Pass the corn but hold the Greens, please.
I find the “Green” theme for this year’s Democratic National Convention, promoted by Mayor Hickenlooper and others, to be evidence that the environmental movement in this country is out of control. Assumption and emotion are the norms for how we address environmental concerns.
The mayor and his associates are not weighing the costs and benefits of his “Green” tactics and environmentalism in general.
How much money are Colorado taxpayers willing to pay to subsidize wind and solar energy? More importantly, is all this money we are spending to decrease carbon emissions really worth it? Does it truly make a difference?
Let’s take a step back and think about sensible responses to Global Warming. Here are four questions we must answer before we start promoting carbon taxes, subsidies for wind or solar power, subsidies for ethanol, etc.
1. Is the Earth warming at a significant pace?
2. Is this warming caused by humans (or is it natural)?
3. Are the effects of global warming harmful (or can they be beneficial – such as opening up millions of acres of frozen tundra to agriculture)?
4. Will spending hundreds of millions of dollars regulating and reducing coal and oil energy as well as subsidizing wind and solar energy create more value than it destroys?
Even if one answers the first three questions in the affirmative, that still doesn’t mean we should begin legislating “Green” policies left and right. We need to weigh the benefits and costs of every policy proposal. Though renewable energy looks like a silver bullet that will solve all our energy problems, we need to think through this again.
Colorado has recently passed legislation mandating that a certain level of power be generated by non-renewable sources in the next decade or so.
The state is providing huge subsidies to build giant wind mills on the Eastern plains regardless of whether it makes economic sense. The return on these investments is poor. Economics tells us this must be the case.
If wind power, or solar power, or ethanol, or any other form of renewable energy were efficient and could generate profits, the market would provide it. The reason renewable energy is less prevalent in our society today than many of us would like is because it just is not efficient or cost effective yet.
So what does this mean? It means Mayor Hickenlooper, Bill Ritter, and the state legislature are taking your money through taxes and spending it on ventures that will be inefficient and at the same time, as they restrict the availability of coal and oil as sources of energy, we will all have to buy energy at ever higher prices (if you can imagine that).
The final point I want to leave you with is this: despite the high cost and inefficiencies, will shifting to this clean and renewable energy at least achieve its goal of reducing global warming? If you said yes, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.
Even if all the goals of environmentalists were met in this country, the world wide emissions of greenhouse gases will still increase. Other countries, primarily India and China will continue their economic development; which emits green house gases at an ever increasing rate.
On the margin, any decrease in U. S. emissions will have little effect on the world wide level emissions. This means we are taxing ourselves, hamstringing our economy, and gaining next to nothing.
Our best approach to solving the potential problem of the earth getting warmer is to allow individuals to react to changing conditions. No matter what happens, people will learn to adapt and improve their environment. If climates change and ocean levels rise, people will begin to move a little further inland.
Remember this; wealth is the key tool by which we will be able to face rising global temperatures, hurricanes, tornadoes, war, famine, etc.
Paul Mueller lives in Golden.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
