Becoming responsibly engaged in the environment
Dr. Paul Krugman writes a column for the New York Times, holds a Ph.D. in economics from MIT, is a professor of economics at Princeton’s University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affair, and is a Nobel laureate to boot. Glenn Beck is a conservative commentator who never graduated from college. Paul Krugman supports the cap and trade legislation currently working its way through Congress. Glenn Beck does not. For some strange reason, I am inclined to agree with Krugman: America needs a cap and trade legislation, and this legislation is on the way in the form of the Waxman-Markey Bill.
Cap and trade is a form of carbon markets. Simply put, the government puts a cap on the amount of carbon dioxide industries can emit in a year, and then slowly revises the cap down. Businesses are issued credits each year and can buy or sell these credits depending on the amount of carbon dioxide they produce. For example, ABC Company in Ohio could install solar panels to produce carbon-free electricity, meaning it needs to posses fewer carbon credits. In turn, ABC Company can sell its credits to a company that doesn’t reduce carbon emissions. The idea is to use market forces to make it cheaper for businesses to use clean energy sources than to use polluting ones.
Critics of Waxman-Markey decry it as a tax that will destroy the economy. Glenn Beck has come out harshly against cap and trade. Spewing vitriolic hate, he likens those seeking climate legislation to socialists. Beck and his ilk warn that the bill will cost Americans thousands of dollars and crash the economy into the ground. This is not so.
Dr. Krugman responded in his New York Times column Sept. 25, “It’s important, then, to understand that claims of immense economic damage from climate legislation are as bogus, in their own way, as climate-change denial. Saving the planet won’t come free (although the early stages of conservation actually might). But it won’t cost all that much either.” Indeed, the EPA estimates it will cost the average American household between $98 and $140 per year until 2050. The Congressional Budget Office’s numbers only differ slightly, estimating that by 2020 it will cost the average American family $175 dollars a year. Regardless, for pennies a day, the bill will help save the environment while creating jobs, not destroying them.
By making carbon dioxide production expensive, businesses will turn to cleaner energy sources. DMI Industries is well-suited to meet these demands. Located in West Fargo, DMI manufactures wind turbines. Enacting the Waxman-Markey Bill would cause energy producers to turn to companies like DMI Industries to produce clean, efficient wind turbines. Anyone who’s walked from Hoyum Hall to Anderson Commons in December knows just how strong the wind is around here. The Waxman-Markey Bill will allow us to turn that biting wind into manufacturing jobs and clean energy.
We stand at a fork in the road. To the left is a reasoned, logical approach to one of the largest problems facing the world in the 21st century. To the right is a reactionary, knee-jerk attempt to resist change. As Krugman finished his Sept. 25 column, “The claim that climate legislation will kill the economy deserves the same disdain as the claim that global warming is a hoax. The truth about the economics of climate change is that it’s relatively easy being green.”
