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Obama Reveals Climate Change Plan
Today President Obama gave a speech outlining the administration's plan to take on climate change. (Video of the speech available on YouTube, and the White House published an infographic as well.) Most significantly, Obama's plan would have the EPA set limits on carbon pollution from all U.S. power plants, a goal already meeting resistance from Republicans. The plan also sets the goal of funding enough solar- and wind-based energy projects on public lands to power over 6 million homes by 2020. By 2030, it aims to use efficiency standards to reduce carbon pollution by 3 billion metric tons. Obama called for new efforts to deal with extreme weather like Hurricane Sandy. He also pointed out the difficulty in getting emerging industrial economies to be environmentally conscious. To that end, the plan calls for the end of U.S. support for financing coal power plants in foreign countries, unless those plants use carbon capture and sequestration technologies. The speech addressed the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry up to 800,000 gallons of oil per day from Canada into the U.S. Obama indicated that approval for the pipeline would be tied to emissions goals.
Not to mention that reducing our use of oil might be a good way to stop sending piles of our cash to places like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. I'd rather spend $2 on R&D to improve technology than $1 on importing oil: the latter is cheaper in the short-term, but not really in the long-term.
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>> Obama called for new efforts to deal with extreme weather like Hurricane Sandy.
Like move coastal populations so we aren't always on the hook for rebuilding people's beach houses?
>> the plan calls for the end of U.S. support for financing coal power plants in foreign countries
We're doing what? And they wonder why taxpayers hate the federal government...
Friends of the Earth's climate and energy program director Damon Moglen said the President's climate plan is "not enough" and needs to be more ambitious.
http://www.foe.org/news/archives/2013-06-statement-on-president-obamas-climate-plan
Well isn't doing something like this, which causes so much angst from the energy sector and Republicans, at least a step in the right direction? Using a US football analogy, we can't always make a touchdown with every effort isn't a heroic 9-yard run a good start? Being any more ambitious with the President's plan would risk all-out resistance from every billion-dollar lobby and politician.
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
You'd think a FEW of them would, I dunno, work as scientists or something.
DP: So you feel that a lot of scientists have sold their souls?
It's that line specifically that makes me feel comfortable totally ignoring anything else he says. I feel a lot of radio talk show hosts never had any souls to begin with.
So a radio talk show host, along with a single scientist well known in the community for his outspoken opinions on climate change, on one side of the argument, and then a vast, vast body of peer-reviewed work and many hundreds of disparate and inter-arguing (ie, non-colluding) scientists on the other. Oh, and facts.
Yeah, my mind is open. A talk radio host is not going to change it.
Tying the Keystone XL to emissions is clever. Sure the tar sands are amongst the filthiest forms of oil , but if emissions are limited, it really doesn't matter since emissions is the point of the sword that kills and everything else is, in the final analysis irrelevant.
If XL is not built, there is nothing stopping the oil from coming in on rail and it's not clear how punishing that would be to the industry.
Emissions are the business end of all policy. Going after emissions is exactly the right thing to do. It creates the environment where innovative technologies that cut emissions are differentially rewarded by the marketplace. Nothing like enlisting greed in your cause.
If big oil and coal want to develop a zero emission technology then they can light this shit on fire until there's none left and it wouldn't matter one bit.
Another great thing about this policy is it will force the retirement of some of the dirtiest fucking coal plants around the country and stop the creation of new dirty ones since investors aren't going to invest in them if they're never going to see the light of day.
This is exactly the right message to send. Make carbon emission expensive and prohibit the worst of it. Spend big on R and D.
Having to pay much more for electricity will mean having less money left over for food, which means less obesity! Now we just need to increase gasoline taxes so they will get more exercise as well. On top of that, high energy consumers, such as, you know, factories, will have to cut down production, perhaps even close down completely, further reducing the pollution! There is just no end to the benefits from artificially inflating the cost of energy.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
What, that the mean average temperature would continue to rise, the ocean level would increase, the ice sheets would recede and the [CO2] would increase?
Sure, some of the wildest "worst case" predictions might not have happened, but the overall thing that science has been pointing to for the past 30 years? It has happened as predicted. You can measure that, and we do.
The effects are also measurable, and again, we note those down.
It's only controversial because the answers are incompatible with big businesses making vast profits from coal, oil and other fossils, so they've paid a great deal of money to make sure people *know* it's controversial, because they say it is. Not because it actually is.
Too many middle-income families already struggle paying for gas, raising those taxes wouldn't solve anything. Cycling infrastructure should be setup by local governments, not federal. High-speed rail should be setup by the private sector, not public. 0 for 3
Pie in the sky while American children in Appalachia go to bed hungry every night. Clean coal is as just possible as cost effective solar/wind and its made in America.
At $0.50-0.60 a watt for today's solar panels, we're almost at the point where people can power their own homes. Unless of course you live where it rains constantly, like the pacific NW, lol. Oh and cloudy days/night time? There are energy storage solutions available - flywheels for example.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Rather than picking winners and losers and setting arbitrary limits they should be using carbon and fuel taxes.
Under Obama's plan, operations that could pollute less will pollute exactly their limit, places where higher output and thus higher emissions would be actually more efficient in terms of greenhouse gases per MW will instead operate at lower efficiency, the government will spend billions of dollars subsidizing Solyndra wannabes, and actual gas use by consumers will change little no matter how they try to regulate the auto industry.
With carbon and fuel taxes, consumers and corporations would all have better incentives to improve their emissions, the market would decide the best way to allocate resources, energy innovation would be encouraged, there would be tremendously less deadweight loss, and the government could either reduce other taxes or reduce its absurdly large deficits.
People from all across the political spectrum who are informed and honest agree that this, not hard caps or cap-and-trade, is the way to go. But politicians like Obama would rather trash the nation's economy and not actually accomplish any climate progress than touch the third rail of fossil fuel taxes.
In a "town hall" conversation where I brought this up with my Congresscritter- a Tea Party diehard who I'm frequently frustrated with- I was shocked to hear him admit that raising gas taxes and using the revenue to either reduce deficits or reduce taxes on productive behavior is a very good idea. But, he said, it'll never fly, so I'm not going to try to push it. If everybody who knew it's the right thing to do got behind it and tried to educate the populace rather than hiding behind a smokescreen, pretty soon the idea would fly, with bipartisan support.
When the feds put a coal plant out of business because of more stringent emissions standards make it uneconomical to operate, then regulations put it out of business.
Plants that are economical now will not be soon solely due to actions of the Feds.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You can have all the opinions you want. If you want me to seriously consider them you might want to have some actual credentials or education, or even a functional understanding of the topic.
This has nothing to do with saving the planet. It's a totally transparent (!) and cynical attempt to change the subject away from the web of scandals entangling Obama.
Then you should be the first fucker to sit in the dark.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
But no money and solar is many years away from being viable for large scale energy use.
Tell that to Germany with 32 gigawatts of solar installed and counting. More generating capacity than the Three Gorges dam. That's large scale, no matter how you slice it.
Not to mention the emissions caused making the panels...
This useless canard again. The emissions from making the panels are trivial, and get lower the more panels there are in use. There's no reason a plant making panels couldn't get its electricity from panels, after all. Even making glass is possible with a solar furnace (though probably not tempered glass). Certainly compared to the emissions produced by extracting coal, panel production emissions are trivial, both in absolute terms (because coal dominates so hugely right now) and in per watt terms, since a kilogram of solar panel generates far more power over its lifetime than a kilogram of coal.
No money is the only reason, and that's purely by choice, not necessity.
Since peaking in 2005, US carbon emissions have dropped a gigaton per year. This was mainly due to switching almost half of coal-powered to electricity to cheaper and cleaner natural gas. This is near the goal [unratified] Kyoto treaty of 5% below 1990 levels. Since this was acheived by market forces rather than government regulation, Obama and environmentalists almost completely ignore this achievement. Obamas new proposal will lower US CO2 output even more.
We already have an actual solution. Its called building a massive solar thermal complex in the southwestern desert
Solar thermal projects all over the world are being cancelled because they can no longer compete with solar PV. I don't think this is the "actual solution" we are looking for.
Invest a trillion dollars in it over the next 10 years ...
Maybe we should find something that actually makes economic sense before we add another trillion to our national debt.
Why is it out of line to expect actual expertise from someone giving an expert opinion? I wouldn't trust a climatologist to fix my car; I wouldn't trust my mechanic to treat me if I were ill; and I don't expect a professional demagogue--like this radio host of yours--to be an expert at anything but demagoguery.
Let's discuss something a little more pressing, shall we Mr. President?
At risk of being modded into oblivion as a troll, this speech today happened exactly because of those "more pressing" matters.
The dude (and many of his acolytes, e.g. Nancy Pelosi) are being slammed with demands that the NSA knock off their rolling 4th Amendment violations program, that the IRS stop targeting political opponents, and a whole host of other scandals that the White House just can't seem to shake.
So, what do you do when you find yourself in trouble? Go talk about hot-button issues that your supporters love and care about - it makes your supporters love you again, and your opponents go talk about something else until that something else dies down or gets forgotten. Poll number drooping among your supporters due to missteps? Talk about gay marriage. IRS caught targeting groups who oppose you? Make abortion pills OTC for teenage girls. You lose an embassy due to incompetence and you get caught spinning the story badly? Seize a tragedy and bring up gun control. Your NSA and Justice Department get caught violating the crap out of everyone's rights and even the New York Times is hating on you for it? Talk about climate change.
To be perfectly fair, if Obama had an "(R)" after his name, he'd bring up anti-abortion initiatives, immigration controls, and similar... The point is that there's a whole lot of political moves that are equivalent to a "Look over there!" maneuver, and it's getting pretty blatant. So before you go shouting "flamebait", stop and think about this for a minute. These initiatives and changes comes pretty hot on the heels of any scandal that threatens to wake up (and more frighteningly, enrage) the public en masse...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I hope this is sarcasm, because the Montreal Protocol is widely hailed as one of the greatest successes in international cooperation and pollution control. As a result of the treaty, ozone-depleting chemicals in the atmosphere (as measured in equivalent chlorine) have declined by 10%, and the ozone hole over Antarctica is poised to have resorted by 1 million square km (of a peak of 25 million square km) by 2015.
Really, the only failure of the Montreal Protocol was the promotion of HCFC-22 which does less ozone damage but is a major greenhouse gas. (It's being phased out for more ozone-safe refrigerants, but it'll be up there for centuries.)
Does anyone remember the introduction of catalytic converters for cars? What was it we were told? We were told the converters would convert the noxious emissions into harmless water...and carbon dioxide.
Well, when the alternative is carbon monoxide, unburned gasoline, and NOx, I think we'll take the CO2 and water. But just because it's non-toxic doesn't mean that it's not a pollutant.
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