“Over the last year or so, I have tried to advise the progressive community that we should be open-minded about a carbon tax.”

– Greg Dotson, Center for American Progress

“The bottom line here is that the distributional effect of a carbon tax could really be anything you want, depending on how you use the revenues. We think it is shortsighted to only think of the direct effect of the tax.”

– Eric Toder, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center

“[Trump] … is going to be utterly decimated in November….  Then the question is, what does that do to the Tea Party? …. Is the Tea Party really something to fear now, after a decimation in November? 

– Jerry Taylor, Niskanen Center

It is rare that one gets to follow the talk and reasoning of climate/energy alarmists/activists.…

“United States withdrawal [from the Paris accord] could become a specific excuse for countries that were hesitant to join in the first place…. The second thing is withdrawal of our financial support and technical support for other countries, particularly developing countries, for both mitigation and adaptation.”

– John Holdren, May 31, 2017

John Holdren is the proverbial gift-that-keeps-on-giving. He has toned down–but not repudiated–his past of exaggerated alarms. (Remember his worry about one billion climate-related deaths by 2020?)

In the wake of President’s Trump decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, Kiley Korth of the Center for American Progress interviewed Obama’s former science advisor. The entire interview is reprinted below in light of the new story line from ThinkProgress that Trump’s decision was really not that important! So Holdren then versus ThinkProgress now.…

“Praise goes to Donald Trump. He waited, listened, and decided. American First. Consumers First. Taxpayers First. Global climate and energy planners and an intellectual elite last.”

The good news is that the Paris climate agreement, weak and aspirational to begin with, will increasingly go the way of the Kyoto Protocol. President Trump did a big favor for the US and the world by pulling out.

Progressives, weep not. Remember what the father of the climate alarm, James Hansen, said about the heralded 2015 agreement:

“[The Paris agreement] is a fraud really, a fake. It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”

“[I]t is the policy of the United States that executive departments and agencies (agencies) immediately review existing regulations that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources and appropriately suspend, revise, or rescind those that unduly burden the development of domestic energy resources beyond the degree necessary to protect the public interest or otherwise comply with the law.”

“It is also the policy of the United States that necessary and appropriate environmental regulations comply with the law, are of greater benefit than cost, when permissible, achieve environmental improvements for the American people, and are developed through transparent processes that employ the best available peer-reviewed science and economics.”

Executive Order: PROMOTING Energy Independence AND Economic Growth

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. …