Comments on: Ban Ki-moon climate deputy says Copenhagen deal may take two stage approach; Outline of bipartisan Kerry, Lieberman, Graham proposal likely beforehand

By: Eli Rabett

Eli Rabett — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:52:14 +0000

This was fairly obviously coming. Take a look at questions from the Global Climate Change Decision Makers survey that is being circulated at Rabett Run and figure where you fit in the continuum

By: Leif

Leif — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:24:52 +0000

Raleigh Latham, #5: Agreed, and if the United States were shipping that technology around the world to the destitute regions along with sex ed, condoms, schools, farm tech, basic health care, in short “PLAN B 4.0″ our international image would quickly change from “exploiter of world’s resources” to one that would be far less likely to be attacked by terrorist. In turn freeing up boo-cu bucks in turn for more good causes.
Give peace a chance…

By: Raleigh Latham

Raleigh Latham — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:09:20 +0000

Leif, we definitely see eye to eye on this, while the Senate slowly but surely grinds out a clean energy bill, Obama should totally withdraw from Afghanistan and cut the Military Budget to bare bones minimum. Just imagine if the military industrial complex was working towards building solar panels, windmills, forests, and de-salinization plants, imagine what our country could achieve in terms of reduction.

By: Benjamin D. Tracy

Benjamin D. Tracy — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:41:05 +0000

Today’s Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29471.html

“White House has not dropped plans for an aggressive global warming bill early next year that will be loaded with new spending on green technology and jobs – that would be paid for with tax increases. Democratic lobbyist Steve Elmendorf says the White House focus on deficit reduction could easily kill the cap-and-trade effort. “I think this means cap-and-trade has to go to the backburner,” he said.”

By: Ken Johnson

Ken Johnson — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:59:10 +0000

“A potential agreement could set modest requirements in the early years, he said, but mandate more aggressive actions if the planet gets warmer faster than expected. … ‘We just have to find a way to ratchet those numbers up later, to respond to what science tells us.’” What the “science tells us” now is that “even if industrialized and developed countries enact every climate policy they have proposed at this point” global temperatures are likely to rise to a level “nearly double what scientists and world policymakers have identified as the upper limit of warming the world can afford in order to avert catastrophic climate change”. Pasztor’s proposal to “set modest requirements in the early years” is basically a policy of procrastination and denial.

What Pasztor really seems to be saying is that we simply don’t know how to effectively regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Everything we are now doing is based on a cap-and-trade regulatory paradigm, which is supposed to provide “environmental certainty,” while its regulatory mechanisms actually operate to cap emission reductions at an unsustainable level. Carbon-tax proposals, on the other hand, seem to be more focused on “making polluters pay (me)” than making polluters stop polluting. Economists have failed to provide any rational and pragmatic alternative to kind of rigid, unyielding dogmatism that underlies the current regulatory regime.

By: Leif

Leif — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:03:06 +0000

A modest proposal: Given that the United States Military budget is a taste over 600 billion dollars a year, not counting black box projects I presume, and that the Pentagon is increasingly concerned about the effects of global climatic disruption on National Security, I purpose the following. PLAN B 4.0 estimates the annual costs of “Plan B” to be $187 billion per year. (Currently the world military budget is at ~$1,464 billion per year.) That the United States foot the entire first years coverage to instigate “Plan B” out of the military budget, (~ 10% of total, ~25% personal), and the following years the rest of the world pick up the tab out of their military budgets and pay back the United States investment in proportion to their budget plus interest if you like.
I would contend that the effects of instigating “Plan B’ would defuse hostilities enough the first year that savings would pay for themselves there after.

By: Charles Siegel

Charles Siegel — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:45:53 +0000