In case you missed it, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin called for President Obama to “boycott Copenhagen” in an op-ed in the Washington Post today. The piece has, predictably, got the blogosphere abuzz—both for what she says and the fact that she got to say it all.
First, Gov. Palin’s piece takes aim at the Copenhagen climate talks by linking them to the “Climategate” email scandal, which she says undermines the science behind the meeting in the first place. Then she goes back to familiar ground, arguing that the Obama administration’s plan to curb greenhouse-gas emissions will poleax the U.S. economy.
Gov. Palin’s piece comes in the middle of pushback against the whole idea that the world even needs to reach agreement to curb emissions at Copenhagen—and that the U.S. needs to play a leading role.
National Review, for instance, sets out to slay the dragon, as it were: “More maddening, this tax-and-spend treaty is a costly solution to an imaginary problem. So-called ‘global warming’ threatens Earth about as urgently as does the Loch Ness Monster.”
What about Gov. Palin’s arguments? Basically, she says that while climate change exists—she’s seen it in Alaska—the potential harm pales in comparison to what could be wrought by new U.S. energy policies: “We can say, however, that any potential benefits of proposed emissions reduction policies are far outweighed by their economic costs. And those costs are real.”
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