Today in my first column for the examiner I would like to acknowledge Earth Day weekend. The first Earth day in 1970 the founder and grand marshal in New York was Ira Einhorn (AKA The Unicorn Killer) but credit was later given to Senator Gaylord Nelson who doesn’t have such a colorful rap sheet. So in honor of this day let’s discuss the latest in vogue environmental issue, CO2 and efforts to curb the same.
I would like to think everyone reading this has heard of Cap & Trade. That is the where clean and polluted air is bought and sold by government approved dealers, environmentalists and those who profit from it say it is good for the environment. . This was big news when the last congress tried to implement it nationwide and it was soundly unpopular and defeated. The Cap & Trade scheme in Europe is so rife with corruption it has been temporally halted.
If you thought it was wrong on a national level why has it been going on in New York since July 11 2008? New York’s Cap& Trade was instituted by the DEC not by elected officials. Yes some elected officials supported it like Governor Pataki or Governor Patterson who signed it into law. So the public utilities overseen by state officials have to pay other approved government dealers to buy clean air. Don’t go running to check your bill you won’t see it itemized but it cost you about 12 dollars a year. It may not sound like much but it will increase every year.
But surely my 12 dollars is going to a clean environment who wouldn’t want that. Just like the Lottery, the Gas tax and Social Security that money is needed to buy votes elsewhere. In 2010 as a result of our economy, one half of the 180 million profit (That 12 dollars adds up quickly) from selling air or 90 million disappeared into the New York public school system. Maybe it’s me but how exactly did that 90 million help the environment? In 2011 they could not raid it again, it is held up in a pesky lawsuit about interstate trade
Now you are mad and decide you have had it and you will move out of New York to get away from Cap& Trade. Well don’t move to the following states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island or Vermont. They all fall under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or RGGI umbrella. New York was not alone in raiding the cookie jar, New Hampshire took 3.1 million, and New Jersey used 65 million. As always New York does it bigger and better than everyone.
What is the real danger from CO2? If you remember in high school CO2 was exhaled by animals and inhaled by plants completing the circle of life. It seems benign enough. The environmentalists tell us it is the HFC-23 contained within the CO2 that is harmful, coincidentally only after being questioned about CO2 being a natural gas and essential to life. HFC-23 is referred to normally as a refrigerant and they say it’s hidden inside the CO2. The irony of the Cap & Trade is studies show that to filter all the HFC-23 emitted by power plants out it would cost 100 million. Why not institute this solution and filter it out, well there are 4.7 billion reasons why. Four point seven billion is how much selling clean air generates each year. Why kill the goose that lays the eggs?
