15 Billion is Chicken Feed, Obama

Someone calling himself Meteor Blades has written a missive entitled Open Thread for Night Owls, Early Birds & Expats in which he bemoans the fact that the One plans to spend only a paltry 15 billion dollars a year fighting climate change.

Fighting climate change may well be a noble calling on par with windmill tilting and unicorn chasing. I can see the romance in it -- really, I can. After all, science says it must be done and if science says it, it must be right. Only the most bone-headed fundamentalist would have the effrontery to question science.

So, in order not to appear ignorant, I will happily own to global warming even though I am freezing my ass off in the first snow storm of the year in the Great Lakes region. There is one nagging question that continues to bother me no matter how unseasonably warm things may get.

How in the hell is the government going to do it?

I suppose we could invade China and force environmental controls on them. After we showed them the error of their ways, I'm sure that India and other emerging industrial nations would take notice.

"Indrani, we must stop driving our automobile because the One has decreed it."

"I agree, Hadji, a bicycle was good enough for mother and it is good enough for me."

Of course, the One will not invade China. He will attend meetings in Poland, bemoan the state of the climate, and make promises to the world that we will mend our wastrel ways. Then he will come home, realize there really isn't a damned thing he can do about the weather, and spend money we do not have on a problem we cannot solve.

And people like Meteor Blades will complain that 15 billion dollars a year isn't nearly enough.

It would be funny if our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren didn't have to pay for it.