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Political Hay
Is the Climate Bill Frozen?
The forecast doesn’t look so bright and sunny for cap and tax.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is increasingly frustrated. He is hot to trot. He wants action on the climate. But he seems to be getting the cold shoulder. Not so much from his fellow Republicans as from his Democratic partners across the aisle.
No one seems to be paying much mind to Graham’s feverish efforts at bipartisanship. Or, might it be because global warming passions have cooled? Last week’s Earth Day was a tepid affair. Gone was the hot passion that stoked the fires of environmental activism in years past.
“Where are the snows of yesterday,” asked the French poet François Villon in the Middle Ages. Do we now think this Gallic green was really lamenting the Medieval Warming Period?
Maybe Sen. Graham’s colleagues have had their ardor chilled by the latest Gallup polls. A March poll said Americans’ concerns about global warming have dipped to their lowest point since 1997. Since 2007, the saliency of the global warming issue has dropped precipitously. In that last year of economic prosperity, 41% of Americans told pollsters they were “very concerned” about global warming. Today, those who “worry a great deal” about climate change has dropped to 28% of the nation. Of eight environmental issues, Americans are most concerned about the purity of drinking water and least about global warming.
Much of this cooling has been the result of the meltdown of the economy, to be sure. But ClimateGate hasn’t helped. We learned last year, just before President Obama jetted off to a world climate summit in Copenhagen, that climate scientists had been faking their data, pulling “tricks” to make warming seem more alarming than it is. The leaked emails from climate scientists at Britain’s University of East Anglia and from some stateside institutions showed a willingness of the climate science clique to try to blackball any reputable scientist who happened to dissent from their Doomsday scenarios.
Britains’ Nigel Lawson is no climate scientist, he readily admits. But he did deal with many of the issues of how governments respond to such crises when he served as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Exchequer. That’s a top post. Lord Lawson has written: An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming. In this short book, the former Secretary of State for Energy lays out a calm and carefully modulated response to climate hot air.
Will an increase over 100 years of between 4.5º C. and 7.5º C. really mean the end of civilization as we know it? Lawson asks if humans have adapted to living in Singapore (average annual temperature of 84º F) and Helsinki (average annual temperature of 41º F)? Is the gradual northerly creep of wine-producing vineyards necessarily a bad thing?
He explains how carbon dioxide must not be considered a pollutant. It is essential to life on earth.
If environmentalists really insist on a climate bill, Lord Lawson argues, then it should be a simple carbon tax. Tax gasoline. Tax heating oil. Tax electricity. This carbon tax would, of course, hit lower income folks hardest. But, he says, their carbon tax could be offset by corresponding cuts in their income tax.
I should emphasize that I do not agree with this proposal of this distinguished British writer. That’s because I think the increasing taxes on carbon would never be offset by tax cuts on lower income families. Government is simply too voracious for new revenue.
Still, I see the force of Nigel Lawson’s reasoning. The Cap and Trade Bill is really a Cap and Tax Bill. And if Lindsey Graham succeeds in passing this, it will create a huge and cumbersome new bureaucracy which itself eats up vast revenues and — worst of all — becomes the source for untold corruption of government. You will see corporations lining up to get favored treatment from government. Cap and Tax is really Cap, Tax, and Plunder. Washington, D.C.’s famous K Street would become home to hundreds of new lobbyists, each angling for bonanzas from government for his bosses. The infamous “K Street strut” would give way to a K Street glut.
I hope Senator Graham does not find any dance partners on the Hill. This bill is ill-timed and ill-advised. It’s time the lawmakers started listening more to those who have to live under the laws they pass.
About the Author
Ken Blackwell, the former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio is Vice Chairman of the Republican National Committee’s Platform Committee. He also serves on the boards of the Club For Growth and the National Taxpayers Union.
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Pingback| 4.30.10 @ 6:17AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Is the Climate Bill Frozen? [spectat links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
justasimplepatriot| 4.30.10 @ 7:47AM
I seem to recall a similar headline regarding Obamacare. We are seeing a bloodless coup unveiling itself before our very eyes. With the EPA, the Supreme Court's Co2 ruling and His Majesty Obama's executive orders, they are pausing while plotting to circumvent the rules.
Louis Jenkins| 4.30.10 @ 8:32AM
(I posted this yesterday, but today's article is even better.)
Just a side note:
http://www.latimes.com/feature.....3538.story
Gore continues on in the good ole' fashioned way. No worry about the ocean level rising.
U Just Dont GET it| 4.30.10 @ 8:37AM
Britians' Lawson misunderstands (like most) we are not just talking about an increase of temperatures.
The climate is a dynamic Energy system and thus patterns will alter. Also, these temperature increases will melt the artic ice caps, flooding coastal cities, and disrupting ocean water flows.
Our carbon is being absorbed by the oceans (thus increasing their tempatures also) creating more acid.
Speaking of which, Dr James Hansen has altered us to the time lag (inertia is the term), of these changes.
He refers to a "tipping point" where things get out of control and no human resolve will be able to control, stop or alter events.
He is desperately calling for action now. But, I suppose, now is not a convenient time to act..perhaps tommorrow
Mark| 4.30.10 @ 9:41AM
Fill a glass with ice and fill it with water. Once the ice melts will you have to clean up the water on the table? The last time I checked, my glass of water, has yet to over flow even though the ice is long gone. Now tell me again how melting of the Artic Ice cap will flood coastal areas. Just a note, before doing this, realize I have adegree in physics.
John Navratil| 4.30.10 @ 1:48PM
Mark,
Methinks "U just don't GET it" meant the Antarctic ice sheets, but still his argument is predicated on an anti-homeostatic view of the system. It would be nice if a few of the dynamics had been studied before this "ready-fire-aim" solution was presented.
Michael L. Hauschild| 4.30.10 @ 5:07PM
In a graduate level seninar for "global warming issues" and one of the speakers claimed that the melting northern "icecap" would raise the sea levels forty four feet. The room, mostly PhD.'s and candidates, burst out laughing.
Dan Hirsch| 4.30.10 @ 9:47AM
Hi, U Just Don't GET it,
You sure don't....
Carbon is an element which is a constituent in many things: it's in hydrocarbons like oil and natural gas, it's in carbohydrates like green beans, and flour, you exhale it and green growing things "inhale" it for their survival. You betcha 'carbon's entering "our" oceans. (Who gave them to us?) It always has and always will, in varying amounts. No matter.
What Dr. Hansen and his IPCC pals did was modify the reporting and collection of data to frighten uninformed people like you into denying the benefits of modern living to most of the world.
Take a biology course, take a chemistry course, or talk to somebody who has. You appear to know less than nothing. Surely, you can learn from scientists rather than politicians.
I hope next time you can post as "Now I get it."
Eric Cartman| 4.30.10 @ 10:32AM
We get it. You've lost. It's ova! Game, match, set!. Now you're stomping your little feet, holding your breath and crying that no one listens anymore. Too bad, ya had a pretty good scam going. Your derivatives would have worth a ton. Now? Not so much LOL.
pomdter| 4.30.10 @ 1:40PM
"U just don't get it" is right! Global warming is real and going to kill us all.... ignore history and all the data that proves otherwise! The faked data is the real truth! The aliens that abducted me told me so.
Publius| 4.30.10 @ 2:31PM
You need to get a new line as this one is no longer credible. The anchor of the theory is that CO2 (also known as "plant food") is being trapped in the atmosphere but an independent scientific review of measurements shows that excess CO2 bleeds off with no problems.
The fact that Barack Obama and Al Gore are founders and partners in the Chicago Climate Exchange - the NYSE for trading carbon credits - is a wee bit of a conflict-of-interest. The fact that other dirtbags are their partners makes this look like just what it is - another hysterical liberal scheme to redistribute wealth from those who create it to those who consume it.
Sorry, but after Climategate, Health Reformgate, Y2K and the Piltdown Man, we are fresh out of the "let's believe the liberal" patience.
You'll have to find another way to be a scab on the butt of humanity and leech your way through life. This scam has bottomed out.
Kishego| 4.30.10 @ 3:33PM
"He refers to a "tipping point" where things get out of control and no human resolve will be able to control, stop or alter events."
That's because no human resolve can create this problem to begin with. I know its simpistic but, until these eggheads can explain why Greenland used to be green, why the Vikings were once farmers that had to relocate because of the advancing glaciers, and why 1 volcano can spew more toxin into the air in one week than man can create in a decade, I'm just not gonna buy it.
Christopher Holland| 5.2.10 @ 10:22PM
This is junk science with bells on it. There is no evidence whatsoever to support these allegations. Hansen is a propagandist and a fraud and it is a disgrace that public money is spent on promoting his hare brained schemes.
Pingback| 4.30.10 @ 9:48AM
The American Spectator : Is the Climate Bill Frozen? tuition university links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
randyinrocklin| 4.30.10 @ 10:14AM
Here Graheamnesty's number 202-224-5972 call him and give em hell!
Oldefarte| 4.30.10 @ 11:30AM
Speaking of Axelrod, Emmanuel, Obama, Garrett, [Van] Jones and the rest of those CHICAGO-WAY GANGSTERS; let me propose a possible scenerio to all of you. Suppose a certain political party and it current operatives (that have now shoved down the throats of Americans the NON-stimulus bill, the WELFARECARE bill; and are attempting to impose AMNESTY for the ILLEGAL ALIENS crossing the Texas/Mexico border in droves, and taking full advantage [at taxpayer expense] of our American hospital emergency room services, public schools/transportation,etc) wanted to impose politically its Cap-and-Tax and invironmental WACKOISM, and possibly arranged for domestic terrorist operatives to plant explosive devices upon an Venice, Louisiana oil rig and to blow same up [and take political advantage of the resulting environmental damage/destruction from same]. JUST SUPPOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mimi| 4.30.10 @ 5:15PM
OLDEFARTE: How come you are always reading my mind?... Just suppose, fellow PATRIOT that is why they sent the SWAT TEAM???
Joe D| 4.30.10 @ 2:07PM
It is also time for Lindsey Graham to go like his mentor John McCain.
Pingback| 4.30.10 @ 2:59PM
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Periwinkel| 4.30.10 @ 3:12PM
.."This carbon tax would, of course, hit lower income folks hardest. But, he says, their carbon tax could be offset by corresponding cuts in their income tax." Someone should tell Lord Lawson half the people in the US don't pay income taxes!!
Eric(OfConservativeMind)| 5.3.10 @ 12:38AM
This is moderated by the local property and sales taxes in most areas, but they sure do get a lot of "free" money from the gub'mint!
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Truth to Power| 5.1.10 @ 3:28PM
http://blogs.news.com.au/heral....._view_home
It is amazing what our press doesn't cover. Al Gore has apparently purchased a ocean view home for almost 9 million bucks. He seems like he doesn't really believe in any of his environmental hokum. In water starved southern California he has fountains and swimming pools. He also doesn't seem too concerned about rising oceans. What a joke of a man. In other words he is a typical leftist.
Eric(OfConservativeMind)| 5.3.10 @ 12:41AM
Of course he believes!... While he has his hand down your back pocket... and purchases those carbon credits of which he is so fond. Yeah, he's offsetting his energy use with a logical human construct... That's the ticket!
justplainbill| 5.1.10 @ 5:58PM
Crap and fraud.
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