This is a ridiculous thread. There is no way to place a dollar amount on this and if any Democrat is actually trying to do this he/she is an idiot.
The most important thing that needs to be done is to acknowledge that the science isn't a hoax and that this period is obviously unlike any other in Global Warming history due to the massive clear spike seen since the industrial revolution began. The second most important thing is to acknowledge that our own American history has already given us what we need to go forward:
** The Clean Air Act of 1963 is a United States federal law designed to control air pollution on a national level. The first amendment in 1965, the Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act, authorized the creation of standards for controlling the emission of pollutants from certain automobiles. The second amendment, the Air Quality Act of 1967, enabled the federal government to increase its activities to investigate enforcing interstate air pollution transport; and to perform inspections in order to expand studies of air pollutant emission inventories, ambient monitoring techniques, and control techniques.
** The United States led the world to correct the hole in the Ozone Layer in the 1980s by first beginning a campaign to remove ozone-depleting chemicals like CFCs from the atmosphere in the 1970s.
** European politicians and their industry doubters denied. The U.S. decided to be the primary sponsor of UNEP negations in 1981 after NASA confirmed the loss of atmospheric ozone. We threw NASA's scientific data, the Defense Department, the Treasury Department, the State Department, the EPA, and many other Departments at the world.
** During the 1980s, the U.S. took the remarkable step of banning domestic aerosol use, even with the rest of the world still refusing to act.
** Eventually, the U.S. convinced the global idiots and orchestrated the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer in 1987, which is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. This included most uses of CFCs, which are now either banned or severely restricted by the Montreal Protocol. For example, modern refrigerators usually use a refrigerant called HFC-134a, which does not deplete the ozone layer like Freon once did.
** On 15 November 1990,
President Bush signed Amendments to the Clean Air Act. Title IV of the Amendments authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to establish an Acid Rain Program, which was to reduce SO2 and NOx emissions. The program primarily affected electric utilities, which accounted for 70% of sulphur dioxide emissions and 30% of nitrogen oxide emissions in the U.S. The legislation proposed to cut annual emissions of SO2 and NOx by 9.1 and 1.8 million tonnes by the year 2000.
The obvious history lesson here is that after we initiated the phasing out of Freon, the industry used science to create a kinder substitute. Whatever the whole process cost, the result brought technological breakthroughs and cleaner steps forward. In the mean time, refrigerators continue to exist for manufacturers and consumers. This is true in other areas as well, such as electric cars. Whatever the cost, the result will be technological breakthroughs that translate into other areas.
Now, what I find most interesting is how absolutely ignorant an element of our population came from this. More history for those who aren't inclined to dismiss reality as "fake news:"
It started with Reagan, who was clear about his dislike of environmentalism (for whoever that benefited). Despite still convincing the world throughout the 1980s, the early Reagan Administration immediately began to resist advice from the scientific community. For example, the U.S. was the only country in the world not to sign the
UN World Charter for Nature in 1982. The U.S. also disputed Canada's early 1980s acid rain findings and became the only country in the world to vote against an updated UN list of hazardous chemicals (for whoever that benefited). Through Reagan's leadership, the Conservative mood began to shift away from working with Democrats on environmental issues. However, Reagan modified his approach during his second term due to widespread bi-partisan criticism. Work on the ozone continued. But still, eventually we would see the whole thing politicized as Republicans began mocking Gore for inventing Global Warming. Now we have an idiot "birther" in the White House who wants his constituents to believe that the whole thing is
not just a liberal hoax, but also a Chinese hoax.