Is the Solution Worse Than the Crisis?
Anytime you start with a premise that can’t withstand close scrutiny, you’re starting from a position of weakness. That’s the situation that global warming activists are faced with. This TNR article starts with the same flawed premise that other articles start with. Here’s what I’m talking about:
As the U.S. energy secretary, Chu has been tasked with reshaping the country’s trillion-dollar energy economy, to reduce America’s reliance on fossil fuels and cut greenhouse-gas emissions 80 percent or more by mid-century, essential to avoiding catastrophic climate change.
What proof do we have that greenhouse gas emissions are producing “catastrophic climate change”? We’ve got al Gore’s eccentric allegations but his allegations don’t constitute proof. We have the IPCC report but that’s a political document, not a scientific document. (Since when did consensus equal scientific proof?)
Entertainer Penn Jillette recently said something profound that the global warming people haven’t addressed. Here are the five questions that he asked about the government getting involved in ’solving’ this ‘crisis’:
1. Is the climate changing?
2. If it’s changing, is man causing the change?
3. If it’s changing and if man is causing the change, it the change good or bad?
4. If the climate is changing and man is causing the change and if it’s change for the worse, can man do anything to reverse it?
5. If the climate is changing and man is causing it and it’s bad and man can do something to reverse it, why do we think that government is capable of providing the solutions?
For the record, I think everyone agrees that the climate is changing because it’s scientifically provable. After that, things get dicey. It’s possible to make a case both ways whether man is causing the change. At this point, I’m certain only that it hasn’t been proven that man has caused climate change.
Point three is the point that Al Gore’s climate change fanatics have a difficult time proving. They’ve talked about rapidly melting ice caps, sea levels rising dramatically, etc. Their proof? They don’t have any. The models that global warming activists cite are questionable at best. the Hockey Stick Graph is woefully inaccurate because it omits the Greenland Warm Period at the start of the second millenium AD. It also omits several mini-ice ages.
I’d add these questions to Mr. Jillette’s questions: Is the cost of the ‘cure’ worth the economic hardship that the ‘cure’ would cause? Let’s suppose just for the sake of discussion that we answer yes to Mr. Jillette’s questions. How likely is it that we’ll find a cure to this alleged crisis? What would this alleged crisis-averting solution cost? What proof would we have that a crisis had been averted? (Let’s stipulate that allegations aren’t proof.)
Finally, let’s ask this question: Given the Obama administration’s fumbling of things thus far, from Tim Geithner’s TARP rollout to the Chrysler and GM bailouts, why would we think that this administration is up to the task of solving anything?
We were told to overlook Tim Geithner’s tax evasion problems because he alone was equipped to handle the banking crisis. After several major stumbles, the latest of which is his telling Chinese economic students that America-held debt is solid, Geithner has become somewhat of a laughingstock. (That statement was greeted with laughter by the students.)
Car Czar Steven Rattner, with President Obama’s help, bullied Chrysler and GM secured bondholders into accepting less than the UAW, an unsecured debtor, got. The Supreme Court could dramatically change the bullied agreements within the next couple days.
Why should we trust an administration that is at times inept, at other times corrupt? Why should we trust an administration that told us that passing ARRA would cause unemployment to top out at less than 8 percent but failing to pass ARRA would lead to unemployment topping 9 percent? Last Friday, the unemployment rate hit 9.4 percent despite the passage of ARRA.
Now this administration is teling us that dramatically changing our energy infrastructure isn’t just required but that people who disagree are out of touch. At this point, I’m not willing to trust this administration on much of anything, much less on their alleged solution to this alleged crisis.
Technorati Tags: Science, Climate Change, President Obama, Al Gore, Activism, Steven Rattner, Tim Geithner, Steven Chu, Proof, Allegations, Solutions, Crisis
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
June 7th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
The Obama regime is going to ruin the economy. If the government would get the heck out of the way, capitalism works. Period. I have read many people say capitalism is failing. If it is, it’s because of goverment restictions.