'Cap and Trade' Your Freedom

By Joseph Farah

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that 5 percent of Americans could give an accurate definition of what "cap and trade" means.

We hear the phrase a lot. It has what I call a high MEGO factor. MEGO is a news industry acronym for "my eyes glaze over."

Nevertheless, the plan by Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress to institute a "cap and trade" system on the production of carbon dioxide and other so-called "greenhouse gases" (the principal one being water vapor, by the way) is nothing more than a plot to destroy the American economy once and for all.

You think I'm kidding?

Here are a few facts to consider:

The plan is based on largely pseudo-science suggesting that these natural gases (not pollutants) are causing massive, catastrophic climate change.
The plan is based on the idea that increases in these gases are caused by man's activity on the planet, even though man-made carbon dioxide and water vapor represent an infinitesimally small amount of the carbon dioxide and water vapor in our atmosphere.
Historic tracking of the relationship of carbon dioxide volume in the atmosphere and temperature increases does indeed correlate a trend – but not the way Al Gore explains it. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere follow warming trends. They don't precede them.
There is no evidence that small fluctuations in global temperatures actually lead to devastating results. In fact, they are often beneficial – and they are cyclical.
The planet has been much colder in man's history. And it has been much warmer in history. These trends occurred before man was involved in major industry.

But let's put all that aside for a moment. Let's pretend the assumptions of Al Gore and a handful of government-paid scientists are correct – the planet really is warming because of man's activity.

The "cap and trade" system about to be imposed on Americans will do nothing to stop or reverse the amount of "greenhouse gases" spewing into the world's atmosphere – not even close.

It will, however, destroy the economy.

Both India and China are increasingly putting out more carbon dioxide than we could ever stop putting out. China has been adding a new 500 megawatt coal or gas-burning plant about every week or two, with hundreds more planned. So, even if the U.S. places on its own businesses strict limits on the production of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases," India and China will more than make up the difference by adding new carbon dioxide-emitting generating plants.

That means the worldwide emissions of CO2 are gong to continue to rise even if we decide to kill the American economy and go back to the horse-and-buggy days.

We can't possibly do anything to reduce world levels of CO2 unless India and China stop developing cold in their tracks. They would indeed need to start shutting down some of those electrical generating plants and remain part of the "Third World." That is not going to happen.

And that is all you really need to know about "cap and trade" – unless, of course, you want to destroy the U.S. economy, which, I am afraid, is exactly what Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress seek to do.

"Cap and trade" is not a solution to climate change. It is a prescription for taking America down as a world power, as a free nation and as the most prosperous country on the planet.

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