The Flinchum File

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Bypassing Washington

Q.  What happens when you put three Republicans in a room to write a report?
A.  BS
Q.  What happens when you put three Democrats in a room to write a report?
A.  BS
Q.  What happens when you put a Republican, a Democrat, & a Independent in a room to write a report?
A.  Sadness

I salute the efforts of Republican Hank Paulsen, former Treasury Secretary under Bush, and Independent Mike Bloomberg, former Mayor of New York City, and Democrat Tom Steyer, hedge fund executive and fundraiser.  They tried to marshall all the evidence on climate change or “global warming” and then drive home the consequences.  As someone who lives on the beach, I encourage you to visit their website at:

http://riskybusiness.org/report/overview/executive-summary  

They did not make any policy suggestions to be undertaken by politicians.  They did argue for more aggressive involvement by business, by investors, and by consumers . . . but not by politicians.  Frankly, I agreed with every suggestion they made.  But, it makes me sad that they also believe politicians are worse than useless and are part of the problem.  To deal with climate change (ignoring the cause of it) we need to — first — accept the impotency of politicians and — second — to overwhelm Washington.

Sadly, Ronald Reagan was right in saying that Washington is not the cure but is instead the problem, at least with respect to climate change.