RUSH: Those of you who shop at IKEA, this is unbelievable. Swedish retailer IKEA has targeted you consumers in America because you are stupid. You need to be reeducated. IKEA provides 70 million plastic bags every year to its US shoppers for free. In other words, you go into an IKEA store, you buy what you buy, and they put ’em in these plastic bags. You don’t take the bags in there. They’re in there when you go, and they put the stuff you buy in the bags that they provide. But now IKEA is scolding you for taking the bags! 
There’s a spokesperson for IKEA named Mona Astra Liss — three words there — and she criticizes the average American family of four for throwing away ?1,500 single-use polyethylene bags, which do not degrade for 1,000 years. Less than 1% of them are recycled.? So IKEA’s bag giveaway is now going to stop. Mona Astra Liss, ?Our objective is to get people to really think about the impact of the bags which are strangling the planet.? What the heck is this? IKEA is providing them. IKEA is giving them away. IKEA is using the bags so that customers can take whatever it is they buy in there out of there into their cars and go home. So now it’s your fault that the earth is being strangled by plastic bags provided by IKEA, but it’s because you people are too stupid to not use them.
So here’s the way they’re going to combat this. IKEA is going to force you to pay five cents a bag for the honor of shopping at IKEA outlets. That is just step one. After you dolts get your minds right, IKEA will then ban the bags altogether. So what they’re trying to do here is raise the price of the bag five cents, adding five cents to whatever your purchase is, and you’re going to say, ?What, a nickel for the bag? You provided it.? ?That’s right, but we don’t want you using the bag.? Well then stop providing them! After you get your minds right, they’re going to start banning the bags altogether, and then you’re going to have to bring your own cloth bag with you when you shop at IKEA. When that blessed day arrives, our fragile planet, mother earth, now choking on 100 billion American plastic bags every year in her landfills, will supposedly flourish.
Also, yesterday we talked about this lightbulb BS, the compact fluorescent bulb. I finally saw a picture of one. I didn’t even know what one looked like. Somebody sent me a picture of a compact fluorescent. Do you know there’s a movement — you probably do. People follow this sort of stuff. I have more important things to do. It’s called the 18-second movement. The 18-second movement. That’s a campaign to make you idiots replace your incandescent bulbs which are destroying the planet with these new earth friendly CFC bulbs. The 18-second movement is so-called because 18-seconds is the average time it takes to change a lightbulb. The energy department, the EPA, Yahoo, Wal-Mart, are joining forces with all these wacko lightbulb activists, and there are lightbulb activists, make no mistake about it, to try to shame you into changing your bulbs. Now, one of these days you people are going to have enough these busybodies butting into your lives. It’s finally going to become oppressive and you’re going to tell them to butt out. I learned something — 18 seconds to change a lightbulb. I had no clue that it took 18 seconds to change a lightbulb. I always thought that’s what staff were for.
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RUSH: I got an e-mail here from Terry Parker in Berea, California. ?It doesn’t take 18 seconds. It may take 18 minutes or 18 hours to change a lightbulb. Depends on how quickly you can find your husband to do it.?
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RUSH: Here’s Roy in San Antonio, Texas. Roy, welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: How’s it going, Rush? How you doing?
RUSH: Thank you, sir. Very well.
CALLER: Hey, first off, before I say anything. I want to thank all the soldiers out there regardless of how, you know, your ideology is on the war. I think we need to support our troops in every way we can. So I really want to thank everybody, especially the caller that was calling earlier, want to thank him for, you know, everything he does for our country. I’m really proud of everybody out there. Rush, I just want to let you know I’m a liberal myself, okay, and I’m getting tired of the ridiculousness or if you want to say a party or ideology, you know, kind of stoops to, you know? I hear these people talk about the environment all the time. You know, you’ve got these movie stars talking this and that. For instance, this one movie star, her name is Cameron Diaz. They asked her, ?What are you doing for the environment?? She was at one of these environmental conference things. She goes, ?Well, I’m going carbon neutral.? I guess that’s the hot term now. I’m carbon neutral this. I do this. I do that. You know, she doesn’t know what carbon neutral means. This is just a hot term. You know those lightbulbs you were talking about earlier, Rush?
RUSH: Yeah. Yeah.
CALLER: Well, guess what? Those lightbulbs, the new ones that are coming out, they have mercury components in them, okay?
RUSH: Yes, we discussed this yesterday, shocking many people who didn’t know that there were mercury components.
CALLER: Exactly. And you’re supposed to dispose of those lightbulbs at a certain facility. The nearest facility for me is —
RUSH: Wait a minute. Wait a minute, whoa, whoa, whoa! I thought these carbon fluorescents were recyclable.
CALLER: You can’t throw ’em out and a lot of people don’t know that. So what happens is they just throw them away.
RUSH: No! I thought you took ’em back to the store, got them rejuiced, and put them back in the socket.
CALLER: No, no, no, you can’t take them back to the store. You can’t go to Home Depot or any other — you have to recycle them —
RUSH: You mean environmentalists are pitching a bunch of stuff that are not recyclable?
CALLER: No, they are but you have to take them to a certain place. The nearest place for me is 55 miles. Am I going to drive 55 miles for three little lightbulbs, and then they’re going to charge me?
RUSH: Why are you a liberal?
CALLER: Why am I a liberal?
RUSH: You know what, beeing an educator, I’m a former educator, and a really big thing for me is the fact that “No Child Left Behind,” I really don’t agree with it. You know, it forced all these schools into a singular aspect, emphasis on passing one test. You know, PE gets left out, art —
RUSH: So you want some kids left behind?
CALLER: Well, there are going to be some kids left behind, you know what I mean, but I’m talking about the focus on a single test, and here I just saw it’s damaging to our students. There’s a lot more to learn about other things as well than just, you know, making sure that you know the quadratic formula, you know? I also have a little bit of, you know, anti-war sentiment myself, but it doesn’t blind me to the fact that sometimes, you know, we’re dumb. You know, come on man, you know, show the whole story. Let’s talk about it. You know, I’m part of a political activist group here in San Antonio, and they do the same thing. ?Hey, everybody needs to buy the new lightbulbs. No questions asked. Everybody buy them.? I told the guy, I go, ?Did you know that we have to recycle these? You know, they’re made out of mercury??
RUSH: You know something? I’m going to tell you something, Roy, because you sound like a brilliant guy to me. You sound incredibly enlightened and informed on some things. I think the reason that you’re not falling for this like your friends in the activist group are — they’re all Cameron Diaz. She doesn’t know why she’s doing it. She’s just doing it because it makes her feel better. It’s because her community, the Hollywood community, supports this kind of stuff. It will help her get work and this sort of thing. I have found that most activist liberals are acting purely on things other than being informed about anything. It’s religious to them.
You know, I get some vicious hate mail from liberals on global warming, and I’m tempted to write them and I wish they would call me. I ask, ?Why do you want to believe in this? What is so damned crucial that you believe in it and that everybody else believes??
?Because we’re destroying the planet!? No, we’re not destroying the planet. We can’t destroy the planet. Have you ever thought about what it would actually take to destroy the planet? The ways that they say we’re doing it, with incandescent lightbulbs and SUVs and smokestacks and all of these other things, when there have been warming and cooling cycles on this planet long before any of those things were ever invented and put to mass use. No, no. There’s no thinking. This is all groupthink. It is all the result of getting involved in something that makes you feel good, the religious component cannot be denied.
If you don’t believe in God, you will believe in anything. If you don’t have a grounded belief in the notion that there is a higher power, that there is a God, if you don’t believe that, if you think that the earth and everything on it and in it is all there is, well, then, of course, you might live your life in fear. I think these people, I think they’re scared to death. They buy into all this stuff; they’re literally scared to death over nonsense. They feel helpless and powerless and they feel totally out of control, or with no control in order to do anything about this. If it’s not global warming, it’s acid rain. Whatever happened to that, by the way? If it’s not that, it’s the ozone hole. If it’s not that, it’s the war in Iraq. There is always at least one crisis out there that is going to destroy us. I don’t know how it is possible to live life that way and enjoy it. I don’t know what it must be like to get up every day under those circumstances. I don’t know what it must be like to go through the day believing these things, having an apocalyptic view of virtually everything that happens. But, Roy, I appreciate the call.
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RUSH: Dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut. It’s time to do the global warming update. Paul Shanklin as that idiot Algore.
(Playing of Ball of Fire theme song.)
That’s our old buddy Paul Shanklin as Algore and Ball of Fire. All right, one quick thing here. If you’re going to watch the Epidemic Awards on Sunday night, you should prepare yourself for the fact that Algore is going to win an Oscar. This bunch out there gives away awards for political reasons as much as talent and artistry, and I think all the evidence you need is the most recent number of awards given to the Dixie Chicks. Their albums are still not selling. They’ve angered so many people, and they were not censored. It was radio stations that decided they didn’t want to play their songs. But the Dixie Chicks got five Grammys. Those are political. 
So it’s obvious that Algore will get an award, an Oscar here for his propaganda documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. But here’s something I think ought to happen. Algore is warning that the oceans could rise 20 feet in that documentary of his, but the UN, in this summary that we got of the full report that’s due in May from the IPPA or whatever it is said that the worst case now is less than two feet that the seas could rise in the next whatever number of years, not willing to pin that down, 17 inches, they say. We’ve got a disparity here of Algore saying the seas are going to rise 20 feet. The UN says maximum 17 inches. Now, we don’t even know how much the UN is exaggerating the threat to the planet. We know they’re exaggerating it some, but whatever. Let’s go with the 17 inches. It’s a good number. As much as the UN is exaggerating the threat to the planet, Algore is exaggerating it 14 times as much as they are.
So if Algore gets an Oscar for that claptrap movie of his, the Oscar ought to be one-fourteenth the size of a real Oscar. It ought to be a tiny little miniature, something you could steal from the Kodak Theater that nobody would even notice it. It will never happen, but it should.
Now, some people are going to think this is funny. When I first saw it I kind of smiled, but it angers me. It really does. This is a story is from some European country. Where is this? Doesn’t matter, it’s a European country. Global warming concerns are keeping children awake at night. Half of young children are anxious about the effects of global warming, often losing sleep because of their concern, according to a new report. ?A survey of 1,150 youngsters aged between seven and 11 found that 25% of them blamed politicians for the problems of climate change. One in seven of those questioned by the supermarket giant Somerfield said that their own parents were not doing enough to improve the environment. The most feared consequences of global warming?? amongst these crumb crunchers, ?–poor health, the possible submergence of entire countries,? and what else do you think? I’ve mentioned two of them. What’s the third that most upsets the children? What is it? Nope, not severe sunburn. Brian, take a stab at it. Come on, come on, this is easy!
They’re worried about what’s going to happen to the animals. ?Most of those polled understood the benefits of recycling although one in ten thought the issue was linked to riding a bike. Pete Williams of the grocery store chain that did this survey said, ?Concerns over our environment document the media at present. Kids are exposed to the hard facts as much as ??? there aren’t any hard facts in this! ?While many adults may look the other way, this study should show that global warming is not only hurting the children of the future, it’s affecting the welfare of kids now.? Folks, this is irresponsible. This is how they’re doing it. This is how they inculcate these young skulls full of mush, fill ’em up with a bunch of fear, propaganda, and fright. I remember, Dawn, you said your daughter came home from school after watching Gore’s movie or something? After watching an Oprah show, that’s right. Was Gore on the Oprah show? Okay, Gore was on and the daughter came, ?Mom, mom, mom ?? what was it, the animals are going to die or some such thing or we’re going to die?
You know, these are people that claim they have compassion, they are lying. Why? What’s the point? All they want is more control over our lives. They want to blame western civilizations. I have the story somewhere here in the stack about how the Chinese are telling everybody to go to hell on whatever environmental changes people want them to make. It gets even better, though, this is from the International Herald Tribune. ?Governments in rich nations are spending billions of dollars to buy a clearer conscience over climate change.? Is that not the truth? A clearer conscience! ?Are they getting their money’s worth? Enlightened individuals, those who stay awake at nights wondering what they can do to prevent the polar caps from ?? now, is that enlightened? How many of you people sitting up late at night, the family has gone to bed, maybe the kids are in bed quaking in fear, shivering under the covers in fear over the fact that Mickey and Minnie or whoever else, the polar bears are going to be wiped out in a couple years. The kids are scared to death and you’re sitting there wondering what you can do to stop the polar ice caps from melting, despite the fact that Antarctica is colder than the global models predict, colder than anybody thought it would be, most of it is, doesn’t agree with the models. Doesn?t matter. 
Facts are not allowed to get in the way of the global warming debate. How many of you people actually sit around wondering what you can do to stop the ice caps melting? I have no doubt there are people doing it, but the fact that they’re enlightened is absurd. It’s the exact opposite. Got too much time on their hands.
?The Sydney, Australia, based Easy Being Green Foundation says that it will mitigate your cat’s flatulent contribution to global warming for eight Australian dollars. The same company could also make your granny carbon neutral at $10 a year according to a report in the Australian newspaper last weekend.? The cat. Your cat farts can be fixed for eight bucks in Australia because your cat flatulence is causing global warming. I would be embarrassed if you’re in this audience and you believe this tripe. See, once you suck this stuff up, once you fall prey to it, once you get on this bandwagon, you have to accept all this nonsense. What is this, granny? What about your grandpa? How do you make your grandmother carbon neutral?
And finally in Delaware, ?Governor Ruth Ann Minner has directed that Delaware state climatologist stop using his title in public statements on climate change, citing a flash of views on global warming and confusion over the position’s ties to the administration.? So basically the state’s told this guy to shut up, you can’t say when you go out there that global warming is a bunch of hooey. You can’t say that you’re the state climatologist because we in Delaware know there’s global warming; it is happening and you can’t say otherwise. These are from the people who are tolerant and open-minded.
Let’s now go to the audio sound bites. Almost, not quite almost a year ago on Good Morning America, April 7th, 2006, Barbara
DAVID: Okay, here’s the first thing. And this is really astonishing, this fact, but there’s a new lightbulb now. Everyone has regular lightbulbs in their home, right? Now they’ve come out with an energy efficient compact fluorescent bulb, and this is really astonishing. If every American family changed just five lightbulbs in their home it would be equivalent to taking eight million cars off the road for a year.
RUSH: Lighting a cigar here, folks. It’s more important. All right, now, how many of you dolts are going to believe that? They just throw these numbers out. All right, so here we have a claim. If every American family changed just five lightbulbs in their homes to these little snaky, screwy CFC bulbs, it would be equivalent to taking eight million automobiles off the road for a year. Even if we took eight million automobiles off the road for a year, it wouldn’t have one iota, diddly-squat infinitesimal effect on the climate! (big sigh) Second bite from Laurie David. Barbara
DAVID: Okay, here?s another thing. This is so simple and it’s really just about a change in consciousness. We all have — think of all the electronics we have in our home. We all have cell phones. Our kids have Game Boys. We have blow dryers. Well, when you unplug them, when you unplug your phone from the charger — everyone leaves those chargers in the wall.
WALTERS: Yeah, I do.
DAVID: They’re sucking energy. They’re wasting energy.
WALTERS: Take out your — turn —
DAVID: Pull out the charger from the wall.
WALTERS: A-ha.
DAVID: Think about the toasters in our homes and all these appliances. It’s such a simple thing. Everyone has to start pulling those chargers out of the wall.
RUSH: Look, folks, if any of you in this audience are going to believe this, I want you to leave this show. I can’t deal with this. I don’t want you here.
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RUSH: Okay, I just found one more global warming story in the stack. I’m not going to play the whole update theme because I want to have a caller or two before we go, but here, ladies and gentlemen, is the third song in our global warming update theme rotation, also by Paul Shanklin again as Algore.
(Playing of What a Horrible World theme song.)
All right, here’s the last story in our installment today on global warming. It’s an AP story out of Sacramento. It’s about California legislature. ?Targeting truckers, contractors and others, Senate Democrats on Thursday introduced legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions beyond the landmark global warming law that took effect this year. ? Other lawmakers, including some Democrats, and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger immediately criticized the legislative package. They said it would overwhelm state regulators who are still trying to decide how to implement last year?s global warming law. That law imposes the country?s first economy-wide cap on greenhouse gas emissions, requiring California to reduce emissions,? and it says it would require that half of passenger vehicles sold in California be able to run on alternative fuels by 2020. ?A second could require that a portion of diesel fuel come from renewable sources.? You’re out of control.