Climate Changelings

Worried that the world is going to sacrifice progress for the mess of pottage that is “global climate change”?

Don’t. Years ago, economists specializing in game theory recognized that the governments of the world would be extremely unlikely to agree to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The incentives are all wrong for that.

Last month, the great debunker of junk climate science, Patrick Michaels, reporting on the recent Paris talks, concurred. The international agreement going forward is so worded as to be “free to be meaningless.” Countries can claim to be “doing something,” but effectively accomplish nothing. Which allows “the world’s largest emitter (China) and the third-​largest one (India)” to balk.

But the ole USA? It is doing something …

and it’s going to cost. Here’s one reason: Under Obama’s Clean Power Plan, substitution of natural gas for coal in electrical generation isn’t going to increase, even though it produces only half the carbon dioxide per kilowatt of electricity as coal. Instead, his EPA says power companies have to substitute unreliable, expensive “renewables,” mainly solar energy and wind. These are mighty expensive compared with new natural-​gas power. And even the Clean Power Plan won’t meet our Paris target.

Obviously, what we have to worry about are our martyrdom-​prone environmental zealots and their power-​hungry (political power-​hungry) friends ensconced in government.

They just can’t leave well enough alone, for, as Michaels notes, even CO₂ emissions improve with industrial progress — when markets are free and property rights established.

But anti-​capitalists in and out of government don’t want improvements to come naturally. Apparently, they would rather make things worse even by their own standards than let markets work.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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