Americans Not Inclined To Pay More To Fight Global Warming

From Canada Free Press

Democratic Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman declared yesterday that a new EPA study shows their new global warming legislation won’t cost Americans much after all. But so far most Americans don’t show an inclination to pay anything for such legislation.

“There’ll be some people who will want to demagogue that politically, but that’s less than $1 a day,” The Politico quoted Lieberman saying at a press conference yesterday. “Is the American household willing to pay less than $1 so we don’t have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we can clean up our environment? I think the answer is going to be yes.”

Our surveying suggests…

however, that the answer is no. Democratic Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman declared yesterday that a new EPA study shows their new global warming legislation won’t cost Americans much after all. But so far most Americans don’t show an inclination to pay anything for such legislation.

Read the rest here

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Stephen Brown
June 17, 2010 2:58 pm

But … but … Auntie Beeb reports that CO2 has been responsible for other “unprecedented” “warmings” or “coolings” or .. Somethings!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10342318.stm

CPT. Charles
June 17, 2010 3:00 pm

Less than a dollar a day?
Right.
Care to guess why I think that ‘promise/pledge’ is a steaming pile of…

Sean
June 17, 2010 3:01 pm

These are the same folks who said the health care bill will save money, knowing full well the Medicare “Doc Fix” was excluded to make it appear cheaper. The democratic leadership is now trying to hide the ‘doc fix” in any piece of catch-all legislation they can but the blue-dog Democrats are balking at the price tag. After that fiasco, how can they think anyone is dumb enough to believe that legislation designed to raise the price of energy enough to change consumption habits will not cost us anything?

Rhoda R
June 17, 2010 3:07 pm

Won’t cost more than $1.00 per day? Right. And 0bama care will be revenue neutral.

Bohemond
June 17, 2010 3:07 pm

“so we don’t have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we can clean up our environment?”
Lies and damned lies.

James Sexton
June 17, 2010 3:08 pm

Where did Lieberman get that $1/day figure? And no, we’ve already spent trillions too much on this insanity much less have a desire to line the pockets of the hucksters behind this bs scam game.

Ray Hudson
June 17, 2010 3:10 pm

Let’s address all of Lieberman’s fallacious issues one at a time:
1) The “foreign oil dependence” ruse: Jon Stewart last night showed clips of every single president back to Nixon making that same promise. And here we are! There is precisely zero evidence that the federal government would do a damn thing about this, especially as long as big companies line their campaign chests to ignore it. So just stop it.
2) Millions of new jobs: Time and again statistics have shown that giving the government ANY more money does not create a single new job. New jobs are ONLY created by business, and that comes from taking LESS money from people and their businesses. So just stop it.
3) Clean up our enviroment: We already have, and by quite a bit! I live in the Los Angeles basin and our summer air is much cleaner than it was in the late 70s. Kids these days do not even know what a “Stage 3” (or even 2) smog alert is! Besides, where were the federal regulators who were tasked to PREVENT operators of Deepwater Horizon from operating unsafe rigs such that disasters like this would not happen? Those people, already on the federal dole, were EPIC FAILURES at doing what they got money to do. Now they want MORE money? Yet everyone in Congress is taking their turn flogging BP and yet all of them are conveniently ignoring the abject failure of the regulatory agencies to keep an eye on them, which is their only job! SO JUST STOP IT!

DL
June 17, 2010 3:11 pm

The answer is no because most goverment estimates of costs are of by a factor of about a hundred, so no one wants to pay an extra $10,000 a year.

DirkH
June 17, 2010 3:20 pm

“Stephen Brown says:
June 17, 2010 at 2:58 pm
But … but … Auntie Beeb reports that CO2 has been responsible for other “unprecedented” “warmings” or “coolings” or .. Somethings!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10342318.stm

from the article:
“The team “found a fingerprint in the sequence of temperature changes” – a pattern that began 2.7 million years ago, Professor Herbert explained. ”
futerra or whatever their PR agency is must have advised all the professional climatogologists to replace “robust” with “fingerprint” it seems. Recently they’re finding “fingerprints” wherever they look… or is carbon “footprint” now too noughties?

Rhoda R
June 17, 2010 3:22 pm

Ray Hudsen, may I use your input?

Curiousgeorge
June 17, 2010 3:23 pm

Not inclined? Not INCLINED? That has to be the understatement of the century! How about: No Way, Jose’! Not on your life! You can have my carbon, when you pry it from my cold dead hands!

June 17, 2010 3:25 pm

The Politico quoted Lieberman saying at a press conference yesterday. “Is the American household willing to pay less than $1 so we don’t have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we can clean up our environment? I think the answer is going to be yes.”

Wasn’t that WHY the DOE (the U.S. Dept. Of Energy) was created some 33 odd years ago by pres. CARTER?
How many millions down the tube and where are we?
Square one?
Hullo?
.
.

Al Gored
June 17, 2010 3:30 pm

A comment copied from James Delingpole’s blog, re British wind power:
“In the last 24 hours they have generated a staggering 458 MWh. That means that each £2 million + windmill has generated about £8 of electricity. Makes you proud to be British doesn’t it.
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm

Hu Bris
June 17, 2010 3:36 pm

here’s a real gem of an article from the Beeb (complete with utterly made-up graphic of some cute looking cuddly-wuddly Mammoth-like-thingies standing on some CGI-Ice – aww shucks)
Ancient climate change ‘link’ to CO2

A “global pattern” of change in the Earth’s climate began 2.7 million years ago, say scientists. Researchers found that, at this point, temperature patterns in the tropics slipped into step with patterns of Ice Ages in the Northern Hemisphere.
They report in the journal Science that atmospheric CO2 could be (not even ‘may be’) the “missing link” to explain this global pattern.
The findings, they say, reveal a “feedback process” that could have been magnified by greenhouse gases.
This loop of feedback could have intensified both the Ice Ages in the Northern Hemisphere, and temperature fluctuations in the tropics.

but it gets even more Science-y

Professor Herbert added that the “best global mechanism” to explain this link was the level of atmospheric greenhouse gases. [well of course it is]
Dr Carrie Lear, a palaeoclimate scientist from Cardiff University in the UK, agreed that carbon dioxide was the likely “culprit”.[well of course it is]

not a hint of doubt there from Dr Carrie – very science-y indeed – essentially they are saying “Well the only thing we can think of is CO2” – which in my opinion really just says more about their lack of imaginative thinking than anything else

Hu Bris
June 17, 2010 3:38 pm

whoops screwed the formatting there – sorry – this is why a preview function is a good idea 🙂

latitude
June 17, 2010 3:39 pm

” I think the answer is going to be yes.”
ROTFL Never let a good crisis go to waste.
Is there one single person alive, with more than one active synapse, that believes them?

bill-tb
June 17, 2010 3:45 pm

Yep, and health care will be free, better and everybody will get all they want.
These pie in the sky liars …. @#$%^&*(

WillR
June 17, 2010 3:46 pm

“A dollar down and a dollar a day.” I know a used car dealer who used that line.
I wonder if he realizes how people will laugh when they hear that line. This would be truly funny of it were not so tragic.
Here in Ontario, the Green Energy Act has already been used to introduce new taxes without votes in the legislature and it has been used to strip landowners of their rights.
Americans. We Canadians welcome you to the New Green Future.
Thank you for your attention, now return to your cells and await the next improvement in your life.

June 17, 2010 3:50 pm

Hey folks,
There are no lies here, the gov’ment is telling you the truth! It will only cost each American household $1/month to fund this legislation.
That’s a Washington D. C. beltway $1/month – having absolutely no relationship to the rectangular piece of paper with the picture of George Washington on it, and the same disconnect to a calendar month. (SARC OFF)

Mark Wagner
June 17, 2010 4:11 pm

Obama called. He wanted to know what comes after “trillion.”

Steve Allen
June 17, 2010 4:15 pm

Sucks to be a warmist.

June 17, 2010 4:17 pm

Mark Wagner::
“Impeachment.”

Bryan
June 17, 2010 4:20 pm

At least the idea of the USA being energy independent makes some kind of strategic sense.
But that’s not the idea that the IPCC is pushing.
We must always remember that the “science is settled” and we all want to save the planet.
Or was that yesterdays message?

Justa Joe
June 17, 2010 4:24 pm

Won’t cost only a dollar a day, which accumulatively even a dollar a day is still a considerable amount of money.
There’s no anthropogenic global warming to fight.
I’m not inclined to want to pay $ .01 per day.

cba
June 17, 2010 4:29 pm

less than $1 a day means it’s more than $10 a day that we cannot afford and does positively nothing to improve anything and undoubtedly does a tremendous amount to destroy western civilization.

Al Gore's Holy Hologram
June 17, 2010 4:30 pm

The US will still be using lots of foreign oil for decades to come. Products derived from petrochemicals fill every shelf of every shop. It’s not just about fuelling cars.
So stop lying to the people, you thieving power hungry pigs!

Dan in California
June 17, 2010 4:31 pm

Why don’t they call it a $360 annual tax hike instead of $1 per day? Obama’s budget request is showing $360 billion annual income from CO2 taxes. If true, that’s closer to $1000 per year per person (not per household).
The taxes will mostly affect the country’s coal fired power plants. (about 40% of US electricity is from burning coal) Making it more expensive to make electricity from domestic coal will have ZERO effect on foreign oil imports. Remember, one of Obama’s campaign promises was “I’ll tax them out of business” I guess he doesn’t understand people who buy the electricity (you and me) will pay that bill.

Zeke the Sneak
June 17, 2010 4:35 pm

Curiousgeorge says:
June 17, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Not inclined? Not INCLINED? That has to be the understatement of the century! How about: No Way, Jose’! Not on your life! You can have my carbon, when you pry it from my cold dead hands!
Nice to know there are some REAL MEN left in the country.

Glenn
June 17, 2010 4:36 pm

Lewis Strauss, 1954 Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
“Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter… It is not too much to expect that our children will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age.”

Sioned L
June 17, 2010 4:45 pm

So, Kerry and Lieberman are saying that Obama lied when he said that under his plan energy bills would necessarily skyrock. Guess they’ll have to apologize to BO like Joe Wilson did.

MattN
June 17, 2010 4:53 pm

“Is the American household willing to pay less than $1 so we don’t have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we can clean up our environment? I think the answer is going to be yes.”
I think the American househild is smart enough to realize that line of reasoning is complete, 100% USDA Grade A Fantasy bu11$#!t.

latitude
June 17, 2010 5:16 pm

“Is the American household willing to pay less than $1 so we don’t have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we can clean up our environment? I think the answer is going to be yes.”
$1 a day X 365 days = $365 yr per household
$365 X 115,000,000 households = $41, 975, 000, 000
$42 billion a year in new tax money,
in ten years that’s another $1/2 trillion
so the government can hire new people and expand government jobs again………
But who’s counting, we’re the bottomless pit………………………

Henry chance
June 17, 2010 5:17 pm

They shut down Gulf Coast drilling. So that we would import less oil. The lies stack up. We need to have the EPA furnish a financial impact study. Not let them slither out of it. This fiasco will cost another 1 million jobs. 2,700 dollars a year increase in energy costs per household.

Implementing the Waxman-Markey legislation will be very costly, even given the rather optimistic assumptions about how effective it will be in reducing CO2 emissions and how accommodating the economy will be to the added energy costs. The Heritage Foundation’s dynamic analysis of these economic costs are summarized as follows (adjusted for inflation to 2009 dollars):
Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are $9.4 trillion between 2012 and 2035;
Single-year GDP losses reach $400 billion by 2025 and will ultimately exceed $700 billion;
Net job losses approach 1.9 million in 2012 and could approach 2.5 million by 2035. Manufacturing loses 1.4 million jobs in 2035;
The annual cost of emissions permits to energy users will be at least $100 billion by 2012 and could exceed $390 billion by 2035;
A typical family of four will pay, on average, an additional $829 each year for energy-based utility costs; and
Gasoline prices will rise by 58 percent ($1.38 more per gallon) and average household electric rates will increase by 90 percent.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/08/The-Economic-Consequences-of-Waxman-Markey-An-Analysis-of-the-American-Clean-Energy-and-Security-Act-of-2009

rbateman
June 17, 2010 5:20 pm

< $1 , eh? I would feel better if they just named it the "This is a stickup: Empty your wallets and nobody will get hurt" tax.
This ploy would make David Letterman's Top Ten reasons list of why Congress' ratings are in the dumpster.

Dan in California
June 17, 2010 5:26 pm

Glenn says:
June 17, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Lewis Strauss, 1954 Chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
“Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter…”
That was before the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) became the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). It was a huge change in that the AEC had a mandate to promote nuke power, and the NRC regulates without such mandate. Here’s an example. I visited the Brown’s Ferry nuke plant in 1984. The plant was designed to be run by 200 people. By 1984 the number of employees had grown to 1000. The additional employees occupy an office building separate from the power plant. They don’t even work in the same building! When the government mandates 1000 employees to do the job of 200, it costs more. That’s how government creates jobs; by requiring them.
Even so, nuke power with no CO2 emissions costs about the same as coal, and significantly less than the current fad of building natural gas burners. The problem with nukes is that most of the costs are up front in construction and it’s relatively cheap to run them. There are 57 nuke plants being built around the world today and none in the US. (I don’t count Watts Bar 2)

H.R.
June 17, 2010 5:28 pm

Dan in California says:
June 17, 2010 at 4:31 pm
“Why don’t they call it a $360 annual tax hike instead of $1 per day? Obama’s budget request is showing $360 billion annual income from CO2 taxes. If true, that’s closer to $1000 per year per person (not per household).” […]
Yup, and remember, no one making under $250,000/year will pay a single dime more in taxes.
Didn’t the Senators get the memo?

P.F.
June 17, 2010 5:32 pm

If there was some legal way to make them back up their statement with a personal/professional guarantee to keep it at $1/day,do you think they would say the same or back off their statement?

jack morrow
June 17, 2010 5:32 pm

Where do these guys come from? Oh, Kerry, he has enough money so he doesn’t worry about money period. Lieberman- this guy can go from one end of the spectrum to the other, but anyone that aligns with Kerry or McCain has got to be watched.
The dollar a day is so much baloney. We all know it will be 10 or 20 times that amount just to start. The job loss and the hurt to our country will be substantial. As someone said before–rant off.

Pamela Gray
June 17, 2010 5:40 pm

If the bill includes shale and coal mining with clean technologies, we have a change to become less dependent but we will always need to buy at least some of our energy from other countries.

Pamela Gray
June 17, 2010 5:43 pm

chance, CHANCE! damn. Can’t get the word “change” outa my head!

Douglas DC
June 17, 2010 5:51 pm

That study should make great fertilizer for my roses. That is the only value in my book…

Leon Brozyna
June 17, 2010 5:57 pm

What’s that saying about how to tell if a politician’s lying — his lips are moving.

Baa Humbug
June 17, 2010 5:58 pm

Bryan says:
June 17, 2010 at 4:20 pm
At least the idea of the USA being energy independent makes some kind of strategic sense.

Actually I would’ve thought it doesn’t.
If the good ol’ USofA was to retreat from their middle east alliances (because they don’t need their oil anymore) it would leave a vacuum that China Russia and India would gladly fill in an instant, hence strengthening them.
Part of the reason why this hopeful strategy has failed since the days of tricky dicky I would’ve thought.

Walter Cronanty
June 17, 2010 6:06 pm

“Is the American household willing to pay less than $1 so we don’t have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we can clean up our environment? I think the answer is going to be yes.”
What happy horse$h!t. First, do you remember the pledge that “if you like your health plan, you can keep it”? The latest government figures show that upwards of 40% to 50% of plans will not be grandfathered; therefore, if there is one change in the plan, you’re out of luck with that plan you like. Plus, even the Ds that voted for Obamacare knew that, given the fallacious assumptions given to the CBO, the cost figures publicized were lies. Only those who are willfully ignorant could possibly believe that whopper.
Second, if we exploited our own oil reserves, it wouldn’t cost us anything to import less oil – the 6 month moratorium means more imported oil. No new nuclear plants means more imported oil.
Third, we’ll get “millions of new jobs” just like Spain, and we will not be able to afford to subsidize those jobs, just like Spain.
Finally, “clean up the environment”? Is he making reference to the current oil spill, once again giving life to Rahm’s favorite adage that no crisis should go waste – which is why it took us two months to change our mind about accepting Dutch assistance in cleaning up the ungodly mess? Or, is he lying about CO2 being a pollutant, thereby also lying about the environmental results of taxing us back to the stone age?
I would have more respect for these thieves if they at least had the intellectual honesty to wear a ski mask and say: “Stick ’em up!”

RoyFOMR
June 17, 2010 6:07 pm

A dollar a day,
is all you’ll pay
to send your job to Mandalay!

Gail Combs
June 17, 2010 6:10 pm

As I recall Congress was going to add a 10% cap to the income tax in the Constitutional Amendment but did not bother because the Income Tax would NEVER reach as high as 10%…..
Seems like we should have some treason trials in the future if we can ever find any honest judges and Congressmen.

KenB
June 17, 2010 6:11 pm

Ray Hudson says:
June 17, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Let’s address all of Lieberman’s fallacious issues one at a time:
1) The “foreign oil dependence” ruse: Jon Stewart last night showed clips of every single president back to Nixon making that same promise. And here we are! There is precisely zero evidence that the federal government would do a damn thing about this, especially as long as big companies line their campaign chests to ignore it. So just stop it.
2) Millions of new jobs: Time and again statistics have shown that giving the government ANY more money does not create a single new job. New jobs are ONLY created by business, and that comes from taking LESS money from people and their businesses. So just stop it.
3) Clean up our enviroment: We already have, and by quite a bit! I live in the Los Angeles basin and our summer air is much cleaner than it was in the late 70s. Kids these days do not even know what a “Stage 3″ (or even 2) smog alert is! Besides, where were the federal regulators who were tasked to PREVENT operators of Deepwater Horizon from operating unsafe rigs such that disasters like this would not happen? Those people, already on the federal dole, were EPIC FAILURES at doing what they got money to do. Now they want MORE money? Yet everyone in Congress is taking their turn flogging BP and yet all of them are conveniently ignoring the abject failure of the regulatory agencies to keep an eye on them, which is their only job! SO JUST STOP IT!
Hey that’s just as I see it too Ray
Its a “what spin will we trot out again” (voters are so dumb !) and re your (3) This is the same in this country, so much has been done in our lifetime to improve the quality of life and the environment as a great example to other places in the world, but all they thirst for is more dollars to cream off from taxpayers. They must think we were all born yesterday!!
And if they get their less than $1 a day, (and that’s a substantial amount to me) for ever and far into the future. What next, oh that’s easy we will just double the days in a year, that will make it easier to spin to our dumb voters!! Oh and forget about the prices of everything rising as a result of that impost, that’s just “collateral damage” if a “few” families go to the wall of poverty that’s a small price to pay to keep politicians snouts in the trough.
I heard one commentator suggest on TV that perhaps we should get rid of most of the politicians, much easier on the economy, save taxes, and remove all that Washington Hot air from the environment, problem solved …. “PWUHIE” Politicians’ Washington Urban Heat Island Effect – Makes a nice Tee shirt message complete with downturned thumb!! or even ruder and to the point with an upturned middle finger!! (they understand SIMPLE messages)

Gerry
June 17, 2010 6:16 pm

If it really WAS a small amount like a dollar a day, people would consider it.
But just like with Medicare, Welfare and every other mega-boondoggle from Washington, this vast sinkhole will soon consume far more resources than we can throw at it, more funding than we can afford and it STILL won’t lower Global Warming by a tenth of a degree.
In the old days, we called these fellers ‘flim-flam artists’…..

June 17, 2010 6:18 pm

Another factor to consider is: where will all that money go? The additional costs will not be a boon to the economy — they will subtract from the economy and go to the Federal government and to carbon traders. They do not represent additional investments but reductions in capital and in gross domestic product. Therefore they will have a reverse multiplier effect. Every dollar spent on fiat “carbon credits” represents three dollars not spent within the general economy.
The pressure that will put on the economy, especially in its current state, will cause general economic collapse. Foreign trade may well be curtailed, but that will only spread our economic depression to the rest of the world. (Protectionism as ballyhooed by those who decry “foreign oil” was a major factor in the Great Depression).
The desired welfare state cannot support itself and will implode. The actual realized costs to households will be in the tens of $thousands per year per household as the economy enters a death spiral. Global depression will lead to global war (study history). Who knows the level of tragedy that will ensue?
And for what? Global temperatures will not be affected one iota. If the planet was getting warmer, which it is not, that would be a good thing.
It will take at least a decade to recover from the banking collapse of 2008. Now our fearless leaders want to add to the misery with an Enron-style fiat carbon market. It’s a Ponzi scheme doomed to catastrophic failure. (Again, read history. Enron imploded from its own machinations; it was not regulated to bankruptcy).
The very idea that Cap-and-Trade will only cost a postage stamp is so outrageous it defies adjectives.

J
June 17, 2010 6:19 pm

C’mon, trust them. . . they did such a bang-up job estimating the costs of wars in the middle east. . .

rbateman
June 17, 2010 6:46 pm

Only a dollar a day and we’ll have magic Green Energy. Except that a lot of that new tech. takes Rare Earth elements.
Guess who supplies most of it?
Hint: It’s not us.

James Gibbons
June 17, 2010 6:48 pm

I wonder if it will get as bad as Spain’s experience:
Sunny Spain suspends solar subsidy scam
“Spain pays more in subsidies for renewables than the total cost of energy production for the country”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/17/spain_sustainability_scam/

AEGeneral
June 17, 2010 6:55 pm

“Is the American household willing to pay less than $1 so we don’t have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we can clean up our environment? I think the answer is going to be yes.”
November just can’t get here fast enough….

It's always Marcia, Marcia
June 17, 2010 7:00 pm

“so we don’t have to buy oil from foreign countries, so we can create millions of new jobs, so we can clean up our environment?”
None of these things will happen with this bill. It will just raise taxes and costs on everyone. American politicians are idiots.

It's always Marcia, Marcia
June 17, 2010 7:02 pm

Wouldn’t it be nice if American politicians were talking about stopping the oil leak? I guess none of them have house on the Gulf Coast. So no matter to them.

P Walker
June 17, 2010 7:09 pm

A year ago we were assured that this would cost no more than the price of a postage stamp per day – or was that somethng else ? I get so confused .

June 17, 2010 7:21 pm

Alan Carlin wasn’t consulted or asked to review this report. Was it even written by economists? Just substituting natural gas for coal will cost more than that and that does not include the cost of building the infrastructure.

Brute
June 17, 2010 7:21 pm

My family needs every dollar………..so yes, I do mind more of my property being confiscated and wasted by these thugs.

Steven Hill
June 17, 2010 7:59 pm

Hum, I thought NASA just stated that massive solar flares will kill us all in 2013 anyway.
LOL

Gary
June 17, 2010 8:05 pm

Americans might gladly pay a dollar a day for a cleaner environment (whatever that means at the moment), but they’re already in debt by hundreds of dollars a day and certainly don’t want to add a penny more.

kevin
June 17, 2010 8:19 pm

“…but that’s less than $1 a day…”
It reminds me of the TV ads that were looking for donations to help impoverished African children from around 20 years ago.
“For less than a Dollar a day you can (insert AGW Earth saving scheme here.) That’s less than the price of a cup of Coffee”
Of course they left the price of a cup of Coffee out because passable Coffee isn’t that cheap anymore. They could get with the times and ask for $1.75 a day though.

Frank K.
June 17, 2010 8:31 pm

I’ll be willing to pay more once we first recover the billions of dollars wasted on useless climate “research”…
Didn’t the climate scientists already get their stimulus climate ca$h??

June 17, 2010 8:39 pm

Oops – and somewhat off topic (oil spill)
Sorry, my first post said month – brain fart…should have said day- but the meaning still stands…sorry again!
This is the off-topic part (to some extent)
Its interesting how many politicos want to wade into the oil-spill question – as if they were oil engineers. Most are lawyers – oh boy, here we go – folks who studied jurisprudence wanting to be engineers – engineering wannabes – how pathetic!
From what I read – and this isn’t final you understand – looks like another case of engineering arrogance. “WE KNOW MORE THAN YOU DO – NEANER NEANER!”
Lots of examples here:
Titanic, Challenger, Discovery, just to get started – you structural types can name more.
Important point is that when you think you know more than the kid from college, or your good friend in the opposite cubicle, then you are ripe to make a mistake by being arrogant.
It wasn’t lack of supervision that brought this on, but the “I’m right, you’re wrong.” syndrome. “I know what I’m doing because I’ve been right (insert number here) times in the past.”
Murphy exists, for engineers especially – anytime you think you are smarter than your peers, you’re in trouble. You stop listening and then set yourself up for failure.
Golly, just happened again!
Duh!
Mike

TomRude
June 17, 2010 8:51 pm

David Suzuki and his foundation are breeding green politicians who are getting elected in municipal governments, pushing for targets, drafting green policies through the backdoor.
Suzuki himself had his program “the nature of things” on Arctic Ice CBC last year advised by Dr. David Barber, of Rotten ice fame…
Scientists, activists and journalists are working hand in hand to deceive and sell the ideology.

jorgekafkazar
June 17, 2010 8:59 pm

AEGeneral says: “November just can’t get here fast enough….”
Sen. Boxer is voting as if there isn’t going to be an election in November. I’m wondering if she knows something that the rest of us don’t.

D. King
June 17, 2010 9:15 pm

Sorry to bring it down to this level, but, it is this simple.
Trust your instincts.

June 17, 2010 9:25 pm

Incredible – just as the evidence piles up that AGW is a scam, the evidence is piling up on a daily basis that these clowns have just barely finished inhaling breath from lying to the American public that comprehensive health care reform would actually ‘save’ money, and they are now extolling the low cost features of taxing the carbon cycle?
Who are the bigger fools? Them for thinking we believe them, or us for letting them get away with it?

June 17, 2010 9:27 pm

A dollar a day? Thats 365 dollars a year (hard to believe, but that’s me). I do recall a figure from the UN from a few years ago that stated that in order to combat AGW the costs per person per year would be around 300 dollars.
I also recall that at that time the average year income was about 5500 dollars, a large part of the world has to live on less than 2 dollars a day, so that explains the low average.
300 dollars of 5500 dollars is about 5.5% of that income, and now you can calculate your own, so if you are doing 30.000 dollars a year than you would pay around 1650 dollars or 4.5 dollars a day. The average yearly income of an American household is around 50.000 (2007) wich amounts to around 7.5 dollars a day.
So less than an dollar a day, 0.73% of the income of an average American household? If that where true than you might believe in AGW as well.

Robert Kral
June 17, 2010 9:36 pm

I like Joe Lieberman in many respects, but this is just magical thinking. Pass a law, and previously non-viable and inefficient means of energy production will suddenly become viable and efficient in a few years? It’s a total crock. If they want to create jobs they should undertake a massive expansion of nuclear power generation and open up terrestrial and shallow-ocean areas for more oil exploration and production (along with massive expansion of natural gas production). That would lead us to energy independence, or something much closer to it than where we are now. These guys are not serious people- they’re just parroting what Greenpeace has fed them without understanding it at all.

Neo
June 17, 2010 10:26 pm

If it’s so cheap let Kerry’s wife pay for all of us.

HaroldW
June 17, 2010 10:38 pm

Others have done the math a little differently, but it comes out as unbelievable however you do it. [Disclaimer: I have not read the 74-page study. Just going by this. ]
$80 – $150 per household per year is the figure given. Round it off to $100 per household per year. Times ~100 million households, comes to $10 billion per year. As others have pointed out, this is not commensurate with various other figures which have been mentioned, by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude. But perhaps the new figure is right, and the old ones were off.
Let’s compare it to other expenditures. The 2010 census — getting all Americans to answer 6 questions — cost somewhere upwards of $10 billion (hard to see exactly what the decennial census cost vs. other surveys), so about the same amount.
The Department of Energy was created in 1977 with the goal of eliminating America’s dependence of foreign oil. Its annual budget is in the high $20 billions. Now not all of that is going to ensure “we don’t have to buy oil from foreign countries”, but well over half is, and has been for over 30 years. When DoE was created in 1977, the U.S. imported about 40% of its oil; now we import about 65%. In other words, over 30 years, the DoE has made negative progress towards “energy independence,” while spending an amount comparable to the claimed cost of the Kerry-Lieberman bill. Draw your own conclusions.
As for “creating millions of new jobs”, well, I suppose it’s possible. After all, Spain created many new jobs with their “green energy” plan. It all depends on whether you count the number of old jobs which would be lost (which will be larger than new jobs created, based on Spain’s experience), and the jobs which would have been created with the capital which the bill will use up. It’s one of the many ways in which we are misled with half-truths.

Chad Woodburn
June 17, 2010 10:43 pm

So here I am struggling to make ends meet; my wife lost her job and I have congestive heart failure that keeps me from working full time and requires medicines that are expensive, and they expect me to be glad that their plans will only cost me $1 more a day, $30 more per month, $365 more per year? Do they have a clue???? No wonder they are a bunch of tree-huggers: they think money grows on trees.

Evan Jones
Editor
June 17, 2010 10:55 pm

What they are counting is wealth expended. That is the least of it.
What they are NOT counting is the HUMONGOUS amount of wealth PREVENTED. That is where the real cost lies.
This administration is great at pumping negative effects (job losses prevented, etc., which I don’t buy for a plugged nickel), but pretty lousy at that sort of logic when it is actually valid and works against it.
HaroldW is on the right track, here.

Dave Wendt
June 18, 2010 12:04 am

Even if the $1/day figure were really true, which is completely laughable, it neglects the fact of the multiplier effect that increasing energy costs have on the whole economy. That extra cost will not only apply to each of us, but to every truck, train, airplane, farm tractor, business, except for those who have bought enough politicians to get themselves exempted.
Think back to what happened to the cost of things during the big spike in oil prices in ’08, which was one of the initiators of this whole mess. Of course, when this next spike in energy costs occurs, the Fed will likely be in the midst of inflating the currency to try to stay ahead of our unsustainable debt, so we won’t just be looking at $5-$6/gal gas, but $6/gal milk, $6 loaves of bread, $6/lb hamburger, etc. And thanks to Obamacare your medical insurance and medications will be inflating even faster than their already onerous rate. Add in the multitude of fees and tariffs squirreled away in those multi-thousand pages bills they’ve become so fond of passing at midnight of a Saturday night, the blossoming state and local tax burden and you better figure on doubling or tripling your current income over the next five years just to keep pace with your current state of economic well being.

Bruce Armour
June 18, 2010 1:32 am

Al Gored says:
June 17, 2010 at 3:30 pm
A comment copied from James Delingpole’s blog, re British wind power:
“In the last 24 hours they have generated a staggering 458 MWh. That means that each £2 million + windmill has generated about £8 of electricity. Makes you proud to be British doesn’t it.
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
Thanks for the link! Please keep posting about MWh – MegaWatt-HOURS.
MWh is what counts – MW without time is meaningless. Were the lights on a minute or an hour? 1 solar MW in darkness or 1 turbine MW in stillness produces 0 MWh – nothing, nada.
Yet renewable energy advocates usually speak in terms of just MW. Why this MW delusion is not countered with real actual MWhmeasurements of similar systems is a total mystery to me. Cost should be stated per MWh – not per MW.
Electricity is an endangered species. Invest in candles.

Martin Brumby
June 18, 2010 2:23 am

You want to check the fine print carefully. The ‘dollar a day’ maybe what they have in mind for taxes.
What about your energy bills?
Here in the UK, energy costs have (at least) doubled (from a high start level) in the last five years. Even the Government regulator has admitted that by 2020 the average domestic electricity (never mind gas, oil etc.) bill will be running at £5,000 per year. That’s somewhere around 100% of the old age pension people pay for throughout their working lives. But that’s not a TAX hike. No, no, no!

cedarhill
June 18, 2010 3:20 am

The CBO is the one that does the price fixing, uh, cost assessment of proposed Congressional laws. Those are the ones well know for wildly inaccurate, umm, good guesses on the economic impacts of Congressional tinkering.
The EPA “study” is based on manipulating one or more of their software models. These are likely written by Michael Mann or, possibly, John Kerry while on break at one of his mansions. They certainly exclude most of reality but use finance sounding terms like “energy”. But of course they have releases ALL their software code, their inputs and their assumptions – or at least it’s somewhere in the mail.
These are the “settled” science that actively suppresses even internal dissent. My favorite quote from them is:
“EPA finds that there is a 99% probability that global warming will exceed 2 degrees Celsius a threshold above which scientists project that the risk of catastrophe increases rapidly.”
I think I’ll drop a line to them and ask if they have a Lotto model prediction program. And, of course, it will be 99% certain of generating a winner. Most of government climate models are at least 99% aren’t they?

June 18, 2010 3:34 am

A clue to Liebermann’s veracity lies in his wierd use of English – when did ‘demagogue’ get to be a verb? The word is a noun and describes ‘one who uses myth and untruths to lead or influence (people). Perhaps his unusual use of the word was a Freudian slip!

Jeff
June 18, 2010 5:22 am

Take a look at the EPA report- especially page 34. The “plan” to reduce carbon emissions relies on four major actions prompted be the bill (wind and solar do little under the EPA’s analysis):
1. Reductions in energy use forced by “increases in energy prices.” So they’re arguing that they’ll cut CO2 cheaply by making us pay more, which is more than a bit contradictory. Yes, trolls, they say they’ll hand back the money making it “almost neutral.” But if they hand back the money, what’s the incentive to use less energy? Either this will not cut energy use or you will not get a refund of the money- take your pick.
2. Massive increase in the use of bio-fuels. Environmentally and economically disastrous, so we double down and rate it as cheap and successful.
3. Substantial use of carbon capture at coal plants-non-existent, but let’s assume it exists and pretend it’s “cheap” for the purposes of policy analysis ’cause we’re all non-partisan and all that.
4. Massive nuclear power build out. Ya know, the stuff we could have been doing since the 1970s if the greens hadn’t stopped it, but what the heck- let’s blame that on the Republicans and call it cheap as well- a two-fer of dishonesty!
ugh

June 18, 2010 5:38 am

American Thinker deconstructs James Hansen.

Enneagram
June 18, 2010 5:41 am

YOU AMERICANS SHOULD TELL YOUR POLITICIANS TO READ WUWT TO BE PROPERLY INFORMED.

Nuke
June 18, 2010 7:22 am

If only we could create a substitute for oil through legislative fiat. Next week, the Senate takes up a resolution to make 2 + 2 =5.
Anybody here with a car that runs on wind or solar, please raise your hand now. Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? Ferris Bueller?
We have two primary uses for oil: Transportation and as raw materials for manufacturing. We have nothing available on the horizon that will make adequate substitutes for oil in either of those instance. Electric cars just aren’t going to cut it, unless we are all going to make drastic changes in our lifestyles.
And all this talk of ending our dependence upon foreign oil is just disingenuous. These same people won’t let us use our own oil reserves. There is plenty of oil available, but we can’t harvest it. BP was drilling a mile below the Gulf surface because people like Lieberman and Kerry won’t let them drill elsewhere.
The USA has oil and natural gas. We also have oil shale and coal. Boy, do we have coal. How about more coal-to-gas research? Again, electricity is just no substitute for oil.

Marc77
June 18, 2010 10:20 am

But the majority of scientists think the planet is warming…
If you want to talk about green economy, why don’t you bring the majority of economists?

Tim Clark
June 18, 2010 10:42 am

Enneagram says: June 18, 2010 at 5:41 am
YOU AMERICANS SHOULD TELL YOUR POLITICIANS TO READ WUWT TO BE PROPERLY INFORMED.

The above model that you have purportedly developed to eliminate wasteful government programs has a seriously flawed assumption:
THEY CAN’T COMPREHEND ANYTHING THEY READ!

June 18, 2010 10:47 am

Democratic Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman declared yesterday that a new EPA study shows their new global warming legislation won’t cost Americans much after all.
Right. The same EPA that declares carbon dioxide is a toxic industrial pollutant.
Kerry’s a proven prevaricator and Lieberman’s a malleable naif.

u.k.(us)
June 18, 2010 11:55 am

“Democratic Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman declared yesterday that a new EPA study shows their new global warming legislation won’t cost Americans much after all. ….”
============
This coming from two men who probably never had to balance a checkbook.

Bruce Cobb
June 18, 2010 5:02 pm

Americans aren’t inclined to getting mugged on a city street, either.

Ed Murphy
June 18, 2010 5:39 pm

Livin’ in Liberal’retardian Paradise
We got a snoot full of carbon nonsense
And crude all over the bay
Smacked birds drop out of the sky
I see it every day
My airknaditioner won’t ‘nition
I can’t afford to pay
Even if I could, they shut down our bank today
Livin’ in Liber’retardian Paradise
Its Déjà vu Jimmy Carter
Busted’ pipes and frozen water
By now you’d think we’d be smarter
Got very few jobs to earn a dollar
Not even stock’n shelves at Wally~Mart’r
To afford energy, I’ll have to barter
Livin’ in Liber’retardian Paradise
Don’t slide off the road on loose cinders
Been a tough couple of winters
CAGW frosted over mah’ winders’
Narrowly dodged the fender benders
The pollution control EGR valve stuck
Had to call the wrecker to tow mah’ truck
The expenses just keep adding up
Mah’ poor ol’ cousin the firewood splitter,
an Afghan blew him up!
Livin’ Liber’retardian Paradise
Scary Kerry, Obama and Lieber’tardian Paradise!
Anybody got any connections with a good musical band?

Brad
June 18, 2010 10:02 pm

I’m willing to pay $1 to boot out all the damn crooks from Washington DC and bring this country back to a Constitutional Republic as it was on July 4, 1776.

Ed Murphy
June 19, 2010 9:43 am

Edit:
“To afford energy, I’ll have to barter”…
For God’s sake don’t step on that frozen snail darter!

Don Shaw
June 19, 2010 10:19 am

This comment from Lieberman just shows how a once honorable senator is turned into a total liar by getting involved in the global warming issue. It seems as though this sickness touches anyone who becomes a global warming advocate.
Lots of good points made by others. I want to add one more. In my State they imposed a 1% sales tax just for education, it is now 7% and we also added significant income tax along the way, just for education. In the meantime the quality of education has declined rather than improved and we are approching bankruptcy. It was just a mechanism to transfer wealth from hard working suburban folks to the politicians in the inner cities.
This bill is the first foot in the door and will provide a structure for a continuum of later tax increases.
The dollar a day won’t even cover the administration costs/profits for the Chigago Climate Exchange, the regulators, and th0se traders who will profit mightily. Look how the speculators have pushed the price of oil several years ago without a good reason. The carbon controls will provide the same opportunity for the traders of energy with potential manipulation by Soros.
Finally it is utter nonsense and a total lie to claim that this will play any role in getting us off foreign oil. How many times have the progressives told this lie with noone from the MSM challenging the claim.

E.M.Smith
Editor
June 20, 2010 12:59 am

America is broke. The average person has more debt than they can ever repay and the national debt is a Bundle per head. There is just no way folks can ever pay enough taxes to cover it. Add to that the fact that industry is headed to China at a dizzy clip and the simple fact is this:
Americans can not pay ANY more for ANYTHING.
At best, they can try to put in on the maxed out credit card, but even that is not going to cut it as the bill is already hitting the fan.
The Loony Left is about to learn that they have run out of other peoples money to spend and the Radical Right is about to learn that folks don’t give a darn about energy independence, they care about $3 gas being too high to get to work and $4 gas for more than a month after a hurricane will get you un-elected “right quick”.
So study and propagandize all you want. There just aren’t any bucks to be had to fund your pet projects. Get over it.

Pascvaks
June 20, 2010 5:51 am

Hawaii has a beautiful ceremony to placate the gods. I’d be very happy to offer up every sitting member of Congress in human sacrifice to the gods of Hawaii in an effort to put an end to the nightmare of Anthroprogenic Global Warming. Though to be fair, the leadership and members and staff of the IPCC should go first; followed by the European Offering, and then the US Offering, and the Aussie Offering, and the Kiwi Offering, and the Japanese Offering,… you get the idea, I just know it will work. I have a good feeling it really will solve all our climate problems and greatly lower future CO2 releases too.