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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.'"
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.
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.
Don't be fooled.
The difference between our government and others is that we have a Constitution which restrains corruption. The further we drift from the law, the more lawless we become.
We are fortunate that Madison was prescient in this thinking and chose to include a mechanism for recovering control in the face of a thoroughly corrupt federal government.
The states will do their duty, and it will be a signal to the world that the American People are both resilient and well equipped to handle any challenge.
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.
In my wee opinion, this is prima facie evidence that there is money in shouting the AGW 'gospel' and pushing the panic button.
Using your logic:
There's been massive flooding in the UK in recent weeks. So if the government allocate a significant budget to deal with the problem, that means that there wasn't really any flooding, it's just that there's money available for people to shout "Flood!"
I mean, that Solyndra thing worked out great. Why not give Obama a $1B slush fund to play with?
you forgot the other 24 companies that succeeded. a 96% success rate isnt good enough?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
That's some terrible formatting - mixing billions and millions and straight dollar amounts.
After some simple parsing: 33 companies total, 19 filed for bankruptcy, 14 did not.
Of the 19 that filed for bankruptcy, Solyndra was easily the largest with $535M.
Of the 14 that did not, Brightsource is easily the largest with $1600M.
Brightsource alone constitutes more money involved than the total for those that filed for bankruptcy; $1598M.
The total money involved for those that did not: $5837M
Ultimately these numbers don't mean a whole lot without looking at the complete effects, but I thought I'd at least make that list a little easier to work with; numbers in millions.
1600,Brightsource
1460,First Solar
1200,SunPower
529,Fisker Automotive
299,Johnson Controls
178,Babcock and Brown
151,LG ChemÃTM
126.2,ECOtality
100,Mascoma Corp.
98.5,Nevada Geothermal
50,Vestas
39,Navistar
5.9,Amonix
0.5,GreenVolts
535,* Solyndra
400,* Abound Solar
279,* A123 Systems
118.5,* EnerDelÃ(TM
80,* Range Fuels
43,* Beacon Power
33,* Raser Technologies
25,* Evergreen Solar
20,* Konarka Technologies Inc.
16,* Nordic Windpower
13.3,* Energy Conversion Devices
10,* OlsenÃ(TM
7,* Stirling Energy Systems
6.5,* Thompson River Power
5.4,* Azure Dynamics
3,* Satcon
2,* Mountain Plaza
0.700981,* Willard and Kelsey Solar Group
0.5,* SpectraWatt
Given that Solyndra is the only failure that the Obama critics can ever come up with, and given that a subsidy program for renewable energy obviously has high risks (but also high gains), Obama has a very impressive track record in this area.)
I'm all for solar and renewal energy development. But let's not kid ourselves over President Obama's track record. Here's a list of the ten largest loans to solar panel companies that went bankrupt:
If we add in Solyndra at $570 million he's managed to piss away about $2.5 billion on those ten companies. If that's what you consider an impressive track record, I'd hate to see what you consider mediocre, or poor.
If they are proffitable, then why do they need government money?
Or is that they are not bankrupt --yet?
First, emissions per capita is a worthless measure. The fact is,that emissions are tied to GDP, not ppl. The only one that makes sense is CO2 per $GDP. And on that one, we are in the middle.
Secondly, America's emissions are dropping in EVERY arena. In fact, for the last 5 years, we have dropped more than any other single nation OR ENTITY.
Third, I always have to laugh when I see nutjobs like you screaming (anonomously) that America is the great evil on this, based on calculations of 50,75 years, while ignoring the fact that Europe, China have been emitting large amounts for millenniums. Heck, there is not virgin forest in either China OR Europe. And even now, Europe far outdid America in total emissions throughout most of the 1900s, until 1995. Then when Europe focused on taxing their fuel to stop future shock, did they lower their emissions. Regardless, America continues to drop our emissions.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No, the free market in America falls with OUR money. It becomes tax writeoffs and bail outs. All in all, the neo-cons have rigged the system to socialize the losses, but privatize the profits.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
Using your logic:
There's been massive flooding in the UK in recent weeks. So if the government allocate a significant budget to deal with the problem, that means that there wasn't really any flooding, it's just that there's money available for people to shout "Flood!"
1) Nobody is claiming that climate doesn't change - the debate is over the source(s) of that change.
I still see lots of people claiming that it's mostly due to the urban heat island.
2) Flooding is a present problem that causes damage, and is quite demonstrable as to its immediacy and even its sources. AGW theory on the other hand promises problems later down the road... maybe, well, if their models are proven to be correct.
Try again?
Well AGW theory promises problems like flooding, and preparing for AGW can help us mitigate or even reduce those problems.
As for your skepticism over the theories, the only way to truly prove the models correct is to wait for the consequences to happen, and at that point it might be too late to act.
For a country the size of the US $1 billion is minuscule, even if the skeptics were right and the science was shoddy group think and the models were wildly inaccurate, the potential size of the problem is so big that this would still be a good investment.
I stole this Sig
Good work on the list, but even then, that list is not complete. For example, it does not include Tesla, of which .5B was lent to them and since repaid. And how much of a difference has it made? Huge. They have forced all of other car makers (save nissan) to build electric cars, even though they do not want to.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
Cite? I've generally heard 2020s or 2030s but that might be true and they might have been right. For all we know we're already past the tipping point and are going to get hit no matter what.
I stole this Sig
BTW, Here is a decent article about the situation.
As it reports, America is dropping our emissions a great deal. We have been for 6 years, which is why the stats like to use 2005, rather than the more accurate 2011 or 2012.
In addition, it points out that 60% of the emissions come from '3rd world' nations, which for all intents and purposes, means the BRIC nations. The developed world emits less than 40%, with just China emitting more than EUROPE AND AMERICA COMBINED.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's a political thread and there's a lot of pseudolibertarians here nowadays, hence the stupid.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
There is no scientific consensus on what should be done about global warming.
The commonly accepted way to reduce climate change (archaic form: global warming) is to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHG).
The largest sources of human caused GHG emissions are a. coal fired electricity generation b. industrial agriculture.
The total CO2 equivalent emitted by you, me and what we consume, every year is 30 Billion tons.
That needs to be reduced by at least 50% within two decades or so.
Coal fired electricity generation produces prodigious amounts of CO2.
The problem with reducing coal based emissions is many fold:
on one side are entrenched interests in coal mining, and built infrastructure, that influence politics and public opinion.
Renewables were once very expensive but are competitive now. The mass production of PV panels shows what can be achieved.
The Germans have done a great deal of research to evolve technology solutions to maintain modern lifestyles.
Industrial agriculture produces prodigious amounts of CH4 (aka methane).
The waste of up-converting feed stock into live stock will be reduced by increasingly poorer climate conditions.
Since the ratio of petrochemical energy in to food energy out is something like 10:1 all food will get expensive
as fuel costs keep rising with the inexorable increased cost of oil exploitation (aka peak oil).
Obama's $1B will fund a lot of US research to help you maintain your life without ruining the earth's ecological systems
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
E X A C T L Y
Now why are we crying about a meagre $1B to get that answer?
Re the " Apocalyptic Global Warmists ":, we are more concerned with methane tipping points
(you know, when we burn enough carbon to warm the oceans and atmosphere so the TRILLIONS of tons of
methane in permafrost and in undersea clathrate deposits are emitted). That promises runaway climate change.
Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
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
I hope some of that research is put to use trying to create a better way to extinguish underground coal mine fires that generate at least 3% of the world's CO2 output and seriously pollute the surrounding areas.
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 scientific consensus on what should be done about global warming.
Yes this is true, just as there is no scientific consensus for how to solve global poverty. Both issues are for politicians to solve. Science tells us there is a problem. It is up to our political system to decide which solutions to choose from.
If I had 100k to spend on an electric vehicle that could be used for 95-99% of my daily errands, what would I have bought before Tesla?
Exactly.
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.