Global warming realists (that is, those who don’t buy the Al
Gore-like catastrophism because they see the earth is
no warmer than it was 12 years ago) often argue
against various forms of energy taxes, but too many stop short of
asking alarmists, “What’s the benefit?”
The costs demand attention. President Obama’s economic advisers
admit that their boss’s proposed cap-and-trade scheme — which
will indirectly tax greenhouse gas emissions (mostly from
electrical utilities’ coal-fired power plants) that exceed a
yet-to-be-determined limit —
will hit Americans up for an additional $1.9 trillion over
the next eight years. A more straightforward carbon tax would
lead to similar pain. These consequences should be highlighted
often, and they are.
But many who make these points — like those in
conservative talk radio and
punditry — often don’t go far enough, because telling the
cost side tells only half. Listeners and readers are left with
the impression that “yeah, it costs a fortune.” But then you can
hear their Gore-pressed consciences wonder, “but don’t we still
have to do something?”
This leads to the next (should be) obvious question — one the
alarmists never have to answer — which is, “If we do what you
are proposing we should do, what will we (or the Earth) get in
exchange for what we spend?”
It’s the completion of basic economics. Every financial
transaction an individual makes takes into account two questions:
What is the cost, and what is the benefit derived from that
potential expenditure? We’ve seen the huge financial hit
discussed. Whether it’s taxing carbon fuels directly; or
subsidizing cleaner energy substitutes like wind, solar or
biofuels; or subsidizing not-yet-ready technologies like carbon
capture and storage, the costs are steep.
But it leaves the alarmists off the hook for the other side of
the ledger: What are the benefits? And do the benefits outweigh
the costs, even with their heavy price?
To answer these questions means alarmists must back up their
science, because their wished-for “solutions” imply that
something will change in the atmosphere — and thus affect global
warming — because of their proposed carbon-constraining
policies. But instead of boldly proclaiming the great
thermostatic results their policies will produce, they run away
from the science they so adamantly claim that they stand behind.
How? Because they cannot explain how much greenhouse gas
reduction — in whatever quantities they propose — will cause
global temperatures to change. For all their jargon-filled
technological conversations about how to “solve the problem,”
they only measure their goals in terms of emissions averted or
reduced — usually quantified in “million metric tons of carbon
dioxide equivalent,” or
MMtCO2e. How’s that for an absurd acronym?
Their beside-the-point planet-saving discussions have been
held in more than half the states in the country, among
bureaucrat- and lobbyist-laden government study
panels, all
purportedly to avert global warming. Yet these climate commission
members never ask climate scientists or
economists what they think.
So it’s easy to stump the alarmists when you ask: What will the
climate do when we lower MMtCO2e’s? Can you
doomsayers who so haughtily
and demandingly chant “Science!
Science! Science!” tell us how your plans will lower temps,
save sea levels, and spare species?
They never answer in terms of degrees, so you can conclude that
the “benefit” side of the ledger is zero. Sound like a deal you’d
want in on?
