Big business crying wolf again on climate

In case you missed it last Thursday, Mindy Lubber of Ceres wrote a must-read piece for the Huffington Post, in which she takes on the claims of big polluters that cutting carbon pollution will wreck the American economy. Mindy takes us through a catalog of environmental and other regulations that big industries have opposed as job-killers. But just like the boy who cried wolf, their dire predictions never came true:

Does anyone remember their bitter lamentations over automobile seat belts? If the auto industry was to be believed, passage of regulations requiring seat belts would prompt Americans to become a nation of lawbreakers, and to abandon their cars, collapsing the auto industry. Twenty-six states passed mandatory laws, seat belts save an estimated 15,000 lives a year, and the auto industry now runs ads promoting its safety equipment, having found -- gasp! -- that consumers want more safety.

Or how about leaded gasoline? The oil and lead industries cried foul on that one, again predicting a ban would destroy car engines and their business. Never mind that lead in car exhausts was a neurotoxin causing brain damage in children and its production had killed lead industry workers. Over their protests, lawsuits, and despite George H.W. Bush, leaded gas was gradually phased out from 1973 to 1996. The lead in children's bloodstreams dropped 78 percent, and -- gasp again -- Exxon Mobil remains America's most profitable company.

When we realized the depleting ozone layer was killing us with new cancers, and moved to eliminate the dangerous chemicals in 1995, opponents moaned that industries would collapse under the weight of $135 billion in costs. The actual costs were barely one percent of that, the health benefits were enormous, and chemical companies made millions producing less dangerous chemicals.

When we realized that sulfur dioxide pollution creates acid rain and was turning our lakes and streams into chemical cauldrons, the industries howled that limiting emissions would kill their business. Instead, the emissions cap-and-trade system set up by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments is now hailed -- by environmentalists and business alike -- as a resounding success story.

The American Automobile Manufacturers Association fought the Clean Air Act of 1970, warning that manufacturers would have to shut down. They cried that requirements for catalytic converters to reduce smog would close assembly lines. And automakers bitterly fought California's higher fuel efficiency standards. The automakers claimed, once again, their business would collapse. They said, with straight faces, that production of such efficient cars was impossible, even though every other major car manufacturing country -- including China -- already was making the cars.

Mindy takes us through all these predictions not to mock big polluters' prognosticating powers (crappy as they are) but to make a larger point: we can't let the shortsightedness of some businesses hold back the clean energy future the American people desperately want and need anymore. They are as wrong today ad they were about seat belts, the ozone layer, acid rain, and countless other regulations that have not only saved lives and protected our environment, but ended up putting money in their pockets as well.

Thankfully, businesses such as the ones that belong to BICEP, understand the importance of boldly moving our economy towards a clean energy future. But other business entities have been working overtime to undermine the Waxman-Markey clean energy and climate bill. As the bill moves through Congress, lawmakers should keep in mind that big businesses have cried wolf many times before -- and have always been wrong.