'Cap and trade' your freedom ~ By Joseph Farah

By Joseph Farah Posted: June 27, 2009 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 I'm going to take a wild guess and say that 5 percent of Americans could give an accurate definition of what "cap and trade" means. We hear the phrase a lot. It has what I call a high MEGO factor. MEGO is a news industry acronym for "my eyes glaze over." Nevertheless, the plan by Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress to institute a "cap and trade" system on the production of carbon dioxide and other so-called "greenhouse gases" (the principal one being water vapor, by the way) is nothing more than a plot to destroy the American economy once and for all. You think I'm kidding? Here are a few facts to consider:

The plan is based on largely pseudo-science suggesting that these natural gases (not pollutants) are causing massive, catastrophic climate change. The plan is based on the idea that increases in these gases are caused by man's activity on the planet, even though man-made carbon dioxide and water vapor represent an infinitesimally small amount of the carbon dioxide and water vapor in our atmosphere. Historic tracking of the relationship of carbon dioxide volume in the atmosphere and temperature increases does indeed correlate a trend – but not the way Al Gore explains it. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere follow warming trends. They don't precede them. There is no evidence that small fluctuations in global temperatures actually lead to devastating results. In fact, they are often beneficial – and they are cyclical. The planet has been much colder in man's history. And it has been much warmer in history. These trends occurred before man was involved in major industry.

But let's put all that aside for a moment. Let's pretend the assumptions of Al Gore and a handful of government-paid scientists are correct – the planet really is warming because of man's activity. The "cap and trade" system about to be imposed on Americans will do nothing to stop or reverse the amount of "greenhouse gases" spewing into the world's atmosphere – not even close. [CONTINUE READING]