“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that, it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before,” Rahm Emanuel famously remarked after President Obama’s election in November 2008. Swine flu is shaping up to be no exception.

Reuters reported earlier this week that, “Weather experts are studying swine flu to see if climate could influence its spread and severity.” While even the UN’s World Meteorological Organization seems to agree (so far anyway) that the 0.07 degree Celsius per decade increase in mean global temperature that has occurred since 1880 is unlikely to have affected the virtually random process of genetic mutation in viruses, some unidentified “experts” are apparently still willing to spend taxpayer money to look into the matter.

Such nonsensical research aside, my guess as to where swine flu could play an inflammatory role to advance the green agenda is with respect to the issue of large-scale livestock production.

Climate alarmists rank the greenhouse gas emissions from livestock production up with emissions from the transportation sector — each is responsible for about 20 percent of total global emissions goes the lore –hence their calls to reduce meat consumption.

IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri says we should have two or more meat-free days a week. New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman equates the environmental impacts of livestock production to those of nuclear war. On the loopier side is Paul McCartney’s ex-wife, Heather Mills, whose global warming worries led her to recommend that people switch from cow’s milk to milk from dogs and rats.

A major boogeyman of the cow-farts-cause-global-warming crowd is the much-dreaded “factory farm” (green-speak) or “confined animal feeding operations” (industry-speak). Though anti-meat and anti-business greens have tried many ways to attack large-scale livestock production — e.g., allegations of manure-laden run-off and overuse of groundwater — global warming fears seem to have gotten them the most press. Now comes swine flu to add fuel to the fire.

For example, a recent Grist.org article, “Swine-flu outbreak could be linked to Smithfield factory farms,” railed about how “Mexican authorities treat hog CAFOs with just as much if not more indulgence than [sic] their peers north of the border, to the detriment of surrounding communities and the general public health.”

But as the greens try to lay the blame for swine flu on Smithfield and factory farming in hopes of effecting policy change in the U.S., the real problem in Mexico is not livestock production but poverty — average income is one-fourth of that in the U.S., and Veracruz, the state in which the flu outbreak is thought to have started, is among the poorest Mexican states. Not surprisingly, Mexicans pay a significant price in terms of health for that disparity. Mexican infant mortality, for example, is three times higher than in the U.S., and Veracruz is below the national average in terms of health indicators.

Rather than supporting economic development in Mexico as means of improving public-health conditions, the greens are content to sit back and exploit the swine flu crisis as another means for advancing their anti-people, anti-business and, yes, anti-environment social and political agenda. Remember, it’s the wealthiest nations that have the cleanest environments. So opposing economic development is essentially a vote for foul air and fetid water.

President Obama is under pressure to move the U.S. away from large-scale livestock production. He’s already embraced global warming as a reason to reduce our meat consumption. Will he fall for the swine flu angle as well?

You can almost hear the first green president channeling JFK: “Ask not what you can do for a crisis; ask what the crisis can do for you.”

– Steve Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and is the author of the new book, Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them.