A mass exodus of business and jobs out of California will be the likely result of this madness. From the San Franscisco Chronicle:
…
Free and paid credits
Businesses that emit more carbon dioxide than is allowed under the law will have to use “allowances” – or credits – to make up for the difference. The allowances will be mostly free when the program starts in a little more than two months, but eventually businesses will have to purchase credits in an auction – a sort of penalty for exceeding the limit. The board’s major action on Thursday was to finalize how credits will be allocated.
The opposition from the industrial sectors, like glass manufacturers and oil refineries, strongly objected to the initial requirement that forces these businesses to pay for 10 percent of their credits. They said paying for the allowances – one previous idea was that they be free – will be crippling as businesses in other states and countries will have a competitive advantage.
Higher water rates
Multiple representatives of water agencies, mainly in Southern California, also told the board that because the regulation covers their energy usage, water rates would increase.
The cost will be about $2.50 per year per household, said air board spokesman Stanley Young, explaining that utilities are covered by the law because of the electricity used in moving water from Northern California to Southern California.
Have they read the BEST report?
The end of industry in California.
I had a feeling when BEST went of prematurely that the politicians and media would not wait to capitalise.
Typically, Mr Black from the BBC misunderstood the preliminary, non-peer reviewed BEST report. They raved it as the best and most complete science confirming AGW alongside a picture of Michael Mann’s Hockey stick chart.
So the team abused and perverted peer review and BEST has not even been peer reviewed. Neither is BEST a review of the hockey stick data, just the earth surface temps according to weather station sighting, rather than proxies, and yet the BBC have claimed that this non-peer review grey literature (as it is at this time) is conclusive proof of ALL AGW alarmist claims.
It looks to me Like Mr Black was looking to deliberately antagonise climate realists.
As for this carbon cap, it will only drive business out of California. And yet when unemployment in California reaches astronomical levels, the California liberals will blame capitalist greed for it and not their own myopic worldview.
Can we build a fence so that California idiocy stays in California?
“Moving beyond denial….”, the Governator speaks…and now, the illegitimate child is unleashed.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xyfo7_schwarzenegger-on-global-warming-ja_news
Notice the hesitant applause….
NZ, UK, Australia, and now California. What other lemmings are there at the top of the cliff, just waiting to jump?
At least California’s goal of of reducing CO2 back to 1990 levels should be met easily. What with businesses and industry fleeing the state. They should be very careful what they wish for.
“The cost will be about $2.50 per year per household, said air board spokesman Stanley Young, explaining that utilities are covered by the law because of the electricity used in moving water from Northern California to Southern California.”
Hmmmm. I am suspicious. Looking at my map, that is all downhill. .
Black is not a journalist in any real sense of the word. The BBC has amassed a huge number of positively blinkered presenters/newsreaders/journos and with cuts in the BBC budget they should be made redundant, sadly they will be the only ones left!
R.I.P. California
A mass exodus??? Did you mean a continuance of the mass exodus???
What a crazed world we live in. If only the main stream media would do some investigative journalism so we can understand the “whats,” “whys,” and “whos” that push specific legs of the craze and help identify the “reals,” the “not-reals,” and the “who knows.”
Dear *productive* citizens of Califonia – please relocate elsewhere in the United States so that we may give your state back to Mexico.
Thank you.
This is excellent news. Finally, we have an experiment that should yield some results. My prediction is that emissions will go down in California as a direct result (and correlated with) the price of energy use, which will skyrocket in California due to this legislation. This will result in an initial revenue gain, then an inevitable loss in business, commerce and revenue as people and businesses flee the state. Poverty will increase, since the poor will not be as able to escape the rising costs as the rich, and are less well equipped to absorb the increased price of energy use.
Meanwhile, global emissions will continue to rise as industry moves to places with less stringent controls, and the climate will continue to be completely unaffected by the change.
Truly insane. It’s reminiscent of Zhu Di’s decision to close medieval China off from the rest of the world, eventually turning the most enlightened, technologically advanced country on earth into the most backward, poorest country on earth.
Do they seriously think that all the manufacturers and businesses will just take the ‘carbon tax’ out of profit and move on?
This is totally off-topic but I would appreciate some help. Sometime, I think in the last week, a link appeared either in an item or in the comments to a new diagram/poster which showed how the media, government, academia, NGO’s etc interacted to produce and sustain the AGW message. I want to download/print it. Can anyone give me a pointer?
Many thanks,
MikeA
Mike Atkinson. I think this is what you’re looking for, courtesy of the estimable Jo Nova.
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/map-the-climate-change-scare-machine-the-perpetual-self-feeding-cycle-of-alarm/
This is what happens when politicians and bureaucrats catch “the green disease”! California’s economy wasn’t that crash hot. This will just make things worse. But good luck to California for acting as the guinea pig in this green experiment. I think its an odds on certainty that California will suffer an economic downturn directly caused by its cap and trade program.
“allowances” . . . must be a typo.
Should be “indulgences”
They’ll reduce energy use to 1990 levels by reducing population to 1990 levels.
Look out for the world’s first climate scare refugees.
My Golden State turning into lead. It’s the 21st century’s version of alchemy.
There has been a lot of insane decisions coming out of California lately, with just ten days ago governor Jerry Brown legalizing 12-year-old children giving ‘consent’ to Gardasil vaccine injections, and now this.
This is a truly grave moment for the U.S., with California “greenhouse gas” trading system being the first economywide cap-and-trade program. I fear it will the final nail in the economic coffin for the country.
Given that California has one of the largest economies in the world, you might be right
@David in Georiga says: October 21, 2011 at 5:09 am
[ ]
Meanwhile, global emissions will continue to rise as industry moves to places with less stringent controls, and the climate will continue to be completely unaffected by the change.
Hey! I live in the UK! We already did that! I’ve got the Tee Shirt!
-and the huge electricity bill 8o((
Can you provide some hard numbers? How has the change in legislation affected your bill compared to the change in global emissions?
May humanity survive, at least for two days. [“unnecessary and cumulative costs on our water rates.”] This is also – ‘energy prices necessarily skyrocket’ solution. An experiment on a small sample-.01oz of 1203 UN fuel testing flash point is logic. Testing on a 7000 gallon tanker is suicide.
The committee – appointed group of selected persons methodology within problem-solution-mitigation has been thoroughly finalized with validation by master Stalin.
Stalin ended up with the greatness of several, a few, really large beholding to the master centers of productivity that what a capitalist would call crony capitalist corporations. These by their very nature are able to pass on to the consumer any and all costs associated with the goal of utopia. The smaller ones will by physics – gravity fall to oblivion.
If 100 people have a task to reaching the top of some mountain, and 49 of those are not required to carry any burden, then the 49 will control the speed of forward travel complaining that we be mov’in too slow. In all utopias there is a significant paradise in the first few steps, then the natural happening occurs –
Actually I would not worry at all because temperatures ARE NOT RISING, currently they are falling and are unlike to rise for the next 1000 years, people will notice this in fact they already are as polls keep showing….. Over time AGW will keel over and all these regulations concerning CO2 will be ditched although other non-C02 stuff probably wont for monetary/environmental reasons.
Also and analysis of the NDCD data used by MUller and Co will probably show something similar to Fra##
Many yeaers ago I read the science fiction story, “The Marching Morons”, by Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23657356/The-Marching-Morons
With halloween coming up, the story is no longer science fiction, but a horrifyig, Freddy Krugeresque reality.
It’s fine by me. Australia has a new carbon tax and so now I will not buy Australian products wherever I can, like their wine. California has cap&Trade, I will stop buying prodicts from California like their oranges and wine.
Looks like I’ll be buying these products from other places like Florida.
oh well, no problem.
California has been committing economic suicide for a very long time, and has been losing businesses for a very long time as a result.
Partly it has been a long held atmosphere that CA is a place everyone wants to come to, no one wants to leave — this has kept an anti-business regulatory mentality in place.
Electricity prices have historically mattered more to businesses than individuals, since CA’s mild climate means relatively little electricity use for heating and cooling, vs. other parts of the US. This may explain the many stages by which CA went from a medium priced to a very high priced electricity state.
In the early 1980s, when a federal law introduced a form of competition in electricity, CA regulators mandated that “alternative” providers be paid exorbitant costs far above the actual costs avoided when a utility purchased from an “alternative” provider. An early version of what the UK is going through, not emulated elsewhere in the US. So businesses flooded out of the state — hard to believe that Los Angeles used to be an aerospace manufacturing hub, isn’t it?
Then, in response to these higher electricity prices, remaining CA businesses tried desperately to find a way to reduce them. The politicized answer was CA’s peculiar form of state level electricity deregulation, which depended upon plentiful electricity supplies to keep prices down. Unfortunately, due to the usual environmental constraints, there weren’t enough power plants in CA in the late 1990s, so electricity prices went through the roof — again. I suspect many readers remember CA’s electricity shortages, which led to Gray Davis’s much deserved demise, and to Ahnold’s election. Exeunt more businesses.
This short tale of anti-business behavior only addresses electricity issues, but I understand that the anti-business climate — you need us more than we need you — is long standing pretty much across the board in CA, with the exception of the coddling of the high tech industry, the golden tax revenue goose that is running out of eggs.
Carbon trading will not significantly reduce CO2 emissions. Carbon trading is a tax that will transfer billions of dollars to third party scams.
Climate skeptics’ goal is to bring to logic and thoughtful discussion to the table. Reality is reality. There is a limited amount of tax payer dollars. Economists, engineers, and politicians do not have a magic wand.
A natural consequence of the AWG paradigm is panic and dogma leading to massive waste of tax payer dollars and high unemployment. This is no longer a theoretical problem.
As everyone is aware, billions of dollars were wasted on the created problem of Y2K. Now trillions of dollars will be wasted on fighting the war against atmospheric CO2.
We are carbon based life forms. Plants eat CO2. Life would not exist on this planet without CO2. The biosphere expands when atmospheric CO2 levels increases and when the planet warms, based on current temperature and atmospheric CO2 levels. (We are at the end of an interglacial period the planet has cooled roughly 2C from the warmest period during this interglacial period. Atmospheric CO2 is currently 0.039%, 390 ppm. Commercial greenhouses inject CO2 into the greenhouse at 1000 ppm to 1500 ppm to increase yield and reduce growing time.) The ice sheets will not rapidly melt, if the planet warms one or two degrees Celsius. Sea level rise is not accelerating and will not accelerate. Planetary cloud cover increases when the planet is warmer to resist forcing changes. Data and analysis in published papers supports these assertions.
Biofuels are an example of the lack of logic and thoughtful discussion. Biofuels are a scam that converts food to fuel, at 1.5 to 2 times the cost of fossil fuels, with a slight increase in carbon dioxide emission if the fertilizer, harvesting, and conversion energy is included in the calculation. As there is a limited amount of agricultural land, the biofuel scam will reduce the supply of basic food. Western Countries have more money so we can buy the missing food from third world countries which will result in malnutrition and starvation. To help make up for the loss of current agricultural land, vast regions of virgin forest are being cut down to grow food to convert to green biofuels.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
“Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’
“Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official has told German radio. “Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity,” UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Many observers have warned that using arable land to produce crops for biofuels has reduced surfaces available to grow food. Mr Ziegler called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to change its policies on agricultural subsidies and to stop supporting only programs aimed at debt reduction. He says agriculture should also be subsidised in regions where it ensures the survival of local populations. Meanwhile, in response to a call by the IMF and World Bank over the weekend to a food crisis that is stoking violence and political instability, German Foreign Minister Peer Steinbrueck gave his tacit backing.”
http://www.uiweb.uidaho.edu/bioenergy/NewsReleases/Biodiesel%20Energy%20Balance_v2a.pdf
Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass, and Wood;Biodiesel Production Using Soybean and Sunflower
“Energy outputs from ethanol produced using corn, switchgrass, and wood biomass were each less than the respective fossil energy inputs. The same was true for producing biodiesel using soybeans and sunflower, however, the energy cost for producing soybean biodiesel was only slightly negative compared with ethanol production. Findings in terms of energy outputs compared with the energy inputs were: • Ethanol production using corn grain required 29% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. • Ethanol production using switchgrass required 50% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. • Ethanol production using wood biomass required 57% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced. • Biodiesel production using soybean required 27% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced (Note, the energy yield from soy oil per hectare is far lower than the ethanol yield from corn). • Biodiesel production using sunflower required 118% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
The Clean Energy Scam
The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group.
But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it’s dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.
Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.’s World Food Program says it needs $500 million in additional funding and supplies, calling the rising costs for food nothing less than a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparked tortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn’t exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.
Backed by billions in investment capital, this alarming phenomenon is replicating itself around the world. Indonesia has bulldozed and burned so much wilderness to grow palm oil trees for biodiesel that its ranking among the world’s top carbon emitters has surged from 21st to third according to a report by Wetlands International. Malaysia is converting forests into palm oil farms so rapidly that it’s running out of uncultivated land. But most of the damage created by biofuels will be less direct and less obvious. In Brazil, for instance, only a tiny portion of the Amazon is being torn down to grow the sugarcane that fuels most Brazilian cars. More deforestation results from a chain reaction so vast it’s subtle: U.S. farmers are selling one-fifth of their corn to ethanol production, so U.S. soybean farmers are switching to corn, so Brazilian soybean farmers are expanding into cattle pastures, so Brazilian cattlemen are displaced to the Amazon.
So they going to “limit the amount of carbon in fuel”.
I assume this can only mean switching to electric or hydrogen power, with nuclear used to generate the carbon or electricity.
As a Texan, this is the best news I’ve heard since the Rangers won last night! What’s left of silicon valley is gonna be moving to Austin, and the little bit of manufacturing Cal has got left is moving to either Houston, Dallas, or San Antonio – our continued economic boom is assured! Woo hoo!!!!!
I can’t believe the idiots we have to suffer to live in California.
I remember when the rolling brownouts hit California about a decade ago, after the disastrous (that is, completely half-assed) attempt to deregulate electricity in that state. The old Mojave Power Station in Laughlin, NV, was running 24*7 at full speed to generate power for California. Of course, that plant was too dirty to operate in California, but the electricity it generated was good enough.
This should be good news for Nevada. They need to jobs that will leave California as businesses close up. Of course, some of the jobs will go to China, but hey, that’s the price of progressivism.
Watch film production in California all but cease. Or…Watch creative accounting flourish.
Anyone even vaguely familiar with how Hollywood does business knows exactly what I mean.
Now, if California simple vanished from the face of the earth, leaving a void which is CO2 neutral, it wouldn’t change the global climate/weather to any statistically significant degree. What makes them think they matter so much?
…Whoops. Sorry, was going to write more, but Keeping Up With the Kardashians is on, gotta run…
I read the BBC article by Mr. Black. He genuinely seems to believe in his cause and makes the best of everything that supports his cause. We all do the same thing. None of us is independent of our world view, and science is clealry much more subjective than many people realise. Facts are facts, but it is the interpretation of the facts that causes the trouble. The only thing I saw in the report which was remotely troubling was the contention that BEST supports the Anthropogenic cause of the warming. I didn’t see any explanation about why they came to that conclusion.
I hope this decision will only remain in California. Never enter our state!
Agree with “David in Georiga” and “WWS” among other commenters. This is an important step toward clarity, but it may not achieve it. The big question is, how quickly will the folly and destruction be acknowledged? I have studied other stupid policies, in California and elsewhere, and am always impressed at how long they persist. First there will be the hoopla by its supporters. Ribbon cutting and vuvuzelas to drown out those who object. Then a quieter period while favors are bought and sold. Then various crashes and ruination, as this or that key business exits, and joblessness becomes “unexpectedly” worse. Then apparently-unrelated events will loom large: the continuing cancerous growth in state deficits, collapse of infrastructure and core services, etc. This will take time to develop. And the fingerpointing will make it hard to assign responsibility. The important –I think pivotal– role of this policy in destroying the state’s economy may get lost in the general cloud of dust as things implode.
To Richard Btriscoe – Many thanks for the link – that’s the very one.
MikeA
I lived in SoCal from 1976-1993. Got out just in time by my reckoning. Even so I lived in Orange County which was the only conservative county in the state AFAIK back then. Kind of makes you wonder how far the voters will go in running businesses out of the state. There are a lot of high-tech refugees from California in Austin area. It’s nicknamed Silicon Hills after Silicon Valley.
Give us your tired, your poor, your over-regulated businesses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your carbon-free shores. Send these, the jobless, environmentalist-tost to us, we lift our fossil fuel filled lamp beside the Interstate 10 golden door at El Paso.
The laws of unintended consequences.
The EU is unbearably green, and the intellectual giants who govern the UK passed the most draconian decarbonidation legislation in the world – more than California.
Now sanity is beginning to return. Politicians are discovering that their green aspirations may not be quite as practicable as they had had thought and they may be just slightly more expensive than their optimistic forecasts.
In the UK, people are beginning to catch on that rapidly rising energy prices isn’t to do with nasty energy companies making a profit but that renewable energy is very expensive and requires an eye watering amount of infrastructural investment.
Two years ago, we were told by our prime minister that anybody who didn’t believe in AGW was a dlat Earther. The energy secretary, who got a D grade in hig school physics told us that the science is settled.
Just recently, we are told that the massive discovery of shale gas in the UK is going to stay in the ground, because otherwise this will breach EU CO2 targets.
I predict that the politcal backlash is gathering pace, and the problems of the green agenda are only just beginning to bite. As political perceptions change, the science may change …..
I’m not sure the people implementing a carbon tax in California are that stupid. Such a tax is a good way for the State to raise additional money without appearing to raise taxes.
Also, look at California’s economy. It has diversified away from mining, agriculture, manufacturing and construction toward education, health, real estate and government. The government now accounts for more than 12% of California GDP.
So Californians can buy and sell real estate and go to the doctor and pay taxes to their hearts content .
This just in… news reports from California indicate that Atlas just Shrugged!
My apologies in advance to a minority of those living in CA but, over the past 20-30 years living in several areas east of the Rockys, it seems that those from CA are viewed as fruitcakes in almost all cases. An old stereotype applied when discussing someone’s odd behavior was to kind of wink and say they were probably from CA and that usually made the point. I have met several people from CA and they didn’t share mainstream values with the regional population.
That said, CA is a big and diverse state and the preceeding statement would not apply to everyone of course, but look at the way CA votes and acts. There is seriously a problem with the majority of the population.
I just hope that it will have the most profound effect on those that voted for it. Bring your business east of the Rockys. New England states would be risky ventures. The original Southern States will be your best bet. We welcome your business but leave your people behind.
I’m not sure they’re committing BUSINESS suicide. I just think they are limiting the types of businesses which can be globally competitive in California.
They’re also saying to residents: you will pay more here in energy and water bills than elsewhere.
I don’t know California’s economy that well, but it never came across to me that it was full of smelting plants, oil refineries, huge chemicals plants or the like?
How much carbon does it take to make a Hollywood movie? Build Google? Do medical research? Grow wine?
And with a huge La Nina predicted for this winter, just wait for AlGore (as a new Californian) to blame climate change for the nasty weather they are about to endure. Also, watch people begin to realize increased costs for energy to cope with the weather plus the CO2 tax. They are in for a treat!
Doesn’t mold on decadent rot exhibit a green color, too?
As the tide of expat Californians rolls inexorably into the NW United States, I caution the current residents of that area that they bring with them communicable elements of the disease that is destroying their home.
Soon you will hear, in restaurants, watering holes, civic meetings, churches and hunting camps former Californians ruing the fact that WA, OR, ID, MT, WY don’t have some of the progressive niceties that they enjoyed in their former homes. In time these items will find their way to the ballot and your state will be well set on the California path. At the first hearing of this sort of talk you might, to paraphrase Ring Lardner, explain to them “shut up”.
steveta_uk says:
October 21, 2011 at 6:40 am
So they going to “limit the amount of carbon in fuel”.
It will be called “gasoline lite”. Higher price, less calories.
Made using the same technique as “lite” foods. Cut the contents in half, add water and gum to fill the package, stir. Voila, half the calories, half the fat. Increase the price 20% because this is the new “improved” version.
What you will see in California is the same thing that has happened in BC. Public funds to schools and hospitals will be diverted to “carbon allowances”. Companies will cut back on production and claim “carbon credits” for CO2 they are not producing. Instead of financing improvements to schools and hospitals, taxpayer money originally designated for schools and hospitals will be siphoned off and given to businesses that successfully lobby for “carbon credits”.
In effect, taxpayers will be paying well connected businesses to do nothing. By doing nothing these businesses will reduce the amount of CO2 produced. As the price of carbon increases, it becomes more and more profitable for businesses to do nothing. The new business model then becomes to find existing businesses that are operating at a loss, shut them down, sell the assets, and generate a profit from the reduction in CO2. Sort of like buying up farmland on the cheap from unprofitable farmers, and then getting paid not to plant crops. But of course, that would never happen.
Farm Program Pays $1.3 Billion to People Who Don’t Farm
Nationwide, the federal government has paid at least $1.3 billion in subsidies for rice and other crops since 2000 to individuals who do no farming at all, according to an analysis of government records by The Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/01/AR2006070100962.html
I hope this decision will only remain in California. Never enter our state! (2)
Caution: the State of California has determined that living in the State of California can be hazardous to your mental and fiscal health.
Just to show you how corrupt this organization is, they knew one of their staff had a fake PhD and allowed other board members to remain in the dark about the fraud and vote on issues based on his findings. This site has video links. http://killcarb.org/index.html
This group of corrupticrats needs to be broomed.
Fake PhD.
http://killcarb.org/tranpage.html
Mary Nichols apology
There are links to others; just look on YouTube.
DonS says:
“Soon you will hear, in restaurants, watering holes, civic meetings, churches and hunting camps former Californians ruing the fact that WA, OR, ID, MT, WY don’t have some of the progressive niceties that they enjoyed in their former homes.”
You left out NV. Californicators who have relocated to NV already despoiled the state by helping to re-elect Harry Reid.
This attitude I just don’t understand, and it could only come from people who simply don’t know what California has to offer. Trust me, as an American, you *want* California in your nation. Giving up California to stupidity or another nation is suicide. You all seem to want to forget that at one point, this state was the #6 economy in the world, just this state alone. If you want to know why jobs are so hard to come by in your nation, look no further than the raping of this state by special interests. In downturns past, this state always offered jobs, it was always the state that was a place to move to if the rest of the nation was in recession. Well the bigger they are, the heavier the anchor they are. California will be in full-on depression if it gets much worse, and the rest of the nation isn’t faring much better. This state will be dragging the nation down because the attitude people had towards it was one of resigned surrender. If California had been defended by business instead of co-opted by special interest groups and public labor unions, I would bet real money the nations recession would look a lot rosier right now.
Build Google?
Those disk farms are notorious energy hogs. Combine that with the air conditioning needed to keep them from over heating and technology companies consume huge amounts of energy.
@eyesonu
“but look at the way CA votes and acts. There is seriously a problem with the majority of the population.”
Look, the way those dictatorial bureaucrats pass laws does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the majority of the population. I mean, it is not even a true democracy in CA. What the heck, I pay taxes here in CA, and no one even asked me for my opinion.
“Bob October 21, 2011 at 3:49 am”
“Can we build a fence so that California idiocy stays in California?”
Unfortunately no. Like Colorado, the people who lost jobs due to this lunacy will be moving to your state and start electing the same kind of boneheads that chased them out of California.
I hope you recall Enron’s involvement in that whole mess. That Lay/Skilling scheme is so pernicious it has yet to die.
Jeremy, we agree with you. But the first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem. California hasn’t done that yet. We don’t want to see California fail. What we fear is that it won’t take the actions necessary to succeed until they’ve actually hit rock bottom.
Soon there will only be 4 types of people left in California:
1. Statist government hacks who make a living by doing completely unproductive or counterproductive things.
2. Hollywood whack jobs who don’t care what they pay in taxes or utility bills since they get paid millions for “acting”.
3. “Environmentalists” and others who are too deluded to know what is really going on but will actually celebrate this regulation.
4. Those who literally cannot afford to leave and will become (or already are) de-facto wards of the State.
Yes, “economic suicide” sums it up nicely, but the economic atrophy and senility had already set in long ago, so probably Dr. Kavorkian would approve of this as a mercy killing.
That’s not true. Electing Arnold was actually California admitting it had a problem. Arnold won *because* he wasn’t a politician. He then, per his original platform, called a special election with 6-8 propositions put on the statewide ballot. These propositions directly challenged special interests and public labor unions. Arnold was outgunned and outspent. The environmentalists and unions spent so much money to make Arnold look like an idiot, he was finished as a viable governor for change before the first ballot was cast. Since then, he basically said, “ok, the people of CA have spoken, and you get what you asked for.”
From then on, he was just like any other politician.
Californians know they have a problem and they’ve tried to stop it. The corrupt deep pockets of enviro-whackos and labor unions simply out gun you and manipulate the less-than-educated public.
Solyndra managed to spend $500m in 12 months with only 1,000 employees. California is more than willing to dispose of your state’s money too.
Jeremy says:
October 21, 2011 at 8:53 am
“as an American, you *want* California in your nation. Giving up California to stupidity or another nation is suicide.”
As a person, I don’t want a large, cancerous tumor in my body. I would rather have it cut out.
California is already in debt way beyond its eyeballs, and this will just make it FAR, FAR worse. As an American, I want NO PART WHATSOEVER in having to repay that debt. The Californicators did it to themselves, and logical, responsible Americans who had nothing to do with it should not be forced to bear their burdens.
I don’t want to “lose” California, but I think that the price for them to stay in the Union should be that they are required to find a way to pay off their own debts without foisting them off on the rest of us. (The same should go for the other 46 States which are currently running budget deficits as well, to be honest).
Richard Saumarez says:
October 21, 2011 at 7:44 am
The laws of unintended consequences.
” we are told that the massive discovery of shale gas in the UK is going to stay in the ground, because otherwise this will breach EU CO2 targets.
I predict that the politcal backlash is gathering pace”
Think Gadaffi
I was watching a tv doc called “America – the story of the US”, which just by chance was talking about the great western migrations that took place during the early nineteenth century. Among these were the settlers who marched thousands of miles into California, enduring every kind of hardship including freezing, starvation and death. Phrases like true grit, rugged individualism and pioneering spirit don’t come close to measuring up to what these early settlers had.
Where did it all go wrong?
California will go totally bankrupt that much sooner.
When it does, it shouldn’t even be allowed to remain a state.
It should revert to Federal-territory status, then broken up
into Northern, Central, and Southern California.
It is important that each get equal land-area, not equal population.
It is also important that the governments of equal-area counties.
select state senators, rather than the people, so that land is represented.
The U.S. Senate would expand by 4 members, with two more stars in the American flag.
As an American who has not lived in California. Perhaps you don’t realize that California has *always* received less federal tax dollars than it gave out by a large margin. The fact is if you had some master accountant actually looking at the federal books you would see this nation already owes California a great debt because of the chronically positive net flow into federal funding of programs that did good things in all other 50 states for the past few decades.
You call California a cancer. I call California an enormously underappreciated and forgotten state that has more than pulled its own weight for nearly 60 years.
ZT says:
October 21, 2011 at 9:16 am
“Solyndra managed to spend $500m in 12 months with only 1,000 employees.
California is more than willing to dispose of your state’s money too”
So true. Wake up America!
Vince Causey,
It all started to go wrong when these rugged pioneers got there and discovered:
1) A nearly ideal climate
2) Gold
California became “rich” insanely quickly, but also suffered a FLOOD of people migrating there from that point onwards. The people got used to an “easy lifestyle” far too quickly and forgot about all of the intense hardships that the original settlers had to endure. In short, it didn’t take California long to become “fat and lazy” especially in economic terms. Californians have a perfectly natural desire to preserve their “paradise” but this natural desire was easily corrupted into doing things that were in reality shooting California squarely in the economic foot.
Now California has gotten so silly that some in California appear to think that a good cure for a ruptured aorta is to sever the jugular.
Jeremy,
Of course California has always PER CAPITA “given out far more federal dollars than it takes in” The problem is, that you completely FORGOT that that statistic is ALWAYS given as a per capita statistic. Naturally on a per capita basis highly populated States which have natural resources and industry will
In terms of per capita federal dollars, States like North Dakota and Wyoming and Montana and Idaho and Alabama of COURSE receive more federal dollars then they contribute. However, if you look at it in terms of ACTUAL dollars, California CONSUMES a great deal of federal money.
This website might shed some light on it for you: http://civfi.com/
I’ll begin to care when I see a list of California businesses, organizations and people that have left because of this nuttiness. Someone here claimed that the movie business would move: Hell no! Hollywood loves this stuff! And they can afford to pay for it! This won’t change the movie industry one iota. Apple Computer is all for this regulation…and they can afford it! Apple isn’t going anywhere…and neither is any other top-flight Silicon Valley business.
These regulations are seen as merely another price for living in the ideal climate; for feeling as one of the chosen. Nothing will change.
In addition to Australia, we now have a lab experiment here in the United States on the effects of cap and trade or carbon tax on the economy. Soon, the perniciousness of such policies will be on display for all to see.
California is the canary-in-the-coal-mine for the consequences of imposition of carbon limits that are unaffordable and impossible to reach, the villification and destruction of a vital fossil fuel energy and the adoption of man-made warming as a quasi-religion without regard for science, history or common sense.
Goodnight California. Last one out please turn off the lights.
John from CA says:
October 21, 2011 at 6:42 am
I can’t believe the idiots we have to suffer to live in California.
=============
So now that I’ve gotten the initial reaction out of brain, the question is, given that this nonsense is occurring on our turf, what are we going to do about it.
My gut says, class action law suit against the State of California. Let them prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Climate Science and the basic assumptions are Valid and that this idiotic cap and tax approach is warranted.
We shouldn’t have much of any problem finding the funding as Disney, Universal Studios, the entire Napa Valley, all industries and agra-business sectors are now involved.
The GDP in California rivals most countries in the world. It shouldn’t take very long to expel the loons from office in Sacramento.
We can gripe all day about the laws and regulations coming out of Sacramento. The fact is, the voters want it – they think. It is only when the consequences of their actions hit home that perhaps the voters in California will begin to understand their mistakes. However, it will be too late to prevent severe damage to the economy.
The conversion to Cuban economics is progressing quickly. Being trained by the Left from day one in government schools, Californians have no idea what is in store for them. They love to blame the rich for not doing their “fair” share. They think they are saving “the environment”. There is a significant fraction Californians with very selfish motives. Once they get their piece of the California Dream, they try to prevent almost everyone else following them from getting any.
Voters approved open space requirements preventing new construction of homes like the ones people voting for restrictions lived in. Similar height restrictions enacted by voters prevent using the third dimension to limit urban sprawl and minimize the footprint on the land. Cropland is shrinking to accommodate growth in the Central Valley. Some of the richest cropland in California was paved over in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Ventura and Orange counties. Now the same process is occurring around Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, and Fresno. Building up can be a wise use of available land, despite the earthquake risks. We can design structures to minimize that risk. Life in Manhattan is really good in a number of ways. Simply put, most Californians lack social skills commonly found in small towns. Manhattan neighborhoods are like small towns. An advantage of density is public transportation works. You can go where you want, when you want to go. Except for Market Street in SF, BART trains run far too infrequently.
The California Coastal Commission blocks new development along the coast, an area with the most temperate climate. Combined with open space and height restrictions, new development is now forced into the Central Valley. Significantly higher summer temperatures in the interior of the state produce a greater need for air conditioning. Now summertime load is much higher per capita than in the past. The California Energy Commission has the authority to decide what power plants can be built in the state. SB1037 (Kehoe, 2005) makes it illegal to construct natural gas power plants without a special waiver by the CEC. We are forced into green energy and much higher prices, or made to endure over 100 °F temperatures without cooling. Welcome back to 1880.
When I lived in San Francisco, I never had to heat or cool the house. Regulatory shortages caused housing prices to be unaffordable in the coastal region. Now living farther from the coast, my energy costs soar in the summer (more than double the winter costs).
Another key resource the state is trying to control is water. An assault on water rights is being waged by the regulators and the courts. For example, the phony Delta smelt issue is being used to usurp water rights going back to the Gold Rush. Summer flows through the Delta are already twice the natural flow due to releases from dams. The CEC wants to control water too, arguing 20% of energy consumed in the state is used to move water. Our government has decided that we can’t have more water, even though the population is growing and even though an unlimited supply of water is sitting in the Pacific Ocean. Energy is needed to make seawater drinkable. The California Energy Commission would have to approve new power generation to support desalination by reverse osmosis (or other means), which they are unlikely to do. Another impediment is the California Coastal Commission be reluctant to permit desal operations because the brine releases somehow might harm sea life, as if there are no workarounds to solve such problems.
Apparently, an aging population used to getting whatever they want, and who already have their piece, are happy to shut down growth in an effort to prevent change. Their dirty little secret was the interference in the free market they supported boosted their home values and let them live the good life. Pensions were easily funded. Stocks were soaring and capital gains taxed at a low rate. Fat and happy, they thought nothing could touch them. Their distortion of the free market is coming back to bite. Home price collapse, pensions that may disappear due to bankuptcy, services that may fail because the economy can’t maintain a municipal or county workforce. Where agencies can raise rates, services continue, but the public complain that rates are getting too high. The only way out cities, counties, states, and the federal government have for their crushing debt and future obligations is inflation. Those living on fixed incomes will see their standard of living drop like a stone.
California must collapse for several reasons. First, that will teach voters the harsh lesson they need to counteract the socialist beverage they have been sucking since childhood. Second, only when the state can no longer take more money will government have to be limited, agencies and commissions eliminated, public employees fired, budgets cut, salaries and benefits reduced. Third, socialism must be shown to be a failure here in order to make very clear to the rest of the country that socialism always fails. After all, we’ve had the best socialist minds from Stanford, UCLA, UC Berkeley and USC planning our economy. We must restore the free market, and forever limit the power of government to interfere with the market and our freedom. Fourth, people will need to take more responsibility for their own lives. Current economic conditions make that prospect challenging. However, by removing the impediments to real economic growth, especially for small business, people will be able to find work and do what they need to support their families. Government should not pick winners and losers.
Those in power seem to want to turn California into their own private park, driving people from the Sierra Nevada mountains and coast. It is an expression of the UN’s policy supporting the removal of humans from Yukon to Yellowstone, with the California elite extending the concept to Yosemite. Living on imported food, they don’t care whether cropland is paved over. There will always be a supply of servants in California to provide for the elites, or wannabe elites in the Bay Area and LA. Even if they come from Mexico. Keeping the state population below 40 million will make it easier to move people out of the “natural” areas. They don’t like individuals having rights to decide what to do with their own land, water, and other resources. “Stakeholder” interests trump private property rights. Command and control economics let the government strangle companies and individuals as necessary to ensure compliance.
Let our leaders have their day in the sun. Their Utopia cannot last. If the Left get everything they want, the process will run its course faster, and the pain will be over quicker. It would be hoped these unfortunately harsh lessons could be learned more permanently. If we let government schools to continue their indoctrination, certainly we can say another sucker is born every minute, and the cycle will repeat.
Can’t wait to see this in Kaleefornia’s Mini-me Oregon..
So, I guess we’ll be seeing more of those ridiculous commercials with California notables begging people to come work for them.
The Southern and Eastern States have been improving thier port facilities, because in a couple years the enlarged/improved Panama Canal will allow shipping to ignore/avoid California.
This improvement will allow the Canal to:
1) Longer, wider ships
2) more ships per hour, with a quicker cycle time. (less wasteful que waiting)
The port improvemnts are making making better docks and unloading facilities for the larger ships
This coming change will complete the CA devastation, when the commerce gold no longer flows through the Golden State.
Hoser says:
October 21, 2011 at 10:35 am
============
What if, I love that phrase, we can clearly show the “average citizen” the consequence of this stupidity.
Would they be inclined to vote for morons who waste taxpayer dollars on stupid schemes that don’t fix anything and increase their own household budgets at the same time?
They simply don’t understand because there isn’t a single source of mainstream news in California, with the noted exception of Anthony’s effort, that is telling them the truth.
Sacramento wants a fight, they have gotten one they can’t win and it will cost them dearly.
A few not to well known things about california.
quite a number of years ago the power companies got tired of the nonsense comming from ecological regulation of the power generating plants (for example there was a regulatory change in the temperature of the cooling water outflow [couldn’t be more than 5 degrees above ambient when most were running at +7 degrees, coupled with a total fight about where the temperature was to be checked] which would cost a huge amount of money to mitigate) and so the power companies sold off a great share of the generating plants to other companies (mostly out of state). now the great state of lalaland cannot regulate power generation. they can try but it doesn’t work that well at 1400 on a really hot tuesday afternoon when they have to buy out of state power.
los angeles used to have three companies where major aircraft were built (and flew away from the plant), only one is left and when the c-17 runs out it will be gone.
los angeles used to have 4 plants that assembled automobiles and pickup trucks. they’re gone too.
los angeles used to have 2 very large tire manufacturing factories (one so large that they named a major street after it), gone also.
there were five shipyards in the harbor. one that built ships (gone) and 3 that repaired ships (gone too) but ONE is still in existance [can’t tell if they are in business or not, very rare to see a ship there].
we had an outfit known in the trade as “the skunk works” in a small local town that built the best highest tech aircraft in the world. the locals pushed them out of town because they loaded their product into extremely large cargo aircraft and took them to the desert air base where they used them. this happened about ten oclock at night and was truly “the sound of freedom” but it woke up their parakeets and cockatoos and so had to go. if that outfit didn’t reapear somewhere else America truly lost.
WE USED TO BUILD SPACE SHIPS JUST DOWN THE ROAD. now they’re fighting over the ecological aspects of “stuffiing and mounting” the last one in a public park.
every one of these outfits had thousands of small businesses and shops that supported them, outfits that put the weeks work in the back of a pickup truck and the CEO delivered it to the plant on friday afternoon.
an acquantaince had a business making high end super accurate target pistols. one day he was moveing out. it seems as though his (25 years ago) state run industrial injury insurance in california was $4200 a month [for 15 employees] and where he was going it was $800 a year for the same group.
the greatest money maker in the state is PROPAGANDA. it is totally infested with liberals but only occupies a strip of land about a half mile wide on the actual coast of the pacific ocean. all else is contractors leaping to the beck and call of the gliterati. and a dirty little secret is that the gang in the san fernando valley actually is more of a money maker than the hollywood bunch. there are two branches “movies” and “Mainstream Media” just remember that these people are all paid to convince you of their particular point of view. the better they do that the more money they get.
capisch.
c
cromagnum says:
October 21, 2011 at 10:51 am
This coming change will complete the CA devastation, when the commerce gold no longer flows through the Golden State.
==========
You read my mind. Imagine an extension of the Rio Grande that links the Gulf to the Pacific. Imagine the cost saves from canal traffic that nearly eliminates illegal immigration and the benefit of desalination plants that “Green” the border areas and generation power at the same time.
Why does shipping need to use the Panama Canal when the trip could be much shorter?
As I live just over the border in Nevada, I’m positively thrilled that we’ll have more high income Californians heading east. As many of you who have visited Lake Tahoe know, the California bits of the lake are marked by relative squalor, criminality and disorganization. The Nevada side is orderly, safe, and far more picturesque.
This is great. Whenever I visit Universal Studios. I think what hypocrisy with NBC claiming to be so green and Universal using so much electricity. Now the movie studios might have to shut down or leave the state. Rather than do either of those things they might come to their senses and demand a change in the law. We might see Hollywood turn into a bunch of deniers overnight.
I love it when people vote with their feet. True democracy! From 2009:
“When comparing California with Texas, U-Haul says it all. To rent a 26-foot truck oneway from San Francisco to Austin, the charge is $3,236, and yet the one-way charge for that same truck from Austin to San Francisco is just $399. Clearly what is happening is that far more people want to move from San Francisco to Austin than vice versa, so U-Haul has to pay its own employees to drive the empty trucks back from Texas.”
I don’t see this changing anytime soon.
Vince Causey says:
[snippage]
> Phrases like true grit, rugged individualism and pioneering spirit don’t
> come close to measuring up to what these early settlers had.
> Where did it all go wrong?
The “big rock candy mountain” that is liberalism.
I’ve searched through the ARB site and noticed quite a few hits when I searched for REDD. I wonder if we’ve signed onto REDD in that we’ll be buying credits from foreign countries with huge forests ‘to store our carbon’ (translated as: ‘to steal our wealth.’)
Bruce of Newcastle says:
October 21, 2011 at 12:10 pm
“I love it when people vote with their feet. True democracy! From 2009:
“When comparing California with Texas, U-Haul says it all. To rent a 26-foot truck oneway from San Francisco to Austin, the charge is $3,236, and yet the one-way charge for that same truck from Austin to San Francisco is just $399. “”
From time to time, here in Germany, I have young colleagues who express their wish to emigrate. When I ask them where they’d like to go they say “USA”. When I ask them where to in the USA, they inevitably say “To California”. To which I answer: “But then you can just as well stay here.”
They never understand why I say that; but they also don’t read American news.
Bonanza Joe:
not that long ago a couple of california ner’ do wells attacked, raped and killed a young girl in a nevada restroom.
they wern’t even smart enough to get away for more than a couple of weeks.
the great state of nevada cuffed, stuffed and ran them through the system in a reasonably short period of time with the expected results.
MOTHER screamed foul bloody murder when she found out that leagle manuevering in california courts simply cost her money and had no effect on the nevada justice system.
either haven’t heard or missed whether the miscreants are pushing up posies or still rooming with buba.
C
John from CA:
its not the distance. its the loading and unloading costs. if they can avoid that they can sail halfway around the world on the money they save.
in long beach about 2 supertankers discharge every day to the refineries. 99% is refined into gasoline. there is a byproduct that goes by various names but suffice it to say that it is a very good ship fuel. It pays ships (especially tankers) to return to the middle east from europe by way of long beach to load up on fuel at long beach and then go to the persian gulf for loading.
a local newspaper article about 15 years ago quoted savings of $250,000 or more per fillup.
thats why you see ships pulling into the outer harbor and not comming into the berths for a couple of days then leaving. the barge and tug companies that move the oil out to the ships works out of long beach and its a shorter run (by a couple of miles) than from los angeles.
C
We should all be grateful to California as it will show how followers of the green/AGW nonsense, if allowed their head, can be guaranteed to turn prosperity into poverty.
This will become a classic case study for future MBA students to learn about.
No problemo. The solution to failed socialism is always at hand: more socialism.
Murray Grainger says:
October 21, 2011 at 4:12 am
NZ, UK, Australia, and now California. What other lemmings are there at the top of the cliff, just waiting to jump?
klem says:
October 21, 2011 at 6:33 am
It’s fine by me. Australia has a new carbon tax and so now I will not buy Australian products wherever I can, like their wine. California has cap&Trade, I will stop buying prodicts from California like their oranges and wine.
The majority of Australians are not lemmings and do not want a carbon tax which passed the House of Representatives 74 votes to 72 only because of the fact that the minority Government had the backing of one Green and three crony Independents who are benefitting from pork barrelling of their electorates by supporting the government.
Despite the pork barrelling polling in 2 of these Independent electorates showed 90% of voters were against the carbon tax in one and 88% were against it in the other:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/independent-seats-oppose-carbon-tax/story-e6freuzr-1226152332663
So you could also say that these Independent MP’s are grossly misrepresenting their voters.
Julia Gillard also went onto national television 6 days before the election and promised the nation that would be no carbon tax under a government she led. So you could say that she is governing purely by deceit.
Tony Abbott has promised “in blood” that whatever it takes, he will repeal the carbon tax which will not take affect until July 2012 even though the government has made sure this will be difficult to unravel.
Latest two party preferred polling is:
Coalition under Tony Abbott – 57%
Labor under Julia Gillard – 43%
So klem, can I suggest that you keep drinking fine Australian wine, at least until Jul 01 2012. By then who knows, we may have a clearer picture of whether we will even have a carbon tax and if so whether it will quickly wither on the vine.
“A mass exodus of business and jobs out of California will be the likely result of this madness”
I look forward to seeing whether this prediction is accurate or not.
Mervyn Sullivan: This is what happens when politicians and bureaucrats catch “the green disease”!
It (AB32) resulted from citizen lobbying. A measure was put on the ballot to repeal AB32 a couple years ago, and the measure was defeated. Bad as it is, this law has majority support. When businesses move out, a majority of Californians blame business; when energy prices rise, a majority of Californians totally ignore the role of increasing demand and declining domestic supply. I think that we may be stuck, here in California, with a permanent anti-business majority. The California idea of “promoting business” is to create a commission of academics to ignore what business leaders say they want more of and less of. This is a state where hardly anyone rides the rails and the government still pushes high speed rail through regions where hardly anyone wants to travel.
John from CA: My gut says, class action law suit against the State of California. Let them prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Climate Science and the basic assumptions are Valid and that this idiotic cap and tax approach is warranted.
Time for another try to repeal AB32? I doubt you’d get a majority.
California dreamin’ on such a winter’s day!!
extremist: Look, the way those dictatorial bureaucrats pass laws does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the majority of the population. I mean, it is not even a true democracy in CA. What the heck, I pay taxes here in CA, and no one even asked me for my opinion.
You must be one of those voters who always avoids voting on the initiatives. The State of California asks your opinion all the time.
Rhys Jagger: I don’t know California’s economy that well, but it never came across to me that it was full of smelting plants, oil refineries, huge chemicals plants or the like?
That was built up until about the mid ’60s, and has been declining ever since. Steel, aluminum, shipbuilding, autos, home appliances, aircraft — California had it all.
The ARB must not count power purchased from out-of-state to reach their conclusions about economic costs. Which means destructive as it is, it is still a farce as far as accomplishing its stated goal.
California may be a hopeless case. I say sell it to China. The CCP is more qualified to manage it than the lunatic voters they have there. We would lose one giant headache, and about half our national debt in an instant.
“Businesses that emit more carbon dioxide than is allowed under the law will have to use “allowances” – or credits – to make up for the difference.”
No they won’t. They will close, and maybe relocate to Texas.
When I was in my late teens / early twenties I read “Ecotopia” and a couple years later “Ecotopia Emerging.” Now in the real world, it did not take a revolution or coup to bring on that vision. And unlike those books the whole of the state is involved. Naturally, sitting here nearly 30 years later, I realize my youthfully naive errors. What amazes me is that people who should know better appear to be even more naive than I was way back when.
Get out before its too late.
Wait too long and you will have to push your car Eastward to the free republic.
To Tom B at 9 am:
Yes, of course I remember Enron’s role in the CA electricity rip off. It wouldn’t have happened if there were enough power plants, but since there weren’t, many pigs fed at the trough designed by the CA legislature, Enron and Duke and many others. Enron took advantage of a situation they and many others saw.
PeterB in Indianapolis says:
October 21, 2011 at 9:21 am
As an American, I want NO PART WHATSOEVER in having to repay that debt. The Californicators did it to themselves, and logical, responsible Americans who had nothing to do with it should not be forced to bear their burdens.
I was born in California and lived there until age 55. Yes, there as much as anywhere else, there was always a lunatic fringe, in the form of Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian, and even, dare I say it, Independent candidates for every office; I never really knew any personally–average people never seemed much like the “personalities”.
I voted there, too, frustratedly, constrained by the 2-party system to pick the lesser of two evils for every state-wide position. I almost always vote for the Democratic candidate, because I am much more comfortable left of center on social issues; the extreme left are nutcases, of course, and dangerous, as we can see in the present case on cap and trade, but not all Democrats are nuts. On the other hand, I find that the Republicans usually get the environmental issues right, but many of their economic and social policies hurt people in ways that I cannot overlook just to get support on the environment. Equally frustratingly, right-leaning centrists are stuck in exactly the same quandary in picking the best candidates. In California, as everywhere in the US, “moderates need not apply” when it comes to elections, probably because they are far harder to buy off, and many voters (not “all voters”) seem to confuse high profile with importance.
It is not fair to blame “California voters,” as if they were a monolithic mob, for not having the power to reform the very seats of power, any more than it is fair to blame “American voters” for the same lack of power on the national level. Just look at the (possibly, I suppose, well intentioned) mess the American voters sent to Washington in 2010! Was that your fault? Vote for change if you will and if you can find candidates that can overturn the status quo and also aspire to govern rather than provide performance art for 6:00 tele-consumption.
John from CA says:
October 21, 2011 at 11:17 am
This coming change will complete the CA devastation, when the commerce gold no longer flows through the Golden State.
=========
You read my mind. Imagine an extension of the Rio Grande that links the Gulf to the Pacific. Imagine the cost saves from canal traffic that nearly eliminates illegal immigration and the benefit of desalination plants that “Green” the border areas and generation power at the same time.
Why does shipping need to use the Panama Canal when the trip could be much shorter?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hmmm … turn the Rio Grande Dry Gravel bed with shallow stream (humorously called a River) Into a (minimum) 55′ deep x 250′ wide lake is an interesting idea, and a great civil works project. I can appreciate the added benefit of reduce the water crossings to zero unless swimming or walking on water. To be really two-way navigable, i would aim for 100′ deep and 500′ wide
For an idea of how little water there is, via Wikipedia: “Near Presidio [Texas] the river’s discharge is frequently zero. Its average discharge is 178 cubic feet per second”
Also, farming tends to suck the river pretty dry all the time
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Grande
It would be shorter, but would it be faster? How many knots could a ship travel in a narrow lake versus full speed in Ocean and a shorter low speed section?
What path are you projecting? The Rio Grande goes up to New Mexico, would you keep it US only (New Mexico, Arizona, California) or would you cut across Mexico?
An idea of the size of the new large size ships New-Panamax class that would have to pass this way in order to be competitive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamax
I live in California and witness it’s madness on a daily basis. California may never change until it is bitterly hoisted upon it’s own petard.
Still, I wonder if the driving of businesses out of California is intentional. I wonder if union lobbyists are prevailing upon politicians to drive all non-union businesses out of California so union businesses can end up with a monopoly. But I’m probably thinking too much.
Forget the Rio Grande. At present there’s a port on the west coast of Mexico just below the tip of Baja that is being upgraded to handle a big container fleet, and the railroad from that port to Texas is being upgraded with the involvement of a railroad from (I think) Kansas City. It should go online within a year or so.
The main intent is to bypass expensive longshore union labor (comfortably six-figure salaries). Next on the list to avoid, probably, are CA’s fees and regulations.
Murray: “NZ, UK, Australia, and now California. What other lemmings are there at the top of the cliff, just waiting to jump?”
Add South Africa. In the run up to Durban, the government is forging ahead relentlessly to (seemingly) follow a route similar to the Gillard nonsense. Could not bring myself to read the full reports in the local press over the last few days (no barf bag to hand), but got the gist of it. The same sickening references to “carbon pollution”, “carbon trading”, etc. Oh, and of course, don’t forget “TAX”…
From Gabriel, in Hout Bay, Cape Town… (Duh)
Say hypothetically CO2 emissions needed to be reduced substantially (let’s say by 50% at 2045). What policy or plan would be acceptable or best to do so? Can anyone think of a plan that would work and be acceptable to most all people?
Also, isn’t it a bit economically alarmist to claim that California is committing business suicide? Hasn’t the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) been around a while and not caused economic doom? Sure, it has had a bit of a rough history, with New Jersey dropping out, but not economic doom that I have heard of anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Greenhouse_Gas_Initiative
otter17: Also, isn’t it a bit economically alarmist to claim that California is committing business suicide?
Yes, it’s more like a self-inflicted wound than outright suicide, like cutting off one’s hand in a power saw. Per capita GDP and per capita accumulated wealth will continue to decline. We won’t all be dead right away, just poorer, and with less employment.
@ Septic Matthews
How specifically do the draining effects you describe come about?
Do you know which experts have weighed in within the economic realm concerning this style of policy?
otter17:
at one time california had a steel mill that made more than 700 TONS of steel per hour. its gone, a victim of air quality regulations, the los angeles basin has no industry that requires painting its product (scaqmd regulated the painting industry into water based paints which do not stick worth a ^&*^ and so anything that has to be painted is now made somewhere else.)
business labors under an inventory tax that has caused a whole minor warehouse industry to spring up about three feet on the other side of the california/arizona/nevada state lines where the inventory actually resides (arizona and nevada do not have inventory taxs) and a number of trucking companies do quite well hauling the stuff overnight to the los angeles basin after recieving orders by internet.
at any one time there are several businesses located in reno and los vegas that do quite well facilitating companies moving from california to nevada for financial reasons.
the state of california, the counties, and cities tax everything in sight. every time they raise a new tax/fee the cash economy takes a large jump.
we have herds and herds of school children (at $10,000 per year each) whose families [on the books] do not earn enough to pay taxes yet the take the kids to school in ford expedition suv’s.
we have hundreds of thousands of weomen who stagger into emergency rooms in the last hours of labor who are not citizens and do not have health insurance, and several hours later we are blessed with a new CITIZEN, with about a dozen dependents.
we have counties that spend a MAJOR share of their budgets administrating to the needs of these folk yet their return in taxes, fees and liscences is only a tiny percentage of their costs.
and on , and on, and on.
and as we speak we see commissions, advisory commitees, self serving academia etc. etc.etc.busily in competition to find that fabled straw that breaks the camels back.
C
@ pk
Those are all unfortunate things, but how specifically does the California cap and trade make things worse?
otter17,
C&T confiscates money from the productive sector and hands it out to those favored by the political class, and to government bureaucrats who produce nothing of economic value. That certainly makes things worse for the economy. To understand, read up on Bastiat’s Broken Window fallacy.
Smokey says:
October 22, 2011 at 1:47 pm
“C&T confiscates money from the productive sector and hands it out to those favored by the political class, and to government bureaucrats who produce nothing of economic value.”
I thought that the government was supposed to stay out of the whole trading of emissions thing. I thought that was the point back when McCain supported national cap and trade. Does the government get something off the top of the trading? I would hope not, or I agree with ya.
As I understand it, the cap and trade still allows coal plants and other CO2 sources to operate, just that there is a price associated with their emissions, thus taking into account the externalities of those emissions.
Let me know if I am wrong in the case of California’s system. I’ll have a look at the broken window fallacy.
Getting what they deserve?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/22/us-campaign-california-fraud-idUSTRE79L1S120111022
Heh, the Dems are claiming undue hardship and asking that the rules be waived in their favor. Amazing, isn’t it?
Of course all these Dems are perfectly honest, and after the rules get waived and contributors are allowed to give “replacement” donations, after the accounts are unfrozen and the original maxed-out contributions are recovered, OF COURSE the extra donations will be returned. Undoubtedly.
otter17 says:
October 22, 2011 at 1:36 pm
@ pk
Those are all unfortunate things, but how specifically does the California cap and trade make things worse?
cap and trade requires a comany to purchase a liscence (however another company can sell the first an unused portion of their liscence ) it is an additional cost to do business.
during governor moonbeams first incarnation the standard oil company wanted to build a tanker berth in long beach harbor. it was to be on filled land about two miles from the natural shore and about midway between long beach harbor (at the time) and the seal beach fishing pier. the nimby’s, fliberty jibbits and other assorted socialists tried to study and spend the project into oblivion. finally one day standard oil said the hell with it and shut the whole mess down.
the finger pointing was a joy to behold.
what the nitwits did not realize until about a month later was that ARCO, another oil refining outfit did a deal with the long beach harbor commission and moved the spruce goose out of its 30yr plus storage hanger and used that berth to build a much larger tanker berth. they end ran around the major bone of contention (air pollution) by buying up the McMillian Ring Free Oil Company (it was a smoky little place that accepted about 30,000 gallons of oil per day on the railroad) and applying its polution credits to their tanker berth. standard oil or their heirs get their oil delivered to the arco berth to this day as a part of the deal.
one other thing. long beach harbor has filled in the area that was supposed to be used for the tanker berth and it is now a huge container terminal.
C
They had children, and tried to make sure their kids didn’t have to suffer through all of the challenges and problems they did — not realizing that those were the very things that made them strong and smart. Result: the children were/are weak and stupid.
another little dirty secret in california:
the polution regulators (like CARB and SCAQMD) come around and inspect your premisis or place of business. and if you don’t pass muster then they cite you. of course you have to be reinspected several times to make sure that you are “in compliance”. quite often these reinspections result in more citations.
this can snowball.
of course you have to pay them all of the fees, fines and assorted ripoffs. (thats where they get their money, it doesn’t go to the state general fund).
thats why they’re so rabid.
C
This article/song immediately comes to mind…
Whitewashed Windows and Vacant Stores
http://rismedia.com/2010-01-25/whitewashed-windows-and-vacant-stores/
It is a very astute analysis of what has gone wrong. However since the ultimate agenda is to cripple Western Civilization and thereby make “Global Governance” attractive, do not expect our politicians and leaders to actually do anything to make matters better.
Pascal Lamy, Director of the World Trade Organization has made it very plain that “Global Governance” is the ultimate goal. “…The good news is that many of these issues are already being examined and we need not wait for a big bang in global governance. The economic crisis we are experiencing has accelerated the transformation of global governance toward a new architecture characterized by what I call a “triangle of coherence.”
The first side of this triangle is the G20, which replaces the old G8 and which provides political leadership and policy guidance. The second side of the triangle includes the intergovernmental organizations and their affiliated NGOs, providing expertise in terms of rules, policies, programs, or reports. The third side of the triangle is made up of the G192, the United Nations, providing a comprehensive framework of legitimacy that allows those responsible to answer for their actions…..” http://www.theglobaljournal.net/article/view/56/
THE GLOBAL JOURNAL: The Project
“From diversity to education, from climate change to sustainable energy, from arms control to microfinance, from world governance to humanitarian affairs, THE GLOBAL JOURNAL is the most current medium featuring innovative and influential ideas and players in the world of Global Issues. With its mix of in-depth reports, stunning photography, and incisive authoritative voices, THE GLOBAL JOURNAL is the first medium fully dedicated to a fast-growing international community of decision makers….” http://www.theglobaljournal.net/the-project/
It isn’t a “Conspiracy Theory” any more. There it is in black and white and California with its emphasis on Climate Change and the University of California at Santa Cruz eyebrows deep in promoting “Sustainability” (the UN’s Agenda 21) will be leading the way straight back to the middle ages and serfdom. Lord help us all.
Does Mary Nichols not know that acetone is an environmental atmospheric pollutant; so why is she cruddying up our air, with her phony purple finger nails.
I think there is someone on the CARB board, who actually is a qualified nurse. If so, that the sum total of the scientific expertise on that unelected board of unqualified political appointees.
Not only businesses and jobs will be leaving the state; so will a lot of potentially productive workers. I for one, will in the near future be looking for a more sane environmental community than California is doomed to try and live with.
Like all the hollyweird buttinski “acting persons”, I can do what I do from any place on the planet; so I don’t have to put up with California taxation and regulation; just as those green looney hollywooders don’t.
It’s like watching a train wreck coming in slow motion. I live in California and I can’t believe how STUPID these people in Sacramento are. BUT even dumber than those people, are the mindless drones that vote these BOZOs into office again and again.
As for Australia having a Carbon Tax…..people must remember that this is being forced on them.
The PM Ms Gillard said at the last election ” There will be no Carbon Tax under a Gov’t I lead ”
this to me is a prime example of what has been happening in the debate about Climate Change, if you disagree, your called all sorts of names and now Politicians lie to remain in Gov’t …….The PM of Australia clearly lied to get elected as this TAX on everything is not very popular at all…..and would have seen her labor Gov’t tossed out of Government.