Exhibit #65,537...

As to why government oversight results in behavior that defies logic: California investigates planned bottle water plant - for global warming reasons

For those of you wondering, yes, I am well aware that bottled water has quickly become the bête noire of the environmental movement, and that can be understood. If there are local concerns about what a water diversion plan of this scale would mean to the surrounding ecosystem, then those are things that should be heard before operations move forward. If the citizenry have decided that environmental impact is valuable enough to offset the economic benefit from such a facility's operations, then so be it; it's their priorities, after all.

But what in the blazes does it have to do with global warming? It's not like they're, say, manufacturing the bottles on site. The only greenhouse gas emissions related to the operations that are above and beyond a typical office building would be related to commuters going to work there, not from anything the facility would be doing.

Could it be a knee-jerk reaction to bottled water? Possible. Could there be some nativist resentment over the plant (it will be operated by Swiss-owned Nestlé S.A.)? Possible. Could there be some bureaucratic conflict of interest (i.e. somebody is angling for the site to be used by some other business or social interest)? Also possible; after all, progressivism and heavy-handed conflicts of political interest go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Is global warming being used as a whitewash for whatever reasons somebody has for scotching the development? You better believe it.