Yes, I "borrowed" my headline for this post from an article in the Wall Street Journal today. I couldn’t resist; some sanity may be breaking out in Congress. Some 26 Democrats joined all 41 Republicans in passing an amendment requiring that any so-called Global Warming Cap-Tax-and-Spend bill require 60 votes for passage.
To quote further from the Journal article: “Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander called it "the biggest vote of the year" so far, and he's right. This means Majority Leader Harry Reid can't jam cap and tax through as part of this year's budget resolution with a bare majority of 50 Senators. More broadly, it's a signal that California and East Coast Democrats won't be able to sock it to coal and manufacturing-heavy Midwestern states without a fight. Senators voting in favor of the 60-vote rule included liberals from Wisconsin, Michigan and West Virginia. Now look for Team Obama to attempt to impose cap and tax the non-democratic way, via regulation that hits business and local governments with such heavy costs that they beg Congress for a less-harmful version.”
This line in the sand on Cap and Trade provides some hope that in the midst of a recession, and with the utility industry facing unprecedented, perhaps insurmountable, economic pressures from a myriad of directions, the American public might not have to fund Al Gore’s science fiction scenarios. Just when I thought insanity had taken over complete rule in Washington, a ray of sunshine broke through.
An American public already facing 8.5% unemployment, a skyrocketing federal debt that never will be paid off and other tax increases hidden and open that would embarrass a petty dictator, may at least get a delay on Cap-and-Tax-and-Spend. I’m sure Gore’s accomplices in Washington will be looking for ways around this perhaps temporary delay. But any monkey wrenches thrown into the gears of this runaway train are a very good idea.
The doubling or tripling of everyone's electricity rates to fund Gore's computer-generated disaster scenarios will have to wait awhile longer. Fortunately, we didn't fund the massive reordering of society that could have been forcoming from the 1970s dire "scientific" warnings I remember well about the planet being about to enter a new "ice age"!
Do you think that the congresspeople are aware of the following: "US utility chief suggests GHG border tax - Mr Michael Morris, the Chief Executive of the major US utility AEP has stated that in order to force developing countries to take on targets, the US should apply a tax on goods produced in countries that have not taken on greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets... Last year, France's prime minister proposed the EU should put a tax on goods produced in countries that are not bound by caps on greenhouse gas emissions, as a way of forcing those countries to take on emissions targets or ratify the Kyoto Protocol."
What about border taxes not just goods, but also services, on state by state basis in the USA as a way out of the dilemma? I think the double Valium will go to high GHGs emmitters.
According to the following quote Mr. Obama and Mr. Gore do not need a Valium, polluters do, and make it a double, as Joseph Stiglitz writes (please hit the link http://www.carbontax.org/issues/border-adjustments... for the whole document):
In most of the developed countries of the world today, firms are paying the cost of
pollution to the global environment, in the form of taxes imposed on coal, oil, and gas.
But American firms are being subsidized--and massively so. There is a simple remedy:
other countries should prohibit the importation of American goods produced using energy
intensive technologies, or, at the very least, impose a high tax on them, to offset the
subsidy that those goods currently are receiving.
Actually, the United States itself has recognized this principle. It prohibited the
importation of Thai shrimp that had been caught in "turtle unfriendly" nets, nets that
caused unnecessary deaths of large numbers of these endangered species. Though the
manner in which the United States had imposed the restriction was criticized, the WTO
sustained the important principle that global environmental concerns trump narrow
commercial interests, as well they should.
But if one can justify restricting importation of shrimp in order to protect turtles, certainly
one can justify restricting importation of goods produced by technologies that
unnecessarily pollute our atmosphere, in order to protect the precious global atmosphere
upon which we all depend for our very well-being.
other countries should prohibit the importation of American goods produced using energy
intensive technologies, or, at the very least, impose a high tax on them, to offset the
subsidy that those goods currently are receiving."
Um...what might the aforementioned American goods be? Last I looked, the US trade deficit with asian countries is completely out of control, as well as the VOC and heavy metal pollution from the same countries. Substitute "Asian goods" for "American goods" in the above paragraph, and the world would be a much cleaner place within a decade.
My problem with Al Gore is that he will not put his money where his mouth is by initiating a boycott of imports from any country that carelessly pollutes the environment via irresponsible manufacturing processes...which will never happen when off shore companies can manufacture products for a tenth of the cost of a comparable product made in the USA.
I am sorry to tell you that politics is flying high as "US 'ready to lead' on climate change – Obama." For the news details, please take a look at http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/vi...
CO2 is the yardstick (value = 1) by which we measure or judge ratios of the other "classic" or known pollutants. So we refer to this as CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent), but that little lower case 'e' often gets omitted, and CO2 emerges as the mother of all pollutants. After all, it is found practically everywhere, isn't it?
Scientific proof of global warming? Where? Opinions abound, often backed by compelling evidence, but properly set out scientific proof of global warming is absent, as Warren implies. Not through incompetence, but we simply have not been able to gather all the data necessary upon which to develop sound scientific proof.
I believe that climate change is taking place, in one way or another, but we must first determine how much of this might be due to natural causes, and how much should be attributed to human activity. This is absolutely essential in establishing just how much our own greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation efforts might improve the overall climate situation. We simply cannot afford to invest vast sums of money in mitigation ventures that might well fall short of the desired goals.
In other words, if the human contribution (anthropogenic emissions) were, for the sake of argument, 20% of the sum total, i.e. anthropogenic emissions plus emissions being released as a result of naturally occurring events (volcanoes, methane vents, fire) then surely the true GHG reduction would be a mere 20% of the whole, even if we were to completely stop all anthropogenic releases.
Warren
I try not to write about CO2, Instead, I write about GHG's, as you can see from my first and comment.
Those who know what they are talking about have explained that we cannot take a wait and see attitude as you suggest. BP's chief scientist, Steven Koonin, said that "We really need major changes in the ways we produce and use energy if we're going to prevent concentrations from rising. I don't think people understand that."
In today's New York Times article "Oil Companies Loath to Follow Obama's Green Lead," John M. Deutch, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former director of central intelligence, said there was little point in criticizing oil companies without first establishing federal rules that set a price on carbon dioxide emissions. Once that happens, he said, companies will adapt their strategies.
Eastern islanders destroyed their environment by probably using a wait and see attitude, I just hope we will learn from them.
A wait and see attitude? Nowhere have I suggested a "wait and see attitude", neither explicitly nor implicitly, nor can I find any such suggestion being made by Mr. Warren Causey.
I am interpreting Mr. Warren Causey's post as his voicing concern that we, as a nation driven by political pressures, might be rushing headlong towards incurring massive expenditure without scientific justification for such disbursement. In short, bad business.
Easter islanders? Jose, what on earth did they have to do with the issues we are discussing here?
Easter island has EVERYTHING to do with the direction that the first world socioeconomic structure is heading toward.
Alan,
The opinion of the Secretary of Energy, from a recent article in Newsweek is "... we must move beyond oil because the science on global warming is clear and compelling: greenhouse-gas emissions, primarily from fossil fuels, have started to change our climate. We have a responsibility to future generations to reduce those emissions to spare our planet the worst of the possible effects."
The responsibility to future generations is what does not permit a wait and see attitude. If scientists are proved to be wrong 50 to 100 years from now a lot of money might be wasted, On the contrary, if they are proved to be right 50 to 100 years from now, humanity will be spared.
Your opinion claims that "Scientific proof of global warming? Where? Opinions abound, often backed by compelling evidence, but properly set out scientific proof of global warming is absent, as Warren implies. Not through incompetence, but we simply have not been able to gather all the data necessary upon which to develop sound scientific proof" is nothing more than a wait and see attitude that in 50 to 100 years of finding compelling evidence will sets us in a new version of Easter Island.
If you read the New York Times today you will see "Shell Oil President on Cap-and-Trade," by Tom Zeller Jr., that the game is no longer on the scientific debate, but on the actions to implement GHG's reductions.
Since you share my opposition to the "wait and see" view, may I ask exactly what, in practical terms, have you done or are currently doing to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions?
So to respond you, I wrote the EWPC Blog post "Is What I am Doing to Reduce GHG Emissions Enough?" which can be read at the link http://www.energyblogs.com/ewpc/index.cfm/2009/4/9...
The post to you and the readers ends with the following:
There is not time to waste to get the message to the public that GHG emission need to be reduced as soon as possible. In that sense, I just hope that what I have been doing is enough.
Thanks once again for the opportunity to tell other readers what I have been doing.
Regards,
José Antonio
Resurrecting the infrastructure of North America will take a tremendous effort by all parties that have the technical knowledge to do so, and pursuing policies established by prior administrations is tantamount to industry suicide. ANY direction is preferable to the path that has been followed over the last half century - lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way.
CO2`s influence on the atmosphere's radiative and heat behavior is something like the 4th power of its concentration; far beneath the measurement sensitivity of any extant or conceivable technology.
If only we could get it back to its paleo-geological average, about 2,000 ppm, agriculture and food supplies would probably be immensely benefited. Alas, it is beyond our abilities to affect its concentration beyond temporary trivial amounts.