Arizona Gov. Brewer Walks the Walk

Add Arizona’s withdrawal from the Western Climate Initiative’s cap-and-trade agreement as the latest dagger in the heart of global warming alarmism.

Gov. Jan Brewer’s executive order is a bow to two political realities: that the science of climate change is not aligned under a consensus belief in catastrophism, and that participation in any system that limits energy efficiency and freedom would lead to economic ruin for Arizona employers.

As former state Sen. Pamela Gorman said, “Beyond cooling our homes, families would face increasing costs on not only energy but all products, because they all require energy to make them. The cap-and-trade restrictions would have created a de facto inflation on every product Arizonans purchase.”

The latest high-level shoe dropped on the science of global warming when Phil Jones, former University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit director, acknowledged in late February there has been no statistically significant heating of the planet since 1995. He induced more heartburn for environmental anxiety groups such as Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action League when he acknowledged the possibility that temperatures were warmer during the Medieval Warm Period than in this century, without greenhouse gases as the cause.

Jones’ BBC interview followed weeks of near-daily revelations that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report was filled with errors and dubious references. British media—chasing information in which their American counterparts have taken little interest—unveiled IPCC “scientific” citations from college student theses, environmental activists’ press releases, and eco interests’ newsletters. False statements about the receding of glaciers and forest degradation were cited, among other exaggerations and misinformation.

This is what was sold to the world as “sound, consensus science.” It also served as the foundation for policymakers at all levels of government to pursue a disastrous plan to force large industries, utilities, and vehicle manufacturers to comply with costly regulations to reduce greenhouse gases. Under cap and trade, these job creators would be required to curb the same “pollutant” that everyone reading this article is exhaling: carbon dioxide.

Fortunately Gov. Brewer recognized the folly of the Western Climate Initiative’s scheme to create an artificial “market” in which businesses would have to buy carbon permission slips to sell and trade with one another. When President Barack Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle in January 2009 that his cap-and-trade plan would cause electricity rates to “necessarily skyrocket,” Brewer understood that was a bad thing.

Combine those escalating energy costs with the fact that the “solution” wouldn’t have nudged the global thermostat at all, and you’re looking at a deal where Arizonans would have paid a heavy price for nothing. No wonder the governor bailed.

Paul Chesser (pchesser@heartland.org) is a special correspondent for The Heartland Institute.