Cooper on Capitol Hill: Please Shackle NC in the Name of Fighting Climate Change

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Gov. Roy Cooper is at it again. Cooper visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday to address the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, and essentially begged the federal government to do more to burden North Carolina businesses and families with stifling environmental regulations in the name of fighting climate change.

Cooper started off by pointing to recent hurricanes that have devastated North Carolina as proof that climate change is getting worse and something must be done.

“When storms are becoming more destructive, it’s not enough to pick up the pieces. We must take action to prevent this kind of devastation in the future. I urge this Congress and all our federal partners to match the same level of determination brought to disaster recovery in our fight to reduce the effects of climate change.”

The number one factor in how destructive a storm is how much there is to destroy. The fact that storms like Hurricane Florence are breaking records for North Carolina has much more to do with the growth in value of homes, businesses, and agricultural endeavors than with any demonstrable connection to climate change.

Besides, what exactly would you have the federal government do, Gov. Cooper, to stop a hurricane?

“While local and state action is critical, federal partners must join us in taking action to protect our people from the growing harm of climate change. We need federal legislation and regulations that promote emission reductions and the preservation of forests, marshes, barrier islands and other natural infrastructure that protect communities from the worsening effects of storms. We need federal leadership to work with global partners to fulfill and strengthen international agreements. We need consistent federal action that meets the urgency of our global climate problem.”

Basically, Cooper wants the feds to regulate us to death. He wants regulations on emission reductions that will make everyone’s existence more expensive, and for what? For nothing.

Climatologist Dr. John Christy admits as much when discussing regulation of CO2, the bogeyman of greenhouse gases that climate alarmists have been stigmatizing for decades. He also points out how good the emitting of fossil fuel exhaust has ultimately been for humans overall.

“If you choose to make regulations about carbon dioxide, that’s OK.  You as a state can do that; you have a right to do it.  But it’s not going to do anything about the climate. And it’s going to cost, there’s no doubt about that.

[W]e are not morally bad people for taking carbon and turning it into the energy that offers life to humanity in a world that would otherwise be brutal (think of life before modernity). On the contrary, we are good people for doing so.”

Also on Capitol Hill, speaking to the same committee Cooper is addressing, is Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry. Her testimony can be read in full here. So did Dr. Curry back up Cooper’s assertion that ‘something must be done’ in order to save our nation from impending doom? Hardly.

“[…] Because of the complexities of the climate system and its societal impacts, solutions may have surprising unintended consequences that generate new vulnerabilities. In short, the cure could be worse than the disease. Given these complexities, there is plenty of scope for reasonable and intelligent people to disagree.

Based on current assessments of the science, manmade climate change is not an existential threat on the time scale of the 21st century, even in its most alarming incarnation. However, the perception of a near-term apocalypse and alignment with range of other social objectives has narrowed the policy options that we’re willing to consider.

In evaluating the urgency of emissions reductions, we need to be realistic about what this will actually accomplish.[…]”

Curry goes on to point out that, while Democrat climate alarmists like Cooper (and Tillis) would embrace massive regulation of emissions that weigh Americans down, but as long as countries like China and India continue their emission trends it would make no difference.

The only difference is a government with more power, and people with less liberty and opportunities for prosperity.

And about Cooper’s (and many, many others’) assertion that recent storms have been so much more destructive? Dr. Curry testifies that:

“The extreme damages from recent hurricanes plus the billion dollar losses from floods, droughts and wildfires, emphasize the vulnerability of the U.S. to extreme events. It’s easy to forget that U.S. extreme weather events were actually worse in the 1930’s and 1950’s.”

This is the kind nuance that Cooper doesn’t care about, because the main thrust of the whole movement is not saving the planet, or saving humanity from its ravages. Honest scientists know that, even if we assume humans are causing climate change, even internationally synchronized efforts would do nothing to stop it.

The real motivation, whether the climate alarmists are aware of it or not, is a desire to have top down government control of industry and commerce. It is no coincidence that those that demand we ‘do something’ about climate change, also view government as the solution to every problem.

We know that bigger government is definitely NOT the solution, but often an exponentially aggravating factor that makes life less prosperous and less free . Yet we have a governor traveling to our Nation’s capital to literally beg them to to make North Carolinians’ lives more expensive to live, and harder to enjoy.

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