Climate Change: Hoax Or Hell?
“I’ve not read any scientific studies that would lead me to conclude there are adverse impacts to human beings, animals, or plant life at this small level of climate change.” So said the former head of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Sounds accurate. Except, maybe, for things like significant human health problems; melting polar ice caps; warming oceans; rising sea levels; species that have gone extinct; animals appearing in regions where they’ve never been before; and extreme weather patterns resulting in record storms, floods and droughts, all associated with climate change.
Since advocating such a viewpoint about Earth’s global warming is incomprehensible, maybe he was talking about climate change on another planet. Uranus, perhaps?
••• Shocking as that mentality is, it’s not an isolated one. Numerous Republican leaders echo similar sentiments, often decrying global warming as a “hoax” based on “junk science.” Well, here’s a newsflash: Believing human activity plays little or no role in climate change is a recipe for political disaster, since it alienates those who decide elections more than anyone else – the Great American Middle.
That’s not to suggest that Republicans should adopt a different position because it would help them win, but because it’s common sense.
By virtually all accounts, the Earth is warming; the big questions are why, and what’s behind that change. Is it a cyclical phenomenon occurring, say, every 1,000 years or so? Maybe, but difficult to ascertain since accurate record keeping didn’t begin until relatively recently.
Or is it because human activity has pumped hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere?
The rational answer is both. So why not err on the side of caution by continuing to find innovative solutions to reducing emissions, while protecting American jobs and economic competitiveness?
Logical, but not easy when both sides cling to extreme positions, whether its espousing job-killing proposals or claiming adverse impacts don’t exist.
To be fair, a big reason we need an evenhanded approach is that “experts” have a history of being spectacularly wrong. In the 1960s and 70s, many climatologists were hysterically screaming that “global cooling” – the result of man-made aerosols in the atmosphere reflecting sunlight away from Earth – was hurtling the planet toward a cataclysmic ice age just decades away. Because the Earth would be 11 degrees colder by the year 2000, they said, billions would die of starvation due to massive crop failures, and chaos would rule.
“That (temperature drop) is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age,” one expert from the University of California stated.
Not to be outdone, a famed Stanford University professor predicted: “By the year 2000, the United Kingdom will simply be a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000, and give 10 to one that the life of the average Briton would be of distinctly lower quality than it is today.”
Yet last time we checked, there was no ice age, and Britain is still there. Palm trees grow on its southern coast, and ample supplies of ale, along with bangers and mash, continue to expand waistlines, as Britons enjoy the highest standard of living in their history.
••• An American living in Mexico City was experiencing respiratory distress, and, upon examination in the U.S., was told she needed to quit smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. There was only one problem. She had never smoked. The unchecked pollution emanating from our southerly neighbor and most of the world’s manufacturing nations are wreaking havoc on people’s health and the environment. And since air and water currents don’t adhere to political boundaries, rampant pollution affects everybody.
It’s in our interest to solve these problems, so here’s how we can:
1) Change our trade policies. The Unites States has made stellar progress over the last several decades in reducing pollution. Lake Erie was once a dead zone, and the Cuyahoga River caught fire because of the widespread industrial waste that oozed into it, yet now these waterways are success stories because America committed itself to cleaning up the environment. That effort continues, but it’s not without cost.
By definition, it’s more expensive to operate a factory when adhering to strict environmental regulations – an issue compounded when many foreign companies do not follow such laws (or their governments don’t enforce them).
We can’t physically force sovereign nations to decrease pollution and institute environmental regulations on par with ours, but we can force their hand by leveraging our position as the world’s largest economy. But to do that, we must scrap trade policies that sell out America and leave our companies at a major disadvantage. Free and fair trade sound nice, but we have neither, and that must change.
From the threat of tariffs to the elimination of foreign aid and military support, we have the muscle. We just need the will. Money talks, and since we have more than anyone else, we need to leverage that advantage to level the environmental playing field. In doing so, everyone wins.
2) Never sign treaties or agreements that restrict America’s carbon emissions while giving “developing” nations a free pass. In addition to the devastating impact on American jobs, accords such as the Paris and Kyoto agreements are only fingers in the dike. The United States is not the unchecked polluter, and in fact becomes “greener” every day, so why penalize Americans for doing the right thing? Signing meaningless agreements don’t make nations more environmentally friendly. Action does. And more than any other nation, America puts its money where its mouth is.
3) No unfunded government mandates. Sure, reducing a factory’s emissions is important, but a government mandate requiring a billion-dollar scrubber be installed in a finite time period results in job loss, reduced hiring, lack of growth, and, for some companies, a one-way ticket out of America. Tax credits and market-based incentives for such pollution control initiatives are an infinitely better solution.
The government will never gain converts by taxing them into submission; instead, it needs to incentivize them to play ball. Most companies want to go green and reduce their carbon footprint, but can do so only if cost-effective. To help ensure that, Congress must reduce the world’s highest corporate income tax. The failure to do so is a tragic disincentive for corporations to become more environmentally responsible.
4) Don’t listen to anything Al Gore says. No disrespect to the inventor of the Internet, but why should we follow someone who proselytizes the virtues of greenness and the evils of the gas combustion engine, yet whose carbon footprint is larger than Montana?
5) Use more natural gas – a lot more – while mandating the safest fracking techniques. America sits atop a virtually limitless supply of gas – a product, by the way, which produces a mere fraction of oil’s emissions. From power plants to vehicles, the use of natural gas would not only substantially reduce greenhouse gases, but bolster America’s national security, reducing dependence on Middle Eastern oil barons. This extremely cheap energy would resurrect our manufacturing base while keeping American dollars where they belong – here.
5) Stop ceding the environmental issue to extremists hell-bent on returning America to the Stone Age. Preserving the environment for our children and grandchildren isn’t radical. It’s the right thing to do, and everyone has a part to play.
••• The GOP should take a lesson from Teddy Roosevelt, as he successfully epitomized what a true Republican should be: a capitalist not afraid to take on big business, which, left unchecked, would run rampant over the environment; a leader who prioritized preservation and responsible stewardship of the land; and a politician who, above all, carried a big stick.
And if Teddy were alive, he’d use that stick on those who think climate change is just hot air.