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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!"
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.
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.
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.
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
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