Cap and Trade Taxation
by Alan Caruba
Issue 130 - April 22, 2009

My friend, the internationally famed climatologist, Dr. S. Fred Singer, calls them “the CO² wars.” It is the last ditch attempt by the Greens, under the aegis of the Obama administration, to declare carbon dioxide a pollutant and thus for the first time allow the government to regulate this substance necessary for all human life.

Singer says such regulation “would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb directed at the U.S. economy—all without any scientific justification.”

As reported in The Wall Street Journal, “The Environmental Protection Agency has sent the White House a proposed finding that carbon dioxide is a danger to public health, a step that could trigger a clampdown on emissions of so-called greenhouse gases across a wide swath of the economy.”

Here are a few things you need to keep in mind about carbon dioxide:

• CO² is not a “pollutant.” It is a trace gas necessary for all life of Earth because it is essential to the growth of all vegetation.
• Without CO² all vegetation—grasses, forests, jungles, crops such as wheat, corn and rice—dies. Then herbivores die. Then you die.
• The CO² produced by human industry or activity is a miniscule fraction of a percentage of greenhouse gases. It constitutes a mere 0.038% of the atmosphere.
• The oceans emit 96.5% of all greenhouse gases, holding and releasing CO² as it has down through the millennia of Earth’s existence.
• In past millennia, CO² levels were often much higher than the present.
• CO² levels rise hundreds of years after temperature rise on planet Earth.
• The Sun is the primary source of warmth on Earth. Rising CO² is an effect of global warming, not a cause.
• Both global warming and cooling are natural phenomenon over which humans have no control.
• The Earth is not currently warming. It has been cooling for a decade and likely to continue for at least another twenty years or longer. If a new Ice Age is triggered, it will last at least 10,000 years.
• Polar ice is now at record levels and still growing.

If you had a choice, would you prefer a warmer or colder Earth?

And consider this, if only the United States was to significantly cut its CO² emissions, how much effect, if any, would that have in a world where most other nations, including China and India, have no intention of doing so? Both are exempt from the UN Kyoto Protocol. The answer is zero!

The federal government, though the aegis of the EPA, would have control over the destinies of an estimated 13,000 facilities if this regulatory obscenity were to become law.

But it is not just regulation and indirect taxation through higher prices consumers pay for goods and services. As the Wall Street Journal noted, “The administration has proposed a cap-and-trade system that could raise $646 billion by 2019 through government auctions of emission allowances.” Candidate Obama said he would only raise taxes for the very rich but this massive energy tax would be paid by everyone.

This would be the fulfillment of the Obama administration’s goal to socialize energy and the economy and explains in part why this new assault on science, industry, and common sense has been put forth by the EPA. The EPA proposal is not about science. It is about government power and it is about government money.

Alan Caruba writes a daily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. Every week, he posts a column on the website of The National Anxiety Center, www.anxietycenter.com. One of the best sites for information about carbon dioxide is http://www.ilovemyCO2.com. I recommend you visit and browse through its extensive data. A tip of the hat as well to http://ilovecarbondioxide.com/2009/01/about.html.