In his climate speech on Monday, Mr. McCain exhibited (as the press usually does) a complete lack of consciousness of the fact that evidence of warming is not evidence of what causes warming. Yet policy must be a matter of costs and benefits, adjusted for the uncertainties involved. Which brings us to today’s irony: He who finds a six-figure earmark an affront to humanity is prepared to wave through a trillion-dollar climate bill without, as far as anyone can tell, a single systematic thought about costs and benefits.
He who sees “corruption” behind every campaign check goes all compliant when GE, DuPont and Ford chant that climate policy “will create more economic opportunities than risks for the U.S. economy.”
Mr. McCain argues that green energy mandates will leave us better off whether or not man-made global warming is real. This is an error that Mr. Romney wouldn’t make ? and one Al Gore makes all the time. Yes, hole-digging can be profitable if government subsidizes hole-digging. For society, however, there is only cost ? measured in the labor and resources diverted to hole-digging from activities that actually fulfill the wants and needs of people.
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