Obama's Climate Plans Face Long Fight

An anonymous reader writes "He hasn't even given his Tuesday speech yet but Obama's plans to tackle climate change are already raising objections in Washington. From the article: 'When President Barack Obama lays out plans to tackle climate change in a speech Tuesday, including the first effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, he will unleash a years-long battle that has little assurance of being resolved during his time in office. The president has called climate change a "legacy issue," and his speech may head off a backlash from environmentalists should his administration approve the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada. But the address is unlikely to blunt criticism of Mr. Obama's approach from the left or the right.'"

Comments

"may head off backlash"

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, because what environmentalists want, after 4 years, is a speech... while his actions are the opposite of what he says he wants to do.

I'm voting 3rd party from now. Least of all evils isn't enough.

Re:"may head off backlash"

[FriendlyLurker]

"Obama's actions are often quite different than his rhetoric"... like any politician. That is why websites like the Political Memory by La Quadrature du Net are so interesting and give real hope for change: Believe what they have done, not what they say they did (or will do).

Now, if only the population at large would flock to use such tools on election day... but as it is, the village keeps voting time and again for one of the two village liars who both just happen to be backed by the biggest landowner(s) in town - to everyone's long term detriment. Oh and the town message billboard happens to be controlled by the said landowners. We have not progressed very far politically, it would seem...

Re:"may head off backlash"

[Creepy]

Congress may have legislative power, but Obama has some sway over the Department of Energy. If he tells them coal must use CCS (Carbon Capture and Sequestration), for instance, it is up to the DoE to develop a plan to implement it, because let's face it, coal plant owners will never do it voluntarily because it makes no sense from a business standpoint. 30% less efficient and therefore 30% less profitable to... save the environment? Why would you do that if you can spend 1% (or less) supporting global warming doubters that say it isn't an issue?

Re:"may head off backlash"

[i kan reed]

Now, I don't have a lot in common with Greenpeace type environmentalism, but I've decided I'm unwilling to dismiss the environmentalist label, just because it's constantly tarred as meaning this kind of rare, bizarre, idealism. Concern with the long term, and net, impact of our productivity is really important from a pragmatic perspective.

If we make adding carbon mass to the atmosphere as expensive as it appears to be to the world as a whole(and cap and trade didn't even propose that much cost), we do ourselves a favor in terms of productivity. What a lack of regulation in this regard does is favors existing power structures. It doesn't represent a positive for our long term GDP growth.

Environmental pragmatism isn't a bad thing, and if you want to see people who favor that approach versus the straw-man of "taking us back to the 1700s", look to the plans proposed by, say, the union of concerned scientists.

Re:"may head off backlash"

[Jane Q. Public]

"From what I've seen the 3rd party candidates manage to look good on paper by avoiding real issues that they'll have to deal with once they get into office."

Really?

When did Ron Paul, for example, "avoid" an issue? On the contrary, he was very outspoken about any issue anyone cared to raise with him. He wasn't allowed to speak in many settings, like some of the "debates"... but that's not even close to the same as "avoiding".

When has Ron Paul been shown to ever lie? He always voted exactly the way he told his constituents he would. He has a perfect voting record in that respect.

Paul was against Guantanamo. Etc.

And he wasn't the only one, just the most popular. You have had the answers to your complaints right in front of you, yet you refused to see they were there. That's not the politicians' fault, it's yours.

Re:"may head off backlash"

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

"Environmentalists" Will not be happy until we live like we did back in the 1700's. " False. Please stop lying. It's also a strawman. please learn to think.
See 350.org, please follow your own advice, and learn to think about what is required to achieve a reduction of 30+ppm of CO2, hint it looks more like the Flintstones and less like the Jetsons.

here's a good start:

[lxs]

Shutting down all PRISM related datacenters will seriously reduce the US carbon footprint.

Re:here's a good start:

[msauve]

It's a zero sum game. Obama gives the cold-shoulder to civil rights by blowing hot air.

Politics on a Tech Board

[usacoder]

And that's what all of this is about... politics.

Re:Politics on a Tech Board

[drinkypoo]

And that's what all of this is about... politics.

Any time two or more people with differing ideas (let alone ideals) get involved with something, there will be politics. Thus, everything interesting has political ramifications.

Climate is related to technology, and also, we all live here. I for one welcome our politics-discussing overlords. As always, you have the option to simply spin on rather than crying about it.

Dogs and Ponies, Center Stage

[some old guy]

Without comprehensive, cooperative, enforceable international standards and practices, it's all just political showmanship. Given the interwoven economic, i.e. selfish capitalist, constituencies of all the nations, unilateral grand-standing and token half-measures are futile.

When global issues are at stake, global cooperation is required. It might start with a less-corrupt, more efficient United Nations with unselfish participation by the member states to give it a sense of legitimacy. That would be the ideal.

My gut feeling is that nothing, if anything, substantial will be done until the international capital oligarchs sense a real financial threat. Good intentions create politics; money creates policy.

Re:Dogs and Ponies, Center Stage

[olau]

Without comprehensive, cooperative, enforceable international standards and practices, it's all just political showmanship.

No, it's not. Changing the world often starts with yourself.

If you don't get this - fair enough. But don't ridicule people who do.

Re:Dogs and Ponies, Center Stage

[taiwanjohn]

Not just futile, most "useful" measures would require legislative action, which is practically impossible these days.

That said, if I could choose one single bill to have signed into law, it would be the "Open Fuel Standards Act" which was brought up a few years ago, but didn't get a vote. This would require all new cars sold in the USA to be fully flex-fuel capable. (There are already a lot of "flex-fuel" cars on the market, but many are only able to use ethanol. The OFSA would mandate compatibility with methanol and butanol as well.) This would add about $100 to the price of each car, which is much less than an after-market retrofit would cost.

The point of all this is to break the effective monopoly on transportation fuel held by petroleum and bring true competition to the market. Methanol may be only 80% as energy dense as gasoline, but last I checked it was only about $1.50/gal. And unlike ethanol, methanol can easily be made from any kind of biomass, so this would also decouple the alternative fuel supply from food crops like corn. Best of all, it would stem the tide of cash that currently flows out from the USA's collective pocket, which is around $400 billion annually. That kind of economic "stimulus" would be a nice bonus too.

Re:Dogs and Ponies, Center Stage

[drinkypoo]

Without comprehensive, cooperative, enforceable international standards and practices, it's all just political showmanship.

The average American pollutes more (partly by proxy, through their economic decisions) than almost any other kind of human on the planet. We cannot ask others to do what we are not willing to do: that's a special kind of bullshit. Leading from the rear is how we got into this mess. Put civilian lawmakers who decide we're going to war on the front lines (have them carry a radio or something) and see what happens, some things will shift very quickly.

When global issues are at stake, global cooperation is required. It might start with a less-corrupt, more efficient United Nations with unselfish participation by the member states to give it a sense of legitimacy. That would be the ideal.

The UN will never have legitimacy as long as it retains its structure, ruled by the UNSC. Guess who the most puissant nation on the UNSC is?

My gut feeling is that nothing, if anything, substantial will be done until the international capital oligarchs sense a real financial threat.

As long as they stay on top of the order, they don't seem to care much what it looks like...

Re:Dogs and Ponies, Center Stage

[Richy_T]

The Average American (of which I am not one), tends to have higher productivity on the planet than most other people. It's hard for a peasant in a rice field to produce much waste or pollution or CO2. Yet. What you have to watch is emerging economies where pollution and waste controls are absent.

With that said, there could be much done in America to improve on waste and some on pollution (though I am not a fan of harsh or even most regulations). America as a whole has been on a pretty reasonable post industrialization trajectory and it would be a tragedy to damage its economy in an attempt to force things which will likely occur in time anyway.

Re:Dogs and Ponies, Center Stage

[MickyTheIdiot]

The Average American (of which I am one) might be more productive, but all that productive work is putting money into the pockets of corporate masters. So not only are polluting, we're not even seeing the economic benefit of the pollution. So we aren't only killing ourselves, we've not even seeing the economic benefits we constant whine that we'll lose if simply do common sense measures.

It's high time the US population wake up and realizing everything being done is going to feed the corporate pig and that 99.999999% of us aren't millionaires in waiting. Our thinking is so screwed up that it's hard to pay attention to ANY political news and not get a headache from the cogitative dissonance we're forced to put up with day in and day out.

Re:Dogs and Ponies, Center Stage

[taiwanjohn]

I agree in spirit but not in practice. (Prohibition laws tend to do more harm than good.) But forcing ethanol to compete with methanol would have the same effect, since ethanol could never compete without government subsidies. Just remove the subsidies and mandate fully flex-fuel cars, and let the market take care of the ethanol problem.

In fact, I would go further and eliminate all subsidies from all industries. Let petroleum compete against the alternatives on a level playing field. I'm confident the market would take care of our oil problem too. (This is also advocated by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute. His talks are well worth a look.)

Re:Dogs and Ponies, Center Stage

[drinkypoo]

Uh, what? By what measurement? Most Americans don't produce anything.

You have to admit: this is an utter nonsense statement.

No, no I don't. Most Americans are engaged purely in the rearrangement of deck chairs into temporarily pleasing patterns.

Dearest Public

[argStyopa]

Since everything else seems to have gone in the shitter, I come back to you with a message that seemed to sell well in both campaigns: the environment.

I look forward to again gaining your broad support with a campaign of platitudes, anthemic one-word slogans, and statements that make me appear sympathetic to your issues, while actually resulting in policies that either ossify the current corporation-based lobbyist-driven structure, or expand the pervasive control of the Federal government ostensibly for good reasons but which will in fact be used to incrementally decrease your rights vis a vis that "Constitution" thingy, which I will continue to re-interpret as really not relevant to today's realities anyway.

Signed,
Your President.

Really it doesn't matter in the USA

[exabrial]

http://news.yahoo.com/singapore-malaysia-face-economic-hit-prolonged-smog-093307319.html

Really it doesn't matter what we do in the USA if Asia and the middle east are 1000x worse with a larger population.

Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

There are 3 major obstacles to getting anything done with the climate change issues.

1 - USA: large portion of population, especially in the red states espousing a world view that is anti-science to the bone. This is being shamelessly exploitetd and nurtured by a powerful energy lobby and "conservative" (conservativism used to include environemental conservation in Teddy Roosevelt's era) politicians. In addition, US economy is facing competitive pressure from other countries and is worried that cleaning up environment means increased cost and loss of jobs. My view on this is that nothing will happen on the US end until after the final collapse of the republican party as we know it today. That is a few years out, but it will surely happen. US voters are by nature centrists, and the red state/blue state division won't last forever. Gerrymandering and politicized supreme court will extend the suffering though.

2-China. When China sets their mind to do something, it will get done,but their environmental policies are at the same level of their human rights policies, pretty low. They are smart enough, and tend to take the longer view, though, so I am sure they realizes that they can not fuel their economy USA-style for very long without ending up in a Mad Max-scenario. By the time the US republican party collapses, China might have turned around and become a climate change believer.

3-The developing countries. Energy is essential to increase the living standard, and it would be hypocritical by western nations to continue our high energy consumption, while these countries have a desperate need too increase their energy use. A country like Norway, who is a major oil producer, while being a poster boy for environment and climate change policies, spending a large portion of their GDP on rain forest projects, foreign aid and other environmental projects, needs to realize that until their privileged population does something about their massive energy usage, they will remain hypocrites. We need to budget for a dramatic increase in energy use by developing countries, which means we need to dramatically reduce our energy consumption in the west. I see soem good signs in that there are more and more small cars on US roads, but the SUVS,compact SUVS, and trucks, as well as assholes riding heavy BMWs, Audis, etc. are still dominating the landscape.

I think all rational persons have a pretty good idea what needs to be done. Obama needs to try, to make sure it gets put out there in the public, so that we know what direction to turn when the rest of the world is ready to advance from the middle ages. And by those, I include the republicans that espouse a pre-Copernicus world view.

Re:This is not Slashdot material...

[MickyTheIdiot]

Obama is a bigger corporatist than Clinton was, and Clinton was more than Bush Sr.

Only Bush Jr. was a bigger corporatist.

We need to leave the left/right bullshit behind for a while while we make our country safe for democracy (democracy within a republic that is) again. The word of corporate entities mean a million times that of a constituent and that indicates a broken system.

Re:This is not Slashdot material...

[fustakrakich]

The system is fraudulent and corrupt by design. It is not 'broken' by any means. It proves the old adage of nature itself: Might makes right.

Re:Paywall

[akb]

To get around the WSJ paywall, search for the article title in Google. Open the link that comes up in Incognito and you should be fine.

Re:What does he plan to do...

[squiggleslash]

Because it's a troll. It's basically an abuse of statistics to cherry pick a range and then turn around and say "Aha, reality matches what I'm saying!". Ten years? They show warming. 20? Warming. 30? Warming. Do I need go on? But right now, if you pick 15 years (apparently, I thought it was 17? Or maybe it was 17 last year?) you can pretend there's been a tiny bit of cooling.