Climate-change law extension unwelcome

The extension of the state’s climate-change control rules, voted into law this week by the Democrat-controlled legislature, is a demonstration of arrogance and hubris.

Arrogance is an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities.

Hubris is excessive pride or self-confidence.

These legislators, in spite of evidence to the contrary, believe that through draconian rule-making they can control the climate.

Their first action is to slap taxes on activities they believe to be contrary to good climate citizenship.

That’s what legislatures are best at: Taxing things they don’t like.

Then, they take the money from those taxes and use it on things they do like.

For example, the legislation extends a tax on pollution, which provides money for a significant increase in state employment of people who monitor pollution.

Truckers, who bring us the things we need to live, or transport the commodities we produce here, are getting killed by this law that was just renewed.

The cost of re-rigging their truck engines, which already were running under tough anti-pollution standards, is putting a lot of them out of business.

The Democrat lawmakers probably incurred a lot of new cases of bursitis patting one another on the back. The Associated Press quoted them as believing California will continue to be a pioneer in the global fight against climate change.

That sounds like something that would be left behind by a horse.

There is no global fight against climate change.

Have you seen any photos out of Beijing lately? They are fighting climate change so hard they can hardly see one another through the smog.

Same thing goes for India.

Of course, those countries say they shouldn’t have to do much to control pollution because they have a lot of catching up to do.

It’s better to put the burden on California truckers, they say. Central California truckers, in particular. California is not a world leader in controlling pollution.

But it is a world leader in producing food. Or at least it has been until truckers and farmers started having to bear the burdens of laws that don’t work.

Here’s a secret: We don’t affect the climate all that much, but the climate affects us.