Mainstream media is delving into the details of climate policy at a level we just didn’t see a couple years ago. Here’s a sampling from this week:
Newsweek asked whether we can still afford to invest in an environmentally-friendly economy, and to find out, they talked with our president, Fred Krupp. He gave this example of how green investments make sense all around:
When we make the energy high-efficiency, low-carbon, we can create all types of jobs—jobs that weatherize homes that create dollars that stay here instead of going overseas to pay for imported oil. We can create jobs that produce the materials for weatherization, we can create jobs to make wind turbines and install them. It’s not only high-tech jobs we’re creating, it’s a tremendous number of jobs in existing, familiar businesses. (Read the two-page interview.)
The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Fred Krupp yesterday. He starts by observing:
When Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson says he favors a carbon tax over a cap-and-trade system, it’s worth asking why the energy giant would want to put a government levy on its own product.
Why, indeed? A tax would not set a legal limit on the pollution created by Exxon’s products. A cap would.
And finally, this line from a Los Angeles Times editorial calls out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a business lobbying group:
There will be winners and losers in the clean-energy economy, and those who stand to lose have the loudest voices in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The winners won’t just be green-technology innovators; they include everybody on Earth.