Another F on Doug’s report card…
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009- posted by demo kid
Before diving into this cap-and-trade business, I’ll be up front about my position on global climate change: I think that it’s far more complex than most rank-and-file voters understand, and even more complex than most policymakers or scientists understand. There are a lot of unknowns, and in twenty or thirty years, it is a possibility that global warming will not be considered as much of a problem as it is by many people today. Still, there are concerns, and given the risks, it is prudent to take certain actions now. The best approaches are those that provide us with multiple benefits, of course: energy efficiency and security, preservation of ecosystems and habitat, reduction of air pollutants, and so forth. While there are some parts about the American Clean Energy and Security Act that I don’t like, it is a step in the right direction.
That said, if Doug is typical of conservatives disputing cap-and-trade, it won’t be a problem working around them. Most people don’t like it when you simply don’t know what you’re talking about. (Kinda like when you try to talk about nuclear fission and you demonstrate you don’t have a clue about it.)
“Cap and Trade” is a relatively simple concept using extremely complicated laws. But all you need to understand is the concept.
Okay, absolutely correct so far!
THE GOAL
“Cap and Trade” begins with the assumption that using energy is a bad thing and the less we use the better. The goal is using less energy.
Wrong. The assumption of cap-and-trade is that belching out pollutants is a bad thing, and the less we emit the better. The goal, my friend, is to reduce overall emissions. This has nothing to do with energy consumption per se, only with the way that we produce it, and what we do about the negative impacts of that production.
THE CAP
“Cap and Trade” puts a U.S. Government “cap” on energy use, creating a government-imposed artificial energy shortage. The shortage is intentional. It is the whole purpose of the program. If you are old enough to remember or know about the “oil shortages” of the seventies, with skyrocketing prices and long lines of cars at gas stations, that’s what we’re talking about, but not just for gasoline: for all energy. Your heat, your electricity and everything every company uses. It will affect not just the cost of energy, but the cost of everything energy produces. Everything you buy, in other words. And the cause is not the “Arabs” or the “Oil Companies” or world market conditions. This is a U.S. Government-created shortage. Government is the cause.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Point me to a “cap on energy use”, Doug. The requirements in the bill are to cap emissions of greenhouse gases to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. It doesn’t say anything about energy production. If, say, North Dakota was covered with windmills, Arizona was covered with solar cells, and all of our coal plants and vehicles were refitted to use natural gas, energy consumption could increase tenfold if we wanted.
THE TRADE
”Trade” is the system used to ration the energy that the U.S. Government still allows us to use.
In order to avoid the seemingly inevitable Corporate Backlash they would earn by targeting our energy supply, the life’s blood of the American economy, the Politicians who support the “Cap” came up with the ingenious idea of “trading” energy credits (the rationing “coupons”), thus setting the financial interests of Industries fighting against each other instead of against the actual cause of the shortage (the politicians). Corporations must compete for politicians’ favor.
Wrong. The “trade” in cap-and-trade refers to the trade in the right to emit pollutants, NOT generate energy. Instead of imposing a uniform reduction across the entire economy, which would be economically inefficient, it allows the businesses that can reduce their emissions in the most efficient way to trade their extra rights to pollute to firms that cannot reduce their emissions as efficiently. It is a good way of introducing market forces into environmental policy, and it worked well with the acid rain treaty.
Again. It’s EMISSIONS, not energy.
WHO GETS THE CREDITS? HOW MANY? WHO DECIDES?
Will energy rationing credits (coupons) be distributed evenly among all American citizens or will big corporations be favored in distribution because they are the current big energy users? Will you be able to sell your coupons to big industry or will those industries get some free at your expense?
Big-Buck Lobbyists from the biggest U.S. Corporations will be working under Cap & Trade, like Bankers under the Bailout to answer these questions with Campaign Contributions for Corrupt Congressmen.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. While Republicans are whining that certain members of Congress didn’t read the bill, it’s really quite unfortunate that Doug didn’t read the bill either, as the general process for allocation is given in the bill itself. Allowance allocation is based on emissions from the previous year, with other considerations given for renewable fuels, offsets, credit purchases, and so forth.
That being said, it is an interesting question to ask: how does it get implemented? Where are the economic impacts, and are they fair? Blowing off the entire bill as being “a pile of shit” (as Boehner would like to put it) doesn’t discuss any of this.
Enormous power will shift from you to the U.S. Government.
Enormous power will shift from small businesses to huge corporations.
“Cap” means ARTIFICIAL SHORTAGE.
“Trade” means CORPORATIONS competing for Corporate Welfare from Washington D.C.
“Energy Use” means “the economy.”
“Reducing Energy Use,” under “Cap and Trade” means inevitably creating poverty, making everyone poorer, spreading hardship. It is an attempt to cool the earth by slowing the economy.
He might as well have linked to scary music. It might have been more effective.
There are some considerations that are buried in here that are important, of course. Setting the cap and allocating the allowances appropriately can have a big effect on the net impacts of cap-and-trade, for example. But all this sturm und drang about a policy that’s pretty much only going to have a direct impact on large manufacturers of chemicals and petroleum fuels? (And specifically excludes cow farts, interestingly enough.) Please.
What disturbs me the most, though, is the “can’t do” attitude expressed with this approach. Dude, we’re the country that sent people to the moon forty years ago. We turned a depressed economy into an effective wartime production machine in a very short period of time. We created the Internet and nuclear weapons. Thinking that some regulations that attempt to shift the sources of our energy to renewable and green sources would bankrupt us is the ultimate in pessimism. (And, not to mention, completely in error according to all reasonable projections.)
The march of innovative technology, combined with American Freedom made us the richest nation in the world. It was because we learned to use energy through advancing technology. That Free Enterprise became the economic wonder of the world. We built a dymano of production that defeated German National Socialism and Imperial Japan on two fronts. It made us the greatest power in 3,000 years. It was the difference between America and the “third world” or Communist nations, the re-builder of Europe. Our freedom, the courage and innovation. We were free and voluntarily defended our freedom with the American strength we had built ourselves.
First, I love that use of the term “National Socialism” by Doug. Slick.
But to use that time frame as an example… what is important to recognize is that historically, oil was extremely important to shaping strategy in World War II. Romania was a major source of fuel for the Nazis, and consequently, it was a major target for the Allies. The German campaign in Russia was also directed towards capturing the oil fields in the Caucasus to secure energy supplies. Likewise, the Japanese were reliant on the U.S. for 80% of its oil, and the oil and steel embargo initiated by the Allies meant that their strategy was centered on capturing new oil supplies.
So in both cases, their battle strategies were limited by their dependence on foreign oil, and one can argue that this weakness was the source of their respective downfalls. You’d think that we would have learned from history by now. Today, we’re the ones at a disadvantage because of our dependence on foreign oil. We may be getting a large portion of our energy supplies from Canada at the moment, but there are plenty of other folks with their hands on the spigots. We need this technological know-how that Doug is referring to so that we can get out of this position. Otherwise, we’ll continue to be at a disadvantage, and we’ll continue to hand our money (directly or indirectly) over to Russia, Venezuela, the Middle East, and so forth.
Cap and Trade reverses that process by intentionally reducing the technological use of energy. It makes economic activity the enemy.
Wrong. Yet AGAIN… nothing about the use of energy, merely the source. Nothing about economic activity, merely that we’re internalizing the externalities of what we’re doing with regards to greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s inevitable result is to shrink the economy, a little at first, (like Social Security was in the beginning) but since controlling Climate is the measuring stick, the shortages can only grow. A successful Cap and Trade system will raise the Cap standards (like the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards and Social Security costs) year by year stopping progress until the sun cools off (or the nation fails). We will be weaker and weaker year by year, decade by decade, no longer a powerful nation. Weaker than Europe. Weaker than China. It is a kind of national suicide.
Yes! I’m glad someone else recognizes that those little old ladies collecting Social Security checks are nothing but parasites! And that if we didn’t have CAFE standards, think of the technological progress we could have made! I mean, we’d have flying cars by now!
What a fucking idiot. These policies are only “national suicide” if someone is so narrow minded to assume that the economy would not adapt, or that we wouldn’t receive any benefits from this program whatsoever.
Are “Republicans” working for it? You bet they are. Republicans in name, anyway.
Apparently, you are only a Republican “in name” if you’re not batshit fucking insane. What specifically about Republicanism means that you need to reject a scientific theory, or oppose government action through a mechanism that’s designed to harness the power of the market? Sheesh.
An F for content and an F for effort, Doug.
