Apparently, over at The Nation, there is some foggy logic.
But how is it, one must ask, that just as Congress has finally begun to address the issue, and the world is poised to focus on it more than it ever has, that Americans seem to be curling up into a ball of denial?
No mention of "Climate-Gate" or the hypocrisy of those who would fly a carbon-spewing private jet to some conference on how carbon causes climate change. Of course not. We're just deniers. Heretics in the Climate Inquisition.
The Administration claims cap and trade is "jobs bill"? How can the largest tax on business in history be a jobs bill? Here's the foggy answer:
This is all true, of course, so far as it goes: cap and trade will create strong incentives for innovation in an economy that badly needs them and will begin re-engineering the fossil fuel economy in a way that will surely create net job benefits. Over time, if we stick to it, it will also delink our foreign and military policies from the pursuit of oil. But those aren't the main reasons to pass the bill. Stopping the planet from melting is.
Zero-carbon energy at the same time utilities are dis-incented to use tried-and-true clean energy like nuclear? It becomes very clear that the idea is to use the "unlimited" energy available from solar and wind. As has been published on this blog several times, those sources are not unlimited. Strong incentives? Yeah...for unemployment. "Surely create job benefits"...based on what evidence? If we are to fundamentally alter our economic base, we better be sure there will be job benefits. Literally millions work in the energy industries related to carbon-based fuels. And under Waxman-Markey, they will be looking for work.
It's maddening that a well-funded industry of contrarians continues to wage a monstrous campaign of deceit, that the simple facts have to be fought for every day. But they do. "Climate change is happening," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said at a recent briefing. "I don't think that's anything that is, quite frankly, among most people, in dispute anymore."
No. What's maddening is that a well-funded industry of fear-mongers is trying to fundamentally alter the economy and undermine liberty in ways we already recognize and ways we haven't even imagined, while not giving the issue a full debate. The proponents of (alleged) AGW continue to act in ways that make the skeptics more skeptical; the aformetioned trips on private jets, the name calling and the unwillingness to allow data to see the light of day are just a few.
What are the (alleged) AGW alarmists afraid of?
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