MAY 28 / Houston newspaper supports cap and trade

THE HOUSTON Chronicle, a newspaper that serves the executives and worker bees of the petroleum and petrochemical industries, a newspaper in a relatively prosperous state that generally welcomes investors and those who choose to work (contra: see California), a newspaper with a traditionalist, largely conservative readership . . . yes, that newspaper last week climbed aboard the solar-powered choo-choo of President Obama's imagination and endorsed cap and trade.

As for costs to people and businesses, the editorial blithely declares -- on the authority, one supposes, of dreams and wishes -- that the bill now under consideration would "[insulate] emissions-producing industries and consumers from economic damage."

Not likely. I'll take my guidance on this point from the man -- said to be among the most brilliant, the most eloquent of our age -- who declared as follows:

So if someone wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them becuz they're gonna be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.

To the rejoinder that most of the early permits are being given away, the answer is, "That's for now. The ultimate plan is to charge for them. We're just talking about a matter of timing. Besides, the direct costs of cap-and-trade permits are not the only costs, as my cap-and-trade expert patiently explained to a credulous editorial board (is there any other kind?) in the Chronicle's spiritual home, San Francisco.

You know, when I was asked earlier about, uh, the issue of coal, uh, y--, you know, under my plan a--, of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.

Love that "necessarily." It is an honest word. The skyrocketing will not be incidental collateral damage; it is the very purpose of the exercise, the reason for its being.

Even, you know, regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I'm capping greenhouse gases, coal-powered plants, you know, natural ga--, you name i--, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to, uh, retrofit their operations. That would cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.

Higher prices to consumers are the purpose of cap-and-trade. We can conclude, therefore, that the Houston Chronicle, our newspaper -- which has to know these things -- really favors higher energy costs to you, me, and our offspring.

For what purpose?

Well, to make the weather better.

With overwhelming scientific evidence that the threat of global climate change is real and accelerating, it's imperative that the United States, the second-biggest producer of carbon dioxide, take a leadership role in crafting solutions.  

"Overwhelming evidence?"

Says who? Says computer black boxes programmed to print out what the programmers wish them to print out, that's who.

"Overwhelming?"

That's code for saying the issue cannot be debated. Right-thinking people have decreed the right answer. That's that. Skeptics must now shut up.

"That the threat of global climate change is real."

Okay, climate change is real. Always has been, always will be. The climate drifts hither and yon, from the default position -- a world covered in ice -- to intermittent periods of relative warmth. So what?

What the editors meant to say, of course, is that anthropogenic global warming is real. That temperatures are going up, which is, or was, true (and which is not all that surprising in the 150 year-period after the end of the Little Ice Age). And that mankind is responsible for driving the temperatures up, a proposition that may one day be regarded as a classic mass delusion.

"Threat."

Warmer weather creates some benefits and some detriments. The charm of the left is that it ignores the former and siezes on the latter as justification for the two universal  liberal policy responses to all "threats" (including the threat of too many rich people) -- give us your money and do what we say.

(These are precisely the same policy preferences, by the way, of street muggers. But at least they have the decency not to declare that they're robbing us for our own good.)

"Global climage change [read global warming] is . . . accelerating."

Actually global warming is and has been for the past decade global cooling. For fun, the Chronicle should draw a graph of the fevered predictions of the IPCC for the past ten years, then plot actual temperatures on the same scale. One set of lines -- the imaginary ones -- will go up. The other set -- those taken from real thermometers here on planet earth -- will go down.  

The Chronicle will not do this, however, because it relies solely on the numbers cooked up by Dr. James Hanson Hansen and other extreme proponents of the theory of athropogenic global warming. Though data mining, they can make the as-measured curve go whichever way they need it to go. These experts and the Chronicle simply refuse to hear evidence to the contrary, and the refusal is generally accompanied by name-calling. (Kudoes to the Chronicle for resisting that, at least.)  

A great race is underway to install cap and trade, mileage mandates, and other costly policies before evidence of cooling overwhelms the senses, the polls, and the debate. By then, of course, the Chronicle and its pals will be in a position to claim credit.

"See what we did. Aren't you glad you listened?"

Like a four-year-old at the beach, running out to chase waves, then back to avoid getting his ankles wet: "Mommy, Mommy, I can make the waves go out and come back again!"

The big difference: Humoring a four-year-old at the beach won't wreck our economy and ruin our lives.

UPDATE: Thanks for the links from blogHouston and Lose an Eye.  

 

 

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And another nail has been hit on the head.