The Opinion Blog

Better Living Through Chemistry

Thursday’s editorial praises U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s compromise proposal on climate-change and energy-independence legislation.

Three years ago, when U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham announced his support for a bipartisan immigration compromise to increase border security, reform the visa system and crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, hard-core immigration opponents seized on the bill's path to citizenship for undocumented workers already in the U.S. as “amnesty” and managed to derail the entire effort.

Undaunted, Graham has returned to the fray, announcing this month his support for a “tripartisan” energy reform framework with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). The framework has two broad arms – curbing carbon pollution while creating new energy sources – that should provide a pathway to compromise.

Bush had a shot at a lasting legacy -- and blew it

Ripped from the wires ... Tom Friedman notes that our president wasted his first shot at a lasting energy legacy, 9/11, and is about to waste his second, 4/11:

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

[President] Bush is about to waste a second crisis, this one on energy addiction.

I am reliably told by a Bush administration official that there is an old saying in Texas that goes like this: "If all you ever do is all you've ever done, then all you'll ever get is all you ever got.''

Badmouth Al Gore and you've got real trouble

Rippped from the wires .. Skeptic-comic-magician Penn Jilette tells how he got hosed down in the media for publicly admitting he doesn't know if global warming is real while bagging on Al Gore:

By Penn Jillette

My partner, Teller, and I are professional skeptics. We do magic tricks in our live show in Las Vegas, and we have a passion for trying to use what we've learned about fooling people to possibly get a little closer to the truth. Our series on Showtime tries to question everything -- even things we hold dear.

James Randi is our inspiration, our hero, our mentor and our friend. Randi taught us to use our fake magic powers for good. Psychics use tricks to lie to people; Randi uses tricks to tell the truth.

Global warming makes political big time at last

Ripped from the wires ... In an editorial Wednesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer cheers the Senate's discussion on the Lieberman-Warner-Boxer global-warming bill:

Senate debate this week on climate change is a step forward, even if it doesn't produce a law limiting carbon emissions.

A vote on such legislation was unthinkable as recently as two years ago. President Bush had set a hostile tone in Washington, denying that global warming existed and attacking the sound scientific research that had documented the problem.

Now, Bush concedes global warming is a reality. But he still isn't likely to sign the bill that the Senate is debating, believing that it could impose trillions of dollars in new costs on consumers and businesses.

POINT: Planet will suffer unless U.S. acts

Ripped from the wires ... Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair explains why Americans must embrace and attack global warming:

By Tony Blair

The climate change bill that senators are to begin debating next week is a hugely important signal of intent on behalf of U.S. legislators. Yes, negotiations could still alter the legislation. But the bill's core proposition is correct: Unless the United States radically reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, along with other major emitters, the damage to the climate will be irreversible.

Radical reduction is unlikely to happen through voluntary action alone. Measures in the bill, through a mandatory cap-and-trade scheme, would reduce emissions 70 percent from 2005 levels by 2050. These cuts would be based on a carbon market incentive system that moves with the grain of action around the globe.

COUNTERPOINT: Global warmists talk through their hats

Ripped from the wires ... Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer shows how the "Church of the Environment" promulgates its faulty global-warming dogma:

By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER

I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I'm a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can't be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere, but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats.

Predictions of catastrophe depend on models. Models depend on assumptions about complex planetary systems -- from ocean currents to cloud formation -- that no one fully understands. Which is why the models are inherently flawed and forever changing. The doomsday scenarios posit a cascade of events, each with a certain probability. The multiple improbability of their simultaneous occurrence renders all such predictions entirely speculative.

Forget global warming; fear environmentalism

From the morning e-mail (to be taken with a grain of salt) ... A conservative think tank touts a new book arguing that environmentalism poses a bigger threat to our economic health than global warming:

Czech President Exposes Climate Alarmism in New Book

Washington, D.C., May 27, 2008
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is proud to announce a provocative new book on environmental policy, "Blue Planet in Green Shackles" by Václav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic. President Klaus makes the case that policies being proposed to address global warming are not justified by current science and are, in fact, a dangerous threat to freedom and prosperity around the world.

Uh oh: McCain joins global warming cult

Ripped from the wires ... Cal Thomas takes issue with John McCain's recent declaration that humans are influencing climate change and must help fix the problem:

By CAL THOMAS

In an effort to win over those "moderates'' who believe that global warming is about to destroy the planet, Republican presidential candidate John McCain spoke Monday at a Portland, Ore., training facility for Vestas Wind Technology. He claimed, "The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention, especially in Washington.''

There certainly is more "hot air'' on this and a lot of other subjects in Washington, but that isn't what he meant. The era of big government is so not over, as Bill Clinton claimed it was in 1996. It is just beginning and increasingly the political contests seem to be about who will manage its growth, not who will reduce its size, cost and reach.