Fucking EPA
So the EPA has just declared carbon emissions to be a public health threat. What does this mean? In brief, it means that the EPA can slap carbon regulations on businesses and private individuals without any say-so from Congress.
Look, I understand that global warming is a legitimate issue. I understand that "Climategate" is overblown and that while some individual scientists did skew some data and do some pretty unethical (and unscientific) things, this does not change the fact that man-made global warming is taking place.
That being said, let's look at a few facts (facts in bold, my commentary follows):
1)
Even if all human activity ceased today, the global average temperature would still rise by between 1-2 degrees by 2050 due to current CO2 levels in the atmosphere.2)
We are in the midst of a global recession, and despite what the pundits say, today's "green" technology is not cost-effective. If they were, private industry would already be using such methods because cost-effective technologies increase profits! "Green" technology and "green" energy are expensive and will cost everyone money, whether it be in the form of higher taxes (or more debt) to cover subsidies or higher prices on goods to cover increased production costs. Good luck increasing consumption while prices on
everything are going up.
3)
Emission reductions by any one country are pointless without an international agreement to ensure similar reductions by all countries. Such reductions will have a minimal impact on global CO2 levels while putting the country in question at a significant economic disadvantage (see #2). In game theory, we would state that such an action is irrational and a non-paraeto-optimal solution. In everyday conversation, we would say it was fucking stupid.
4)
The US may be the world's largest CO2 culprit in terms of per capita carbon emissions, but the US is also the world's leader in per capita production. No surprise there. People who are better off and produce more will burn more fuels. That doesn't make them bad people. It means they are productive people enjoying the results of their production. If you tell people they can't enjoy their production, they will cease to produce and everyone's quality of life will go down. Kiss goodbye to any moral argument against a "decadent" America. Furthermore, it simply isn't economically practicable to remove people's incentive to produce.
5)
China and India will not go along with any meaningful international agreement. Yes, China has agreed in principle to reduce its rate of carbon emissions increase, but this is not a binding agreement and furthermore still allows their emissions to double in the next decade. This alone would more than erase any realistic decrease in US emissions. India has stated openly that they will not sign
any agreement until their economy improves.
Nor should they. China and India are doing what is in the interest of their people. They are allowing industry to grow and for their people to crawl out of the dark ages and actually prosper for the first time. The US should follow the same policy by allowing our own industries to recover from the current recession and put our citizens to work.
6)
Nuclear power is the only current technology that is both "green" and economical, but our own politicians refuse to authorize the construction of new nuclear power plants. That's right. Nuclear power has a perfect safety record, too! I know some people will scream out "Chernobyl!" in protest, but get real. The Chernobyl reactor melted down because some idiot Soviet military brass decided to push the reactor to 120% of its designed output, despite the protests of the very engineers who designed the reactor. If I put racing tires on my truck and outfit it with NOS and a turbocharger, I'm going to wreck my cam shaft. This doesn't mean my truck is faulty. It means I'm a dumbass for trying to make it do something it's not designed to do. Point made. But what about Three Mile Island? It's funny... my friend's dad was one of the guys who designed that reactor. You know what they did the night of the near-meltdown? They threw a party! That's right. You know why? Because the safety failsafes
worked and prevented a meltdown. Instead, the media panicked and destroyed the future of clean energy in the US for decades. Go figure. The upshot of this is that #2 is only partially true.
7)
Electric cars do nothing for the environment unless their batteries are charged from a "green" source. Think about it. You plug your car into your wall socket which gets its energy from the local coal-fueled power plant. Way to be "green". As a sidenote, ethanol produces more CO2 than gasoline. Thank you Big Agro for making sure we're all required by law to buy more corn products and drive up your profits while further damaging the environment.
8)
The EPA is a regulatory agency governing, you guessed it, the environment. It does not regulate nor take into account business.. Yes, I know that environmental regulations impact business, but such regulations are for the most part blind to the needs of specific industries. Regulating the amount of arsenic acceptable in drinking water is much less complex than regulating carbon emissions (how do you even BEGIN to do that with a one-size-fits-all rule?). In short, even if you buy into all the other bullshit, the EPA is simply not designed to deal with carbon emissions.
OK, so what we have here is basically an impasse. In Washington, we are presented with a clear choice. Elect Republicans and have a better short-term economic recovery until global warming radically changes all of our lives, or elect Democrats and further ruin our economy, only to probably be hit by climate change anyway (see #s 1 and 3). This isn't a choice at all! This is a choice between either poverty, famine, disease, war and death or poverty, famine, disease, war and death.
Sadly, these are the choices we leave ourselves with when we do not pay attention to facts. I would propose a third solution (or a second result). How about we issue permits for as many nuclear plants as people want to build? That would stimulate the economy in the short term by creating jobs. In the long term, it would reduce carbon emissions along with the price of electricity. Furthermore, it would legitimize efforts at creating an electric car and would also allow us to engage in serious international climate change negotiations. All this while building our economy. When climate change did start to affect us in more serious ways, we would have a stronger economy and thus more advanced technology with which to adapt.
Sadly, our politicians, media and general population are all mostly a bunch of moronic cattle. We're fucked.
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