Doug Posted June 30, 2009 Posted June 30, 2009 After being away from the interwebs for a few days, one of the political footballs I expected to see tossed around in spray was the energy bill. What's everyone think? Are we doomed? Or won't it matter because the world is ending in 2012? Quote
j_b Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 It's too little too late to avoid some of the catastrophic aspects of climate change (corresponding to a temp. increase much greater than 2degC): - There is little 'cap' and it is mostly 'trade'. Polluters will be able to trade their emissions or buy offsets via obscure schemes in developping nations - no reduction in GHG emissions relative to 1990 (the IPCC reference) until ~2025 - EPA is stripped of its autority to regulate emissions - Trading of carbon credits is modeled after the subprime trading market - goals in renewable are under what would be achieved with current market dynamics - loads of dough for oxymoronic "clean coal" Quote
j_b Posted July 10, 2009 Posted July 10, 2009 G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change by Dr James Hansen Jim Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, but he writes on this policy-related topic as a private citizen. It didn't take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama's agenda. As the president was arriving in Italy for his first Group of Eight summit, the New York Times was reporting that efforts to close ranks on global warming between the G-8 and the emerging economies had already tanked: The world's major industrial nations and emerging powers failed to agree Wednesday on significant cuts in heat-trapping gases by 2050, unraveling an effort to build a global consensus to fight climate change, according to people following the talks. ... For all its "green" aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like "cap-and-trade" scheme. Here are a few of the bill's egregious flaws: It guts the Clean Air Act, removing EPA's ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants. It sets meager targets -- 2020 emissions are to be a paltry 13% less than this year's level -- and sabotages even these by permitting fictitious "offsets," by which other nations are paid to preserve forests - while logging and food production will simply move elsewhere to meet market demand. Its cap-and-trade system, reports former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro, "has no provisions to prevent insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives." It fails to set predictable prices for carbon, without which, Shapiro notes, "businesses and households won't be able to calculate whether developing and using less carbon-intensive energy and technologies makes economic sense," thus ensuring that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short. more: counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey Quote
KaskadskyjKozak Posted July 10, 2009 Posted July 10, 2009 G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change by Dr James Hansen Jim Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, but he writes on this policy-related topic as a private citizen. It didn't take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama's agenda. As the president was arriving in Italy for his first Group of Eight summit, the New York Times was reporting that efforts to close ranks on global warming between the G-8 and the emerging economies had already tanked: The world's major industrial nations and emerging powers failed to agree Wednesday on significant cuts in heat-trapping gases by 2050, unraveling an effort to build a global consensus to fight climate change, according to people following the talks. ... For all its "green" aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like "cap-and-trade" scheme. Here are a few of the bill's egregious flaws: It guts the Clean Air Act, removing EPA's ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants. It sets meager targets -- 2020 emissions are to be a paltry 13% less than this year's level -- and sabotages even these by permitting fictitious "offsets," by which other nations are paid to preserve forests - while logging and food production will simply move elsewhere to meet market demand. Its cap-and-trade system, reports former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro, "has no provisions to prevent insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives." It fails to set predictable prices for carbon, without which, Shapiro notes, "businesses and households won't be able to calculate whether developing and using less carbon-intensive energy and technologies makes economic sense," thus ensuring that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short. more: counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey Hey, look, more fear-mongering! Quote
j_b Posted July 10, 2009 Posted July 10, 2009 Did you expect an answer? I mean, besides the commie/debtor/puke/etc standard fare? Quote
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