Yesterday, president Obama announced emission standards which he said would raise the cost of automobiles by $1300.
While the new fuel and emission standards for cars and trucks will save billions of barrels of oil, they are expected to cost consumers an extra 1,300 US dollars per vehicle by the time the plan is complete in 2016. Mr Obama said the fuel cost savings would offset the higher price of vehicles in three years.
His remarkable comment caught my attention, because one of the primary purposes of Obama’s “cap and trade” plan is to massively raise the cost of fuel. There aren’t going to be any fuel cost savings. In fact, Mr. Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle last year that he actually intends to bankrupt coal fired power plants using cap and trade:
You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know — Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.
Two automobile companies are already going bankrupt, so I think we should take Mr. Obama’s words seriously.
I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains tax, not any of your taxes.
WASHINGTON – Democrat Barack Obama said Sunday that if elected he will push to increase the amount of income that is taxed to provide monthly Social Security benefits.
Audacity indeed. The assumption seems to be that no one remembers what was said last week.
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Skeptic Tank (09:45:28) :
<rant>
No, they’re not going to regulate a molecule, they’re going to regulate a chemical. As far as I am concerned, they’re welcome to regulate one molecule of CO2 as long as they don’t give it to me. Besides, I have an octillion or so of them kicking around and created lots more driving home today.
Chemical is not a dirty word, it’s not even a four letter word, and in this case it’s the right word. Wrong tax, but that’s on topic and has no place in a good rant.
</rant>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/19/AR2009051903177.html
Some of the day’s most pointed debate came in response to an “off-ramp” suggested by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.). That amendment would have allowed the federal government to get out of the cap-and-trade plan if India and China — two of the world’s biggest sources of greenhouse gases — did not agree to similar limits.
Rogers said that, without this provision, heavy-polluting U.S. plants could relocate to one of those countries.
“Do not eliminate our middle class and send it to China and India,” he said.
Democrats retorted that the bill has provisions to protect these industries from overseas competition.
“We shouldn’t say we’re going to shoot ourselves in the head just because India and China won’t do what we want them to do,” Waxman said. The amendment was defeated on a party-line vote, 36 to 23.
End
Waxman is weird,and scary.He seems to be fanatical.
Slightly OT, but considering the Cap & Trade topic at hand, hard to tell if it’s satire or just damned fine reporting:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/texas_constructs_u_s_border_wall
[the ersatz comments from ordinary Texans are pitch-perfect]
Be warned, however: depending on your ethnicity, you might be reinforcing a stereotype if you appreciate The Onion too much:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/09/15/109-the-onion/
I thought this was a science blog. I must warn you that the recent trend in topics is rapidly causing me to lose interest. I’ll try for a few more days but I am disappointed by the quality of recent articles.I expect your readership will blossom as you continue to dumb it down.
Jeremy,
Here are a couple of posts you might like better
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/06/a-note-to-wuwt-readers-an-experiment/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/30/april-another-record-month-at-wuwt/
BTW – new WUWT posts have been consistently in the WordPress top 5 posts (out of 200,000.) One is at #3 right now.
http://wordpress.com/
Yes Steven G, Jeremy said he expected popularity to grow. I don’t think that was his point.
superDBA (10:02:12) :
Nasif Nahle (08:51:03) :
“Excuse me for my audacity; I’m not living in US. Nonetheless, isn’t that a short way to national impoverishment?”
Could you please move here and become a voting citizen? I would trade a thousand of our “head-in-the-sand” voters for one like you!
Thanks… I would if I could. Unfortunately, I’m spending too much time at my work here. 🙂
Adolfo Giurfa (11:26:17) :
Nasif Nahle (08:51:03) : As spanish is your mother tongue and having a deep knowledge of the controversial climate issue, i think you could be of great help for avoiding the dissemination of this maliciously provoked psychic pandemia, among the current laymen population of spanish speaking countries, by making a simpler version of the studies you publish in your webpage. Just as an example, a very common question is the following: “How is it so that so prominent scientists and the UN itself say that the world is warming, they can not be lying?”
Thanks… I’ve been thinking in writing a brief essay in Spanish on that issue. In the meantime, I’m trying to teach real science in plain language to my audience through my weekly radio program and every time I’m invited to talk about climate to university students. 🙂
jeez,
Science and politics are inseparable. Galileo and Hansen being good examples.
Steven Goddard
I’m not going to get into a back and forth on this. Your Post was allowed by Anthony, but I feel free to comment when you use faulty logic, such as your response to Jeremy.
Feel free to continue this discussion via email.
Mike McMillan (15:05:53) :
A word about communism and fascism, labels haphazardly tossed about to much rolling of eyes.
They’re both forms of socialism. Both systems interfere with the free market, and engender all the inefficiency that implies.
…
Communists insisted on the soviet, the peoples’ committees, to run things. Fascism subscribed instead to a “Führerprinzip,” the Leader Principle, where a charismatic, true believer would lead the nation.
.
When I look at the auto companies, banks, health care, and energy being nationalized by a true-believing, charismatic leader, it’s hard to avoid the comparison.
Global warming seems to be just another excuse for government control. We at WUWT have facts at our disposal, but so much of the public has only the true-believing MSM to go by.
Mike – A couple of points for the grist mill.
[1] BO has authored at least 3 self-congratulating books. Ref: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_0_12?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=barack+obama+dreams+from+my+father&sprefix=Barack+Obama
Whereas Adolf Hitler only managed 1. Ref http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b_0_12?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=adolf+hitler+mein+kampf&sprefix=Adolf+Hitler
[2] I too find the terms “fascism”, “Communism” to be falsely distinct. I prefer to make a distinction on the grounds of the “Dispersion or Concentration of Social Authority”.
Democracies with well established rule of law, independent judiciaries, military separation from Government, etc, etc – fundamentally disperse social authority which helps to limit the impact of the operation of social authority (and it’s abuse) on individuals.
All the other forms of Government are simply movements towards the conentration of Social Authority and hence the removal of limits to it’s abuse.
[3] Dictatorship is the “default” (not the natural state, just the default state) form of Government (Ref: History). Democracy (to flourish) needs Individuals to display higher levels of Courage, Initiative, Responsibility, Accountability and Independence than Dictatorships do.
Democarcy is harder work than Dictatorship – but also a lot more rewarding. I only hope that the current trends in the US towards the concentration of Social Authority and the disempowerment of Individuals is reversed. The longer it takes to reverse, the harder it will be.
[4] “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” — Thomas Jefferson
Rob (17:59).
You make a large assumption that reducing GHG’s is necessary. You were asked to back this up.
Another timely Quote.
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” — Thomas Jefferson
REF: http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/2530
Jeremy (18:26:55) :
I expect your readership will blossom as you continue to dumb it down.
Please forgive us Methuselah!
Jeremy, political science is a legitimate field, is it not? I didn’t realize that this whole set-up was to satisfy your “interest”. Do you have anything pertinent to add? Was the f10.7 radio flux not enough for you? This thread is very important to the whole AGW discussion. We are all affected by this. As far as “dumbing it down”, the views expressed have been very intelligent and educational for the most part. Maybe a comic book or your nintendo ds can occupy you until something more to your liking comes along. Reading your post was like listening to someone complain about their chauffeur. This sight is ALWAYS better than anything on TV !! Charles, you may snip away, …..
Increased fuel economy will work for the sector of consumer transportation, but fails to address all the other forms of transportation. Once again, it’s all on the backs of the consumer, who has no choice and no voice.
Consumers don’t have anythng to do with semi transportation vs rail, import or not import across vast oceans burning vast amounts of bunker & diesel fuel.
Consumers don’t dicate to industry which products they are allowed to buy.
Consumers don’t force car lots & malls to engage in massive lighting schemes.
Consumers don’t insist on power plants running full bore with the generators offline to make more money.
Consumers don’t demand utility companies stuff the grid with street lighting in ever-increasing amounts to be tacked onto thier power bills.
But if you addressed all of the above, this country and Europe would turn around on a dime.
The Audacity of Cap & Trade, couldn’t agree more.
Paint Job.
Where the heck are the Energy Conservatives?
Graeme Rodaughan,
Very well stated, and very well explained , sir.
Mike
In Canada, former Prime Minister Chretien’s campaign promise was to repeal the goods and services tax (GST for short). It was implemented over top of our provincial sales taxes. We still pay it. It was recently scaled back by current Prime Minister Steven Harper from 7% to 5%. That helped, but it still hurts.
Once implemented, Cap and Trade will not go away.
Gary Hladik (15:29:25) :
Jerry Lee Davis (14:30:13)
Minor correction: 50% of the population has above –median– intelligence.
Thanks Gary–of course you are right. I sometimes say it this way: “Half are above average, half are below average, and the other half are in the middle.” At least that way nobody is left wondering which half I’m in.
Pamela Gray (17:36:48) said :
Wouldn’t dwindling reserves eventually force the market to do what Obama is trying to do ahead of time?
You are completely correct, but it emphatically doesn’t matter.
The central issue for the eco-left is Malthusian, that is, THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE. Every other left-wing initiative springs from the Malthusian underpinnings. Facts have nothing to do with it. Further, very few eco-leftists will admit to this Malthusian prejudice, unless of course you get them VERY angry, as which point they tend to play it like some sort of perverse Trump Card; “but you have to agree that there are too many people!!”. Don’t ask me how I know this; however, I will reveal that the correct retort is “So you hate Catholics and Mormons, then?”
It doesn’t matter a whit that Mathusianism has been completely discredited over the last 100 years, NOR that the only proven way to moderate population growth without draconian measures (e.g. PRC’s one child policy, or say the dire poverty and disease of late Stalinism) is to increase economic wealth (look at Italy’s population stats versus GDP/person since 1945; it works even in THE Catholic country).
It doesn’t matter that proven reserves (in BTUs or therms) as a multiple of oil & gas production is virtually unchanged over the last 50 years, that is we are NOT “running out”. It doesn’t matter that more folks are killed in traffic accidents in a town of 50,000 people in a year than have ever died in nuclear power accidents in the West for the last 50 years.
It doesn’t matter that you are correct that a free market would certainly induce durable energy substitution with minimal dislocations and maximum efficiency.
There are too many people, we need fewer people, we need to “return” to a mythic pastoral paradise that was stolen away by misguided chemists and engineers.
If you believe in evolution, how did life begin? It never did according to pro choice people because cells are not life.
It’s the same with Obama and his policy on CO2, it’s just as stupid.
Jeremy (18:26:55)
I’ve got a suggestion for you:
When you see a title like “The Audacity of Cap and Trade”, why don’t you just
skip over it (you should probably guess it’s political). There’s a couple of years of science posts on this site, and not much of it is outdated (except for NASA’s SC-24 predictions).
Although I see the setup coming a mile away, but I’ll give a simple explanation a shot:
We know the greenhouse effect is responsible for the atmosphere that is key to life on this planet. We know the chemical compounds that make up the atmosphere, and we have a pretty good idea about their residence times and their relative heat-trapping potencies. We know that through human activity, we are increasing the concentration of some of the key GHGs. We know that increasing these concentrations will increase temperatures. Therefore we know that we are increasing temperatures.
open fire.
Alan Chappell (08:45:04) : if Russia want to win the war it only has to start selling its dollars and who will buy them?
Well, it’s more China than Russia, but there is already evidence that the Rest Of the World has had enough dollars. When you look at the ROW vs the $ you find the dollar dropping. When you look at ROW purchases of treasuries, you find that the interest rate must be higher to get them to purchase. And recently China and Brazil announced that ~”maybe we don’t need no steeenking dollars to do trade”… From:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/996b1af8-43ce-11de-a9be-00144feabdc0.html
Brazil and China eye plan to axe dollar
By Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo
Published: May 18 2009 18:24 | Last updated: May 18 2009 23:31
Brazil and China will work towards using their own currencies in trade transactions rather than the US dollar, according to Brazil’s central bank and aides to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president.
The move follows recent Chinese challenges to the status of the dollar as the world’s leading international currency. […]
Mr Lula da Silva, who is visiting Beijing this week, and Hu Jintao, China’s president, first discussed the idea of replacing the dollar with the renminbi and the real as trade currencies when they met at the G20 summit in London last month.
[…]
Mr Zhou recently proposed replacing the US dollar as the world’s leading currency with a new international reserve currency, possibly in the form of special drawing rights (SDRs), a unit of account used by the International Monetary Fund.
This one too:
http://ictsd.net/i/news/bridgesweekly/46968/
So you see, they already see the writing on the wall…
FWIW, most of my investment money is now in stocks and other instruments in non-US-Dollar based markets. Predominantly Brazil and Australia, but also Canada, Mexico, and a bit of the Bahamas, Euroland, Japan, Israel, etc.
I’ve adopted the acronym OOTUS – Out Of The U.S. for the overall ‘strategy’. I’ve also got a decent position in the “Stuff Trade” – Oil, Gold, Copper, things with a fundamental value not dependent on the dollar (i.e. oil will rise in dollar terms to whatever price reflects it’s real, physical, value. So will copper.) I’ve begun adding some small positions in REITS, though this is a longer term process, since Real Estate preserves value during inflations. It’s a bit early for the R.E. trade to work, but I’m getting my “marker positions”, that keep me focused on an area, in place and I’ve done a couple of “dead cat bounce” trades in REITS that just whacked the bottom and bounced…
So yeah, the question of ‘who will buy them’ will become ever more acute. I’ve dumped mine…
From: http://chiefio.wordpress.com/racing-stocks/
a little ways down is the “10 day currencies” link. It presently shows the dollar dropping…
( the whole link is: http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/charts/big.chart?symb=fxe&compidx=aaaaa%3A0&comp=gld+fxb+fxy+fxf+fxm+fxs+bzf+fxc+fxa&ma=4&maval=8&uf=0&lf=2&lf2=4&lf3=1024&type=4&size=4&state=15&sid=2434655&style=320&time=18&freq=8&nosettings=1&rand=4605&mocktick=1
but I’m not sure if 4 lines of link will ‘paste’ well…
Jeremy wrote:
I understand where you are coming from, on the plus side, there’s a couple of heavy duty science posts in the pipeline. And there’s been some pretty impressive science posts coming from Leif Svalgaard in the past week.
Unfortunately with the climate issue, thanks to people like Jim Hansen and Al Gore, climate science and politics have become forever bonded, so we do have to cover both sides of the issue.
I walk a fine line, many actually, and with the number of readers WUWT has now, it will be a virtual certainty that I will not be able to “please all of the people all of the time.” Cheers, Anthony
Ron de Haan (14:56:11) said:
Folks, we can stop this Trillion dollar bank robbery if enough of us contact our congressmen and inform them if they vote with Waxman on this bill we will work to get them defeated in the next election.
I agree with the sentiment, but as I am in the Great State of Texas (the one with the Wall), and in a conservative district at that, my Senators and Representative are already on the correct side on this issue.
I feel like we Texans have done our job; it’s our “countrymen” who have abrogated their responsibilities to demand rational representation.
Take Massachusetts. Please.
Vaclav Klaus,
EU and Czech Republic president
“Poverty: the winner on global warming”
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20090520a1.html