The temperature on New Year’s Day in Chicago was a balmy 50 degrees F. More evidence of global warming? Hardly.

The five New Year’s Days with the highest temperatures occurred in 1876, 1897, 1892, 1890, and 1891, all long before human greenhouse gas emissions could have played a role in changing climate. The one thing we know for sure about the weather is that it is always changing.

But the warm weather will fuel more hot rhetoric about global warming, a public policy issue that could have a major effect on our freedoms and our pocketbooks in the coming years.

Why it Matters

Global warming is the biggest environmental issue of our time. Its political and economic impacts will be larger than those associated with any other environmental issue.

Government power: Public policies being proposed at the international, national, and state levels in the name of “stopping global warming” would result in a massive increase in the size and power of the state. To reduce emissions, governments must raise energy costs directly, with taxes, or indirectly, with mandates and subsidies.

Either way, hundreds of billions of dollars a year in wealth or economic activity will be sucked up and redistributed by governments. For advocates of limited government, the debate over global warming is one of the preeminent issues of our time.

Economic harm: Energy is the “master resource,” used in the creation of nearly all other goods and services. Making energy artificially scarce therefore imposes enormous economic costs. Global warming legislation being considered by Congress would more than cancel out the beneficial effects of the Bush tax cuts.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions even modestly is estimated to cost the average household in the U.S. a cool $3,372 per year and would destroy 2.4 million jobs. Electricity prices would double, and manufacturers would move their factories to places such as China and India that have cheaper energy and fewer environmental regulations. Read rest...

Write comment
Name:
Email:
Subject:
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."