Rep. David McKinley apparently operates under the misperception that, “Congress is, and therefore, it must do something.”
From the AP report of today’s climate showdown in West Virginia:
There were plenty of opinions and recommendations, though, from taxation strategies and carbon-capture technology investment to the blunt prescription from climate science denier Marc Morano: Do nothing.
Morano, a former aide to climate skeptic and Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, calls global warming debates a “silly display of politics” built on “sub-prime science.” The suggestion that carbon dioxide in particular is fueling climate change “is absolutely not holding up,” he argued.
“We must have the courage to do nothing when it comes to regulating CO2 emissions,” Morano declared, calling carbon-based energy like coal “one of the greatest liberators in the history of mankind.”
But doing nothing isn’t the right answer, McKinley said later. Something will have to be done, perhaps tariffs or fees on countries that don’t meet U.S. standards. Whatever Congress considers, he said, “we have to move in a very cautious manner.”
Unfortunately for the rest of us Congress usually thinks it has to do something, even if it is wrong. In most cases it is wrong but that doesn’t stop them from throwing more money at a problem that didn’t exist in the first place.
McKinley is a dork.
http://mckinley.house.gov/in-the-news/news-oklahoma-welch-back-bill-to-support-energy-efficiency/
Doing nothing is often the wisest option. Calvin Cooldge’s observation, that many of our problems will solve themselves if we sit down and keep still, should be tattooed backward on every Member’s forehead.
Perhaps the Member of Congress is confusing “carbon pollution”, a reference to the chimera of CO2-related warming, with actual pollution — the production of soot, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other genuinely harmful components.
Europe and the US have done a great deal to reduce real pollution. We’re well into the realm of diminishing returns and very possibly more technology to “reduce pollution” will only produce about the same amount of pollution but elsewhere in the industrial — I don’t want to say system, it isn’t really a system, but I don’t have a handy word. That is, you may produce as much pollution building and installing a piece of anti-pollution gear as the gear actually blocks at the coal plant.