Proponents of "Green Jobs" Need to Read Bastiat
At IER we are preparing a critique of some of the leading “green jobs” studies. Perhaps the most important was put out by the Center for American Progress. A colleague sent me this response they gave to a Heritage Foundation / WSJ critique of their study. They don’t even acknowledge that their plan costs anything; this isn’t surprising, since they don’t acknowledge any tradeoff in their actual study either. (They say it will be funded with revenues from carbon allowances, and don’t even mention that this program will have any negative effects.)
But what is just fan-diddly-tastic in this latest piece is the opening where they declare:
Eight years of neglect, deregulation, and rampant speculation have left our economy a shambles. The world’s scientists have at the same time concluded with certainty that we have less than a decade to fundamentally change the way we produce and consume energy, or we will face a global environmental catastrophe with devastating social, economic, and national security consequences.
Note that the “certainty” includes observations regarding economic impacts. That’s funny, I wasn’t aware that the economics profession had endorsed any such predictions about what will happen if fundamental action isn’t taken by 2018. And the (natural) scientists now don’t just have a consensus, but they are certain? Wow.
