a plastic shopping bag, while it’s apparently good for people in the city to work in buildings where windows don’t open and the thermostats are permanently set at 72 degrees or lower. 

Enough exterior mood lighting is wasted on these buildings to run a small town.  As long as a green space is constructed on the roof and a few dollars are sent off to save the whale, everything is OK.

Life in rural Kansas is different. We don’t have public transportation or malls close by so everyone must own at least one larger vehicle.  It is more than 100 miles to an airport, so our travel is more involved than setting in a sub-compact car in creeping rush hour traffic. 

Meanwhile, our exterior lighting is for security reasons. I do hate the need for any outside lighting since it affects my view of the stars at night. 

On the other green fronts, I readily admit I own a chainsaw and I cut down trees.  Contrary to some belief, not all trees are good and trees also need to be harvested and thinned.  I am a tree lover and I plant trees, hundreds each year.  So what am I? A tree hacker or a tree hugger?  I have been known to destroy many acres of habitat by planting grass and removing brush, but I have also constructed wildlife wetlands. So does that make me pro or con in protecting wildlife?   

It always makes me laugh at a self-appointed conservationist who preaches the use of low-use fixtures while they own swimming pools and live in states like California and Arizona where roadsides are irrigated.  There should be rules that say, “Please don’t preach from a pulpit setting on quick sand.”

People get caught in the trap of following a new green idea without thinking. A few years ago, it was ethanol fuel. Billions of dollars were pumped into this plan, but now that idea is out of vogue, so as Emily Litella would say, “Never mind.” The bad news is that the taxpayers paid dearly for what should have been just a lab experiment.  Now these same people are talking about hydrogen fuel for cars.  Really?  Just how much energy does it take to compress that gas? I don’t know about you, but the thought of having a very flammable gas compressed under several thousand pounds of pressure riding in a cylinder under my legs sounds nuts to me.  Seems the Hindenburg went down in flames using that same gas.

The newest hot item for “cheap” and “clean” energy comes from the wind.

If it were possible get a permit to mine coal today, the plan would include remediation and reclamation at the end of the project, and bonds would be required in advance of work starting.  Everyone today is jumping on the wind turbine bandwagon. I like windmills, but wind-generated electricity can really only replace electricity created from burning natural gas.  We still need coal or nuclear generation for the backbone of the system.

Is anyone aware that the support structures holding up those colossal wire turbines are enormous?  Yep. It takes a hole 50 to 75 feet wide, 12 to 15 feet deep with hundreds and hundreds of yards of concrete and tons of reinforcing steel for each and every support base of the thousands of windmills we are building.  Somebody should do an energy audit to calculate how much energy it takes to make, erect and maintain a windmill compared to how much energy the machine produces in its lifetime.

The same pristine prairie that nature lovers everywhere want to protect is being permanently destroyed by wind-energy projects. 

No money has been set aside to reclaim and restore the property at the end life of these turbines — something to think about as we dot the landscape with house-sized concrete tombstones for future generations to gather around like Stonehenge and ask why.

I think that it’s great we learned from the past as to what happens to the land when such precautions are not taken.

I use compact florescent bulbs (greenie bulbs) mainly because they last just a little longer.  I date each of them with a Sharpie and none of them seem to last a year even though the advertising claim is eight years.

We use a billion of these each year and most eventually end up in the trash.  Unlike the incandescent bulb that is 100 percent recyclable, the compact florescent bulbs are made up of a circuit board that contains a couple dozen electronic parts soldered to a board and housed in a plastic case that floats, should one ever get dumped in the ocean.  They also are topped with a mercury-filled glass tube. 

As you can tell, I don’t think the greenie bulbs are the least bit environmentally friendly, but some bureaucrat must think they are, plus we need to keep up our trade balance with China. So, I wonder, am I helping the environment or killing it by using these bulbs?

So many questions and so few answers — I think I need to get off this tractor and activate my mind in another direction.

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Kansas Liberty columnist Bill Wyckoff is president of Labette Bank, a community bank with locations throughout southeast Kansas, and an occasional contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Fox Business News. He lives on a farm outside Altamont, Kan. A graduate of Kansas State University with an MBA from Southern Illinois University, he enjoys collecting antique John Deere tractors and driving his hemi orange Dodge Challenger. Email bwyckoff@labettebank.com

The Week in Review