It was just a matter of time, and was predicted by many and unsurprising at that: The Obama administration, via the Environmental Protection Agency, has by fiat declared carbon dioxide a pollutant, dictating (through unelected EPA bureaucrats, mind you) that CO2 “threaten[s] the public health and welfare of current and future generations.”
Wow. Who’s arrogant now? According to reports, “The finding could touch every corner of Americans’ lives, from the types of cars they drive to the homes they build.” No matter. The government determines by decree if you are “rich” or not, and they now say, by decree, that every time you exhale you are “threatening public health of current and future generations.” Move over, George Orwell.
The scaremongers are following their cues, such as House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, who promised no compromise “on his proposed 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gases over the next decade in the face of criticism from lawmakers who say the economy could suffer.”
Economics? Waxman has a world to save. From what? No matter. He’s too busy saving the world to explain what we’re being saved from.
All this despite the fact that while Europe has in some cases a 15 year or more head start in attempting to cut CO2 emissions they have utterly failed. “Thirteen of the original 15 European signatories” of Kyoto will not come close to meeting their 2010 goals. Despite ramped up action to curb emissions, the EU’s CO2 rate has steadily risen in the last three years. The U.S., through inaction, has nonetheless had a higher rate of CO2 emission cuts than the European average!
[Pete Du Pont] According to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Earth’s average rate of warming in the 30 years from 1977 to 2007 was just 0.32 degree Fahrenheit per decade, and the global surface temperature has remained virtually flat since 1998.
Adding to the Waxman insanity, and otherwise proving his bill is about taxation and not the environment, the Waxman bill ignores investment for nuclear power, despite the fact that (to their credit) the Europeans are all about it. France already gets 80 percent of its energy from nuke. The U.K. Italy. Sweden. Finland. All of Eastern Europe, from The Ukraine (where Chernobyl was!) to Poland to Romania. They’re all going nuclear at full throttle. Japan (albeit not Europe) is going to double their nuclear capacity. China — from a current 9,000 MW capacity to eventually 63,000 MWs. The U.S.? We’re still showing reruns of The China Syndrome.
So, don’t dare talk to me about clean and green energy, and other such nonsense, if you’re not willing to split atoms. Cap-and-Trade, whether by Kyoto or some other deal, is nothing more than a tax. And the only reason any corporation will go along (such as General Electric, which is poised to make money of TARPian proportions) is because the smaller competition won’t be able to afford such regulation. Good bye little guy. Hello Corporatists.
Hey it worked for Mattel. And for meat packers in the 1900s. Teddy Roosevelt the trust buster? A myth.