Energy shell games
While the state and the feds are trumpeting alternative energy plans with great reductions in emissions, no one really seems to have a clue how we are going to get there. Likewise, no one seems terribly interested in how much it is going to cost compared to the perceived benefit.
Pawlenty’s future calls for an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050. This seems like the kind of classic overreach that has Kyoto dead in the water. We’re certainly not going to get there with the governor’s emphasis on ethanol, which uses more energy to produce than it saves. Thus, increased production of ethanol means increased energy usage and increased emissions. Not to mention the stress on food stores and prices.
Making money requires energy. Has anyone calculated the amount of extra hours the average person will have to work to finance higher food, clothing, and energy prices, not to mention the massive subsidies they will pay to “reduce” energy bills?
Senator Klobuchar is calling for a national initiative that will produce 25 percent renewable energy by 2025, in part to “reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which cause global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere.”
(Sigh.)
Let’s be clear. Mankind produces roughly four percent of atmospheric CO2. As a whole, CO2 is a tiny fraction of the overall greenhouse gas picture (.038 percent to be exact). The U.S. is credited with producing about 25 percent of man-made CO2 emissions. Were we to completely eliminate our contribution of atmospheric CO2, we would reduce greenhouses gases by about one percent.
Pawlenty and Klobuchar are putting us on a path to spend endless billions of tax dollars for a plan that is sure to raise the price of goods and services, energy costs (in the form of higher taxes), and puts our energy future in the hands of government. All based on the theory that our tiny contribution to CO2 is somehow causing a catastrophe that the other 96 percent is not.