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Jan. 8, 2009

Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Arab regimes secretly rooting for Israel?

Larry Elder: Israelis and Palestinians: Who's David, Who's Goliath?

Jeff Jacoby: Yes, it's anti-Semitism

Jan. 7, 2009

Jonah Goldberg: Who are the real Nazis?

Anne Applebaum: Pointless Peace Proposals

Jan. 6, 2009

Caroline B. Glick: Iran's Gazan diversion?

Dennis Prager: Dissecting Dershowitz

Jan. 5, 2009

Mark Steyn: Gaza has its version of rocket scientists

Mona Charen: The So-called International Community

Jan. 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Having a holy tongue

Caroline B. Glick : Hamas' march to victory

Dec. 31, 2008

Dore Gold: Is Israel Using 'Disproportionate Force'?

Renee Enna:: Succulent 'stewp' is quick, easy fix

Dec. 30, 2008

Jonathan Mark: Israel's Response Is Disproportionate

Wesley Pruden: It's time once more to blame the Jews

Dec. 29, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Chanukah: 'Give me Judaism or give me death'

Michael B. Oren: A crisis and an opportunity

Dec. 26, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: When the past meets the future

Caroline B. Glick: Iran and Hamas do Christmas

Dec. 24, 2008

Rabbi Dovid Zauderer: Judaism's Santa problem

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman CHANUKAH FORK-FINGER FOOD FEAST

Dec. 23, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: Repeating failure in Gaza

Dec. 22, 2008

Rabbi Boruch Leff: Too many Jews today are missing the intended purpose of one of Judaism's most beloved holidays

Barry Rubin: Liar, liar, pants on cease-fire

Dec. 19, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Final Battlefield

Caroline B. Glick: Betting on a dead horse

Dec. 18, 2008

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Juicy Chef's hella top, hella bottom, hallelujah in the middle

Craig Crossman : More gifts for geeks --- and those who love them

Dec. 17, 2008

Dion Nissenbaum: Israel kicks out outrageously biased UN official

Craig Crossman : Gifts for geeks --- and those who love them

Dec. 16, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Gift of Joy

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Uncle Shariah

Dec. 15, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Expert witnesses who put themselves first

Barry Rubin: What they say isn't what you hear

Dec. 12, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Can the Bible be a secular language?

Caroline B. Glick: What a PM Netanyahu faces from Washington

Dec. 11, 2008

Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Our role in the Divine's global corporation, World Inc.

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: A retro-tasting pareve pot pie made with a light hand

Dec. 10, 2008

Rabbi Paysach J. Krohn: Groom admits he was caught "red handed"

Kara McGuire: No money for gifts? No problem

Dec. 9, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Can I make my boss treat me fairly?

Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Next Steps in the Indo-Pakistani Crisis

Dec. 8, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: 'Chanukah Bush' flap and graciousness

Mark Steyn: Jews get killed, but Muslims feel vulnerable

Dec. 5, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Truth --- The Key to Gratitude

Jeff Jacoby: UN's obsession is grotesque and Orwellian

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 23, 2007 / 4 Nissan, 5767

The cost-free global catastrophe

By Rich Lowry


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Maybe the next Al Gore film should be called "How to Profit From the Coming Global Meltdown." The former vice president told Congress during his star-turn there that, in the course of combating global warming, we can "improve our economy's productivity and performance."


It is a common argument among advocates of greenhouse-gas restrictions and clean-technology subsidies that these measures will be an economic boon. When John Edwards unveiled his plan to "halt global warming," he promised to create a million new jobs as part of "a new energy economy." If global warming can be stopped while adding jobs to the economy — what are we waiting for? We can have all the economic growth we want and save the planet too.


As it happens, serious efforts to combat global warming in the U.S. will create new jobs, but most of them probably will be in China and India. It was just four years ago that Democrats were attacking "out-sourcing." Now they are willing to contemplate measures that would encourage it in the cause of reduced American carbon emissions.


In recent congressional testimony, economist David Montgomery of the consulting firm Charles Rivers Associates explained how restrictions on greenhouse gases would work in the real world. They would increase the energy costs of U.S. manufacturers and thus make them less competitive against manufacturers in India and China, developing countries that are unburdened by guilty consciences about their emissions. Investment in both those countries would tend to increase.


"Emissions in the United States will fall, especially as our share of energy-intensive industries shrinks," Montgomery explains, "but they will grow even faster in China as factories rise there that would otherwise have been built here." This is bad news for the environment, since China is so much less energy-efficient than the U.S. A dollar's worth of output in China increases greenhouse gases by twice as much as a dollar's worth of output here.


This dynamic is part of the reason that it is impossible for the developing world to "halt" global warming on its own. China will soon pass the U.S. in emissions. And if its industry becomes dependent on a competitive advantage from not imposing the sort of restrictions Democrats are talking about here, it will become even less likely to agree to them. Indeed, the Kyoto treaty functions as if it were hatched in an evil conspiracy between the Beijing and New Delhi Chambers of Commerce — we get cleaner and poorer, they get dirtier and richer.


And we inevitably will get poorer at the margins. Montgomery describes the economic effect of greenhouse-gas suppression: "The need to adopt more costly methods of electricity generation, to invest in producing more expensive, low-carbon fuels and to undertake more intensive energy-conservation measures diverts resources that would otherwise be available to produce the goods and services that make up GDP."


Of course, certain parts of the economy might thrive that wouldn't otherwise, those involved in, say, ethanol or wind production. Democrats point to them and say, "Hurrah — new jobs!" But they are engaged in a classic instance of the "broken-window fallacy," as first explained by economist Frederic Bastiat. That is the assumption that breaking a window helps the economy because it creates work for a glazier. Actually it makes the economy poorer by one window. Carbon restrictions will act in the same way.


Given the planetary calamity we are said to be facing, Democrats shouldn't be promising a free lunch, but one, two many Kyotos. The treaty would have to be multiplied 30 times over to achieve the kind of emissions reductions that climate-alarmists deem necessary. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards criticize President Bush for telling people to go shopping after 9/11. But with the fate of the Earth supposedly in the balance, Democrats essentially are telling people that they can stop global warming even as we shop and grow as much as we like.


Can't we have a little straight talk with our environmental sanctimony?

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