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Nobody doubts there is a warming trend in the global environment. The major difference between global warming alarmists and climate cycle theorists is the purveyor of change: man or nature. As a member of the latter camp, I don’t subscribe to the belief that man and his SUVs will destroy the planet or, as Ted Turner said this week, “make cannibals of us all.” I do believe, however, that the recent uptick in global temperatures provides a good excuse to revolutionize corporate and social interactions with the environment.
That is not a typo — a conservative just advocated increased corporate responsibility. There is a catch to this proposal — no government intervention. The market has already solved the problem of corporate responsibility without so much as lifting a finger of the invisible hand. Take a look at the myriad advertisements on television and in your favorite magazine or newspaper. Witness the oil companies and conglomerates preaching their dedication to becoming green. The United States didn’t sign Kyoto, yet the market has led corporate America to lead the charge for decreased emissions.
An editorial last winter by The Wall Street Journal included a table of CO2 emissions changes in three five-year periods from 1990-2004 comparing the European Union and the United States. In the first period, 1990-1995, the U.S. increased emissions by 6.4 percent while the EU decreased by 2.2 percent. The following five years — during which Kyoto broke onto the international scene — the U.S. further increased emissions by 10.1 percent while the EU increased emissions by a mere 2.2 percent. The amazing thing is what happened in the final period, after Kyoto was signed by much of the world, save the U.S. Between 2000 and 2004, the United States had cut back its increase in emissions to a scant 2.1 percent while European emissions increased 4.5 percent. Currently, a revised Kyoto is being proposed due to the signatories not coming close to meeting the treaty’s required cuts in CO2 emissions at the expense of several percentage points of their GDPs.
Meanwhile, two exemptions from Kyoto stand to replace the United States as the “Principate of Pollution” — China and India. This being the case, any feeble attempt by government — including the state of Wisconsin and its “Safe Climate Act” — would have a negligible effect on global pollution while sending unfriendly signals to the state’s business community. Instead of restrictions and penalties, perhaps allowing some things could help advance toward cleaner air. Allowing the development of new nuclear power plants, with a total 20-50 percent increase in output, could decrease emissions by 15 percent, according to Rep. Jim Ott, R-Mequon. No taxes, no penalties and fewer restrictions — put them together and you get the same result as the “Safe Climate Act” claims.
Some things belong under the government’s authority — transportation and defense come to mind. But the rampant inefficiencies government is known for can only exacerbate our increasing energy usage. Personal and corporate conservation needs no prodding — high energy prices provide all the incentive in the world to cut back. Whether you think Earth is getting hotter because of us or because of natural cycles, the common ground is that green is becoming the new red, white and blue. The key to making a difference is by setting a positive example for others to follow.
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Jeremy Wick ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in economics and history and is a member of the College Republicans Executive Board.
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Nuclear power is the way to go to help save the environment.
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Responsibility will never happen as long as its more profitable to rape and pillage.
Whether or not you happen to believe in global warming, shouldn’t we at least realize that pumping tons of chemicals into the land, air, and water of our great planet will only have negative consequences? Whether or not pollution causes global warming, there’s a list of other bad things it uncontroversially does cause. So with that in mind, shouldn’t we still make every effort to cut back our emissions, reduce oil dependency, and even prepare for the scenario that we really are causing global warming (even if we aren’t)? Our current policy of “hear no evil, see no evil, believe no evil” is capitalist apologism at its finest, and can’t possibly bring about any good.
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“Whether you think Earth is getting hotter because of us or because of natural cycles, the common ground is that green is becoming the new red, white and blue.”
Those who want to “go green” are against industry and prosperity and in favor of sacrificing for the sake of the planet. This is suicide.
As this article points out, democrats are in favor of forcing this suicide on people, while the republicans say leave us free and we will do it ourselves. That’s pretty lame.
The fact that companies have gotten on the global warming bandwagen only means they accept the coming regulations and want to position themselves to take advantage of it - this is sucicidal.
Producing and using MORE energy is what is good for mankind, not conservation and sacrifice. The so-called “green” movement is not about having clean air and water, it’s about producing and using less. This is anti-life whether it’s forced or done voluntarily.
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So it’s too bad Clinton didn’t sign Kyoto?
Actually, it’s too bad that the greenies killed nuclear power in the US - it’s the only real alternative energy that available in enough scale to reduce carbon burning.
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Jeremy, you actually make some good points. Believe me, I was just as surprised as you are. But can’t we combine market forces and regulation?
If we implement 30mpg standards on all cars, then all auto companies start off at the same point, but the Toyota’s and Honda’s of the market are just going to go bigger — 40 or 50mpg. Then the market can correct itself, as you propose, and GM and Ford will have to go higher if they want to sell their vehicles.
Without the regulation, there’s just not as much incentive.
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“… shouldn’t we at least realize that pumping tons of chemicals into the land, air, and water of our great planet will only have negative consequences?”
Absolutely not! We have to exploit the plant to live. This means changing nature, including disposing of chemicals, cutting down trees, etc. The planet is MADE of chemicals (CO2 for instance), natural and otherwise. It is up to us to change nature (including the composition of chemicals) to further our lives.
The question is: what things benefit man? Burning fossil fuels benefits man tremendously, and the resulting CO2 does not violate anyone’s rights, and probably has no effect at all on the planet’s climate.
It simply is not true that pumping chemicals into the environment has negative consequences FOR MAN. It depends on what those chemicals are, what their effects in the environment are, their concentrations, what effects that have on people at these concentrations, etc.
The only cause for concern is IF it can be shown that some pollution is actually harming someone or their properly, but this has to be shown.
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Jeremy - a very good, thoughtful article!
Our increasing energy costs are a reflection of Economics 101 (supply and demand), Government-induced distortions (taxes, regulations, misdirected research funds, etc), and Political distortions (voter and politician support of emotional, belief-based agendas rather than fact-based analyses of critical resources and needs).
High energy demand by developing behemoths like China and India has reduced the readily available supply, driving energy prices higher. The higher energy prices have attracted a lot of entrepenuers and venture capital to develop alternate sources of energy as well as developing new ways of using the existing sources of energy more efficiently. That is the essence of capitalism at its best and it works well for ‘Green’ applications because demand-driven increasing costs drive improved energy efficiency and simultaneous development of alternate energy sources.
If we can minimize the Government and Politically induced distortions to the energy markets, the markets will determine the most efficient solutions to our high cost of energy. Allowing Government and Politically driven distortions like the now-refuted Man Made Global Warming hypothesis to influence the energy markets guarantees that our tax dollars will be wasted. Those doubting the veracity of that statement, please review “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.” http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm and “Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate” http://www.heartland.org/article.cfm?artId=22835
The tide is turning against the Man Made Global Warming hypotheses. Detailed analyses of the UN-IPCC Climate Change Reports have shown a host of factual and analytical errors. The single most important error identified in the data analyses presented by the UN-IPCC reports and Al Gores’ An Inconvienient Truth is that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide DO NOT precede or lead increases in global temperature. The Man Made Global Warming hypothesis is not supported by the climate data.
Even more troubling is the trend presented by the errors in the UN-IPCC reports. Nearly all of the factual and analytical errors made in their reports tended to enhance support for their contention that global warming was induced by man made additions of CO2 to the atmosphere. If the errors were truly just that, errors, they should have had roughly half the errors supporting the hypothesis and the other half acting to refute the hypothesis. The heavy bias of the errors supporting the hypothesis indicates that the ‘errors’ were willful.
With time and effort, credibility will be restored to the science of climatology… but, I suspect, Al Gore is unredeemable!
Invictus Maneo
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2:39— rising asthma rates in cities, maybe? If you want to SEE a consequence of pollution, I’ll cough up my morning phlegm on your pillow.
If you think gorging ourselves on resources will benefit ANYONE, you are an imbecil and will kill us all.
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“The fact that companies have gotten on the global warming bandwagen only means they accept the coming regulations and want to position themselves to take advantage of it”
Wow…wrong. It means that they understand that the consumers have begun to take this seriously and demand more from their suppliers. All we’ve seen from previous adminstrations is de-regulation; we havent seen an MPG increase in over 20 years!
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“2:39— rising asthma rates in cities, maybe? If you want to SEE a consequence of pollution, I’ll cough up my morning phlegm on your pillow.”
From what I can tell, rising asthma rates are probably not caused by pollution. But, suppose it is. Suppose pollution aggravates asthma.
First of all, asthma is a physiological condition that can be triggered by many things in the one’s environment, both natural and manmade. Cities, by there nature, have more pollution than the country. It is up to the person suffering from this ailment to live where they are best off. You can no more demand that a farmer stop planting his crops because you have a reaction to them, then you can demand that a city shut-down it’s cars and factories.
If some specific individual or company is polluting your property or air, you have a right to stop them, but you don’t have a right to shutdown a city because of general pollution levels affecting your asthma.
Also, if cleaner cities are important, than you should be for greater energy usage, not less, because it is the demand for energy and energy consuming products that drive innovation and lead to cleaner, more efficient, lower cost, products.
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You’re a pretty transparent phoney, Mr. Wick. Interesting that you support nuclear power, the energy option that over the years has been the most highly subsidized by government. I wonder where those subsidizes come from. Oh, yeah, taxes. Cut nuclear power off the government teat and it instantly become a non-option. But you don’t have the guts to do that, do you? Then those government subsidies wouldn’t be recycled into campaign donations to Republican candidates.
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“It means that they understand that the consumers have begun to take this seriously and demand more from their suppliers. All we’ve seen from previous adminstrations is de-regulation; we havent seen an MPG increase in over 20 years!”
Demand? The threat of force is not demand. And yes it is the threat of force. California wanted to regulate CO2 and both political parties are pushing for CO2 regulation, not to mention the fact the oil companies are brought before Congress to “explain” why they made “too much” profit. They have been threated by members of government not to fund global warming research that doesn’t agree with the status quo. If these things aren’t threats, I don’t know what is.
De-regulation? That’s like calling the earth flat. Regulations have prevented nuclear power plants from being developed, oil companies have not been able to build a new oil refinery in the U.S. for 20+ years due to regulations, there are tons of subsidies and regulations regarding gasoline blend requirements, ethanol content, price controls on gas stations, onerous taxes on gas, etc., etc.