San Francisco approves greenhouse emissions tax on business

RE; Doug (15:36:45)
It is sadly ironic that in fact, in the actual City of SF, in the belly of the beast, as one local talk host puts it, there is very little actual industry left. It’s all finance (downtown) small retail, movie theatres, restaurants, NGOs, strip clubs, etc. Meanwhile, in places like Petaluma, Rodeo, Concord, Oakland, Hayward, Fremont, Milpitas, Fairfield, etc, where there are still real factories making real things, and / or refineries making special “environmentally sentitive” fuel blends for the Priuses of Marin, the SF Peninsula, Berkeley, et al, I’d imagine that if you actually polled the population, many are not in favor of this. Point pistol at foot, release safety, shoot.

Anthony:
Perhaps the capital will go to China or Mexico, but what about the small businessmen who are the backbone of the economy? And Texas? Why would they go there, when the cites there are run by same bunch of luddites?

Despite all the alleged global warming, here in Montana we have a cold rain falling, and it is snowing higher up in the foothills. It kind of feels like some of the springs we had back in the 1970’s.

“It’s all finance (downtown) small retail, movie theatres, restaurants, NGOs, strip clubs, etc.”
Except for SFO. This is aimed at the airlines and the cab companies.

Maybe we could trade them to Canada in exchange for Vancouver… or maybe just a case of Labatts Blue.
I can just picture a Canadian working the swap, “Well, I don’t know… I really like my beer.”

papertiger:
Climate creep & commie creep are synonymous in SF. They’re called “Watermelon Greens:” Green on the outside, red on the in. And in SF it’s no mean exaggeration or joke.
Worry not, the tide will eventually turn in SF as taxes go through the roof as businesses leave SF to never come back.
The crap in SF is piling up…. Red Gavin (mayor of SF, not RC) has already banned SF muni govt from the purchase of water bottles and is proposing yet more recycling and garbage mandates (fines, imprisonment) in hopes of pushing SF’s 70% waste stream diversion to 75%. Then there’s the whole Marine recruiting office imbroglio completely underwritten by the SF City Council, replete with functional police protection for the radicals, etc.
Britain is fully in the throes of an anti-Kyoto rebellion. After years of new Kyoto-sanctioned taxes in excess of per capita carbon footprints, London voters kicked out Red Ken in what was arrogantly framed as a “green referendum” turned into an anti-Kyoto rout. Gordon Brown is facing a major political crisis due to excessive Kyoto taxes, he’s rescinding gas taxes in hopes of stemming Labor’s political hemorrhaging but it’s too little too late. The polity is in a very foul mood against anyone or anything daring to peep the name “Kyoto.” The Brits live under an increasingly oppressive situation – a misplaced apple core in the recycling bin earns a criminal record. So the Brits have good cause for rebellion and NZ isn’t far behind. Other countries in Europe may be next. Canada is facing UNFCCC sanctions for CO2 reporting nonconformance as Greece was last year.
The plan will hit the fan, it’ll just take a bit more time.

Let’s have a contrarian moment: Although this tax is being pushed in under the cover of global warming, it actually is moving the cost of pollution abatement back toward the polluter. Historically polluters have relied on the general public to bear the costs through private losses and government mitigation (think acid rain damage to property and heavy metals in Superfund sites). Now the polluters themselves are going to pay some of the costs. Of course, they pass the charges on to consumers, but ‘consumers’ have been bearing the costs anyway. This is at least a little more efficient because it isn’t filtered and overcharged by the bureaucratic maze. OTOH, the bureaucratic maze is likely to complicate and distort this new process so that it is at least as inefficient and misdirected (eg, by bad definitions of pollution). [Call me a pessimist, but long observation suggests reforms often are worse than the original problem ;-)]
The lesson is to have minimum government interference, and then only for the things that count – like protection of life, limb, and property from the actions of others.

Anthony,
I read yesterday that Ford is cutting back on it’s production of trucks and SUV’s.

I’d be willing to trade California, Oregon and Washington for the three Western Provinces of Canada. Alberta, Ontaria(??), and ???

Clearly this is just a way of extorting more money. $5000 per annum to a company like United is in no way an incentive to “go green”.

Yup. It is really about using a politically popular “hook” to extract more revenue. Now if today the word went out that the “carbon footprint” doesn’t impact climate one iota and in fact improves global food production do you think they would reverse it? Not a chance. It’s revenue baby and it’s all theirs now.
I went to a book fair at my children’s elementary school and there were three different books on prominent display whose objective was the teach the children what they could do to “fight” global warming. I just shook my head. This kids are being fed this stuff from kindergarten on through graduation. It is going to be so hard to deprogram them. And once they are taught that was wrong, they will question everything else they have been taught. I am really ashamed of our educators on this issue.

I never understood how one can be green and against CO2. CO2 feeds all the plant life on the planet and without it all plants would die (as would aminals and people as a result). Furthermore, nature’s CO2-O2 cycle is the ultimate recycling model, animals and humans breathe O2 in and CO2 out, plants absorb CO2 and through photosynthesis use the carbon to grow and emit O2 for aniamls and humans to breathe and live, what could be more perfect. And now some humans, of all things, claim that CO2 is a pollutant….bizarre or just deranged?