To continue on a theme I started on yesterday, Newt Gingrich also weighed in on the Lieberman-Warner debacle that was stopped in the Senate yesterday by some Republicans who actually had cajones. Like me, Newt decried the idea of a huge federal government boondoggle to address the problem of global warming. But his e-mail took a worrisome turn at the end which bothered me to some extent:
One of the most intriguing and promising areas of scientific innovation today are methodologies to address concerns about global warming by something called geoengineering.
We need to know more about it, but the idea behind geoengineering is to release fine particles in or above the stratosphere that would then block a small fraction of the sunlight and thus reduce atmospheric temperature.
In other words, this is one method that holds the promise of addressing any threat from global warming at a fraction of the cost. Instead of imposing an estimated $1 trillion cost on the economy by Boxer-Warner-Lieberman, geoengineering holds forth the promise of addressing global warming concerns for just a few billion dollars a year. Instead of penalizing ordinary Americans, we would have an option to address global warming by rewarding scientific innovation.
My colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute are taking a closer look at geoengineering, and we should too.
With gas prices already at record highs, the last thing America needs is government regulation that will make gas prices higher, make Americans poorer, and make special interests even richer.
We need innovation, not regulation. We need motivating incentives, not punishing pain.
I think Newt sat too long with Nancy Pelosi when he did that commercial with her. “Just” a few billion dollars a year?
Again, let’s look at the evidence that our planet is warming. Oh wait, our temperatures peaked in the 1930’s according to historical data and the most recent subpeak was in 1998. For all we truly know, we could spend a few billion a year making the cooling effects of the Maunder Minimum worse.
Maybe we need to stick with the tried-and-true. In happier news, this video heralds the delivery of 350,000 signatures to various members of Congress telling them to “drill here, drill now, and pay less”, a number that is now over 400,000 and includes my signature:
Here’s the premise we should make those on the left accept: that exploring for and refining domestic oil sources will create good-paying jobs for hundreds of thousands of Americans. We don’t need a government stimulus plan, we need the government to get out of the way so we don’t trip over the bureaucracy in our efforts to boost the American economy.
Efficiencies and alternatives are the only way that we will truly end our dependence on foreign oil. Drill all the holes you want. It still won’t be enough. We consume 20 million barrels per day, while we produce 5 million barrels per day domestically. Show me a report that says we can quadruple our domestic production of oil.