US House May Pass "Cap & Trade" Bill 874
jamie found this roundup on the status of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, which is about to be voted on by the US House of Representatives. (The article notes that if the majority Democrats can't see the 218 votes needed for passage, they will probably put off the vote.) The AP has put together a FAQ that says, "[The bill, if passed,] fundamentally will change how we use, produce and consume energy, ending the country's love affair with big gas-guzzling cars and its insatiable appetite for cheap electricity. This bill will put smaller, more efficient cars on the road, swap smokestacks for windmills and solar panels, and transform the appliances you can buy for your home." The odds-makers are giving the bill a marginal chance of passing in the House, with tougher going expected in the Senate.
Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
And energy rationing, by this name or any other, spells death for the economy. They might as well call it the "starve and freeze" bill.
No real impact (Score:4, Insightful)
People will still drive SUVs, they will just complain about the price. People will still have widescreen TVs, they will just complain about the cost of electricity. What Washington constantly fails to realize is that you can't legislate tastes, attitudes, and morality. If people want to consume energy, they will. You need a cultural shift, where people no longer feel the need to have huge cars, new TVs, etc etc and THEN you'll see energy usage go down.
Good intentions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No real impact (Score:2, Insightful)
Cultural shift in the people or in the government? [metagovernment.org]
Probably both.
Tax & Tax (Score:1, Insightful)
Only if "Yes" answers all of those should we be doing this, especially now.
Another bad move (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No real impact (Score:5, Insightful)
Cap and Tax - we are so screwed. (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets see, to get votes from Democrats in heavily affected states Pelosi will force upon us even more years and billions towards Ethanol. It is a 1200 page bill I doubt you will find if a small minority has read it all, let alone understands it. It will embed taxes while vilifying energy producers - the common theme of Washington - raising the cost of EVERYTHING.
The CBO report was hacked to make it look acceptable, real numbers by other groups put the cost from 1800 to 3000 per family.
I guess they have to rush to get their damage done in the two years they will have complete control. Honestly, once these timebombs start going off its going to flip the house and senate back. Maybe then we can have a real President and real Congress - ones so busy fighting each other that we get some protection from both.
As in, bring back a Republican majority in Congress and Democrat President who will fight them. Not this shit we have now where the President lets Congress run the ball and then claims credit for the touch down with the press dutifully cheering on the side lines with their pom poms.
Tax reform will never happen while government lives up the hidden power of embedded taxes.
National Energy Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good intentions (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when is access to cheap and dirty energy a right? We share the same planet. My grandkids have the right to enjoy clean air, water, and a healthy environment that far outweighs your right to pollute it.
This is one of those holes in free market theory that we have to plug. The value of having a biosphere that supports human life is not zero.
So long they hired a speed reader (Score:4, Insightful)
This bill is so huge, Congress jokingly hired a speed reader to read through the bill after Republicans asked for it to be read aloud (giant waste of time to do in session). But honestly, if our Congressmen and women won't even read the bills they pass why the hell are they signing their names on them in the first place? There's undoubtedly so much pork in this bill it will cause problems above and beyond the things its addressing in the first place.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2009/05/speed_reader_brings_levity_to.html [washingtonpost.com]
Re:Good intentions (Score:2, Insightful)
I think Stalin used quite similar reasoning for the forced starvation programs: the greater good, to bring Russia as a whole into the modern era.
Seriously, you thinking you have an answer to a problem -- that scares the hell out of me.
nothing will come of it (Score:2, Insightful)
Reminds me of California's mandate to only sell zero-emission cars by 2005.
This bill has no teeth for 10 years. It is full of exceptions for the biggest polluters until then. The politicians are demanding science come up with a solution within that time. When the deadline comes it will be repealed unless a scientific miracle happens.
But it does make the US look good. That is what Kyoto was about for the countries that did sign on. NONE OF THE SIGNERS FOLLOWED THROUGH ON THEIR PROMISES.
Re:"insatiable appetite for cheap electricity." (Score:5, Insightful)
And nothing beats a recession quite like artificially jacking up the cost of energy for everybody.
Creating Chaos for Profit (Score:5, Insightful)
Put a cap on the emissions that industry can output, then create a market where companies can trade the right to pollute. Cap and Trade.
The big question is, what is this Change going to do to the US economy?
While all of cap-and-trade appears very poorly thought out, Pres. Obama actually fully intended this to happen [blogspot.com], as interviewed almost a year ago. So, hold on to your wallet, change is coming...
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:1, Insightful)
And energy rationing, by this name or any other, spells death for the economy. They might as well call it the "starve and freeze" bill.
Where did you find them explaining that everyone will have to ration energy? What does starving have to do with energy? It's further down the slope of environmental consciousness vs the economy but you are doing no one a service by claiming it is utter self-annihilation when it's not that bad.
From the AP questions:
Q: Other than costs potentially being passed along to consumers, will this affect most Americans' day-to-day lives?
A: It fundamentally will change how we use, produce and consume energy, ending the country's love affair with big gas-guzzling cars and its insatiable appetite for cheap electricity. This bill will put smaller, more efficient cars on the road, swap smokestacks for windmills and solar panels, and transform the appliances you can buy for your home.
You know, I can't buy the old school hydrochlorofluorocarbon [wikipedia.org] to use as a refrigerant in my new car. The new stuff doesn't work as well (it's close) but it's a lot better for the environment. Small things like this can be important to entities like the EPA.
While this new bill is further down the slope of how invasive this is to a consumer's life, I don't think it's quite as far as "energy rationing" or "starve and freeze" like you so quickly claim it to be. Is it going to dampen the economy? Most definitely. I would not pick this time to launch this bill but I feel it is long overdue. Americans should be made more aware of what energy consumption does to the environment but we cannot seem to learn. So the government is deciding to intervene and put restrictions on it. Probably the wrong way to address the problem but there you have it. It will be interesting to see if these energy caps are applied to the huge black suburbans and heavily armored luxury cars the president's entourage drives around in.
Tell me why there aren't nuclear power plants in every township in the United States? That is easy to see, right? People fear for their health and safety. The same could be said to a lesser degree of smokestacks and egregiously energy consuming automobiles. We're starting to affix a price to environmental degradation and the current administration places it much higher than the last. I'm interested in what specific cost this is going to have to the end consumer and am hesitant to automatically reject or praise this bill until that's known.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:2, Insightful)
But i am probably overestimating my fellow Americans who cannot even do what British, French or Germans do routinely.
Get completely trampled by the fascists and communists? Because if that's what you meant than I totally agree, we cannot do that.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:4, Insightful)
A much more moderate climate and population centers that were established when eight miles was the distance that could easily be traveled in a day has nothing to do with it at all...
Re:Good intentions (Score:1, Insightful)
Since when is access to cheap and dirty energy a right?
I have the right to use my property as I see fit, so long as I don't violate the rights of others. That includes trading it with others.
We share the same planet.
We live on the same planet. But my property is not yours, and vice versa.
My grandkids have the right to enjoy clean air, water, and a healthy environment that far outweighs your right to pollute it.
If I pollute their water, they/you can sue me. What was your point?
Re: Sig (Score:3, Insightful)
Insinuating Obama is more responsible than Bush for the state of today's economy is a particularly impressive piece of mental Judo.
Of course, we can't leave out all the folks who made impressive regulatory errors over the last 10 years, and all the businesses who operated dishonestly, folks from every nook and cranny of American politics.
Re:Good intentions (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe one day when I: a) can't breath, b) can't grow/hunt food, c) get sun burned at night; I might care. Somehow, with the assholes that run my government, and the governments abroad; I highly doubt that I will live to see that "maybe."
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you think the "cap" part of "cap and trade" means? Capping CO2 emissions means capping energy use, in the absence of significant carbon-free sources -- and since neither nuclear, solar, nor wind, nor any other carbon-free source is in any position to take up the slack, things look pretty grim. And the caps are designed to be ratcheted DOWN.
As for what starving has to do with energy... uhh, you realize it takes energy to grow and distribute that food, right? And I don't mean just solar.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
I got an idea. We can come and break every window in your house. Better yet, we'll break every window in every house on your block. Think of the jobs created when those windows have to get fixed!
Re:No real impact (Score:5, Insightful)
No real impact
I think you couldn't be more wrong.
We've already seen with $4 / gallon gas prices, people will dramatically shift the types of cars they drive. Cap and Trade could raise the cost of gas well above this. Only the uber rich will be driving SUV's.
Raising the cost of electricity is inflationary in nature and will raise the cost of everything. We saw this already when oil and natural gas skyrocketed to unseen levels only a year or so ago. Given this fact, the hardest hit will be on the poorer side of the scale as even the smallest increases in costs take a much larger percentage of income. There will be a lot less wide-screen TV's being purchased, and most of them being in the homes of high-middle income earners.
What citizens haven't learned is that Washington politics are beholden to their lobbies (both sides of the isle) and this idea of cap and trade is scandalous right to the core. What good is cap and trade on global warming when all you do is tax manufacturing and jobs out of the US (which has some emissions controls) to other other countries (that have little to none)? You won't be doing the world any favors by pushing factories to another part of the world. You'll just be hurting your own country by destroying it's economy and probably destroying the world faster since those other countries allow you to pollute more as well as all goods will now have to be all shipped back to the places they use to be manufactured.
This has laws of unintended consequences all over this and your ignorant idea that "this will change nothing" couldn't be farther from the truth.
This will be the longest 4 years in America's history.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's an example: a baker finds his business doing well, with people lining up around the block to buy his signature muffins. So he wants to buy another oven to produce more muffins, and hire two more counter staff to handle the customers. Then cap and trade gets passed, forcing him instead to buy a replacement oven for the one he already has, plus get new windows and air conditioning, not to mention all the similar upgrades in his own home. This consumes the money he would've spend on that new oven and new employees, leaving him in the same position as before. So how exactly has this helped him or the economy?
Re:Another bad move (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? Carbon isn't a profit center, it's a cost center: you pay for it. When you reduce the amount you emit, you make money. I've seen some pretty crazy arguments against this bill, but you're the first person to fundamentally misunderstand it. Congratulations.
Re:Peak Oil necessitates energy conservation (Score:5, Insightful)
There isn't anything particularly crazy or stupid about using the cheapest available resource. Peak oil mongering is often based around the implied assumption that the decline will come in the form of a shock, requiring us to immediately replace all of the cheap oil in one fell swoop. Reality suggests that the price of oil will go up as it becomes more difficult to extract, leading to the gradual replacement of oil consumption over time (and each time someone comes up with a price viable replacement, it reduces the demand for the remaining oil, further smoothing out the transition).
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:4, Insightful)
pollution per capita has a lot more to do with population density then efficiency unless your going to use abstract rules in your efficiency.
Anyways, the cap and trade laws [wsj.com] are not identical to those in Europe. It turns out that in Europe, they increased the costs to the "average" family by $1,300 a year. In the US with the US limits in this bill being voted on, we are looking at an estimated costs starting out at adding $1,870 in costs for the average family which will increase to over $6,800 by the time everything is implemented.
Yes, it's most likely you are over estimating a lot of things. The biggest is your intellect and ability to fathom the real implications of this program. And no, people are not saying no caps at all, they are saying it has to be done in ways that do not damage the economy or place people through hardships that aren't necessary. Why is taking the time to do it right such a big fucking inconvenience for this democrat congress. It's like the bailouts in which they claimed to be outraged a bonuses being paid when the democrats wrote the law to allow the bonuses to be paid then forgot it was there (or didn't think anyone was actually smart enough to look) and acted outrages at their own actions.
Re:Peak Oil necessitates energy conservation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that the definition of clean has been changed so that not just byproducts like SOx, NOx, and CO are defined as "dirty", but CO2 -- the end product of complete combustion of any hydrocarbon with oxygen -- is also defined as dirty, the answer is that no, we cannot make certain things more "clean". And we're up against a wall with efficiency in many cases also.
To reduce CO2 emissions without energy rationing, you need a lot more non-CO2 containing sources. Nuclear... forget it, politically it just isn't going to happen. Hydro -- the large sources are tapped and environmentalists hate it anyway. Wind on the scale needed is both technologically and politically challenging. Solar... well, the Bureau of Land Management has basically said "forget it" to building solar thermal in the desert southwest, for instance, so it's another case of environmentalists not liking ANY energy source.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
This bill should really be called "A Tax Increase For All Americans."
Sir:
Responsible energy use is only a tax on the current generation. Future generations will have the benefit of this tax, including more oil, less pollution, less natural catastrophes, better environmental technology, and a more responsible culture. Indeed, the "free" oil we're burning today is a tax on future generations, who will pay the price for our selfish, short-sighted behaviour. I call the existing scheme of state-environment relations as the "fuck the kids" model.
As a technical note, it's not strictly a tax because it is simply the assignment of a property value to a currently hidden cost (i.e. on future generations), it permits valuation and bartering of that now hidden cost (i.e. it's "property", somewhat like intellectual property), and it can be avoided through technological innovation. The brilliance is that it is creating the facade of a marketplace, where the costs to the participants in the marketplace are designed to coincide with the harms to the environment. It's actually quite fascinating and brilliant, in my humble opinion. Let's hope it proves valuable.
Re:Creating Chaos for Profit (Score:2, Insightful)
Put a cap on the emissions that industry can output, then create a market where companies can trade the right to pollute
Exactly. Not a tax: a market. Just like the market in sulphur emissions that GHW Bush helped create back in the day, that took acid rain from a big problem to a minor one.
Opponents of this bill hate capitalism, pure and simple. They hate markets and they hate property rights. Creating property rights in the atmospheric commons for the purpose of capturing externalities has been the preferred approach to pollution abatement amongst proponents of free markets for decades. Now that that dream is becoming a reality the anti-capitalist oligarchs of existing industries, which have built their businesses around dumping in the commons, are up in arms about it.
But don't kid yourself for a moment: cap and trade is a market-based solution to the problem. You are free to disagree that dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is a legitimate problem. That is certainly open to debate, and I might even be on your side. But if you hate cap and trade, you hate capitalism.
....the "starve and freeze" bill. (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:4, Insightful)
"As for what starving has to do with energy... uhh, you realize it takes energy to grow and distribute that food, right? And I don't mean just solar."
And won't it be a kick in the balls to supporters of C&T once they realize that this is going to negatively affect food aid to the third world.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gas (Score:2, Insightful)
Gee. Britain is also about the size of one of our less-populated states. I wonder if that has something to do with your lower per-capita gasoline consumption?
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:2, Insightful)
It would be a better comparison if that baker's window emitted toxic fumes, or radiation to everyone around his shop.
Also, your example illustrates my point. He could produce more, thereby increasing QOL for his consumers to have either more muffins at the same price, or the same muffins at a lower price. Or he can produce the same muffins at the current price, but provide it to his consumers with lower emissions, as well as work for the new equipment makers.
Its a question about what you want your economy to produce:
1. People who get to have lots of muffins (and increasingly more each year).
2. People who get to have the same amount of muffins but better environment.
Personally, I think #2 is a better choice because our QOL for food/stuff is high enough, and I'd rather our economy worked toward a better environment instead of just lots more stuff to fill the home with. But thats just my opinion.
Re:No real impact (Score:5, Insightful)
I think your missing the forest for all the trees.
When gas prices raised and you think you saw habits change, most of those habits were actually reflections of people losing their jobs from the economy going stagnant because all disposable income was going into the gas tanks.
There is a point in which people cannot trim their gas usage any lower. Going to and from work is mandatory if you want to keep a job, regardless of what anyone thinks of public transportation, it's non-existent in many if not the majority of places.
Surcharges work only when you don't care about the impact it has on the people. Losing their jobs, their homes, choosing between food and gasoline, none of that is an acceptable option to me but it's exactly what happened when gas went to $4.00 a gallon so that you could see the change in habits.
You need to get over yourself and look at what is actually happening.
Comment removed (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh, sorry, but Americans elect candidates based on the quality of their lies. Obama's were better than McCain's, and his delivery was smoother.
Between your documented instance and the fact that the dumbest politicans are the ones who tell the explicit truth regardless of blowback, if you want to spread the blame, look no further than a public that isn't willing to be honest with itself and its expectations.
Chuck
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. The real purpose of this bill is to pay for all of the porkulus spending we've seen this year.
Re:....the "starve and freeze" bill. (Score:1, Insightful)
because we have the most productive economy. Don't worry, though. Obama's trying to fix that problem for you Eurotrash losers who fall head-over-heels in love with anyone who can give a good speech: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_hitler [wikipedia.org]
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:3, Insightful)
Germany
Germany's voluntary commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by 21 per cent compared to 1990 levels has to all intents and purposes been met, because emissions have already been reduced by 19 per cent.
France
In 2004, France shut down its last coal mine, and now gets 80% of its electricity from nuclear power and therefore has relatively low CO2 emissions.
A study by De Leo et al. found that "accounting only for local external costs, together with production costs, to identify energy strategies, compliance with the Kyoto Protocol would imply lower, not higher, overall costs."
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v413/n6855/full/413478a0.html [nature.com]
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm amused by Americans who think they are being "taxed to death" but have no problem spending 40 percent of their incomes for corporate profits, which despite some other conventional wisdom, does not come back to the economy.
Really? Where does it go?
In a technical sense, you are correct. Corporate profits do not come back to the economy because they NEVER LEAVE THE ECONOMY! Corporate profits are shareholder profits. Shareholders are citizens that spend money or save for retirement (meaning that they will spend it later).
Profits, by definition, are what make the economy grow! Allow me to explain. Let's say a carpenter buys a piece of wood for $1.00. He carves it into a pair of clogging shoes, which takes him one hour. He sells those shoes for $10.00. He made $9.00 profit. Where did that extra $9.00 come from? Where does it go now? The extra nine bucks (profit) is how economies grow. He took $1.00 worth of wood plus an hour of his time and turned them into shoes worth $10.00. He has increased the economy by $9.00 at the cost of 1 hour.
Now what does he do with his profits? Same thing everyone else does; He spends them. He eats, pays bills, pays for his home and so on. That's what drives the economy.
politics as usual (Score:3, Insightful)
It'll screw us all and achieve nothing. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I don't expect a Chomsky fan to have any reasoning abilities found outside of a college sophomore with a chip on his shoulder, I'll respond anyway for other readers.
Whether or not we have a 'right' to cheap energy is besides the point. The bill will be completely inneffective while gutting our economy.
1) China and Russia are laughing at us. This act will artificially drive up the price of cheap-carbon based fuel in the US, reducing US demand. Reduced US demand will lower the global price, making oil and coal MORE attractive options for the rest of the world. Their increased use will more than offset any possible reductions we could do, with this bill or any other.
2) Folks like you are willing to spend billions of dollars and eviscerate our economy on the trillion dollar scale in a futile and arrogant attempt to turn back the clock. None from your side has ever talked about how we would deal with increased global temperatures, how we might mitigate any rising sea levels, or what the potential upsides to global warming are.
(These first two points are valid regardless of whether or not you're a global warming believer)
3) The climate is always changing, even before we started emitting massive amounts of carbon or anything else. Go look up climate history and see that the best reconstructed information we have, in recorded human history and prior, shows the climate has been significantly warmer and significantly cooler than it is now.
The term 'global warming' lately has even been replaced with the term 'climate change.' This should tip off any prudent observer that it's all a blatant move to grab money and power. The climate is always changing, and as such, in the 'Climate Change' political environment, will always serve as a convienent excuse to expand taxes and the suffocating regulatory state.
The problem isn't carbon emissions, the problem is folks like you who think they're infinately wiser than their fellow man and the free market, and see no problem with grasping all the money and power they can in order to force their good intentions on the rest of us.
And don't you dare talk to me like I favor large smoke stacks bellowing thick black smoke over American cities, and dumping nasty chemicals into rivers. We solved those problems decades ago and I'm fine with that sort of regulation. Now we've got arrogant do-gooders on a mission with nothing good to do, and we'll all suffer for their hubris if not stopped.
Re:Good intentions (Score:3, Insightful)
In a legal sense, you have the "right" to do what is permitted under the law.
I am not talking in the legal sense. I am talking in a moral sense - those inalienable rights necessary for a man to live his life, and further his values and goals.
All other rights are philosophical abstractions you've invented
Hmm? I have not invented them. In order for me to live, I must think and use my mind, and so I must be free to do so. Anyone who imposes force on me leads me to think irrationally, in opposition to my life and my values. So it is right for me to use my mind, and it is not right for others to impose force on me. Show me a person who can live and further their values by automatic action alone, as a plant would do.
show me this right of yours that allows you to emit as much carbon into the air as you want.
You mean the carbon that, when plotted next to global temperature, shows that increases in temperature lead to increases in C02, but not vice versa? Oh, but that's beside the point. Show me the health effects on you of my carbon emission, and you can sue me in court, and anyone else for that matter.
So, just to make sure I understand, your view is that we should not have laws that prohibit pollution outright, the problem should be solved entirely through lawsuits.
No, the problem should and would be solved through privatization.
Re:Creating Chaos for Profit (Score:5, Insightful)
"expect to see your retail electric bills go up by 5-15%, or an average of $700-1400 per family per year.
x * 0.15 = $1400
$1400/0.15 = 9333.33- / 12 = $777.77-
WHO SPENDS $800 a month on electricity already? If you're electric bill is already $10k it sounds like a small increase!
Know what you're talking about. And as a hint, we already pay taxes on this kind of crap, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund [wikipedia.org]
this is just taxing the companies while they exist, instead of having them pay their employees and the citizens having to pay to clean it up while the business gets off scott free.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:1, Insightful)
Which cost exactly ? Climate changes. Humans have been dealing with huge climate changes for 170.000 years now [wikipedia.org]. Why, exactly, should we prevent the next change ? Why, for that matter, do you think we're capable of doing so ?
And, which guarantee (or even strong indication) is there that CO2 reduction will help ? (not worldwide co2 reduction, obviously, China gets to pollute, all muslim countries get to pollute in addition to stoning women, all african countries ... obviously these are exactly the countries where you'd expect massive co2 increases to come from).
All actual, empirical information we have . [newscientist.com]
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
My problem with that WSJ article is that it assumes energy production will not change before 2020. Basically, the CO2 output of a energy production plant will remain constant. The point of the legislation is to encourage (or force if you prefer) a switch to renewable energy and/or CO2 sequestering. If we do the green revolution in earnest we'll get a lot of our energy from green sources which will fall well under the CO2 limits thereby not succumbing to the tax hits. Today's conventional energy production facilities should be working on CO2 sequestering and by 2020 (when the really strict CO2 limits come into effect) they should be under as well. Energy moguls don't want to change because it costs them money. Average Americans don't want to change because they don't see why they should, don't really understand the effects of the legislation and don't want to pay a cent more. Both want things to go back to the way they were. That is not ever going to happen. If you want cheap energy we need wind, solar, nuclear, tidal, algae and carbon sequestering. We need more sources of energy. Killing this legislation doesn't make that need go away.
YES!! (Score:5, Insightful)
They sunk that low a long time ago. It's just that the people who should have been calling them on it were too caught up in their Bush-bashing frenzy to care. They were just happy that the media was so biased in their favor. It won't be long until we see the real fruits of a media that doesn't question authority, and instead revels in a sycophantic love fest with said authority.
The media should be questioning Cap and Trade, Health Care Reform, voter fraud, and yes, even presidential eligibility (if only for the purpose of laying the issue to rest) with the same zeal that they showed for mocking Bush every time he mispronounced a word. Mispronounced words don't ruin lives and economies, but these things just might. Where's the in-depth analysis? I don't see it -- for or against. Where's the investigation into winners and losers? We sure heard enough about "big oil" during the Bush years.
The Freedom of the Press was to safeguard their ability to question authority. What they're doing now is betraying that sacred trust and, in my opinion, endangering it by allowing the government to empower itself further and further without resistance or investigation. When the government decides that a free press is too dangerous to allow, the media will probably not have the influence necessary to fight it. They're already at record low levels in viewership because people just don't care about them anymore. Most people see their propaganda for what it is and are getting their news elsewhere -- from blogs if need be -- because at least those sources are genuine and up-front about their biases. The recent "infomercial" and White House-controlled media events are only a further indication of the future path of independent (non-government-run) media.
YES, real, unbiased reporting is just about dead, replaced by the new generation of pundit-reporters who thinks that it's their job to convince people rather than report the facts of the matter. I'm just waiting for these "reporters" to start crying that their business is dead, when it was them that held the pillow over its face.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's hope it proves valuable.
Lets hope we see the smallest amount of value before the American economy completely implodes.
I would love to debate the merits of individual policies all day long. Between the stimulus, bailouts and healthcare we've already got a hole that can't be filled that was dug by policies that were short sighted and badly engineered in the first place (yes, some from Bush). Sure, they all have redeeming principles in them, but the actual implementation leaves much to be desired. All of that aside, Obama's biggest problem is one of scope. You can't quadruple the national deficit in one year and add nearly $5 trillion (number from the CBO) to the national debt in as many years and then go on to (at a minimum - again numbers from the CBO & WSJ) double the energy costs for the AVERAGE American... We've already passed the legislation necessary to completely destroy the economy... this will just help it come faster.
Obama and his administration seem to only consider the ideal situation... the one in which their policies work out exactly as they intended... unfortunately they aren't and will continue to go awry, cap&trade included.
I, like you, see our destruction of the environment as a debt to future generations and actions must be taken to protect the world for the future, however, please consider the fact that our children won't have a future if we've spent out economy into oblivion. If you are ok with the United States going up to 25% unemployment again, people by the tens-of-millions living on the streets on in shelters, and your children having little to no education (or an advantage really) to speak of all for the protection of the environment, then I guess such considerations need not be made. I, however, will give my votes and support to people who are willing to find a hybrid between prosperity and environmentalism.
Yet more jobs to be shipped south of the border (Score:4, Insightful)
Get ready to see even more jobs being shipped south of the border if this is implemented. Simple economics
really, cheaper labor and now we add yet another reason not to produce anything in the US by increasing
energy prices.
Re:Gas (Score:5, Insightful)
Mass transit for passengers and cargo makes the most sense, but the powerful car lobby has lobbied against that for years. Where is all the high speed rail that would actually get people out of their cars? Instead of wasting money bailing out car companies why not use that same money to figure out ways to get us out of the need for owing a call all together?
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Gas (Score:4, Insightful)
You can also drive across the entirety of Britain on one tank of gas, because it's that fucking tiny and it's uniformly in a temperate zone that makes bicycling feasibly almost year-round.
Now try that in, say, Arizona during the month of July. I hope you allotted time to get a shower and change into your work clothes in the morning, and another to get home and do the same. Oh, wait, are we having a drought too?
Energy usage goes up based on where you live. Not everyone lives in shitty little teeny-tiny island nations that get a kick out of trying to out-socalist their neighbors.
Re:Peak Oil necessitates energy conservation (Score:5, Insightful)
The complaints against this bill have nothing to do with the spirit of it and everything to do with the structure of it. Taxes, any taxes, have distortionary economic effects. Some of these effects can be good, such as discouraging the use of carbon emitting fuels. Others are bad, such as making goods and services more expensive for consumers. Ideally, the government would enact a carbon tax and offset the tax by reducing personal income and corporate taxes proportionally. This leads to a marginal cost increase on burning fossil fuels without increasing the overall cost of goods and services to consumers and businesses.
But this is not what's happening. Instead of viewing this as an opportunity to enact beneficial legislation, our congressmen have instead opted to see it as an opportunity to increase government revenue. The pitfalls to the proposed system are numerous. As previously mentioned the first drawback is that consumers and businesses will immediately see prices on nearly all products go up. There has been discussion of granting permits to selected firms for free at the beginning. This is a fools bargain. See here [american.com] for a detailed explanation why, but the net effect of such legislation is to essentially pass the proceeds from a carbon tax directly to the firms granted the permits. Not to mention that it opens up the entire system to immense potential for corruption, as permits will very likely be traded as political favors to campaign contributors, and it puts the government in the position of essentially selecting which companies to grant a massive competitive advantage to.
Yes carbon emissions and dwindling fossil fuels are serious problems, and we as a nation need to take steps to mitigate their effects. But this bill is quite possibly the worst was to do so. It incorporates nearly every unnecessary drawback to such legislation. It's a poorly written bill from top to bottom that accomplishes as little as possible. And it will pass, because the average American is too blinded by the promise of such a law to notice how absolutely terrible the details of it are, and any congressman who wants to be reelected would be a fool to vote against it.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a great article in the Rolling Stone magazine by Matt Taibbi about Goldman Sachs and the bubbles it has created/exploited. Can you guess where the tax money from this is going to go? The next big bubble: carbon credit. And who will benefit from it? The company who is "environmentally conscious", Goldman Sachs.
The US will put a cap on CO2 emission. Company A goes over the cap by 10 units. Company B is under by 10 units. B sells the credits to A. Who is the middle man? Goldman Sachs. To make it worse, this is a speculator's wet dream, far better than Credit Default Swaps. The US will always strive to reduce pollution, thus the cap will be lowered eventually and this will mean that in the long run, prices can ONLY go up for carbon credits. This will attract speculators like there is no tomorrow, and who is the middle man again? Oh yea, Government Sachs. They already own 10% of the exchange (Chicago I think) and seeing other major investment banks out of the picture (Bearn and Lehman) they'll have a quasi monopoly on carbon credit trading.
I wouldn't worry about the tax increases if I were an American, I would worry way more about Government Sachs.
Re:Peak Oil necessitates energy conservation (Score:3, Insightful)
the incentive is to extract oil as quickly as possible
That's actually not true at all. The idea is to extract oil at a controlled rate given the estimated rate of consumption and the desired market price. This is because oil producers know they have a limited supply of oil, and extracting it as quickly as possible will only flood the market causing prices to drop, and thus severely hurting their profits in the long term.
Furthermore, you fail to take into account new oil extraction technologies. Oil companies spend large sums on researching methods to better extract oil. This equates to new methods that allow more oil to be extracted from exiting fields and previously unknown or unreachable fields to be tapped.
The argument that peak oil will cause a sudden, catastrophic jump in energy cost is seriously flawed. In reality, it will (is) gradually wean the world off oil. Energy prices have been on a steady increase for sometime now and has thus spurred individuals and corporations alike to seek more efficient ways of doing things.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
Oil/Gas ALREADY contains the desirable energy content when collected and processed. Processing is minimal when compared to Nuclear fuel.
EVERYTHING ELSE (fuel) must have the energy added as part of its production and that is very Expensive.
"Renewables" must be planted, fertilized, watered, harvested/collected, processed, and then are usable. ALL renewable alcohols (except perhaps iosbutanol) are inferior to 100% gasoline in energy content per gallon. Taxes are based on per gallon. (Duh! renewables = more demand in terms of gallons required to do the same amount of work and MORE taxes collected for the additional gallons purchased... of course politicians are for renewables) But it is a sham. Petroleum is superior fuel from an efficiency per gallon standpoint and burns very cleanly in modern vehicles.
The only way to have ANY fuel compete with petroleum is to legislate an unfair and non-level playing field against petroleum. It is just math and thermodynamics and chemistry.
Politicians are especially bad at math and thermodynamics and chemistry.
People crying the sky is falling and who blame alleged 'Global Warming' (AKA 'Climate Change') on CO2 levels as a proven fact is insanely irresponsible and unscientific. True, CO2 can contribute to retaining heat close to the surface of the planet, but much is wholly unknown about the CO2 cycle.
Ever hold a sea shell or coral? Ever drive on concrete or gravel? Chances are that those substances were almost completely composed of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3). Yes, that is the product of the OCEANS, the ultimate CO2 sink is in Carbonate rocks.
These rocks rain down on the the floors of the oceans and become sea floor and eventually limestone (CaCO3). That is the ultimate fate of much of the CO2.
This process has happened for the history of the earth and has nothing to do with the minuscule amounts of CO2 we have added to the atmosphere.
This is a BLANKET TAX INCREASE and it will FAIL to solve any of the energy issues because the premise of what the problem is claimed to be is false.
Deforestation of parts of Africa, Europe, and South America effect global weather patterns much more profoundly than CO2 increases.
Meteorologists have trouble predicting the weather past 7 days into the future, I find it VERY improbable that the supercomputer models have it right 50-100 years out.
But if it gets politicians short-term funding, they will pass Cap & Tax and we will lose the rest of our industrial manufacturing and become a service-jobs-only based country.
Let's face it people, Oil and Gas are NATURALLY OCCURRING SUBSTANCES, and our environment is very well equipped to absorb the reintroduced CO2 released in the combustion of these fuels back into out planetary CO2 cycle.
CO2 is not like Mercury, Chlordane, or DDT. It is one of our body's own natural byproducts! To declare it a pollutant under EPA control is very ignorant of scientific facts and is irresponsible and dangerous.
The Cart is now trying to push the horse, and Petroleum is the Horse that built this country.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, the broken windows fallacy works both ways here. Now that we know that unlimited CO2 emissions are harmful to others, it is those who burn fossil fuels who are, in effect, "breaking windows to create jobs".
Yes, it's stupid to cap CO2 emissions to "create jobs", and I wish environmentalists would, for their own good, stop using that argument.
But it's just as bad to say, "Let's f*** over the rest of the world with CO2 emissions so dinosaur industry workers can keep their jobs!"
Carbon restriction legislation doesn't merely "create jobs". Indeed, as the broken window people point out, it "merely" redirects jobs. But it redirects people from "jobs that f*** over future generations and the environment" to "jobs that don't f*** over future generations of the environment".
Not so pointless when you look at it that way, I think.
This is not to say I support the current bill. To the extent that GHG emissions are the problem, they need to be done the most economically efficient, least painful way. A simpler, easier, less painful solution would be to impose a tax or cap the level and auction permits, and then rebate money received this way to individuals in equal shares so as to offset the higher costs of goods, while retaining the incentive to cut back any activity not worth its environmental cost.
But politics allocates by political power, not reason.
Re:It'll screw us all and achieve nothing. (Score:3, Insightful)
While I don't expect a Chomsky fan to have any reasoning abilities found outside of a college sophomore with a chip on his shoulder, I'll respond anyway for other readers.
I'm just starting college, actually. I never went after high school.
1) China and Russia are laughing at us. This act will artificially drive up the price of cheap-carbon based fuel in the US, reducing US demand. Reduced US demand will lower the global price, making oil and coal MORE attractive options for the rest of the world. Their increased use will more than offset any possible reductions we could do, with this bill or any other.
Citation?
2) Folks like you are willing to spend billions of dollars and eviscerate our economy on the trillion dollar scale in a futile and arrogant attempt to turn back the clock. None from your side has ever talked about how we would deal with increased global temperatures, how we might mitigate any rising sea levels, or what the potential upsides to global warming are.
We've spent tens of trillions of dollars investing in arms and killing people for the last fifty years. Do you think that's a better investment?
3) The climate is always changing, even before we started emitting massive amounts of carbon or anything else. Go look up climate history and see that the best reconstructed information we have, in recorded human history and prior, shows the climate has been significantly warmer and significantly cooler than it is now.
So the weather changes, but burning up every drop of biomass stored in the earths crust in 150 years won't make a bit of difference, despite the fact that it's taken hundreds of millions of years to form in the first place.
The term 'global warming' lately has even been replaced with the term 'climate change.' This should tip off any prudent observer that it's all a blatant move to grab money and power. The climate is always changing, and as such, in the 'Climate Change' political environment, will always serve as a convienent excuse to expand taxes and the suffocating regulatory state.
Yes, the scientists have all banded together to RULE THE WORLD by telling us not to kill the planet and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Just like their conspiracy to deny the true fact of creation! Quick, someone call someone, and do something!
The problem isn't carbon emissions, the problem is folks like you who think they're infinately wiser than their fellow man and the free market, and see no problem with grasping all the money and power they can in order to force their good intentions on the rest of us.
The free market isn't wise. It has no self-awareness. It does not care if the human race survives, and is very poor at predicting the future or caring if we're in it.
And here's a shocker: scientists are you fellow man. So are politicians. Not every one of them is an evil person scheming to steal from you. Corporations, however, are legally required to dedicate themselves to scheming and profit. Otherwise their board is sued by the shareholders.
And don't you dare talk to me like I favor large smoke stacks bellowing thick black smoke over American cities, and dumping nasty chemicals into rivers. We solved those problems decades ago and I'm fine with that sort of regulation. Now we've got arrogant do-gooders on a mission with nothing good to do, and we'll all suffer for their hubris if not stopped.
I'll talk to you however I please. Those smokestacks have simply been moved elsewhere, and many American cities still suffer from pollution due to coal fired power plants that are not clean. Why did our jobs and the smokestacks get up and leave? Because dogmatic adherence to the free market - from people like you - led people to believe that buying cheap electronics from Asia instead of paying decent prices for American made products wouldn't hurt anybody. Take a look at any river in China or our manufacturing sector, and you'll see why I have to disagree.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:3, Insightful)
If it's soooooo impossible, then we're all doomed.
This, vs the alternate bullshit, that we are all doomed if we dont do something to "fix" the "problem."
..) and subjects of labour (natural resources and raw materials.)
I have been telling everyone that the Global Warming scare will result in a power grab for years and years. This is seizing power over all industries in one fell swoop. This allows for the targeted taxation of any industry, any region, at will. Control over the instruments of labour (tools, factories,
Yeah... i'm sure its for the good of everybody... riiiight.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:5, Insightful)
He also promised that there would be change:
He still supports not investigating the warrant-less wiretapping.
Despite having a majority in congress, Gitmo still isn't closed.
After promising all non-emergency bills would be posted to be read on the gov website, only 2 have been before he signed them and then only for 1 day in a non-searchable format.
He said that we have to bail out the automakers and not let them file bankruptcy for the good of the US, he only saved the CEOs and investors, then let them file for bankruptcy anyway.
He promised that there wouldn't be any new taxes on the middle or lower class, but most of the bills he's pushing amount to direct taxes on everyone. Cap and Trade=Fuel tax, National healthcare=tax hike for any employed American with health insurance, Raising capital gains taxes=tax hike on anyone with a 401k or IRA account.
The only thing that's changed in the whitehouse is that people stopped believing Bush's lies.
<sarcasm>At least we still have "hope"</sarcasm>
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:3, Insightful)
I realize that sounds like a sophisticated perspective, but consider another. The surest thing we can do to impoverish future generations is *impoverish ourselves*. By the same token, future generations gain by and build upon our own prosperity.
From reading some of the comments here, you'd never guess that our environment is in far better shape than it was 15 years ago, and it was in better shape then than the 15 years prior, etc. Almost every single enviromental indice is improving, and has been for a long time.
Note that this applies mainly to developed countries. But then, people who have been following the issues understand that developed countries is where environmental progress is made. We're the ones who have the time and resources to devote to environmental protection. This suggests that development is a good thing.
- AJ
PS I don't pretend to know whether all the above is correct or not. Too many variables!
Stupidity at it's worst (Score:3, Insightful)
Raising eveyones utility bills 40%+over the next 5 years will turn the recession into a depression. Have fun y'all.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:3, Insightful)
"You don't purposefully pollute your environment because it's doomed anyway."
Fine. Assuming you live in the U.S. just don't come crying to me when you are living in a country which is completely bankrupt, where there are NO jobs, and where if you don't get foreign aid shipments from China you starve. Oh and by the way climate change will continue unabated while you are broke and starving. I am 100% behimd cap and trade. as long as you slap tarrifs on imports from China and India until they adopt it too. Simple solution, problem solved.
The U.S. is heading for third world status because we simply can't continue to drive all our jobs offshore, whether they be manufacturing or IT, import everything we consume through Walmart and run one and two trillion dollar current account deficits every year. Only reason we've gotten away with it this long is the dollar is still the world's reserve currency. If it weren't for that we would be borrowing money from the IMF to stay afloat like every other bankrupt country in the world. Due to our economic fiasco of the last year its unlikely the dollar will stay the reserve currency much longer. If the rest of the world dumps the dollar, or dollar hyperinflation sets in, you will be living in a bankrupt country.
If you can't put food on the table your priority on environmentalism will change fast, trust me. I tend to lean somewhat to pro environmentalism but my dad was born in the depression and knows what its like to starve. He hates environmentalists because to him most of them are spoiled rotten, don't work for a living and are living off the wealth their ancestors generated for them. None of them have ever had to live through really hard times. Environmentalists kill jobs and companies to save the environment with total disregard of the economic consequences. They can get away with it only because they are living off the vast wealth their ancestors created for them during the U.S. industrial boom when it polluted with abandon. That wealth is disappearing fast. When its gone all the environmentalists are in for a rude awakening when their bank accounts are empty, they have no jobs or a way to make money, and no food on the table. I hope they can survive in a barter economy. If you are an environmentalist living in a city... good luck.
We live in a globally competitive world, like it or not. The U.S. has, across a range of economic issues, committed unilateral economic disarmament, this is just another instance. We threw our markets wide open to free trade, but look the other way while China, India, Japan and Korea erect massive barriers to U.S. companies and imports. The Chinese manipulate their currency to insure we aren't competitive. When we took all the trade barriers down it became nearly impossible for U.S. workers to compete against Chinese workers making $100 a month, with no health insurance, no workmans'comp, in factories with no OSHA or EPA. Cap and trade is just the next step in economic capitulation to China and India.
Environmental protection is important, China pays a steep price for its life threatening pollution. A lot of the pollution in the U.S. in the 20th century was pure stupidity in the long run but greedy people trying to make a buck will do it, now its just the Chinese doing it instead of us.
About all I'm saying is the U.S. needs to refrain from further destroying its economy to try save the world, while China and India destroy it anyway and break us economically while they do it.
The only good solution here is to sink money in to a Manhattan project to develop a clean, cheap and abundant energy source like fusion. Our current approaches to green energy, relying on impractical initiatives like Ethanol, wind, solar and electric cars, and tax everything else to make them competitive just really isn't very smart. I hope cap and trade forces development of practical clean energy sources, but its not a given due to the stupidity of this country and especially our government sometimes. Somehow our g
Re:Gas (Score:4, Insightful)
And since this will impact EVERYTHING, including necessities like food and heating/cooling costs, that will drive down the ability for lower income people to purchase things like cars, movie tickets, etc., further forcing the economy down into a hell hole just so Congress can get some slush funds.
Notice how now one has specified yet that the MONEY resulting from this bill has no dedicated purpose?? Congress will be free to direct it wherever they want. And the only jobs created will be those like Wall Street brokers, buying and selling no product and contributing nothing to the GDP. (This isn't a slam on Wall Street brokers, but moving money from one place to another doesn't improve the economy, creating a real product does.) It's like trying to fill up a pool by taking water from the deep end and pouring it in the shallow end.
The good news is that in two to four years of this, the country can revolt, kick all the Democrats out, and we can then repeal the bill before too much damage is done.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gas (Score:2, Insightful)
If the cost of transportation goes up I expect the rents of the houses that require longer commutes to drop. As long as it's cheap to drive long distances there's no major disadvantage to being far away from the city and no big decrease in demand.
Re:Cap & Trade = Energy Rationing (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes I'm 100% against a one nation cap and trade system. It isn't going to save the climate, its just a government scheme designed to make some expensive methods of energy production competitive when they really aren't. Chances are high China will just keep using the cheap method, burning coal and since they manufacture everything now anyway, what America does is increasingly irrelevant. Maybe there will be a modest reduction of coal fired power plants in the U.S. but China will more than offset that.
The surest way to reduce green house emissions in the U.S. is to just finish destroying the U.S. economy. It wont take much effort, there really isn't much left of it once you get outside of federal spending. When there are no factories, no computers, we are all unemployed and too broke to buy anything, drive or pay the utility bills our green house gas production will dramatically fall. The current recession/depression is already significantly reducing our fossil fuel consumption. Just look on it as a preview of greater things to come.