Hank Paulson Keeps His Eye Vigilantly on the Ball: Treasury Can and Should Work to Ease Global Warming

Well! I'm glad his first ten or fifteen priorities have been squarely sorted out, so now he can start expanding his mission to address secondary concerns well outside his actual responsibilities and jurisdiction.

The U.S. Treasury and other finance ministries around the world should play a major role in fixing climate change, outgoing Bush administration Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Monday at an event sponsored by the environmental group Resources For the Future. The discussion was titled, "How Markets Can Help Address Climate Change and Other Major Environmental Problems."

Paulson, who once served as chairman of the Nature Conservancy and co-chair of the environmental group Asia-Pacific Council, has long been involved in fighting global warming.

“I will be actually surprised and disappointed if the Office of Treasury isn’t a leader -- probably the leader -- in the government in terms of having more resources and knowledge than any other place,” said Paulson, referring to research on alternative energy and climate change.

“We need to play a major role going forward, and I think that other finance ministries around the world will need to play a major role,” he said. “Again, I see it as essential that finance ministries or departments of treasuries have people in place who understand not just the economics but also conservation and the environment.”

In related news, incoming CIA Head Leon Panetta wants the CIA to play a "vital role" in the promotion of Spanish Classical Guitar, because he really, really likes Spanish Classical Guitar.

As has been pointed out by those of quicker wit than I, this financial disaster is the best medicine for the "feverish" planet earth. If all that industry and production and wealth was causing us to poison the sick earth, coughing on its death bed, with carbon dioxide (The Invisible Killer), then a long, deep global depression is just what the doctor ordered. Oil prices have plummeted because factories are slowing down, if not closing down, and there are fewer goods to shuffle around by truck, train, or ship.

So Hank Paulson seems to have achieved his goal of "fighting global warming" already. And his feckless dickering will help us fight even more global warming in the years to come.

Mission accomplished, Hank. Why not just give yourself a gold watch now and drink a nice tall cool glass of Shut the Fuck Up and Get Out of My Fucking Face juice.

The Warmistas will not admit -- because the public would revolt -- that a serious diminishment of the world's wealth is a feature, not a bug, of their quixotic drive to return the world to the halcyon days of a pre-industrial economy.

posted by Ace at 04:40 PM

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