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55 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Soylent Green", The Sequel: Pulling the Plug on our Future, April 19, 2010
Charlton Heston starred in the 1973 movie "Soylent Green". The year is 2022, and we are all poor and without power, both electrical and political. Christopher Horner's book begins by looking ahead to the year 2015 and painting an eerily similar picture of an impoverished existence. The real irony here is that the sad future is created, not by man's mismanagement of earth's resources, but by one man's presidential withholding of those sources of power from society.
As stated in the book, environmentalism seeks to use the state to create scarcity as a means to exert their will. Indeed, the author contends the policies and people being instituted into our nation's government are about establishing and holding power over our lives, our very future, and that of our children. Mr. Hornor argues that "the Power Grab is to grab your power, your wealth, economic liberties and personal freedoms." A technique to attempt to do this is akin to "yelling eco-crisis in a crowded recession."
The author adds, perhaps a bit hopefully, that "...only the left are panicking as the voters head for the exit."
This book is rather heavy and yes, a bit apocalyptic but worth burning the midnight oil to read. Yet, contrary to Charlton Heston's character trapped in a drab future he cannot alter, "Power Grab" encourages the reader to grab the constitutional power reins and steer your future and that of your children's back on the course of freedom.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Expose on the Ideological Attack on Energy, June 3, 2010
By Steve Goreham, author of Climatism! Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century's Hottest Topic. Power Grab is a powerful book that exposes the depth to which the Obama administration and America's political left are driven by environmentalist ideology. The objective of this ideology is the total elimination the use of hydrocarbon and nuclear energy, resources which have been the foundation of the prosperity of the United States and the developed world over the last 100 years. Author Chris Horner makes it clear that this ideology is devoid of common sense and economics, and ignores the welfare of the American people. The book opens by painting a picture of U.S. society in 2015, which is plagued by energy shortages and escalating costs, the result of more than 30 years of foolish energy policies. The growing attack on nuclear, coal, oil, and natural gas has forced energy rationing, raised gasoline prices to European levels, and increased dependence on foreign suppliers. Many analysts now warn that we are well on the way to this scenario. Chapter 2, titled "Renewable Fools," thoroughly debunks the idea that wind and solar energy can power our nation. Horner uses the example of Denmark, once praised by President Obama, to show how inadequate wind power is for modern society. He also points out that although environmental groups publicly endorse wind and solar systems, they also oppose construction of both the farms and the transmission lines needed to deliver this electricity. Chapters 3-7 discuss key members of the Obama administration, critically attacking the background and ideology of Van Jones, Carol Browner, and others. Horner is a master of the pejorative phrase, using chapter titles such as "Picking Your Pockets for Political Payola" and "Green Eggs and Scam: The Wholesale Fraud of `Green Jobs.'" Some readers may be turned off by his direct attacks, but most of his commentary hits the mark. Chapters 8-10 discuss foolish energy policies that increasingly put coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear--everything that works--off limits. In my opinion, this discussion on the war against hydrocarbon and nuclear energy is the best section of the book. Like other Horner books, these sections are extensively referenced, with a book total of over 800 citations. Power Grab is well-written and researched, and an excellent book for anyone wanting to understand the environmentalist ideologies that have captured the Obama administration.
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17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Energy is Power and Power is What Social Engineers Want, May 12, 2010
As the U.S. Senate prepares to rush through legislation whose champions now hail as an "energy" bill - but from early indications it happens to include the same tired "green jobs" schemes like cap-and-trade, mandates and subsidies for uneconomic technologies - Chris Horner's"Power Grab" could not be more timely.
Horner lays out the truth about the economic costs of "green jobs" schemes, citing what ought to be obvious first principles but which are proving so elusive to politicians claiming we will repeat Europe's glorious successes. Green jobs represent some of the worst ideologically driven misinformation ever. As Horner details with extensive sourcing, Europe's experience is anything but one which we should replicate. It is instead one that contributed greatly to the unfolding European bankruptcy. Greece will certainly not be the only statist trouble spot in the EU and energy policies along with suffocating entitlements are at the top of the failed European experiment that American politicos want to emulate. Horner makes the case against these boondoggles in language the layman will understand.
This is similarly useful to the typical voter, generally unconcerned with these issues but increasingly sensing something wrong with America's new course, specifically this agenda being promoted by a broad array of usual suspects. "Power Grab" provides the research of what this collaboration, if it succeeds, will mean for the average household, and an individual's liberties.
The book similarly strips bare the strange talking point that this agenda benefits America's national security. One example Horner invokes is the supposed peril of China "eating our lunch" in what is apparently a strategic race to perfect the windmill, what President Obama calls a "new technology". That it is per se a strategic good to be the world leader in something, for the sake of being the world leader, is facially absurd yet is invoked by politicians today.
Horner addresses this - developing countries like China will always have a comparative advantage in supplying such gadgets to rich countries that mandate them, one reason being that they don't drag their economy down with such mandates. And China is installing the contraptions because western mandates pay China to do so, to avoid the impossible task of actually reducing emissions on their own shores.
Also important to the debate is the reality behind Obama's praise (in a vacuum) that "some of America's biggest companies support" his green agenda. Indeed they do. Horner answers the question "why?", and what these rent-seekers hope to use the state to take from you in this latest twist on the old model of using the state to create scarcity, imposing the statists' will on you while keeping competitors away from the state's business partners.
For exposing and detailing these realities at this critical moment "Power Grab" is a strong and important read.
Prof. Michael J. Economides
Editor-in-Chief
Energy Tribune
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