Change You Can't Believe In
The Goreacle has spoken:
Former US vice president Al Gore said an Internet revolution carrying Barack Obama to the White House should now focus its power on stopping Earth's climate crisis.
The one-time presidential contender turned environmental champion told Web 2.0 Summit goers in San Francisco Friday that technology has provided tools to save the planet while creating jobs and stimulating the crippled economy.
No doubt he was cheered by the news that Obama is planning to change people's behavior one Coal Plant at a time:
I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted...that will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.
Now, am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture? Leave aside for a moment the legitimacy of the Goreacle's Global Climate Crisis claim and also the bucket of worms that will result in creating and regulating a market for trading carbon emissions. Let's just look at the math.
Now granted, Obama is not talking about existing coal-powered plants or the coal industry itself (although I'm sure he has plans for those, too), but what he's claiming is this: anyone building a (non clean burning) coal-powered plant will go bankrupt and at the same time generate billions of dollars that can be invested in clean and alternative energy. Does that make any sense?
Even if his choice of words (bankrupt them) is extreme and he just means that it will be less profitable for someone to build a coal-powered plant, why would anyone want to do that? Is his assumption that instead of coal power, the builder will use some other source of power - a cleaner source of power - for the plant? Doesn't that assumption require that the other power source - wind, solar, etc. - be both available and affordable to use? And if that's the case - the plant burns on clean energy and is thus not subject to his cap and trade plan - where does the money for clean energy investment come from?
Isn't it much more likely that the plant will never get built at all? That the person (or company) who actually has the capital to invest will instead put it into something that provides a better return with less taxation?
Something tells me the Goreacle is going to be disappointed with his Chosen One.
posted by VermontGuy @ 5:27 AM
9 Comments:
Bush acknowledged that the Gitmo prison needed to be closed, but decided to do nothing and make it the next guy's problem. Bush acknowledged that something has to be done about global warming, but US carbon emissions have increased by 178 million tons compared to 2000. Leaving big, steaming piles of Barney The First Dog's shit on the White House lawn while Bush drove away would be considered rude, no? So how about not grinning too broadly at the tough trade-offs that Obama will face come January in the area of energy/environmental trade-offs. They're not his problem, they're OUR problem.
p.s. my word verification is preanger. Add a hyphen and it would be remarkably apropos.
Well, Gitmo wasn't a part of my post but I'll handle that one: Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
And it's a funny thing about all that Global Warming going on - there hasn't been any. Not for the last decade, anyway. Which seems interesting, no? Carbon emissions, thought by some (cough, Barack Obama, cough) to be the leading cause of global warming, have increased in the last decade tremendously and yet, the world has gotten cooler. Doesn't fit the equation, does it? Or maybe the equation is just...wrong.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm all for moving to alternative energy and burning less fossil fuel. But bankrupting one of our major sources of energy now seems like an odd way to go about it.
And as for big piles of steaming shit, let's talk about the levels of excrement still oozing from the Capital Building, shall we? Last time I looked, two of the primary contributors to the biggest financial crisis of the new century - a crisis Bush tried twice to head off, btw - were still sitting comfortably in their offices in Congress.
If I were you, I'd dial down the sanctimony a bit. There's more than enough shit to go around and spittle doesn't look good on you.
Well, as to global climate change, there are certainly at least a couple of dozen serious scientists who are on your side, so I'll happy let them debate it amongst themselves for a while longer rather than you and I doing an amateurish job of it. I was just taking Bush at his word, rather than trying to argue the merits.
bankrupting one of our major sources of energy now seems like an odd way to go about it
There is a meaningful distinction between saying "a new plant, of the old design, will be taxed so heavily it will bankrupt the company who builds it" and saying that "the entire industry will be bankrupted." There are three choices: continue with existing plants; build new plants on the existing model; build new plants on an improved model. One of those three routes is foreclosed.
There is a meaningful distinction between saying "a new plant, of the old design, will be taxed so heavily it will bankrupt the company who builds it" and saying that "the entire industry will be bankrupted."
Really? Here's Obama from the same interview:
The only thing I’ve said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it...You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know — Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.
I guess I'm missing the distinction.
I was just taking Bush at his word, rather than trying to argue the merits.
Politicians say a lot of things. I seem to recall that in 2006 Nancy Pelosi promised that "Democrats will create the most open and honest government in history,and put power back where it belongs – in the hands of all the people."
Do you suppose anyone took her at her word?
The distinction I see is that if they retrofit, they won't be bankrupted. If they built new ones with old technology, they would. Coal provides more than half of our electricity in this country -- the idea that a president would, or could, bankrupt an industry that critical is ignoring reality. They'll have to adjust the regulatory scheme and, as with AIG today, if the adjustments are too severe, they'll re-adjust. (As a broad matter, when analyzing others' policy positions, I find it exceptionally useful to assume that they're probably not acting suicidally.)
As to Pelosi and Bush, I think there's a meaningful difference between saying something specific is a problem and I intend to do something about it, and airy fairy promised about openness and cooperation.
It is my belief that the cap-and-trade system was first suggested by conservatives as a way to bring externalities into account through market forces. I remember reading liberals who were very suspicious of this idea -- a combination of general suspiciousness about money and some specific objections about "hotspots" -- pollution areas that would remain very dirty and affect their neighbors adversely.
It seems that the conservatives have won this argument -- Obama is pushing cap-and-trade. Now it is suspect because? . . . Because a Democrat is pushing it?
Much of VT's objections seem like quibbling over rhetorical flourishes. Conservatives won this argument -- bask in the glow.
The difficulty with cap and trade is in defining the property right. You can say anything is a property right and cap and trade it. Leaving your house, for example, or driving your car, or emitting carbon.
It's really a nice case of jujitso by the statists. "Sure, we'll cap and trade it."
Mostly they're just capping it, and "trade" means something entirely different to these folks.
QG, so in your scenario (and Obama's), the companies retrofit and pass the costs on to the consumers (you and I), or, if the costs are too severe, they adjust and throw more money at the problem (as they're doing with AIG) and you and I pay twice. Yeah, that's change I can live with.
And what are the odds that this leads to the nationalization of part or all of the coal industry? Fast approaching even money, I'd say. And all of this to help solve a problem which may not exist?
And saying global warming is bad is no more airy-fairy than saying congress will grow a great big pair of hairy, ethical balls.
Anonymous - I'd be curious if you had any links to back up your statement about cap and trade being a conservative idea. From what I know about it - which is hardly encyclopedic - it doesn't sound conservative at all.
Well, to the extent it's just a practical application of the Coase Theorem, that makes it conservative in the sense of being a market-based approach rather than regulation by fiat.
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