[Note: This post has been superceded by Under Further Review …]
ExxonMobil’s new corporate position in favor of carbon taxes, reported today by the Wall Street Journal, is not entirely unexpected. It is the result of a policy drift of recent years toward compromise and appeasement with the company’s political critics.
But I doubt that ExxonMobil has bought into alarmism. Back at Enron, where I was director of public policy analysis, we didn’t necessarily buy into climate alarmism but we welcomed the public’s concern because we had seven profit centers (see pp. 3–4) that stood to benefit. ExxonMobil, the anti-Enron, has not set itself up as a rent-seeker, but it apparently wants a seat at the policy table given the perceived choice between a carbon tax and a carbon cap-and-trade scheme.…
The Pew Center on Global Climate Change is premised on the notion that climate science is settled and we must move toward major, open-ended government intervention with energy and the economy. “Climate change poses an extraordinary challenge that demands immediate action,” begins the Science Impacts page on the Pew Center’s website.
Thus I was surprised to read this from a Pew representative in a debate over climate-change science hosted recently by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As debate participant Lawrence Solomon reported the Financial Post:
…“I really detest phrases like the science is settled,” asserted Dr. Jay Gulledge, a climate specialist at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in his opening statement. “To characterize myself and the Pew Center as viewing the science as settled is a bit of a red herring.”
If there is one quotation by Obama’s new science advisor that every American should hear, it is this:
…“A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States. . . . Resources and energy must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries. This effort must be largely political” (italics added).