Hot rhetoric, cold action

Robert Samuelson is one of the best columnists out there, if only for his clear-headed analyses of economic realities (e.g. Social Security). Today, he turns his attention to global warming in “Global warming’s real inconvenient truth”:

No government will adopt the draconian restrictions on economic growth and personal freedom (limits on electricity usage, driving and travel) that might curb global warming. Still, politicians want to show they're "doing something." The result is grandstanding. Consider the Kyoto Protocol. It allowed countries that joined to castigate those that didn't. But it hasn't reduced carbon dioxide emissions (up about 25 percent since 1990), and many signatories didn't adopt tough enough policies to hit their 2008-2012 targets. By some estimates, Europe may overshoot by 15 percent and Japan by 25 percent.

One of the reasons I’ve harped on the Cape Wind project (and Ted Kennedy’s opposition to it) is that if so-called environmentalists were serious about global warming they’d be willing to build wind farms and nuclear plants and electric cars. But they’re not really willing to do so or impose these changes on an electorate which will reject them. Is Al Gore even really serious? I’m sure he believes it’s worth the thousands of tons of jet fuel he expends on his global warming tour to protect us all from ManBearPig.