(New York Post, April 1) – The White House this week released President Obama’s master plan for cutting US carbon emissions by one-third over the next decade — mostly by having the Environmental Protection Agency crack down on coal and oil plants.
The EPA crackdown involves yet another end-run around Congress — which wouldn’t pass anti-carbon laws even when Democrats ran it for Obama’s first two years.
Second, bigger problem: The whole case for man-caused warming has collapsed.
The computer models that represent the crown jewel of climate-change science don’t explain why global average temperatures have been flat for 18 years.
Observed reality doesn’t begin to match what the models predict — and the folks who make those models are still guessing at why they’re so spectacularly wrong.
So the president is aiming to drive up US electricity costs in the name of fighting a threat that, even if it is real, scientists simply don’t understand.
Meanwhile, China keeps building new coal plants faster than Obama can shut US ones down. It won’t stop, and neither will India — because both nations are intent on growing their way out of poverty.
Yes, the global anti-climate-change dog-and-pony show will keep rolling as long as diplomats can get free meals out of it. But those conferences have been failing to “act” for decades now.
Even if Obama’s EPA crackdown goes ahead, it’s a dead letter if a Republican wins in 2016 (even money, at this point). And Hillary’s no sure bet to stick with it, either.
Polls show that US public concern over warming is below where it was back in 1989. People are far more worried about jobs — which anti-carbon crackdowns make more scarce.
All Obama’s really achieving is to further antagonize Congress and poison the Democratic Party brand with the general public.
