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Obama To Ask For $1 Billion Climate Change Fund
An anonymous reader writes "President Obama will ask Congress for a $1 billion 'Climate Resilience Fund' in his proposed budget next month. From the article: 'Obama is expected to release his proposed 2015 budget in early March. The prospects for the climate fund are uncertain in a Republican-controlled House. But Obama, who made preparation for climate change one of the major themes of the climate action plan he released in June, will continue to press for the need to adapt, according to the White House.'"
I mean, that Solyndra thing worked out great. Why not give Obama a $1B slush fund to play with?
Just say No to this.
The U.S. is doing fairly well on pollution, It's the third world up-and-comers with a massive increase in their oil budgets and no, or suppressed, or wholly state-owned, watchdogs who are polluting the world.
A pork fund by any other name is still a pork fund.
Congress has no constitutional authority to appropriate a "Climate Resilience Fund." The president is not fulfilling his oath or duty. We are seventeen trillion dollars in debt. Neither party has proposed a single constitutional solution in years.
They are all corrupt. All of them. Every last one. Congress, the president and the Supreme Court should be either voted out of office or impeached as appropriate and removed from their offices forthwith.
The federal government no longer functions. The states of this union must convene an Article V convention and propose amendments for ratification by the state legislatures. Only by that constitutionally mandated power can the states restrain the federal government and restore balance to national governance.
For starters, just ask Solyndra for our $500 million back. Oh wait, they went bankrupt and most of it ended up in the executives' pockets and from their into your campaign fund.
That's because it makes perfect sense... In my wee opinion, this is prima facie evidence that there is money in shouting the AGW 'gospel' and pushing the panic button.
Now, you can mod this post down into oblivion and prove me right, or you can prove me wrong by replying with facts, evidence, and reason... your call.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Don't be fooled.
Facts, evidence, and reason are readily available anywhere you want to look for them. At this point, about the only reason you left not to be familiar with them is willful ignorance. That's the reason you'll (hopefully) get modded into oblivion, not because there's a gospel or anyone's out to get you. Try reading a book once in a while that isn't written by someone working for an oil company.
If they are proffitable, then why do they need government money?
Or is that they are not bankrupt --yet?
This makes sense, whether or not you agree with climate change models or the proposed mechanisms of climate change, because it provides funds to protect critical infrastructure during extreme weather events.
We already know that different regions are susceptible to different types of extreme weather. For example: some areas are prone to flooding while others are susceptible to drought. Prior generations have decided to deal with measures such as building levees or irrigation systems, simply because they understood that infrastructure has to be protected. They didn't worry about the politics of climate change simply because the controversy didn't exist. However, data about prior weather events did exist. (Alas, some of that data was due to contemporary floods or droughts which had a considerable cost in life and property.)
Now if Americans want to stick their heads in the sand and insist that years of flooding and drought won't exist because they don't agree with the AGW crowd, that's up to them. They should also realize that when the inevitable happens, they are the ones that will pay the price for their lack of preparedness. That is true regardless of whether the weather is caused by natural mechanisms or exacerbated by human factors.
Kind of like spitting in the ocean. Add about 7 or 8 trillion if you want to do anything about it otherwise you're just pissing money away. Think of the trillions of dollars worth of carbon fuel burned every year. What are you going to replace it with that costs a billion dollars? Fucking silly.
I remember climate experts shouting back in the last millennium that if we didn't do radical change by 2000 it'd be too late to make a difference. Why does that target date keep moving?
Remember how we were the scum of the Earth for not ratifeing the Koyoto agreement, yet we're the only country that met the emmissions target of the treaty we didn't ratify.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
It's just another slush fund to be used to pay off campaign contributors.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
This funding is for climate resilience. It doesn't matter if the cause of climate change is human or not. If the climate is changing there are things that can be done to prepare for it and to help withstand the effects.
The whole idea of the grants is to get things going. While Tesla got most of its startup funding from Musk, most high-tech companies need money from either a venture capitalist or, if seen as too risky, some sort of grant.
In general, the funded firms companies were long-shots with a very significant up-sides for the nation and the economy, and the environment if they succeeded. It was completely expected that many would fail. If the odds were not long, most of the companies would have gotten private capitalization.
And, yes, several more may yet fail, but even the failures are far from a complete write-off. Some produced some potentially useful tech that could not be monetized before the cash ran out or the value was clear enough to get private funding.
Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired
There will, of course, be money in it. The science points to AGW being true, and that it will affect human society, especially various industries that we, as a species, rely upon. How can there not be money involved in talking about it? The fact that money is involved has nothing to do with the veracity of the science involved (indeed, the science is good, regardless of the politics which it causes). Pushing the "panic" button shouldn't be necessary, but because of the screams of "AGW doesn't exist" from the people seeking to not change their industries/companies/ways, it most certainly is necessary, otherwise rational people won't get to hear about how they can help. The most disturbing thing about this AGW stuff is how the nay-sayers ignore science, then get all complainy when the science is shown to be good time and time again, and then get even more complainy when people have to shout to be heard above the complainers' nonsense.
It doesn't help that people also confuse the politics with the science. If the politics sucks, that says nothing about the science, or what the science says will happen. You seem to be in this camp, which is a shame.
There is no debate over the source of the change. None. Well, none in the scientific community. There's plenty in the media, as that's where money can be used to influence public opinion, such as yours. You sound like a creationist barking that evolution is just a theory and that you don't believe in it. It's pathetic.
Don't put this only on Hansen alone. Put it on the tens of millions of people that are very worried about climate change and know the limitations of solar and wind.
If solar and wind were that economical, Hawaii would have already shutdown it's fossil fuel electricity, because Hawaii has the most expensive fossil electricity outside of remote Alaska. Hawaii has strong/consistent winds, and is the best USA state for solar. Still, wind+solar in Hawaii is still less than 10% of electricity production.
The German clean electricity plan is one trillion euro. It has already resulted in German coal consumption going up (along with emissions).
We have an enormous ideology problem in the world. One such angle is the radical green ideology that sees man as a problem, and sees cheap electricity (no matter how clean) like giving a chainsaw to a child.
The anti nuclear greens want expensive electricity so we can't waste it.
We must separate the hidden green peace agenda from solutions to climate change. And take nuclear power seriously.
Fukushima and Three mile Island killed nobody from radiation. I'll be conservative and conceed it's possible Fukushima will cause a few hundred cancers, with the anti nuclear lobby conveniently forgetting the 8.8 magnitude earthquake and the tsunami killed 20000 people.