The head of [Charlotte, N.C.] steel manufacturer Nucor Corp. said Wednesday that imminent U.S. policies dealing with the economic downturn and climate change could affect the company's decision to build a major [$2 billion pig iron] plant in Louisiana.
Our whiz kid governor Bobby Jindal happened to be in Charlotte yesterday, but he was speaking to a conservative think-tank, not meeting with Nucor officials. Instead, Jindal's highly compensated State Sec. for Economic Development Stephen Moret responded to Nucor's hesitation, saying
If I could have one wish granted for this project, it would be to have the national-global economy firm up a little bit.
"One wish"? I guess that's why Moret gets paid the big bucks. He has that sophisticated "Jiminy Cricket" approach to economic development. If the global economy could just improve a bit, we could land this thing!
Since this $2 billion pig iron plant is in jeopardy partly because of "imminent U.S. policies" regarding climate change, and since Jindal is touring the country offering his conservative wisdom, a natural question would be:
What is Jindal's position on global warming and its man-made causes?
You don't hear Wonder Boy talk so much about this issue, do you? In a quick search, I couldn't find a statement on the issue, so if you have any links to his position on climate change, I'd be much obliged if you put them in the comments.
Does Jindal believe global warming is occurring? If so, does he think that man-made carbon emissions are a large cause of this warming? Does Jindal believe that this warming is significant enough to have severe consequences for Louisiana's coast? What should we do about it? Can we do something about it?
We don't hear much from Jindal on this issue, but it seems now is the time for him to pipe up. The serious economic ramifications of this issue are only going to intensify over the coming years, especially for Louisiana, so it's time to get serious and confront this head on. We need to know where Jindal stands on this. Is he a global-warming skeptic (like he is about evolution)? Does he have an "alternative theory" to global warming that he would like to advance? (Hopefully that alternative theory would be more sophisticated than "Oooh, it's real cold outside today. How can global warming be real?")
The CEO of Entergy, one of Louisiana's two Fortune 500 companies, had this to say recently:
Increasing temperatures caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are connecting the fate of many of Louisiana's coastal communities to melting ice fields and glaciers in locations 10,000 miles away from us.
As recognized in The Times-Picayune's recent series on Louisiana's disappearing coastline, events in faraway places like Greenland and Antarctica are dramatically impacting our part of the world.
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Saving Louisiana's coastline and way of life will take much more than money to rebuild wetlands, barrier islands and floodwalls. It will require an energy policy that invests in technology to reduce or eliminate carbon emissions from coal plants and offers the world a solution to carbon emissions. And the time to act is now.
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If we can't solve the problem globally, we can't solve it anywhere. And south Louisiana will be the first to go.
While Entergy supports policies to cut greenhouse gases, it is regrettable that their desire to refit the dirty Little Gypsy coal plant goes in the "exact opposite direction" of that position.
I think Louisiana's leaders should remind us where they stand on the global warming issue. Is it a problem? And will policies to curb greenhouse gases only cost Louisiana jobs, or will they be part of a global movement that will help save our coast?
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Labels: coastal loss, Jindal, weather