ACES Passes
To note the obvious catch-up news from last night, the Waxman-Markey American Climate and Energy Security Act passes the House of Representatives late yesterday after a weird John Boehner effort at a quasi-filibuster. The bill has its shortcomings, but people should recognize an enormous achievement here by Henry Waxman, Ed Markey, and Nancy Pelosi all of whom drove this forward against fairly daunting odds. In my experience around Washington, DC exactly zero hack political consultants take the view that saving the world from catastrophic climate change is a clever thing for a politician to make a top priority. At the same time, speak to scientists across a variety of fields and they’ll all say that, as a matter of substance, saving the world from catastrophic climate change is the most important thing for politicians to make a top priority. Few politicians are inclined to choose the latter consideration over the former, but those three members of the House of Representatives did and thanks to their skill and determination have been able to pull off an important bill.
Now, of course, the legislation goes to the Senate which, historically speaking, is where good and important ideas have gone to die. Brad Plumer says “I’m not convinced this thing is dead in the Senate (more on that later), but it’s obviously a much steeper challenge.” That’s not reason for hope. The challenge in the House was pretty darn steep. At the end of the day, climate is just exactly the sort of issue where the American political system is well-designed to catastrophically screw up. The incentives are all horrible. Things will only happen if a certain number of people decide to step up, and behave in a statesmanlike manner. You don’t need 100 Senators to do that, but you do need more than zero.
69 Responses to “ACES Passes”
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June 27th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Before any other crap gets posted in here I would like to point out that this bill includes TARIFFS on countries that don’t pass good enough carbon legislation.
Smook-Hawley pt. deux. Great Depression part deux. Congrats Obama, well on our way to repeating the most obvious mistakes of the past.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Well said! The ACES is far from perfect, and it barely passed the easier of the two congressional bodies, but it ain’t nothing. The folks in the house who pushed this deserve credit.
To those who say this bill is so compromised that it is worse than useless, I understand where you’re coming from. I really do. But at the end of the day, I disagree.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Nathan, care to cite a source for your “TARIFFS” claim? Haven’t seen it mentioned in by any of the opposing congress-critters. Also, GE supports ACES, and they get 57% of their profits from overseas. I’d think think they’d be aware of such provisions (they must have a lobbyist or 2) and they would oppose, no?
June 27th, 2009 at 10:46 am
It’s so pulp sci-fi, life-imitates-bad-art, to be living inside this script where the politicians ignore the scientists’ dire warnings of impending catastrophe. Can we call rewrite, please?
June 27th, 2009 at 10:46 am
In my experience around Washington, DC exactly zero hack political consultants take the view that saving the world from catastrophic climate change is a clever thing for a politician to make a top priority.
According to Matt Taibbi’s article in Rolling Stone, financial companies are huge fans of cap&trade, because they get to administer the system and collect revenues from the tax (instead of the government).
So maybe Goldman Sachs & co are lobbying for this law; in this case it has a chance in the Senate.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:50 am
I think we owe a big thank you to the R’s that supported this bill. Pretty brave, considering they’ll be crucified by Rush for it.
Mary Bono (CA)
Michael Castle (DE)
Mark Kirk (IL)
Leonard Lance (NJ)
Frank LoBiondo (NJ)
John McHugh (NY)
Dave Reichert (WA)
Chris Smith (NJ)
June 27th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Good news. I thought it was a good move to have Angela Merkel here to show cooperation with Europe. Interesting that Germany’s conservatives like Merkel are more green than some Democrats. Maybe has something to do with the German voters and civil society.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Mark Kirk (IL) could possibly run for Burris’s Senate seat. Lately he’s been on a jihad against a new potent variety of marijuana that Illinois’s dealers have been selling.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:12 am
And what’s wrong with tariffs? Or even TARIFFS?
June 27th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Why can’t anyone ever write “Smoot-Hawley” correctly?
Tho’ I must admit that “smook” really is an excellent word. It’s up there with the new euphemistic phrase “hooting my smalley.”
June 27th, 2009 at 11:38 am
I was pleased to see in this week’s New Yorker that James Hansen agrees with my take that the planet would be faaaaar better off if Waxman-Markey failed to pass, since then we could start again with the kind of carbon tax that would actually be a foundation for a multi-decade effort to save the planet. Waxman-Markey is a dysfunctional charade that will postpone the opportunity for constructive legislation for a decade or more.
I further agree with Hansen that the Washington environmental lobby is dangerously idiotic when it comes to global warming. The Washington environmental lobby is actually more of an obstacle to saving the planet than the coal lobby.
(Note: link is to abstract of the article. Full text is unfortunately only available to subscribers, or can be currently purchased on newsstands in old-timey dead tree format.)
June 27th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Tariffs are a restraint of trade. Look up Smoot-Hawley on wiki. it made the Great Depression worse than it had to be.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:44 am
By the way, has anyone actually read the bill just passed? My guess is no.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Lost you after ‘tax’. We have this thing called ‘Congress’.
When the meltwater from Greenland is thigh-high, you’ll get a tax. But not before.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Bullshit, SHOOTER242. Tariffs in general can make things worse, or better. Worse for some and better for others. Like everything else. You’re an idiot, admit it.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Good to see that Petey is still living in the fantasyland where John Edwards is a viable presidential candidate.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
This sort of thing is such a tired canard. While it is important to read bills, I fear many dont understand how they are written when they make this Boehner-like bleat:
Bills generally amend existing statutes and are neither cohesive or decipherable. They are written by counsel and if you read this bill (which I unfortunately had to read parts of) your generally not going to come away with much of an understanding.
Also, it would take you an incredibly long time – I believe the manager’s amendment alone was 1200 pages of nonsense.
—–
The bills provisions on holding other countries accountable (ie the smoot-hawley yapping) are actually quite weak and the point is to hopefully use this legislation as a marker to pressure India and China at Copenhagen.
But I actually agree with Petery for what it is worth. I think this is a charade and a carbon tax would be infinitely better, but such is the case.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
The truth is that whatever we end up doing will probably bear only a passing resemblance to this bill. There’s the Senate to work with; there are negotiations with other governments, which may force us to change details — etc. etc.
The important thing at this stage is to demonstrate that there’s political will to do *something* about the problem.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Petey, Joe Romm at ClimateProgress dismantles this POV pretty well. I think your view is entirely foolish, simplistic, and idealistic.
Much like your constant idealistic shilling for John Edwards.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
“The important thing at this stage is to demonstrate that there’s political will to do *something* about the problem.”
Well, no.
The important thing at this stage would be to pass a very, very modest but well-designed fully-rebated on per-capita basis carbon tax that we could gradually ramp up over the next 5 to 10 years as folks see that it won’t make the sky fall.
If you design the system properly, you can scale it up with full public support.
If you design the system dysfunctionally (like Waxman-Markey), you end up with a mess 5 to 10 years down the line that becomes a major political obstacle to expanding the effort.
Social Security has lasted 75 years because it was designed to be politically popular. We need a carbon reduction legislative effort that will also need to last through generations by means of public support. A simple fully-rebated carbon tax would fit the bill. People would understand it and continue to support it as it ramped up. The Waxman-Markey structure will crumble down the line as it tries to ramp up.
The Washington environmental lobby is dangerously idiotic because all they care about is the symbolism of passing anything. And passing a bad bill will severely hurt the long-term effort to save the planet.
June 27th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
“Petey, Joe Romm at ClimateProgress dismantles this POV pretty well”
I’m well aware that the entire Washington environmental lobby has a different perspective on this than I do.
They’re well intentioned folks who just happen to be dangerously idiotic.
They don’t understand how successful legislative efforts that span decades work.
(I also know that some of the Washington environmental lobby folks shared my perspective before immense pressure was put on everyone to fall in line to get with the program in order to just pass anything. Careerism, which is an important thing to factor into figuring out how Washington works, has forced an artificial consensus among Washington environmental lobby folks.)
June 27th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
abb1 squealed:
Bullshit, SHOOTER242. Tariffs in general can make things worse, or better. Worse for some and better for others. Like everything else. You’re an idiot, admit it.
This is true, but it is also true that the net benefit is always, or nearly almost always, negative, and often largely so.
Jeff S. said:
Also, GE supports ACES, and they get 57% of their profits from overseas.
This is true but not a proof of anything. Businesses often want tariffs, but they want to be in the benefiting group abb1 went on about. A business supporting a tariff is not really the sign of anything at all. It is one of the uglier sides of business influence in the economy.
-AM
June 27th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Bullshit, 22. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and, like I said, you’re obviously an idiot, whatever moniker you use.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
OK, well that settles it. Finely done. Well argued, my good sir. You are a gentleman and a squire, and all of that good stuff.
-AM
June 27th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Tariffs as a means of protecting domestic firms from having to fairly compete with foreign firms are indeed generally a bad idea in the long run.
However, tariffs as a means of enforcing a globally-relevant carbon pricing scheme are something else entirely.
Of course aside from ignoring this rather crucial distinction, the people citing this concern also tend to ignore the fact that such tariffs would not be immediately imposed, and indeed may never be imposed.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
DTM,
With all due respect, the differences you cite are not so great. To be more clear, they are only different if tariffs cause non-compliers to comply, but if not, they are simply trade sanctions for another reason. The regular analysis of tariff effect does, however, still apply.
-AM
June 27th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Quasi filibuster? Gosh forbid the people voting on the bill have time to actually read it. Why was the vote rushed? Why are Democrats so afraid to have a debate on this? I thought the science was so settled that an open debate would make it more likely to pass, not less?
June 27th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Soak that stale old talking point in a gallon of water with just a pinch of baking soda for 48-72 hours and you’ll be parroting it like new!
June 27th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Right, James. Boehner’s motivation for reading the bill was that he wanted to helpfully make sure everybody knew what was in it before the vote. Selfless of him, really, when you consider the possible strain on his vocal cords.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
To be more clear, they are only different if tariffs cause non-compliers to comply, but if not, they are simply trade sanctions for another reason. The regular analysis of tariff effect does, however, still apply.
Wrongo.
The point of pricing carbon is that it has negative externalities. The ordinary economic analysis of tariffs includes no such factor, such that the domestic and foreign products are considered interchangeable. That is why domestic consumers are harmed (they end up being restricted to higher-priced versions of the product due to tariffs), and in the long run everyone is harmed (because resources are wasted due to protecting relatively inefficient production methods from substitution by more efficient alternatives).
But in a carbon pricing case, the whole point is that we are trying to shift production away from more carbon-intensive methods through internalizing the harms of carbon. So if foreign countries are not pricing carbon and as a result their producers are using more carbon-intensive methods, we very much want some pricing mechanism to discourage substitution into those products by domestic consumers. Again, that is because in the absence of such a mechanism, those substitute transactions would have avoided internalizing the harms of carbon-intensive production, and thus would undermine the production shift we were trying to achieve. Note that none of this directly depends on the tariff forcing a change in behavior by the foreign country with respect to their carbon pricing policy, although of course it removes a potential incentive for them to delay action.
Now maybe if the negative externalities were localized, the smart thing to do would be to let the foreign country absorb those negative externalities while our domestic consumers got the benefit in the form of cheaper products. But in this case, the negative externalities are global in nature, so that isn’t an option.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
I thought the science was so settled that an open debate would make it more likely to pass, not less?
Not when one side of this “debate” is anti-science.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I don’t care what Boehner’s motive was, and I consider him to be in the same clown category as the rest of them.
It’s still the case that no one voting on the bill knows what’s in it, and thus made an utterly uninformed choice – on either side – with their vote.
So I’ll ask again: why was the vote so rushed? If the science is as clear and settled as you people say it is, more debate would have made it pass by a wider margin, right?
June 27th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
I don’t care what Boehner’s motive was, and I consider him to be in the same clown category as the rest of them.
It’s still the case that no one voting on the bill knows what’s in it, and thus made an utterly uninformed choice – on either side – with their vote.
So I’ll ask again: why was the vote so rushed? If the science is as clear and settled as you people say it is, more debate would have made it pass by a wider margin, right?
BTW I love your blog!
June 27th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
DTM-
We are saying basically the same thing, but you don’t realize that it is not a two player game, but a multi-player one. That limits the ability of the US to unilaterally punish, in an effective way. I certainly understand the point you are attempting to make, but it is neither nuanced nor complete.
FWIW, I like cap and trade systems, and have implemented similar systems tailored for organizations. I am always skeptical of rent seeking and gaming in these situations once they become political, but I think it is generally a pretty efficient set-up.
June 27th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
32. vs. 33. is kind of a head-scratcher. I like it!
Anyway, the idea that no one who voted on the bill had any idea what its salient/relevant provisions are is silly.
And the science has been clear for a long time, but that seems to make no difference to the majority of R’s, for whatever reason.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
We are saying basically the same thing, but you don’t realize that it is not a two player game, but a multi-player one. That limits the ability of the US to unilaterally punish, in an effective way. I certainly understand the point you are attempting to make, but it is neither nuanced nor complete.
Actually, you just made it clear you don’t understand the point I was making, and that we aren’t saying the same thing.
Again, it has nothing per se to do with “punishing” anyone. It has to do with making sure the harms of carbon are being internalized in all relevant transactions with domestic consumers, such that there will be the proper incentives for producers to switch to less carbon-intensive means of production, regardless of where they may be located.
And I am happy to discuss this issue with more “nuance” if you would like, but first you have to demonstrate that you understand this basic point.
That said, it is true that the U.S. alone has neither enough producers nor enough consumers to deal with the carbon issue “unilaterally”. That is a different argument, however, than the tariff argument.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
hum,
#33 is from some sort of ‘bot that copies real posts and then add “BTW I love your blog!” to the end.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
34 is someone else. The science isn’t settled – there are plenty of climate scientists who are skeptical about humanity’s role, skeptical about this kind of approach, or both. Bjorn Lomborg comes to mind in the latter camp.
When one side yells at the top of its lungs that the science is settled, and that therefore we need not have any discussion, it makes me wonder. If you’re really so sure, debate is not something you should fear.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I miss-typed – Lomborg is skeptical about the sort of approach taken by this bill. Richard Lindzen would be an example of someone skeptical of anthropogenic warming.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Being ’skeptical’ about what to do about it is not at all the same thing as believing that “the science isn’t settled.” In the current context, the latter phrase means acknowledging, as Lomborg does, that global climate change is real and man-made and will have serious harmful consequences.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
The science isn’t settled – there are plenty of climate scientists who are skeptical about humanity’s role, skeptical about this kind of approach, or both. Bjorn Lomborg comes to mind in the latter camp.
First, Bjorn Lomborg isn’t a climate scientist. His training and expertise is in political science.
Second, it confuses the issue to lump together people who are skeptical about this being the best approach and people who think we don’t need to do anything at all. If the “debate” in question was between people trying to come to a consensus about the optimal approach, that would potentially be interesting and useful. But here, the “debate” is between people who think there is a problem to solve and people who don’t, and once you have exhausted the limits of reason and evidence with the latter sort of people, there is really nothing more to “debate”.
If you’re really so sure, debate is not something you should fear.
No one is “afraid” of debating anti-science denialists. It is just a waste of time at this point.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Just saw the correction. At this point, the existence of whoever you can dig up doesn’t show ‘the science isn’t settled,” any more than the existence of scientifically credentialed advocates of “intelligent design” shows that “the science isn’t settled” re evolutionary theory.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
… or, what DTM said, since he said it better.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
DTM-
You are saying that the US not buying as much from high carbon countries will decrease high carbon production. That is, I believe, your point. You think that this will decrease global negative externalities. As you know, and admit, the US is not a big enough player (and getting smaller relatively) to affect that kind of change with a tariff unilaterally. In this case, the US gets both negative externalities from carbon emissions and deadweight loss from tariffs. In other words, the tariff does not change in economic analysis because it does not decrease negative externalities. It only has the tariff effect. Global coordination on trade sanctions doesn’t even work on a small scale, so how do you expect it to work on a large one.
Where we are saying the same thing, or at least what I meant by saying that, is that the goal is to reduce emissions worldwide, either by changing behavior or limiting the use of high carbon goods. We can do neither. We can neither punish to change behavior, nor can we control enough of the global market to make a significant difference. Of course, there are also major geopolitical issues at stake here, concerning influence over developing nations.
-AM
June 27th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Tariffs as a means of protecting domestic firms from having to fairly compete with foreign firms are indeed generally a bad idea in the long run.
This too is a bunch of nonsense. What’s “generally a bad idea”? This doesn’t mean anything.
Tariffs is pretty much the only way to develop national industries. Once your industries have been developed, you, of course, need to expand, find new markets, export. For that (in the post-colonial period) you need to convince others not to impose tariffs on your products. To convince them you may have to (reluctantly) drop your tariffs too. That’s the whole game.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I find this from Richard Lindzen interesting. It seems that – unlike the supposed consensus – all the bullying comes from those who want the gravy train of govt grants to continue. Not from “big oil”, or “big coal”.
Let me know when you’re actually willing to have an open mind, as opposed to treating Al Gore as some kind of secular prophet.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
James, thank you for the link. Asking “cui bono?”, and looking at political machinations, is generally a useful exercise, but doesn’t by itself show that a widely prevailing scientific consensus is invalid. But I did find the brief scientific discussion in the article interesting.
In that spirit, I’d recommend that you read the article on James Hansen in the current New Yorker.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
We’ll have to hope the Senate will restore the auctioning of credits and remove some of the offsets garbage. It’s hard to see why Matt is so entheusiastic about such a flawed bill.
June 27th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Boy, I’m sure glad that the government is not politically manipulating science or anything. I mean, this administration is supposed to be fearless about letting the science speak for itself, or something.
June 27th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
I know our schools are failures, but I had no idea it was this bad.
June 27th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
The CBO estimate on cost per household ($175/yr) is based on the assumption that the government will collect the full auction value of the tariffs and credit that amount to households (since government = households?). Furthermore, the reduction in taxes that results from households being poorer and occupying a lower tax bracket is also given as a bonus to household income. In short, $175 a year is about 1/3 to 1/4 of the real number. $600-800/yr is a more accurate low ball figure.
All this for a .1 degree reduction in global temperatures in 2100 (EPA estimate).
June 28th, 2009 at 12:22 am
A Microeconomist,
First, this isn’t about sanctions. You are really just persistently confusing the issue by suggesting trade issues involving protectionism, punishment, sanctions, or so on are directly relevant.
Second, it is true that I freely acknowledge that no matter what the United States does to price carbon, those efforts will likely fail if they are unilateral. But conversely, you are not entitled to assume those efforts will be unilateral–indeed, we basically already know the Europeans, at least, are on board. Generally, at most we simply don’t know yet if this scheme, potentially including tariffs, would be a beneficial part of a beneficial global effort. By the same logic, you are in no position to rule that possibility out.
June 28th, 2009 at 12:28 am
The CBO estimate on cost per household ($175/yr) is based on the assumption that the government will collect the full auction value of the tariffs and credit that amount to households (since government = households?).
The rebates aren’t an “assumption”: they are in the freakin’ bill.
Furthermore, the reduction in taxes that results from households being poorer and occupying a lower tax bracket is also given as a bonus to household income.
I doubt this is a significant factor, but in any event this is something that obviously should be done. In the end, what matters to people is after-tax income.
In short, $175 a year is about 1/3 to 1/4 of the real number. $600-800/yr is a more accurate low ball figure.
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest you just pulled those numbers out of thin air.
June 28th, 2009 at 12:31 am
DTM: The Europeans are on board in the same way that Arlen Specter is a loyal Democrat. Meaning, in name only. They aren’t fulfilling their Kyoto obligations, and they won’t do more. Meanwhile, China has very pointedly told us that they don’t intend to go along – so anything we do will be less than meaningless.
But heck, even if everyone played ball, the IPCC itself estimates that Kyoto would result in a 0.1 degree celsius difference in global mean temp. over the next century.
I suspect that you can do the cost/benefit analysis on that. Matt’s a lost cause on that; math mystifies him.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:03 am
The Europeans are on board in the same way that Arlen Specter is a loyal Democrat. Meaning, in name only. They aren’t fulfilling their Kyoto obligations, and they won’t do more. . . . But heck, even if everyone played ball, the IPCC itself estimates that Kyoto would result in a 0.1 degree celsius difference in global mean temp. over the next century.
I’m not actually talking about Kyoto.
Meanwhile, China has very pointedly told us that they don’t intend to go along – so anything we do will be less than meaningless.
First, last time you claimed this and I asked for proof, it turned out nothing you offered actually supported your claim. My guess is that you couldn’t do better this time.
The truth is that the Chinese are simply insisting that developed countries take the lead role. See here:
China urges rich nations to lead on climate
And although there is room for lots of debate on the details, their basic point makes sense, as has long been recognized: it makes sense for developed countries to take the lead on developing the necessary technologies in the short term, then export those technologies to developing countries for rapid deployment in the middle term.
Second, even if China had said what you claimed, it wouldn’t matter. If the rest of the world priced carbon, including for imports, China would have no choice but to adopt less carbon-intensive production methods. That is because their economy depends on exports, so they couldn’t survive being priced out of the global markets.
June 28th, 2009 at 5:37 am
As a liberal Democrat and big Obama supporter, this climate change crusade is a big mistake. The only thing the bill has going for it is that it’s weak and won’t actually do much about greenhouse gases. It’s basically a way of creating a tax to pay for a lot of pretty decent energy programs, but attaching it to the AGW crusade is going to turn out to be our Iraq. It’s not going to pan out, and when it collapses within the next decade due to a failure of temperatures to actually rise, we are going to have a lot of egg on our faces. All this fatuous posturing about “saving the planet” and “the science is in” will have as much credibility as Cheney’s “slam dunk” about WMDs in Iraq. And guys like Matt will simply shake their heads and deny that they could ever have gotten it right, and blame the scientists, just as Bush tried to blame the CIA. No one will believe them, however, and they will be massively discredited. It’s going to be ugly. I would hate to see Obama go down with that ship. Fortunately, it won’t become completely obvious until he’s gone from office. We better get a whole lot of scientific innovation going to make up for the lack of any real foundation for this energy bill, or people are going to be pissed.
June 28th, 2009 at 8:18 am
conradg,
Assuming for the sake of argument that you are right and that the vast bulk of climate scientists are wrong, it still isn’t the case that the sole rationale for this bill is manmade climate change. Instead, as you note it is also an energy bill, and an economic bill, and in fact a national security bill. And unlike in the Iraq case, these other rationales won’t be post hoc rationalizations, because they are part of the current case for the bill (”energy security” is even part of the name). And also unlike the Iraq case, this bill won’t be killing lots of people.
So I would suggest the risk you describe is actually quite low: even if the scientists are wrong, it is unlikely this bill will be seen retroactively as a disaster like the Iraq war.
June 28th, 2009 at 10:13 am
DTM: The Chinese want us to “take the lead by:
– reducing greenhouse gases to 80% of 1992 levels, rather than the much more modest goals being put forward in the bill)
– pay them (and possibly other developing nations) 1% of our GDP indefinitely into the future
In return, they’ll do nothing
I’ve seen that kind of offer in business; it’s a blow off. What it means is simple: “I don’t want to do business with you on this, but if you’re really, really stupid, here are the onerous terms I’ll agree to”.
So if we agreed to return to an agrarian state (where that reduction would lead), allowing them to sell goods to us indefinitely – and also pay them an indemnity for the “favor”, they’ll do nothing in return.
What a sweet deal.
June 28th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
James Robertson,
Like I said before, you’ve never been able to back up your claims about the Chinese in the past, so at this point my default assumption is that anything you say on the subject is a giant pile of decomposing BS until proven otherwise.
June 28th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
DTM,
Yes, the bill does have a lot of energy advantages not related to climate change, so it’s not wholy terrible. But the cap-and-trade notion, once embedded in law, has the potential to be an utter disaster. And doing all this under the rubric of “climate change” has real blowback possibilities.
Also, the notion that the “vast bulk of climate scientists” subscribe to climate alarmism is simply and utterly false. The vast bulk of climate scientists merely acknowledge that some of our warming is due to man-made causes. The vast bulk of climate scientists limit that AGW to a very small and limited degree of warming that doesn’t require massive economic changes to deal with, or to mitigate. It’s only a minority of climate scientists who agree with the alarmist claims of huge, runaway greenhouse effects. The basic science of CO2 only predicts a modest .5-1.5C increase in temps. One only gets to these wild alarmist predictions by presuming, without much scientific evidence, that huge positive feedbacks exist which will drive temperatures far higher than CO2 could alone. THe actual evidence for these huge positive feedbacks is missing, however, and it appears to many climate scientists that they are greatly exagerated, and that the reality is probably that there are many negative feedbacks as well which keep temperatures relatively stable, and that the driver of temperatures is simply not greenhouse gases, which have only a modest and secondary role in climate change. The problem with the propaganda about runaway AGW is that it’s become a kind of religious cult promoted only by a relatively small group of climate scientists, and thus its greatest inroads are in the world of politics, not science. These guys aren’t much different from the neocons. They will misrepresent the science to promote their theory and agenda, consciously and unconsciously, and intimidate those who don’t go along. A lot more climate scientists would speak out about it if it wouldn’t endanger their funding and position. They rely on the fact that most people simply don’t question “scientists”, and so they can get away with murder. But there’s a reckoning to be had as the actual facts come in. The holes in the AGW alarmist theories are huge, and getting bigger. The observational basis for the theory is quite small and unproven, relying as it does on what is a rather modest temperature rise over about a thirty year period, presumed to be part of an exponential rise, rather than a mostly natural fluctuation. Climate-wise, thirty years is virtually nothing, and making chicken-little predictions about the future based on a small sampling like that is just ludicrous.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
ANd btw, the comparison of skepticism over AGW to skepticism over evolution is simply banal propaganda, once again. Evolution has tons and tons and tons of scientific evidence supporting it. AGW has very little. Evolution is about the past, and thus the evidence is there to examine. AGW is a prediction about the future, based on things that have NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. In other words, there is no historical precedent for increases in CO2 of the kind we are experienceing leading to the extremes of global warming being predicted. It’s all based on extremely dubious computer modeling that fails time and time again to be confirmed by observation. So comparing this to ID science is just specious nonsense, aimed at confusing the ignorant and debasing skepticism itself, not understanding that science works by attacking mercilessly any new theory to see if it can stand up to attack. If it survives, good, but if it doesn’t, well, that’s science. AGW theory is surviving because of the politics, not because of the science.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
DTM,
I missed this little gem of yours:
“Not when one side of this “debate” is anti-science.”
This is the kind of thing one would expect from Dick Cheney. Yes, try to polarize the debate, such that all your opponents are on the side of the terrorists. Only your side is for truth, freedom, and good. This is why I, as a liberal, feel out of place in this “debate”. To pretend that skepticism over AGW is an anti-science posture simply means you don’t even know what science is, and don’t really care. Like Dick Cheney, you just want to ram through your agenda, and are willing to do whatever is necessary in the process of “saving the world”. We as liberal have to come to realize that this kind of delusional thinking is not the sole province of the right. It occurs on the left as well, and we have to be just as wary of it in our own camp.
June 28th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
And unaccounted for in the CBO analysis. We aren’t auctioning off all the permits. That’s the point…
It’s just a way to cherry pick numbers. When we talk about capping executive pay we don’t talk about after tax numbers do we? Families have little conception of how much their taxes are. This is the nature of the income tax system and why it’s so intrinsically misleading. Tell a family they lose 175 bucks and most assume it’s before taxes. It’s obviously politically useful to use a lower number.
And you would be somewhat correct. Most accurate estimates are $1000 or more.
As usual, useless nitpicking post with little actual thought. Why do you still obsessively troll here?
June 28th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
conradg,
You are right to the limited extent that while there is overwhelming support for the proposition that there is very likely manmade global warming, there is slightly less support for the proposition that this effect poses a sufficient risk such that we should do something to reduce or reverse this effect. I don’t think you are right in asserting the latter position enjoys less than majority support, however, and I think you are confusing that issue with the more complex issue of what exactly we should be doing.
I missed this little gem of yours . . . .
Please understand that I was talking about the Republicans in Congress, not all denialists.
June 28th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
And unaccounted for in the CBO analysis. We aren’t auctioning off all the permits. That’s the point . . . .
I honestly have no idea what you are talking about or how this is supposed to line up with what you originally claimed. Originally, you seemed to claim the CBO just assumed the proceeds from auctions would be rebated to households by the government. I pointed out that was false, and instead that the relevant rebates were in the bill. Now you seem to be claiming the CBO somehow overlooked the fact that only some of the permits will be auctioned. That is also false: the CBO accounted for that fact when determining the proceeds available for rebate.
Families have little conception of how much their taxes are.
I can assure you that most families are extremely aware of how much their after-tax income is.
And you would be somewhat correct. Most accurate estimates are $1000 or more.
I assume if you keep selecting numbers out of the air, we will eventually get to each and every household paying their own weight in gold.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:53 am
DTM,
The notion that AGW alarmism enjoys majority support among climate scientists just isn’t true. There are differing opinions about what the expected rise in temperatures is, but very few take the stance that it will be a huge threat. There are also differing opinions on what should be done to mitigate AGW, but of course they vary greatly based on what the actual “threat” is. And currently, most climate scientists are not sounding warning bells of an impending catastrophe. The majority are not pushing for huge decreases in Co2 output. It’s simply considered a good idea to be safe and try to change over our energy technology to non-fossil fuel sources. But even Hansen from NASA, the leading advocate of the AGW theory, admits that he doesn’t expect more than a 0.15 C/decade temperature increase. WHich means that we have many, many decades, even a century, to develop alternative fuels and transport, etc., to replace fossil fuels. And this is very likely to occur based on the rate of technological progress long before then in any case. So it’s not really the case that we have to do something radical now. I’m all in favor of increased spending on energy R&D, and taxes to pay for it, but there’s frankly no actual need to reduce CO2 emisions now or in the near future. In fact, anything that slows economic growth will actually delay technology developments and a switchover to cleaner energy, and in that respect will lead to much more added CO2 in the atmosphere in the long run. Likewise, the cost-benefit analysis of the damage climate change (of whatever source) will inflict on the world suggests that NOT addressing it now is actually the best course, since increased economic output will provide more than enough wealth to compensate for those losses (and those losses can be aided by international aid).
And please understand that even the Republicans in congress can be right once in a while. It’s too easy to dismiss them as idiots and denialists, but let’s face it, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Assuming that something must be wrong because it is cited by Republicans is a cheap, ad hominem argument. In fact, even calling AGW skeptics “denialists” presumes a truth that hasn’t even been proven. Evolution has been proven, but AGW is just a hypothesis still awaiting confirmation. As mentioned earlier, skepticism is not a denial of science, it is the very heart of the scientific method. There are some Republicans who still appreciate that, and unfortunately, some Democrats who don’t yet grasp it.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:47 am
When you’re repeating the false claim that global warming science is based entirely on computer models, you’re either ignorant or dishonest.
In fact, the record of global warming over more than a century has been established by surface temperature measurements, satellite temperature measurements, sea ice measurements, glacier measurements, habitat change, and measures of atmospheric composition.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
[...] Matthew Yglesias: Now, of course, the legislation goes to the Senate which, historically speaking, is where good and important ideas have gone to die. Brad Plumer says “I’m not convinced this thing is dead in the Senate (more on that later), but it’s obviously a much steeper challenge.” That’s not reason for hope. The challenge in the House was pretty darn steep. At the end of the day, climate is just exactly the sort of issue where the American political system is well-designed to catastrophically screw up. The incentives are all horrible. Things will only happen if a certain number of people decide to step up, and behave in a statesmanlike manner. You don’t need 100 Senators to do that, but you do need more than zero. [...]
June 29th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
joe,
The record of temperature increase over the last 150 years or so is very modest, about 1C, and well within the natural variation. The world had been in a long cooling period previous to this, the “Little Ice Age”, and after emerging from this in around 1850 the world has warmed, to be sure, but not by any exagerated or alarming amount. The science of this is quite clear – what is not clear from this is that we are faced with some kind of great danger of this warming being accelerated by human contributions to some extreme that threatens the earth. That is solely the result of computer models that have no record of producing accurate predictions, and which are not sound.
As Richard Lindzen of MIT, one of the world’s most renowned climate scientists, said, “What the public fails to grasp is that the [AGW] claims neither constitute support for alarm nor establish man’s responsibility for the small amount of warming that has occurred. In fact, those who make the most outlandish claims of alarm are actually demonstrating skepticism of the very science they say supports them. It isn’t just that the alarmists are trumpeting model results that we know must be wrong. It is that they are trumpeting catastrophes that couldn’t happen even if the models were right as justifying costly policies to try to prevent global warming.”