The politics are settled:
Democrats are working hard to convince the public that regulations to limit carbon dioxide emissions are necessary to avoid economic and ecological catastrophe, according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post.
The memo from Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, tells members how to talk about global warming’s budgetary impact. The memo details how “disaster relief; transportation and infrastructure; national security and agriculture” will all be affected by global warming, reports the Post.
There are obvious problems with this effort, of course.
One, there is no increase in "extreme weather."
Two, even if global warming caused extreme weather (which we aren't experiencing), climate change scientists admit that we are inconveniently in a "pause" of global warming that has lasted for the past decade and a half, or more, during which there has been no statistically significant increase in global temperatures despite the models that said that temperatures would rise.
Three, even if carbon dioxide--which mankind is clearly pumping into the atmosphere (yet is not increasing our global temperatures)--is the dominant factor in our climate that overwhelms other natural and man-made factors, any costly reductions in our emissions will be swamped by increases in carbon dioxide production by China and India, as well as other developing countries.
So why cripple our ability to adapt to potentially bad climate change effects by futilely squandering our resources to reduce our carbon dioxide production?
Never waste a crisis you create to enlarge the scope of government power, I suppose.
Tip to Instapundit.
As always, as he says, I'll believe the global warming is a crisis when the activists act like it by supporting nuclear power and refusing to have lifestyles that require lots of carbon dioxide output (like flying in jets, owning large homes, and driving multiple cars).
And no, the modern Indulgence payment of publicly sorting your garbage into different colored recycling bins doesn't earn you the right to do all those things.
