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Politics : The Castle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (3380)	5/21/2004 10:16:16 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7936

The Hoover Institution is one of the most conservative think tanks in DC. I am unclear why this is true but conservatives seem to have a vested interest in convincing the world that global warming is a hoax. Maybe I missed it but I don't see anything in that article that says global warming is a hoax. It does say the projections have been consistently pessimistic, that isn't saying there hasn't been or won't be warming. It certainly isn't saying that the people who say there will be warming are committing a fraud or a hoax to push the idea on the general population when they know it isn't true. ..we have had increasing restrictions on pollution for the past 30 years and our economy has done fine Its done fine, just like the economy has done fine shouldering any number of other costs throughout history. That doesn't mean the costs aren't a drag on the economy just that they aren't a big enough drag to derail the economy. Also the costs of proposed restrictions on CO2 emissions would be far greater then all previous environmental costs combined. Previously the idea was to reduce or contain dangerous impurities and byproducts of energy use and industrial or agricultural production. Now it is to greatly reduce one of the main results of burning just about any fuel. Perhaps the economy can shoulder this load as well without any economic disaster. In fact I think it probably can, depending on how severe the restrictions are and how fast they are phased in. But their will be pain from these restrictions unless they are two mild to have any significant effect. Restrictions on rich countries may increase unemployment a bit or lower or at least restrict growth of average wages. Restrictions on poor countries may prevent them from developing and condemn millions or more likely billions to continued poverty. Restrictions on rich countries but not on developing and undeveloped countries won't have much effect. In addition to the direct negative economic effect there would be an indirect negative environmental effect. If you reduce the ability of countries to develop they will continue with many current practices that harm the environment. If the worst theories about global warming are to be believe the environmental harm done by restrictions on CO2 emission would be less then the environmental benefit of such restrictions but it would be real harm and would have to be considered along with the economic consequences when considering how we deal with the potential for harmful global warming. Tim