So argues Professor Pat Michaels in this WSJ article today.
He starts by noting the bills in Congress and proposals by the Bush Administration to mandate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This sounds like King Canute ordering the waves to stop rolling in, but with enough use of coercion, I suppose that the government could manage to shut down a lot of energy usage and approach the target. But has anyone thought through how much federal control it would take to engineer the small climate change these proposals envision? I foresee an enormous bureaucracy with power to ration energy usage. Such power is frightening. Remember what Lord Acton had to say about power. A supposedly kindly green Energy Czar would have vast authority and his decisions could make or break many firms. Existing enterprises would have a built-in advantage over prospective competitors who would want to use energy to compete with them.
The attempt to control the climate would necessarily entail comprehensive economic controls and we know what the effects of that are.
