‹ “The Krugman Recipe for Depression” •
More global not-warming news. Meanwhile, California is gearing up for the first of many costly measures to combat global warming. The state must be doing so well with its budget deficit and its unemployment rate that it can afford these additional anti-business and anti-growth costs. Or maybe not.
On the other hand, those righteous and environmentally and socially superior Europeans seem to be having second thoughts. It is dawning on them that environmental restrictions have costs and should be shelved or ignored while the economy is in a downturn. Actually, that’s nothing new. The Europeans have been cheating and gaming the system for years. They liked to berate President Bush and the Americans over the Kyoto accords, but they themselves conveniently ignored those restrictions and timetables or set the levels at baselines that gave them plenty of leeway to maintain polluting industries.
Now, there is even talk of free emission rights for coal plants in Europe. During the campaign The One and Number Two rejected the building of coal-fired utilities and generally disparaged the coal industry. But the article holds out hope that, once in office, they, too, will come to their senses about economically stultifying and wasteful emissions restrictions. That leaves only California and Governor Ahh-nolt in environmental la-la-land.
“The facts of life are conservative.” - Margaret Thatcher
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