Day: June 9, 2009

The Waxman-Markey climate bill amounts to a $9 trillion tax that will reduce personal consumption by up to $2 trillion by mid-century, according to an analysis presented yesterday by the left-leaning Brookings Institution.

No effort was made to estimate the benefits of Waxman-Markey, apparently because of the difficulty of such an estimation, according to a report in Carbon Control News.

To summarize: We know Waxman-Markey will hurt taxpayers, consumers and the economy, and it’s too difficult to determine whether the bill will provide any benefits — so let’s hurry up and enact the Mother of All Taxes?

Click here for Brookings’ “Fact Sheet.”

Click here for Brookings’ Powerpoint presentation.

UN environmental chief Achim Steiner said yesterday that,

“Single use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere.”

The notion that plastic bags pose some special hazard to marine life, however is a myth. As reported in the Times (UK) on March 8, 2008,

Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims.

The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds…

Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals…