Slashdot Mirror
Obama Unveils Major Climate Change Proposal
An anonymous reader writes: Two years in the making, President Obama formally unveiled his plan to cut power plant emissions today, calling it the "single most important step that America has ever made in the fight against global climate change." The "Clean Power Plan" includes the first ever EPA standards on carbon pollution from power plants. CNN reports: "Under the plan, the administration will require states to meet specific carbon emission reduction standards, based on their individual energy consumption. The plan also includes an incentive program for states to get a head start on meeting standards on early deployment of renewable energy and low-income energy efficiency."
Expect the first half of the posts from the, "the world is ending, fix global warming/climate change/AGW down!" crowd.
Expect the second half of the posts from the, "drill, baby drill, economy and jobs, save the middle class, solar is too expensive, burn more coal" crowd.
And nothing will be changed, resolved, or decided.
""We're the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it," Obama said on Monday."
---
While that sounds nice when he is giving a speech, there are two problems with the above sentence.
First, we aren't feeling the impact of climate change. For all the fear mongering, the oceans haven't risen, the weather is fine, and life has been carrying on.
Second, we aren't the last generation who can do something about it. Depending on who you listen to, either we have already passed the point of no return, or we have a long time to worry about it.
If AGW supporters are correct, then the changes being proposed won't change the outcome by enough to matter. We had to do all this 30+ years ago and get the world on board as well. A few cuts here and there will be swamped by the growth in the global economy and the number of new power plants being built every year. China alone is building a new coal plant every month.
At this point, we're just moving the deck chairs around the Titanic, or perhaps put another way, we using a bucket brigade to try and get the water out of the ship. Nice idea, but pointless when the ship is still going to sink.
So if the AGW people are right (and they might be, I wouldn't discount smart people so easily), then we need to start adapting to the change that is coming regardless of what we do.
If the AGW people are wrong, then this is just a wealth transfer and overreaching power grab from big government.
....because you've already taken the problem into your hands and reduced your carbon output.
It will cost us billions and is expected to have an effect that is within the statistical measuring error. What a deal. Of course this is from the guy who traded four high ranking enemy combatants for a deserter, so maybe he thinks it is a good deal. Please oh please can we elect an adult next time? Someone who has actually accomplished something other than getting elected?
This sounds a lot like the line from The American President regarding "White House Resolution 455" (an energy bill reducing fossil fuel emissions), which is, "It is, by far, the most aggressive stride ever taken in the fight to reverse the effects of global warming..."
"...single most important step that America has ever made in the fight against global climate change..." begins to sound hilariously similar 20 years later.
Note that I know nothing about the material elements of this speech or bill. I just think that the speechwriting language is eerily similar.
....because you've already taken the problem into your hands and reduced your carbon output.
I have actually... and more people do every day...
I spent a few hundred dollars to replace all my incandescent bulbs in my home with LED bulbs. And I was ranting a few years ago against government over reach when they wanted to ban incandescent bulbs. I still am, it isn't their job to pick winners.
LED bulbs did get down to a price point where they make sense, now it comes down to education to make people aware of how much money they save. My payback period on those bulbs is just over a year, maybe 15 months. That is a no-brainer if there ever was one. People talk about solar systems having 7 to 10 year paybacks, yet ignore the one that has less than 2 years of payback.
I also recently purchased a car for the first time in almost 20 years. My primary vehicle is a 2015 Yukon XL Denali, a wonderful vehicle that burns crap loads of gas, but is very useful for moving my family, their friends, and stuff. However, if it is just me, or just me and my wife, it is overkill... So now I also own a 2014 Ford Taurus that gets 29 MPH on the highway. It is still comfortable and filled with nice stuff, but it burns almost half the fuel of my big truck and I make a point to drive it instead of the truck when I don't need the truck.
Now I'm thankfully in the position that I can afford to buy another vehicle, not everyone is. I figure that the gas savings pays for the insurance on it, so it isn't "free" or even "cheap", but it does reduce my carbon and pollution footprint.
And I'm a Republican! So not all of us want to just "drill, baby drill" until it is all gone. But the solutions should be reasonable and take into account everyone, not just top down central planning.
It's about time better incentives were introduced - other countries have gone a long way towards their renewable energy targets by incentivising construction of solar panels on people's homes and it sounds like that would help here.
Do you seriously believe that switching to LED bulbs and driving a car that gets only 29mpg (which is terrible gas mileage in reality, only relative to your other gas guzzler does it seem reasonable) will achieve anything? Even if every single person in the world did this, it would make no effective difference.
The real waste is at the front end, where power is generated, and the only fix for that is "top down" legislation to force the providers to do something about the emissions and inefficiency. And that pretty much has to be dictated because industry has shown time and time and time again that it won't regulate itself if left to its own devices.
Some things simply cannot be solved by laissez faire capitalism. In fact it creates many problems, which is obvious to anyone willing to open their eyes for two seconds. That does not mean that the solution is the opposite, a totally planned central economy, but a sensible mix of the two. The knee-jerk reactionary repugnance to anything with even the mildest whiff of small-s 'socialism' is seriously damaging. It damages the health and happiness of every person, and now it is seriously damaging the planet. Nothing is black or white, perhaps a little subtlety should be given its chance. People have been sold the right-wing view for so long now they've forgotten what the middle ground even is. Centre-right policies are seen as far left, which is ridiculous.
....because you've already taken the problem into your hands and reduced your carbon output.
Yes, we have. We've reduced 'carbon output' in the West by shipping manufacturing to China, where it's less efficient and far more polluting.
I think capitalism could solve it, it's just that by the time AGW began kicking the living shit out of the economy and causing widespread ecological damage, much of it would be irreversible.
But guys like the Koch's want it that way. They'll walk away with vast amounts of money and insulate themselves from the woes being suffered by everyone else. We are literally allowing our economic and political systems be completely co-opted to serve a tiny fraction of the population. And worse, many of us actually think that the Heartland Institute and the Wall Street Journal are some sort of purveyors of truth.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Individual action is not going to reduce carbon dioxide emissions much. We need to replace fossil fuels with alternative sources of energy, which is something individuals can't do on their own. We need to build new power plants. This is something we will need to do anyway, since fossil fuels will not last forever. The only option is how quickly we wean ourselves off fossil fuels, not whether or not we do it. And doing so more quickly has the added benefits of reducing pollution and ocean acidification.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
But if, and only if they can contain their effluence inside their own borders, I say, Let them choke themselves! But since smog doesn't respect state borders neither should the feds. Squabbling little fiefdoms (the states) cannot handle national issues and should butt out, and clean up, or the feds will do it for them!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I have: vegetarian, bike most places, solar energy.
And I still think Obama is batshit crazy.
At this point, I'd rather vote for a Christian conservative pushing free markets than another progressive Democrat.
As long as so many companies, towns and states earn so much money digging dirty polluting black rocks out of the ground and burning them to generate electricity, there is no chance that that the USA can move to a cleaner greener future.
It's comments like this that really get my goat. There are options between doing nothing and becoming a third world country. The President's plan wouldn't make us a third world country and it will decrease our carbon emissions.
Oh, BTW, closing coal powered plans will actually reduce deaths in the US; and, you know what, it's already happening! See Death and Disease from Power Plants. The numbers of deaths attributable to pollution from power plants has gone down significantly in the last 15 years.
I doubt your math, but it doesn't really matter. For every megawatt of power generated by a coal plant, on average, 2,249 lbs carbon dioxide are generated. In 2013, there were 1,581,115 megawatt hours of electricity generated by coal. That's 3,555,927,635 pounds.
Even so, you're saying, he's a hypocrite, right? Wrong.
The President isn't saying "Shut down everything that emits carbon dioxide". He's saying that it's time to decrease our carbon dioxide emissions. No hypocrisy, and even with your numbers, a drop in the bucket for emissions.
I was going to ask you where you were getting led's so cheaply.
But I checked the math first.
I can get one 65w equivalent led bulb for $7.84 or I can get four 65w bulbs for $7.88.
Assuming energy cost of $0.10/kwh and 4hr/day usage the 55w difference in power usage adds up to a savings of $8.01/year.
I'm replacing mine as they burn out even with their low cost it seems a waste to throw out a perfectly good lightbulb and the newer led bulbs are a near perfect match to the incandescent bulbs I have 6 recessed fixtures in my living room and one of them is a led but you can't tell which one it is!
I Have got to say I really didn't think the turn around time would be that short. Thanks for pointing that out.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
The US power industry puts out 5% of the worlds carbon and this plan will cut it by 1.5% over how many years? China on average is bringing on a new power plant every 10 days. Please explain how this insignificant but costly plan is going to affect climate change?
I still am, it isn't their job to pick winners.
No but their job is to serve the greater good and legislating on energy efficiency in that regard is no different from mandating health and safety standards, or telling the local coal plant that they can't simply produce cheaper energy by dumping sludge into the river rather than disposing of it correctly.
Every single decision ever made by a government results in picking winners, whether specifically by technology as in this case, or by trade agreements, setting minimum standards, or in some cases even granting specific monopoly by flat out funding a project using tax payers money.
We used to have an Iron Curtain and we know need to divide the world with a Green one.
Step #1: Develop the high tech needed to move away from fossil fuels
Step #2: Incentivize step #1 via adoption of a carbon tax that increases over time.
Step #3: This is the main step. Use the carbon tax as a trade barrier. Unless you buy our expensive technology to produce clean energy, you cannot trade with us and we won't trade with anyone who trades with you.
If you get the US, Europe and Japan on one side of the Green Curtain, that would be a tremendous incentive for other countries to follow. In addition, it would create a tremendous market for the tech developed in Step #1.
Do you seriously believe that switching to LED bulbs and driving a car that gets only 29mpg (which is terrible gas mileage in reality, only relative to your other gas guzzler does it seem reasonable) will achieve anything? Even if every single person in the world did this, it would make no effective difference.
It would do more than completely eliminating coal burning plants. Transportation generates a similar amount of CO2 to coal burning power plants. And in addition, massive reduction in electricity demand would reduce the number of coal power plants.
Some things simply cannot be solved by laissez faire capitalism. In fact it creates many problems, which is obvious to anyone willing to open their eyes for two seconds. That does not mean that the solution is the opposite, a totally planned central economy, but a sensible mix of the two. The knee-jerk reactionary repugnance to anything with even the mildest whiff of small-s 'socialism' is seriously damaging. It damages the health and happiness of every person, and now it is seriously damaging the planet. Nothing is black or white, perhaps a little subtlety should be given its chance. People have been sold the right-wing view for so long now they've forgotten what the middle ground even is. Centre-right policies are seen as far left, which is ridiculous.
It's not a mild whiff of "socialism". It's a massive restructuring of our society and economy on shaky grounds. What happens when the next imaginary ecothreat comes through? If we continue to use the same decision-making process as we're doing here, then it's going to be a long stream of poor decisions and a descent either into regional dissolution or even a new dark age, if the whole world should buy in for the duration.
Methane is 1000x as disruptive as CO2 and we have more cows than power plants plus there are working prototypes of methane electrical generators in cow barns.
He rules by executive order!
Donald Rumsfeld: You go to war with the army you have...
I think capitalism could solve it, it's just that by the time AGW began kicking the living shit out of the economy and causing widespread ecological damage, much of it would be irreversible.
But guys like the Koch's want it that way. They'll walk away with vast amounts of money and insulate themselves from the woes being suffered by everyone else.
Hell, the Kochs don't need to spend any money to insulate themselves. At their age, they'll be dead before the worst negative effects are felt.
No, you drive large death traps.
Consuming a gallon of fuel to transport one human being 30 miles is a ludicrous waste of resources. A personal vehicle that could achieve the equivalent of 200 miles per gallon is perfectly feasible right now with no new technological breakthroughs. The only thing that would have to shift is the perception that you need to be enclosed in 2 tons of steel.
Some things simply cannot be solved by laissez faire capitalism. In fact it creates many problems, which is obvious to anyone willing to open their eyes for two seconds. That does not mean that the solution is the opposite, a totally planned central economy, but a sensible mix of the two. The knee-jerk reactionary repugnance to anything with even the mildest whiff of small-s 'socialism' is seriously damaging. It damages the health and happiness of every person, and now it is seriously damaging the planet. Nothing is black or white, perhaps a little subtlety should be given its chance. People have been sold the right-wing view for so long now they've forgotten what the middle ground even is. Centre-right policies are seen as far left, which is ridiculous.
It's not a mild whiff of "socialism". It's a massive restructuring of our society and economy on shaky grounds. What happens when the next imaginary ecothreat comes through? If we continue to use the same decision-making process as we're doing here, then it's going to be a long stream of poor decisions and a descent either into regional dissolution or even a new dark age, if the whole world should buy in for the duration.
Imaginary threats don't harm us. Real threats do. We're facing the real threat of global warming. Instead of taking an honest look at the science and possible solutions, you look the potential bill and say any solution is impossible. Nevermind if the bill would include the price to get the world off fossil fuels and eliminate our gas payments forever. Nevermind if the bill would remove the motivation behind wars for oil and the trillions we've spent for those. Nevermind if the bill would clean up our air and eliminate smog and cut our medical payments for lung conditions. So, we live with your shortsightedness in a worse world where we constantly pay for gas with our money and lives.
Thanks for making my point - for some it's black and white; if we can't have black we must have white. If we can't have unfettered capitalism we must have a "massive restructuring" and go 100% with full-blown communism. No-one, least of all me, is advocating that. A SENSIBLE mix where capitalism does what it does well, and central planning does what it does well can and does work. Look at countries like Denmark - the vast majority have a comfortable and pleasant way of life without massive unemployment, violence and social upheaval. Sure, each person has to pay a little more tax but the kicker is that tax doesn't just benefit a few already rich plutarchs, it benefits everyone in the form of schools, hospitals, transport and so on. Capitalism really doesn't do those things well - countries that have tried to follow that ideological model are in some serious strife, like the UK. Profit cannot solve every problem.
Anyway, we're hardly talking about a massive restructuring. So far it's been a slow piecemeal drift. If the change to sustainable were speeded up 10 times you'd hardly notice the difference. And if you're right (unlikely), and the threat is imaginary, then you've made a better world for nothing I suppose.
Legislature? Obama doesn't need any stinking legislature. He's Emperor Lameduck! He rules by executive order!
Interesting fact: In 2014 the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Air Act gives the EPA not only the authority to regulate CO2 emissions, but the responsibility to do so.
So you're right, Obama doesn't need the legislature to do this, because the legislature already gave him (or more precisely, gave the EPA) the power to do this back in 1970.
If the legislature doesn't like what the EPA is doing, they can of course pass new legislation limiting what the EPA can do. Assuming the legislature is still capable of passing anything, of course.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
regardless of your thoughts on how everyone should live, this is the world we actually live in.
id love to get 200 MPG (what car does that??) now, but i wont trade off size and comfort for MPGs
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
if you eat almonds, you are doing more damage to the west coast than my driving does. have you seen the water needs for a single almond??
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
It would do more than completely eliminating coal burning plants. Transportation generates a similar amount of CO2 to coal burning power plants.
CO2 emissions in transportation are being reduced as well, via higher fuel economy standards, development of electric cars, etc.
This isn't a scenario where any one improvement will "solve" the problem. The problem has to be attacked on many fronts simultaneously, and all of the partial reductions will start to add up over time.
It's a massive restructuring of our society and economy on shaky grounds.
Hardly. The proposal merely sets targets and leaves it up to the individual states how to reach them. The states don't even have to submit a proposal until 2016, and don't have to start making any actual changes until 2020. The administration is bending over backwards to make this as easy as possible, and still conservatives are crying like they're being waterboarded.
What happens when the next imaginary ecothreat comes through?
There's your problem -- you think global warming is imaginary, and therefore the amount of resources that can justifiably be allocated to fighting it is zero. There's no point in discussing mitigation strategies with when you haven't even accepted that there actually is a problem that needs to be solved. Most likely at some point in the next 5, 10, 15 years the evidence will become obvious enough to overcome your ideological blinders; but in the meantime the rest of us need to start working on a fix now, rather than waiting for you to be convinced.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Basically, it is the extremists that are killing America, and even the west.
Many ppl note the fact that the far right HATES science and pick and choose what they want to. And they are correct.
However few ppl have noticed the fact that the far left HATES science and pick and choose what they want to.
Take the case of AGW. A rational person says that the science is overwhelming in favor of AGW. Therefore the smart thing is to drop our CO2 and relatively soon.
BUT, if you run the numbers, you will see that we NEED nukes. In particular, we need gen IV nukes since they can not meltdown. In addition, these can make use of the nuke waste/ aboveground thorium, rather than mining for U.
Yet, the far left fights it. And the far right, really has not done SQUAT for the nuke industry.
Then you have the fact that the far left screams about America's emissions. Yet, current calculated numbers from 2013 show that China accounts for more than 30% of CO2, while the entire west accounts for less than 28%. In addition, China's emission far outweigh even America's emissions. Both in current, as well as total since 150 years ago, or even 1000 years ago.
And that does not include what OCO2 is showing. OCO2's numbers are showing that CHina's emission is well over 40%, and probably closer to 45%. That is HUGE. Absolutely fucking HUGE.
BUT, what does the far left do? They scream that America needs to buy wind/solar from China and continue to drop our emissions. At the same time, they claim that China's growing their Wind/solar faster than America, while ignoring the fact that China's % of electricity from Coal grows EVERY YEAR, and is now in the high 80s.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
My Mercedes E250 CDI gets 36.5 mpg in everyday city driving and it is the epitome of safe and comfortable.
Look, O got loads of money from the nuke industry. Why? Because he is a fan of nukes.
The problem was that the dems were opposed to it, and the GOP is opposed to ANYTHING that O tries to do.
Right now, is the PERFECT time for the GOP to get off their fucking ass and put forward a bill to really fund nukes. O would back it.
BUT, you nut jobs will not do it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Thanks in large part to the low cost of natural gas. So Obama needs to get out in front of his and make it look like it was actually his doing.
Have gnu, will travel.
I was going to ask you where you were getting led's so cheaply.
But I checked the math first.
I can get one 65w equivalent led bulb for $7.84 or I can get four 65w bulbs for $7.88.
Amazon had a deal of the day a month or so back offering 60w LED bulbs for $5 each delivered.
So I bought 30 of them. I've since bought more at about $6 each.
I don't pay 10 cents a kWh, I pay less than 7 cents, but even at that price, they make sense.
I also have some lights that are on 12 hours a day, do that math there and it becomes a complete no brainer.
I could have just done the high use lights, but frankly, the economics are so in favor of it that I did them all, even the closet lights where it makes less sense.
the newer led bulbs are a near perfect match to the incandescent bulbs
They are... I had some CFLs and frankly they suck. The LEDs are much, much nicer... I've even replaced the CFLs and that is a far less interesting economic situation, but I consider the superior light and lack of hum from the LEDs to be worth it.
29 MPH with a Ford Taurus, I know American cars are shit, but that's really bad.
I can get at least 120 MPH with my Volkswagen Golf. I've gone up to about 145 MPH in a BMW X5 on a clear motorway in Croatia.
Do you seriously believe that switching to LED bulbs and driving a car that gets only 29mpg (which is terrible gas mileage in reality, only relative to your other gas guzzler does it seem reasonable) will achieve anything?
It achieves more than just grousing and blaming.
The real waste is at the front end, where power is generated, and the only fix for that is "top down" legislation to force the providers to do something about the emissions and inefficiency.
Among other things wrong with that, legislation cannot effect magic. And presidential edicts are not legislation.
So, you guys ready for nuclear yet? No? Then chill out. Nobody is giving up modern life and energy, you included. So save the "moral" outrage.
Not only that, but the bill for dealing with the consequences of global warming (higher dikes, loss of crops, defence against new diseases, irrigation facilities and dams, damage from more frequent and more violent hurricanes...) will be higher than the costs of switching to non CO2 energy sources...
And I was ranting a few years ago against government over reach when they wanted to ban incandescent bulbs. I still am, it isn't their job to pick winners.
Where do you draw the line and how did you decide on that exact spot?
It is illegal to dump toxic industrial waste in your back yard. I think most people would agree that that is reasonable regulation that allows us all to live together. Right at the other end of the scale you have incandescent light bulbs, which waste a lot of energy compared to CCFL and LED, and even halogen, and thus generate more pollution from electricity generation. Okay, it depends where you live, where your energy comes from etc. But generally speaking using them pollutes more than other forms of lighting.
So where is the line? How much pollution, how far away from populated areas, what kind of health damage is acceptable? You are arguing over the position of this line that separates things the government should regulate from those it should not, and I'm interested to know what criteria and reasoning you use.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This will cause energy prices to rise, which hurts the people with the least amount of money the most.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
And to add to that my '02 BMW 325i consistently gets 33-34 MPG commuting to and from work and on open highway gets about 37 MPG, these are American not British gallons as well as being a gasoline powered vehicle with 145,000 mile on it. Again a very comfortable and safe vehicle as well.
Time to offend someone
"we dont drive small death traps like the rest of the world"
Um, the US has an 11.6 per 100,000 people death rate on the road, vs. France's 4.9, Germany's 4.3, or the UK's 3.5.
So people driving those "death traps" in the rest of the world are half as likely to die as you Americans are in your gigantic gas guzzlers. We typically get 50mpg and they tend to even let us drive faster too.
So yeah, nicer cars, faster journeys, less likely to die, and more money left over at the end of it.
Remind me why you think blowing cash on a fugly car that only gets 21mpg is a good thing again?
Utility rates would NECESSARILY SKYROCKET. Yep, the economy sucks, the USA in the past few decades has transformed from a global manufacturing country, to more of a service sector company. All of the high paying jobs, have been pushed overseas, so yeah, why not, lets make the utility rates SKYROCKET, and force our country to have rolling black outs like the rest of the world. JUST TO MAKE IT FAIR. Bunch of crybaby socialist/communist/marxist that run this country into the ground.
Unless, of course, it's not. The thing people don't get here is that we don't choose CO2 energy sources just because. They are considerably cheaper and more effective than the alternatives. And one of the more important consequences of this choice is that we are bringing a vast number of people out of poverty.
I think it's telling that arguments about "climate change" ignore the elephant in the room - namely, that poor people can't afford to care. Just growing the economy at the current expense of the climate seems more likely to result in a net gain for the climate than the poorly thought out and hasty solutions to global warming proposed today.
I doubt your math, but it doesn't really matter. For every megawatt of power generated by a coal plant, on average, 2,249 lbs carbon dioxide are generated. In 2013, there were 1,581,115 megawatt hours of electricity generated by coal. That's 3,555,927,635 pounds.
Even so, you're saying, he's a hypocrite, right? Wrong.
The President isn't saying "Shut down everything that emits carbon dioxide". He's saying that it's time to decrease our carbon dioxide emissions. No hypocrisy, and even with your numbers, a drop in the bucket for emissions.
But how again is that not hypocrisy? "We need to emit less carbon", then flies everywhere in a fuel guzzling modified 747, even for quick vacations.
And when "deniers" say small steps wouldn't be enough to combat AGW anyway, they get lambasted for being too fatalistic, because every little bit helps.. but now this is a just a "drop in the bucket". Maybe those who wish to lead should do so by example, especially those who call for dramatic reductions. I know he can't go everywhere without AF1, but he and Hillary don't do a damn thing to check their carbon footprint.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Speaking of Denmark, they embraced renewable energy on a large scale and doubled the price of their electricity as a result. We don't need to consider imaginary futures when we can see the harmful effects of ineffective mitigation measures right now.
Hardly. The proposal merely sets targets and leaves it up to the individual states how to reach them. The states don't even have to submit a proposal until 2016, and don't have to start making any actual changes until 2020. The administration is bending over backwards to make this as easy as possible, and still conservatives are crying like they're being waterboarded.
And what happens when states start blowing this directive off? If they don't start making actual, very costly changes, what will the EPA do?
It is illegal to dump toxic industrial waste in your back yard.
Should you be able to pay any amount of money to be able to do that legally? To compensate society for the damage?
Let me put this another way:
Right at the other end of the scale you have incandescent light bulbs, which waste a lot of energy compared to CCFL and LED, and even halogen, and thus generate more pollution from electricity generation.
Ok, fair enough... What if each bulb came with a $5 tax that went into a clean energy fund that helped pay for wind and solar?
There are in fact applications where incandescent are useful. Not many, but some. And some people just prefer them.
I think very, very little should ever be banned. Drugs for example, make them legal and tax the crap out of them. Banning alcohol didn't work, the war on drugs hasn't worked either.
Right now, you can get incandescent cheap from Mexico, they are for sale on Amazon for pete's sake. The "ban" has just created a black market. Or in this case, a gray market, since their new production is banned, but not their sale. But even if you banned their sale, you could still get them.
So where is the line? How much pollution, how far away from populated areas, what kind of health damage is acceptable?
I actually think you should be allowed to pollute, to some extent, as much as you want, so long as you can pay for it. If you can compensate society for the damage, and perhaps then some, have at it.
Of course the idea is not to promote pollution, it is to make it more expensive than being green, to put a "bill from society" for the damage. For example, I think the gas tax in the US is way too low and doesn't reflex either the cost to maintain the roads or the cost to society for everyone burning tons of it. How many conservative Republicans do you know who say that we should triple the gas tax?
Banning things is generally (but not always) a bad idea, IMHO.
There's no point in discussing mitigation strategies with when you haven't even accepted that there actually is a problem that needs to be solved.
My view as well.
Most likely at some point in the next 5, 10, 15 years the evidence will become obvious enough to overcome your ideological blinders;
That's fine with me. Evidence is where this should have started in the first place.
but in the meantime the rest of us need to start working on a fix now, rather than waiting for you to be convinced.
No, you don't. Keep in mind that you have yet to show that there is a credible danger and yet to come up with a credible solution to that. Just because you have feelings to the contrary isn't interesting to me. There are some profoundly stupid aspects to current climate change mitigation that really needs to be addressed. I'll list a few right now:
1) The proposed solutions aggravate bigger problems like poverty, overpopulation, corruption, destruction of arable land and habitat.
2) The current strategies reward defectors.
3) Urgency is demanded even though there is no evidence to back a need for urgency. We could as you propose, wait that 15 years, but we're in too much of a hurry to do common sense and build a consensus first.
4) There is so much bad decisions, one-sided arguments, and propaganda surrounding climate change arguments right now. That smells of scam to me. I think we should wait a bit just so the con artists move on to something else.
Should you be able to pay any amount of money to be able to do that legally? To compensate society for the damage?
Can you adequately compensate someone for death or serious and unfixable health problems?
Ok, fair enough... What if each bulb came with a $5 tax that went into a clean energy fund that helped pay for wind and solar?
Wouldn't it just make more sense not to pollute in the first place? Why clean up a mess when you can easily avoid making it in the first place, especially when the mess is likely to do permanent damage to people's health?
There are in fact applications where incandescent are useful. Not many, but some. And some people just prefer them.
When there is justification, i.e. no other reason, that's fine. "I just prefer polluting" is not acceptable, sorry. We have to share this environment.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
So now I also own a 2014 Ford Taurus that gets 29 MPH on the highway. It is still comfortable and filled with nice stuff, but it burns almost half the fuel of my big truck and I make a point to drive it instead of the truck when I don't need the truck.
You did the ROI on the LED. What's the ROI on the Taurus?
Learn to love Alaska
showing yet again the poor science perpetrated by the warmist lynch-mob
"Most likely at some point in the next 5, 10, 15 years the evidence will become obvious enough to overcome your ideological blinders"
No it won't because this is the same type of denial suffered by drug abusers and alcoholics. The proof couldn't be much stronger than it is.
Most people who deny that our pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is causing the Earth to warm, deny because they simply don't want to believe it and no amount of evidence will change their mind. Add to that the deliberate attempt to cast doubt on the issue by people and organizations (motivated by money and political ideology) and you can understand where we are at. This has happened before most notably with tobacco. Tobacco was known (by tobacco companies) to cause cancer in the 50's. Despite strong evidence and scientific consensus, it wasn't until the 90's that the general public realized smoking caused cancer. And many didn't believe it (and some still don't) because they simply don't want to.
The book "Merchant's of Doubt" contains incredibly thorough investigations into this phenomenon.
You did the ROI on the LED. What's the ROI on the Taurus?
There isn't one, not from a money point of view...
It'll save me, give or take, about $120 a month in fuel... I'm paying $357 a month to own it, I figure if I keep it a few years and sell it, my net ownership cost will be in the $200 a month range.
Which sounds cheap, but that doesn't include insurance, tires, oil changes, etc. Depends on how long I keep it of course.
There is a small benefit in not putting so many miles on my truck, it holds a bit of value a bit longer, but that is just searching for reasons.
Wouldn't it just make more sense not to pollute in the first place?
Of course, that is the point. Make it more expensive to pollute, but allow it if someone wants to pay enough for it.
For example, I love my big truck, if anyone tries to tell me "I shouldn't drive such a thing", screw em, I can drive what I want.
However, I don't agree that light trucks and SUVs should be exempt from the fuel rules of cars, given what light trucks and SUVs are really used for.
So slap the gas guzzler tax on them and use that tax to provide rebates for fuel efficient cars. If the current $7,500 tax credit for EVs was paid for by a tax on big gas burning SUVs, I'd have FAR less of a problem with it, except that it shouldn't be JUST FOR EVs, it should be for any vehicle that gets, say, over 50 MPG.
You could also do a sliding scale, maybe set the middle to 30MPG average. Every MPG over that gets a small credit, growing with size as it burns less fuel. Every MPG less than that has a tax. Buy whatever you want, drive whatever you want, pay for it.
Can you adequately compensate someone for death or serious and unfixable health problems?
As sad as this is, yes you can... The court system clearly has placed a value on lives which is why large companies, too many times, have made decisions based on "what will it cost us if this product kills 10 people? what about 25 people?"
For what it is worth, I don't agree with such thinking, I'm just pointing out that our current system does allow for this.
When there is justification, i.e. no other reason, that's fine. "I just prefer polluting" is not acceptable, sorry. We have to share this environment.
We allow people to smoke cigarettes, and those have no good qualities whatsoever. What we have done is tax the crap out of them, but banning stuff usually has bad side effects.
We first switched to all CFLs, then as LEDs have come down, and with local incentives from utility companies, we have been transitioning to LEDs. The first to be replaced were high use, and practical use ones, such as the lamp we use often in the bedroom, and the ones in the bathrooms where it can be a little annoying to have the light start dim and gradually get bright. For the most part during the summer we hardly even need lights inside due to our south facing windows.
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." [Thomas Jefferson]
Do you seriously believe that switching to LED bulbs and driving a car that gets only 29mpg (which is terrible gas mileage in reality, only relative to your other gas guzzler does it seem reasonable) will achieve anything?
No, the change to LED bulbs saves me money, the car gives me something else to drive and almost kinda sorta saves me money. There are other reasons to have an extra vehicle and the few hundred dollars a month it ends up costing me is not a big deal.
BTW, you say 29 MPG is bad... you clearly have a different view of vehicles than I do, and that's ok. Find me a 4,000lb full size car with a real back seat and a decently powered V6 engine and all the bells and whistles that does much better... Oh, and have it cost $21K while you're at it... (bought it used, 1 year old, 22k miles)
The real waste is at the front end, where power is generated, and the only fix for that is "top down" legislation to force the providers to do something about the emissions and inefficiency. And that pretty much has to be dictated because industry has shown time and time and time again that it won't regulate itself if left to its own devices.
You can't change it by enough to matter. I suspect Obama knows this, or at least I hope the people advising him have told him that...
If the goal is to stop the rise in CO2 levels in the air, then we're toast, because that isn't going to happen.
Sigh.
Read what I wrote, emphasis added
I still doubt the math. It's clearly back of the envelope. The fuel burned by a 747 is not constant, as the link provided makes clear. See Atmosfair Airline Index for 117 page PDF that describes how challenging it is to describe how much CO2 is released by an airplane. Also, the distance is wrong, since the jet certainly didn't follow a straight line
However, one more time, the math doesn't matter. It gets lost in the decimal points when compared to CO2 emissions from coal.
I didn't create a straw man. The clear implication was that the President was being a hypocrite. Putting the CO2 released by his trip in context of his plan makes it clear that's a silly argument. Adding in that the President wasn't saying all CO2 emissions must stop makes it even clearer.
You do realize that poor people are going to suffer more than the affluent from climate change effects, don't you? Barring some sort of intervention, they're screwed either way.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You do realize that poor people are going to suffer more than the affluent from climate change effects, don't you?
Then it's good that the policies I propose make a vast number of affluent people not poor people.
And what happens when states start blowing this directive off? If they don't start making actual, very costly changes, what will the EPA do?
If a state fails to come up with a plan, the Federal government will come up with a plan for them, and enforce it.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Most people who deny that our pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is causing the Earth to warm, deny because they simply don't want to believe it and no amount of evidence will change their mind.
You might be right, but I suspect that something sufficiently dramatic and close-to-home (e.g. the permanent evacuation of Miami, or Disneyland underwater, or the loss of California as an agricultural area) would probably convince a lot of the deniers.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
We China are not gonna cut our CO2 emission what so ever. Haha, you sucker.
Actually, they already have.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The proposal merely sets targets and leaves it up to the individual states how to reach them.
[...]
If a state fails to come up with a plan, the Federal government will come up with a plan for them, and enforce it.
I see where this is heading. It's all voluntary until someone decides not to do it.
CO2 not cheaper. You ignore externalities.
Assuming of course, that the externalities are bigger than what I see. If they aren't, then I'm not ignoring them.
You can pretend that CO2 energy is a perpetual motion machine all you want. But in the end the laws of physics will reveal the true costs that you are ignoring.
Nonsense. CO2 energy doesn't have to last forever. As I noted earlier, if we just run it out a century, which I grant may be infeasible, then we have almost the entire world at or superior to the best economies at the of the last century. That gives us a huge amount of flexibility for handling the problems of the world, including the relatively mild one of climate change.
No it won't because this is the same type of denial suffered by drug abusers and alcoholics. The proof couldn't be much stronger than it is.
Which is a pretty dumb thing to say. Here's two obvious reasons why: 1) there hasn't been even a 1C rise in global mean temperature since the beginning of the industrial era, and 2) there's a factor of three uncertainty in the estimates of CO2 temperature forcing.
Most people who deny that our pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is causing the Earth to warm
I agree. What I disagree on is both the amount of resulting warming and the degree of need to do something about it.