Benita M. Dodd
There's much for Georgians to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. First, that Al Gore, the ultimate opportunist, is in Atlanta Thanksgiving week, proposing, “Solutions to the Climate Crisis: The opportunities and choices we must make in the U.S. and around the world.” At least he's in Georgia, not with the gullible in Congress. Second, that there are ways to improve the environment that don't hinge on crying wolf.
Notice how the identity of the “crisis” has evolved from “global warming” to “climate change” to “climate crisis”? Just as Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC and the American Association of Retired Persons became AARP. After all, it can hardly be called “global warming” if the global trend shows no warming. It can hardly be “climate change” when climate change is a natural cycle. So it becomes Gore's “climate crisis,” with opportunities and choices that “we must make.”
Choice, according to Merriam-Webster.com, “suggests the opportunity or privilege of choosing freely.” If “climate crisis” activists propose the opportunity to choose how to enhance the environment, here are five, um, inconvenient suggestions.
Enhance economic opportunities. When individuals are secure about their own welfare, they focus on improving and caring about their surroundings. But increasing taxes and government regulation on industry increases the cost of doing business, which reduces economic expansion and shrinks business opportunities. Businesses can pass most of the costs of increased regulation onto their customers. For individuals, it's a double whammy of fewer job opportunities and a higher cost of living – which means less money to improve their situation.
Education: Clearly, a good education is the foundation for economic opportunity. Thereafter, educate people about wise options to improve their lives and environment and save money. For example, the same people who push for renewable energy mandates will add a home theater, several computers and put their old, energy-guzzling fridge in the garage, but resist the surcharge on their individual bill to fund that expensive “green” energy, fight nuclear energy and complain when power gets spotty. The commuters who bemoan the pollution from automobiles stuck in traffic will demand transit but resist tolling a highway lane that would make motorists weigh the value of their trip, improve transit and reduce pollution.
At the same time, beware the academics' intent. Colleges frequently seek out government grants under the guise of academic “research.” Grants offered by some agencies reveal how a fuzzy liberal agenda and “green” intentions produce a red flag instead of a scientific conclusion.
Ease your guilt: Do you really believe that other nations want the United States to sign a global warming/climate change/climate crisis treaty out of concern for U.S. greenhouse gas contributions? Do you believe that Congress has a cap-and-trade plan for emissions reductions that will cost little and work wonderfully? If you do, we have a government option health plan that you'll love.
Neither Congress nor the lashing from abroad are aimed at improving our environment. The goal is to emasculate the power of American business and the economy. Along with it goes Americans' quality of life, as Steven Heyward and Kenneth Green point out about congressional legislation: “By the year 2050, however, the United States is expected to have a population of 420 million, according to Census Bureau projections – more than four times the population of 1910. In order to reach the 83 percent reduction target, per-capita CO2 emissions will have to be no more than 2.4 tons per person – only one-quarter the level of per-capita emissions in 1910.” They suggest it was about 1875 that America last saw 2.4 tons per capita in emissions.
Energy sensibility. If the goal is cleaner energy, fund research into clean, reliable technology using existing U.S. resources. Nuclear energy is safe, clean and carbon emissions-free. Coal is abundant. It used to be cheap, now it's demonized and overregulated. Yet its global emissions aren't gone; the coal once used here is being exported. Not many people are aware that they can't travel as far on fuel mixed with ethanol – the renewable fuel of government "choice." The Department of Energy notes: “A gallon of ethanol has only two-thirds the energy of a gallon of conventional gasoline, and the number of miles traveled by a given vehicle per gallon of fuel is directly proportional to the energy contained in the fuel.”
Eschew excessive mandates: Government mandates restrict choices because government generally lags the private sector in innovation. Instead of mandating ethanol use, fuel standards or emissions caps, government should encourage entrepreneurial efforts. There is a role for government: oversight, not intervention.
From economic opportunities come environmental improvements, at home and abroad. A rising tide lifts all boats. Don't let fools, the feds or foreigners sink ours.
Benita M. Dodd is vice president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an independent think tank that proposes practical, market-oriented approaches to public policy to improve the lives of Georgians. Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before the U.S. Congress or the Georgia Legislature.
