Cartoon: I'm Not Green, I'm Lazy

Cartoon: The Car Industry

Cap and Trade Pollution Controls

As the U.S. Senate debates climate change legislation this week, many have proclaimed the virtue of its “cap and trade” system as a “market solution” to reducing carbon emissions. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Unlike a direct tax, cap and trade is a European-style scheme that masks its negative consequences on the economy behind the rhetorical benefits of new government programs designed to help us. In truth, neither is good for consumers or the economy, but a closer look reveals why so many politicians find comfort in cap and trade.

The economic argument for penalizing carbon emissions is straightforward. If emissions from human activities are contributing to dangerous temperature increases as some scientists claim, then textbook theory says that the government should take steps to increase the private costs to those emitting carbon. Markets are efficient only when firms take all costs of their behavior into account…

Cap and trade is not a market-based solution. It relies on a political scheme to increase costs, and can therefore be justly viewed as a tax, stealthy or otherwise, on energy - the lifeblood of our economy. So here’s the real difference: cap and trade masks the causes of higher consumer prices much better than a straightforward tax. And that is precisely why so many politicians endorse it.

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Cartoon: Socialism and Environmentalism

Cartoon: Enironmentalism is Socialism Repackaged

Government Planners Want to Ban Plasma TVs

from the Sun (UK newspaper)

THE Conservatives will propose banning plasma screens and other energy-guzzling electrical goods in a report to be unveiled next week...

The ideas come from a Conservative group set up by David Cameron to develop policies to protect the environment and although the measures to make household electrical appliances more energy efficient are not binding on Mr Cameron, they are thought likely to be warmly received by the Tory leader.

The group will also suggest scrapping Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of the nation’s success in favour of a model that measures people’s happiness drawn up up by Friends of the Earth.

Under the proposals, a cap could be set on the energy use of each electrical appliance, and those exceeding limits could be banned from sale in the UK.

A new labelling requirement could be introduced to inform consumers of products’ annual energy consumption compared with other similar appliances...

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