Majority US voters accept the need for climate action

reply to post by melatonin

Selling permits brings in cash, this cash is used to offset increases in energy costs. Those at the lowest levels of income (lowest quartile, IIRC) will be offset to the point that their net outlay due to C&T will be negative (cf. baseline).

They still have energy bills, no freebies. It's just an assessment of how after compares to before. Eventually energy companies will be pushed to, firstly, be more efficient and, secondly, to move to better cleaner sources of energy. Same for us as consumers, if those in the quartiles that attract an increase in outlay per year don't appreciate the outcome, being more efficient and reducing energy would be the rational response.

Or not.

What does “god” (NASA’s Jim Hansen, AGW’s ‘creator’) have to say about this? Let us pray:

NASA's Hansen: Obama's Cap-and-Trade Bill 'Less Than Worthless'

Some leaders of big environmental organizations have said I'm naïve to posit an alternative to cap-and-trade, and have suggested I stick to climate modeling. Let's pass a bill, any bill, now and improve it later, they say. The real naïveté is their belief that they, and not the fossil-fuel interests, are driving the legislative process.
The fact is that the climate course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course. Their bill is an astoundingly inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions. It's less than worthless, because it will delay by at least a decade starting on a path that is fundamentally sound from the standpoints of both economics and climate preservation.

www.huffingtonpost.com..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow"> www.huffingtonpost.com...

Say it ain’t so, Jim! We’ve got Copenhagen and Obama to save us, right?

The fraudulence of the Copenhagen approach – “goals” for emission reductions, “offsets” that render even iron-clad goals almost meaningless, an ineffectual “cap-and-trade” mechanism – must be exposed. We must rebel against such politics-as-usual.
…
Governments going to Copenhagen claim to have such goals for 2050, which they will
achieve with the “cap-and-trade” mechanism. They are lying through their teeth.

www.columbia.edu...[url]

You can’t be serious, Jim. Isn’t “:carbon trading” or “cap and trade” the best possible solution?

Cap and trade with offsets, in contrast, is astoundingly ineffective. Global emissions rose rapidly in response to Kyoto, as expected, because fossil fuels remained the cheapest energy.
Cap and trade is an inefficient compromise, paying off numerous special interests

[url] www.guardian.co.uk..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow"> www.columbia.edu...[url]

You can’t be serious, Jim. Isn’t “:carbon trading” or “cap and trade” the best possible solution?

Cap and trade with offsets, in contrast, is astoundingly ineffective. Global emissions rose rapidly in response to Kyoto, as expected, because fossil fuels remained the cheapest energy.
Cap and trade is an inefficient compromise, paying off numerous special interests

[url] www.guardian.co.uk...

Now wait a minute Jim. How can we not consider cap and trade; it’s the best possible approach, our leaders tell us?

Other characteristics of the ‘cap’ approach: (1) unpredictable price volatility, (2) it makes millionaires on Wall Street and other trading floors at public expense, (3) it is an invitation to blackmail by utilities that threaten ‘blackout coming’ to gain increased emission permits, (4) it has overhead costs and complexities, inviting lobbyists and delaying implementation.
The biggest problem with [cap and trade] is that it will not solve the problem.
www.columbia.edu..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow"> www.columbia.edu...

But we “know” cap and trade works because of SO2 reduction, don’t we?
www.nytimes.com..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow"> www.nytimes.com...

Supporters of cap and trade point to the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments that capped sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal-burning power plants — the main pollutants in acid rain — at levels below what they were in 1980. This legislation allowed power plants that reduced emissions to levels below the cap to sell the credit for these excess reductions to other utilities whose emissions were too high, thus giving plant owners a financial incentive to cut back their pollution. Sulfur emissions have been reduced by 43 percent in the two decades since. Great success? Hardly.
Because cap and trade is enforced through the selling and trading of permits, it actually perpetuates the pollution it is supposed to eliminate. If every polluter’s emissions fell below the incrementally lowered cap, then the price of pollution credits would collapse and the economic rationale to keep reducing pollution would disappear.

Ooops.

jw

Interesting, almost a form of self-echolalia going on there.

A while back and a number of posts ago...

Originally posted by melatonin
On the surface, appears the better approach cf. straight tax, as the tax does nothing to force reductions in total emissions....Others disagree. Hansen prefers a straight tax.

Cheers.

Two new US polls this week. I'm a tad surprised but shows how deniers have all but jumped the shark.

WaPo/ABC poll: 65% support regulation. Even at $25 cost per month, 55% support action.

AP/Stanford: 52% support 'doing a great deal' about global warming and another 23% support doing 'some'.

Enjoy.

Repeated lies do work don't they?

I wonder what these people would say if they knew about the Volcanos under the Arctic Ocean.

Fire Under Arctic Ice: Volcanoes Have Been Blowing Their Tops In The Deep Ocean
ScienceDaily (June 26, 2008) — A research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has uncovered evidence of explosive volcanic eruptions deep beneath the ice-covered surface of the Arctic Ocean. Such violent eruptions of splintered, fragmented rock--known as pyroclastic deposits -- were not thought possible at great ocean depths because of the intense weight and pressure of water and because of the composition of seafloor magma and rock.

Researchers found jagged, glassy rock fragments spread out over a 10 square kilometer (4 square mile) area around a series of small volcanic craters about 4,000 meters (2.5 miles) below the sea surface. The volcanoes lie along the Gakkel Ridge, a remote and mostly unexplored section of the mid-ocean ridge system that runs through the Arctic Ocean.

"These are the first pyroclastic deposits we've ever found in such deep water, at oppressive pressures that inhibit the formation of steam, and many people thought this was not possible," said WHOI geophysicist Rob Reves-Sohn, lead author and chief scientist for the Arctic Gakkel Vents Expedition (AGAVE) of July 2007. "This means that a tremendous blast of CO2 was released into the water column during the explosive eruption."

www.sciencedaily.com...

Considering we release twice as much CO2 as is required to account for the yearly increases in the atmosphere, the CO2 from a random sea floor volcano is not really that important.

The CO2 thing is a farce, but it does help to explain any ice melting at the poles.
There is also a continuously alive Volcano in Antarctica, namely Mount Erebus.

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
reply to post by melatonin

 

Here here. This time I wont argue against AGW at all, I promise. For this one and only thread I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and say that Ala Gore is right. While I dont concur, I've been dying to hear what exactly you propose be done about the carbon boogie man? Although I do love how you're appealing to public consensus, you might want to chime in on the deconstructed consensus thread.

What to do about this?

Global government? End all nations, in practice, not rhetoric?

Global tax? How much?

Neighborhood snitch progams, and cameras everywhere like in London, to ensure people don't enviro-sin? Should we be able to ever NOT be on camera or in the scope of other surveillance technologies? Should government agents be allowed to 'sneak & peak' into our homes to make sure we're all enviro-tidy? Should energy be rationed, and if you hit too many KW's the meter cuts you off?

How much human life is it worth to curb CO2? The developing world NEEDS cheap energy to industrialize and climb out of mosquito mud hut obscurity. How many millions need to die every year via energy scarcity?

How much do we need to tax beef? In every day terms, say how much should an everyday 'burger' cost? $15? $25? $100? Beef rib-eye, boneless, steak, 12ounce, for $1200 ($100 per ounce)? Should we even have the right to raise our own cow and then steakify it? The right to eat meat period? Or should the government choose and ration us all our meals like they used to in the Soviet Union? Since the cows fart so much, shouldnt they be exterminated immediately?

Should the industrialized world deindustrialize, like Detroit? Shouldn't you stop using your computer?

Should we have brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins? (i.e. one child policy)

Since humans are the earths greatest threat, how many people should be exterminated right away?

There's no time to not act.

Cmon Mel, answer up! I started an entire thread of this form and you've been dodging that too. You're the loudest and staunchest Alarmist around, therefore answering these types of questions should damn near be mandatory. Or are you really some sort of Stalinist?