In my opinion, this is lunacy – Obama’s thinking is completely off the rails now. He cites a new energy plan in August, then cripples it from the start with this sort of thinking. – Anthony
From Bloomberg News: Obama to Declare Carbon Dioxide Dangerous Pollutant
Obama to Declare Carbon Dioxide Dangerous Pollutant (Update1)
By Jim Efstathiou Jr. Last Updated: October 16, 2008 09:50 EDT
Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Barack Obama will classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be regulated should he win the presidential election on Nov. 4, opening the way for new rules on greenhouse gas emissions.
The Democratic senator from Illinois will tell the Environmental Protection Agency that it may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers, his energy adviser, Jason Grumet, said in an interview. President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2 emissions under the law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the government may do so.
If elected, Obama would be the first president to group emissions blamed for global warming into a category of pollutants that includes lead and carbon monoxide. Obama’s rival in the presidential race, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, has not said how he would treat CO2 under the act.
Obama “would initiate those rulemakings,” Grumet said in an Oct. 6 interview in Boston. “He’s not going to insert political judgments to interrupt the recommendations of the scientific efforts.”
Placing heat-trapping pollutants in the same category as ozone may lead to caps on power-plant emissions and force utilities to use the most expensive systems to curb pollution. The move may halt construction plans on as many as half of the 130 proposed new U.S. coal plants.
The president may take action on new rules immediately upon taking office, said David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club. Environment groups including the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council will issue a regulatory agenda for the next president that calls for limits on CO2 from industry.
`Hit Ground Running’
“This is what they should do to hit the ground running,” Bookbinder said in an Oct. 10 telephone interview.
Separately, Congress is debating legislation to create an emissions market to address global warming, a solution endorsed by both candidates and utilities such as American Electric Power Co., the biggest U.S. producer of electricity from coal. Congress failed to pass a global-warming bill in June and how long it may take lawmakers to agree on a plan isn’t known.
“We need federal legislation to deal with greenhouse-gas emissions,” said Vicki Arroyo, general counsel for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia. “In the meantime, there is this vacuum. People are eager to get started on this.”
An Obama victory would help clear the deadlock in talks on an international agreement to slow global warming, Rajendra Pachauri, head of a United Nation panel of climate-change scientists, said today in Berlin. Negotiators from almost 200 countries will meet in December in Poznan, Poland, to discuss ways to limit CO2.
`Back in the Game’
“The U.S. has to move quickly domestically so we can get back in the game internationally,” Grumet said. “We cannot have a meaningful impact in the international discussion until we develop a meaningful domestic consensus. So he’ll move quickly.”
Burning coal to generate electricity produces more than a third of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and half the U.S. power supply, according to the Energy Department. Every hour, fossil-fuel combustion generates 3.5 million tons of emissions worldwide, helping create a warming effect that “already threatens our climate,” the Paris-based International Energy Agency said.
The EPA under Bush fought the notion that the Clean Air Act applies to CO2 all the way to the Supreme Court. The law has been used successfully to regulate six pollutants, including sulfur dioxide and ozone. Regulation under the act “could result in an unprecedented expansion of EPA authority,” EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said in July. The law “is the wrong tool for the job.”
Proponents of regulation are hoping for better results under a new president. Obama adviser Grumet, executive director of the National Commission on Energy Policy, said if Congress hasn’t acted in 18 months, about the time it would take to draft rules, the president should.
EPA Authority
“The EPA is obligated to move forward in the absence of Congressional action,” Grumet said. “If there’s no action by Congress in those 18 months, I think any responsible president would want to have the regulatory approach.”
States where coal-fired plants may be affected include Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Montana, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia and Florida.
The alternative, a national cap-and-trade program created by Congress, offers industry more options, said Bruce Braine, a vice president at Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric. The world’s largest cap-and-trade plan for greenhouse gases opened in Europe in 2005.
Under a cap-and-trade program, polluters may keep less- efficient plants running if they offset those emissions with investments in projects that lower pollution, such as wind-energy turbines or systems that destroy methane gas from landfills.
McCain `Not a Fan’
“Those options may still allow me to build new efficient power plants that might not meet a higher standard,” Braine said in an Oct. 9 interview. “That might be a more cost-effective way to approach it.”
McCain hasn’t said how he would approach CO2 regulation under the Clean Air Act. McCain adviser and former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey said Oct. 6 that new rules may conflict with Congressional efforts. Policy adviser Rebecca Jensen Tallent said in August that McCain prefers a bill debated by Congress rather than regulations “established through one agency where one secretary is getting to make a lot of decisions.”
“He is not as big of a fan of standards-based approaches,” Arroyo said. “The Supreme Court thinks it’s clear that there is greenhouse-gas authority under the Clean Air Act. To take that off the table probably wouldn’t be very wise.”
More Efficient Technologies
How new regulations would affect the proposed U.S. coal plants depends on how they are written, said Bill Fang, climate issue director for the Edison Electric Institute, a Washington-based lobbying group for utilities. About half of the proposed plants plan to use technologies that are 20 percent more efficient than conventional coal burners.
“Several states have denied the applicability of the Clean Air Act to coal permits,” Fang said in an Oct. 10 interview.
In June, a court in Georgia stopped construction of the 1,200- megawatt Longleaf power plant, a $2 billion project, because developer Dynegy Inc. failed to consider cleaner technology.
An appeals board within the EPA is considering a challenge from the Sierra Club to Deseret Power Electric Cooperative‘s air permit for its 110-megawatt Bonanza coal plant in Utah on grounds that it failed to require controls on CO2. One megawatt is enough to power about 800 typical U.S. homes.
“Industry has woken up to the fact that a new progressive administration could move quickly to make the United States a leader rather than a laggard,” said Bruce Nilles, director of the group’s national coal campaign.
I will be interesting to see the list of scientists that get on the “pollutant” bandwagon. It should ruin their careers.
Yes, it is lunacy. But this is revolution. We must march beyond rationality, beyond traditional concepts of restraint and clarity. Liberty, equality, fraternity, and the universal rights of man.
Carbon dioxide is very potent. Even at concentrations of less than one tenth of one percent, it is capable of driving bureaucrats at the EU and the UN insane. If we lose the EU and the UN, humanity is lost! We must save the bureaucrats!
Wake up and face the coming holocaust, unless we act now. Obama is the vanguard. Obey him for the new millenium of hope and change. Utopia for all, utopia for free!
dear, oh dear
usa will follow under obama the green fascistic lifestyle as proposed by environmentalists . this means under obama the american “democratic ” principles will disappear even more and that only based on a middle age CO2 myth. how simple and nervous in thinking a country can be.
Now all that we need is to have a scientific study showing that one race exhales greater amounts of CO2 than another. That will serve as the legal basis for genocide, just as the Nazi’s used eugenics.
How will you like your flat beer or pop? Will fermentation processes be outlawed? That will now involve the FDA. My God!!! We will all be emitting a dangerous pollutant gas every time we exhale. More reasons to tax our very existance an the fact that we are alive. When will this madness stop?
But we all know that Obama is under the Bilderburg control as it was mentioned in their last secret meeting.
To modify a song by the Police – “every move you make, every breath you take, I’ll be taxing you”
Great, now the government can ration our breathing (if he is elected). Seriously, what is the CO2 output from breathing? People should cut back on exercise and sleep more to reduce their carbon footprint, right? If there are 250 million people in the US, and each person exhales about 7 tons of CO2 per year, that’s 1.8 BILLION tons of CO2 per year just in the US! What if only the enviros stopped breathing, that would still be a big help!
Just the possiblity of this EPA regulation will now forestall pretty much any new plants from being built. Who would invest a bunch of money in a project when there is a good chance it can’t be profitable? If Obama gets elected, it could be blackout time across the US during his term, similar to the problems faced in Great Britain. If we really wanted to follow the lead set by the EU and others, we would see that their plans are unraveling as the member countries are revolting against the new restrictions due to the cost impact.
Control of CO2 is a powerful nation killing tool. If this clown wins either revolt or succumb. Your choice.
This could definitely cost Obama votes. I was planning to vote for him, but this is very bad news. Much as I dislike McCain, I may just have to vote for him now.
Given that respiration produces CO2, this fits in with his radically pro-abortion / pro-infanticide policies quite well. After all fewer babies means lower emissions – or maybe babies are dangerous emissions.
😉
Oh, this’ll be fun adminstration alright.
Anthony.
Words fail.
Lunacy doesn’t convey the heft . .
of this cruel hoax.
God save us from the do-gooders.
Unreal, if this happens its the last nail in the coffin for the U.S. economy. But on the brighter side It may just lose him the election. It’s no time to be playing save the Earth fantasies.
This co2 as a dangerous pollutant stuff has got to end. Time to purge out the EPA
when you guys are done tossing out all the wing nuts in your congress.
Will I still be allowed to exhale?
Less than three weeks…
I wonder if my fellow citizens are actually going to decide that individual liberty really is just overrated.
Remember it was less than a year ago that Venezuelans rejected their “Dictator for Life” referendum – but 49%. said Yes, Please.
In January, what’s now being called “RePO” (Reid-Pelosi-Obama) could potentially take total control (via supermajority).
It’s looking as though enough of my fellow citizens either don’t understand what that means, or just don’t care.
The economic crisis and now this announcement shows there really is no difference between Republican and Democratic politics; Obama’s ignorance, like that of Democrats Pelosi and Boxer presents a danger to our economy and our people. I’m ready to vote for Nader as a protest against government by idiots.
The only surprise here is that Obama’s advisers announced this now. Having EPA regulation GHGs under the Clean Air Act means dramatically higher costs for energy (85% of our energy comes from coal, petroleum, and natural gas). Obama would require over 1.2 million medium to large buildings to get permits because they emit GHGs.
* 1 million mid-sized to large buildings–this includes 10% of all churches, 1/5 of all food service businesses, half of the buildings in the lodging industry, and 92,000 health care facilities.
* 200,000 manufacturing operations
* 20,000 large farms
This plan also means that a lot of farms will need permits from EPA to stay in business. According to the Department of Agriculture:
According to the Department of Agriculture the following will need permits:
* Dairy facilities with over 25 cows
* Beef operations with over 50 cattle
* Swine operations with more than 200 hogs
* Farms with more than 500 acres of corn
This is just a taste of how far reaching this plan is.
so he wants to make more jobs huh? ok..lets tax businesses more so they cant employ people then raise their cost of living by raising their energy costs 5 fold…..[snip]
Guys, it isn’t that bad, sheesh! You may disagree with it, as do I, but he’s only following what is the scientific majority here.
Not to vote for him on this one point is plain stupid.
REPLY: I resent being called “just plain stupid”. As a citizen of the UK, your vote doesn’t count here. When you use such words in an opinion, it counts for less than it normally might. – Anthony
EPA is working on these regulations right now. You can send comments to EPA about the folly of regulating greenhouse gases under the EPA through EPA’s page: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/anpr.html
American Energy Alliance: http://www.americanenergyalliance.org/
Heritage Foundation: http://www.stopepa.com/
Anthony and others did a great job sending comments to the CCSP about their shoddy synthesis report. Now EPA wants to rely on the CCSP and IPCC and regulate GHGs under the Clean Air Act. If you are interested, please check it out and comment.
Since it now appears to be a virtual certainty that Obama will be the next president, it looks like someone needs to get to Jason Grumet, who is going to be his energy advisor. Since Grummet says Obama is not going “to insert political judgments to interrupt the recommendations of the scientific efforts,” it sounds to me like all that needs to happen is that the scientific community make the right recommendations.
Unfortunately that “consensus thing” is still the order of the day. Until the scientific community convinces the rest of the planet that there is no consensus, it is not surprising that a politician would defer judgment to the scientific community and “its consensus.”
Maybe we will get lucky and temperatures will continue to decline (but not so much as to produce a new ice age) the scientific community will change its consensus soon.
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I am among that large and growing crowd which believes this winter, and in fact the next several winters, will be colder than normal, which will cause “man-made global warming” to fall into widespread ridicule.
I’ve said before that the global economic slowdown will actually be used to explain the cooler climate, as indeed, demand for and use of petroleum products globally is already WAY down (US EIA [Energy Information Agency] just released the weekly inventory numbers this morning, showing another multi-million barrel increase, due to slowing demand).
This tactic will not work however, if as I believe the Mauna Loa CO2 numbers keep rising just as they’ve been doing.
So when it becomes clear that “AGW” was never really real, President Obama will drop the restrictions on CO2 emissions, right?
No, because it was never about “global warming” (or even “climate change”).
Keith, you may inhale just as much as you like – just don’t exhale, whatever you do 😉
James H (10:35:53) :
“If there are 250 million people in the US…”
Dude, not even close.
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
There is not a way to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act that would not result in major problems for industry, environmental regulators, and ultimately the general public.
I would guess Obama is talking about regulating CO2 under CAA Section 111, which would require emissions standards for new or modified sources. This would result in CO2 being subject to regulation under the PSD program, which would have the potential to regulate every hotel, hospital, shopping mall, apartment building, office building, etc., depending on the “significance levels” that are selected. It’s a bad idea.
Would be interesting to see if power companies really invest in carbon capture, or just stop producing power when they reach their maximum allowable limit for the day/week/month. Rolling brownouts and blackouts — they’re not just for California anymore! It’s Patriotic To Be Cold, VP Biden will tell us, like George Washington’s troops at Valley Forge. They were cold, they were veterans and they were patriotic. And as far as being too hot in the summer, well, I’m sure it was hot when Joe was in the A Shau valley fighting it out with Charlie back in ‘Nam (he hasn’t remembered this yet, but give it time). Sweating from good honest work is patriotic, and sweating because your power company can’t supply your heat pumps with juice is patriotism of a similar sort.
Either eventuality is fiscally possible, if Senator Government wants to lower CO2 emissions then he can explain to Americans why they’re cold next winter — assuming he does so when Americans have power to run their televisions.
This is a bit off-topic but it’s “grist from the mill’:
Team led by Livermore scientists helps to resolve long-standing puzzle in climate science
http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/yournews/36201
“A paper published online last year in the International Journal of Climatology claimed to show definitively that “models and observations disagree to a statistically significant extent” in terms of their tropical temperature trends. This claim formed the starting point for an investigation by a large team of climate modelers and observational data specialists, which was led by LLNL’s Benjamin Santer.
In marked contrast to the earlier claim, Santer’s international team found that there is no fundamental discrepancy between modeled and observed trends in tropical temperatures.
“We’ve gone a long way toward reconciling modeled and observed temperature trends in the problem area of the tropics,” said Santer, the lead author of a paper now appearing online in the International Journal of Climatology.
There are two reasons for this reconciliation.
First, the analysis that reported disagreement between models and observations had applied an inappropriate statistical test, which did not account for the statistical uncertainty in observed warming trends. This uncertainty arises because the human-caused component of recent temperature changes is not perfectly known in any individual observed time series – it must be estimated from data that are influenced by both human effects and the “noise” of natural climate variability.
The consortium modified the test to correctly account for uncertainty in estimating temperature trends from noisy observational data. With this modified test, there were no longer pervasive, statistically significant differences between simulated and observed tropical temperature trends.
The second reason for the reconciliation of models and observations was the availability of new and improved observational datasets, both for surface and tropospheric temperatures. The developers of these datasets used different procedures to identify and adjust for biases (such as those caused by changes over time in the instruments and platforms used to measure temperature). “
Other researchers in this international consortium were Karl Taylor, Peter Gleckler and Stephen Klein (all at Livermore); Peter Thorne at the United Kingdom Meteorological Office Hadley Centre; Leo Haimberger at the University of Vienna; Tom Wigley and Doug Nychka at the National Center for Atmospheric Research; John Lanzante at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory; Susan Solomon at the NOAA/Earth System Research Laboratory; Melissa Free at the NOAA/Air Resources Laboratory; Phil Jones at the University of East Anglia; Tom Karl at the NOAA/National Climatic Data Center; Carl Mears and Frank Wentz at Remote Sensing Systems; Gavin Schmidt at the NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies; and Steve Sherwood at Yale University.
As the US standard of living is based on energy use, it is hard to imagine how decreasing the availabilty and increasing the cost of energy via foolish GW junk science, will do anything but punish us. This is where liberalism’s focus on feel goodism rather than do goodism takes us. It makes some people feel good about supposedly helping the environment, no matter how destructive the result.
I just wish there was a way where only Obama supporters had to pay the price for such nonesense. Unfortunately in Obama’s world we will all get the opportunity to spread the wealth around.
Here we go. We are about to revisit another Carter administration. Everyone grab a sweater! You might plant some veggies too so that you don’t starve when food, along with gas, is rationed.
May I suggest that the exhalation of CO2 is an irrelevance. It is only part of the ‘carbon cycle’. Plants take in CO2 (photosynthesis); we eat the plants (or the animals that ate the plants), and following digestion and respiration breath out the CO2. The CO2 is simply going round in a circle – it is not ‘new’ CO2.
If anyone thinks they know differently, please say so.
I thought CO2 was food for plants and trees?
A minor omission from Obama last night. He forgot to mention social security tax.
“if you make less than a quarter million dollars a year, then you will not see your income tax go up, your capital gains tax go up, your payroll tax” – Obama
“But during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama said subjecting more of a person’s income to the payroll tax is the option he would push for if elected president.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21739271/
That will cost Joe the Plumber about $20,000.
John-X (10:54:17) :
“…In January, what’s now being called “RePO” (Reid-Pelosi-Obama) could potentially take total control (via supermajority).
It’s looking as though enough of my fellow citizens either don’t understand what that means, or just don’t care.”
Sorry!
Didn’t mean to leave out what just might turn out to be the LARGEST group:
Those who DO understand what it means, and think it’s WONDERFUL.
If fermentation emits CO2, that will affect corn-to-alcohol production.
Your politicians seem as stupid as are ours in the UK. As you might know Gordon Brown has created a new department for Energy and Climate Change, and has given the job to a so called bright young man named Ed Miliband. His brother, also very underwhelming. is our Foreign Secretary. Ed made his first announcement on the job today. You will be pleased to hear that climate change is worsening and he intends to reduce carbon emission by 80% by 2050! Furthermore, he intends to persuade the EU to follow suit. Where was our opposition during this announcement? Sitting on their hands because they believe this claptrap.
We have a crumbling power supply industry and can look forward to serious power cuts in a few years time and all our politicians can do is to join the AGW alarmists. I despair.
But at the same time Gordon Brown was urging oil companies to reduce the cost of motor fuel so we could push out more CO2. You could not make it up, could you?
Thomas Gough,
What you are not considering is the huge amount of CO2 generated from growing, processing and transporting food. Each pound of beef requires large amounts of CO2 and water to produce. In the west, it takes 500 gallons of water to raise one pound of beef. Food consumption is not a zero-sum proposition.
It won’t be long before scientists start deciding who should live or die, just as many scientists did in the 1930s and 1940s. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Hmmm, so if Barack has this election in the bag, why is he pandering to the Green contingent?
David Gladstone (10:59:03) :
“…I’m ready to vote for Nader as a protest…”
Oh geez, can you imagine what the Nader administration would be like?
1st Executive Order:
No one may charge more than $99 for a man’s suit.
2nd Order:
No man may buy more than two suits in any decade.
Yes, absolute power corrupts absolutely. But divinity cannot be corrupted, and as we know, Obama is The One. If Americans elect a large enough Democratic Party majority in the House and Senate, L. Obama will have the power to make all wishes come true. He will not be limited by stubborn and racist Americans who cling foolishly to guns, and religion. Guns and religion are not sacrosanct, so why cling to them? The same applies to logic and rationality.
Just let go of those outdated concepts, and allow L. Obama to take control.
Social Justice and a Golden Utopia on Earth. Those things are worth a bit of temporary discomfort, yes?
Here’s who Obama’s “energy advisor” Jason Grumet is.
http://www.bipartisanpolicy.org/ht/d/StafferDetails/i/2030/pid/229
I’m not sure what it is about having a BA and Juris Doctorate that qualifies him to advise Obama CO2 is a pollutant.
Here’s a hint at another thing the Grumet/Obama team want to do.
http://paulmalouf.blogspot.com/2008/08/tar-sands-climate-change-action-dont.html
The way I heard it they want to pressure the Canadian Government to rewrite NAFTA to restrict Oil Sands oil. Right now under NAFTA America has this sweetheart deal concerning Canadian oil called proportianality. Canada is obligated to provide a proportion of it’s oil to America. America gets a big chunk of its oil from Canada. China is crying for that oil. They’re up there snooping around all the time, but Canada could only sell so much to them even if they wanted to, because the NASA proportionality clause demands a large proportion goes to the US. Obama wants to pressure Canada on how Canada produces tar sands oil, or it threatens to rewrite NAFTA. Huh? “Do it our way, or sell it to the Chinese.” Gee tough decision.
Translation – Factor that in to all the other nutty stuff those Grumet and Obama want to do concerning energy, and if you’re American consider the possibility of freezing in the dark before the next election. Sarah Palin’s going to look pretty good as Pres about that time.
The election is not over. The polls are tightening again as they always do as the real election day nears. Rasmussen daily 3 day average tracking has Obama and McCain tied on most-likely voters.
I’m afraid there may be some people that fall for the usual media and lefty pundits that are declaring the race is “over”, that McCain needed a “game-changer”, etc., etc.
One should never underestimate the Democrats always going over the top since they think most of us are so dense they have to really, really pound it in to us.
My guess is by this time tomorrow, anyone that is a “sketptic” or “promoter” of AGW will have read or know about this. The over whelming majority of Americans are just not that stupid and most will be able to connect this foolishness into wondering how much more their electric bill will increase. The only question is whether the information will percolate through the electorate to effect Obama’s vote count. I think it will. Call me an Obama is President skeptic.
Save our lifestyle – shoot an environmentalist!
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. However, the lie can only be maintained for as long as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequencies of the lie” Joseph Goebbels (Nazi propaganda minister)
(I am absolutely no fan of Goebbels, but he was no fool. ) If falling global temperatures don’t do it first, then I suggest that the ‘economic consequencies’ of the lie will kill it off. i.e. as people are hit in the pocket there will be a rapid rise in the number of people questioning the whole AGW orthodoxy. Once the media sense that the tide is turning they are likely to switch sides quickly. Communism was built on a lie and remember how quickly that collapsed once the rot set in began.
Thomas Gough (11:23:07) :
” May I suggest that the exhalation of CO2 is an irrelevance. It is only part of the ‘carbon cycle’. Plants take in CO2 (photosynthesis); we eat the plants (or the animals that ate the plants), and following digestion and respiration breath out the CO2. The CO2 is simply going round in a circle – it is not ‘new’ CO2.
If anyone thinks they know differently, please say so. ”
Where does “new” CO2 come from – CO2 that is not part of the ‘carbon cycle’?
Well maybe the EPA should file suit against Coca Cola, and Pepsi, as well as all the breweries and wineries. And while he is at it, he should make the manufacture of dry ice illegal; unless of course it is used as a means of sequestering CO2. Of course CO2 sequestration means a loss of Oxygen for the planet, and it ought to be illegal to use up oxygen.
Nobody seems to mind that the USA can be totally self sufficient in energy without any nukes too, if only Obama and idiots like him (and McCain) understood that CO2 is not a polutant, or a controller of climate.
Ignorance is not a disease; we are all born with it; but stupidity has to be taught; and there are plenty of people willing and able to teach it.
George
PS But if Obama does define CO2 as the devil incarnate; that will be by far the most benign of his likely action as the next President; he’s an outright America hating Saul Alinsky trained Marxist; and that’s the good side of him. Enjoy what you are about to bring about.
PeteS (11:30:07) :
” You will be pleased to hear that climate change is worsening and he intends to reduce carbon emission by 80% by 2050! ”
WHY are you in the UK messing about like this?!!
10,000% reductions!! And NOT by 2050, BY CHRISTMAS!!!
James H. Thanks for that great rewrite of the Police lyrics!:]
If I had to make a good guess based on logic and observation, the lag in the vegetation response to increased CO2 (regardless of the source) in the atmosphere will show the concentration increasing (obviously) but the concentration of CO2 will eventually reach a maximum and eventually decline. That in turn will again give feedback to the vegetation that will now reduce its mass, but again with a lag in the response. If every season and years were equal, this would follow a nice sinusoidal function but solar irradiance or activity and weather patterns will also help or hinder the vegetation growth.
Thomas Gough, the ideas you ascribe to Goebbels are not his. they are the ideas of Eddie Bernays, nephew of Freud, inventor of PR and political spin whose works had pride of place in Goebbels’ mind control library. That should make you feel better! An Obama administration, like that of McCain, will have more lies than a dog has fleas!
I believe that this has been the vision for a long time. Government wants to control every aspect of our lives. The two best ways of doing that are taxation and control of energy affordability.
http://depriest-mpu.blogspot.com/2008/04/iwo-jima-global-warming.html
Any astute follower of Christian prophecy understands and realizes what is happening to the world we live in. It’s only a matter of time before war and chaos is at our doorstep.
You global warming alarmists are being decieved. We are doomed, but it’s not because of 0.0385% CO2. The clock continues to tick despite the alarm sounding. Most people would rather snooze than wake up to the fact that the biblical seals are about to be broken.
Israeli strikes on Iran will be the breaking of the first seal.
Russias retalliation will be the breaking of the second seal.
World economies, partially fueled by middle eastern energy, will collapse. This will signal the breaking of the third seal.
God help us after that.
It’s not called a tax, but CO2 legislation will be the hidden tax that many will never be able to afford. Let us hope common sense will eventually prevail.
John-X, Instead of worrying irrelevancies like suits, you should worry about lies and stupidity first. It’s bad enough that the democrats want to shove this completely unscientific climate change agenda down our throats and that republicans also seem to buy this silliness, at least Nader knows how this economic crisis got started and whom to blame.
This could definitely cost Obama votes. I was planning to vote for him, but this is very bad news. Much as I dislike McCain, I may just have to vote for him now
You do know that McCain has already stated that Al Gore would play a large role in his administration concerning the environment. I’m afraid there is no escaping the omnipresent Goreacle.
Maybe it’s time for a 3rd party, I vote for Anthony for Climate czar! :]
REPLY: Having been an elected official once, I decline the job. – Anthony
John -x Only trying to say that the CO2 we breath out was in the atmosphere before the plant took it in. i.e. it goes round and round.
Patrick Henry I accept that there are other factors that I had not considered.
Imman, What I know about Christian prophecy is that it’s undiluted BS, just like all the other religions’ prophecies. All prophecies were created after the facts in order to be correct. In other words, they are lies.
I’m convinced that the vast majority of voters either do not pay attention to what this candidate is actually saying, are unfamiliar with the issues, or foucs on just one issua to the detriment of all others. Or worse.
I’m not a big McCain fan, but I can’t in good conscience vote for Obama partly because of this lunacy.
And to top it all off- our energy apretite is not being met. What’s to replace it? Windmills? I would paste a Janus face if I could, and empahasize the tragic vice the comic.
This is scary as people seem to want to hand over control of the quality of their lives to …the government? yuck!
There’s another option, not voting for either of them.
PeteS (11:30:07)
Those power cuts maybe closer than people expect. Note the new pipeline from Norway has closed down for the winter
http://uk.reuters.com/article/allBreakingNews/idUKLA21238420080910?rpc=401&
If Northern Europe has an exceptionally cold winter then they’ll geet first grabs on the gas coming from Russia. If there is not enough gas getting through to the UK they’ll probably turn off the gas powered generating stations so that homes will not have their gas cut off.
A question for the Americans after you’ve elected your next president when will you be voting again to change the balance of power in Washington(Senate/Congress)
David Gladstone (12:11:12) :
“…the democrats want to shove this completely unscientific climate change agenda down our throats and that republicans also seem to buy this silliness, at least Nader knows how this economic crisis got started and whom to blame.”
Wow, cool! So Nader rejects the whole CO2 = Climate Change stuff?
Ralph Nader, Denier. Who knew?
Bye Bye USA.
Up here in Canada we dodged the Federal Liberal Carbon Tax bullet. Next spring, in BC, we will have a chance to throw out the Provincial Liberal idiot Carbon Taxers.
I wonder what it will be like to have a 3rd world country as a neighbour?
Thomas Gough: “May I suggest that the exhalation of CO2 is an irrelevance. It is only part of the ‘carbon cycle’. Plants take in CO2 (photosynthesis); we eat the plants (or the animals that ate the plants), and following digestion and respiration breath out the CO2. The CO2 is simply going round in a circle – it is not ‘new’ CO2.”
You appear to be feeding off the incredible assumption that, over all the centuries before 1900, natural CO2 sinks tracked natural CO2 sources to within a small fraction of one percent – which would have been necessary to maintain atmospheric CO2 levels within the assumed limits of a few tens of ppm.
CO2 from fossil fuels is actually a tiny part of the overall ‘carbon cycle’, in case you hadn’t realized.
Daryl Ritchison: “It’s not called a tax, but CO2 legislation will be the hidden tax that many will never be able to afford.”
I fear that only a very tiny few will be able to afford it.
The costs could well run into six-figure amounts for every man, woman and child in the developed world.
If they let it be known what the cost could be, voters would stay away in droves.
M White (12:26:36) :
Seriously, Anthony, is there anyone qualified for such a post?
David Gladstone,
“All prophecies were created after the facts in order to be correct.”
After the facts? How absurd! According to you, the ‘end of time’ prophecy has already happended. Perhaps you would like to correct your statement?
“What I know about Christian prophecy”
Judging by your comment, it appears that you don’t know much.
Peter, I was saying nothing about past levels of CO2, nor about whatever fossil fuel use adds to the level. I was simply pointing out that the CO2 that we breath out was previously part of the make up of the atmosphere.
“Israeli strikes on Iran will be the breaking of the first seal.
Russias retalliation will be the breaking of the second seal.
World economies, partially fueled by middle eastern energy, will collapse. This will signal the breaking of the third seal.”
Save the seals! 🙂
Please, spare us the moonbattery in this science blog.
I’m not worried. There’s a point where restricting CO2 emissions will lead to significantly higher energy costs or a disruption in the supply of energy. Probably both. We learned from the high gas prices this year that when that happens, voters get mad, and politicians will bend over backwards to make the voters happy. If not, then they won’t stay in office for very long.
Aw dang it. I knew it was too good to be true.
“The Nader campaign believes it is time to break our addiction to fossil fuels.
“The evidence of global warming is mounting.
“We threaten the global environment with our continued use of fossil fuels.
“Not only is this an ecological threat, it is a tremendous economic threat, facing all of humanity.
“Global warming will bankrupt the re-insurance industry, spread infectious tropical diseases, cause massive ecological disruption, and increased severe and unpredictable weather all of which will significantly impact commerce, agriculture, and communities across America and throughout the world.
http://www.votenader.org/issues/environment/climate-change/
I trust the American people will laugh out loud at him. Canadians just voted no to a Green Carbon Tax, and the Liberal party is at a record low for running on it.
About voting:
Voting for Nader is a bad idea.
Obama will still win.
The Republicans will not destroy the economy.
Therefore a vote for McCain is the most logical step.
Obama, President of the Socialist United States of America?
I don’t think so.
If the Canadians can do it, so can the Americans.
Rats! I just looked up Nader’s policy on climate! Yikes! He backs Greenpeace!
What a country! Nobody to vote for.
Anthony, the SCOTUS has classified CO2 as an “air pollutant” in their decision 2 April 2007. From that point on, atmospheric science devolved into atmospheric politics. Scientific facts are no longer of consequence. Governor Schwartzenegger has signed legislation classifying CO2 as a pollutant.
We are governed by the scientifically ignorant.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
MASSACHUSETTS et al. v. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit
——————————————————————————–
No. 05–1120. Argued November 29, 2006—Decided April 2, 2007
——————————————————————————–
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-1120.ZS.html
Anthony, Alex Llewelyn’s statement “Not to vote for him on this one point is plain stupid” is one of self-realization. Mr. Llewelyn provides an insight to the decline of UK society.
Don’t new regulations require some standard of proof, or at least a cost-benefit analysis? Am I naive to think that this will tend to deflate the hysteria around CO2? Similar to the tactic of getting some of these controversies into a court of law where all evidence can be examined?
Having been an elected official once, I decline the job. – Anthony
Which only goes to confirm what Douglas Adams said when explaining that the real ruler of the Universe was an unknown hermit, something along the lines of;
“The last person who should be given the job of President of the Universe, is someone who actually WANTS it”
Dave.
Does this mean Heinz Baked Beans will be banned?
Darren (11:18:46) :
Senator Biden is the Walter Mitty of politics, although my pet name for him is Gaffe-Man.
Either Obama is gravely misinformed or he is pandering cynically to the green voters. Neither of these is reassuring. The worst thing is that, overall, McCain is even less reassuring.
As see (and i am for once happy that i can’t vote for the next president of the US) it is choosing between the lesser of the two evils.
The whole credit-crisis and the following economic recession will pale in comparison to what is comming next.
Co2 is a pollution that is for 96% caused by natural sources, wich makes up only 0.0385 % of the atmosphere, 4 out of every 10.000 molecules in the atmosphere is CO2, only one of those molecules has been caused by man (and we are even not sure if that figure is correct, it could be less).
Thats one molecule out of every 10.000! Or pehaps even one molecule out of every 20.000, 25.000!
ACORN new task:
http://www.globalwarming.org/node/2679
If Obama wins, prepare for eco-terrorism.
PeteS (11:30:07) :
Have a “heart to heart” with your fellow countryman, Alex Llewelyn, discouraging though that might be.
Jeff Albers: Voting for neither Obama nor McCain is not an option. Obama poses a real danger to our constitutional Republic. If elected and provided with veto proof majorities in both houses of Congress, the destruction will begin immediately and cause irreparable harm.
We all have a duty to prevent Obama from being elected. That can only occur if McCain is elected. Not voting or voting for Nader or the Green party candidate may feel good, but is incredibly stupid.
Senator Obama embraces so much of the extreme liberal orthodoxy that his administration will make President Carter’s look like an extremely conservative one. Should he proceed as outlined in this post, he will manage to turn what will doubtless be a severe recession into a new Great Depression. We can only hope this inspires Governor Palin to make a hard run in 2012, to clean up the mess.
Mongo (12:23:34) :
Did you listen to the YouTube video clip of Hussein Obama explaining to Joe the Plumber that his taxes would be used to spread the wealth to those below Joe? Did the audience present understand the conversation? If they did, they were the ones who would be receiving Joe’s taxes, otherwise, as you say, the vast majority of voters do not pay attention to what this candidate (Hussein) is actually saying, because there was applause at the end of Hussein’s comments.
Using business taxes to spread the wealth to create customers for the taxed business is what I call economic perpetual motion.
Back in March in New York I spoke to the “Republican Communications Director” for about 10 or 15 minutes.
Every single idea mentioned had a pro AGW slant to it.
Seems either way the election result is predetermined.
AGW WILL WIN.
I pray the weather this winter and the economies both sides of the Atlantic
force a turn around in the policies of whoever is officially or unofficially governing.
The present financial crisis is going to be chicken feed in comparison.
It’s going to be a hell of a winter..
From John-X….If anyone thinks they know differently, please say so. ”
Where does “new” CO2 come from – CO2 that is not part of the ‘carbon cycle’?
John, if CO2 just goes around, as in the carbon cycle; you ask where does “New” CO2 come from.
Well I seem to recall that billions of years ago there were no plants at all; so where did all that carbon come from without plants ? In fact we had 20 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere as recently as the Cambrian era.
I would venture that the same volcanic processes that brought carbon to the surface way back when, are still functioning quite well. In fact I have seen PBS programs of volcanic regions in Africa where CO2 seeping out of the ground has made CO2 traps for unsuspecting locals, whose kids walk down in a gully and get asphyxiated by CO2 layers sitting on the ground. You can toss alighted paper into the gully and watch the burning smoke float on top of the CO2, which extinguishes the paper as it sinks into the layer.
In addition to that we have the oceanic removal process. The solubility of CO2 increases at lower temperatures, so CO2 absorbed in the warm upper layers of the ocean is pumped into the cooler deeper waters, by the effect of that solubility gradient, so it remains in the ocean depths for ever.
Gee whiz ! is it possible that all those fossil fuels were once atmospheric CO2 themselves, till the plants and dinosaurs used it up.
So the burning of fossil fuels is no more new carbon than is human exhalation.
The volcanoes are the only really new source of carbon dioxide.
The human exhalation problem will be mitigated by requiring each citizen to carry with them a shrub/bush/tree, to help absorb pollutants generated by their life support systems. Parents would be responsible for dependents and the state would have to provide for the incarcerated, the indigent, and those people living in flora deprived environments.
I used to think that the politicians were gutless. Now I am beginning to believe that scientists are even more gutless.
This wouldn’t even be a political issue if the scientific community had stood up to those who claimed “consensus.” What the hell is a politician supposed to do, dismiss the gods of science?
I think there are too many scientists who care about their pocketbooks first and promoting scientific awareness second. Too many scientists depend on the government for their paychecks, either directly, or indirectly through government grants or government contracts.
Stand up and grow some spine. Put your paychecks on the line. If you don’t like the politicians following the lead of the alpha dog of the pack of scientists, speak up (bark) loud and long. Most people can’t hear you yet. And the ones who are listening still are not sure what the message is other than the alpha dog is wrong.
Thomas Gough, fossil fuels are also part of the carbon cycle; they just haven’t been participating for the last few million years. 🙂
Bruce, as a Californian I can tell you that one of the consequences of living next to a third world nation is bilingual ballots; Canadians will just have to learn to live wi– Oh, wait…
Imman, I’m not disparaging anyone’s religion, but I’m naturally a wee bit suspicious of people/organizations who predict doomsday but coincidentally happen to be selling protection from it *cough*AlGore*cough*Greenpeace*cough*Obama*cough*.
philw1776,
You say “Please, spare us the moonbattery in this science blog.”
Moonbattery? Science blog? Perhaps you should look at the top of this webpage.
Here, let me help you. It says “Commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts”
I didn’t see anything that limits discussion strictly to science there, do you?
And if you would like to continue patronizing me, I would be happy to discuss the “science” with you in regards to climate change and how it is an exagerated hoax.
Save the seals, huh? I assume that you are a warming alarrmist. Very well, let’s have at it Phillip.
Mr. Barack Hussein Obama will say ANYTHING to get elected. He will change ANY OPINION(except taxing the hell out of us) to get elected. He will tell any LIE to get elected (as proven by his recent comments about his association with ACORN). His advisors have told him that the majority believe in AGW, so he is championing this cause, also. He’s chicken little with no spine.
Are there regulations on the disposal of “Dangerous Pollutants”. Will anybody who disposes of these pollutants have to be licensed? Will this mean that all organic farmers have to be licensed as disposers of this pollutant?
There is an optomistic view to be had here. If Obama wants to make this a matter of law, then AGW would have to stand up in a court of law. This should be the last thing the enviros want because the fact set simply isn’t in their favor. I say bring it on – let’s try this in a court of law. I am confident the ruling would be in favor of natural causes over manmade and that CO2 is in fact not a pollutant as they would define it. It would end the arguement fair & square & we could get on with focusing on real problems.
Imman (12:51:06) :
” According to you, the ‘end of time’ prophecy has already [happened]. ”
The End of the World did already happen. It was in the 1970s. I was there, I remember it.
Fragile world economies dependent on Arab oil…yup
War in the Mideast… yup, been there, did that
“Russian” retaliation (actually it was “Soviet” retaliation – they were actually bigger and badder than 21st Century Russia) – check.
So, um, yeah, End of the World has come and gone. That and disco (they may have been the same thing).
As someone pointed out above, it is not feasible to use the 1990 Clean Air Act to regulate CO2. The Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) section would require any industry with more than 250 tons/year of emissions to install Best Available Control Technology (BACT) or Lowest Achievable Emission Rate (LAER) technology to decrease emissions. Most small businesses would emit more than that if they have any type of boiler or process heater. Obama and his advisors evidentl know nothing about the Clean Air Act, or they don’t care about business. Well, come to think of it….
Cedarhill:
Ya know, my worry is most Americans are that dense. After teaching a high school (sound) course, I’ve really been concerned about the voters out there. Obama is charismatic, well spoken, good looking and in my wife’s words “carries himself well”. McCain (who has embraced the green script) is old, not too pretty, not as well spoken, and well, not charismatic (in addition to being associated with GWB- kinda like acne). Humm, Don’t know history, civics or have had to join the military or some other organization where I might have to associate with “those people”. Guess what? I’m voting for the pretty one.
Bruce,
Damn you eh!/scarstic! Seriously, thanks for the kick in the butt. It would be interesting to see refugees going to Canada to escape the energy poor US of A. Quite opposite of the scenes in “Day After Tomorrow”.
PS. Would you accept an aged engineer??
Joel,
Remember, Figures don’t lie, but liers figure… Look at the traction the UN and Hansen have…Al Gore, he’s just a shill.
The Upshot:
Well, in the US we’re stuck with leaders who are clueless, voters who are brainless, and scientists who are gutless. In addition, those few who speak out are labeled as less than human, and those who shout loudest win.
I fought for this in Viet Nam? (or WWII or Korea or Iraq (one and two) or Afganistan or Bosnia, or ….(add here)
McCain, you’ve forgotten your bothers! Obama you don’t even know your overall history!
Humph!
Mike
Goodness. Some of us are beginning to sound like that website that is keeping count of the number of events that are caused by AGW. The sore corn on your foot will not be caused by Obama if he becomes the president. The sky will not fall on your head if Obama becomes the president. Maybe if we looked at these candidates with the same serious, scrutiny and search for accurate information and data instead of AGW-style spin, the discussion could rise to that of our discussion and debate on natural variability. One can only hope.
Al Qaeda members should be dancing in their caves about the capitalist meltdown and the plans that our esteemed leaders have for carbon capture/tax/reduction/etc.
Terrorists could not have planned a better way to hit at First World economies and take us back to the (literal) Dark Ages.
Perhaps they were the originators of AGW – can someone check Al’s funding sources?
Must stop breathing now. Does bad breath have a higher level of CO2 emissions? If so will people with poor oral hygiene be targeted?
Well, if CO2 is a dangerous pollutant, then each of us must have our breathing regulated, afterall, we all emit CO2?
Any guess on which states and groups of people would be denied permits?
I expect the good people in Texas will know how to react if the Obamanation thugs come here to enforce their permits- same story as always. Liberty or death.
I notice on the dias the slogan : “New Energy For America”
Well, he wants to stop oil and coal use and production; I’m sure he isn’t advocating nucelar energy. So what is this “new energy”? Pixie-dust?
Or are they going to burn all those carbon credits?
davidgmills.
Science has become politicised because it is funded by governments. Scientific research has now become a bureaucratic enterprise.
Does that explain it all?
Novoburgo “The human exhalation problem will be mitigated by requiring each citizen to carry with them a shrub/bush/tree, to help absorb pollutants generated by their life support systems. Parents would be responsible for dependents and the state would have to provide for the incarcerated, the indigent, and those people living in flora deprived environments.”
Under the Obama regime, you won’t be able to call it a bush.
I placed a post on unthreaded on the bulletin board at climate audit concerning the economics of AGW. In it I asked some thoughtful questions and would apprciate any responses if anyone feels inclined. Thanks in advance.
Anthony, I think this would be a good subject for a thread and I have not seen my questioned answered. Please consider.
[…] information on Watts Up With That? including this comment from Daniel: The only surprise here is that Obama’s advisers announced […]
If elected Obama will create many inefficient jobs in energy, in peace corps, in “a national security force as large and well funded as the US military ” We will become a poorer, far more socialist country.
Obama does not appear to stupid, so there must be something more to this announcement.
The polls are tightening and he is making sure the greens vote for him rather than McKinney or Nader. Perhaps he doesn’t want to suffer the same fate as Gore.
He will use the finacial crisis and rescue plan, plus the goverment loans to financial institutions and the new energy policy to control those companies and the flow of money. Acorn, the peace corps, the enlarged national security force, the energy policy and taxes will all take a heavy toll. Business investment will drop, productivity will drop, and unemployed millions will to tun to the goverment for those jobs listed above. Don’t say I did not tell you : )
Katlab (16:48:11) :
” Must stop breathing now. Does bad breath have a higher level of CO2 emissions?”
Don’t even go there! It’s worse than that.
Those microbes in your mouth are producing sulfurous compounds. Your stinky breath is probably creating acid rain!
Forget to brush this morning? I’ll sell you my sulfur credits!
Well, it won’t influence Obama, and it probably won’t influence Gordon Brown much either, but I’ve managed to create a petition on the Number 10 site:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Require
government funded research into climate change to meet minimum
standards of honesty.
In order to ensure that public policy is guided by the best
possible scientific knowledge, it should be required of
research bodies such as the Hadley Centre that their published
research meet at least the same standards of disclosure and
transparency as financial and mining prospectuses, such that
failure to meet such standards should disqualify research from
consideration in setting public policy.
I think it’s only open to Brits, but the URL is:
davidgmills (15:27:04) :
I tend to agree that scientists are “even more gutless”, but as a partial defense, many are just out of their element in making public statements. Also, their “peers”, journal editors and the funding sources seem to have put up some pretty significant roadblocks. However, perhaps we could see a quantum leap occur (with little notice) where a bunch of real climate scientists spill the beans. I suppose it would really be a headline grabber if some even brought out hard evidence of scientific fraud.
I have to admit this “CO2 is evil” fraud is ripping apart my faith in the goodness of and reasoning ability of our species. Not to mention that the science and environmentalism I grew up with and love/d is being hijacked.
Something good will happen, but I wish we didn’t have to go down such a tortuous path to get there. …
Pamela Gray (16:40:11) :
“Goodness… The sky will not fall on your head if Obama becomes the president…”
Like I said before, go up to Seattle, have yourself a nice half-decaf skim soymilk light-foam Grande latte’ – I’d suggest somewhere in the “U District” – take your time, really soak up the kultur.
Ask someone, anyone, WHY the junior senator from Illinois MUST be elected.
Ask someone, anyone, why the sky WILL fall if the junior senator from Illinois in NOT elected.
Make sure you gather enough information to be able to explain it all to the folks back in Enterprise.
” Maybe if we looked at these candidates with the same serious, scrutiny and search for accurate information and data instead of AGW-style spin, the discussion could rise to that of our discussion and debate on natural variability. One can only hope.”
Be sure and tell them that in the Seattle Starbucks.
Mention “serious scrutiny” of the junior senator from Illinois. If you’re within the jurisdiction of the campus police, you’re likely to be arrested for a Hate Crime. Come to think of it, if you’re within the jurisdiction of King County…
deadwood,
Having just come through an election “up North”, the “greens” are fickle. They will not go for the Ubermessiah because of his “green policy”.
They will vote with their checkbook; that kind of green overrides the other kind of green. It happened up here in Canada. It is happening now in Europe. Just get the news facts out.
Carbon Tax and AGW policies are electoral death. The populace is not that stupid. Let’s hope for big snowfalls before November 4th.
Okay, I think I am going to use my good credit rating to by a house with a big lawn and start planting potatoes, veggies, and start raising chickens so that I will have something to eat when our world-wide economy comes crashing down.
Still hoping.
Robert:
Having been born there and also living many years in the GWN, I know Canadian politics quite well. What I saw there was Harper NOT winning, but really LOSING either. Something the Conservative Party has done quite well throughout Canadian history.
What I was saying above doesn’t imply approval, or even suggest that what Obama is doing will succeed. I was looking for a motive for why he make such a stupid move.
By the way. I once met a fellow named Robert Wood when I lived in Western Canada. He was from Winnipeg and would be in his late 50’s about now.
That should be “but not really LOSING either” above.
Hugh (18:07:50) :
” Okay, I think I am going to use my good credit rating to by a house with a big lawn and start planting potatoes, veggies, and start raising chickens so that I will have something to eat when our world-wide economy comes crashing down.”
Yeah…
seriously though, I don’t think that’s gonna work.
Our world-wide economy has become something like the airplane that can never land. Either it flies or… we go down with it.
Unless ALL your neighbors go 19th century with you, then your veggies and chickens are just gonna get eaten – you gotta hide ’em or protect ’em somehow. You can see how it becomes impractical very quickly when HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of people are deprived.
@Bruce (12:32:19)
You wrote
“Bye Bye USA. …
… I wonder what it will be like to have a 3rd world country as a neighbour?”
I just wonder how long it will take us’ns down here to reach that status. As they say, no country has ever taxed its way to prosperity – quite the reverse.
P.S.
Leave the light on, will ya? You’ll be getting a lot of visitors from south of the border who conveniently will forget to go back home. I plan on retiring where the fishing is great so it might as well be somewhere that has heated homes, lights, and enough energy to maintain a functioning internet.
John-X,
“The End of the World did already happen. It was in the 1970s. I was there, I remember it.”
Reply: Your ‘end of the world’ was most likely hallucinations caused from a bad trip.
“Fragile world economies dependent on Arab oil…yup”
Reply: Wouldn’t you agree that economies are even MORE fragile these days?
“War in the Mideast… yup, been there, did that”
Reply: What makes you think that turmoil in the middle east is over?
“Russian” retaliation (actually it was “Soviet” retaliation – they were actually bigger and badder than 21st Century Russia) – check.”
Reply: Yes, thanks to 20th century Soviet Union, Russia now possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in the world. Also, according to a Russian military doctrine stated in 2003, tactical nuclear weapons of the Strategic Deterrence Forces could be used to “prevent political pressure against Russia and her allies (Armenia, Belarus, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan).” Thus, the Russian leadership “is officially contemplating a limited nuclear war”. Let there be no question, Russia will support Iran as well. Israel will be attacked, sooner rather than later.
I drink my coffee black and very early in the morning. What the hell is soy milk? I’ve milked cows, but how do you milk a soy? Seattle is as disconnected to eastern Washington as Portland is disconnected to eastern Oregon. I am still waiting for a serious investigation of Obama’s CO2 policies (NOT spin please) and whether or not, and this is key, he would be willing to change some of his positions should information on climate change point to variability that is not connected to CO2. I think that McCain will be as stubborn as Bush and will not be open to changing any of his positions, even in the face of contrary data. I will not be basing my vote on CO2. Just like I would not base my vote on abortion issues. I have no such strict litmus test. However, I do believe in data-driven decision making. Which candidate is more likely to lean that way? Which candidate is willing to listen to opposing views? Which candidate is willing to take the time to read up on the subject at hand? Which candidate is willing to find common ground instead of divisive positions? I actually feel that Obama is more approachable when there is a difference of opinion than McCain is. At least that is what I am seeing based on the campaigns of both candidates.
Pamela: First, McCain predicates his measures on not hurting the economy. Which sort of defangs them. Which is a Good Thing. Second, Obama is not in favor of nukes (etc.). He says he favors “clean coal” but what good is that with a CO2 tax?
Pamela, Sen. Obama is very approachable and very flexible. He will find common ground with you and tell you anything necessary to get your vote. If that is what it takes for you to vote for someone, then you’ve found your man.
Of course he will change his positions–to suit the circumstance. As soon as circumstances change, after a few seconds or so, he will change his positions again. He is adept at changing his positions, at least publicly.
To know what he will do as opposed to what he will say, one needs to intelligently analyse his past actions. That would require work, though, so you may wish to let someone else do that, say, after the election?
Pamela, If I may call you that,
Lovely place Pendelton – the wheatfields, the valley, the roundup, and the Pendelton grade (takes a bit of skill to go down it with a trailer). Knew you had wonderful sweaters, didn’t know about the punkins…
I don’t think it matters – on issues of AGW the Washington (east coast) crowd is solidly in the clutches of the rabid environmentalists. Maybe so much marble has rotted the brains there – they need to sniff the wheat and evergreens. (No I’m not being cute here!)
We shall see. I fought for your right to vote as you wish. I don’t have to agree with you, but thank you for putting some thought into that process.
Mike
To expand on the partial answer to the source of new CO2 given above, let me add the following:
1. Truly new CO2 comes from volcanoes. There is no Carbon-12 in this gas since Carbon-12 is generated by bombardment of the atmosphere by cosmic rays.
2. When the climate warms as it has been doing since the 1700s, the oceans warm and CO2 is gradually taken out of solution and added to the atmosphere. This is not new CO2, but is probably much of what we see in the rise shown in the Mauna Loa measurements. There may be some carbon-12 in this gas since it once was part of the atmosphere, but it may have decayed significantly depending on the duration of the solution in the oceans.
3. When fossil fuels are burned, carbon is released as CO2 in the process. Fossil fuels include natural gas, petroleum, oil shale, oil sands and coal. In general there is no C-12 in CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels. It has been out of contact with the atmosphere for long enough for all the C-12 to decay.
All the remaining CO2 in the atmosphere, soil, vegetation, and in the seas continuously cycles in the normal carbon cycle. This is not a static process, but is dynamic and chaotic and so far has not been modeled adequately.
Actually, Obama has re-considered his position on nuclear energy and believes we should go forward with new plants, along with other ways of reducing our reliance on oil. I don’t see much space between McCain’s list of energy sources we should be pursuing, and Obama’s. Where did you read that Obama is against nuclear energy? I used to be, especially after Chernoble (sp?). I have since changed my mind, partly because our armed forces are doing pretty well accident wise with nuke powered ships and subs. Maybe we should hire the people who made the ships and subs to build the next nuclear plants on land. They have a damned good track record. So if you want to make me (and by extention, Obama) wear flip flops, several people who post here will have to wear the same item for changing from an AGW believer to a more open-minded thinker.
[…] UN insane. If we lose the EU and the UN, humanity is lost! We must save the bureaucrats!” Obama to Declare Carbon Dioxide Dangerous Pollutant “In my opinion, this is lunacy – Obama’s thinking is completely off the rails now. He […]
I said Carbon 12, I meant C-14. Sorry. Getting older by the day.
REPLY: You should carbon date yourself. 😉
I think that carbon-14 is the result of cosmic ray bombardment and is what is used to carbon date fossils and the like. Plants take up any carbon it can get but it prefers certain isotopes over others. When cosmic rays are down (during maximum cycles), carbon-14 goes down. When minimum allows cosmic rays to get to our atmosphere, carbon-14 goes up. Carbon-14 dating has its limits because it eventually decays to the point it can no longer be detected using the current measuring devices we have, thus can no longer be used to date very old rocks and whatnot.
As I have always said. It’s about the money, not the science.
Now we know how Obama will pay for all the new and improved government programs.
Obama definition of rich. Anybody who has a job.
Now old construction worker, you know that is just your spin. From what source do you get this information? Is it credible? Does it make sense against the tax proposals Obama is putting out there? If we are to have any kind of effective discussion that has any hope of making people think, spin will not do. It could very well be that I am wrong about Obama. But statements like you made do nothing to convince me about Obama. It may lead me to wonder about you. I am very skeptical when it comes to spin. Just as I am skeptical when someone says CO2 causes kidney stones. We all know that to be spin. Saying that Obama believes that rich means you have a job falls into the same category.
I don’t like two of his proposals: to go ahead with carbon credits/taxes related to CO2 emission, and the $250,000 cut off for businesses. But I think common ground can be found here. More tax deductions for new equipment purchases for businesses would fix part of the problem. Waiting out this cold spell so that we don’t jump on the bandwagon and regret it later is another compromise that is worth pursuing.
@Pamela Gray (20:07:22) :
We can date old rocks, there is more than C14 dating.
Sad really – the USA following Europe into the new third world of impoverished once great industrial nations.
Empty streets lined with decaying houses as a result of the sub-prime fiasco – next even more silent factories surrounded by darkened city streets as the Carbon Police whisper past in their carbon pollution free Al Goremobiles.
At least the Canadians will have lights, perhaps you can flee the Carbon Prohibition across your northern border and drink deeply from their powered society.
Who will be the Al Capone of the 21st century, selling illicit electricity and gasoline from guarded warehouses, whilst paying hush money to the faceless Carbon Cops – oh wait, I forgot, he’s already in business selling ‘carbon credits’ to himself…
Pamela Gray (19:53:30) :
” Maybe we should hire the people who made the ships and subs to build the next nuclear plants on land. They have a damned good track record. ”
The operational track record is very good for our nuclear power plants and the people who build the nuclear subs wouldn’t know where to start when building a large nuclear power station as I was involved in the construction of a nuclear power plant that has operated successfully for over 20 years.
Robert, I know that. But I was referring to carbon 14 dating and I believe I was clear on that. One of the most interesting ways to date rocks is to see what else is in it. If its up on top of a mountain peak and there are sea shell fossils in it, you can methodically go back in time when that piece of dirt was low enough to be under water. Another way is to match rock on the edge of one continent with rock on the edge of another. There are several places on our continents that show at one time they were touching each other. Again, using rather straight forward methods, you can calculate how old those edges are based on continental drift.
But I am going to assume that you know that, just like you would assume I do.
Don’t new regulations require some standard of proof, or at least a cost-benefit analysis?
Absolutely not. That’s why you have the cost of a new over the road truck going up 8k to 10K per tier to pay for emmission regs, not to mention the increase in maintenance and decrease in fuel economy. We’re way past diminshed returns on EPA vehicle emmissions reg’s.
Dear edcon, maybe if you all sat down and compared notes, the folks who manage to put a nuclear engine in a sub could inform the next design of a plant on land. I know that land based nuclear plants have done well, but they are exceptionally ugly and look downright scary in a common person’s eyes. Why build the biggest thing you can think of? Build more of them but make them smaller. So that would mean talking with folks who have done exactly that. Just thinkin out loud here.
Frightening to see so many knee jerk conservatives here, but glad to see a few people with constructive and informed observations – they restore my hope.
CO2 is perhaps useful as a surrogate for energy use, but the more time we waste arguing about CO2 and ignoring the really big problems of overpopulation and gluttonous energy consumption, the worse off we will be.
Please open your eyes, those of you so concerned about the politics of CO2, and see the population/energy-use elephant in the room. Then get it out of here and get the shovels. We have much more pressing problems than CO2, and they don’t include any political candidates.
http://www.timprosserfuturing.wordpress.com
REPLY: Tim, a little advice. If you want people to take you seriously, try not insulting the same people in the first sentence. – Anthony
Why people vote the way they do.
Opportunity for McCain: I bet the voters of all those states with coal and energy industries will not like this. I doubt he will take it, but who knows.
The photograph at the head of this article reveals the face of a stone cold killer, who, if elected will kill millions of people both in the USA and by association and influence, millions more around the world. It will be a 100 times worse decision than the ban on DDT that has killed 50 million people from malaria. That ban has now been lifted because it was wrong.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,215084,00.html
If that person is elected, America will collapse faster than Russia’s shrinking population. He is the very worst thing that could happen to the USA. Never mind that McCain is an old fighter pilot and Palin may have used her authority for personal reasons (and who hasn’t?), there you have in full view before you, a totalitarian candidate who has avowed to destroy your economy and you are pussyfooting around the issue.
This is not the time to have gentil, civilised, chatterati type gossip about what colour the bicycle shed should be, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality What you are facing is an “in your face” direct, knife in hand, challenge and without out exception, it should be met in this manner, face to face. http://www.krav-maga-uk.com/index.php?pid=4
If you do not see this threat for what it is, a “hidden in plain view” blatant threat to destroy the USA from within, you, all of you Yanks, who have been our friends and allies over so many years, you do not deserve to be saved. Crass stupidity is not rewarded with second chances. Vote in this Democrat and you will be so shafted, that toilets will be redundant. This would not be lunacy, Anthony, it would be national suicide and there is no other nation which could prevent it happening.
Remember, it was almost the fate of Japan in WW2, its leaders wanting to fight for a lost cause, until the last man woman and child. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, terrible as they were and continue to be so regarded, those attacks demonstrated the utter folly and futility of continuing to resist and look how Japan recovered.
That blessing will not be conferred on the USA if they rush headlong to embrace the CO2 Pollutant Scare. The Japanese war leaders held up a false picture of Japan being desecrated by American GIs, in order to keep the population fighting, but it was not true was it? So it is with the CO2 terror threat. A lie so frightening that it is paralysing the brains of ordinary Americans so much, that they cannot think straight. In which case they will die of ignorance. Who in their right minds would have thought it. The premier, scientifically based economy, that has been the powerhouse of the world’ economy for over 100 years and it falls for the lie that CO2 is a pollutant? That is utter, ***king, rabid, insanity and there is only one cure for Hydrophobia.
Do not let this thing happen. I have never felt so passionate about a single issue and I have to speak out. Wouldn’t each of you try to prevent a family member or a friend from harming themselves. Well, so it is with this situation. You have only to keep this particular democrat from office to achieve survival. Fail and I, for one, will be sad to watch the wholly preventable death of an old, dear friend, who did not listen to sound sensible advice, but who chose to listen to the seductive, siren call of the snakeoil salesman. That is all I have to say on the matter. It’s your choice, America.
The “factsheet” on energy on the Obama website, has, buried down in there,
“it is unlikely that we can meet out aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear as an option”.
It seems to me that nuclear is the word nobody wants to use, but that’s the way we are headed when it comes to energy independence. I imagine that the powers that be, when they sit down and look at hard reality, see that the historical avoidance of nuclear has been a huge mistake. But these politicians also want to keep their jobs, and there is a fair amount of public perception that nuclear is, frankly, “evil”. I would imagine that they figure that yes, new technologies will come along, and we have to encourage them, but nobody can predict the next breakthrough, the future is uncertain. So the energy policy goes something like this: “No more dirty oil! Alternatives! Wind! Solar! Biofuels! *cough*nuclear*cough* Biomass!”
They have coated the nuclear pill with environmentally tasty soya aloe vera superfoods. Exploited the environmental movement’s self contradictions.
I imagine this is the case as “nuclear” is conspicuously absent from speeches, but it’s always in the fine print. Politicians don’t need a PhD to know that when you plug something in, there has to be something on the other end feeding the power.
@Pamela Gray (21:29:21) :
I was more thinking in the line of uranium-lead, Potassium-argon radiometric dating. That tends to give better results in estimating the age of rocks rather than just looking where it was found.
How long before the Mexicans start retreating back to Mexico?
How long before Canada has too worry about migration from the USA overwhelming it’s own resources?
I’ve made the above statements half in jest… however I am deeply concerned. The EPA has real power.
Tim, the idea that man is locked into a consumptive lifestyle, a cog in the machine of an endless cycle of production and consumption, whilst we negate our true humanity and the environment, has been around as a philosophical and moral outlook since the 60 and earlier. I have here my little copy of Eric Fromm’s “To Have or To Be”, written at a time when therapists were drawing from the philosophies of Buddhism and Humanism, and before Earth Day got started. This stuff is now part of our culture and as new generations grow up, they come to similar “discoveries”. So if you want to open your eyes, it is interesting to go deeper into what it is all about. Going further back we get into the Existential stuff, and basic question about why are we here, what should we be doing, what really matters, anyway? I mention this stuff because the first link I found on the website you quote goes to a paper by a prominent psychologist, supposing there is a psychological mechanism that stops us from “opening our eyes” to our actions. And reading between the lines it is the same sort of stuff. You don’t have to be an environmentalist to wonder about what it is that is really important in life. You might come at it from new age/spiritual/Buddhist/compassion circles and go read the famous Eckhart Tolle, “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose”.
I am in no way dismissing this stuff, it is valuable for many people, and start by recognizing the cultural currents that permeate your own thinking, and take into account that they are one of many “rivers” through life, and many people are not “blind”, they are just paddling down a different route.
@Timprosser.
If Malthus was right – why are so many developed countries got organic population growth rates below replacement levels and only sustain their populations by net immigration?
I thought Malthus made sense when I was 18 – I grew out of it. What happened to you. It’s a negative, self destructive belief – let it go, and move on.
PeteS: “Your politicians seem as stupid as are ours in the UK. As you might know Gordon Brown has created a new department for Energy and Climate Change, and has given the job to a so called bright young man named Ed Miliband. His brother, also very underwhelming, is our Foreign Secretary.”
Underwhelming is certainly the right word. I note that the latest cunning plan by the UK government to solve growing unemployment, the energy gap and the “climate crisis” all in one bold move is to 1) train the unemployed people to install loft insulation. 2) And, er, that’s just about it.
Yes, we face a similar problem to the one you face in the US. Who on earth is there to vote for, out of this bunch, when they’re all as dismal as one another? To quote the Ghostbusters theme song: Who ya gonna call? Is there no-one?
It is truly amazing that carbon dioxide will be classified as a pollutant when it is not even mentioned or monitored as part of any air quality index across the world because it is not a pollutant .This is another diversion tactic to avoid dealing with real pollutants like ground level ozone , sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide , carbon monoxide, particulate matter, dioxins ,furons and lead. When did we last hear any AGW supporting scientist or government official mention reduction targets for these pollutants which prematurely kill people today and not a 100 year from now. Canadian Medical Association estimated that in 2008, 21,000 Canadians will die from heart and lung disease brought on by breathing polluted air . Multiply this by 10 and you have a comparable figure for the US.This what we should be reducing. Mother nature will take care of the carbon dioxide if we do our share in reducing the real pollutants.
A far deadlier pollutant is ACORN sullying the integrity of the political process, and Obama is thick with them.
====================================
It is past the time for everyone to re-read 1984, Animal Farm, and Brave New World.
Obama, that serial lying, amoral, Marxist-Leninist, will take us to the new Communist Utopia. He will do so without a bloody revolution. His enablers, true believers, useful idiots, and power seeking thugs, have their Messiah.
It is not too late. He still has to win the election.
Pamela,
You used the phrase “Obama has re-considered his position” which is exactly the problem. Obama is a young, clever, inexperienced man who changes his positions constantly on many different topics and has no track record of real-world accomplishment – other than helping ACORN register voters and not understanding what his pastor of 20 years hates America.
No one (including himself) has any idea what his position will be next year, because he is not yet an adult.
We can also rehab plants not being used. The Satsop nuke facility in Western Washington has been idle for I don’t know how long.
Timprosser,
The only way you’re going to “deal with” overpopulation is to mandate birth control. Whom do you propose gets the axe first? Talk about riots…
Jeff,
Try suggesting birth control in the Muslim world, and see what kind of response you get.
“Pamela Gray (19:53:30) :
Actually, Obama has re-considered his position on nuclear energy and believes we should go forward with new plants, along with other ways of reducing our reliance on oil.”
Actually I think he has repackaged his opposition. He opposes Yucca Mountain as a disposal site. He also has said local communities should have ‘veto’ authority over waste site decisions. Without coming to grips with disposal, there is NO going forward.
“timprosser (21:50:54) :
Frightening to see so many knee jerk conservatives here, but glad to see a few people with constructive and informed observations – they restore my hope.
REPLY: Tim, a little advice. If you want people to take you seriously, try not insulting the same people in the first sentence. – Anthony”
Anthony, people here might think you work for FOX News corporation………….ooooops 😉
REPLY: And people here might also think you work for/belong to Sierra Club. – Anthony
Not read all the comments, but it’s obvious that with carbon trading politicians have finally resolved a time-honoured conundrum: how to tax the very air we breath
I have been a lawyer for thirty years and first of all, I will say that my profession absolutely sucks when it comes to science. My father was a PhD in biochemistry and my brother is a PhD in biophysics and a lot of the scientific method has been ingrained in me, even though I also suck at science. But I don’t suck nearly as much as most of the members of my profession. And let’s be frank, many if not most of our politicians have legal backgrounds. The rest seem to be as clueless as lawyers when it comes to science.
Unfortunately we do what scientists tell us we should do and most of the time we are absolutely clueless as to whether or not we are being fed scientific BS.
It is a sad state of affairs that so much of our education today is void of scientific study. Today’s students get through college with the most rudimentary knowledge of math and science, and these are our college students.
So we have to depend upon the integrity of our scientists to give us the straight scoop.
But so many scientists have dropped the ball and in the process, lost our trust.
I am a personal injury lawyer and have used scientific experts for thirty years. Call me a cynic, but my impression of what passes for science in court is a joke.
I keep this ditty in mind about expert testimony:
I’ll get my whore, you get yours
And we’ll see which a jury abhors.
I am so cynical about the scientific community now it is disgusting. I am disgusted with the official scientific version of 9/11, of the anthrax investigation, of global warming, of NASA, the EPA, etc. etc. And big business scientists are no better. What the pharmaceutical scientists do and pass off as scientific research is appalling.
Same with other things such as energy.
The scientific community has just sold its soul.
And then it has the gall to point the finger at the rest of us who have been so gullible to buy what the snake oil salesmen have been selling.
I don’t know what has to happen, but first of all, the scientific community must get our trust back. They have lost my trust and the trust of millions like me.
Matt who whose comments are a few submissions previous to this is right,
CO2 is not a pollutant and I am not going to argue with his list of what is.
Many “sceptics” list or mention the very same…and they care passionately about the planet.
Global Warming has been caused by the sun…so now there are no sunspots….cooler planet….understand?
No bullshit please…..the sun rules!
As for the guy talking about reconciling climate models etc……dont waste your breath.
Well it is over 31 years since August 1977 during the Jimmie Carter Presidency (remember it was the biggest economic collapse since the great depression), and that is when the US Department of Energy was formed.
Its charter was: TO REDUCE US DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.”
But when was the last time any US program to solve a problem, actually solved that problem or any other problem. It is not in the nature of beaurocrats to solve problems; thereby putting themselves out of business.
So today, the Deartment of Energy has about 16,000 employees, as well as something like 100,000 contract employees. And mostly they do make work projects; they certainly aren’t working on reducing the US dependence on foreign oil.
And the promoters of renewable green energies; fail to understand that ALL such energy comes from the sun; and it arrives on earth at a peak rate of about 1kW per square meter, or according to NOAA at a global average of 168 W/m^2 to which maybe 30 could be added with antireflection technology.
It is impossible to cover the required amount of global surface area with any kind of structure capable of withstanding and surviving a 100 year storm; that does absolutely nothing at all but just sit there, at a cost which is necessary to make such energy sources economical. Once you require those structures to actually be able to collect solar energy by any means at a ll; even at 100% efficiency, the cost is prohibitive.
Add in the likely 15% for PhotoVoltaic, to perhaps 40% for solar thermal (steam) efficiency, and the concept is ludicrous. Any such structure is by its very nature hazard prone, and a ripe target for vandalism or terrorism; so any such plant would require total exclusion of human habitation, including visitors.
A proposal for such plants to be built in the wasteland deserts of the American Southwest (four corners and surrounds), in Jan 2008 Scientific American, calls for a 30,000 square mile PV facility, and a more modest 16,000 square mile thermal facility.
30, 000 square miles is 19.2 million acres, which just happens to be the exact size of the entirety of the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve, in Alaska; where only some 2400 acres would be needed for oil drilling, in that arctic desert wasteland.
Even worse than such plants from an energy conversion efficiency point of view, are bio-fuel plants. The conversion rate of solar energy into bio-fuels is way less than even the least efficient cheap photoVoltaic cell technologies, and as we saw earlier this year a single storm of the type that we see at least every handful of years, can send the whole bio-fuels operation down the Mississippi river into the Gulf of Mexico.
We started off with nothing but renewable green energy bio-fuels; spent virtually our whole waking day clambering around in fig trees trying to beat the smaller monkeys to the best figs. The proto-human species didn’t become successful on earth till we discovered fire, and stored chemical energy, including fossil fuels, whose carbon content has always been in the environment, even when life on earth flourished.
It’s time to quit fooling ourselves with perpetual motion machine energy sources. Renewable green energy wasn’t up to snuff, in getting the human species going, and there’s no way it can sustain our present 6 billions; let alone any future growth.
Sounds like a great way to send a country back tothe stone ages.
Of course that will never happen in the USA. Before that happens, the crap will surely hit the fan. I’m talking about a revolution here.
High time for a Boston CO2 party.
Pamela Gray.
If I am going to by a new car, before listening to the salesman’s spin, I find an owner and ask him what he thinks of his car.
Now using that logic, should I go to Africa and ask about there politicians ??????
(most of which have had western educations)
Imman, this is OT, so I’ll make this short.
Most of the important Christian prophecies were built right on top of Jewish ones and those were all written long after the ‘times’ they referred to, such as Isaiah. Prophecy, is not magic, it’s the retrojection of history backwards in time to create a new reality. End times stories as in Revelations, were overwrites of Dead Sea Scroll materials, originally anti Roman, pro Israel. Once the Christians got through with them, the were anti Israel. Such is the nature of religion.
“REPLY: And people here might also think you work for/belong to Sierra Club. – Anthony”
Touché!
Question: What makes CO2 a “dangerous pollutant”?
What basis was used to determine this? Someone’s fear? CO2 is necessary for most plant life on this planet. Plant more trees if you’re worried about the impact of CO2. What’s next? Will water vapor be next to be classified a “dangerous pollutant”?
Congrats, greenies – you’re making life even more expensive for the average American, at a time when we can ill afford it.
I think cap and trade in the US is inevitable because:
1) Decades of deficits and slowing economy means the government needs money.
2) American political culture makes raising taxes extremely difficult.
3) Cap and trade will give the government a new revenue source.
4) Democrats will have no opposition in Washington for the next 4 years.
This also means that cap and trade will be impossible to get rid of even if we enter a new ice age.
In the Sixties the Greens got going. In the Seventies and Eighties the industries and businesses hit back by developing a massive industry out of what Sharon Beder called “Global Spin”. But they hit too hard and they used spin to convince people that Global Warming was unreal, irrelevant, tiny, etc. because it hurt business. The Greens suffered under this… and as happens under suffering, they grew their own abilities to hit back and create their own spin…
Now, surely, with good PR, Industry could have an election winner for McCain, by coming clean about… The Real Truth about the Climate… Why are they not doing this?
It was so with the Wall Street debacle, and it will be again with the AGW debacle. Government collusion with biased scientific research will once again lead us down the wrong path and give us results that are entirely undesirable and damaging from an economic standpoint. If CO2 is declared a pollutant, it is not merely an unprecedented expansion of the EPA that will occur, but – as this issue touches all other issues – an unprecedented expansion of government itself. I wonder how many times we will have to go through this.
When government thought it could solve the economy, we got the New Deal, an expansion of government. When government thought it should address poverty, we got the Great Society, an expansion of government. When government thought it should improve housing for the poor, we got Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – now with a 700 billion dollar price tag, a two-for-one expansion of government. When government thought it should improve education we got No Child Left Behind, another expasion of government. All these were called emergencies or crises that legitimized government involvement, all of which have resulted in increased expenditures on increasing government programs. But these were merely single issue crises. Now we have a global crisis, in which CO2 emissions and regulation can be brought to affect every sector of the economy right down to the cost of electricity for regular “Joe the Plumber” type people. Make no mistake about it, an Obama presidency will be the worst thing that has ever happened to America since the Great Depression.
Pelosi’s “flagship issue” going into the next congress is still (as it was last congress) global warming and energy independence. See Charlie Rose interview yesterday.
“RePO (Reid-Pelosi-Obama)”
LOL…
Actually, not quite laughing…
Actually, hurling…
REAL air pollution problems – lead, chromium, arsenic, particulates, etc – should pose more than enough public health concern for the U.S. government, if it wants to get involved. The first EPA-sponsored lead emissions reduction legislation in more than 30 years was passed yesterday.
Why don’t they stick to what really ails us and just try to do that well?
Pamela Gray,
RE: “The sky will not fall on your head if Obama becomes the president.”
I think we might be having a different discussion here if Obama (or McCain) gave even a token nod to scientific scepticism. Instead, it seems they both want to lead the bandwagon of anthropogenic global warming.
I’m especially disappointed that someone as smart as Obama can’t get the science right. I haven’t read Dreams… or Audacity… but I’m curious to know if his early schooling (2 years in a Muslim school, 2 years in a Catholic school) in Indonesia had anything to do with this “true believer” mentality. I’ve just listened to Pelosi reference her obligations to her religious convictions that she should pass the Earth to the next generation in better condition.
If that means an Earth grown flatulent with sequestered CO2, I suppose I’d just have to disagree.
Chaz (11:54:26) :
“Congrats, greenies – you’re making life even more expensive for the average American, at a time when we can ill afford it.”
Think you missed the point Chaz. The idea is not to make life more expensive, it’s to make modern life IMPOSSIBLE!
Dave.
The problem here is the notion of control & effects previously applied in controlling NO2, CO or other gas emissions doesn’t apply to CO2. Even under the worst scenarios, CO2 emissions do not immediately impact human health and there are no data that show where CO2 levels impact temperatures in a predictable or discreet manner. The whole thing is utterly fuzzy, it’s ostensible proactive do-good regulation that belies deeper, monied politics. There’s no reason – other than big financial contributions from big players in CO2 derivatives – to do such a thing, even Europe is backing away from it.
It troubles me to see this trend creeping along elsewhere, a similar problem is posed in the politics-driven move to inoculate young girls against genital warts as a precondition of continued enrollment in public schools. It trumps a century of prudent epidemiology and public health to mandate HPV shots, however, since genital warts are not readily communicable in schools.
[…] October 17, 2008 · No Comments Obama to Declare Carbon Dioxide Dangerous Pollutant […]
Pamela Gray (20:43:50) :
“Now old construction worker, you know that is just your spin. From what source do you get this information? Is it credible? Does it make sense against the tax proposals Obama is putting out there? If we are to have any kind of effective discussion that has any hope of making people think, spin will not do.”
Pamela, I’m not spinning. Follow the money.
I’m going to make a BOLD statement. I don’t pay any taxes though my business and I’ll bet you a dime to a donut, though your employer, you don’t either. My clients pay my taxes the same as your employer’s clients pay your taxes.
All taxes related to any goods and/or services are paid for by the end user.
In the long run, higher taxes will be reflected in the price of goods and/or services.
So Obama definition of rich is anybody who has a job is not a spin, it’s the bottom line.
Wow. I guess passion can lead to fear. I prefer to keep my passion where it belongs, in the bedroom doing fun stuff. There is only one person on this planet that I hate and that is Bin Ladin. If we ever find him, I would gladly take the gun from the executioner’s hand and shoot him myself. Anyone else just doesn’t get my feathers ruffled much. Not Bush, Cheney, or even that guy who sits on the toilet with his feet spread too far. Some of the rhetoric I have seen here seems like it borders on the paranoid side of thinking. Right now, I’m more concerned about pumpkin prices in Pendleton, Oregon. A standard size, orange pumpkin can sell for as much as $17.00. They are far more expensive than gas right now. That just doesn’t compare to the rather narrow difference between the two candidates we are talking about here. They both say they will bring scrutiny and regulation to government. They both say that tax cuts are coming. They both say that we should stop putting CO2 into the air. They both say that we should study all potential sources of energy. Yes there are some differences when you read further down the page. But over all, there just isn’t much there in either camp to lose sleep over. On both sides of the red/blue divide, these candidates are just trying to convince us that neither one will do the same thing Bush has done for the last 8 years. I would rather spend my time talking about why I was the only one here who mentioned that there was a cycle 23 area on the Sun at the same time there were cycle 24 areas. While it didn’t produce a spot worth numbering, it was a definite cycle 23 that with just a bit more umph, would have given us something bigger than a burnt pixel.
What a trial lawyers’ dream, CO2 as a pollutant! Why, we put the stuff into our bodies every day in the form of soft drinks, beer etc. This should be worth loads more than lead, asbestos, tobacco, you name it. I can see it now, the politicians lining up the executives of Coca Cola and Pepsi, demanding to see their documents, accusing them of poisoning the population in order to line their pockets with the evil and ill gotten gains of CO2… Not only killing the planet but the people as well…
Dear old construction worker, let me use your logic. You believe that companies earning lots of money shouldn’t have to pay taxes because when they do, our prices go up. We actually have a recent case to study. The tax break Bush gave to those with uber fat paychecks on capital gains and dividends taxes was supposed to then work the other way, known as the trickle down theory. Which some think is a better way of spreading the wealth. According to this theory, and the spin surrounding it when the tax break was passed, when taxes are reduced, we should pay less for produce, products, and services, right? Didn’t happen. Even when controlling for energy prices, that didn’t happen. Half the money went to stock holders as increased returns, and there is no evidence that suggests that the other half went to lowering prices, or upgrading equipment, or hiring new employees. What is interesting is that when Bush sent us all a bit of money to jump start the economy, it actually did. Unfortunately it just didn’t last long enough to be called anything but a tiny tim. So when the little guy gets money in his pocket, he/she buys stuff. But when the fat cats get more money in their pockets, they give it to stock holders. Stock holders don’t make stuff, build stuff, or service stuff.
So tell me again about trickle down versus trickle up. Show me the data, any data, that has shown that a tax reduction given to just the upper crust, and there was a nice size one authored by Bush, lead to lower prices. I can show you data that demonstrates when WE get the money, we support our local businesses.
I am all for a tax break for those of us who live on a whole lot less than a corporation. With that money, I will make the CEO happy. But if you give the money to the CEO, he will not make me happy. However, if you are a stockholder, you will be happy. That is till now. That bubble in the stock market was in part due to increased stock dividends as a result of the tax break on them. So now, not even the stock holders are happy. Tell me again who is happy with trickle down economics?
If CO2 is really to be regulated, the EPA regs issued under the authority of the Clean Air Act (CAA) is not the best way to do it (I read that somewhere and recall that it made sense but don’t ask me for details). Congress should do it under a different construct if they really want to do it “right”. Actually if they really want to do it efficiently, simply taxing it would create the least amount of administrative waste versus cap and trade.
Having said that, CO2 as a pollutant is still an absolute fraud. But if I try to search for some pseudo rationality excuse for the fraudsters position, I would propose that they are mixing up the proxy for the pollutant. CO2 has a specific proxy for pollution for a given burn technology. Before the CAA, it was a stronger proxy, given the burn technology of the day (which may be close to what China’s technology is today (?)). After CAA the burn technology improved significantly and Co2 is now a much weaker proxy for pollution.
This illustrates the folly of worrying explicitly about CO2. If resources were applied to improving on burn technologies, the pollution could be even further reduced and CO2 would a become weaker and weaker proxy for pollution. Just athought. Water vapor tis also a proxy for pollution, and its the dominant green house gas. I think we should cap water vapor emissions :o)
The tax break Bush gave to those with uber fat paychecks on capital gains and dividends taxes was supposed to then work the other way, known as the trickle down theory.
The cap gains cut was across the board. Anyone with a 401K is part of it.
And there’s a word for “trickle-down economics”.
That word is “economics”.
What does one suppose a rich man does with his money? Pile it in a great heap and sleep on it for a bed?
No!
he does one or more of the following. He . . .
A.) Spends it.
B.) Hires people with it.
C.) Invests it (in folks who hire people).
D.) Banks it (and the bank invests it).
What are they teaching in these schools?— C.S. Lewis
Pamela,
I know that the MSM keeps beating the drum and mis informing us that the Bush tax cuts were only for the rich, but that is just another lie. The following was extracted for an article by Chris Edwards from the Cato institute and shows that every tax bracked was reduced, not just the rich. I know that I personally enjoyed a significant reduction in taxes (I don’t consider myself rich), you might want to check how much your rate was reduced. Also many were removed from paying any taxes, I think that the number is that 44% don’t pay any taxes at all as the result of the Bush tax cuts. Of course it is difficult to reduce taxes from zero unless you give $$ back to those don’t pay at all.
Check these numbers out :
2001. President Bush came into office promising a range of income tax cuts. He succeeded in getting a 10-year $1.35 trillion tax cut plan through Congress in 2001. It was the largest tax cut since 1981. Some key elements were:
A reduction of individual income tax rates from 15, 28, 31, 36, and 39.6 percent to 10, 15, 25, 28, 33, and 35 percent;
An increase in the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000;
A phased-in reduction in estate taxes, and a one-year repeal in 2010;
A big expansion of tax-favored retirement savings plans.
And of course another significant reduction the capital gains tax was reduced from 20% to 15%. Finally there is now no capital gains on primary home sales under 500,000 dollars for a couple.
Obama and the media are just not honest about this, and I believe he is not being honest when he indicates he will allow some drilling and will think about Nuclear. That is just campaign talk in my book. The Pelosi drill for oil bill was over 50 miles ofshore where there is very little oil, very expensive to recover. and in very limited regions. It was designed to fool the people. It did not fool me! There is a difference between Obama and McCain on this issue.
We will all be better off when the government has complete control of every penny. That way the government can give money to everyone who needs it. It worked for the USSR.
Well, you have to hand it to the left for vast overreach.
If Obama does get elected, taxes swell, carbon cap and trade plans are put in place, CO2 is a pollutant, nuclear energy is shunned. Regulation is increased. Redistribution begins.
It won’t take long before such egregious policy backfires, wakes the American people and keeps Democrats out of office for a long time, whilst the adults repair the economic damage.
But last I checked, November 4th isn’t for another two weeks. You can still vote FOR a little fiscal sanity, and AGAINST the media that is doing its best to sell you AGW and get Obama elected.
No matter who wins the Presidency, given the national shift towards mindless socialism we are surely facing economic collapse. The new restraints on capitalism from enviro-wackos will not affect the climate one millionth of a degree, but poverty will descend upon us all. And the environment will become vastly more degraded than it would have been if wealth creation was allowed to flourish. It’s a lose-lose and then lose some more proposition.
Quite frankly I lost a lot of respect for both presidential candidates with their dealings of the pig of a bailout they both voted for. Unfortunately looking over the other candidates that will be on the ballots of most states with Obama and McCain .. Personally I dont see anyone I would vote for.
http://www.votesmart.org/election_president.php
http://www.politics1.com/p2008.htm
However,
“Every two years we vote for the entire House of Representatives and 1/3 the Senate”
The presidential position has its limitations. I think that where the true change could come this year is by voting wisely on your congress. Listen to what they say about global warming, and the current financial crisis.. I bet you can find someone that doesnt tote the baggage your current rep does.. basically Im sayin dont do the party line if the person does not meet your standards. State by state is the way we voice our opinions. Whoever is president can lead congress to Co2 but they cant make them exhale:)
The IPCC has endorsed Obama:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601130&sid=aZ_LkUY_sJUc&refer=environment
Please vote for McCain!
Re Don Shaw (23:49:32) : A reduction of individual income tax rates from 15, 28, 31, 36, and 39.6 percent to 10, 15, 25, 28, 33, and 35 percent;
An increase in the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000;
A phased-in reduction in estate taxes, and a one-year repeal in 2010;
A big expansion of tax-favored retirement savings plans.
Poor George, never did communicate well. His tax cut actually reduced the poorest contributor 33.3% (15% to 10%). The next poorest recieved almost a 50% reduction. And the wealthiest about a 10% reduction.
Still pussyfooting around with the genial comments I see. The wishful Democrat president declares his avowed attention to wipe out the USA economy and you Americans are NOT incensed? We in the UK have had 11 years of ZaNuLabour and our economy is going down the drain because we are still in the EU. I could give you all chapter & verse about how our economy has been killed by the dead hand of totalitarian socialism, but I doubt many of you would understand the arcane workings of http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31997L0009:EN:HTML
and the politics of denial.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2008/10/politics-of-denial.html
Instead, please devote just a few moments to reading Carbon Dioxide Regulation Under the Clean Air Act from http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Carbon_Dioxide_Regulation_Under_the_Clean_Air_Act.pdf
America, do not stick your collective heads in the noose that is being dangled in front of you all. Socialism kills far worse than cigarettes.
“Then get it out of here and get the shovels.”
I don’t think those are the tools of change we’ll be seeing wielded to address your ‘population’ problem.
They’re speaking of outlawing knives just now in GB.
The irony that our economic problems were brought about by a combination of naive, corrupt leadership and a confusion of models with reality.
This is, I submit, the same combination of fallacy and stupidity that is leading us in the climate issue.
Now this is a discussion. The opposing view, especially from Don, is appreciated. Evan, 401k plans are exempt from capital gains taxes or cuts in those taxes. See the following article. Studies show that tax cuts given to rich corporations and individuals provide only a one time gain in revenues. After the first sell off of stocks to avoid taxes, revenues tank to below what they were when the taxes were in place. Why? Studies don’t have definitive answers on this. But the economy does not increase. So maybe people and corporations who make a lot of money find other ways to tax hide money. Unfortunately, it is not in new jobs or pay raises. It does not lower food prices or any other prices. And job growth is not affected. Studies do show that it never makes its way to the lower and middle class. The divide just gets wider. I am aware that there are many people in the US who believe that if you earned it, you should get to keep it. I can certainly understand that. Right now I make $59,000 per year. My take home pay is $4,000 per month. That’s $11,000 I don’t see. Taxes take the biggest bite, followed by medical insurance, and all the other things that are deducted from a paycheck. By the time I pay for rent, car, other insurance, food, college loans, license renewels, and utilities, the CEO of the local furniture chain ain’t gonna see my money but maybe once every 10 years.
Besides, aren’t tax breaks for the top level just another way of redistributing wealth? Why is it when the lower to middle income bracket gets a tax cut, it is called a bad name, but when the higher brackets get a tax break it’s the American way? Every study that has been peer reviewed and published in major economic journals clearly show, using straight forward math, not “modeling”, that tax breaks for the upper income brackets do not result in trickle down. There is far more evidence to show that when lower and middle income workers have more money to spend on non-essentials, they do exactly that. You can ask if you want to, but I believe the CEO of the local furniture chain would be dancing in the streets if he could sell more inventory instead of paying taxes on it.
http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/blog/_archives/2008/4/29/3667106.html
All,
as we have some numbers loose on this post, I would like to offer this and ask if you’ll think that it is common political knowledge? (thats supposing they can read)
The latest estimates from the International Monterey Fund (IMF) is that the global total of derivative contracts outstanding is, $1.125 quadrillion, whereas global GDP is about $50 trillion.
Now if you calculate to make this $1.125 quadrillion yield a lowly 1% it would take $11.25 trillion to pay the interest.
DOOMED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It takes a quarter of global GDP just to pay a 1% yield.
And now tell me, who’s got the plan to fix this?
Carbon dioxide is a completely natural part of the atmosphere and all mammal and plant life depends on it. If it is to be declared a form of pollution then nature is by far the biggest polluter.
What nonsense. I find this profoundly depressing. Is the world going mad? It feels like it.
If some people think CO2 is a pollutant then there are an awful lot of plants who would beg to disagree. It’s what they breathe, for Heaven’s sake….
Chris
Isn’t Obama discriminating against water vapor? After all, for every molecule of CO2 produced during combustion of organic carbons, one molecule of water vapor is produced. And water vapor is a greenhouse gas that accounts for more than half of the greenhouse gas effect in the atmosphere and is present at up to 100 times more concentration than CO2. I think that water vapor has every right to be classified as a dangerous environmental pollutant along side of CO2. I demand equal treatment of water vapor!
Well your current government has had a rolling disaster with the environment and finance so it may well be possible that Obama may well have both a good relationship with the environment and financially.
Low CO2 and high US wealth, can’t really argue with that. Will make a change from what you have had recently.
Regards
Andy
Pamela,
I appreciate the oppportunity to communicate with you and provide the data I posted earlier that corrects the lies of the MSM and Obama, claiming that the tax cuts were just for the rich. Unfortunately you are not the only person to believe those distortion of the facts. These are facts not my views.
Re your comment:
“Now this is a discussion. The opposing view, especially from Don, is appreciated. Evan, 401k plans are exempt from capital gains taxes or cuts in those taxes. See the following article. Studies show that tax cuts given to rich corporations and individuals provide only a one time gain in revenues. After the first sell off of stocks to avoid taxes, revenues tank to below what they were when the taxes were in place.”
In 2003 the federal revenues were 1,800,000 million dollars when the Bush tax cuts were implemented that reduced capital gains tax. By 2005 the revenues “tanked” to 2.150,000 million dollars. Thats almost a 20 % increase in revenues. Don’t believe the propoganda of the left. During one Debate Obama even admitted he wanted to increase capital gains taxes even if the revenues were reduced because it would be fairer. That’s class warefare.
Look at this URL for a plot:
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2005/12/growth_in_feder.html
For an update, In 2007 the federal government collected $2.5 trillion, an amount equal to 18.8 percent of GDP. Federal revenue has ranged from 14.4 to 20.9 percent of GDP over the past five decades, averaging 18.0 percent. Where is the tanking of revenues?
I don’t consider myself rich but, I paid a lot more taxes than you did. I suggest you work harder to pick up your share (just joking). Do me a favor and look at the taxes you paid before and after the Bush tax cuts. If you wern’t earning so much then calculate how much you would have paid. I suspect you will owe GWB a lot of thanks for all the $$$$ he put in your pocket every year. I know my taxes would have been much more even though I am not rich in Obama language.
On your comments: “Besides, aren’t tax breaks for the top level just another way of redistributing wealth? Why is it when the lower to middle income bracket gets a tax cut, it is called a bad name, but when the higher brackets get a tax break it’s the American way? ”
Who said that tax breaks for the middle income folks is bad. Bush happily gave them a significant tax break, but they don’t know it due to the spin and lies. Returning taxes collected to those never paid any taxes, as proposed by Obama, is hardly a tax break (only if you are honest about the meaning of words in the English language).
Finally I differ with your interpretation that giving any tax payer a break is redistributing the wealth. Who worked for and earned the $$$ in the first place. It is NOT redistributing the wealth!! It’s stealing less and it provides incentives to work and pay taxes even if one is semi retired like myself. If Obama gets elected , I might quit contributing federal income, state income, medicare, medicade, etc. and live off other peoples labors such as yours.
Pamela Gray (20:16:00) :
‘Dear old construction worker, let me use your logic. You believe that companies earning lots of money shouldn’t have to pay taxes because when they do, our prices go up.’
As far as taxes or any other “cost” the companies,earning lots of money, are nothing more than a conduit for the flow of money to pay for “cost”. Over a period of time all increase in “cost’ are reflected in the price of goods and/or services sold. That’s why ‘A standard size, orange pumpkin can sell for as much as $17.00.’
I guess I’m a little tired of the comment or line of thought, “corporations don’t pay taxes,” or their fair share of them.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/63131-exxon-s-2007-tax-bill-30-billion
I’m not wealthy, which means I must be stupid.
Increased taxes also impact the price of the product. Taxes certainly don’t have anything to do with however you choose to define the word “fair”. That additional cost, which is what a business will see as a cost of doing business, is passed on to the consumer. A vicious cycle, and it’s a bad one. Our tax code isn’t progressive – it’s regressive.
People in our country (the US) have forgotten that “we have the right to equal opportunity, but not equal results.” (I love that Milton Friedman line – which is who I borrowed that from)
David Gladstone,
“End times stories as in Revelations, were overwrites of Dead Sea Scroll materials, originally anti Roman, pro Israel.”
The variations of the scrolls and the bible are less than two percent, and not a single teaching or doctrine of the Bible we have is altered. Rather than posing a threat to the Christian faith, the Dead Sea Scrolls have, in fact, provided convincing support for the genuineness of God’s revelation as given to us in the Bible.
“Once the Christians got through with them, the were anti Israel. Such is the nature of religion.”
Yea – those Christians with their messed up religion and hopes of ‘Peace on earth’ and ‘Goodwill towards manind’. Awful.
David apparently isn’t aware that most Chrisitians support Israel. Such is the nature of ignorance.
Reply: I allowed this post, but I want to stop this from opening up a discussion of religion on this site. That’s it, no more posts on the subject please. No winners no losers, quothe the moderator, no more. ~ charles the moderator
AndyW,
A good article in the New York Times today tying the “financial mess” to the Democrats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/business/19cisneros.html?hp
How exactly is having all three branches of government under Democratic control going to help?
Charles the moderator,
[snip]
But I understand why [….then please accept it ~ charles the moderator]
How about Anthony posting a discussion about the shifting of the earths magnetic poles?
Mr. Patrick Henry,
“How exactly is having all three branches of government under Democratic control going to help?”
It won’t. It will weaken this country, which by default, leads us on the path towards global socialism. Total democrat control is by no means intended on keeping America the best and strongest nation on earth. Liberal philosophy… “We just want people to like us.” If we throw our convictions out the window, maybe they will? I feel bad for all the veterans who fought and died to help keep this nation the most prosperous on earth. Kiss that goodbye. You can take that to the global bank.
Evan, 401k plans are exempt from capital gains taxes or cuts in those taxes.
Aren’t they subject to tax when they are realized? They are not tax free, just tax deferred.
After the first sell off of stocks to avoid taxes, revenues tank to below what they were when the taxes were in place. Why? Studies don’t have definitive answers on this. But the economy does not increase.
If business pay lower taxes it affects the cost/supply/demand curve. Costs go down and therefore it is more profitable to cut the price (increased sales more than make up for the cut in price).
As for cap gains, look at what happened when Clinton cut them and when Bush cut them. In both cases there was both a longterm increase in productivity AND revenue.
Tax cuts don’t work–if taxes are too low in the first place. But when taxes are too high, cuts increase both productivity and revenues. Reagan cut taxes by over half and by 1988 per capita revenues were up 18% including both inflation and population growth.
It is fashionable to attribute reduction in revenues from 2001 to 2003 to the Bush tax cuts. The facts are thus: Bush cut the top rate from 39.6% to 38.6% (a 2.6% drop). Revenues dropped 22%. To blame Bush, you have to show me how a 2.6% cut resulted in a 22% loss.
2003 (the year of the cap gains cut) was the year it all turned around.
During 2006, the top rate was cut to 35% (a 7% cut). There was a 27% increase in revenues.
(By “revenues”, I mean federal income tax, incl. capital gains.)
Who said that tax breaks for the middle income folks is bad. Bush happily gave them a significant tax break, but they don’t know it due to the spin and lies.
After the “tax cuts for the rich”, the rich paid a higher PERCENT of revenue than the MC or poor.
Including tax credits: In 2003 the richest 1% paid 33% of revenue. Last year it was 40%. (The poorest 50% paid 2.9% and the poorest 40% paid 0%).
That confirms the basic premises behind the Laffer Curve.
A Uk band called the ‘Smiths’ brought out a ditty entitled ‘Meat is Murder’
Maybe they had an agenda!
If so, they hesitated too much! They went one link, at least, too few IMO.
The First link they wimped out at, was the Vegetable connection ‘twixt the ambulant calorie-providers and their food-chain buddies- the Carbon sinking Troglodytes!
In simple carbon-cycle skeptient eugenics it is unarguable that Plants begat the catastrophe that we find ourselves in today.
They should have sung ‘Plants are Genocidal- and Fully Oxygenated Carbon is the spawn of the Devil’
Not sure about how well that scans though?
The US will end up with energy independence.
As long as the wind is blowing and the sun is shining….
[…] weblogs ICECAP and Watts Up With That have alerted us to the plan to list carbon dioxide as a pollutant by the EPA where they report on […]
[…] weblogs ICECAP and Watts Up With That have alerted us to the plan to list carbon dioxide as a pollutant by the EPA where they report on […]
From the opinion section of this morning’s WSJ:
Obama’s Carbon Ultimatum
The coming offer you won’t be able to refuse.
Liberals pretend that only President Bush is preventing the U.S. from adopting some global warming “solution.” But occasionally their mask slips. As Barack Obama’s energy adviser has now made clear, the would-be President intends to blackmail — or rather, greenmail — Congress into falling in line with his climate agenda.
Jason Grumet is currently executive director of an outfit called the National Commission on Energy Policy and one of Mr. Obama’s key policy aides. In an interview last week with Bloomberg, Mr. Grumet said that come January the Environmental Protection Agency “would initiate those rulemakings” that classify carbon as a dangerous pollutant under current clean air laws. That move would impose new regulation and taxes across the entire economy, something that is usually the purview of Congress. Mr. Grumet warned that “in the absence of Congressional action” 18 months after Mr. Obama’s inauguration, the EPA would move ahead with its own unilateral carbon crackdown anyway.
Well, well. For years, Democrats — including Senator Obama — have been howling about the “politicization” of the EPA, which has nominally been part of the Bush Administration. The complaint has been that the White House blocked EPA bureaucrats from making the so-called “endangerment finding” on carbon. Now it turns out that a President Obama would himself wield such a finding as a political bludgeon. He plans to issue an ultimatum to Congress: Either impose new taxes and limits on carbon that he finds amenable, or the EPA carbon police will be let loose to ravage the countryside.
The EPA hasn’t made a secret of how it would like to centrally plan the U.S. economy under the 1970 Clean Air Act. In a blueprint released in July, the agency didn’t exactly say it’d collectivize the farms — but pretty close, down to the “grass clippings.” The EPA would monitor and regulate the carbon emissions of “lawn and garden equipment” as well as everything with an engine, like cars, planes and boats. Eco-bureaucrats envision thousands of other emissions limits on all types of energy. Coal-fired power and other fossil fuels would be ruled out of existence, while all other prices would rise as the huge economic costs of the new regime were passed down the energy chain to consumers.
These costs would far exceed the burden of a straight carbon tax or cap-and-trade system enacted by Congress, because the Clean Air Act was never written to apply to carbon and other greenhouse gases. It’s like trying to do brain surgery with a butter knife. Mr. Obama wants to move ahead anyway because he knows that the costs of any carbon program will be high. He knows, too, that Congress — even with strongly Democratic majorities — might still balk at supporting tax increases on their constituents, even if it is done in the name of global warming.
Climate-change politics don’t break cleanly along partisan lines. The burden of a carbon clampdown will fall disproportionately on some states over others, especially the 25 interior states that get more than 50% of their electricity from coal. Rustbelt manufacturing states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania will get hit hard too. Once President Bush leaves office, the coastal Democrats pushing hardest for a climate change program might find their colleagues splitting off, especially after they vote for a huge tax increase on incomes.
Thus Messrs. Obama and Grumet want to invoke a political deus ex machina driven by a faulty interpretation of the Clean Air Act to force Congress’s hand. Mr. Obama and Democrats can then tell Americans that Congress must act to tax and regulate carbon to save the country from even worse bureaucratic consequences. It’s Mr. Obama’s version of Jack Benny’s old “your money or your life” routine, but without the punch line.
The strategy is most notable for what it says about the climate-change lobby and its new standard bearer. Supposedly global warming is the transcendent challenge of the age, but Mr. Obama evidently doesn’t believe he’ll be able to convince his own party to do something about it without a bureaucratic ultimatum. Mr. Grumet justified it this way: “The U.S. has to move quickly domestically . . . We cannot have a meaningful impact in the international discussion until we develop a meaningful domestic consensus.”
Normally a democracy reaches consensus through political debate and persuasion, but apparently for Mr. Obama that option is merely a nuisance. It’s another example of “change” you’ll be given no choice but to believe in.
hmccard, thanks for the propagandist insertion. It’s pure nonsense, but a great illustration of how the unintelligent and gullible are so easily duped by clever wording. In other words, rather than make any profound point, you have only illustrated why we should have no expectation that the masses will display the rational thinking that could prevent the impending social and economic disaster that AGW policies will bring.
First and foremost, AGW does not happen in the tropics. No single scientific assessment including those by the IPCC has ever claimed observable warming in the tropics. Furthermore, think about what is claimed. Somebody made a model to predict temperatures in the tropics, and it worked. Guess what, so did I, and I’m going to run it for you right now :
Beep! Boop! Bop!….High of 85 Low of 75 all year.
Done! And I bet my model proves true over a 95% confidence interval too.
See this is one of those “plants” that the disinformation campaign committed to selling us on AGW puts out there. Some loose assertion about working climate models, so that the unintelligent like you, wholly incapable of reading more than the headlines or applying your limited reasoning skills, make the simplistic extrapolation that this validates all climate models. It’s propaganda, specifically contrived to dupe simple dumb-dumbs like yourself who give in to it willingly.
It is this same logic that makes humans willingly support LAWS that make their own breathing illegal pollution. Similar half science, half lie propaganda has led to a nation of willing ignorants, believing that a naturally occurring gaseous component of our atmosphere, and the fuel used by plants to produce the oxygen we breathe, is somehow a poisonous pollutant.
It seems all but decided that Obama will with the upcoming election. What does this mean? Well, a majority vote for Obama, would indicate that the majority of grown adult citizens are willing to be active participants to their own duping. That such easily verifiable lies like these take root so broadly, is the sad evidence that we are already a lost cause.
Ready for the apocalypse everyone…?!
The Sierra Club’s (and others) self-serving and sanguine reading of the law, and all of the above cheering from the peanut gallery, and the macho chest beating from the candidate not withstanding. a President has no legal authority to unilaterally declare CO2 a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. It would be nice if Obama, as President, had at least a little knowledge of such things.
As an aside, the Supreme Court’s musing aside, it’s highly unlikely that the EPA can declare CO2 a pollutant without Congress’ law making. (Though the misnomer used above, “carbon” probably can, as in soot and particulates.)
Questioning the American Bolshevik views
1. Is wealth redistribution taking money from stockholders and redistributing it to those who don’t pay taxes?
2. Is it more important to make sure that illegal votes are not disenfranchised or making sure that groups like ACORN do not nullify honest votes.
3. Would premature U.S. withdrawal from Iraq grand jihadists a victory and make all of our accomplishments, money spent and lives lost a big waist?
4. Can this country afford to grant socialist Democrats total control of the government and allow them to sacrifice our safety by cutting the military budget by 25%?
Now comes the big question. How do we stop socialism from ruining our lives?
The answer is simple. Don’t vote American Bolsheviks into power and boycott the socialist propaganda media into bankruptcy.
Cybercorrespondent
cybercorrespondent@gmail.com
[…] or so Bush Executive Orders he wants to overturn. I’m totally down with most – particularly listing CO2 as an air pollutant, which will empower the EPA to significantly reduce carbon emissions without new […]