The Other White Meat, or What Really Will Destroy Us All

I have been spending quite a bit of time recently talking about the health insurance takeover bills, and how they are bad. Yes, this is a simplistic description, but it should let you understand unless you haven't been reading my previous posts. Yet, just like the near war that rages on outside my computer, there is a second piece of death dealing legislation that needs to die a swift death, just like the health insurance bills.
This wonderful piece of paper is called cap and trade. For those of you who don't know what this is, cap and trade is climate legislation that will require carbon credits to be created, set caps of emissions, and enable those companies who are well below the carbon cap to trade their credits to those who cannot get down to that level. Sounds like capitalism doesn't it? One could not be more wrong.
The only reason for a carbon credit market to exist is for a government to say that they (credits)should exist. Carbon credits hold no actual value. Their actual worth in the open market is worth less than whatever paper that they are printed on. The "market" for carbon credits would have high prices for worthless items, which would lead to two possibilities. The first is what happened to the mortgage market (sub-prime) would happen to each company forced to participate. When prices are inflated eventually they will fall. The second would be that with no real value in the items being traded, graft and corruption (government) will creep into prices, as real competition will not exist because competition will cause the market to reflect the true value of a carbon credit.
Even after all of that, many people look at economics and their eyes glass over. They say that these people are rich, and need to pay to protect the environment for the rest of us. There are so many things wrong with that belief. Unfortunately that is what many of the Dear Leaders supporters believe. First off, just because these people are rich shouldn't force a new set of responsibilities on themselves. These rich people that we are talking about, the majority of them are corporations. Far from being evil as Hollywood would lead you to believe, a corporation is simply a legal entity, created to protect the investors in a business. These corporations employ a sizable portion of the American population. In order to waste money on carbon credits, these companies would be forced to raise prices for their products, lay off workers, or a combination of both. Many sole-proprietorships and partnerships would be forced out of business, or priced out of the market as well. Yes, less carbon would be put out, as multiple double digit unemployment caused many businesses to fail. On top of that the few goods that you would find in a store would be prohibitively expensive, so you would need to be rich to buy them. When someone desires to make another pay for someone, our world teaches us a lesson. By hurting the "evil" rich, we actually hurt ourselves, as it will be our plant that closes when we vote for a tax increase on the evil businesses.
The second wrongheaded idea in the belief beyond cap and trade is that the environment is at all in peril from carbon. From the EPA calling carbon dioxide a pollutant to increased stories that the arctic ice shelf is going to disappear and thus raise our sea level 400 feet lead the ignorant among us to believe that the end is nigh. Ok, I realize that those who still believe in global warming are on the opposite side of zealotry past the terrorists, but I will endeavor to set the record straight.
First, carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant. I will say this again: carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant. A naturally occurring gas, it functions as a greenhouse gas (although hardly the most important, can you guess which one that is) and as plant food. As such, the carbon in the molecule enters our food chain, and thus makes up each of our atomic structures. To follow the inverse, thus each molecule of carbon in all living things was once in the atmosphere at one time. Fossil fuels are made of former living things. To connect the dots for those who are from public schools, the carbon that is present in oil, gas and coal was in the atmosphere. Burning such fuels only completes the cycle of carbon.
CO2, even with its status as a greenhouse gas, has never been shown to be a driving factor in temperature. Surprise, surprise the largest factor in temperature is the sun. Solar activity has a much larger impact on climate, and as far as we know, we cannot control the activities of the sun. When measured against the power of our star, any activity that we engage in is ant like. I know that this conception for those who toil in the concrete jungles is hard to grasp. Over the last weekend I helped my parents fill a large hole with dirt, in preparation for placing a patio over the hole. The project involved moving about two tons of dirt. After completing the task, I ruminated about how small in scale this large task really was in comparison to the planet as a whole. To me, filling such a small hole was large. Even if I multiplied the amount of change by a billion times, the results would hardly be noticeable if viewed from space. What we do as humans is small compared to the Earth itself. We marvel at our own strength, but the power of the Earth is still beyond us. We cannot equal the eruptive power of a volcano, the sheer force of a hurricane or the speed of a tornado. The Earth, quite simply is larger than us, and anything we do has little effect on it.
The creative powers of the Earth are astounding as well. With our pittance of reintroducing CO2, why is it assumed that the Earth cannot reabsorb this small amount? Could the addition of more plants, (more plant food, more plants) be a good thing? Yes we can plant trees, but the vast majority of plant life doesn't need us to do anything, and in any environment if there is more food then more life will spring up to eat it.
The biggest worry that people have about global climate change is that the ice caps will melt, notably the Arctic ones. First off, if the Arctic ice cap melts entirely, the sea level will rise not one inch. To prove my point, go get a glass of water and put an ice cube in it. Measure the water level. Wait for the ice cube to melt. Measure it again. The water level will be the same, if not lower (due to evaporation). Go on, I will still be here when you get back.
The ice cap of Greenland in the past was much reduced if not gone entirely. Back in the days of the Medieval Warm Period, Viking colonists grew crops and raised animals there. It was called Greenland for a reason. During this time, there were not large areas of Europe under water, nor did polar bears become extinct. It also leads one to believe that even without increased CO2 (the Vikings didn't have cars) the Earth still warmed. All that I ask is that Occam's Razor be applied here.
On top of all of these things, cap and trade will only affect the United States. Even if we assume that CO2 legislation will hold off warming, a horrible assumption, the next two largest economies will never do this. India and China will never self-inflict this wound on themselves. Thus, instead of actually affecting the CO2 level, we will just injure ourselves and do nothing to "save" the planet.
Can we "save" Earth? Can we destroy it? The answer to both is no. Instead of worrying about how natural carbon is being put out into the atmosphere, we should worry about getting people jobs and making sure that they have indoor toilets. Food would also be nice, so they don't starve. Environmentalists are really ex-commies, pissed off that the Soviet Union collapsed and that the United States is the lone superpower. Debunking their agenda and fake science obviously will take more work than just one post, but I needed to at least mention the vile cap and trade, and tell my few readers that along with the health care bill, it will destroy our economy and fundamentally weaken and change America, not for the better.