Obama’s Not To Do List.

Here’s Holman Jenkins:

Put away the global warming panic. Mankind’s contribution to rising CO2 levels raises serious questions, but the tens of billions poured into climate science have, by now, added up only to a negative finding. We don’t really have the slightest idea how an increase in the atmosphere’s component of CO2 is impacting our climate, though the most plausible indication is that the impact is too small to untangle from natural variability.

In any case, has Mr. Obama taken a gander at collapsing industrial production numbers around the world? He’s going to get a big reduction in CO2 output whether he wants it or not. Nor will the public be moved to make costly, material changes in its energy habits, especially if the recent global cooling trend continues. What we’ll get instead is already depressingly clear: climate pork, or lucrative favors for lobbying interests in the name of global warming that have no impact on global warming.

Put away the “energy independence” conceit. This notion, a favorite of Tojo and Hitler, was debunked by Churchill, who reasoned that true energy security came from a diversity of suppliers, not the foolish pursuit of self-sufficiency.

Wow, that’s an especially important point above about the “green jobs” nonsense doing nothing more than creating just another special interest group. Indeed, Global Warming is the cure without a problem that economically-sensible scientists have been talking about for 10 years.

Max Schultz adds:

Americans use coal for half of their electricity, and natural gas for another 20 percent, precisely because these fuels produce power at a third to a fifth the cost that such celebrated green sources as wind and solar can. Think of cap-and-trade as a price-protection racket for inefficient technologies. It’s the same logic behind the renewable portfolio standard the Obama administration is pushing: A nationwide RPS would simply force energy companies to generate more power from renewable sources. Naturally, the inefficiencies get passed along to consumers, raising prices not just for electricity, but for everything.

Don’t take my word for it. Take the president’s. A year ago, during a meeting with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board, Obama proved to be an unusually candid candidate. “Under my plan of a cap and trade system,” he said, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” Skyrocketing prices. That’s the point. (Inexplicably, the Chronicle straight-news reporters who wrote about the meeting didn’t find those eye-popping words sufficiently newsworthy to merit their publication. The comment only was discovered in the final days of the presidential campaign, by which point Obama’s victory was in the bag.)