California Conservative

If there’s anything that Tom Friedman’s article does, it’s to clarify that Tom Friedman is as clueless about climate change as anyone in the media.

There is much in the House cap-and-trade energy bill that just passed that I absolutely hate. It is too weak in key areas and way too complicated in others. A simple, straightforward carbon tax would have made much more sense than this Rube Goldberg contraption. It is pathetic that we couldn’t do better. It is appalling that so much had to be given away to polluters. It stinks. It’s a mess. I detest it.

Now let’s get it passed in the Senate and make it law.

Why? Because, for all its flaws, this bill is the first comprehensive attempt by America to mitigate climate change by putting a price on carbon emissions. Rejecting this bill would have been read in the world as America voting against the reality and urgency of climate change and would have undermined clean energy initiatives everywhere.

I’m tempted to tell Friedman to interview Bob Weisman on the realities of the effect Waxman-Markey would have on climate change. Here’s what Professor Weisman said in April about the National Energy Tax:

Despite disagreeing with him “100 percent, politically,” Weisman said he agreed with Horner that the Obama administration’s cap-and-trade program likely won’t do anything to effect climate change. “Like the Kyoto treaty, it won’t bring down global warming,” Weisman said. “You’d need something more like a 40 percent cut in emissions (to do that).”

Let’s summarize what Waxman-Markey will and won’t do. It won’t affect climate change one iota. We’d need a dramatic drop in greenhouse gas emissions to accomplish that, something that won’t happen with China dramatically increasing their greenhouse gas emissions. Something that Waxman-Markey is is a huge job-killing tax increase. People living in America’s heartland understand that this is destructive legislation that doesn’t have anything to do with improving the environment.

Only those people who are insulated by the Beltway echochamber think that the Democrats’ legislation is worthwhile. That’s because everyone in their echochamber tells them it’s important. If I hear that a journalist, perhaps even Mr. Friedman, actually asked a why question about how the Democrats’ legislation will affect the Earth’s climate, I’ll faint straightaway.

Now that the bill is heading for the Senate, though, we must, ideally, try to improve it, but, at a minimum, guard against diluting it any further. To do that we need the help of the three parties most responsible for how weak the bill already is: the Republican Party, President Barack Obama and We the People.

HINT TO MR. FRIEDMAN: We The People think this legislation stinks. We The People don’t want our utility bills to skyrocket. We’d prefer that we could keep more of our money. We The People don’t want the Democrats’ National Energy Tax to cause groceries to skyrocket like they did last summer when gas hit $4 a gallon. More We The People types are rejecting the premise that we’re destroying the planet with greenhouse gases.

Finally, We The People understand that this is just the Democrats’ latest attempt to control our lives. Especially as we approach Independence Day, We The People reject the Democrats’ attempt to control yet another portion of our lives.

Technorati Tags: Energy, Environment, Emissions, Economy, Taxes, Kyoto, Greenhouse Gases, China, United States, Ed Markey, Henry Waxman, Democrats

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 1:57 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Economy, Energy, Environment, Liberals, Special Interests, Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.