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National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax
eldavojohn writes "Moving for the first time from a cautious message to a message of urgency, the National Academy of Science has advised the United States government to either adopt a carbon tax or cap and trade legislation. This follows a comprehensive study in three parts released today from the National Academies that, for the first time, urges required action from the government to curb climate change."
Being as volcanoes are responsible for an irrelevant amount of CO2, no one. Humanity produces several orders of magnitude more CO2 than volcanoes. It's like suggesting that we tax squirrels for using the road while they cross the street.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
This may be the first time the NAS have advised specific policies. However the first time NAS warned the US government of the problem was in 1958. This Bell Labs video summarises the contents of that first warning. The NAS has not suddenly flipped from cautious, the urgency has steadilly increased over the last 50yrs to the current position of virtually screaming at congress to pull their head out of their collective arses.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
[who is going] to tax all the volcanos around the world for their CO2 production?
The CO2 out gassed by active volcanoes comes to about one percent of anthropogenic emissions.
Learn to be check the numbers when you hear outrageous claims like this.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It hasn't been okay to pollute the air for several decades now. That's why cars have catalytic converters to scrub-out human-damaging pollutants like NOx and HC (produce ozone) and CO (poison). Power plants have scrubbers to eliminate the same things, plus soot, so you no longer see black smoke but white stream coming from their towers.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
A tax on carbon is a tax on everything. Food prices will rise. The price of everything ordered on Amazon will rise. The price of everyhtng transported by road or rail will rise. The price of running your heater or AC will rise, a lot. And it's a regressive tax, like all consumption taxes.
The last time America had a serious economic crisis, it was pretty directly caused by energy prices rising. Why are we so determined as a nation to magnify and extend the current economic crisis to match the Carter years?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Notice that they're meteorologists. In other words, they study short term trends and don't have PhD-level understanding of ensemble averages and other techniques necessary to analyze long term trends. (Heck, they're TV personalities. They might not know more than how to wave their hands around a green screen.)
But sqrt(2) is right to say that most scientists agree that anthropogenic CO2 is causing a dangerous temperature increase. The percentage of scientists who agree with this statement increases with increasing relevance of the scientist's field.
Pollution is wasted energy, technology will eventually catch up with it and make great progress.
Unfortunately, that's not the case. In the most efficient burning of a fossil fuel, the result is CO2 and water. There's no way to make the CO2 not be there. There's no wasted energy. Moreover, added CO2 is an externality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality so individuals have no incentive to reduce the creation of CO2. This is true with pollutants in general. As with most difficult externalities, the impact of the pollution is not directly on the individual who created it, and it is diffuse enough that one cannot easily trace any specific bit of pollution back to any specific source. That's precisely why we have the government regulate the sources. Cap and trade is a very efficient system which takes advantage of market forces to more efficiently reduce pollution.
I'd definitely like to see IRS personnel inside an active volcano.
Sorry, they stopped offering tours years ago.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
>because you haven't sufficently proven that CO2 is the cause, thats why. the current 10 year trend is actually cooling.
Oh, Really?
"April this year was the hottest on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced.
The combined surface temperatures on land and at sea averaged 14.5 C, some 0.76 C above the 20th century average. Average ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for April and the global land surface temperature was the third warmest on record for the month.
NOAA also says that Arctic sea ice was "below normal for the 11th consecutive April" while "based on NOAA satellite observations, snow cover extent was the fourth-lowest on record" since 1967."
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Remember that post a few hundred lines up that suggest fact checking? I would suggest some sanity-checking.
So for a simple tweak in software, cars would not only gain performance, save more gas, but also eliminate the need for expensive (cats are one of the world's biggest uses platinum) catalytic converters? ... oh yeah it's completely wrong and stupid.
Man, it makes complete sense now that the car companies of the world, especially those on the verge of bankruptcy in this economy, don't want the public to know that they are totally IGNORING this simple reprogramming of the ECU for the great reason of...
Cats are there to change NOx (smog, eventually becomes ground level ozone, the kind you WANT depleted) emissions into more harmless NO2.
Problem is NOx emissions come from higher ignition temperatures (why Diesels get great fuel economy and power, but have always been seen as a dirty fuel source/powertrain), _which are a result of running lean_.
As a general point, it's also important to remember that CO2 emissions are different from the "Emissions" that they usually talk about in cars (LEV, ULEV, ZEV). Even the "Zero emission vehicles" (many of which are fuel celled) still emit CO2 and water, it's just that they don't burn anything containing nitrogens, and thus emit "zero" NOX (still a bit arguable since fuel cells run hot, and the atmosphere is 80% diatomic nitrogen).
Anyway, point of the matter, and man I hope people have read this far, is that CO2 is what is being attributed to global warming (save that debate for another thread), but the "emissions" coming out of tailpipes are what's important for whether your children have chronic asthma by their teenage years.
(1) A carbon tax will lower use of fossil fuels. More independence from the Middle East.
(2) Better bite the bullet now than have our grandkids suffer.
(3) Costs will be spread out more evenly than a consumption tax on end products.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Right, but that's 3% over equilibrium, and it's cumulative.
Do you really think that the members of the National Academy of Sciences haven't thought of these obvious questions?
If you really want to know the answers, you could start by reading articles on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faint_young_sun_paradox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permo%E2%80%93Carboniferous_Glaciation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleozoic#Climate
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php
Not even a percentage point, nice try though.
Oh, Really?
"April this year was the hottest on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced.
Look at all the warming across northern Canada. Pity that NOAA collects its temperature data from only 35 stations across the entirety of Canada (in the 1970s, they had more than 600), while Canada itself has more than 1400. And the elevated temperatures across Canada above the Arctic Circle? It's amazing how the one station at Ellesmere Island -- the only one above the Arctic Circle that NOAA collects data from -- can measure the temperature all the way across Canada.Look at NOAA's own data; in 1991, almost a quarter of NOAA’s Canadian temperature data came from stations in the high Arctic. The same region contributes only 3% of the Canadian data today. NOAA collects no temperature data at all from Bolivia -- a high-altitude, landlocked country -- but instead “interpolates” or assigns temperature values for that country based on data from “nearby” temperature stations located at lower elevations in Peru, or in the Amazon basin.
NOAA also says that Arctic sea ice was "below normal for the 11th consecutive April" while "based on NOAA satellite observations, snow cover extent was the fourth-lowest on record" since 1967."
Really? In other articles, data collection by NOAA's own National Snow and Ice Data Center would appear to suggest otherwise. "While global sea ice extent has only been measured with high resolution since 1979, the recent increase in sea ice coverage now puts the start of 2009 in the same place as the year when records started: 1979. While the extent of sea ice in the northern hemisphere is currently slightly below the 30-year mean, the coverage in the southern hemisphere exceeds the thirty-year mean by approximately 500,000 square kilometers." Not only that, the extent of sea ice around Antarctica has been increasing over the last 20 years, a state of affairs that the current climate models are unable to explain; all the models that have been tweaked to corroborate the desired result of global warming would have warming water around Antarctica causing a long-term reduction in sea ice; the Earth failing to cooperate with rigged projections places these models in doubt.
the fact is CO2 is not toxic, it only becomes a problem if it displaces enough O2 for the O2 level to drop below 21%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#Toxicity
Due to the health risks associated with carbon dioxide exposure, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration says that average exposure for healthy adults during an eight-hour work day should not exceed 5,000 ppm (0.5%). The maximum safe level for infants, children, the elderly and individuals with cardio-pulmonary health issues is significantly less. For short-term (under ten minutes) exposure, the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and American Conference of Government Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) limit is 30,000 ppm (3%). NIOSH also states that carbon dioxide concentrations exceeding 4% are immediately dangerous to life and health[48] although physiological experiments show that such levels can be tolerated for some time [49].
...and so on. Have a read. Its very interesting. Or give Jim Lovell a call. He will tell you all about it.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Just because it's funny to say "Straight from the horse's mouth":
http://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/pressreleases?id=1109
But here's the primary link:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment.html
They're using the endangerment clause ("air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare") of the Clean Air Act (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00007521----000-.html), intended to be used to regulate actually dangerous emissions, to regulate CO2.
Enough links? =)
If you then show these people that (a) Zero people died because of Three Mile Island, (b) 46 firefighters died in the Cherynobyl accident, and (c) nobody died in Japan you will be branded a liar and some kind of anti-environmental kook
Well, here's what the World Health Organization says. Some significant quotes, for people who don't want to bother reading:
A large increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer has occurred among people who were young children and adolescents at the time of the accident and lived in the most contaminated areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This was due to the high levels of radioactive iodine released from the Chernobyl reactor in the early days after the accident.
In Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine nearly 5 000 cases of thyroid cancer have now been diagnosed to date among children who were aged up to 18 years at the time of the accident.
It is expected that the increased incidence of thyroid cancer from Chernobyl will continue for many years, although the long-term magnitude of the risk is difficult to quantify.
The Expert Group concluded that there may be up to 4 000 additional cancer deaths among the three highest exposed groups over their lifetime (240 000 liquidators; 116 000 evacuees and the 270 000 residents of the SCZs).
Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population [ Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine] from radiation exposure
The numbers in this report are contested by a Greenpeace study (available here). Greenpeace estimates the number of cancers attributable to the Chernobyl accident to 270000, out of which 93000 fatal.
Even ignoring the Greenpeace numbers, if you'll say only 46 people died at Chernobyl, but omit the fact that thousands more have contracted cancer as a direct consequence of the Chernobyl accident and 4000 more are expected to die of it, then you're indeed a liar and a kind of anti-environmentalist kook.
The only difference will be that they will pay more
That is what the power companies said when the EPA began to regulate SO2 emissions, but it didn't happen - instead, the emitting companies significantly reduced their emissions to the point where the cost of a permit became negligible.
The reality is that, when the cost of an externality is added to the cost of an activity, then people will moderate that activity to lower their own costs. This is basic economics.
97% of annual CO2 emissions are natural. Only 3% are anthropogenic. It mostly comes from decaying biomass. Look it up. What, don't they highlight this fact on the greenist web sites? My country (Canada) is responsible for 0.06% of total CO2 emissions. Hardly seems worth gutting my standard of living over.
Sure. What Watts doesn't tell you is that before humans those 100% went straight into building new biomass (and some other CO2 drains). It's called a "balance". Now not only do humans suddenly add 3% on top, they also prevent creation of new plant matter at an increasing rate, mostly by cutting down rain-forests and replacing them with (at best) mono-culture trees.
Let's try an analogy: a river flows through a valley, rain causes flooding - but no, you say, it's not the 3% of water from the rain that causes the flooding, it's the 97% normal discharge.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
No, it doesn't. Plants are NOT limited by CO2 concentration, they are limited by the efficiency of light-gathering biological systems.
However, increased CO2 concentration allows plants to expend less water during photosynthesis. It doesn't make them grow faster, but increases their drought-resistance.
Here is a nice article: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~liepert/pdf/DArrigo_etal.pdf