Now that environmentalists have lost the war against the oil drilling method known as fracking, unable to make untethered charges stick, plastic bags have reflown into their purview.

Not all plastic bags, not even close.

Just one visible dimension, the kind groceries used to hand out at checkout counters.

Greens knew they were not perceptibly improving the environment by winning a statewide ban on their usage, as they preposterously claimed and Both sides knew it. But the Baggies had much more money than their rivals, and an appealing if vacuous argument. Lawdy me, saving the world. For now, they have won. Handout plastic bags

When Clarity Is the Enemy

Dave Lazarus, one of the Los Angeles Titanic’s murky-watered commentators who believes the plastic bag ban will redeem the planet, spent this morning’s essay playing the liberals’ favorite game:

Instead of philosophically defending his convictions, Mr. Lazarus devoted his 34 paragraphs to mocking manufacturers of plastic bags for trying to overturn the ban and rebuild their enterprises.

A passionate environmentalist, Mr. Lazarus typically evaded reasons for making and retaining the ban. He merely hooked his thumbs into his ears, wiggled his fingers at the industry and laughed. “All it’s trying to do is protect its profits,” said Mr. Lazarus who is anti-business except for his employer whom he wants to make a profit.

As a liberal, emotion rather than reasoning, dominates Mr. Lazarus’s work.

He portrays himself as a dedicated green. But why educate the public when reaching for a simplistic yuck takes fewer muscles and requires no thinking.

Excluding Mr. Lazarus, there are sincere environmentalists who believe that subtracting a few million plastic bags will upgrade the state of water life and cleanse the air of pesky threats to our demise.

There is virtually no evidence to support such a position, but they deserve points for admirable sincerity.

Numerous valid objections have been raised against the ban – starting with a bullet to the heart of the plastic bag manufacturing industry, wretched inconvenience for shoppers, suspicious selectivity and, biggest of all, profits for grocery stores and labor unions for winning their clever game of selectivity.

The union boys correctly calculated they could not win a plastics showdown on packaging baked goods and encasing vegetables. They went for the sexiest stretch – to create a nuisance inconvenience for shoppers, and then there was the aforementioned boost for markets and labor unions.

A pity that the environmentalists are winning this bogus war, although it is noted a Kill the Ban initiative has a chance of making the California ballot in 2016.

Here is hoping for a restoration of environmental integrity – one degree at a time.