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
Home Page   Main Menu   Recent Articles   Site Map   Website Index   Issues & Controversies
  Cyberland University   Political Science, Philosophy, & History: Lectures   U.S. Constitution
  American Constitutional Law   American Constitutional System   American Political System
  Conservatism, Liberalism, & Radicalism   How America Goes to War
  World War IV: Islamist Terror War Against the U.S.A. & the West

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




Return to Top of Page

Go to the WEBSITE INDEX

Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Public Issues & Political Controversies


Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
Most Recent Articles


Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Volume X, 2007


Return to Beginning of
THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA,
Subject Matter Highlights


Return to POLITICAL EDUCATION Homepage

CONTACT & ACCESS INFORMATION




LINKS TO PARTICULAR ISSUES & SUBJECT MATTER CATEGORIES
TREATED IN THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, U.S.A.:

Africa: Black Africa * Africa: North Africa * American Government 1
American Government 2 * American Government 3 * American Government 4
American Government 5 * American Politics * Anglosphere * Arabs
Arms Control & WMD * Aztlan Separatists * Big Government
Black Africa * Bureaucracy * Canada * China * Civil Liberties * Communism
Congress, U.S. * Conservative Groups * Conservative vs. Liberal
Constitutional Law * Counterterrorism * Criminal Justice * Disloyalty * Economy
Education * Elections, U.S. * Eminent Domain * Energy & Environment
English-Speaking World * Ethnicity & Race * Europe * Europe: Jews
Family Values * Far East * Fiscal Policy, U.S. * Foreign Aid, U.S. * Foreign Policy, U.S.
France * Hispanic Separatism * Hispanic Treason * Human Health * Immigration
Infrastructure, U.S. * Intelligence, U.S. * Iran * Iraq * Islamic North Africa
Islamic Threat * Islamism * Israeli vs. Arabs * Jews & Anti-Semitism
Jihad & Jihadism * Jihad Manifesto I * Jihad Manifesto II * Judges, U.S. Federal
Judicial Appointments * Judiciary, American * Latin America * Latino Separatism
Latino Treason * Lebanon * Leftists/Liberals * Legal Issues
Local Government, U.S. * Marriage & Family * Media Political Bias
Middle East: Arabs * Middle East: Iran * Middle East: Iraq * Middle East: Israel
Middle East: Lebanon * Middle East: Syria * Middle East: Tunisia
Middle East: Turkey * Militant Islam * Military Defense * Military Justice
Military Weaponry * Modern Welfare State * Morality & Decency
National Identity * National Security * Natural Resources * News Media Bias
North Africa * Patriot Act, USA * Patriotism * Political Culture * Political Ideologies
Political Parties * Political Philosophy * Politics, American * Presidency, U.S.
Private Property * Property Rights * Public Assistance * Radical Islam
Religion & America * Rogue States & WMD * Russia * Science & Ethics
Sedition & Treason * Senate, U.S. * Social Welfare Policy * South Africa
State Government, U.S. * Subsaharan Africa * Subversion * Syria * Terrorism 1
Terrorism 2 * Treason & Sedition * Tunisia * Turkey * Ukraine
UnAmerican Activity * UN & Its Agencies * USA Patriot Act * U.S. Foreign Aid
U.S. Infrastructure * U.S. Intelligence * U.S. Senate * War & Peace
Welfare Policy * WMD & Arms Control


This is not a commercial website. The sole purpose of the website is to share with interested persons information regarding civics, civic and social education, political science, government, politics, law, constitutional law and history, public policy, and political philosophy and history, as well as current and recent political developments, public issues, and political controversies.



POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS

POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE

Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.

Government, Politics, Public Policy, Legal Issues, Constitutional Law, Government & the Economy, Cultural Values, Foreign Affairs, International Relations, Military Defense & National Security, Geopolitics, Terrorism & Homeland Security, American National Interests, Political Systems & Processes, Political Institutions, Political Ideologies, & Political Philosophy

INDEX FOR THE ENTIRE WEBSITE

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z




THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA

An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis

Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor

Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic, Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues


Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity