As the East Coast started preparing for the wrath of hurricane Earl, just a few days after the fifth anniversary of hurricane Katrina, it occurred to me what a calm five years we’ve had. There haven’t been many storms of consequence over those years, and in this year (which was predicted by experts on both sides of the aisle to be quite active) Earl was only the fifth named storm. We should all be grateful for the lack of storms over the last half of the decade. Not only were lives and property spared from devastation, but global warming is now only slightly more credible than UFOs and Sasquatch. It’s hard to sell a climate crisis when the weather is calm. If the past five summers had been a repeat of 2005, I’m certain that cap-and-trade would have passed the Senate, and we would be facing an inflationary energy tax that would make economic recovery in our lifetimes less likely a World Series victory by the Cubs. While there is a slim chance that the healthcare bill might be revoked if Congress changes hands, taxes do not disappear quietly into the night. The battle to eliminate the Spanish war tax raged for a century longer than the Spanish War. I predict that cap-and-trade would last through the next ice age.
