Slashdot Mirror
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."
Its weird that I am not allowed to drop rubbish in the street but disposing of some types of effluent in the atmosphere which we all need to breathe is perfectly okay.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It makes a lot more sense to tax a negative externality than it does to tax something we want more of like income.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The whole Global Warming scheme was thought up by Ken Lay and discussed with both the Bush Jr and Clinton Administrations. Now Al Gore is a parter in a firm that trades CARBON CREDITS and is set to make billions off this scam. I think you all better wake up and research the NWO and GLOBAL GOVERNMENT and see what all are leaders are up to. Its time for the world to change and not in the way the Illuminatti want as they are about to have the light shined right on them and I doubt they will survive.
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.
Oh noes, the climate is changing. We can't have that, now can we? We should have the climate be like the way it was billions of years ago (eg: not fit for humans), because climate change is bad, right?
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.
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.
Sure, but just for kicks, I'd like to see the IRS try to enforce taxes on both volcanoes and squirrels.
Cap and Trade is just a fancy phrase meaning "tax" anyway. I hate the verbal misdirection.
I hate the fact that calling it "cap and trade" actually makes it more likely to get passed than calling it a tax.
In today's political climate, there's far far too much controversy surrounding the individual issues of taxes and energy, alone (much less combined), to permit any real legislation to succeed.
A sane society would tax things like gasoline, diesel fuel, fuel oil, etc., highly enough to discourage its profligate consumption and apply the funds to develop practical implementations of an array of alternative renewable energy sources (fusion, solar, biofuels, etc.).
But in the USA, if you proposed adding another $2/gallon tax on gasoline, it would be political suicide. (Hell, just suggesting it on /. risks karma suicide.) In the meantime, many of us still drive gas guzzling hummers and SUVs, and pride ourselves on it.
We need to break the loop somewhere. As long as that behavior is affordable, it will continue to be popular; as long as that behavior is popular it will continue to be affordable.
And eventually, when scarcity will inevitably drive up the cost of this fuel, it will be the energy corporations who will make the profits on the higher prices, not the governments... perpetuating another problem of too much corporate money influencing government policy. The smart thing to do is drive the price up now, via taxes, and use the revenue to do something more useful than line the pockets of corporate executives and stockholders.
I can see the fnords!
Water vapor amplifies the effects of greenhouse gases as a feedback effect it is not however, strictly a causal agent. CO2 remains in the atmosphere for centuries while Water vapor generally is transient.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I'm not an expert in a relevant field to understand fully this issue, and chances are neither are you. Other than wait and reserve judgment, the only logical choice I can make when there is overwhelming consensus among experts (there is on climate change) is to listen to them. I support cap and trade, not because I think it's a good idea - because I'm not qualified to know that - but because the majority of those who are qualified think it is, and science is not a political process even when the conclusions polarizes people along political lines.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
[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
Methane's lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than CO2's, so it's less of a long-term problem. You're right to say that methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, and we need to stop emitting it too. But as soon as we stop emitting methane, concentrations will decrease in a few years. Not so with CO2. (Also, methane is CH4, so technically methane has more carbon by mass than CO2...)
This already goes on, it's rampant. The solution is more restrictions and regulations on Wall Street to stop people from being able to make money who don't actually produce anything of value. It shouldn't be possible to get rich skimming off the top and siphoning away wealth from the working class that actually moves the economy. This country produces thousands of college graduates every year who go on to be bankers or Wall Street traders when they should be engineers and scientists. We produce people who not only don't contribute anything themselves but actually make it harder for other people to be productive. This can't go on forever, and if we don't put and end to it it's going to put an end to us.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
The thing about cap and trade is that a lot of left leaning environmentalists hate the idea because they feel that it's a case where markets/capitalism are intruding into environmental matters and the economic libertarians hate it because its government intrusion into markets. Cap and trade worked well for controlling NOX and SOX emissions but had unintended consequences where it was tried in Europe. The Carbon offsets were poorly defined and often lead to fraud.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I'd definitely like to see IRS personnel inside an active volcano.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I didn't notice scientists telling President Bush that it was perfectly okay to burn fossil fuels. In fact, it seems like scientists have been saying pretty much the same thing for decades, but the last head of government never listened.
The real question is, if Xenu dropped a hydrogen bomb in after them, would their deaths release thetans? Or is it true that IRS employees and lawyers really are soulless creatures belched from the underworld?
We definitely need a tax on politically active scientists.
The only way to sell it to the masses would be to promote it as the elimination of Income Taxes. Set a date (20 years?) by which point income taxes will be eliminated, and slowly ramp up the Carbon (GHG) tax while reducing income tax over the same period of time.
What? You're opposed to eliminating Income Tax?
Reality has a liberal bias
So far any carbon trading scheme I've heard of doesn't fully take into account international trading. My country like several others is a huge net agricultural exporter. Argiculture being responsible for 50% of our emissions. Therefore its as if other countries are poluting here, yet the producer/exporter gets the bill under current proposals.
What then of all the high value goods we import (which have a high impact per given mass compared with food), these don't polute here, but some other country has paid the price both in impact and in tax.
What a way to collapse global trade.
Any system needs to a per-ton value on carbon, as a baseline, and then build the system bottom-up from there. Slapping taxes on everything seems to be the only option being considered.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
One scientist who predicted the run-up in temps in the 90s, and the subsequent leveling off in the 00s (meaning he's been much more accurate than most of the pro-AGW scientists) says we're heading towards a few decades of global cooling. Perhaps a carbon tax isn't what we should do?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Every resource is "rationed." It just so happens that in Capitalism those with power get more rations than others.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
That's because the cap & trade tax goes to Wall Street instead of the government.
This country produces thousands of college graduates every year who go on to be bankers or Wall Street traders when they should be engineers and scientists. We produce people who not only don't contribute anything themselves but actually make it harder for other people to be productive.
That's a rather shortsighted view you have. Has it occurred to you that the banker and stock investor provide the capital needed by the engineer and scientist before they can produce items of value?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Every resource is "rationed." It just so happens that in Capitalism those with power get more rations than others.
Interestingly enough it's the same under socialism.......
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Bottom line: if you don't get the BRIC nations to sign on to any type of comprehensive deal and they actually abide by it, Cap and Trade in the US isn't going to amount to much on a global scale.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
That still doesn't explain why we need an entire class of people who are wealthier than the engineers, scientists, and workers they are supposed to be empowering to produce. I can almost accept that argument if not for the fact that it still doesn't justify those people, the bankers and Wall Street traders, being able to live better than the people who actually have the ideas they support in the first place. Perhaps there is a legitimate place for them, but I think the role they currently play has grown to the point of absurdity.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
How the CO2 concentration in our atmosphere during the Cambrian was 7000ppm and the average global temperature was 20C, and during the Jurassic the CO2 concentration was 2000ppm and the average temperature was still 20C? Shouldn't the temperature have been much, much higher during these periods? And shouldn't the temperature of the Cambrian be much higher than the Jurassic?
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.
You are painting with an awfully large brush there. The word "bankers" includes everybody from the CEO of Citi to the branch manager of Small Town Bank, Inc. The second guy is not making millions of dollars.
Besides, who appointed you the arbitrator of how much a profession is "worth"? And what would you do about it? Raise taxes? Cap salaries?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I also have religious beliefs, like you. I believe in pink unicorns and fairies.
There's a lot of both economic theory and empirical data backing up that cap and trade systems are more efficient. See for example this study showing that cap and trade would very well for handling levels of sulfur dioxide pollution in the US http://www.jstor.org/pss/2647033.
Step 1: mess up the environment
Step 2: mess up the financial system
What is step 3?
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
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?
Climate science has abandoned evidence and data and gone straight to propaganda. Check out the data and evidence for yourself, don't listen to the anti-technological propaganda from the politicized climate scientists. http://joannenova.com.au/ http://wattsupwiththat.com/
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
Bill Gates had nothing to do with getting the cost of computers down. In fact, the price of Microsoft's operating systems has continued to increase over time, not just in dollars but as a percentage of the total purchase.
Make the top marginal rate 90%
Few people outside of the far-left would regard it as far to take 90% of someone's earnings.
There are also other creative solutions like making the board of directors of publicly traded companies elected by the workers.
Yeah that's fair. Take the vote away from the people who put up the money to get the company off the ground. Has it occurred to you that might have unintended consequences, such as discouraging investment?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
unless he continues to be right. So far, the "CO2 is the cause" crowd have continued to get it wrong, so why do so many people continue to listen to them? The initial theory of CO2 heating the planet up was based on the observations of Venus' atmosphere and temperature. Venus was described as a runaway greenhouse effect. While it's true that the atmosphere of Venus has a much higher concentration of CO2 than on Earth, it's also true that Mars has a higher concentration of CO2. Venus is much hotter than Earth, Mars is much colder. So what gives? Scientists have more recently concluded that the high temperatures on Venus aren't cause by a greenhouse effect.
No Scientists did not conclude that the high temperatures on Venus aren't cause by a greenhouse effect.
Anthony Watts, a climate sceptic and meteorologist, posted an entry by Steve Goddard (I don't know his qualifications) on his blog that said the high temperatures on Venus aren't cause by a greenhouse effect. If you want me to take that post seriously than show me the paper in a respectable peer reviewed scientific journal that says the same thing. That way I know that at least some knowledgeable scientists have looked at the paper and checked the data and calculations.
I'm sorry but I've seen more than enough "scientific" blog posts and it will take more than that to convince me of an argument.
I stole this Sig
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.
"The EPA and others have begun pushing to label CO2 as a poison."
That statement is in dire need of a citation.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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.
Ok so it is pretty much a given that China, Mexico and the other Asian nations are not going to implement this
in their own countries to the detrement of their fast growing industrial economies. Implementing this is about
as beneficial to the US job market as the new health care bill. Our countries manufacturing industry is already
treading water adding additional costs to do business in this country only quickens the pace.
Got Code?
Right, but that's 3% over equilibrium, and it's cumulative.
So why doesn't the National Academy of Science make China their top priority? Not only is China the largest emitter of CO2, it is also the fastest growing. Not much can be done with the fully-developed countries like the US, Canada, and Japan. "Cap and trade" is really just a variant of "tax and spend", which inevitably leads to "inflate and borrow".
If this is the best these people can do, their budget should be slashed. Whoever puts out this crap is wasting my tax dollars. Let's just downsize 'em and call it our national contribution to reduce global warming.
Investigate the National Academy of Science and you will find one of those "think tank" organizations that is funded by the government in order to write white papers consisting of what the government wants to hear.
Hmmm... an organization that gets 85% of its funding from the government is advising the socialist government to enact whopping taxation. Oh my, what a surprise!
So what? The fact that someone makes a lot of money is not sufficient justification for the Government to take almost all of it.
Aren't leftists big on the concept of equal protection? Explain to me how "progressive" tax structures are compatible with treating everybody equally under the law?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
China is ahead of the US in investment in clean/renewable energy.
If you really want to cut or even eliminate CO2 emissions then the last thing you want to do is turn CO2 emissions into a revenue stream for the government. That's just the WORST thing you could do. It's like trying to get rid of cows by eating them. Why not just make other energy sources more attractive by removing bureaucratic nonsense (nuclear energy) or making investments in R&D (solar and wind)?
The US government created the Department of Energy in the early 1970's to regulate the price of a barrel of oil. It went from $3 to a high around $150 to about $70 today.
Yeah, I'm sure that had absolutely nothing to do with skyrocketing demand, a relative leveling off of production capacity, general inflation, or the cartel that is OPEC. Your simplistic "it's the big bad government" answer *must* be the right one!
Listen to your gut, big guy, I'm sure it's right, facts be damned...
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php
Not even a percentage point, nice try though.
Just for gigles, go look at gapminder. See http://www.gapminder.org/world/?PHPSESSID=kinokshem5859bcbqa0iv1v1h3#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=21;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=6;ti=2006$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1gkNuUEXOGag;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1NHPC9MyZ9SQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;iid=pyj6tScZqmEfbZyl0qjbiRQ;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=294;dataMax=76977$map_y;scale=log;dataMin=-1.2196;dataMax=26$map_s;sma=58;smi=1$cd;bd=0$inds=;modified=6 Your argument is a bit silly. It it like a glutton complaining that his neighbors their 3 children eat more than he does, so they should be the ones to go on a diet. Yes, 1.32 billion Chinese use more energy than 0.31 billion Americans. Are we so special that we deserve 4x the CO2 per capita as the rest of the world?
Think global, act loco
none
Cap and Trade isn't designed to work like that.
(and here we go with the 'trollbait' mods...skeptic opinion always gets modded trollbait)
Cap and Trade provides an enormous market for banks to make fortunes in. It's another commodity market, only on a commodity that isn't actually related to any actual industry or production measure (and so is infinitely capable of being manipulated by "market makers").
It's the commodites equivalent of a financial derivates market; futures trading in something that has no actual objective value in the future.
Cap and Trade is not going to have anything to do with atmospheric CO2, and even less to do with Global Warming. It's a scam, pure and simple.
For example: how, exactly, are they going to measure a multinational company's CO2 emissions to any kind of accurate degree?
And if they do solve that thorny question (which I haven't seen any workable solution for), how are they going to stop multinational companies from playing this game, given that the company can move its CO2-producing operations to another country, sell it's Carbon Credits and continue polluting the same atmosphere with the same emissions, only more profit?
Business/App ideas are like arseholes: everyone's got one, they're mostly shit, but very rarely they contain a diamond
the money instead will go through international banking cartels (IMF, etc.) who will get piece of the action, as well as line the pockets of hedge and derived market funds set up by entities such as Goldman Sachs. These parasites on western civilization need to be eliminated, not fed.
What makes this smell of political agenda rather than a genuine concern for the environment is that they urge action that will ultimately have no real value.
People will still need to drive to work. Trucks and trains will still need to run. Airlines will still fly, people will still run their AC, wash their clothes and dishes, watch TV, power their lights, etc.
The only difference will be that they will pay more and the government will get a big fat check to spend on more crap we don't need. Gee, more tax and spend, who'd a thunk?
If they had a real concern and really did want to reduce carbon, they would have forcefully and whole wholeheartedly endorsed nuclear power. They would have suggested a Nation Mandate, special legislation limiting lawsuits, standardization on just a few designs, mass production of parts and encouraging U.S. industry to make the parts (I seem to remember that the turbines are ONLY made in Germany and Japan), etc, etc.
Of course all the anti-nuke wackos will start lining up to poo poo this , but they cannot deny that nuclear power is carbon free, far safer than any other energy when properly handled, and far more efficient than any other fuel. And if you can push aside all the crap ( 5 year environmental impact studies, endless lawsuits, etc.) they can probably be built for far less than their traditional cost.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
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? =)
Money can be an incentive to come up with solutions though.
Find about more from a video of a recent meeting of the National Academy of Science
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
That's too mathematical for the AGW denier. Do you have a car analogy?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Well officer, you see it's like I was doing 150mph relative to the ground in a 30mph limit but the Earth is going around the sun at 67000 mph so my 120mph over the limit is totally irrelevant.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
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
Yes, god forbid I pass some of my life's work down to my children. The Government should come and seize it all when I die.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
In about 100 years the effects of global warming will start to become inconvenient for humans. During which time we will likely have made the technological innovations we need to solve this problem without giving up our way of life or stifling our progress and ability to make such innovations.
Plant growth, CO2 is a plant nutrient,
and
you said
Right, but that's 3% over equilibrium, and it's cumulative.
and nature reply by sucking 6% more CO2 from the air!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds