Spending money to combat climate change could easily be the most ridiculous political proposition around today. It’s definitely worse than making kissy faces at Iran, absolutely worse than McCain or Obama’s economic proposals, and possibly worse than rolling back our relationship with Israel.
Look- even if you believe global climate change caused by man is a major problem, it doesn’t immediately follow that spending large amounts of money to fight it is a good idea. Think about it this way. If you had termites in your home, you would call the local bug guy to come zap them. However, if you were say, George III somewhere around the time of the American Revolution, and you had termites in your summer home in Wessex or Sussex or Dorkshire or wherever, it wouldn’t be the smartest idea to sink large sums of money and effort into combating them. There just isn’t a whole lot you can do about it. You could burn down your house, sure, but that’s pretty drastic. The only option you have is to adapt. Keep an eye on the problem, fix disasters as they occur, and perhaps research any promising ways to address the problem through new technology.
My point is that when it comes to the global climate and our ability to do anything about it, we are more like George III dealing with termites in 18th century England than we are Dr. House combating a mysterious disease. We simply don’t know enough, aren’t powerful enough, and don’t have enough tools to do much about it. Sinking billions of dollars into a problem we can’t fix is, frankly, crazy.
And it doesn’t help matters that Newt Gingrich, former champion of the contract with America, has bought into it.
It’s sad but true:
