OPINION

McCain, Republicans, and "Global Warming" Think you can sidestep the issue of “global warming,” simply by voting Republican? Think again. Now that Senator John McCain is officially the Republican nominee for President, global warming is, whether anyone likes it or not, an “issue” for both of our nation’s dominant political parties. McCain has been gravitating towards this issue for several years, and made his mark with it during his chairing of the U.S. Senate hearings on global warming back in 2004. Today, Mr. McCain articulates a position on the matter that is far more moderate and reasonable, and far more hospitable to our free market economy, than those of his two Democratic competitors. The question remains whether or not American voters, Republican voters in particular, will embrace McCain’s vision...Obama and McCain have both essentially abandoned the term “global warming” in favor of “climate change” (Clinton has not made this shift), and all three of the candidates have connected their “climate agendas” to the pursuit of alternative energy sources. But from there, the candidates diverge. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Clinton is proposing a dramatic, if not radical level of government intervention with America’s automobile manufacturers, and both she and Obama seem ready to bow to the United Nations’ environmental policy dictates. But fortunately, McCain casts a very different vision. ....
Protectionism in the Name of Environmentalism Amidst the flurry of economic topics and data being discussed at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City on March 2-4, a point leaped out twice to grab my attention. It had to with international trade, and environmental taxes and/or regulation. Specifically, it was noted that there's more talk coming out of Europe about using trade sanctions to punish nations that are deemed high emitters of carbon-dioxide, including developing nations and the United States. One speaker was concerned that this could simply become an excuse for protectionism. Of course, this development should not surprise anyone. After all, anti-free traders in the U.S. have been pushing for some time now to have labor and environmental standards included in trade accords. That is, that the U.S. should impose its own regulatory requirements regarding labor and environmental issues on other nations. For some, such demands come from an honest belief that this would be a good thing, while others simply use it to disguise bad old trade protectionism. Either way, the economic realities do not change. First, developing nations simply do not possess the wealth and productivity to impose these costly regulations on their economies. It would be economic suicide. Second, this would serve to constrain international trade, and thereby constrain global economic growth. Third, the worst case scenario is that such environmental regulations serve to spark a trade war, which, as history shows, would mean outright economic decline....
Capping Emissions, Capping Growth What's often forgotten in the debate over climate change is economics. That is, reality gets largely ignored when it comes to energy consumption and economic growth. The fundamental issue is that greater economic growth and development is tightly correlated with greater energy consumption and more carbon-dioxide emissions. Quite simply, capping or slashing global CO2 emissions, as many favor, means having to cap or slash economic growth. This core point was addressed by various economists speaking at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York City on March 2-4 hosted by the Heartland Institute. For example, Vaclav Klaus is an economist, who also happens to be the president of the Czech Republic. He was just re-elected in February. Klaus spoke on the morning of March 3, and highlighted the link between economic growth and emissions (direct quotes from text of prepared speech): "As an economist, I have to start with the obvious. Carbon dioxide emissions do not fall from heaven. Their volume is a function of GDP per capita, of the number of people and of the emissions intensity, which is the amount of CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP... What this relationship tells is simple: If we really want to decrease emissions ... we have to either stop the economic growth and thus block further rise in the standard of living, or stop the population growth, or make miracles with the emissions intensity."....
Oil Reserve Can Wait ...Barring domestic drilling, Bush said his energy policy was focused on "renewables," such as ethanol, and "conservation." This thin-beer policy is spelled out in detail on the Energy Department's home page, which looks more like the Sierra Club's Web site. There, you'll find a campaign called "Change a light, change the world," which encourages Americans to switch out their incandescent bulbs to energy-saving compact fluorescents. Somehow we doubt this will change the world. Oil apparently is a dirty word at DOE; you won't find it mentioned anywhere on its home page. Focusing policy on biofuels such as corn-based ethanol isn't going to solve the problem. In fact, it's making it worse. Food prices are skyrocketing alongside gas, thanks to the ethanol boom. The price of corn has doubled in the past year, which has driven up feed costs for poultry, beef and pork. What's so maddening is that while DOE is obsessed with the long-term prospects of renewables and conservation, it could be easing energy prices right now by just changing its Strategic Petroleum Reserve policy. The administration refuses to stop withdrawing oil from a tight market to fill the reserve, even though doing so is driving prices higher. Goldman estimates that filling the reserve has raised oil prices by as much as $6 a barrel and 25 cents a gallon at the pump....