Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Huffington Post has a plan to address the as yet unanswered question of who will foot the bill, for the renewable transformation green advocates want, in the wake of the Paris COP21 agreement. HuffPost’s suggestion is a $2.9 trillion rise in annual taxes on fossil fuels.
How Can We Pay for the New Energy Economy?
Many a great idea has been deflated by a simple question: “That’s nice, but who’s going to pay for it?” That question hovered like a cloud over the international climate conference in Paris a week ago. Simply put, the goal of the agreement at that conference is to build a world in which we achieve and sustain universal prosperity without plummeting into a future of irreversible climate catastrophe. It’s a great goal, but who is going to pay for it?
…
Fossil Energy Subsidies: Some government subsidies go to energy consumers and some to energy producers. Some are direct – tax breaks, for example – and some are indirect “post tax” subsidies, including the social and environmental costs of using fossil fuels. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), direct and indirect subsidies around the world are expected to total $5.3 trillion this year.
…
The IMF notes that the benefits of reforming fossil energy subsidies are “potentially enormous”. “Eliminating post-tax subsidies in 2015 could raise government revenue by $2.9 trillion (3.6% of global GDP), cut global CO2 emissions by more than 20% and cut premature air pollution deaths by more than half,” it says.
In addition, Huffpost thinks we should place an unspecified price on CO2.
Putting a Price on Carbon: The principal reason that climate change has become the world’s biggest market failure is that the energy market’s price signals are broken. Government subsidies keep energy prices artificially low. Moreover, the prices we pay at the pump and electric meter do not include the cost of damages that carbon fuels do to public health, the environment and so on.
…
The most common argument against carbon pricing is that it would kill jobs and cripple the economy, but actual experience shows this is not necessarily the case. One example is found in the nine U.S. states whose carbon trading I cited above. Between 2009 and 2013, their economies reportedly grew more than 9% compared to 8.8% in the other 41 states, while their combined carbon emissions dropped 14%. The net economic benefit to the region’s economy was $1.3 billion.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-s-becker/how-can-we-pay-for-the-ne_b_8845586.html
Taxing our way to prosperity – the green solution to the global climate “crisis”.
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great idea…..start with the “un – developed” countries that give away their fuel to stay in power
Good point, Latimer. I listened in to a BBC R4 prog the other day where they were discussing Venezuela – where a full tank of petrol/gas costs the equivalent of ONE PENNY! Why is the green reich not going after that kind of subsidy.
I listened to that also but their English was so thick I could not discern what they were saying. Thank you for revealing it!
so let me see if I have this straight. we should tax people $5.3 trillion for the harm they do to themselves by using fossil fuels. and then what? will will give the $5.3 trillion back to these people to make restitution for the harm that was done them?
or will the $5.3 trillion be used to “teach us a lesson”? to teach us to not use fossil fuels? Because clearly you can’t give the money back to the people, or they might just spend it on fossil fuels, or on needless things created by fossil fuels, like food, clothing and shelter.
So in reality, the $5.3 trillion isn’t going to go back to the people that are harmed by fossil fuels, because they would use the money to create more carbon pollution. The money should instead go to those who know how to spend it wisely, on private jets, designer fashions, sea-side villas, and annual trips to COPXX, where they can save the world from the rest of us.
I realize now that the acronym “COP” stands for “Coalition of Pirates”. The participants have all agreed to rob people of their energy wealth.
And they’ve conspired 21 times to figure out how to do it, too!
No, we just tax $2.9 trillion more per year, and Government gets to keep it. There’s nothing about redistribution of the collected taxes back to the masses – just taken from them. And somehow we’ll cut CO2 output by 20%…
“…premature air pollution deaths…”
Could this notion possibly be more nebulous?
@PiperPaul;
1/2 of 0 deaths is 0 deaths. QED
T
If you ask the person dying, most deaths are premature….
Many births are too. Must be due to global warming – everything else is.
CAGW has caused me to spend alot of time educating myself. Time is money, so NOW I need some grant money to make up for the education that WUWT/CE/JoNova/NotAlot. This phenom is due to global warming or the lead poisoning I no doubt received as a child.
Where do I get a check ?
Or as noted in “Breaker Moran”…” every life ends in a dreadful execution. You, Peter, have the good luck to know when!”
“I hear young people asking who’d want to live to be ninety anyway? Well, probably most of the eighty-nine-year-olds for starters.”
Studs Terkel on turning 90 years old.
Over 40 million babies terminated from the procedure called “abortion” and these people are worried about premature air pollution deaths?
Talk about hypocrisy.
The 40 million?
That is just a “lifestyle choice”.
What is premature air pollution?
I don’t see how.
And to what end? Money into powerful pockets and nothing ever achieved…
Hi from Oz. So what exactly is a “post-tax” subsidy – it’s not in any of my economics textbooks. The words “including the social and environmental costs of using fossil fuels” imply that they are not subsidies as economists know them, but have simply been labelled as “subsidies” (using a classic dis-information method – re-define a commonly understood word to mean the opposite) to grab headlines when they are just hypothecated “social and environmental costs” that are magically made to add up to a gigantic number intended to scare the bejeesus out of Joe and Jane Sixpack. So from which activist organisation did HuffPost get this magic, scary number? Let me guess…
Nothing the left says is in any textbook,dictionary, or vernacular of any sane individual.
I think that is too harsh. Left-wing ideas end up in textbooks, only they don’t often make any sense. Social cost is a typical left-wing idea, which makes sense in a limited scope, but becomes arbitrary and undefined when applied largely.
A power plant producing waste in form of soot is causing some kind of damage, but attributing that to ‘fossil use’ is totally mistaken. It is not the fossil use, you can produce the same damage (and more!) by burning wood for same energy. The error comes from incorrect, or rather, arbitrary attribution of social cost sources. This is not to say there is no room for using wood, just that attribution based of arbitrary property is a misconception.
When the attribution to fossil – not fossil is misleading at best, even worse is the way of assigning price in dollars to things that are more or less priceless (in the meaning they can’t be sold or bought even though they can be valuable).
In short, social cost people say ‘your fossils killed my granny, that’s a million bucks’, when they should say ‘lets start filtering the exhaust or start using nuclear as it has less effect of environment – I’ll pay’. But they won’t because these left-wing people think energy production is not something they need. They think they can live, work and enjoy health care and other modern comforts and it is the other people whose activities cause the pollution. At best they start to recycle plastic bags as if minimal changes in their immediate surroundings has larger effect than the side effects of their pension. Their grasp on what economy is about is stunning. That is why they can be described as left-wing.
Sorry about the occasional non-grammatical expressions. It is much easier to type a word correctly than form a sentence correctly. I’m sentenced to be blind on wrong or missing little words.
Hugs December 20, 2015 at 11:59 pm
Social cost people are, as usual, looking at the wrong side of the equation. Thousands of people a winter month die of cold in energy poverty in a UK winter. So the cure for this is to raise energy prices dramatically? Well the ‘social cost people’ then say with a straight face and complete illogicality, that the energy companies raised the price!
Anyone who uses the term ‘social cost’ should be treated as ignorant of economics and almost certainly innumerate.
““including the social and environmental costs of using fossil fuels””
No explanation of “social costs”. Must be in denial of social benefits.
The news media, I mean the looney tunes up here in Montreal are using the extremely warm temperatures expected over Christmas to confirm climate change. However December 27th 1952 my sister and I made the front page of the local news paper. We had just received new ice skates for Christmas. We had them tied around our shoulders with no ice around. Over time I remember skating as early as the last week in November and as late as the end of March. Happy Solstice 11:49 PM .https://weatherspark.com/history/28390/1952/Montreal-Quebec-Canada
An annual $1.5 Trillion in additional foodstuff production world-wide from the increase in atmospheric CO2 would be one estimated benefit.
Of course, when HuffPo finds that out, they’ll be proposing a tax on it to offset their insane claim of harm.
These people are simply anti-human.
“some are indirect “post tax” subsidies,” Subsidies are direct money to a companies by the government. There is no such animal as a “post tax” subsidies. It’s called tax deduction.
The IMF as well as other banks will get rich trading CO2 credits paid on the backs of the working poor.
I wondered what the driver was to the global warming agenda at lest what you have stated gives a reason for the push. I couldn’t understand why the elite would let some green agenda ruin their profits from fossil fuels.
I would appreciate any other forces that may be driving this agenda other than tree huggers getting their way.
It’s even worse than you think. The tax deductions are included in the direct subsidies calculation. The “post tax” subsidies are based on ‘social cost’. Things like road maintenance, polar bears dying, coral bleaching.
Why stop at 2.9 trillion? Why not double it. You’d double the prosperity!!
Why how very Keynesian of you.
I was thinking the same. These people don’t have any clue, so they actually could end up in 5.8E12 and it would not make a difference to them.
I think the Huffpuff is happy any time they benefit from spending that will be covered by children yet born. One – they will all be republicans because liberals tend to kill their children before birth, and two – they don’t get to vote on our bad behavior today. All the people alive today are not enough to pay down the deficit. When those people who survive a pro-choice incubation realize what a box of poop we left on their porch they’re going to be pissed. In my lifetime we’ve gone from the greatest generation to the most irresponsible, egregious asshats in the history of the nation.
Can you spare us the “prolife” junk?
Why? The alarmists are not the only group that can express concern for the next generation.
It is part of the whole alarmist self-loathing world view, so no. I’m actually pro-choice but aware of the disconnect between alarmists and the bleatings they use to justify their hate humanity first agenda.
You are a product of prolife junk. Be happy or fix it.
“You are a product of prolife junk”
Are you high?
What does “prolife” have to do with anything?
simple-touriste wrote: “Are you high?”
High enough not to worry much about sea level rise.
“What does prolife have to do with anything?”
The writer was critical of prolife junk, yet he is a product of prolife junk, that is to say, he was almost certainly conceived in the normal way, carried to term in a woman’s womb and birthed. It is easy and probably Darwinian to want everyone else to cease to exist to make more room for oneself.
‘You are a product of prolife junk.’
Sex. Totally different thing.
‘Be happy or fix it.’
Reading a bible apparently won’t make people any better.
Hugs wrote: “Sex. Totally different thing.”
Sex without conception did not bring the commenter into existence. Conception and being carried to term and birthed brought the commenter into existence.
“Reading a bible apparently won’t make people any better.”
Got cite? I didn’t think so. What exactly is “better” anyway? Is better defined in the bible? Indeed it is. Without a bible, “better” ceases to have any kind of universal meaning. What it means to you is likely not what it means to me. Now then, read slowly and carefully; just like I write, I have written “a” bible, it does not need to be the King James Version. It just needs to be widely accepted as a source of moral authority.
Now if you believe Huffington Post is that source, notice that it is inconsistent in specifics; trying to glean what the left believes is “better” is largely impossible at Huffington Post because each writer there brings his or her own ideas of “better” which fortunately are often at odds with other writers as otherwise the left would be a lot more dangerous than is already the case.
I have spent years trying to understand the left and I feel no closer to it. It really does seem to be on the intellectual level of a child: I want to be happy and I want it NOW. What exactly it takes to feel happy is extremely variable; perhaps I will be happy giving your money to the poor. A proposed thought process will for some be: “I don’t mean for them to cease to be poor, it just makes me feel good to feel superior to them, and I demonstrate that superiority by giving your money to them.”
How many claim “think of the children!” while having none of their own? I do not know the answer, but hypocrisy seems rampant on the left. Leonardo DiCaprio preaching against sea level rise but building a huge resort about 6 feet above sea level on a sandbar in Belize.
Speaking of bible; it warns against building houses on sandbars. Obviously DiCaprio doesn’t believe that part.
Actually, I do feel a bit closer to understanding the left; it involves a few too many “mirror neurons” and the leftist projects himself into this disaster or that and will do anything to avoid it. They are easily led.
We really need to leave the pro-life/choice thing out of these discussions.
It’s a debate stirred up by religious zealots who are just as bad as the green zealots.
Liberals hate reality.
What?
Believing that killing babies makes you a religious zealot.
Interesting how intolerant liberals can be.
A bunch of cells is not a “baby”.
simple-touriste “A bunch of cells is not a baby.”
Whereas a baby is a bunch of cells. Obviously “bunch of cells” denotes a great many things of which “baby” is a particular instance.
You are a bunch of cells, but not probably a baby.
“he is a product of prolife junk”
Nobody is a product of prolife.
You are high, or drunk, or both.
simple-touriste wrote “Nobody is a product of prolife.”
Everyone is a product of prolife. Life, summum bonum, emanates from conception.
“You are high, or drunk, or both.”
Maybe, but you are engaging with such because your arguments are weak.
Simple minded, you are nothing but a bunch of cells.
A significant number of children of conservatives will turn out to be leftwing; I suspect at the moment a rather high proportion having been raised on Facebook and cellphones. Feed me, make me happy, I’ll vote for you! If NONE of todays Democrats succeeded in having children I suspect you’d still have nearly the proportion of Democrats in future generations.
That is the result of a dominant leftist presence in the education system. Been there since my kids were 1st graders (mid-1960s). Hated it then, hate it now. It pains me that you are probably right but that’s the world we live in. It is a really bad thing then the authoritative adults in one’s live are agenda-driven. Kind of insidious in the same way that so-called 97% consensus is insidious but a fiction. The leftist education system is insidious but a reality.
A lot of them grow out of it. An English friend once said;
If you’re not a socialist when you’re 16, you have no heart. If you are a socialist when you are 60, you have no head.
What is “prolife”?
simple-touriste “What is prolife?”
The opposite of death for the species. In common use it speaks to allowing the natural human reproductive process to proceed which includes somewhat variously the social framework for it.
Prochoice is libertarian; choose.
These concepts are not rival; they are orthogonal. You can choose a great many things. I am “prolife” AND “prochoice”.
The important factor to consider is liberty. I have chosen for myself. Whether I allow you to choose for yourself relates to liberty. Since I am libertarian, I allow you to choose for yourself but I will resist you choosing for me.
People don’t seem to get the association between pro-choice and climate alarmists so I’ll explain it. You cannot be pro-choice and still wish to base your entire climate agenda on saving the children (future generations, year 2100). It is an example of leftist double-think and highlighting that is a perfectly good way to torment the alarmist motivation. I’m (not uniquely) a pro-choice atheist political conservative so none of the usual barbs about being a anti-abortion religious crank apply. I also don’t believe you can use children as a justification for destroying global economies if you are likely to leave a dead body behind at an abortion clinic. It is a matter of principle. Being a limousine liberal is rife with these dichotomies and they are worth pointing out. They can be very grotesque when they want to be.
Applying the old ‘if I reduce the level of tax that I have applied to your industry it is a subsidy’ lie I see. Enron accounting at its best. Most of the price of my gallon of petrol or diesel in the UK is made up of tax already. The oil industry already pays high taxes and with the price slump the UK taxes have been reduced to try to keep the wells open and stop job losses. Not been too successful with the continued over-supply in the market.
I’m yet to see a company anywhere on the face of the earth pay 1 cent of tax unless their management is incompetent.
Companies always:
1. pass the tax along to their customers.
2. cut back on wages and benefits to employees
3. cut the quality and safety of the product
4. move to a lower tax country
5. liquidate (cash in retained earnings) and go out of business
Very few if any of the above benefit the country in which the tax is applied. In many cases, the social cost of point 2 is very much greater than any taxes raised.
Quite simply, it is very hard to tax the rich, which includes corporations, because they have sufficient disposable income to fight back and thus avoid the tax. Taxes are largely paid by the poor, because they have no extra resources with which to avoid the tax.
Eric,
My grandfather used the “If you not a socialist…” line over 60 years ago, only he used 40 for the terminal date. I agree.
I’d add that if you see the socialist/capitalism continuum as black and white when you’re 16, you have no experience and if you see it as black and white when you’re 40, you have no understanding. Lots of straw men and dead horses to beat by both sides who see continuums in black and white.
Most of the price of my gallon of petrol or diesel in the UK is made up of tax already
===============
Have a look at all the taxes applied to fuel in Canada:
Federal Excise tax
GST/HST
Carbon Tax
Transit Tax
Provincial Sales Tax
Provincial Fuel Tax
http://retail.petro-canada.ca/images/general/tax-barchart-2013_en.gif
ferdberple
“Hidden” taxes and government-but-let-the-rest-of-us-pay-for-it fees can sneak in other places too: I rented a car at the Kansas City airport. It included a daily “fee” to pay for the downtown pro sports stadium. But, since only businesses and tourists rent cars at the airport rental car lots, local sport attendees didn’t have to pay for “their” stadium.
Transit tax, I assume, is a tax on cars (which are needed by almost all workers, but very, very unpopular with “do-gooders” and city planners in the public “service”) to pay for public transit (which is needed by very few, but is very “popular” with “do-gooders” and their “city planners” employed by the public taxes paid for by everybody else.)
In the US, fuel taxes were originally intended for highway repairs and routine maintenance, but have been steadily diverted more and more towards “public transit” and “city planning” takeovers-by-committee. Same up there?
Here in Ontario, and I suspect elsewhere, the PST and HST are added AFTER the other taxes.
Yes, tax on tax.
I think that is an old chart. Alberta’s new socialist government recently added a new tax to gas, and is planning a new carbon tax that will also affect fuel prices.
France here (careful, different color code):
http://www.connaissancedesenergies.org/sites/default/files/album_images/structuration-des-prix-a-la-pompe_mars_2015_zoom.png
I don’t know if they still do it. But the liberals used to list tax cuts as a form of expenditure.
I am getting malicious software warning for this site.
It is one of the ad servers, we are looking to get it removed
Anthony
How much money we needed to run the pages ad-free?
/reaching to one’s pocket/
My browser is firefox. My antivirus in Kaspersky. I don’t even see any of these warnings I hear about and I don’t get any ads!
Just so ya know
and thanks for everything you do Anthony
“I don’t even see any of these warnings I hear about and I don’t get any ads!”
Maybe you have an adblocker.
Hugs, it cost $30 per year to run ads free on wordpress. I run ads free on my wordpress blog (not climate related) and it makes for much cleaner reading. I’m not sure that Anthony has been able to look into it – he’s much busier than I am and his blog is much bigger. That shouldn’t make a difference, but the size and readership of WUWT might well put him into a different bracket.
It is also possible that your internet service provider or multifamily dwelling owner may be inserting advertisements. In fact, you might even be doing it to yourselves via proxy mechanism, also known as “toolbars”.
See http://justinsomnia.org/2012/04/hotel-wifi-javascript-injection/
You can defeat man-in-the-middle ad injection using https instead of http:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/20/huffpost-touts-economic-benefits-of-a-2-9-trillion-annual-tax-hike-on-fossil-fuels/
You’ll still get WordPress sponsored ads and you might get your very own toolbar injected ads, but at least you won’t get ISP injected ads.
I had to block the ads, they were dragging Chrome to a crawl.
Me too. Sorry, I would ordinarily allow them from you site, as it is for a good cause, but my CPU went up to 25% with a single tab showing WUWT.
Me too. My monthly allotment was suddenly getting used up in ten days, I had to do something or give up WUWT. Can’t do that! So I took the advice of kindly souls here and installed an ad-blocker on Chrome. Works a treat.
Hivemind, as far as I know, WUWT does not benefit from the ads that run. It’s a way wordpress makes it’s money and fair enough as they allow bloggers a place to be at no cost.
The $5.3 trillion nonsense has been debunked so many times, and so thoroughly, that anyone still pushing this zombie idea can only be an idiot or a liar.
We tried taxing the hell out of fossil fuels here in Europe. We also tried subsidizing electric cars and mass transit and such. Surprise, surprise – combustion cars still command 99% of the market and we still burn a lot of fossil fuels, though obviously less than the US or Australia, for example.
But somehow, we have *more* pollution than SUV-land… unless you call CO2 pollution. We do emit less of that gas.
‘…can only be an idiot or a liar.’ Or possibly both.
“can only be an idiot or a liar”
Or a supercritical idiot-liar (in a state where he is both lying and in error at the same time, and you can’t tell which is which).
And just what would you expect from huffpo? After all, they are one of the MAJOR leftist democrap websites on the internet! Frankly, I would be surprised with anything less from them!
Go Trump Go!
Arianna Huffington knows full well that working stiffs are the ones who will ultimately pay the vast majority of this tax. So much for the leftist concern for the poor and working class.
I am not sure Airhead Huffandpuff knows much of anything.
She knows how to make a fortune out of the envy and malice of the Left.
Huffington Post now has only a few comments at the site due to making these extremely tiny print size and you can’t enlarge it, it is coded to stay very tiny and barely readable and of course, isn’t allowed at many of the stories, total censorship.
I don’t know why anyone would bother to read it at this point in time. A number of ‘liberal’ publications have nearly or totally eliminated comments.
Yep, I used to be a regular commenter at HuffPo, making thousands of comments over the years.
I had my account banned for no reason, I was never vulgar, never attacked people. I was an unapologetic conservative, which was enough apparently.
I created a new account, which again survived for a while. But then when they cracked down on “anonymous accounts”, I left and never looked back.
At the very least they should have grandfathered in long-standing anonymous accounts that played by the rules. Anonymity is a valuable thing, and should be granted to everyone who respects the rules of conduct.
She’s the COB of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Public_Integrity
An upside down world.
I reckon there ought to be a GREEN levy/tax of, say, 20%, on petrol and on coal fired electricity..
BUT,
only people who think we should be “saving the planet from evil CO2” have to pay that levy. 😉
Also, they should put a 100% carbon surcharge on all travel to the next COP-out conference.
That’s my thinking too. Go door to door and collect all the names of the people who think windmills and solar are the way to go and then inform them that they will be the only ones to pay for it and it will be their only source of electricity. They will also not be permitted to buy gasoline, heating oil or natural gas.
When they complain simply inform them that we’re going to make them walk the talk until they decide to come back to the world of the sane.
That 100% carbon surcharge on all travel to the next COP-out conference would mostly (97% !) come from taxes paid by others. The UN folks and government types don’t pay their own way. In one way or another, tax payers from the developed countries pay for these parties.
I prefer the idea of a “fossil fuel exclusion zone” to completely surround COP22. Once you enter the zone all forms of energy derived from fossil fuels will be banned. Transportation must be by bicycle or wind/solar-powered public transit; hot water for showers must come from solar heaters; all electrical power for the conference must come from 100% RE sources.
No concrete, steel or aliminum can be used in the construction of any structures built for the conference. All banners, posters, etc., must be made from 100% natural fibers. Anyone who displays blatant disregared for the earth’s future by wearing anything containing artificial fibers will be “named and shamed”.
All food served must be 100% locally-sourced, with no fossil fuels used the the preparation. Obviously, no styrofoam food containers or cups. All paper items must be 100% recycled.
A “carbon cost” must be calculated and displayed on everything provided for the conference to help raise awareness of our collective carbon footprint. And the same for transportation to/from the conference, except for the intrepid souls who come by sailing craft (on that note, perhaps a certain whisky company can be induced to sponsor a “row to the COP” team so Al Gore won’t have to spend so much money on carbon credits for his private jet).
These rules will apply to delegates, attendees and reporters.
The carbon cost of this blog post is 0.97 kg
Please recycle it to help save the planet
But Alan, since almost all food requires CO2 to form, food could be completely eliminated from these Coalition of Pirate (COP) functions, too! That would be the logical application of their argument.
Alan CD-7, please add to the “carbon cost” bill, 100% cost of any and all Climate Model computer runs powered by fossil fuel sources at the monetary rate they propose for “carbon credits”. When it takes a computer rated in MW power months to run these models, they should have to pay “for the good of the Children” and mother earth.
They actually do that here. Most electricity providers have a Green option where you can pay more for ‘green’ electricity. It would be interesting to see how many people actually have signed up for that?
William/Bill Becker from Colorado State U. New Energy Economy/NEE that has been funded by Steyer and a couple of other billionaires.
Oil depletion allowance is the same as depreciation allowances for other business purposes. Not a subsidy, but if you can manage to twist things around you can away with it.
Linkedin: William Becker
Member of Mikhail Gorbachev’s International Climate Change Task Force.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/william-becker-63b7634
As Dellers predicted 7 months ago.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/20/5-3-trillion-on-government-fossil-fuel-subsidies-what-total-and-utter-bilge/
Socialist liberals love to spend Other Peoples Money !!!
As Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
I can’t help but reference Josh’s cartoon one more time as it pretty much says it all —
?dl=0
(Add names as you see fit):
Awesome eyes … i’ve seen those before in many a desperate leader.
Would that tax apply to the fossil fuel energy required to build/transport/erect a wind turbine and its massive concrete base. How about the energy required to link it to the grid, or the energy needed for load balancing? Or have we come up some magical way of producing and installing these monsters using green energy alone? Thought not.
The Green Machines will get more tax breaks to make up for any increase they may suffer !!!
Just asking,
is there any provision for “end of life” demolition charges on wind turbines?
What sort of a lunatic believes that they putting up taxes will cause the Earth’s climate, which has continuously changed for around 4,500,000,000 years, to suddenly cease to change?
Ah, don’t tell me, a “Liberal” Lefty!
The same people whose stupidity was leveraged to pass obamacare (according to the architect of obamacare, Jonathan Gruber), are also too stupid to realize that if a price is put on carbon, the following two things are going to result:
1) The higher costs incurred by businesses will be passed on to the consumer.
2) The government could potentially get so much revenue that there would be no need to tax the rich.
For those interested in the real subsidy numbers and who is paying the subsidies, see my post here.
w.
+1
Willis
Re the W. Connelly contribution to your linked post
From
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/discussion/post/2563294?currentPage=4
“What was the most revised food page on Wikipedia last year?
Stoat in the hole”
+2
Economic damage of 2 degrees ~ 0.2% to 2.0% of global income.
Source; IPCC AR5 WGII P663
https://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5-Chap10_FINAL.pdf
Cost of staying below 2 degrees ~ 1.7% to 4.8%
Source; IPCC AR5 WGIII SPM P15
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers.pdf
What kind of idiot economist spends 4.8% of global income to prevent 2% of economic damage? Not to mention that if the damage of 2 degrees is only 2% (a number I find highly suspect, but itz their number let’s accept it for the moment) how, exactly, is that a catastrophe? In fact, as it turns out, not only is it not a catastrophe, the IPCC explicitly says that OTHER factors are more likely to impact our lives than climate change:
For most economic sectors, the impact of climate change will be small relative to the impacts of other drivers (medium evidence, high agreement). Changes in population, age, income, technology, relative prices, lifestyle, regulation, governance, and many other aspects of socioeconomic development will have an impact on the supply and demand of economic goods and services that is large relative to the impact
of climate change.
Source; IPCC AR5 WGII P662</b
oops forgot the link for that last one:
https://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5-Chap10_FINAL.pdf
davidmhoffer
Cost of NOT doing ANYTHING (of completely relaxing ALL CAGW-fighting economic and political activities) = +4 to +8% increase in all areas of the global economy.
“Penalty” of increasing CO2 from 280 to 480 ppm? +6% to +22% MORE growth in ALL plant life on earth.
“Effect” on global average temperature of an increase in CO2 from 280 ppm to 480 ppm? 0.0 degrees.
LOL…I love that!
Let’s spend trillions to mitigate possible random, unspecified disasters happening in unspecified locations at unknown times in the future.
DMH, there you go talking about money and the economy. That is not the goal.
U.S. House Science Committee – July 9, 2015
ADMINISTRATOR GINA MCCARTHY: “No sir, I don’t agree with you. If you look at the RIA we did, the Regulatory Impact Analysis you would see it’s enormously beneficial.
CHAIRMAN SMITH: “Do you consider one one-hundredth of a degree to be enormously beneficial?”
ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “The value of this rule is not measured in that way. It is measured in showing strong domestic action which can actually trigger global action to address what’s a necessary action to protect…”
CHAIRMAN SMITH: “Do you disagree with my one one-hundredth of a degree figure? Do you disagree with the one one-hundredth of a degree?”
ADMINISTRATOR MCCARTHY: “I’m not disagreeing that this action in and of itself will not make all the difference we need to address climate action, but what I’m saying is that if we don’t take action domestically we will never get started and we’ll never…”
Read more: http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/07/15/epa-chief-admits-obama-regs-have-no-measurable-climate-impact-one-one-hundredth-of-a-degree-epa-chief-mccarthy-defends-regs-as-enormously-beneficial-symbolic-impact/#ixzz3jxPsOENF
Now recalculate using # of Triggers and it will all make sense.
/s
‘Simply put, the goal of the agreement at that conference is to build a world in which we achieve and sustain universal prosperity without plummeting into a future of irreversible climate catastrophe.’
So climate change is about “universal prosperity?” Note that the U.N. has declared war on subsistence farming, declaring it “extreme poverty.” The billion farmers and their families will be shocked to learn of their extreme poverty.
Since universal prosperity is not possible, the end result will be as it always is with communism, universal poverty. But as long as everyone is equally destitute . . . .
What is missing from the Huffington post article is this “inconvenient” fact:
Human life expectancy has increased more in the last 50 years than it did in the previous 200,000 years of human existence. In 1950, life expectancy was 47 years. In 2011, it was 70.
We can all thank fossil fuels for that.
Reminds me of the national debt and how some feel it is no big deal because of all the things deficit spending supports.
This small minded premise observes what the borrowed spending pays for while remaining oblivious to what the debt servicing could be buying were it not for the debt.
Of course when we are seeking “to build a world in which we achieve and sustain universal prosperity without plummeting into a future of irreversible climate catastrophe” the adventure is a futile pursuit of an mendacious illusion without any authentic assessment, analysis or judgement necessary or possible.
Feeling is believing.
That is all. Good day.
World Peace
Spending on the debt is already the largest single line item in the budget. I dread to think what is going to happen if interest rates ever return to normal.
MarkW says: “Spending on the debt is already the largest single line item in the budget”
…
(Note: “Buster Brown” is the latest fake screen name for ‘David Socrates’, ‘Brian G Valentine’, ‘Joel D. Jackson’, ‘beckleybud’, ‘Edward Richardson’, ‘H Grouse’, and about twenty others. The same person is also an identity thief who has stolen legitimate commenters’ names. Therefore, all the time and effort he spent on posting 300 comments under the fake “BusterBrown” name is wasted, because I am deleting them wholesale. ~mod.)
there will be alot of growing up going on.
Health care is dozens of separate programs.