By Gene Hall
Okay, all of you get it by now. I’m not in favor of the cap and trade climate legislation that passed the U.S. House and stalled in the Senate, despite enthusiastic support from the Obama Administration. Please let it stall forever. This is more than opposition to a minor inconvenience. This thing, folks, is a pending disaster. Wall Street loves it because it would give them a new market to manipulate, but our current economic situation is no time to impose the largest tax increase in the history of the planet. But while they happily trade carbon credits, the rest of us—including Texas consumers and Texas farmers and ranchers, are going to suffer.
Cap and trade would effectively kill off many industries, including Texas agriculture, the one nearest and dearest to me. Global warming fanatics preach about how climate change will doom agriculture. Don’t worry. Cap and trade would kill it off long before high temperatures could do the job. Let’s be clear. We could even be talking about losing YOUR job here.
The public is clearly not clamoring for cap and trade with pitchforks at the gates of the Capitol. According to data compiled by the Pew Research Center, global warming ranks dead last on a list of issues compiled for research. See this link http://people-press.org/report/584/policy-priorities-2010
Is global warming a threat? Maybe. Yes or no, I think it makes sense to discharge as little carbon into the atmosphere as we can manage. Why though, can’t we do it with tax credits and other incentives? There is exciting new research on clean ethanol – algae, cellulosic (wood) and others. Some leaders in the environmental movement are talking again about non-carbon emitting nuclear power. We can even clean up coal power if we fund the research.
Instead, EPA is now telling us that they want to do this by draconian regulatory fiat, imposing the same scary limits, unless we take the bitter medicine of a cap and trade bill.
Well, at least we’ll be lowering world temperatures, right? That’s the thing. No one who favors cap and trade is even willing to claim that. It will not lower temperatures by even a tenth of a degree. That’s because the world’s really big carbon emitters are claiming third world status, arguing that they should not be required to participate in economic suicide. I don’t really blame them, but do we trust the Chinese that much? I think it’s much more likely that they will burn even more fossil fuels to claim the markets that we surrendered without a fight.
I think it’s time this proposal from the lunatic fringe of the environmental movement to die a quick and merciful death. Even if you believe in manmade climate change, let’s focus on something that will work. That something is market based solutions with tax incentives and return on investment. Let’s reward entrepreneurs and turn them loose to solve whatever problem exists. Sell the solution in markets around the world.
I think the public has this one right. I can hear them yawning whenever it’s brought up. Go ahead and drive up the cost of their fuel, food and nearly everything they buy. I think they might wake up and force those that dreamed this up to pay a heavy political price.