4.16.2008

The Seven Year Itch

Fear and loathing at PlanetGore.
we have been warned to hide our belts and shoelaces because a "pretty bad" White House announcement reversing seven generally strong years of "climate-change" policy is going to be announced in the Rose Garden at 2:45 PM tomorrow.
and
the president will have caused harm by embracing the global-warming agenda, regardless of the specifics of what he calls for today. The moment he legitimizes the agenda, he will have lost control of the issue. After seven sensible years, now suddenly — with three legislative months remaining in his term of office — he calls for a global-warming bill. [...]

Bush wasn't going to get a bill. He still won't get a bill. But he'll be in the Rose Garden today, blinkered by "legacy," saying how important it is to him to have one. In so doing, he will wrench the political center on this issue far to the Left — abandoning a lot of people who stood with him, at no small political risk to themselves, in the process.
What on earth could Bush possibly reveal today that has the Think Tankers so...how should I say...'alarmed'?

Today Bush will likely unveil McCain's climate policy. Soften the ground a little, it's not like he can get any more unpopular. I'm guessing what this will look like is some combination of a.) China and India go first policy, and b.) we set some distant vague goal policy.

Update: We are all Keynesians now? Tony Blankley:
Of course, the proposed carbon taxes will subtract hundreds of billions (or trillions) of dollars from productive private-sector economic activity and transfer it to "our friend the government" to spend "beneficially" for us all. Beyond even confiscatory taxation, reduced economic output, and higher unemployment, we have hints of other things to come with the talk of connecting private homes to the central electricity grid.
The grid? Do tell:
But one can well imagine what the global warming fanatics might wish government to do with interactive "dynamic power management." Energy pigs (for example, people like me, who want to have air conditioning on hot days) will not be permitted to destroy the planet. Our energy use can be "capped" easily by the dynamic system. One bureaucrat will be empowered to turn our electricity on or off -- according to the dictates of the current politically correct judgment.

Equally frightening is the emerging strategy of using global warming policy to crush the economies of the West, but not of the "developing" nations. Also reported on the front page of Monday's Washington Times was the story of Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. climate treaty secretariat. This dangerous U.N. official stated that he wants to exempt China and India from carbon emissions regulation and taxation. In an example of suicidal liberal guilt, this blithering nitwit argued that the United States and Europe have "a historic responsibility" for emitting carbons -- and thus should pay the price now. [...]

The liberal world order will not let go of their global warming assault on free economies until hell freezes over -- by which point, obviously, the global warming theory will be visibly disproved.
Vee haff veyhs of deeeeling wiss ze energhy pigs. Remind me again...who's being alarmist?



Update 2: This just keeps getting better. Alarmism never had a better representative than Roy Spencer:
Now is the time for the people to speak up. We need leaders who will tell us to stop running toward the edge of the cliff. That cliff is fast approaching, and unless someone has the courage to stand up for the rights of humans to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the momentum we have generated due to our irrational fears will cause us all to topple into the sea.
In case you missed it, the cliff he's referring to is reducing carbon emissions.