Just What's Needed?

Former Vice President Al Gore seems to think that cap'n tax (formerly known as the cap and trade energy bill) winding its way through the Congress is the best thing since sliced bread.

He was busy talking about how this is going to lead to global governance. Right, because all those third world countries are really going to appreciate the fact that they wont be able to raise their standard of living through the widespread application of electricity to power everything from refrigeration to communications, all of which makes the comfortable life in the West possible. In fact, it's so comfortable these days that the eco-left can't deal with it, and they're looking to hobble the economy through massive redistribution of wealth through cap and trade, which will do absolutely nothing to the global emissions that Gore and his acolytes are so concerned about. They see green instead - profit and political power.

Gore touted the Congressional climate bill, claiming it “will dramatically increase the prospects for success” in combating what he sees as the “crisis” of man-made global warming.

“But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global governance and global agreements.” (Editor's Note: Gore makes the “global governance” comment at the 1min. 10 sec. mark in this UK Times video.)

Gore's call for “global governance” echoes former French President Jacques Chirac's call in 2000.

On November 20, 2000, then French President Chirac said during a speech at The Hague that the UN's Kyoto Protocol represented "the first component of an authentic global governance."

“For the first time, humanity is instituting a genuine instrument of global governance,” Chirac explained. “From the very earliest age, we should make environmental awareness a major theme of education and a major theme of political debate, until respect for the environment comes to be as fundamental as safeguarding our rights and freedoms. By acting together, by building this unprecedented instrument, the first component of an authentic global governance, we are working for dialogue and peace,” Chirac added.

Former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom said, "Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide." Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper once dismissed UN's Kyoto Protocol as a “socialist scheme.”

'Global Carbon Tax' Urged at UN Meeting

In addition, calls for a global carbon tax have been urged at recent UN global warming conferences. In December 2007, the UN climate conference in Bali, urged the adoption of a global carbon tax that would represent “a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations.”

“Finally someone will pay for these [climate related] costs,” Othmar Schwank, a global tax advocate, said at the 2007 UN conference after a panel titled “A Global CO2 Tax.”

Schwank noted that wealthy nations like the U.S. would bear the biggest burden based on the “polluters pay principle.” The U.S. and other wealthy nations need to “contribute significantly more to this global fund,” Schwank explained. He also added, “It is very essential to tax coal.”

China would never go for this since most of their power is generated from coal, even with a massive hydro, nuclear, and wind/solar power generation binge. The Chinese are building two new coal powered plants a week, and they can barely meet their burgeoning demand.

Does anyone think that the Chinese are going to limit their economy to "save" the planet? They could care less, because the economic development is the perhaps the one thing standing between the Communist control over the government and a revolution of the working classes because of the exploitation by the government for so long.

India isn't going to hobble its economy either.

Nor should the US, and the current recession throws these plans into stark relief. It is a massive tax on production, and people will be forced to pay far more for every good and service in the country because all those costs will be passed on to the end user. That's money that comes out of the economy and goes into the maw of government that has failed to have an energy policy for decades other than to hobble domestic production and transmission.

Instead of making it easier to transmit power from areas with a surplus to those that don't, regulations and eco-leftists make it virtually impossible to do. Nuclear power is all but off limits despite the zero-emissions and constant power supply, something that simply is impossible with wind or solar.

Once again, if the problems of climate change are so dire, where is Al Gore's immediate changes to his lifestyle as a sign of leadership? Has he chosen to telecommute to these various gatherings, or is he continuing to fly around the planet at a rate that pumps out far more COx than average Americans would produce in years.

After all, Gore made these statements at Oxford University, which is thousands of miles from his home in the US (4,136 miles to be exact). Based on an output of .20kg per passenger mile (between the short haul and long haul figures), he pumped out 1654.4kg of CO2 for a round trip between Nashville and Oxford. Imagine how much he could have saved the environment had he chosen to telecommute. But that isn't Gore's way. He'd much rather tell other people how to live their life than to infringe on his way of life.