THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 60, February 29, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
IRRATIONAL LEGISLATION
By Alan Caruba
THE ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENT VERSUS ECONOMIC GROWTH & PROSPERITY: THE PROPOSED
LIEBERMAN-WARNER CLIMATE SECURITY ACT & ITS THREAT TO THE AMERICAN ECONOMY -- THE FUTILITY AS WELL AS
DANGER OF CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATION DESIGNED TO FORCE REDUCTIONS IN CARBON DIOXIDE & OTHER SOCALLED
GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS INTO THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE -- WHY THE LIEBERMAN-WARNER ACT IS AN IRRATIONAL
POLICY -- INCONVENIENT FACTS CONFRONTING GREENS: THE FACT THAT CARBON DIOXIDE CONSTITUTES BARERLY
0.038 PERCENT OF THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE -- THE FACT THAT THERE IS NO THREAT OF HUMAN-INDUCED GLOBAL
WARMING, THAT THE EARTH IS ACTUALLY SHOWING CLEAR SIGNS OF A NATURAL CLIMATE COOLING TREND -- NEEDED:
A MAJOR WAVE OF RESISTANCE TO ENACTMENT OF THE LIEBERMAN-WARNER CLIMATE SECURITY ACT
FULL STORY:
I heard from Friends of the Earth, a huge environmentalist organization, which one would think would favor the
Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2007 being advanced by Senate Democrats. It would impose a cap-and-trade
program to force reductions of socalled greenhouse gas emissions.
FOE, however, was wailing about the way “it lavishes up to $1 trillion on industries responsible for global warming and, in
return, asks for reduction targets well below what scientists say are necessary.” This is typical of the environmentalists,
for whom enough is never enough. It also reflects their insane hatred of the very industries that underpin the nation’s
economy, i.e., jobs, exports, the whole enchilada.
This legislation is unnecessary for one reason. There is no global warming and the primary greenhouse gas the
environmentalists are forever worrying about, carbon dioxide (CO2), constitutes barely 0.038% of the earth’s atmosphere.
For the mathematically challenged, that is less than half of half a percent.
Thus, there is no need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. To do so means wrecking the economy.
Kenneth P. Green, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, recently had a
commentary posted on the website of Tech Central Station titled “How Not to Address Climate Change.” You may
have noticed that the environmentalists now routinely talk about “climate change,” as opposed to “global warming.” For
the record, over the past 4.5 billion years of the earth’s existence, there has not been a single day without some climate
change occurring.
Green said that, “cap-and-trade schemes are fundamentally flawed, and particularly ill-suited to greenhouse gas control.”
This is assuming that any real reductions could ever be achieved without returning human society to a time when horses
were the primary means of transportation and the Industrial Revolution had not begun.
Even putting aside the fact the European Union has had a cap-and-trade scheme for several years, during which none of
the nations have ever met its reduction goal, Green correctly identifies the Lieberman-Warner Act as "an irrational policy."
The Act would require U.S. per capita emissions to fall by a total of 13.8 percent over the 2000-2012 period, plus an
additional 20.2 percent from 2012 to 2020, and a further 27.6 percent from 2020 to 2030. This adds up to "about 25 to 35
times greater " than all of the emissions from 1990 to 2000. This represents a “regulatory drag on economic growth,” and no
growth, as you might have noticed lately, means no new jobs and the likely loss of many existing ones.
Green also notes that such schemes provide “incentives to cheat.” Lastly, it would generate “a perpetual group of
rent-seekers, those raking in profits in new carbon trading” -- a group that would want more and more restrictions on
greenhouse gas emissions.
Finally, need it be pointed out that, aside from the fact that there is no threat of global warming (the earth is actually
showing clear signs of a climate cooling trend), such a program is utterly and completely useless, unless every other nation
on earth also reduces its greenhouse gas emissions and that, my friend, is not going to happen.
This cap-and-trade scheme involving the sale and purchase of “carbon credits” is so completely bogus that, like the
financial meltdown resulting from the mortgage loan mess, it would surely cause one that would make the nation’s current
financial problems look like a kindergarten picnic.
It is a market based on nothing, on “carbon credits” involving any use of energy. Our entire economy, indeed everything
that passes for our lifestyle and standard of living, is based on the use of energy. What better way to destroy it? “Its
benefits are non-existent,” said Green.
It is a totally irrational policy. This bill is making its way through the U.S. Senate. It is not unlike the December “energy”
bill that, among other things, bans the purchase and presumably the manufacture of Thomas Edison’s incandescent light
bulb starting in 2012. Its ethanol mandates have driven up the cost of corn around the world and has already led Brazilian
ranchers and farmers to destroy a huge section the size of Rhode Island of that nation’s rainforest for more grazing and
growing acreage.
We normally call such things unintended consequences, but there is nothing unintended about the Lieberman-Warner bill.
Its authors and supporters know exactly what it will do. And they don't care.
Meanwhile, anyone with a wit of sense knows that humans never have and never will have the slightest “control” over the
weather or the climate.
You might want to tell your senator that. Only a major wave of resistance, comparable to the way the public was able to stop
the recent amnesty bill, will kill this horrid piece of legislation.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Caruba has a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.
Caruba’s new book, Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy, has been published by Merril Press.
© Alan Caruba 2008
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity