More On The Faux Global Warming Hysteria

Saturday's Wall Street Journal featured an interview by Kim Strassel with Robert E. Murray, CEO of Murray Energy.

It's a great article. Through his interview with Ms. Strassel, Murray exposes the hidden surprise that the liberal left, and large business CEOs, have in store for the average American.

Stratospheric energy costs amidst dwindling energy supplies. Welcome to Jimmy Carter's world of energy supply mismanagement, Part 2.

Basically, Murray notes that coal is one of the major fuel sources that allows Americans to consume energy at a relatively low cost. But it is number one on the global warming police's hit list of energy sources.

According to Murray, the result of attempting to squeeze coal out of America's energy mix will only result in: lost jobs, regional recessions, much higher energy costs, and actual supply shortfalls.

Murray then goes on to skewer those large companies- GE, DuPont, Alcoa, Caterpillar, Shell, ConocoPhillips, BP, Entergy- whose CEOs have jumped on the CO2 cap trading program. Their argument is that if they don't participate in the design of the program, they'll only suffer more.

Murray argues that, by joining in, these influential CEOs have given up the war without a fight. He wrote a letter to the CEO of Duke Power, outlining his points, and his contention that, ultimately, after the short-term effects of selling cap credits had worn off, Duke's growth and profitability would suffer, as America's capacity to generate power waned.

Jim Rogers, Duke's CEO, replied, in part,

"Legislation is coming. We can help shape it, or stand on the sidelines and let others do it."

I must say, I agree with Mr. Murray. Contributing to wrong-headed legislation will backfire on these companies. By jumping on the bandwagon now, they could potentially delay the eventual realization that this entire hysteria is a growth-curbing, standard-of-living destroying mistake foisted upon us by the liberal left. Having muzzled much of academia's sources of disagreement, they will use these companies' participation as evidence of even big business' capitulation.

Ten years hence, when our economic growth has slowed because of a foolishly self-imposed CO2 limit, jobs are scarce, and incomes have stalled, these companies will be held responsible, along with the liberal Democrats who initiated this hoax.

To read more about my own views, go here, as well as reading my pieces labelled 'global warming.'

The only good news is likely to be that, as the price paid for 'addressing' imagined human sources of global warming hits home to voters, the Democrats could find themselves out of quite a few gubernatorial, House and Senate seats, not to mention the Presidency, for some time.