Why Climate Change Is Not an Exception that Justifies Government Intervention in Free Markets

Climate change is nothing more nor less than a faddish scam. Unfortunately, this is not unusual in environmental issues. One major problem is that there is no inexpensive way to “solve” it as climate alarmists claim. In fact, it could easily consume the entire national income of any nation that really tried to eliminate it. The benefits of actually trying to do so would be negative, not positive. This is because the climate warriors picked a trace gas which is vital to life on Earth as their culprit. And they picked a gas that has had no significant affect on global temperatures. As Richard Lindzen pointed out recently climate is influenced by a myriad of effects and to blame a minor trace gas for whatever happens is ridiculous.

Fortunately, the scam initially started to take hold in Europe first. So much of the economic damage has occurred there, not in the US. And the Europeans are finally beginning to realize that humoring the climate alarmists does not make them go away. It only makes them ask for even more. They have also begun to realize that catering to the alarmists will in the end make Europe economically non-competitive, with disastrous economic results. European business tended to assume that as long as government imposed CO₂ reductions that primarily impacted someone else, that they could live with the results. But they are beginning to understand that this will lead to their own demise as business leaves for more energy use tolerant areas such as Asia.

But damage has been done not only in Europe but also in parts of Canada and Australia. This week President Trump showed that he has a good understanding of the climate “problem” even though he supports one alleged partial non-solution, the use of higher levels of corn ethanol in gasoline. This could, however, have more to do with votes in upcoming elections than real conviction on his part. But it is not helpful to bringing back some rationality to the climate issue.

What is needed is for government to stay out of business, and promote competition, not faddish scams except in the rare cases where government regulation is needed because the free market cannot be efficient by itself. Such is not the case in climate change.