The Cap and Trade Delusion (Part II) 12 comments
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It would appear that the chances of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill passing the Senate this year are going down big-time. Five days ago, the Senate Environment Public Works Committee held a hearing at which the EPA administrator said that "unilateral U.S. action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would have no effect on climate."
EPA Administrator Jackson confirmed an EPA analysis showing that unilateral U.S. action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would have no effect on climate. Moreover, when presented with an EPA chart depicting that outcome, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said he disagreed with EPA's analysis.
"I believe the central parts of the [EPA] chart are that U.S. action alone will not impact world CO2 levels," Administrator Jackson said.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) presented the chart to both Jackson and Secretary Chu, which shows that meaningful emissions reductions cannot occur without aggressive action by China, India, and other developing countries. "I am encouraged that Administrator Jackson agrees that unilateral action by the U.S. will be all cost for no climate gain," Sen. Inhofe said. "With China and India recently issuing statements of defiant opposition to mandatory emissions controls, acting alone through the job-killing Waxman-Markey bill would impose severe economic burdens on American consumers, businesses, and families, all without any impact on climate."
This is excellent news for the economy, since this bill would have had very destructive effects (e.g., higher energy costs, more regulatory burdens, more bureaucracy).
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This article has 12 comments:
And Secretary Chu? I believe that he has been promoted above his capacity. He should be in charge of physics at Boston Public.
I can't tell if this author is perturbed or just sadistically humored.
Apparently, these people do not connect economic productivity with affluence -- either that or they wish America to become poorer.
Next time a candidate says, "Yes, We Can!" the American people should require him to complete the sentence. "Yes we can... make America poorer".
The Arctic ice sheet has ADDED 400,000 square miles since the low of the summer of 2007.....(I love the rebuttal I've gotten elsewhere....."Yah, but it's young thin ice".....like old thick ice just magically appears by Green Peace running around with pixie dust.)
China and India have no intention of hurting their growing manufacturing economies with Draconian environmental policy.
By and large we already have the most stringent environmental rules of any of the industrialized countries.
Real wealth is only created by the extraction and utilization of natural resources for the manufacture of goods. A service based economy just moves finite existing wealth from point A, to point B, to point C, etc.....Too many people have forgotten that fact.
CO2 is plant food.....
Without a cost effective large scale substitute for fossil fuels (like nuclear) we cannot maintain the ability of what little manufacturing we have left in this country to compete in a global market.
The resulting increase in energy costs to the consumer under Waxman-Markey (double what you currently pay is a safe assumption) and the subsequent increase in the prices of all consumer goods (companies will have no choice but to increase their prices accordingly) will ultimately result in far less disposable income chasing fewer, more expensive, products.....and a lowered standard of living.
The irony here is that the biggest proponents of this plan are voting to punish the very people who they "claim" are the constituency they represent.....The poor.....The unintended consequence (maybe NOT unintended) of this legislation will be the largest regressive taxation move in global history.
The most frightening words ever spoken remain......"I am from the Government and I am here to help you."
On Jul 12 09:54 AM look closer wrote:
> Well lets face the fact, complete melt down at the poles within 100
> years and just in time for interplanetary travel for the wealthy.
> Cutting back on greenhouse emissions within our lifetime just isn't
> going to happen, we have fools at the helm.
> I can't tell if this author is perturbed or just sadistically humored.
The ice melt problem has been addressed as most probably caused by soot. It seems China's numerous coal fired plants are catching an updraft carrying soot and depositing on the ice fields. These black particles adore infra red from the sun and then once the sheet subsides, open ocean water is exposed, which it turns out also likes infra red. In the mean time the planet is getting colder.
The principle greenhouse gas is water vapor at 95 percent effect. Clouds which are white serve to both hold in the reradiant infra red and also, during daytime reflect infra red back out into space. Infra red is the primary radiation that heats the earth. Satellite studies of radiation balance has been going on for years and the result is that there is no noticeable imbalance, and thus we can begin to conclude that which should be obvious, and that is water vapor is the earths thermostat, however, the thermostat lags in response to solar changes and orbital changes. This subject is more complicated than designing thermonuclear reactors and should be left to those who are qualified in the field and not consensus science by scientists outside the field.
The whole cap and trade system is designed to provide a new tax base for the needy, more social programs that ultimately will make us all poor including the government.
Cap and Trade, exactly like the Stimulus plan, was purposely rammed through the House allowing no time for Representatives to read the Bill. Further, five whole hours were allocated in the House to debate/discuss/make statements about the Cap and Trade Bill.
On the whole, what kind of “constituent representation” exists when Bills go unread and briefly debated? When the Political Process is purposely coerced to yield unread Bills and briefly debated Bills, the constituent is surely not served.
Going one step further, making the current Political Process coerced to the point of unread bills with no debate, and now looking at the dismal results of the Quasi- Stimulus Plan, has in fact The Powers That Be created a track record where the general public does not want anything to do with Bills form these same authors?
In other words, The Powers That Be have created a self made situation where the public sees a common thread of Politics for Politics sake. That non read and non debated Bills yield horrible results. Hence the public no longer wants Bills form authors that create Bills for their own agenda rather than Bills based on sound Political-Economy.
Moreover, constituent letters, e-mails, and phone calls were 4 to 1 against Cap and Trade. Yet a majority went on to pass the House Bill on Cap and Trade regardless of the public out cry.
Going forward, the strategies deployed above (part of the theory of Thug-o-nomics), by The Powers That Be, have created an atmosphere within the general public, having seen the results of the first unread, un-debated plan aka Stimulus Plan, that any further Bills from the same authors will create the same result: dismal.
Socialized Medicine is likely doomed, as Cap and Trade was doomed, because of the dismal results of the Stimulus Plan which was the original unread, un-debated debacle.
What a mess. I'll pay for both anyways - it's the responsible thing to do.
Another burial project takes iron rich minerals to the middle of the ocean and causes a plankton bloom. The plankton that does not get eaten dies and falls to the bottom of the sea. Presto Ca-Ching a carbon allowance is created because the dead plankton are sequestered. Excess plankton have been falling to the bottom of the ocean as long as there have been plankton. The blooms have been caused by wind blown soil landing in the ocean and soil deposits at the mouths of rivers. It looks like to me that we will have one government agency causing plankton blooms and another government agency, USDA, preventing plankton blooms by controlling erosion. If spreading iron rich dirt in the ocean is a green job, what color is the job at the USDA?
For as long as there have been plankton, carbon dioxide levels heve been changing and they have been at least three times higher than they are right now at least three times in the past. There was not any cars and no coal fired power plants then either.
Burning coal seems to cause not one whit of concern that we might depleat the O2 supply for some reason. The heat coming off of engines and nuclear power plants does not seem to cause any concern either. Ozone is a big problem only when emitted by cars, when it is generated by windmills and power lines...no problem. There could well be more people allive today than have been alive for thousands of years, so where is the concern about our body heat warming up the planet?
According to Reuters, the Chinese are gearing up to sequester CO2 and sell the carbon credits to Europe. By making carbon dioxide a valuable comodity, the US will produce jobs in areas that have the least government regulation and lowest taxes which is China. I doubt that anyone will have the ability to slap the grin off their faces as they chuckel all the way to the bank with our treasury bills in them and our carbon allowances.
We are damaging the security if the US by pushing energy projects with low benefit to cost ratios. The Arabs don't sell us a lot of electricity. Going into debt to the Cinese is just trading one devil for the other and ending up with both.