Reign, Reign

"We are told that very expensive carbon regulations are the only way to respond to global warming, despite ample evidence that this approach does not pass a basic cost-benefit test. We must ask whether a 'climate-industrial complex' is emerging, pressing taxpayers to fork over money to please those who stand to gain.

This phenomenon will be on display at the World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen this weekend. The organizers -- the Copenhagen Climate Council -- hope to push political leaders into more drastic promises when they negotiate the Kyoto Protocol's replacement in December.

The opening keynote address is to be delivered by Al Gore, who,...is a politician, a campaigner and the chair of a green private-equity firm invested in products that a climate-scared world would buy.

Naturally, many CEOs are genuinely concerned about global warming. But many of the most vocal stand to profit from carbon regulations. The term used by economists for their behavior is 'rent-seeking.'"

-- Bjorn Lomborg, still out there jabbering about the climate - the political climate - because Barack Obama's changed everything, yada, yada, yada, in The Wall Street Journal.

Air Sickness

"[The G-8 conceded] global warming is an economic, not a theological, question.

The G-8 also conceded that global-warming masochism is futile and painfully expensive.

The magical realism of Kyoto has backfired in a big way. The global warming elite will never admit this, because that would mean giving up their political whip against George Bush. But Kyoto II is already collapsing under its own contradictions. By sticking to a more realistic alternative, this reviled President has handed his green opponents a way to save face."

-- The Wall Street Journal Editors.