Capping Trade
March 2nd, 2009Our progress as a society cannot be complete without cooling our dear planet earth, whose revival is worth any price, including civilization itself. For prosperity, jobs, and human comfort mean nothing if even one carbon escapes into the atmosphere.
Global warming deniers argue that the temperature of earth has actually risen only a small amount (0.74°C) over the past 100 years, and that there have been significant warming and cooling trends throughout history. Some insidious individuals have even had the gall to suggest that even if global warming does exist and is man-made, there is nothing that can be done about it.
But we know that these claims are false. We know it because Al Gore says so. And that cannot be denied.
That is why we should all be heartened by President Obama’s proposed cap-and-trade program, which attempts to reduce warming by creating what is, in affect, a $646 billion tax on those who emit carbons — cleverly including the word “trade” to make it look as if some form of market economics is in play, and hence removing even the hint of socialism.
Of course, there are a few minor problems with this miraculous plan.
First, not only will the price of energy skyrocket, as emitters pass the tax onto consumers, but — according to Charles River Associates — millions of jobs will be lost. But no worry — we’ll send all those affected a big, fat check. Instead of working, they can spend their days in the comfort of their cold homes watching talk shows and soap operas. They’ll fall happily into a life of government dependence, where they only have to get off their sofas to vote.
Then, there’s the annoying problem of convincing the emerging nations of the world — specifically, China, Russia, and India — of the horrific threat of global warming. At alarming rates, these impertinent countries are expanding their carbon-emitting industries as well as their energy use, despite the ever-increasing numbers of An Inconvenient Truth DVDs we distribute to them. As we shut down our dirty industries, they will likely grow theirs many times over, especially when our polluters move their companies over there. Regrettably, it simply won’t matter how much we reduce our emissions if they increase theirs by an equal, or an even larger amount.
We must convince these selfish nations to destroy their economies the same way we will destroy our own. And we’ll do it through song. Yes, song. We’ll get Springsteen and Bono and Madonna and Sir Bob Geldof, and we’ll have a live, worldwide concert — just like the ones that ended famine and AIDS. When the leaders of these bitter countries hear the beautiful music and see those tearful youngsters singing along with it, they will have no choice but to open their hearts to our unfalsifiable truth.
A third problem with cap-and-trade programs is that they’ve never proven successful. Europe has had such a system for three years without reducing emissions at all. But we progressives have never allowed the failure of past policies prevent us from proposing the same ones again.
And even if it doesn’t cap emissions, it’ll certainly cap trade, which just happens to be another of our long-cherished goals.
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© Copyright 2009 by Colin Cohen. All Rights Reserved.
