Credit Where it is Due

I make a point to read many of the angry left blogs; it pays to know what the adversaries are up to.

Mostly, they’re up to bloviating, at best, or, more often, committing the electronic equivalent of bellowing. They rarely even so much as acknowledge the humanity of their adversaries, let alone that dissent from their leftist orthodoxy might, conceivably, be based upon serious thought. I sometimes wonder: where is the leftist George Will or Bill Buckley, an erudite, competent writer who skewers his adversary with logic rather than invective?

So, when one confronts an intellectually honest argument which actually arrives at a totally unexpected – that is to say, correct – conclusion, on an otherwise usually hysterical blog, one must bestow credit where same is due.

On Bluejersey.com, one of the contributors holds forth on global warming. As I noted here a few weeks back, while the science on the causes is not as settled as the proponents aver, and the consequences of same not necessarily disastrous, it behooves us, as CONSERVATIVES – those who believe in conservation – to act with due regard to the possibility and take reasonable precautions. This is especially true when same can be effected relatively economically.

Among the global warming solutions the contributor advances: nuclear power.

(!) Wow. Who would have suspected that?

Kudos to the author. As a general rule, self-appointed "environmentalists" tend to oppose nuclear power based upon wholly speculative possibilities of harm. (Those harms are not impossible, but if the risks associated with global warming are considered essentially certain, same must be considered against the purely hypothetical risks associated with building more nukes). To discover common sense in a wholly unanticipated location is truly refreshing. Although they’re probably too young to remember Tocks Island, perhaps that will be next on their list of relatively benign power projects NJ might pursue.

While most projects NJ might pursue are purely symbolic, having an infinitesimal effect, to the extent that they can be undertaken at little cost, why not move ahead?

For instance, NJ could eliminate all motor fuels taxes on ethanol sales. It could eliminate the sales tax on vehicles with a specified fuel efficiency. It might look into a general exception from local zoning regulations for personal wind turbines (called turbis). It might urge its congressional representatives to eliminate the Hummer tax break, as well as tariffs and quotas on imported ethanol – indeed to completely open up the market to foreign competition. (Iowa might not like that, but it would be good for us AND for relatively poor Carribean countries, which have a good climate for sugar cane production. It would also be pleasing, eventually, to see Chavez and the Iranians drink their oil). We could urge NJ transit to CUT fares, provide free parking at rail stations, and provide more frequent service to more locations (perhaps supplementing heavy rail with lighter, smaller trains, etc.) In larger towns, consider ultra light rail services, preferably connecting with existing heavy and light surface rail.

On a perhaps more controversial note from a conservative – and probably requiring a federal solution – establish a minimum price for gasoline, essentially forbidding its sale for less than (say) $2 per gallon. We’re already accustomed to that price and there’s little price competition among stations now anyway. If we’re successful in reducing demand, or even threaten to succeed, the price of oil will decrease – either as a function of demand or because the Saudis, viewing the threat, reduce prices to destroy the ethanol industry – and it simply will not do go through all the trouble, only to see the effort wasted. A minimum price also has the salutary effect of not being a tax, thereby not providing government with more of our money to waste. Better the money go to Exxon than to Pelosi.

From NJ’s perspective, it requires leadership and vision, a commodity pathetically absent from the political leadership over the course of the past 30 years or so. It requires a leader with a firm idea of where he wants NJ to be, and ideas about how to get there.

But if the right – to wit, me – and the suddenly sensible left, can agree on a few basic steps, such as more nukes, there might just be some basis for a start after all.