Kerry: 'What's the worst that can happen' if they're wrong about global warming?

I've said it many times but it bears repeating as often as is necessary: Global warmists are really government expansionsts, and global warming is merely their chosen rationale of the moment for the things they really want to do. Try to make any distinction between the left's preferred "response to climate change" and the left's agenda in general: Higher taxes, more government control of industry, more enforcement power for federal bureaucrats.

You can't. There is no distinction to be made. This is what they want regardless of circumstances. If global warming wasn't the rationale for it, a shortage of Popsicle sticks would be. And Secretary of State John Kerry clumsily revealed that in a commencement speech at Boston College:

"The solution is actually staring us in the face. It is energy policy. Make the right energy policy choices and America can lead a $6 trillion market with four billion users today and growing to nine billion users in the next 50 years," Mr. Kerry said in his commencement address, referring to climate change. Then came the odd poser. "If we make the necessary efforts to address this challenge—and supposing I'm wrong or scientists are wrong, 97% of them all wrong—supposing they are, what's the worst that can happen?" Mr. Kerry said. "We put millions of people to work transitioning our energy, creating new and renewable and alternative; we make life healthier because we have less particulates in the air and cleaner air and more health; we give ourselves greater security through greater energy independence—that's the downside."

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Well. Not that I would expect a left-wing ideologue like John Kerry to understand this, but that's actually quite some downside. You manipulate the movement of capital from reliable energy sources to those that are immature and unproven. You increase people's energy bills. You soak up taxpayer money subsidizing industries that are not viable enough to operate on their own, likely getting the same results we've seen so far with green energy subsidies (Solyndra, Fisker, ethanol, etc.). You impose crushing new costs on manufacturers. You turn bureaucrats loose to enforce all this, knowing full well that the culture of the federal government is to use such power to endlessly harass chosen targets. And oh by the way, you put yourself at a competitive disadvantage globally because - regardless of what any treaty might say - other nations have shown they will only hue to this insanity until it starts costing them their economic viability. So yeah, there's lots of downside. But we're not just talking about a downside to the global warmist agenda. We're talking about downsides to the liberal agenda, because they are indistinguishable. What Kerry is really saying here is the same thing Al Gore once said - that the core of the global warmist agenda consists of "things we should be doing anyway." The vanquished opponents of George W. Bush think alike. No. Check that. All liberals think alike. Expanded federal power and control is the answer to every problem, because in their minds, insufficient federal power and control is really the only problem. Everything else is just a talking point serving as a rationale. The next time a global warmist proposes a free-market solution to the problem, you should take that person seriously. I wouldn't raise your expectations too high of that ever happening.