The Painful Reality of Going Green

This week I had the pleasure of meeting a very sweet gentleman of a few more years than myself.  We worked together for a couple of days on the same property where a couple of large trees, one damaged and one dead, needed to be removed.

We had many opportunities to converse.  In the sharing he told me of many hardships that he has faced in his life.  One of these was the terrible tornado that devastated the town of Greensburg, Kansas in May of 2007.  Before and after Aerial Photographs can be viewed at Greensburg, Kansas - Two Aerial Photographs - Before and After the May 2007 Tornado.  Here they are for a smaller viewing:





This gentleman had just re-roofed his house.  In the roofing process he decided to storm proof the house.  He ran 3/8 inch logger chain up the studs and over the rafters, anchoring the entire house to the ground.  His house was the only house standing in his block after the storm.  The only damage to his house was from the roof of another house striking the peak of his roof and from a two by four that was driven through one of the walls.  Otherwise his house was in perfect condition.

However, when he applied for a permit to repair the very minor damage, the city would not give him a permit and made him tear down his house.  They were Going Green and were not allowing any homes to be left standing.  They had to be rebuilt with the new GREEN regulations.

So this man lost his home to the Green movement.  His house and property were stolen from him by the government through the false claims of eminent domain.

Furthermore, the people were not allowed back into the town to salvage their belongings.  This man had a couple of Snap-on rolling tool chests full of tools in his shed.  The shed and tools were bulldozed into the street and stolen from him.  Also all of his appliances and supplies were stolen from him by FEMA and the EPA.

He lost everything.

How does destroying a home so that a new home with all new lumber and concrete and steel and appliances equate to being conservation minded and environmentally friendly?

How is it just to take a man’s belongings from him without any compensation whatsoever?

Wikipedia’s reporting at Greensburg, Kansas shows that in 2000 there were 1,574 people, 730 households, and 453 families residing in the city.  According to the 2010 census there were 777 people, 355 households, and 212 families residing in the city.

How many businesses would have rebuilt and how many homes would have been rebuilt without the new Green requirements?  Since the people were not given the choice, we will never know.  However, the town is now less than half the size.

According to Five Years after Being Destroyed by Tornado, Greensburg, Kan. Rebuilds - Greener and Better, the town’s population was 1,400 in 2007 before the tornado (obviously an estimate).  This report also estimates about 900 currently, a little better than half.

The article declares:

“When we first started talking to people about rebuilding and going green, nine out of 10 people came right back to us with, ‘I’m no tree hugger!’” according to Daniel Wallach, a Kansas businessman and one of the major driving forces in Greensburg’s return. “And now look at us. It’s just incredible.”

To whom does he refer when he says: “And now look at us.”?

“Only thing we had left was each other,” said Bob Dixson, who would become mayor of Greensburg one year after the storm. “You see everything wiped out, and you just pull together.”

Really?  What about those who did not want to be forced into new debt and merely wanted to rebuild the town as it had been?  What about those who did not want their town taken over by FEMA and out of town big money?  What about those who were forced out and lost their property, not because of the tornadic destruction but because of eminent domain usurpation?

In the days and weeks after the storm, with the much-maligned Federal Emergency Management Team in town and offering aid, there were a few discussions about how best to rebuild Greensburg. But at the time, not many people wanted to hear it.

And what of those who did not want to hear it?  What of their voices?  What of their vote?  What of their right to rebuild according to their own plans?

Whose town did Greensburg become?

Who pressed the new Green life upon Greensburg?  What does Green really mean?

For those who own construction interests and the new Green technology, Green means mega $$$.

For lovers of liberty and justice for all, it means that the United Nations Agenda 21 is being implemented in full force.  It means that the freedom to own property and use it according to one’s own best interest and goals is obliterated by those who use government to control others.

How many times have tyrants used this same kind of rhetoric to wrest control from the people?  How many times have the people been persuaded to surrender their liberty and freedom and rights in the name of progress and rebuilding?  Is this not the exact manner in which Hitler and those like him have risen to power?

This pattern begins small, like with a tiny town of 1,400, way out in the middle of what is counted as nowhere.

Here is Greensburg:









My new friend had a home there.  He worked hard and invested to make his home lovely, strong, and safe.  His work and investment paid off.  His house survived the storm.  But it could not survive the government.

Now he lives in Wichita where he had to purchase another house of lesser value than the one that he had.  His home in Greensburg was wiped out by the Green agenda.  How long till this spreads to Wichita?  How long will his home, and mine, be safe from the Green agenda here in Wichita?