On today's Marketplace Morning Report (aired on NPR), Cato Institute fellow Will Wilkinson trashed the Obama Administration's efforts to implement a cap and trade system for carbon emissions. Wilkinson pointed out that Energy Secretary Stephen Chu's proposal to slap tariffs on products from countries who won't "cap and trade" will start a trade war--and everybody will lose as a result, due to higher prices, decreased availability of goods and services, and overall economic misery.
Wilkinson's primary focus is China--as the largest holder of US debt and one of the largest polluters on the planet, China has a lot of muscle, true. As Wilkinson also noted, no global governmental organization exists that could enforce a genuine world-wide cap and trade policy. [The reasons none of the current international bodies can do much about it is a topic for another day, but the blame lays rightly at the feet of people like Wilkinson.--Ed.] And unless every country participates in "cap and trade," we won't reduce collective emissions enough to stop the runaway train that is global warming.
It's difficult to pick a starting point to refute Wilkinson's claptrap. The Cato Institute is a right-wing "think tank," and nothing ever comes from it that doesn't skew both facts and their interpretation to suit the right-wing's agenda.
Where to begin? First, the gist of Wilkinson's observations is the conclusion that we should do NOTHING about implementing a "cap and trade" policy now. But if not now, when? After we've warmed the Earth to the point where everyone is charbroiled? It is a typical right-wing tactic to wave the bloody shirt of short-term economic pain (for the masses) to delay necessary long-term reforms that will force business owners suffer even a minute reduction in their profits. But in the case of global warming, if we delay too long, no matter what we do when we finally do it, it will be too late. We're all going to die. So Wilkinson's priorities are backwards.
Second, he makes it sound as though China is all-powerful and we are helpless before the sleeping dragon that we've now provoked. During the Dubya Administration, that was probably true, mostly because of the enmity of the rest of the world to the interventionist bully he made of America. But with the Obama Administration in place, America is regaining its stature as the moral and ethical leader in the world, and even the Chinese government is not immune to united and concerted international pressure. Besides, he never even acknowledges the probability that the people of the world may be willing to suffer the results of punitive tariffs until everyone implements "cap and trade" because most people have higher priorities than maximizing their profit margins. Priorities like restoring the health of the entire planet for the benefit of all of us.
Third, Wilkinson offers no other solution to the problem as he described it. Reminded me of William F. Buckley's oft-quoted observation that conservatives stand "athwart history yelling 'Stop!'" Wilkinson's point seems to be that maintaining the status quo is the only option open to us. I say "phooey." Mister Wilkinson, you can lead, you can follow, or you can get out of the way. If all you do is raise objections without proposing solutions, you aren't doing anyone any good. So move aside.
Give the Obama Administration a chance to implement its proposals. If they work, we'll all be alive, even if not necessarily better off in our pocketbooks in the short run. If they don't work, we'll either have to come up with something else or we'll already be cooked. But the only possible outcome of doing nothing is making us all crispy critters, so doing nothing is no solution.
I suppose I shouldn't be carping so much. At least the right wing is finally acknowledging the reality of the threat global warming poses to us all. Let's just hope the right wing comes to its senses about the solution before we've all fried.
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