I like her already...

But I can't say I've heard of her before your post. I'll have to check the video out.

One person that I can say that has made that connection (between radical environmentalism and anti-progressive policy) is a conservative satellite radio host named Mike Church. While Mike can be a bit "flamboyant" in his presentation, he is (of all the hosts and pundits I listen to) the one with the best grounding in historical reality of the bunch.

I know he routinely makes the connection between those that are using the Gulf oil slick (which he is very in-touch with because he lives in Louisiana) as the means by which to reduce or eliminate offshore oil drilling and those that choose to ignore the common-place accidents and spills that result from the traditional surface ship means of oil importation, wherein a port like San Diego or Charleston or New Orleans is expecting these supertankers to discharge up to 1,500 barrels of "bilge" into the harbor waters. For those that haven't worked on boats and ships before, it should be noted that more than 80% of what lays at the bottom of a ship's bilge is toxic petroleum sludge that, because it has already been refined and processed with engineered chemicals and additives, DOES NOT break down naturally the way crude oil does, but instead floats on the surface or sinks to the bottom where it kills almost anything that comes in contact with it.

Much of what Ryan described in what he heard can be easily seen in LA right now. The "moratorium" on drilling that the President so eagerly tried to gt in place would have put 32,000 people out of work in LA alone, and would have added an additional 25,000 people to the "dole" rolls that are already over-loaded in Louisiana. Thats as many as 12,000 MORE kids with no means of housing or food outside of what the "government" can provide through welfare and unemployment. Add to that the increase in cost the entire country would see when our daily crude oil production rates DROP as much as 9% every month (which is the average rate at which existing wells reduce in production, and which is the driving reason why it is so important to always be drilling new wells where the pressure is un-tapped) with no means of increasing supply WITHOUT increasing our rate of importation, which costs more than using our own oil and ADDS volatility to the price.

Progress brings change, and progress doesn't happen without profit. Ask anyone that has expereinced life on an American Indian Reservation prior to 1988 what life was like then, and compare it to what life is like now, a generation AFTER casinos brought work, revenue and profitable tourism to places no one ever visited before... and THEN tell me I'm wrong.