I thought this column by Peter Geddes captured the complete lunacy of the global warming fanatics, who somehow imagine that we can turn back the clock 100 years or more, maintain roughly the same lifestyle we have, and thereby defeat the phantom menace of global warming:
Policies such as the Kyoto Protocol and U.S. cap-and-trade legislation focus solely on reducing CO2 emissions. But these are symbolic acts, mere posturing, while doing little or nothing to achieve their stated goals. Stubborn reliance on this approach is now the main barrier to an effective climate policy.
The 1,200-page American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, known as Waxman-Markey, is an example. It sets an ambitious target of reducing total U.S. greenhouse emissions 83 percent by the year 2050. In 2005, the year chosen as the baseline, the U.S. emitted about 6 billion tons of CO2. An 83 percent reduction by 2050 means that U.S. emissions must be just over one billion tons.
The American Enterprise Institute’s Steve Hayward puts this in context. He writes that the U.S. last emitted one billion tons of CO2 in 1910, when our population was 92 million and total GDP (in 2008 dollars) about $572 billion. (2008 GDP was $14.2 trillion.) In order to reach the target, per-capita CO2 emissions will have to be no more than 2.4 tons. The last time U.S. citizens emitted this low level of carbon was 1875. These kinds of reductions are so absurd they will not even be seriously attempted.
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