The Issue

     Politicians and the media love to talk about global warming – as long as the discussion is one of “settled science” and ignores debate and dissent. The broadcast networks have mentioned “global warming” more than 270 times and “climate change” more than 200 times since the beginning of 2008 alone.

      In response to continued media obsession and the failure of politicians to accomplish reform, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, Ill., proposes a cap-and-trade system aimed at curbing carbon emissions from large-scale polluters.

     In June 2008, the Senate balked on the Lieberman-Warner bill, legislation that would have set up a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. The proposal would have sought to reduce carbon emissions by 65 to 70 percent by 2050 – to about 2.13 billion metric tons per year. Obama did not vote on Lieberman-Warner, but was a co-sponsor of its predecessor, The Climate Stewardship Act, also referred to as Lieberman-McCain.

      “Global warming is not a someday problem; it is now,” Obama said during a speech in New Hampshire in October 2007. “We are already breaking records with the intensity of our storms, the number of forest fires, the periods of drought.”

     “By 2050 famine could force more than 250 million from their homes,” Obama predicted. “The polar ice caps are now melting faster than science had ever predicted. And if we do nothing, sea levels will rise high enough to swallow large portions of every coastal city and town.”

      Obama’s dire predictions are almost identical to the forecasts aired on network newscasts. Journalists and the experts they chose to interview hyped alarmist expectations for the results of climate change – “a dying polar world,” a flooded New York City, even asking “are we all gonna die?”

     But while the media have bought into global warming alarmism, they’ve spent little time evaluating the presidential candidates’ proposals for dealing with pollution – specifically through a carbon cap-and-trade system. The networks mentioned “global warming” or “climate change” almost 500 times in 2008; but they mentioned “cap-and-trade” only 18 times.

     Obama’s campaign proposal is more aggressive than Lieberman-Warner, with a target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The United States emitted 6.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide in 1990, according to the Energy Information Administration. Obama would seek to eliminate all but 1.2 billion metric tons of emissions – less than half what was emitted from energy production in 1949.

     Republican candidate Sen. John McCain, Ariz., has proposed a goal to reduce emissions to about 60 percent of 1990 levels by 2050 – bringing levels to about the same as they were in mid-1960s.

     Obama’s plan would also require all carbon credits or emissions allowances to be auctioned, which he says “ensures that all polluters pay for every ton of emissions they release, rather than giving these emission rights away to coal and oil companies.”

     Obama has characterized the proposal as “market-based,” even though it amounts to vastly more government regulation of the market than currently exists – including the creation of a new bureaucracy to oversee the cap-and-trade market. The system would, by Obama’s own admission, “make dirty energy more expensive” at a time when high energy prices are already putting a strain on American families’ finances.

     The Media’s Position

     Of the 18 stories about cap-and-trade through Sept. 30, 2008, only one-third (six stories) mentioned the cost such a proposal would have if implemented.

     Most of the discussion of cost came in coverage of former Vice President Al Gore’s call to switch to wind and solar energy – a proposal that would cost between $1.5 trillion and $3 trillion over 30 years, according to Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection. That could be like passing one financial bailout package almost every two years.

      “What would electricity cost in terms of the transition while it’s under way?” NBC’s Tom Brokaw asked Gore on the July 20 “Meet the Press.” “Most estimates are that it would cost a lot more money, and that would have a devastating effect on Main Street and especially on rural America.”

     NBC’s Anne Thompson raised the same point in two airings of her interview with Gore – on the “Nightly News” July 17 and the “Today” show July 18. A CBS “Evening News” anchor also made the point in covering Gore’s proposal July 17.

     The two other mentions came on ABC’s “This Week.” On May 11, host George Stephanopoulos challenged McCain adviser Carly Fiorina on McCain’s support for the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade legislation. “Higher gas prices, a recession, higher energy prices across the board, that’s the White House line,” he said. Stephanopoulos asked if being a leader on climate was worth it, “even if it means higher gas, higher electricity prices?”

     On June 15, conservative commentator George Will pointed out the bill was defeated “because it came up against the fact that its purpose is to raise the cost of energy. Its purpose is to diminish economic activity.”

      Journalist Sam Donaldson defended the bill against Will’s attack. “Diminish economic activity in the short run to save the planet in the long run and our great grandchildren can still be alive,” he said. “Which way do you want to go?”

      Donaldson’s defense of the failed bill mirrored other reporters’ take on the bill when it was bigger news in 2007. Despite warnings from opponents about the cost of the measure, members of the media defended it as necessary.

     When Democratic state Rep. Jim Gooch of Kentucky pointed out the expected costs of the Lieberman-Warner bill – 3.4 million American jobs and $6 trillion – on “Good Morning America” Nov. 18, 2007, anchor Bill Weir defended the measure and said the concerns would only delay action on what he called a “moral imperative.”

     “But, but according to all the scientists,” Weir responded, “the more hand-wringing we do, the more we dither on this, the worse it’s going to get. And what if you’re wrong? What if this, in fact, is a global catastrophe? Isn’t it a moral imperative as a public servant to err on the side of planetary survival and get something done?”

     Others, like Anne Thompson in a Dec. 8, 2007, NBC “Nightly News” report, just ignored the negative effects a cap-and-trade measure could have on the economy.

     CNN’s Gerri Willis referred to the failed Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade legislation as “historic” and “a major step towards cutting carbon emissions.” The New York Times referred to it as a “bold national policy.”

     News magazines such as Time – which has engaged in global warming alarmism of its own, like when it featured a doctored version of the famous Iwo Jima flag-raising photograph to represent a war on climate change – are also backing cap-and-trade. In its environment-focused issue April 28, Time called Lieberman-Warner “an attainable good bill.”

     The same issue illustrated that Time has bought McCain’s line that increasing government regulation counts as a “market-based” solution. Eric Pooley wrote April 28 that such a system “harnesses the power of the marketplace to fight warming, a concept that helped Republicans … fall in love with the idea.”

     On May 29, CNN host Kyra Phillips characterized opposition to cap-and-trade – complaints that it would raise energy prices for American consumers – as the attempts of the coal industry to block the measures.

     “[Y]ou’ve got big businesses and you’ve got the coal industry that are opposed to this legislation going, this is, this not the right timing, this is going to kill the economy,” Phillips said during a conversation with “conservationist and green entrepreneur” Howard Gould.

     While some in the media are ignoring the negative aspects of cap-and-trade and others are brushing cost concerns aside, journalists like NBC’s chief environmental correspondent, Anne Thompson, are spinning the negatives as long-term positives.

     “The Electric Research Power Institute says this kind of solar power is two to four times more expensive than electricity from natural gas or coal,” Thompson reported on the “Nightly News” March 13. “But if there is a cap on carbon emissions, [Accione Energy, NA CEO Peter] Duprey says that could change.”

     Cap-and-Trade-and-Higher-Costs

     Inflicting higher production costs on energy producers by forcing them to buy emissions credits will raise prices for consumers in the long run. Even proponents like Obama acknowledge that the goal of cap-and-trade is to “make dirty energy more expensive.” But just how expensive will it be?

      In fact the very purpose of cap-and-trade legislation is “to drive up energy prices” so alternative sources appear more attractive, according to Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a Business & Media Institute adviser.

     “Now politicians don’t like saying it that way but that’s the entire theory, that’s the entire focus, that is the intent of such legislation,” he said. “So the average American household is going to be paying a lot more for energy if this is implemented. Now we have no idea how this will emerge at the end of the sausage making process known as legislation but presumably it will be even worse than when it begins.”

      It’s impossible to predict the exact costs of Obama’s proposal because, as Mitchell said, its exact goals would likely change. But his plan is more aggressive – meaning it would likely be more expensive – than Lieberman-Warner, which would have resulted in cumulative gross domestic product losses of “at least $1.7 trillion” and 500,000 to 1 million lost jobs by 2030, according to The Heritage Foundation.

     The increased cost to produce energy brought on by scarcer and scarcer carbon credits would be passed on to consumers with a $467 average per-household increase in energy costs, The Heritage Foundation estimated.

     Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote in his recent book “The Age of Turbulence” that “there is no effective way to meaningfully reduce emissions without negatively impacting a large part of the economy.”

     Greenspan is a frequent expert commentator in many media outlets, and he toured widely when “The Age of Turbulence” came out. But members of the press didn’t ask him about his assertion that cap-and-trade systems or carbon taxes “are likely to be popular only until real people lose real jobs as their consequence.”

     Duane Parde, president of the National Taxpayers Union and a Business & Media Institute adviser, predicted utility bills could rise as much as 30 percent depending on the specifics of a cap-and-trade plan.

     “Pick a number, but it would probably raise electricity rates 20 to 30 percent, and that would be paid, individuals, families would have to pay higher utility bills,” he said.

     Economists also questioned the candidates’ characterization of a cap-and-trade system as “market-based.” Mitchell said rather than being market-based, cap-and-trade would cause “tremendous distortions” in the energy market.

     “It will open up numerous opportunities for influence peddling and special interest lobbying,” he said. “For someone who claims they’re against special interest lobbying, McCain is doing probably the single biggest thing to enrich the lobbying industry that been done, I don’t know, maybe since the creation of the income tax. It’s something that’s going to dramatically expand the power and burden of government and that cannot be called market-based by any stretch of the imagination.”

      The Club for Growth in May 2008 called cap-and-trade proposals “another heavy government regulation with tremendous costs to American businesses and economic growth.”

     But it could be even worse, according to George Mason University economist Dr. Donald Boudreaux, a Business & Media Institute adviser.

     “[C]ap-and-trade is certainly better than a lot of the alternatives,” he told the Business & Media Institute, “than, you know, direct mandated reductions in emissions. So of all the possible plans it’s certainly not the worst but it still does have a large element of government central planning involved in it.”

     An Oct. 20 Wall Street Journal editorial warned the costs of Obama’s carbon proposals would “far exceed the burden of a straight carbon tax or cap-and-trade system” because of plans to use the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to further regulate carbon emissions. 

     “That move [for the EPA to classify carbon as a dangerous pollutant under the Clean Air Act] would impose new regulation and taxes across the entire economy, something that is usually the purview of Congress,” the editors wrote.

     But while the media obsess about global warming catastrophe and the candidates propose big-government solutions, the American people aren’t so worried, according to an ABC News poll that showed only 25 percent of Americans view it as the world’s biggest environmental threat. Fewer than half – 47 percent – said global warming was “extremely” or “very” important.

     The environment didn’t even register on a list of issues important to voters in an August CBS/New York Times poll.

McCain: Read about the media’s support for raising energy prices with cap-and-trade.