Death Travels West

The Governator must have solved the state's budget crisis. I can tell because he spent yesterday laying out his "plan B" to save California in case mankind is unable to stop global warming. Even without the hacked CRU emails, this is grimly stupid: Governor: Backup Plan On global Warming Needed

California has set an ambitious agenda to combat climate change, but on Wednesday Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the state needs to prepare for the worst if human action cannot stop global warming and the rise of sea levels.

In an announcement on San Francisco's Treasure Island, Schwarzenegger said he is creating a panel of 23 California leaders to recommend specific actions to prevent the destruction of infrastructure and deal with a depleted snowpack, the spread of disease, intense wildfires and other calamities that would result within the century from climate change.

"I normally never make a Plan B because then you start concentrating on that and not really on Plan A," Schwarzenegger said. "But ... I think we have a responsibility to have a Plan B in case we can't stop the global warming."

Lord, help us, he's serious. Doesn't he read the newspapers? Global Warming/Climate Change has unexpectedly come to its reckoning point in the last few weeks. The CRU emails were the catalyst, but the truth is that there are a lot of people facing the actual costs of Doing Something and are turning away. India and China have both announced that they will not sign on to any planet-spanning deals. Australia has considered and rejected a cap 'n trade bill. The US Congress is making a big show of passing cap 'n trade, but the truth is that it's going nowhere. And so on.

Schwarzenegger wants to convene a 23-person task force to come up with this desperately needed "Plan B." Yeah, we're emptying the prisons, but we are going to set up a biggish task force, along with its attendant support staff, to solve a problem based largely on dodgy science and incomplete computer models, not to mention simple hysteria.This is not the first working group that has met to consider climate change issues, nor will it be the last. Progressive types have been jetting - or at least driving - to climate change meetings for years, and no doubt enjoying themselves even as they frown over the prospects for the Survival of Man. The catering bill alone must be enormous and represent an incredible waste of resources.

There might be plenty of intelligent people out there who sincerely believe that the earth is warming. But, doesn't it bother them that all of the proposed solutions seem to involve the redistribution of money from the United States to other countries? Or that people are being asked to do increasingly silly things - from outlawing big screen TV's to telling people they shouldn't own dogs - in order to Save The Planet? I can understand creating incentives to change behavior, but there comes a point when "incentives" simply become a scam, and we have reached that point with climate change. At this point setting up another task force looks like part of the problem, not the solution.