Andrew Sullivan Now Advocates New Taxes to Address Global Warming

Sulli decided to watch An Inconvenient Truth, which prompted this:

It’s thoroughly persuasive about the reality of global warming and the contribution of carbon dioxide emissions to it. I’d recommend it strongly to anyone.

The Poorman unloaded on Sulli with:

Three weeks ago, the evidence for global warming was akin to Dick Cheney’s case for Iraq’s WMD – but now, having seen a fucking Hollywood movie about global warming starring famous former VP Al Gore, well, he finds the science persuasive. I’m very pleased, and I hope this change of heart lasts until Dan Quayle comes out with a movie about how the Earth’s not really getting warmer, it’s just that we’re all getting cooler.

But let’s give the slow learner known as Andrew Sullivan a little credit for finally getting the point as he also decides to play policy wonk:

It’s also striking that Gore could have used the movie to argue for a serious increase in the gas tax – and he didn’t.

Vice President Gore never advocated addressing global warming? Nicholas Beaudrot remembers the Clinton years a bit differently and adds this political reality:

But the reality-based community also includes political reality, so until some Senate Republican(s)s step up to the plate on carbon taxes or fuel economy, and we can hammer out a compromise solution that includes … I don’t know, subsidies to clean coal? Massive wind-power projects across various Republican-held Congressional Districts? A “feebate” system for improving fuel economy? … policy engagement on global warming is a real suckers’ move.

All Sulli bashing aside – I only wish more Republicans wake up to the reality of global warming and show some leadership on this issue.

Update: Judd of Think Progress may be able to explain why Andrew Sullivan et al. where such slow learners on global warming:

A secret memo by the coal industry details a coordinated campaign to spread misinformation about global warming. The memo, written by an association of coal-based utilities in Colorado, expresses fear that if the government address climate change – through a carbon tax or regulating greenhouse gasses – it will cut into their profits. Their solution: “support the scientific community that is willing to stand up against the alarmists”. (”Alarmists” is the word they use to describe people who believe in global warming science. The memo also refers to this group as those “whose true motivation is to stop growth, develop renewable resources [and] discontinue the use of fossil fuels, especially coal.”) But the coal utilities ran up against a problem: their is no scientific community who agrees with them. The memo acknowledges most people who dispute global warming have no “involvement in climatology.”

An age old story – some special interest with enough money on the table goes out and hires a bunch of hacks to spread their spin, and folks like Andrew Sullivan eat up this spin as if it were the gospel truth. Speaking of hacks – the Corner Kids may be doing their own Sulli bashing but they are ducking Sulli’s discovery that Global Warming exists. Go figure!