From Yahoo News
h/t to Adolfo Giurfa
EPA for the first time looks to mandate reporting of the gases linked to global warming
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government wants to require companies for the first time to disclose how much greenhouse gases they’re releasing.
The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing mandatory reporting of the gases blamed for global warming at approximately 13,000 facilities nationwide.
The facilities include refineries, automobile manufacturers, power plants, coal mines and large manure ponds at farms.
Together, the facilities account for about 85-90 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The EPA requires no reporting of greenhouse gases. The information will be needed if it decides to control greenhouse gases or if Congress passes a law limiting the pollution.
Companies would have to file their first reports in 2011.
Should the the EPA ever demand my report, I think I’ll follow Jim Hansen’s lead and do a little “civil disobedience”. Assuming the trend holds, I’d likely send back something like this:
(when you figure it out)
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Just Want Truth… (14:37:18) :
I believe a read some placce that a chip maker maybe closing their plant in Californina instead of compiling with the New CO2 regulation. Job lost, 2000-3000 range.
“and large manure ponds at farms.”
Okay, just the thought of some minor bureaucrat writing up procedures and standards for estimating GHG emissions from this source is enough to bring satirical images to mind. Just to picture the deadly serious earnestness of it all or the poor fellow’s job description and dutes…
The only answer that everyone should give is: ZERO!
Why? Because you then do what all of the ecoterrorists say they do, they plant enough trees to offset it all.
Problem solved!
“MikeE (12:28:05) :
Our government here in ole New Zealand tried to pass a fart tax on cows a few years back (after they nationalised carbon credits from trees… resulting in forestry owners clearing the tree’s for dairy land) We didnt stand for that kinda crap! They backed down.”
The same Labour Govn’t clear felled thoudsands of hectares of 80 year old prime forest too. I now forget the reason why, but it certainly sounded rediculous at the time, something like the trees were planted before the policy (Of an ETS) was introduced.
In 1957 Ayn Rand wrote:
There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
In the new America we will all be declared criminals. Therefore, let us strive to become the very best criminals that our talents allow.
Michael Ronayne
Nutley, NJ
Does the President or any other Greenie think for a minute that US firms will begin to move operations to more friendly climes (sorry for the pun). If I were a CEO with, say 100 manufacturing facilities in the US, I would definitely look to places like India to relocate. This would also include corporate data centers (they consume tons of electricity). If a carbon tax passses, look for many nations, including those in Europe, to take advantage of a windfall. The loses in jobs would be immediate. Don’t think that firms in China, India, Vietnam, Signapore, and Eastern Europe are not watching; it wouldn’t surprise me if some of them have firms on K-Street on retainer lobbying for a US carbon tax.
If I own a company in one of the potentially affected Industries (esp refineries and auto manufacturers), I likely will be looking at moving some or all of my production elsewhere, if possible. To a place that will not tax or cap carbon. China says Hi to GM. Relocation studies are in progress. The de-industrialization of the West continues.
Outstanding response to any AGW mandate from our new alien overlords. I’ll let more of the illiterati know to come here to see it.
Great work.
This is just prep for the carbon tax.
The correct response is an unending stream of lawsuits.
Take a page from the greenie book.
Climate Heretic (14:08:50) :
“The answer is simple… […]
Then hold them and refuse to release them into the system the next year and leave the excess in the Government hands, alternate like this back and forth and the Government will get about 10% of expected revenue over the first 3-5 years and will be forced to scrap the system due to costs. […]”
Uh, you had me until the last paragraph. Since when has the government EVER scrapped a system due to costs? Faced with your scenario, the government will double down on the cost of the bureaucracy needed to get some revenue – anything – out of the CO2.
That’s not to say that businesses shouldn’t do as you suggest.
Ban all motor sports asap! I bet they won’t do that one. LOL
Does this mean that farmers can bill the gov’t for CO2 removed from the atmosphere?
The silliness of attempting to control carbon emissions is compounded by the silliness of believing that emissions must be reported and measured.
All forms of energy are metered or weighed at every change of ownership, since that is how the transaction is billed. The emissions from the combustion of each fuel source are known. Therefore, the emissions can be tracked at any stage in the chain of custody.
When viewed this way, the application of a “cap” is also far simpler. Production and importation can simply be capped at whatever level. The market participants would then determine the value of the fuels by competing to purchase a share of the available quantity from the purveyors. Unfortunately, that approach does not of the opportunity to auction allowances (tax the total potential transactions). As the cap is reduced over time to achieve the desired emissions reduction, the buyers choose either to pay the market price of leave the market.
However, leave it to government to turn a simple technical issue into a make-work project.
The irony is that the first buyers to leave the market will be those who can shift their energy use to electricity, thus shifting their need to compete for limited fossil energy to the utility of other electric generator. To the extent that this occurs, an already stressed electric sector would be put under even greater stress. On the other hand, to the extent that manufacturing customers move their facilities to developing countries which have no intent to reduce their emissions, the pressure on the electric sector would be reduced to a degree.
John Galt (11:14:21) :
CO2 = pollution
When a necessary trace gas gets labeled ‘pollution’ we have already lost this battle
Who would have thought using deoderant spray could destroy the ozone layer. The chloroflourocarbon is only trace gas in the atmosphere after all!!!
from online dictionary
pollution (p-lshn)
The contamination of air, water, or soil by substances that are harmful to living organisms. Pollution can occur naturally, for example through volcanic eruptions, or as the result of human activities, such as the spilling of oil or disposal of industrial waste. Light from cities and towns at night that interferes with astronomical observations is known as light pollution. It can also disturb natural rhythms of growth in plants and other organisms. Continuous noise that is loud enough to be annoying or physically harmful is known as noise pollution. Heat from hot water that is discharged from a factory into a river or lake, where it can kill or endanger aquatic life, is known as thermal pollution
Surely, heat light CO2, Oxygen, H2O can be pollutants at the wrong concentration in the wrong place?
Mike
“EPA for the first time looks to mandate reporting of the gases linked to global warming”….Then, as it has fully demostrated in WUWT, there will be nothing to report!!
MikeE and Pierre Gosselin:
Sorry for the misunderstanding. My side is your side…I am very much in the realist camp! I just think that such a graph is intellectually dishonest. We should leave that practice to the warmist’s camp. A more complete view of temperature vs. CO2 supports our argument, so no need to cherry pick and risk undermining the message.
“EPA for the first time looks to mandate reporting of the gases linked to global warming”….Then, as it has been fully demostrated in WUWT, there will be nothing to report!!
The only effective way to deal with speculative beliefs such AGW and GW is by stressing alternatives that make logical sense.
For example: There is no need for higher temperatures to explain the disappearance of glaciers. The same thing would happen if the melting point of ice drifted upwards. It is perfectly possible that what is really going on is that the melting point of ice is changing and this is being misunderstood by the so-called “scientific” community.
How do you explain the migration of high altitude species to higher latitudes? Higher temperatures might explain that, but people seem to forget that there is another, perfectly logical explanation: A sudden simultaneous genetic mutation across high altitude species. Such a mutation would cause species to seek northerly latitudes to counteract their biological changes.
Dave in Canada (11:21:51) : You notice how they only want companies…I wonder who would be the single most emitter of greenhouse gases? Could it be the US government.
IIRC:
Transportation is the largest consumer of oil.
The U.S. Government consumes more transportation fuel than any other entity in the United States.
The largest part of the U.S. Government fuel budget goes to the military (by quite a bit, like way over half).
THE single largest fuel burner in the Military is aviation.
ERGO, the U.S. Govt. gets a ‘pass’ or we ground the Air Force, Marines, and Navy Air…
The U.S. Air Force has a program to certify their fleet on synthetic fuels. They are using coal as the source material… EPA will not like that.
I suggest sending the proof that CO2 is not a problem to every flight rated wing of every military service…
That graph is obviously cherry picking by starting at the 1998 peak. I don’t think our side needs to cherry pick to prove our point.
I’ve heard this a lot. Two points.
1.) It makes sense to judge any trend from high point to low and low to high. After all, that’s when trends begin. 1998 was the peak. The trend has been cooler since then. Likewise, I am perfectly willing to address the warming phase from 1977 (low) to 1998 (high) and look at that as one piece.
2.) The 1998 El Nino was immediately followed by a less intense, but longer La Nina. Both are at the beginning of the graph, and one counteracts the other when drawing a trendline. So if you want to avoid cherry-picking, you need to include both of them IN or both of them OUT.
I’m applying for a job at the “Ministry of Truth”
to thefordprefect (16:14:48)
Oh my god. are you serious about the CFCs? That myth is the father of the AGW myth. It received a Nobel price, also.
CFC does not cause ozone destruction. Ozone destruction on Antarctica is a natural process
(sorry for my english, i’m spanish)
“Steven Hill (15:59:15) :
Ban all motor sports asap! I bet they won’t do that one. LOL”
Aussie V8 racing “planted 50,000 trees” last year. This year they will plant more and run E85 ethanol. Go figure!
hereticfringe (13:03:27) : Well, the AGW folks are cherry picking by starting their baseline in 1978…
It’s not just the baseline, it’s the whole “start history in 1880” cherry pick:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/picking-cherries-in-sweden/
I am firmly of the belief that “be a mirror” is the best philosophy most of the time. Someone follows the Geneva convention, so do you, they break it YOU DO NOT SET AN EXAMPLE, you take the gloves off. So… I see nothing wrong with countering one cherry pick chart with another. At worst, it will raise the issue of cherry picking and get a real debate started…
(BTW, this philosophy is to some extent built into the Geneva convention. Signatories were not required to follow the rules with non-signatories; as an inducement to get the non-signers to sign up… Folks used to understand this sort of thing: We’ll treat your folks fair IFF you treat our guys fair.)
“Production and importation can simply be capped at whatever level.”
I call dibs on bootlegging gasoline from Canada!