Wed 17 Aug 2005
Growing up I always took great comfort in the fact we’ve progressed so far from the superstitions of the Middle Ages. Back during the Black Death, some government official decided that cats were the problem. Cats after all were associated with witches and Satan, so it must be the cats causing the plague. So they killed all the cats. And the plague got worse. They didn’t know that the plague was carried by fleas born by rats. When they killed off all the cats, the rat population - and by extention the flea population - boomed bringing a resurgence of the Plague.
Well we know better now right?
Unfortunately I don’t think thats the case. Take the issue of global climate change. Some government officials (and their associated lackeys in the lobbyist movement) decided the solution to global climate change is the Kyoto Accords. By limiting the amount of CO2 emitted by automobiles and industry we can reduce global warming.
This is the same as killing all the cats. It may even be worse because we now know one specific fact:
Once a nation reaches a certain economic success level they move beyond the interest of daily survival and try and make things better. They have more money to spend on research into cleaner technologies and the population is more willing to spend more on cleaner products.
However the Kyoto Accords will hurt our economy by as much as 4.2% of our GDP. That is over a million jobs in 15 years. One million people who instead of being in the work force producing will be on the dole sucking tax dollars from those who are working.
Our per-capita income will decrease, and with it our collective willingness to keep the environment clean.
So, perhaps we haven’t really progressed from the Middle Ages as much as I thought.
August 18th, 2005 at 10:58 am
Depends on how you try to reduce emissions. Put a price on emissions and the economy can adapt. Set quotas, or tell people how to reduce emissions and you end up with a bureaucratic mess.
Take CAFE, the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard. The average auto from a corporation must be above a certain MPG. It “worked” — if working means increasing average car MPG. The big cars are gone, except for luxury cars. THe Chevy Caprice is gone.
Has this saved gas? No! THose who used to buy big cars are buying SUVs and trucks.
The government set a quota, and set it on the wrong thing.
Tax carbon and people will burn less. Use the tax to eliminate another tax and you can get a net simplification of the tax code. You can also get rid of myriad regulations and subsidies.
And we could meet the Kyoto targets and then some.