Share in the green-energy boom. That’s the title of Rhonda Holman’s editorial in Sunday’s Wichita Eagle.
It’s backed up in today’s paper by Enough fighting over coal plants. This editorial is notable for a few points.
Holman makes an argument against the plants by noting that it’s likely that the Obama administration will impose regulation or taxation of these plants. But these plans are unwise and will harm the American economy. Hopefully the Omaba administration will realize this.
She says the plants will stick “the state with all 11 million tons of carbon dioxide.” If carbon emissions are a problem, it’s because of its contribution to global warming or climate change. It doesn’t matter where the carbon dioxide is produced. Its effect is the same.
In this argument, she treats carbon emissions as though they were local pollutants. Coal plants do produce these, but they’ve been greatly reduced through technology. Further, local pollutants are of entirely different character from carbon emissions.
Readers of the Wichita Eagle should be asking if Holman doesn’t know this, or if she does know it, why does she say these things?
It’s a good question. Facts are sometimes in short supply among radical environmentalists.
But the precise content of these editorials is not as important as the premises they’re based on. These are that we must reduce carbon dioxide emissions in order to save the planet, and that we can create a lot of jobs and wealth by doing so.
The science behind global warming is not at all settled. See Global Warming Rope-a-Dope for an example.
As far as green jobs producing wealth, my post Green energy policies causing harm in Europe reports how green jobs in Spain end up costing $774,000 each.
In Academic Study Challenges Projections of Green Jobs, read about a study that concludes “lack of sound research methods, erroneous economic assumptions and technological omissions have routinely been utilized to lend support, rather than provide legitimate analysis, to major public policies and government spending initiatives.”
We need to base Kansas energy policy on facts and reason.