The Cost Effect Of Global Warming Or Stupid Is As Stupid Does
When you hear the Bush Administration or other politicians talking about complying with the Kyoto Protocols as long as they are “cost effective,” they are talking about the cost to their campaign contributors not to you and me.
This week the Commerce Committee gutted Senator Feinstein’s sensible bill requiring car companies to improve over-all fuel efficiency of their fleets by 10 miles per gallon over the next twelve years. There’s nothing radical about that plan. It may even be too little, too late. But Tuesday the Commerce Committee added a little zinger to the bill: It would let the car makers off the hook if the annual goals aren’t “cost-effective.”
Cost effective to whom? If we really took global warming seriously, we would see an economic boom similar to that in
If people get the government they deserve, then as my character Sissy LeBlanc might say, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
2 comments:
Dear Missy Sissy,
As your sister in outrage, and one who revels in your delightful bad behavior, I take issue with the idea that we get the government we deserve. Not I! That would only be true if the Fourth Estate did it's job and informed us of our choices. Keep those fingers tapping!
Pamela de Maigret
The most outrageous thing about the Commerce Committee’s addendum is that “cost effective” isn’t even cost effective for the car companies. A 10-miles-a-gallon improvement in 12 years isn’t a lot. The US automotive industry is quickly going the way of the UK automotive industry, which has ceased to exist because of it refused to make the long-term technology investments needed to keep the industry competitive. Already US car companies are struggling to survive against foreign competition. They survive because a large number of people will buy American for patriotic reasons. I’m not saying that US auto manufacturers don’t occasionally come out with some good technology. But what they are not doing is the year-on-year improvements that are needed to remain competitive in the future. A modest increase in fuel efficiency is not only “cost effective”, meeting that meagre challenge is a nice indicator of the management’s determination to either run the company well or loot it. From that point of view the Bush administration’s stand is to support the right of executives to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
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