Will Cap and Trade Save the Planet? (Part 3 in a 10-part Series)
Nicolas Loris /
Global warming skeptics are quick to point out the exorbitant costs of global warming legislation because they are, well, exorbitant. The $1.9 trillion of tax revenue generated over eight years from a cap-and-trade bill would still be larger than the $1.5 trillion from NASA, the New Deal, and Hurricane Katrina. It amounts to a nearly $2,000 tax every year for every American household. Projected job losses that would have resulted from the Lieberman-Warner cap and trade would have surpassed 900,000 in some years.
But if it saves the planet, isn’t it all worth it? Some radical environmental alarmists believe saving the environment should come at any cost and capitalist greed and short-sightedness is superseding the preservation of the planet for future generations.
Herein lies the problem: When the benefits of a cap and trade are measured against the costs, the costs significantly outweigh the negligible benefits. We’ve highlighted the costs in the first two parts of this series (here and here). Let’s dissect the benefits.
Analysis by the architects of an endangerment finding that would circumvent Congressional legislation to regulate carbon dioxide, the Environmental Protection Agency, strongly suggests that a 60 percent reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions by 2050 will reduce global temperature by 0.1 to 0.2 degrees Celsius by 2095. The bottom line: The extraordinary perils of carbon dioxide regulation for the American economy come with little, if any, environmental benefit.