Senator John Kerry

Senator John Kerry stressed that the economy cannot be a scapegoat for not implementing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas reductions. He went so far as to call doing nothing a “suicide pact”.

Forget cost and forget the recession, says Kerry:

“Climate change is not governed by a recession, it’s governed by scientific facts about what’s happening to Earth. And you either accept the realities of the science or you don’t. You don’t enter a mutual suicide pact because the economy is having a hard time right now.”

Senator Kerry has one thing right; it should be governed by scientific facts. But according to renowned scientists and climatologists from around the world, the debate’s not over. (See here, here, here and here.)

Global Warming Sells, But Who’s Really Buying?

Global warming policy can sound pretty good one sound byte at a time. But as Americans learn more, they are buying it a lot less. That is because Americans are beginning to understand that a cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is nothing more than a regressive tax that will raise energy prices and cost Americans jobs – all for little, if any, environmental gain. A cap-and-trade is a less predictable version of a carbon tax and there is plenty of reason and hope Americans won’t stand for an expensive energy tax, especially in a recessionary environment.

It is shaping up that if Congress passes any version of a cap-and-trade bill, just like the stimulus spending, it will come with large public dissent. In fact, a recent Gallup pole announced that

Although a majority of Americans believe the seriousness of global warming is either correctly portrayed in the news or underestimated, a record-high 41% now say it is exaggerated.” This is up from just 30% in 2006.

And maybe that is why we are starting to see a ramp up in the rhetoric from the global warming alarmists. The numbers don’t lie; support for global warming policies are eroding, faster than polar ice caps, as it turns out.

So how will the public react if the government signs into law a stringent cap-and-trade scheme to reduce carbon? Rajendra Pachauri’s, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), answer to that question is revolution:

He [Obama] is not going to say by 2020 I’m going to reduce emissions by 30 per cent. He’ll have a revolution on his hands. He has to do it step by step.”

The Reagan Revolution rose out of American discontent with an out of touch government. History might once again be repeating itself.