Everybody’s business

Wow, looks as if it's apparent to other people as well!

Dec 19, 2007 3:00 AM (13 hrs ago) by Dan Gainor, The Examiner BALTIMORE (Map, News) - It’s sleeting outside, and I’m watching the ice build upon my car. None of that is any surprise. It’s winter. The ideal time to sit by the fire andhear tales of famine, war, fire, flood, apocalypse and global warming. Anything beats talking about the Ravens. Besides, it’s a global conversation. Al Gore just flew to Norway to get his Nobel Prize for talking about it. And thousandsof delegates from around the world just flew to the tropical paradise of Bali totalk about it. None of them admits they were leaving pollution in their wake or partying in the sun while we freeze. We should expect such scolds to be hypocrites,as well. If you are a businessman, a taxpayer or just an ordinary citizen, then this is themost important topic I can cover. Not because the Bay is about to flood and we’llall be swimming with the crabs. Even the United Nations “experts” predict no suchthing. It’s because climate change regulation and taxes are the biggest power grab for local, state, federal and global governments in history. No matter what Mother Naturecan do to destroy our lives and our homes, politicians can do it better. I imagine Gov. Martin O’Malley’s Irish eyes must be smilin’ at the prospect of newand unchecked power over everything. He’s already making plans — plans that coulddevastate state businesses more than his $1.5 billion in taxes. His Maryland Commissionon Climate Change has brought in outside eco-alarmists to dictate how we live ourlives. Next, they’ll change those lives. The commission is “poised to propose the nation’stoughest carbon cap when the legislature returns next month,” according to The AssociatedPress. Carbon output means business, growth and jobs — here and globally. Cut thatin crazy ways and we pay one way through the nose. What the commission and the Bali conference propose are incredible caps on carbonemissions — one of many so-called greenhouse gases some scientists link to globalwarming. We could debate the science all day. There are many scientists frozen outof the discussion who question lots of what the U.N. claims. That doesn’t matter. What matters is the U.N. and lots of well-meaning, but utterlyclueless enviro-nuts, are hell-bent on preventing a catastrophe … by causing one. I wish I was joking. The Bali deal creates a timetable for some global pact by 2009.The expectation is that industrialized nations will have to cut carbon emissionsby 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 or so, and we’re 25 percent above thoselevels now. Those cuts could wreck the U.S. economy. We’re also supposed to pay to keep Third World nations from deforesting, pay to supply them with technology and pretty much everything else. Just one climate billcurrently in Congress would cost every American man, woman and child almost $500a year for the next 40 years. No wonder the climate is warming. It’s all those politicians rubbing their greedylittle hands together creating global friction.