Guardian - Not A Word Of "It's A Hoax!!" In GOP Squwaking Re. Obama Emissions Plan
Given that nearly 70 percent of Republicans in Congress and 90 percent of the party's congressional leadership deny the reality of human-caused global warming, you might expect them to attack President Obama's climate plan on scientific grounds. On the contrary, Republican politicians have critiqued President Obama's plan almost entirely on the economics. Even Senator James Inhofe, who wrote an entire book based around the absurd premise that "global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," did not even touch upon climate science when responding to the climate plan.
This is a fascinating turn of events. Perhaps Republican politicians have decided that disputing the consensus of 97% of climate research and climate experts is a losing proposition. Whatever the reason, the shift away from science denial toward the economics debate is a welcome one. As even the right-wing Washington Times admitted, remaining entrenched in climate science denial has prevented the Republican Party from becoming involved in discussions about the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the least impact on the economy.
As a result, President Obama was forced to enforce government regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, using a stick because Congress has been unable or unwilling to solve the problem with a carrot. Putting a price on greenhouse gases would create the incentive for consumers to lower their emissions, thus creating demand for innovative new green technologies. Government regulations can only penalize the worst polluters.
It's important to note that while carbon pricing is preferable to government regulations from an economic standpoint, Republican claims that these regulations will kill jobs and cost huge sums of money are without merit. Since the greenhouse gas regulations have not yet been developed, we can't estimate their costs. However, construction of new low emissions power plants would create jobs, and every dollar invested in clean energy creates two to three times as many jobs as putting that same dollar into coal energy. Estimates of the costs of environmental regulations are almost always exaggerated, and so far, alarmism about the costs of these greenhouse gas regulations appear to be no exception.
EDIT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/jul/03/climate-change-carbon-emissions-republicans-obama
= new reply since forum marked as read