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US House May Pass "Cap & Trade" Bill
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.
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.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090626/ap_on_bi_ge/us_climate_q_a
I couldn't get the link to work in the main story so here it is via Yahoo!.
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.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Now, if only good intentions could justify the violation of individual rights, then they would have an argument.
swap smokestacks for windmills and solar panels
What kind of poetic nonfactual drivel is this? Is the Associated Press a news organisation for reporters, or a bunch of people describing their hopes and dreams?
The bill will NOT "swap smokestacks for windmills and solar panels". It is nonfactual.
The problem of too much cheap electricity is about to be solved.
Only if "Yes" answers all of those should we be doing this, especially now.
On the market side of things, it creates a market and industry based on pollution - carbon as a profit center is a bad, bad, idea. What business person wants lower profit, and by extension, lower carbon emissions? Under what extraordinary circumstances do you foresee greed taking a second seat to reason and logic?
Hope is the currency of fools
Sure it doesn't actually produce any energy, but it doesn't produce any CO2 either!
Now to sit back, get my pollution permits, resell them and profit!
So Al Gore can fly a jet. This isn't about polluting less it's about YOU polluting less so some rich asshole can pollute more.
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.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Why not call it what it is? A tax increase for the entire nation based on how much energy you use. The EPA finally released a censored study last night that pointed out how much the EPA has been ignoring the real science of the matter. The EPA's 'endangerment' study was completely politicized. One of the e-mails from a superior to the employee who had worked at the EPA for 35 years and wanted the study released: "The time for such discussion of fundamental issues has passed for this round. The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision... I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office." Look it up, you'll be disgusted as I am after hearing how many times people have said "The science is settled" to try and pass this extra tax.
For instance, it will be very tough for coal plants to reduce emissions at the outset of the program because the technology to capture and store carbon dioxide is not yet commercially available. It probably is 10 to 20 years away. So they will be buying offsets and buying allowances from other entities that will have an easier time
Lets write laws now because the technology might be there in the future!
This is brilliant, I can't find any flaws in this logic at all!
"ending the country's love affair with big gas-guzzling cars and its insatiable appetite for cheap electricity"
This won't happen.
What will happen is special interests will line their pockets with misappropriated (stolen) money while you lose some of your freedom of choice.
The world will not be cleaner, nor a better place. People will be poorer. Those who currently totter on the poverty line will fall well beneath it. A poor people are a dirty people.
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
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
The only good that could come from this bill is a national revolution. Hopefully that becomes the case if it passes. Hopefully it just doesn't.
According to Wall Street Journal, at least, the "Cap & Trade" law will constitute the biggest tax in US history...
The sad part is, even after the human-caused "global warming" proves to be either grossly overstated or completely bogus, the tax will stay on for decades — just like all other taxes have...
Global warming advocates don't bother with proofs, burdening the skeptics (branded "deniers") with that instead. They only adjust their PR-campaigning, such as switching to the term "climate change", when the actual weather changes from hotter to colder such as over the past two years. Indeed, as Che Guevarra repeats from millions of their T-shirts:
("Flamebait" my capitalist behind.)
But, hey, if the true goal is destruction of Capitalism, one should not bother with too much honesty — it only slows down the fall of the hated civilization.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
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.
Cap & Trade won't swap smokestacks for windmills. Instead, it will just push energy costs through the roof and push most manufacturing jobs that are left overseas where there are no pollution controls at all. For anyone who is left here, all of these costs will be pushed right on to the consumer, as no business can afford to absorb this massive tax increase, nor should they be expected to absorb it even if they could.
It won't push people into smaller cars. Americans spend too much time in our cars to drive around in a micro car. Not all of us live in big cities with public transportation and easy access to stores. The Smart Fortwo couldn't even fit a one week load of groceries for the average American family. We have states that are larger than entire countries in other parts of the world - what works for them doesn't work for us.
All of this for reducing Carbon Dioxide - which is not proven to be a pollutant, and for reducing global warming - even when there is no proof that human activities are impacting climate.
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, as interviewed almost a year ago. So, hold on to your wallet, change is coming...
While they are promising stuff that will never happen, I want my flying car and monkeyman!
So far all I've read in this thread are posters decrying this as a massive tax grab. That's a limited perspective, to say the least.
Yeah, mod me down as a paranoid troll, but we're already passed Peak Oil.
For those who don't understand what Peak Oil is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
Basically, it's what is IMO a fact, that oil production/extraction will peak at a certain level (X number of barrels per day) and then begin an inexorable decline. Whether or not this output is replaced by alternative energy remains to be seen.
Nonetheless, most people don't understand how much energy we get from oil. Oil is the densest, easiest to transport, and most reliable energy source available. Once it's gone, alternatives will fall short of those standards:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3084
The total oil production volume amounted to a cubic mile (not a type) of oil per year. To equal this, it would take 104 coal fired plants running for 50 years, 52 nuclear plants running for 50 years, 32, 800 wind turbines running for 50 years.... you get the picture.
So when oil production starts winding down, we'll be hard-pressed to replace that output. The only way we can aspire to coming close to equaling that output is through energy consumption and more efficient use of energy. So far, the government's record on this is pathetic, and the private sector has had, at best, limited results.
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What a horrible, poorly-thought out idea this stupid bill represents. Getting to a cleaner method of energy production? YES. Doing it this way? NO. Obama voters -- sorry yet?
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
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.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
WTF?!? That's exactly what almost ALL laws do. I'm so sick of hearing, "We can't Legislate Morality." That's bull-shit. We do it all the fucking time.
Over-the-top Response Guy! Giving "Over-the-Top Responses" since 1970.
You All are so silly and a bunch of alarmist.
Don't you know that the laws of nature, and economics don't apply to the Democratic party...
As I understand it, Nancy Pelosi has a direct connection with a bunch of MaGiCaL Faries that can change the very laws governing nature and economics...
So don't be afraid, with a little pixie dust, and ALOT of Kool-Aid, you will be just fine...
I see no clear evidence that a forced move to ethanol, windmills, solar or whatever will be cleaner or even more carbon neutral than the hydros we have now by the time they scale them up from the joke stage they are now. And papal dispensations to polluters from scumbag congressmen don't sound like a formula for success in any endeavor. I think Washington is near perfect at turning progressive good will into shit.
This will be the largest tax increase in United States history. The House Dems are rushing this bill through without even reading the bill. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html
Its about time polluters and persons leading dangerous lifestyles were charged for their wanton waste for which the rest of us and the world community has been directly paying for thru decreased health, happiness, and resource access.
Americans are learning that they havn't the right to use up every last drop of oil and atmosphere just to power McMansions and air condition football stadiums. With a slight imagination I think we can all dream of a few more lofty goals.
Lord, protect me from those who would do me good.
IHey Democrats - suck my turbocharged tail pipe.
Barney Frank pays good money for that sort of thing.
My current sig is a play on somebody else's from about 8 years ago, when Bush was dealing with Clinton-era recession (NASDAQ did halve in 2000, remember?) A very prolific poster claimed to know about Bush only that he had a job, when Clinton was president...
Oh, no, not from "every nook and cranny" — the Democratic nooks and crannies are the primary culprits, forcing the government (Fannie and Freddie) to extend credit to people, who should not be buying real estate at all, and thus creating a bubble for the rest of us. And they are at it again...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
When asked about the possibility of "Cap and Trade Bill", he said "Sure - this way, Bill won't come back and take my job away from me like all the whiners are chanting. So, what do you think we can get in trade for Gates?"
Britain also taxes the hell out of gasoline, and they use a tiny fraction of the average American. Consumption taxes can be fair, logical, and effective. I know reducing consumption is anti-American, but tough shit.
The EU emission trading scheme is pretty much identical to this and its been in action since 2005. Our economy hasn't exactly collapsed (well, not due to the ETS anyway).
And it won't exactly be putting you on an uneven footing, it will be far less then the standards EU countries are enforcing upon themselves, Canada and Australia are attempting to introducing similar schemes and are at a similar legislative stage to the US. So its more moving in line with the entire Western world, because we have a _responsibilty_ to clean up our own mess, its not fair to create a problem then say its not our responsibility.
Equally those complaining about rising energy costs are missing the point, that's what the "cap" part of cap and trade is supposed to do, the "trade" part alleviates that by allowing permits to be gathered by those who really need to pollute.
Externalities are a known problem with free markets, its in the individuals interests to push as much of their obligations on to everyone else. In this case pollution and the global problems that causes. It's societies role to make sure people don't do that.
Responsibility is an integral part of liberty.
Obama promised that taxes would not go up for 95% of Americans.
Congratulations. You are no longer an American, but a Citizen Of The World (tm).
Here's you new tax bill.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Complete the following sentence: The USA needs 25% of the world's energy because...?
No sig today...
The cap is on emissions, not energy production. Feel free to go hog wild on fission
Uranium reactor waste is an emission, one that the "ter'rists" can use against us.
wind, wave, solar, geothermal
Forms of electricity that can't be generated at all places and all times need a smarter grid to get power from producers to consumers. And putting generators and grid upgrades into place take emissions.
The fact is few alternative energies, with the exception of nuclear, have the energy density found in fossil fuels. Therefore they cannot power the world.
Lets suppose for the moment that wind power is enough to power the world. This would present new environmental problems of its own. Why? Because you are taking energy out of the weather systems, and disrupting weather patterns utilizing a massive wind energy harvesting system. Think how much energy is produced by burning fossil fuels... As a result, wind energy will drastically increase global warming.
Once Dams was the proposed solution to the U.S.'s energy crunch. Unfortunately, it devastated fish populations, and change the environment dramatically. Now, we are removing the dams we once made to reverse the effects.
The use of ethanol on a national scale would collapse the water tables, and use up most land that currently goes towards other farm goods. In essence, the ethanol program would starve, and ruin peoples water supply.
There is a lot of hype and Kool-Aid being floated about by people who think they know everything, and the beliefs are being re-enforced by like minded individuals. But a lie is a lie, no matter how often you repeat it, it still remains fundamentally untrue...
Yeah, well, hopefully you don't expect people to understand what you are riffing on (because it is pretty obscure).
Anyway, low quality mortgages were only 10 or 15 percent of the overall mortgage market:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis#Mortgage_market
So it seems tough to blame them for everything. Irrational behavior certainly seems to be a significant contributor (having just read Irrational Exuberance by Shiller (I read the first edition, apparently the second edition, written in 2004, predicts the real estate crisis), I would tend to blame everybody who bought a house in the last decade for the bubble, not just the people who you say should not have been given credit).
And you can go ahead and pretend that the 1999 gutting of Glass-Steagall had no effect, and that the gutless SEC operated by Bush had no effect, but reality that does not make.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
As for what starving has to do with energy... uhh, you realize it takes energy to grow and distribute that food, right?
I wouldn't be surprised if growing corn, soy, wheat, or other food crops has a net negative carbon dioxide emission because plant photosynthesis consumes carbon dioxide. Meat, on the other hand...
Cap and Tax is a very good idea. The major issue with emissions is that it's a tragedy of the commons game on a global scale. And there are really only two ways to try to handle the problem if you want to see a real change in the emissions, as there are strong economic reasons to increase them:
1: You create specific laws, limiting specific types of emissions. Typical example is a maximum emission limit on cars or making SUV's illegal.
2: You place a tax on emissions themselves, then let the market sort out where it makes most economic sense to limit the emissions. If your car emits 3 times as much as other cars you get to pay for it, but the government doesn't tell you you can't own the car.
For some reason there seems to be a strong resistance against letting the market sort out where to save the money. I guess it's because it's more visible than having the car producers spend more money engineering how the car works. And just spewing out the waste is always going to be more expensive than limiting it to sane levels or even taking care of it.
I wonder how many here consider it a good idea to dump As, Pb and Hg in the local rivers to enhance the industrial productivity... After all, not having to take care of heavy metals is one of the large advantages the Chinese industry (traditionally) has over the American. And it saves them billions each year...
some of the increase will be in natural gas usage, but that will drive the price of natural gas upward too. The cost of installing and maintaining solar or wind won't increase. Though it's true there may be more demand for solar and wind infrastructure (cells, turbines), but even in spite of that one-time cost I suspect that the end result is that relative to the cost of generating electricity from coal and natural gas, renewable energy will get cheaper.
End result:
1a. Higher electricity prices for us.
1b. Less electricity consumption by us.
2. Less carbon emission and air pollution for us.
I'll take that trade. Before anyone objects to (1b), yes there is demand elasticity in electricity consumption. Anybody who's had a dad tell him or her to turn the damn lights off when you leave the room knows that. Anybody who's installed a more efficient light bulb, refrigerator, air conditioner, or swamp cooler knows that too.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Observation: It started happening when gas hit $4....if gas prices hadn't fallen who knows what would happen to the gas guzzlers of the world.
No sig today...
Real scientists, if you have not yet done so, please sign the Global Warming Petition Project. It's not a web based petition so you'll have to actually sign it and send it in.
Cap and trade will result in much, much higher costs for fuel, electricity and natural gas. Add this the to the current Obama budget debacle (disaster). The economy is self correcting and this is solidified by the fact that, despite Obama absolutely destroying consumer confidence, the economic downturn is bottoming out without spending much stimulus (porkulous) money. Furthermore expanding government spending at an alarming rate will result in more taxes, further reducing the value of the dollar, hurting markets and will cause inflation to steadily creep up. This administration has had a dismal start and has surpassed the previous four terms as far as cronyism, corruption, bad fiscal policy and with a desire to gut the constitution.
Some critics of the previous two terms claim the constitution took a beating. You have not seen anything yet.
Cap and trade = higher costs for just about everything and more taxes.
More cost/taxes = YOU and I have to work more to make up for the increase.
Having to work more = forced labor and less time to do with as we please.
Not spending as much time as we please = loss of freedom.
"CHAINS WE CAN BELIEVE IN"
But there is HOPE for CHANGE in 2012. I hope it is not too late.
A proposed amendment to the Cap and Trade Tax sought to provide a safety valve in case it goes horribly awry and trashes the economy. It stipulated that if gasoline reached $5 a gallon or unemployment hit 15%, the tax would go away. Sponsors of the bill basically argued that destroying the economy was not a bug but a feature, and rejected this.
If you think the current recession is bad, it's going to get a lot worse if this tax becomes law.
Actually, it is not. The low quality mortgages pushed up the prices of all houses, because, suddenly, there were 10-15% fewer houses on the market — that's a huge figure, actually, and caused a great distortion. Our Capitalist system is very efficient, and it proceeded to address the imbalance between the supply and demand. It just was not prepared for the demand to be artificially exaggerated by the government's meddling...
It did have an effect, making the markets more efficient — a good thing, generally. Blaming these measures is like blaming a better engine for a car's crashing into log on the highway. Yes, if it was going slower, the crash would not have been as devastating, but the problem is the log thrown across the pavement by the Democratic meddlers — not the technical improvements...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
There are valid arguments on all sides of this issue, whether you are inclined to be a "red team" fan or "blue team" fan, or you're on the fence or in the closet in purple. But remember, no one has a crystal ball, and even if there is only ONE correct legislative approach, the likelihood is we'll find it in hindsight. Meanwhile, here on earth, the congress and the senate must articulate law. Its just a guess, the chances of it being the perfect policy is like winning super lotto. Its not dogma, or holy scripture, its a game plan, and we can expect that its going to take a lot of adjustment. That being said, perhaps we should stop bickering about the obvious shortcomings we can find in ANY idea, no matter what it is, and instead attempt to get as much mileage as possible from our cooperation. We can sit around and piss and moan about the evil "other" ideologues that we hate and like to kick and spit at, or we can get a clue, stop wasting time and focus on accomplishing SOMETHING. The fact is that we need to take action and we need to agree on a beginning. Lets try to approach this with fairness and flexibility because reality will interfere with our results, no matter how well we define our policy. I believe we can actually get more done if we cooperate, and remain willing to confront stale legislation and ineffective policy without clobbering each other. No matter how much I disagree with "the other team" I am certain that we will all benefit from a new energy policy. Lets be realistic, and begin as best that we can, and then remain willing to tweak and adjust and renegotiate as needed over time. Instead of making law a stone carving, lets be nimble and quick and build in a lot of wiggle room so that everyone's concerns can be considered as the policy evolves, and nobody gets railroaded by a policy that is too rigid to adapt to reality and becomes an absurdity. Our laws feel like a last will and testament, when they should be like a football offensive game plan. No matter what we agree to do, we'll need to make adjustments along the way. Lets find some moderation and common ground and stop bickering in circles. Not everything needs to be a competition with winners and losers. We need to live by the golden rule in this process or else we're going to be heading into a civil war again. Human nature is a bitch, and we gotta try to muzzle it once in a while. Statesmen need to be leaders, and not just cheerleaders, and lets stop with all of the unnecessary roughness and other personal fouls. Koom by ya
They told me that if I voted for McCain, science would continue to be subverted in favor of religion and political expediency. And they were right!
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
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.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Europe and Japan have had economic limits on energy consumption for decades. The result: they use their energy substantially more efficiently than we do. Japan specifically has had a long term concern about becoming too dependent on foreign energy production, since they have limited domestic energy production. They have used numerous levers of power to ensure that Japanese citizens and corporations use their energy efficiently. These policies have resulted in both high energy use efficiency AND substantial economic growth.
Is it good for the economy to allow energy to flow freely out of our homes due to poor insulation?
Is it good for the economy to drive obscenly large trucks/SUV's who's usual purpose is to move a single person?
Is it good for the economy to continue to contribute greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere, with the likely result of increasing drought in our food production areas? (google California drought...California produces the majority of our food).
Imagine a hypothetical city who in their great wisdom install a huge torch in the centre of their city. The torch serves no other purpose than to amuse the inhabitants. The torch is so big that it consumes as much energy as all the cars and all the buildings in the city. How is such a wasteful monstrosity any different than allowing heat to escape from poorly insulated homes or from driving wasteful and inefficient cars. How is such waste good for the economy?
Those who make the simplistic argument that reduced energy consumption must result in economic decline are guilty of the same simplistic thinking that caused our current economic problems. Remember when we were told to borrow as much as we could, that borrowing would allow the economy to grow forever? Those people were wrong, because their thinking had little nuance, little attachment to history or the real world. Those who pronounce that energy conservation is bad should look outside our country to other countries that have already implemented the proposed policies. They should look at reality, instead of making up their own reality.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
I am glad that after all these years, the tradition of posters on slashdot not reading the article continues. :-)
Even if global warming is completely bogus, I for one will gladly pay 50c a day if it means:
Fewer people dieing from black lung disease.
Cleaner air.
Not having to invade countries for their natural resources.
Funding for new technology based solutions to our energy supply.
And finally, for those that claim cap and trades is the end of capitalism, pricing of public goods is one of the corner stones of capitalism.
While I know the /. community hates anything that will make their power hungry habits more expensive, but quite frankly this sort of bill is great news for us. The United States has done a horrible job at implementing sane growth policies. We've out sprawled, out consumed, while neglecting design lessons learned during times when energy was more expensive. During the middle ages, cities were dense because energy was expensive. Development took place along natural trade routes, such as water ways, because it was too expensive energy wise to move things over land. Society developed in conjunction with energy that could largely be sustained, and when it didn't and over farmed, deforested, and depleted their water supply society collapsed.
For the past 100 years or so, we've been living high on the hog from new sources of energy we learned to exploit, with very little view to the long term consequences. Since we have the ability to anticipate problems, it falls to those social institutions best suited to direct the course of our society's development to prevent its eventual collapse. By paying a higher price now, we can defer the collapse of our civilization by several centuries. For those of us with kids, ardent transhumanists, or just a little more altruistic than selfish, this is a desirable goal.
Does this mean that society will have to change? Yes, but society has been changing faster and faster as technology advances. So rather than burning ancient marine life, we'll charge our hyper-sexy full electric cars with waste heat from the sun. Booo hooo. Will suburban shopping malls disappear? One can only hope!
The society of our future looks much more like the society of the 18th century, only with clean water, medicine, computers, plenty of food, and increasingly high levels of affluence globally. Most of us will return to living in small towns and villages, and the mega-cities will grow upwards (like Edinburgh did) not outwards. Most of us will live in walking distance of everything we need, including parks, wildlife, and recreation areas.
Also with having to make everything energy efficient, changes in technology mean huge work for all of us engineers. Huge money making opportunites will arise when the Feds start taxing waste. Construction will boom, durable goods spending will flourish, and any geek with half a brain will figure out how to "green" some old clunky tech and make a buck.
So quit your bitching... our green future is bright and profitable. Maybe with the higher energy costs, our server farms won't require air-conditioning to operate, and could just be shoved in a closet. Higher commuting costs mean telecommuting becomes even more attractive. As someone who has telecommuted for the past 6 years, let me tell you that's a very good thing.
The US has just one-upped China in this race to stupidity by passing "Cap and Trade"!
What's next? Will the Chinese out-stupid America by NOT knowing how to tie their shoes?
Unfortunately I live in an area where much of our power is generated by petroleum, of all things, so I'm almost certainly screwed. Even with the entire house equipped with CFLs, and careful usage of electricity I still spend nearly twice what friends in some other states spend on electricity. There are things I'd like to do to lower my electricity bill, but I don't have the money to spend without very careful planning.
And it's not just this garbage we need to contend with. Bear in mind that state and federal government is looking to suck us dry in many other ways. I'm facing the prospect of my city raising property tax by a substantial amount this summer. Taxes are already high here but the city is incapable of managing its finances. But then I'm convinced government sees citizens as an endless source of income.
Without a doubt, the prospect of all this is very concerning. It would certainly put a strain on my finances. Perhaps it will make me eligible for some kind of government bailout.
The irony is that temperatures in this area have been colder than normal for a few years now, and so far the difference has been quite pronounced this year. It's been a good 10 degrees below normal since the end of winter.
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.
"I know that every word that man just said is true, because it's EXACTLY what I wanted to hear." -- Space Ghost
Complete the following sentence: The USA needs 25% of the world's energy because...?
...the GDP of the United States (13.84 trillion USD) is close to one-fourth of the world's GDP (54.62 trillion USD).
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.
Got Code?
This will decimate manifacturing in this country (yes, there is still a lot of it). Jobs will be shipped overseas.
Good job Congress.
You better hope temperatures actually increase. Otherwise, people will be wondering why jobs were destroyed for no good reason.
Expect a huge increase in global warming skepticism.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
First: the fundamental problem: We live in a global economy. This will absolutely increase the cost of domestically produced carbon-intensive goods relative to foreign produced carbon intensive goods from countries that are not affected by the program (unless we implement an import tariff to match the internal effective tax).
That doesn't mean it's a bad idea, but it is a fact which must be weighed when considering the program.
I still like the idea, though I would want the allotment (see below) to be high enough that it would be more of a gentle nudge than a baseball bat.
That's the problem, and my take, on the general concept. As for this specific embodiment, it is going to be a gigantic corruption engine, passing money from the biggest polluters to the most unscrupulous politicians, regulators, and lobbyists. But it can be solved, if you like the gentle nudge idea (or even if you like the baseball bat idea).
The first step in a cap-and-trade program sets a limit on the amount of gases that can be released into the atmosphere. That is the cap. Companies with facilities that are covered by the cap will then receive permits for their share of the pollution, an annual pollution allowance. This bill initially would give the bulk of the permits away for free to help ease costs, but they still would have value because there would be a limited supply.
So, what portion of those initial free credits do I get? Who decides how much each company gets? Is it based on industry? Revenue? Profit? Market cap? Campaign contributions?
My guess is that this is going to be another gigantic paean to incumbents and the big shaft for startups.
Here's my proposal:
Every U.S. voting citizen gets an equal share, to do with as they please, apportioned annually. Corps don't get any -- they have to buy them from citizens. Give yours to your employer, sell it, sit on it, whatever. After all, this is a public good that is up for sale, right? What possible fair system could be established for the government picking which corps to give them to?
To keep the prices reasonable at first, start with massive over-subscription. Allot 1,000,000x what we're producing now. That should solve the problems of the initial market not existing. Then just lower the rate by 10x per year until we get to the desired level. But don't just hand these things out to the biggest incumbents and screw new business.
Note that this approach would achieve exactly the objective:
People who want to "be green" can sit on their credits, and forgo the money.
People who consume less carbon-intensive products would pay less of the "passed on" cost from companies that have to buy lots of credits.
People who are willing to pay for carbon intensive goods can, and the glorious free market hands that money to people who make sacrifices to reduce carbon consumption.
Adjusting the annual allotment naturally adjusts the price.
No single person, whether CEO, laborer, politician, lobbyist, or EPA regulator, gets any disproportionate share of the public good.
Companies that cut carbon emissions can put their products on the market at a lower price.
The solution as proposed only achieves the last piece, and that only in an extraordinarily corruption-sensitive way.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Perhaps we can find a way to harness the power of Americans whining about their as-yet-imaginary future energy bills? That would give us a wealth of power for decades.
Seriously guys, nad up. You all sound like Neville Chamberlain whining about how difficult and expensive fighting the Germans is going to be, and how they'll probably go away by themselves if we just continue to ignore them for another couple of years.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Clearly you don't have a legal mind. We're not talking about a cap on real emissions here, only on taxable emissions.
The emissions used in building a wind or solar plant or in upgrading the grid are taxable.
Pollute all you want while putting up a HVDC backbone; as long as you do it from sources that aren't covered by this legislation, the planet is saved!
What I'm trying to get at is that wind, solar, nuclear, and the like are ruled out by existing legislation. Nuclear, for instance, runs up against homeland security. Wind and solar run up against zoning (aka "NIMBY") laws.
China is now the worlds largest producer of wind power. They get it, they understand that oil prices will continue to rise as the economies of China and India and other developing countries expand. They have seen first rate what the cost of 4 dollar gas was and they're doing something about it.
If we do not do the same, and change the way we do things here, we are doomed to a long slow and painful decline. Imagine how our economy could benefit when the cost of power is minimal to the cost of producing goods because we took the time to invest and suffered just a little bit to get ourselves there.
What I'm seeing here is the same scare tactics the health care groups are using towards Univ health care. There's no free lunch folks, if you want to live in squalor in 40 years when we are trying to retire, continue on this path of consumption.
Does it not scare anyone that the government is 'voting' away our ability to exist? It's a fact of existence that without expending energy--cheap energy, we can't exist. What this in effect says is that we must limit how much energy we use and expend. By doing so we're limiting how much we can live. The concept of the public good is a fraud and this bill is just another attempt at putting that fraud over on people. At least the Australians are coming to their senses.
And as the price of oil increases people will start to use other sources of energy naturally. This is to prevent global warming.
If you wanted to pass a bill increasing support for nuclear energy and other sources, I wouldn't have a problem.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
This is WAY overdue, which is also why it stings so much. Have a guess why this will hit America harder than Europe? Has nothing to do with the fact that Europeans started acting decades ago while the Americans preferred to stick their heads in the sand? There's loads of people decrying this, but what is your alternative? Wait until it will hurt even more? Because you do realise that the longer you wait the harsher it will be when you finally do it, right ? You also realise that you can't go on forever burning Oil and Coal, right ?
Other than some people who have never heard the word "externalities" and still seriously think that free market economics can magically undo physical reality, people should see that relying on limited and polluting energy sources is a bad idea, and that it will be a lot smoother to start cutting down your use of it sooner rather than waiting for the market to crash. Sure, market forces will "fix it", but it will be in the "oil just quadrupled in cost every week, 10 weeks in a row" kind of way rather than the smooth transition you can get with a sensible cap and trade system.
Dude, you are wrestling with a pig. Whether or not the clinton/bush or bush/obama parallel is clever or stupid doesn't matter, the fact that the guy felt the need to add in the "Peace be upon him" bit is just his way of waving the loony flag of muslim freakouts. Once a guy starts waving that flag you can be pretty sure that their personal reality is just too disconnected from everyone else's to lead anywhere productive.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What the holy fudge does "HTH, HAND" mean? I've Googled it, I've even Binged it, and the only thing I can come up with is HTH stands for "Hand-To-Hand" as in combat. Hand-To-Hand, HAND?
Comment of the year
If anyone thinks that crap and trap will have a 1 degree effect on global temperature over the next 20 years they are fools. This is just a far left energy tax because they hate coal and oil.
Raising eveyones utility bills 40%+over the next 5 years will turn the recession into a depression. Have fun y'all.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
and reducing pollution and carbon emissions, but not to the point that it bankrupts people and puts a heavy tax on everything.
There is supposed to be a VAT or value added tax to thinks that need carbon fossil fuel to produce of at least 50%, how will the average American be able to afford food and the basics of living like clothes, TV sets, computers, fuel for their car to get to work, etc?
We might all end up living like the Amish to avoid the extra taxes. Low tech, horse power, muscle power, etc.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I think so many people here are missing the point of this type of legislation. There is an real cost to polluting. It causes all kinds of problems: human health issues, natural disasters caused by global warming, etc. Currently companies produce stuff and don't pay for those costs they've handed the world - we all do through our increased health care costs, taxes to pay for hurricane relief, etc. A company that produces no pollution does not add costs that we all have to pay for.
Unfortunately you can't realistically look at the pollution one company produces, charge them for it, and pay directly for the damage it's caused. So, we make up a unnatural market to bring those costs into the actual cost of doing business.
It may not be the greatest thing ever, but it's not crazy to do this.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is dead on, and I've been saying it for years. Too often people hear there's potentially a problem and think "We have to solve it!" What they don't do is ask any of the above questions. I've seen worse ideas than cap and trade, but as an economist (by degree and profession) I can tell you that it doesn't work how they suggest it will.
The Government really doesn't need to do anything to solve the global warming problem. Innovation is obviously the only real solution, and every energy company and tons of private equity funds are investing billions of dollars to create green technologies and green energy sources. They do this because they know if they can create something that is economically viable, they'll make more money than God. They also know that, besides as a potential goldmine, it also acts as a preventative measure in case bills like this do pass. Game theory suggests that all we really need is a credible threat that something like this might pass to spur innovation, we don't really need to force them to act right. And as an added bonus, it's much cheaper and more effective than passing this type of legislation, since their research budgets aren't crippled by bad policy. Why punish those who are already playing by the rules?
I listened to one of my State's senators giving a speech on why the trade part of "cap and trade" is very bad all around. Like Europe there are concepts of caps, trade, and offsets.
Caps are self explanatory. This could be regulated in the same way we do water.
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Trade is surprisingly complex. In addition to companies being able to straight trade pollution amounts, buying/selling the rights to pollute, what we have seen in Europe is massive financial schemes being intertwined with the trading. Similar to the credit fiasco in the US and around the world, Europe has seen these units of trade being lumped into large groups, and speculated on, borrowed against, etc..
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The absolute largest problem though, is the offsets. These mean, while company A has only 100 'units of pollution' to use, they can offset that, effectively getting 10 extra units, if they say, plant trees in the Amazon. There have been massively flagrant abuses of this offset. One example our Senator gave, was a company burning down a large swath of the Amazon forest, replanting it with all one type of tree, expressly for harvesting the wood to fuel a smelting plant......
The simple answer is a straightforward cap. Sure energy will initially cost more when caps are put in place, then slowly lowered to reduce pollution over time. However, energy companies will have to complete on one level, and one level only, the cost of producing and selling their energy.
Allowing 'trading', the monetization of pollution, offsets, and huge complex credit/financing/borrowing against lumps of pollution units, is ripe for abuse.
Sorry I couldn't find his original cap and trade speech.
Will also make Al Gore a billionaire. They brought him in to the senate floor to scare everyone into voting for this bill. Isn't there something called conflict of interest? I mean, this guy is lobbying to make himself richer.
Sig? No thanks. I don't smoke.
I'd like to invite you folks to RTFA from the Huffington Post. (Emphasis mine)
All this will d0 is kill off the remaining industry in the US and create far more pollution for the world. Do you think for an instant China is going to due this, or India, Mexico?
One quick example. Do you know were all that CAT-V cable scrap goes when you trade it's copper in for cash? China! Why? Because they will burn off that poisonous jacket with no regard for employee or environment. I know, I made $800 last year with one truck load and asked how they were going to strip the jacket. It was more profitable to just sell it overseas.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
The price of gas has changed behavior. Britons rarely consider just driving across their country because of the expense. They don't consider having a 30 mile commute because of the expense. They don't consider buying a 6 liter engine because of the expense. Where I live, commuters drive 100 million miles a day just to go to work and back again. That's just fucking madness.
Communities in areas with realistic gas prices are built accordingly. America can choose to be inconvenienced today or be totally noncompetitive tomorrow if we don't make changes to oil usage. If you want to sentence your children to spending half of their money getting to and from work, that's a choice, but not a very smart one.
For years, peoples with money (mainly the government) have been paying for climate science that is intended to make us believe that we are all going to die unless something is done. Now they have moved into position to bring in the harvest: money and power. Huge new personal and corporate tax increases, the creation of yet more bogus financial instruments, and entire new bureaucracies will now benefit our elite masters.
Haven't they missed a small detail however? Our banking and economic systems are already on the verge of collapse. These new measures should supply the killing stroke. Or is that an intended consequence? The very rich and powerful are usually on higher ground than the rest of us, so they stay dry no matter how high the water rises.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
Too bad we don't live in an ideal fantasy world, where the supposed goal of such legislation is in fact what will happen, and instead live in the real world, where it NEVER works out as planned. Most likely the end result of this will be a carbon tax market clusterfuck that the assholes who came up with it in the first place will use as an excuse for more bailouts, this time of the carbon tax market. The fact that so few people are able to identify this obviously transparent ploy is fucking SAD.
Let's see some evidence of that, please. It is not a forgone conclusion that inflation will happen. While it's fun and easy to soundbite the problem, the subject is much more complicated than just saying "the money supply increased by a lot, therefore we will have inflation".
It is a careful balancing act the Fed is trying to do. They want to keep enough money "out there" to recover, but they are planning to "remove" it as soon as things recover so we can avoid inflation. Again, it's a balancing act they are attempting...
Time will tell whether or not they are successful. For now, we see no signs of inflation at all and that should hold true for 2009/2010 at least. Longer if they get it right. And possibly no inflation at all if they pull off a miracle.
But my premise holds: it is not a forgone conclusion that we will have inflation simply because the money supply grew. Anyone saying otherwise is being hopelessly simplistic about it.
I can't wait to pay through the nose for gas for my car. I will then have to quit my job because I can't afford to drive back and forth, then I can rely on the government to take care of me with your tax dollars.
I just love the fact that our government thinks that they are all powerful and can change what happens naturally on our planet. If they think that by taxing our means of living will save the planet they are just delusional. While everything under the sun is costing us more and more other countries (China) will take that opportunity to do as they please with carbon emissions sell us their products which are less expensive than ours, drive our economy in to the dirt, creating mass joblessness and splitting our society in to classes of have money for energy and no money for energy.
Have you ever noticed that those talking loudest about being "green" have the biggest cars, personal planes and very large houses. They want you to change so they may continue their extravagant way of life.
If you support this bill then you deserve what you get.
And perhaps even scarier, Pres. Obama's appointment of Diana Farrell to the Deputy Director post of the National Economic Council. Who is Diana Farrell? She comes from the position as a director at the McKinsey Global Institute (research affiliate of McKensey and Company, which earns most of their money from their offshoring practice), where she authored that phony "study" on the advantages of offshoring all jobs (the study started off with the ASSUMPTION that offshoring of jobs is profitable, and ended up the the RESULT that the offshoring of jobs is profitable!!!!). She also edited the pile of garbage titled: OFFSHORING.
I thought Geithner, Summers and Locke were bad enough (when Locke - Secy. of Commerce - was governor of the state of Washington - he offshored state jobs in 49 of 51 state agencies).
Interesting aside: the cap & trade is supposed to be a semi-stealth way of reviving the process of securitization of securitization (transforming of debt into securities - using those securities as collateral for more securities, and again and again and again....) - which will continue and expand the economic meltdown we are presently experiencing.
Honestly, articles like this just prove that when Slashdot's libertarian streak runs rampant, nothing of value emerges from the thread. Why am I shocked to hear "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" instead of any rational debate about the law's merits and shortcomings?
It will never happen but... http://www.thevenusproject.com/
Whenever Slashdot moderation disagree with the viewpoint presented, they stamp it as TROLL like good leftist marxist-socialists should in case the dissenting view presented smashes their reality to pieces.
Heres to you Slashcomrades-
Human Induced Global Warming is a scam, this legislation is simply a "Tax and Raid" scheme to create an automatic transfer of american prosperity into a black hole of benefactors and will ensure the continued decline of the US economy, its simple mathematics.
There is more evidence for God than for human induced Global Warming given evidence to the contrary recorded in earths geologic historical record. If you as a scientist, engineer or simply a rational individual who uses reason, logic and empirical evidence as your benchmark of truth ignore this reasoning, you are a fucking tool.
Mass transit for passengers and cargo makes the most sense, ...
Mass transit only makes sense when you have masses of people concentrated in one place to be transported to another concentrated place. It potentially works in dense and/or inner cities (and boo on the companies that sabotaged it). But it's not a panacea.
Of course with the Obama administration's admiration of plans to demolish thin parts of cities and pack the people into a dense core where "services may be more effectively delivered", as was proposed for Flint MI, you might have more of that situation in the future.
But for suburbs, rural areas, or the wide-open spaces, forget it. Figure that anywhere that doesn't have fiber to the curb by now (and a lot of places that do) will be situated so that private cars will always be a better deal, energetically and financially, than mass transit.
Where is all the high speed rail that would actually get people out of their cars?
Places with such dense population concentrations, such as Japan.
Remember that the US is spread out over most of a CONTINENT. We have counties larger than some European countries, and large areas where the gas stations are more than 100 miles apart and the nearest sheriff might be a day's drive away IF weather is permitting.
(Beware the "all states are the same size" phenomenon of all MAPS being sized to be held but scaled so the mapped area fits. This leads to things like the Japanese executives, when they couldn't get a flight into Detroit Metro to go to a meeting, noticing that O'Hare was "right next to it" and flying there - then being surprised when it took all day to drive to detroit. Or Chrysler closing so many dealers in the larger western states that you have to take your car over 300 miles to get dealer service.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Where I live, commuters drive 100 million miles a day just to go to work and back again. That's just fucking madness.
Living on the Sun must have its advantages... :P
Well, that's not a joke. And I was wrong - only 20 to 30% of those miles are for straight commuting. But in the metro Atlanta area, we drive 100 million miles per day. Next time I can put that number in perspective with a good visual.
http://osu.orst.edu/dept/ncs/photos/minis/bubblessm.jpg
(from http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2004/May04/mariana.htm)
"They found carbon dioxide spewing from rocks under such enormous subsea pressure that it emerged as a bubbling liquid in one site named "champagne vent." And they had to back their equipment away from one ongoing eruption at a site named "Brimstone Pit" when the belching sulfur, acid, boiling water and rocks became too intense."
Anyone have any figures on how many millions of tons of C02 per hour are released by volcanoes? Some of the ones around Guam have apparently been erupting contnously for years. It doesn't all get dissolved, either.
I predict that cap-and-trade, if it happens, will work about like wetlands mitigation. In other words, a totally rigged dog-and-pony show further entrenching the incumbent "stakeholders" at the table of "governance". It will have to, just to pass. Them and a whole new layer of bureaucrats, snitches, and telephone sanitizers.
Just one more nail in the coffin.
That's not really fair.
You've forgotten about corporate media's roll in elimination of the good candidates. Paul and Kucinich.
Then you've forgotten about electronic vote tabulation devices.
An uninformed public leads to fascism.
We're uninformed, and we now live in a fascist country because of it.
You want to blame.
Start with everyone who broke their oath of office.
Start with corporate media.
Start with electronic voting machine legislation.
Cap & Trade = NWO
It's a scam to kill us off
The entire reason for this bill is - fundamentally - there is no reason not to pollute. Turns out that this is a bit of a tragedy of the commons. I could put however much crap I want in the air, without anybody bothering me. There is currently no cost for polluting that any individual business sees - we all share the costs.
What this bill does is create a cost out of thin air that (hopefully) measures - and imposes - the costs to society of polluting. Then the ability to pollute is scarce, just as it is in the atmosphere. In other words, capitalism at its finest. In the interests of reducing costs, businesses will cut emissions, be more careful about energy use, and so on.
There should be a longer discussion about the specific way to do this, absolutely. But it should and must be done.
Look; if you think that fundamentally the government shouldn't ever actually do anything, I know you don't think this will work and you can't be helped. I wish there were less people like you - you will eventually destroy the country.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
The fact is few alternative energies, with the exception of nuclear, have the energy density found in fossil fuels. Therefore they cannot power the world.
Lets suppose for the moment that wind power is enough to power the world. This would present new environmental problems of its own. Why? Because you are taking energy out of the weather systems, and disrupting weather patterns utilizing a massive wind energy harvesting system. Think how much energy is produced by burning fossil fuels... As a result, wind energy will drastically increase global warming not solve it.
Once Dams was the proposed solution to the U.S.'s energy crunch. Unfortunately, it devastated fish populations, and change the environment dramatically. Now, we are removing the dams we once made to reverse the effects.
The use of ethanol on a national scale would collapse the water tables, and use up most land that currently goes towards other farm goods. In essence, the ethanol program would starve, and ruin peoples water supply.
There is a lot of hype and Kool-Aid being floated about by people who think they know everything, and the beliefs are being re-enforced by like minded individuals. But a lie is a lie, no matter how often you repeat it, it still remains fundamentally untrue...
How much did you get paid to post this ?
Reply to That ||
The reports today are that when contacted, the representatives 1) had not even read the bill that had been created by the idiot moron democrats; 2) had not read the amendments the idiot moron waxman added the night before the first vote on June 26, 2009; 3) that they would vote for approval anyway. A few of them were going to wait to see if it had passed and then vote NO, so they had a 'fall-back' position in case of public back-lash!
THAT IS INCREDIBLY IRRESPONSIBLE!!!! TYPICAL IDIOT MORON DEMOCRAT THINKING!!!!
IMPEACH ALL DEMOCRATS!!! REPEAL ALL BILLS PASSED INTO LAW SINCE THE INAGURATION!!! STOP PRINTING MONEY AND DE-VALUING THE DOLLAR!!! DEPORT THE ILLEGAL ALIENS AND NO AMNESTY FOR THEM!!!!!
The democrats are the greedyist, sneakyist, rottenist people on the face of the earth!!!! They are taking away our rights and priviledges while taxing us to death!!!! Our taxation is second only to the U.K.!!!!
Conservative ways prove that conservative methods work best - no matter the situation!
This bill will create the single largest tax increase in US history. Expect to pay 3x what you do now for electricity if this bill passes. Let your representatives know that you oppose this bill. http://capwiz.com/freedomworks/issues/alert/?alertid=13618876&type=ML
Cap and trade will not increase my taxes, it will increase the prices of energy I buy.
Obama is and was playing to his base, who share two attributes--they don't like big corporations and they have a poor grasp of macroeconomics.
You and I know that there is no practical difference in my first sentence--either way I'm paying more money. But there are a lot of people who think we can raise taxes on big companies and the money will just come from "somewhere" to pay them. The rest of us know that higher corporate taxes are passed right on to the consumer as higher prices.
Of course things can be just as bad on the other side, where some people seem to think that all of climate science is a conspiracy led by Al Gore.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I like your example.
Now let's pick your baker up and move him to Haiti (cruel, but luckily it's only a thought experiment). Would you really advise him to buy a second charcoal oven?
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Personal Rapid Transit
Tracks about as wide as a sidewalk with automated small vehicles which take you from the station you're at directly to your destination station. Most designs use overhead tracks, so installation requires a little more digging than lamp posts, rather than excavating whole streets. Unlike with ancient train technology, pedestrians and cars are not endangered by the PRT vehicles.
It's worse than the "representatives" merely trying to rush through a tyrannical vote. The EPA decided what they wanted to report about climate, rushed a report out, and ignored - nay, stifled - opposing information. CARBONGATE - Global Warming Study Censored by EPA
Caps don't generate revenue, except perhaps in fines. It's really just a way of giving current polluters a free pass to continue polluting at slightly less than current levels. The rules as to who gets carbon credits will undoubtedly be arbitrary, and subject to modification depending on future lobbying efforts.
I prefer a plain carbon tax on all fossil fuels (offset by a cut in income tax), and "cap and trade" is perhaps better than doing nothing at all, but it's really a very transparent attempt by congress to ensure a steady flow of revenue into the re-election funds of its members in exchange for carbon credits.
You cannot compare GDP figures between countries
If not GDP, then what figure should I use to compare production between countries?
The problem is not that we consume too much, its that we don't have a good/cheap way to make that for everyone. It's not that the US needs to lower its energy consumption, its that there needs to be the same standards available for other nations. Conservation should be done in parallel with this not in exclusion of it.
"Consumption taxes can be fair, logical, and effective. I know reducing consumption is anti-American, but tough shit."
Why is the most insightfull comment in this entire thread at 0-flamebait?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"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."
IIRC $150 a barrel didn't "spell death for the economy".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"the size of Britain as a whole doesn't have anything to do with people's ability to commute"
Well said, Autralia is almost as big as the US in area and has less people than the city of New York. During the 70's oil crisis Australia did the same as the UK and whacked an excise on petrol (38%). The papers were full of economic alarmists claiming everyone would be in the poorhouse, never happened. Same deal when Australia implemented a UHC system in the seventies, ruination they cried but it never happened. What did happen is Australians bought more economical cars and now have cheaper, more effective heath care than the US.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Jesus fucking christ, thomas.loc.gov sucks.
Here it is at govtrack (I should have known to go there in the first place):
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-2454
The pdf comes in at 1092 pages. I'd post the TOC, but even that is 6 pages long.
Billy Brown rides on. Yolanda Green bypasses Gary White.
Since I will never remember my login anyway, here is my post via Anonymous Coward. It seems there are many here that understand. Too bad we will never be in the majority. The populace that wants everything given to them is in charge. So here are the wasted words for the rest of us.
Renewable energy was spawned in the Carter years, during the first (the real) Energy Crisis. Government mandated what temperature buildings could maintain. Nixon decreed that Christmas lights were not cool to display. Things like fuel economy, energy efficiency and general prudence entered American vocabulary for the first time. And we listened. But, after all these years, 30 or more, renewables are less than 0.6% of the energy picture. Read that again! Less than 0.6%!
Does anyone know why? It is because it is cheaper to burn a barrel of oil. As soon as the 100 mile per gallon fuel injector becomes reality, as soon as the efficient solar cell becomes reality, as soon as enough wind generators are built, then the percentage will increase. But not until. Government has come to our rescue. They will artificially increase the price of fossil fuels until it becomes cheaper to do something besides burn a barrel of oil. The only problem is that they will sink America in the process. By making you terrible Americans suffer for your greed and excess, we will put every other country on the face of the earth ahead of America. And if there is another here that believes any other country is better for the world than our America, speak up.
Pelosi and her goons will be the planet-saving hippies. Only problem is that the rest of us take it in the shorts. Oh, and it is not Cap and Trade, it is Tax and Trade. This is another of Al Gore's vanguards. He has been wrong before, it seems he enjoys it.
Excellent article in Rolling Stone Magazine! MOD PARENT UP!
By some measures, the U.S. government is the most corrupt in the world. For example, the U.S. government has invaded or bombed 25 countries since the end of the 2nd world war, all for profit. In Iraq, the U.S. government wanted control over the oil, and didn't care how many people it killed. In Afghanistan, they want to build an oil pipeline.
The U.S. government has a higher percentage of its people in prison than any country ever in the history of the world, over 6 times higher than in Europe, for example.
In short, the vote on this issue passed in the House of Representatives. The next step is the vote in the Senate, were some bizarre amendments that will be added on at that point. This is the President's bill, so it would be a good guess that he will sign it. But sometimes it's a good idea to stand back and ask, "what is the long term goal?" Basically, the U.S. has to wean itself from the incinerating of carbon based products for energy. The U.S. is actually coming to understand that this will not be a short term goal. Also, the citizens of the U.S. are becoming aware of the complexities in which energy usage is an integral part of their daily lives. Investors are starting to comprehend the increasing costs of carbon based energy solutions and are evaluating their respective portfolios. Researchers analyzing the actual mechanics are finding out that conversion to "Renewable Sources" is starting to be a little bit more complex with respect to maintaining energy levels, and increasing energy demands. The costs of conversion to solar are steadily going down, currently the ROI, "Return On Investment" is about 240 months. With an average life of 240 months, Solar is a "Break Even" solution. In order for Solar, and Wind to proceed, their respective ROI's have to be about 25% of "Break Even Point", or the general public can't afford it. Why? because the costs are not trivial to the average home owner that also has to raise a family. Any cost that has the word, "thousands" after it is not an easy number to accept. There are some emerging examples that have the ROI at about 120 months. It appears that a combination of Wind and Sun will add a better solution to the "energy needs mix." But it is painfully obvious that there is no one solution, but a combination of several solutions for all people involved.
Quoting from your comment: "Opponents of this bill hate capitalism, pure and simple." Many people think there is another problem. The system is being created to accomplish fraud, not capitalism.
Someone posted a link in another Slashdot story to a Rolling Stone article in the issue on the newsstands now: The Great American Bubble Machine, that discusses hidden purposes behind the present design of cap and trade.
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.
Ridiculing your opponent is not sound reasoning, though in this case it quickly becomes apparent who has the chip on their shoulder.
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.
Using general terms like "completely" exposes your emotional reaction toward this topic. While China and Russia are in talk about which currency to use, they show no signs of laughing. the US is one of the top 3 users of cheap carbon-based fuels, if increasing the price reduces US demand then that is a net reduction for the planet, at least temporarily. The US has lead the way in burning up coal and oil, perhaps we should consider leading in less-polluting ways.
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.
The trillion dollar giveaways are nothing new, the US government (which is all on the same "side," it's just that there are two factions with barely different agendas) has been giving trillions to military businesses and other corporations for decades. This latest is not the beginning of the evisceration, though it's quite a flagrant move. Scientists of both "sides" and neither "side" have been documenting global warming, its effects, and preventative measures for decades. If you can set aside your bias for one minute and do a simple search, you will be convinced you of this.
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.
Ahh, now you drift into flamebait, your arguments have been so thoroughly covered, and shown to be falsehoods, by scientific investigation and here on /. that they can all be efficiently dismissed. Were your points better presented I would suspect you of astroturfing; as it is you just appear ignorant.
Energy consumption measurements should be per capita, not per dollar.
What makes you think people who produce five times more than average per capita don't deserve five times more energy than average per capita to power such production?
That's not really fair.
You've forgotten about corporate media's roll in elimination of the good candidates.
That's not fair. The corporate media gives the American media consumer what they want. There ARE some good, honest journalists out there... but nobody watches them because they're not entertaining.
If Americans started demanding good news they would get it, because American corporations are all about profits. You could argue the media intentionally got us to this point, but really, the public grew apathetic long ago. ..
Disclaimer: Yes, I know that a hardworking American who gets home from a 12-hour workday wants to come home and watch some cute girl singing on TV instead of looking into serious issues, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling