Bogus Gold

When I first heard about John McCain's fondness for something called "cap and trade" I thought it must be an odd coincidence. Perhaps he was misunderstood and was dubbing himself "Cap'n Trade," to characterize his free trade positions in contrast to his Democratic rivals' aversion to NAFTA and similar free trade policies. I pictured him in a captain's hat with his hands on his hips proclaiming himself "Cap'n Trade" here to save us from the Dems protectionist policies.

But alas, amusing as it might be to picture John McCain in a "Cap'n Crunch" looking hat, the truth wasn't really so amusing at all. It turns out McCain is a committed advocate of the "cap and trade" system for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

While it may be fun to take another futile charge against the Washington consensus that we can control the weather by regulating our production of a single gas, I had no illusions we were getting that kind of candidate in McCain. He's about as green as they come on the right side of the aisle. He's explained how he draws inspiration from his hero Teddy Roosevelt, leading him to buy into things such as the need to preserve the "pristine" mosquito swamps of the tundra in ANWR from evil capitalist oil drilling much like we preserve the Grand Canyon.

Incidentally I too believe the Republican Party needs a credible environmental agenda. However I believe that agenda doesn't need to conflict with the basic principles underlying the rest of the party's beliefs. And much to my chagrin, the Republican candidate for president has embraced a system hard to swallow in that regard. To quote Lawrence Kudlow:

As good as John McCain’s pro-growth, supply-side tax plan is, his cap-and-trade strategy unveiled this morning is very hard for conservatives to swallow. The whole cap-and-trade experience in Europe and elsewhere reveals that this is a huge government command-and-control operation that taxes, spends, and regulates on a grand scale. The “cap” part rolls back production to an extent that undermines economic growth. The European cap-and-trade plans are prohibitively expensive, and are themselves hostile to economic growth.

My main problem with McCain's embrace of the cap and trade position (once I choke down my belief that it's a solution to a non-problem in the first place) is that there are many more intelligent ways to assert ones' environmentalism - including belief in human caused global warming - while showing complete respect for the free market.

Bjørn Lomborg provides a great counter example. Like McCain he has no doubt regarding man-made global warming. But unlike McCain he evaluates things through a far more empirical cost/benefit lens... a perspective that sounds strangely more aligned with the free market principles of American conservatives than the man running to lead them.

Some excerpts from his recent interview by National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez (all emphases mine):

Lopez: How can John McCain legitimately differentiate himself from the Democratic nominee on climate policy?

Lomborg: I’m no expert on American politics.

I note that Obama and Clinton have called McCain’s plan “too timid” — but I also note that the three of them are all supporting, in varying levels, the Warner-Lieberman Bill on climate change, which looks set to be a massive subsidy-fest that would achieve very little for the environment, at great cost.

McCain could dramatically differentiate himself by being the only candidate acknowledging that promising cuts in the near future just means economic pain for no gain. He could stand out by acknowledging that promising dramatic reductions in the far-off future is simply sweeping the hard choices under the rug for now, for no gain. Wishful thinking is not sound public policy.

We need the technological solutions that will allow our societies to transition cost-effectively to low-carbon energy by mid-century. McCain could recognize that this is a century-long problem which needs century-long, smart solutions.

Lopez: You are about to hold your Copenhagen Consensus 2008. What happened there that John McCain (and the rest of us) should know about?

Lomborg: The Copenhagen Consensus 2008 gets some of the world’s greatest thinkers together to prioritize solutions to the world’s greatest problems: air pollution, conflict, disease, education, global warming, malnutrition/hunger, sanitation/water, subsidies and trade barriers, terrorism and women/development.

The prioritization is based on research that has been created specifically for the project by top economists in each field, identifying the best investments we could make in order to achieve good in the world.

Politicians like John McCain prioritize every day. The message from Copenhagen Consensus is that when it comes to battling environmental and developmental problems, we need to be explicit about our priorities, and talk about where we can do the most good first.

We should not focus on the problems that get the most publicity, but the issues where we can do the most good. Analysis from Copenhagen Consensus research shows that cutting CO2 now will do 90 cents worth of good for every dollar spent — a bad deal. However, investing in research and development of new energy technologies will do $16 worth of good for every dollar spent — while being much cheaper. Let us do the smartest things first, in dealing with all of the world’s problems, including global warming.

John McCain does not have a problem being concerned about the environment. That's actually both laudable and especially needed among Republican candidates who are all too often mute about such issues. Provided he's being respectful of conservative principles and sensible rather than hysterically reactive I don't even have a problem with his complete agreement with the global warming crowd. McCain's problem is that he's copying the means as well as the values of the left when it comes to this issue.

A conservative should instinctively distrust huge multi-national plans relying on command and control economic models, no matter what lip service they pay to free markets. He should have seriously investigated any number of alternatives before calling for something so drastic and so antithetical to the values of the right. That he has not done so doesn't brand him a "maverick" as much as a "follower" when it comes to this matter. And we deserve better.