Check out the second installment of the new Partisan Response feature on the Diplomacist- this week’s article is titled “Why India May Hate Republicans.” Here’s Review staff writer Michael Alan ’14’s response:
There’s no question that weather conditions in individual regions are affecting rising food prices, however any connection between protests over food prices and government corruption in India and American efforts to curb its tremendous public debt (a tactic the Indian government is also employing in its ongoing war against inflation) is totally unfounded.
The idea that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is causing these weather events or, for that matter, that AGW even exists to the extent purported by politicians and activists wishing to tax businesses based on carbon emissions is questionable to say the least. In fact, the November 2009 uncovering of a scheme by prominent climate change researchers to manipulate data on AGW to support political efforts calls into question the true motives behind the left’s railing against the business community.
Furthermore, the notion that Republicans are against efforts to develop clean energy and that the rest of the world, including China and India, is “moving in the other direction” is simply wrong. Republicans are proposing deeper cuts to the EPA than President Obama as a part of a greater effort to reduce spending, but clean energy programs like the cost-effective nuclear power expansion remain in the proposal, which leaves behind the President’s plan to grant the EPA the ability to enact economically debilitating emissions restrictions on businesses during an already difficult recession. Using such measures to address climate concerns puts us at a disadvantage in the global economy against rising economic superpowers like China and India, who would not answer with similar programs of their own and are bearing an even greater responsibility for rising carbon emissions every day as their economic growth continues to skyrocket.
