Just got this from Tom Graves’ campaign:
The Georgia chapter of the grassroots free-market organization Americans for Prosperity (AFP-GA) today applauded U.S. Congressional Candidate Tom Graves (9th District) for signing the group’s “No Climate Tax Pledge.” Graves joins over 240 lawmakers on the federal, state and local levels pledging to “oppose legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in federal revenue.”
“The one thing elected officials should all be able to agree on is that global warming shouldn’t be used as an excuse to hike taxes on citizens and businesses,” said AFP-GA State Director Virginia Galloway. “We encourage all of Georgia’s elected officials and candidates for elected office to sign the pledge.”
Georgia pledge signers include: U.S. Reps. Lynn Westmoreland, Tom Price, Paul Broun, and Phil Gingrey; gubernatorial candidate John Oxendine; State Senate President Pro Tempore Eric Johnson; and State Reps. Martin Scott and Tim Bearden.
Cap-and-trade took its first step toward enactment when the U.S. House narrowly passed the Waxman-Markey energy bill, which escaped the lower chamber by a scant seven votes despite significant bipartisan opposition. However, key Democratic senators have expressed opposition to attempting to pass cap-and-trade this year. President Obama has made no secret of his support for the bill, which would be the largest tax increase in American history. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has scored the plan as an $846 billion increase in federal revenue, a burden that will be borne by taxpayers and consumers for decades to come.
“Using the guise of climate change to transfer dollars from hard-working citizens to bureaucratic big government is unacceptable,” said Galloway. “Regardless of their stance on global warming, this should be common ground for all of our elected officials at all levels of government.”
The pledge is available online at www.NoClimateTax.com. AFP does not endorse candidates. All elected officials and candidates are encouraged to sign the pledge and go on the record in opposition to using the climate change issue to increase taxes and grow the size of government.
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Way to go Tom!
We applaud your strong and unwavering conservative voice on the issues we hold dear.
Keep up the good work my friend.
Im not so sure that your great-grandchildren will applaud those great conservative voices if the theories regarding climate change (that are widely supported by nearly all of those in scientific community who are not on energy groups’ or economic development think thanks’ payrolls) are true.
Talk about taxation without representation…who do you think will pay to deal with the problem when it gets worse?
Great conservative voices abhor the raising of the deficit (despite the actions of elected “conservatives”), claiming that it is passing problems onto future generations… yet they refuse to consider what ecological problems are passed on through the actions of their politics. The cognitive dissidence is extreme in the holding of both of the stances…
Putting simple limit regulations into place is roundly criticized, so a market solution (which really isn’t even enough) is proposed and it is roundly criticized as well.
mmr, do you mean today’s “scientific consensus” theories regarding climate change, or last decade’s, or the 80s, or the 70s? They change about that often.
I still remember reading U.S. News & World Report in junior high, talking about the “coming ice age”. I thought that was going to be so awesome. When can we get the “scientists” to switch back to that one? That was a fun one.
I could say something snarky about all the things we in the south accepted as scientific “truths” in the ’50′s, but I’ll just get to the point:
Science tends to get smarter over time. People, not so much.
Our children are going to be too busy working off the debt to be worried about the weather.
Tom is the true conservative in the race. Glad he will be my Congressman.
“The one thing elected officials should all be able to agree on is that global warming shouldn’t be used as an excuse to hike taxes on citizens and businesses”
Yes, let’s instead make it an excuse to do nothing.
It’s easy to be against everything. To be a real you have to be FOR dealing with the problems.
… To be a real leader you have….
Argh.
One of the most conservative members of the Georgia delegation told me he would be willing to consider a tax on imported oil and gasoline if it meant we could open drilling off U.S. coasts and in ANWAR.
You raise revenue (somewhat temporarily), the increase price generates lower demand, while we shift from foreign to domestic resources which enhances our economic security and national security.
It gives the Republicans some of what they want, it gives the Democrats something that they want, less overall carbon based fuels are used, and it is positive revenue for the treasury.
But because we won’t say it’s because of “global warming”, your side isn’t interested.
WORD
I’m not sure its smart to start raising taxes on imports. Something as simple as a slight tax on imported oil could escalate into a trade war. I am a big fan of protecting the division of labor in its purest most free form.
My side? Which side would that be? The side of doing it for national security interests? The side of doing it because kids have a higher incidence of asthma than EVER before? Or the side that thinks we should try anything to get off oil before the price gets to $200/bbl, which it’s at nearly $80 now in a global recession. Just think what it would be like if we were doing well?
Drilling won’t solve it, because it takes upwards of 10 years before anything gets to market. We need to solve this TODAY. And the oil people already have leases they don’t even bother to use now. Why do you think that is?
I’d like to see a $0.01/gal tax added to gas this month and increased by $0.01/gal every month hereafter — with the money going to university alt fuel research — until we solve the problem of using oil for our transportation needs.
But that’s because I’m FOR something. Like I said: it’s easy to be AGAINST anything and propose nothing.
$.01/month.
Hahahaha
Grow a pair man:
http://www.peachpundit.com/2008/06/17/john-linder-we-cant-replace-fossil-fuels-with-renewable-energy/#comment-127934
Hahahaha!!
Very similar in thought process. I’m going with the “Greenspan Put” method of raising rates, slow and steady and consistent. I figured that in 5 years, people would have figured out that cheap gas was gone and so much research would have been funded on battery technology (which really is the future for most of our transportation needs, not biofuels) that we would have an answer or two ready to go to market.
But I like your idea of using it to fund a tax break for people who need it.
We tried taxing imported oil in the past and it only caused the oil companies to raise their local prices to the same level and pocket the difference. That won’t fly with either party (the tax or the windfall profit).
Anyway, at least we’re in the same space on this.
Oh, I do like biofuels for the big semi-trucks. Nothing like having all those trucks on the highway smelling like McDonalds fries.
I think I re-wrote that as a post later on, with a few changes. But both sides could use a little more honesty and a little less rhetoric if we really want to get something done.
As it stands now, we’ll probably be standing around in about 2 years paying $4 a gallon with Pelosi talking about nationalizing refineries and Palin threatening to drill right in the middle of the FoxNews set.
Batteries are never going to completely replace liquid fuels for transportation. It may work for short hop around town type of travel, but there is just not enough energy density for long distance travel. No one is going to sit and part for 2 hours or more every 50 miles to recharge the family van on their way to Wisconsin. Plus, unlike your ni-cad batteries, car batteries have shortened lifespans by completely discharging them, so max range is in reality shorter than advertized.
We already have all the alternative fuel source we need in the form of coal, which should be used for liquid fuel instead of electricity, which should be produced by nuclear power.
Doug Deal- Technology may have a solution to the problem you raise about the time it takes to recharge batteries-
http://earth2tech.com/2009/04/21/shai-agassi-first-battery-swap-station-lands-in-japan-but-skeptics-remain/
It reminds me of swapping out a propane tank instead of waiting for it to be refilled.
Also, note I never did say it would replace ALL our transportation needs. Just most. Most trips in the car are 40 miles or less and that’s the range of CURRENT technology. Just think what will happen in 5-8 years if we — the people — fund the research and development as though it were important to our future.
BTW: as someone not running for governor, here’s what I’d do. I’d do the tax as described, routing the money to battery and alt power research centers at Georgia universities with the stipulation that any solutions that make it to market must be manufactured in Georgia for the first 15 years the product is on the market.
byte,
10 years ago they said drilling in ANWAR and off the coast wouldn’t solve anything for 10 years.
ANWR will take closer to 20, actually. Gotta get the oil from there to the line running to Prudhoe and do it during the 2 or so months each year when you can do that safely.
And I’ve been on record since 2003 on my own dormant blog that we should drill there to replace the declining output from Prudhoe. But I’m also think that it won’t matter, since most of that oil goes to Japan anyway. It’s a nice wedge issue with no real meaning.
I still don’t want this same discussion in 20 years. Drill baby drill.
Aren’t batteries hard to dispose of? And aren’t they bad for the environment?
In the long run batteries could do more damage than good.
GOPG: you clearly didn’t read my last paragraph. Most of the oil from the north slope of Alaska ends up in Japan. Only a little makes it to Seattle and that’s where the chain ends. There are easier places with more oil and better accessibility.
ANWR is a wedge issue with no real meaning.
Kellie: batteries are basically chemistry (with some physics thrown in). I’ve heard that within 10 years, they’ll have resolved the issues so that we can store enough energy for a house in a closet-sized battery and refill it using solar power. That’s why I think funding battery research is so critical (and right now, Korea and China are funding it for the same reason).
As for waste: even after the battery is depleted, recycling is possible, but there has to be an economical payback. For little batteries, there’s not. For bigger ones, there likely will be.
Byte,
I know that a larger supply usually means a lower price. As for where the oil goes to, that can always change.
GOPG: No, transportation costs figure in the actual cost as well. And “larger supply” for another country does not mean “lower cost” for us. It’s only a change in the supply/demand curve if the supply can get to us without additional costs.
And who really cares about lower cost? At this point, we need to get off the oil drug, because we’re NEVER going to have a secure supply of it large enough to satisfy our needs.
B-
I think we will agree to disagree on this one. A larger world supply means a lower world price. As far as who cares about cost, I do when I am putting gas in my tank in 10 years.
If you want to run out and buy a Honda insight, or whatever hybrid car they are making, that’s your choice. With the battery they use, they have a bigger carbon footprint than my car, and cost more.
If in 10 years they come out with a solar powered (or whatever) car that costs less than what I am driving now, I will look at it. If not, I want my gas as cheap as possible.
Yes, because it’s clear that it’s all about you.
When you start to worry about things bigger than yourself, we’ll give your party back the reins of power in this country. Until then…. you’ll have to settle for keeping hold of it as long as you can in the South.
Byte as an individual voter, socialist. Government knows best, all things must be done in terms of the collective good. Society grows because of the government. Byte believes in equality for all.
Myself as an individual voter, capitalist. A business in a free market will innovate, propelled by greed in search of profits, which doesn’t have to be a bad thing, to capture a larger share of the market. Society grows in spite of government. The government doesn’t have all of the answers, and more often as not, the citizens will come up with answers when the government isn’t looking. Then people like Byte will want the government to come in a tax us for being successful. I believe in equal opportunity for all.
Hey, you’re doing great! Don’t change a thing. Seriously. I can’t think of a party that has done as great a job lately winning elections as the Republican Party, can you?
We are doing well in my neck of the woods. As for nationally, we will find out how well people like the change they voted for in little over a year and two months.
Of course, you’re doing well in your neck of the woods. I already said that above.
Don’t change a thing. You’re doing great.
BTW, isn’t it illegal to yell “socialism!” in a crowded theater? Or is that just something outside the south?
It’s not illegal to call someone a socialist if they are one. However, it’s not nice to talk loudly in a theater or use your cell phone once the movie starts.
If they just squirm a bit and ask about the legalities, then you know you are hitting the nail on the head. The proof is: if the policies are good for the collective, they are in favor of it. If it’s about unequal distribution of wealth, or equal opportunity but not equal outcome, they are against it.
Thanks for clearing that up. Things good for all is bad, things good for just the person who wants it is good. Got it!
Don’t ever change. Seriously.
There are NO solutions that we can impliment today that will fix the problem.
If your solution is mass transit, that will take 10+ years too.
If your solution is more fuel efficient vehicles, well that’s coming, but it is also a 10 year solution as people get rid of their cars. Most cars on the market are too expensive for most people.
If your solution is to jack up energy costs, the people who it will hurt the most are the poor who tend to drive older, less fuel efficient vehicles. It will also hurt business who already have tight margins, especially in today’s economy. Run them out of business and the poor get poorer.
If a solution will take 10 years, then let’s try to look 20 years ahead to our needs then and aim for that in the next 10 years. John Kennedy didn’t say in 1961, ” First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this week is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”
He looked at the decade and it would take more than 8 years to achieve the goal…but we weren’t starting from zero either.
When it comes to energy, we’re not starting from zero, but politicizing the issue in the context of global warming and offering solutions that are based more on emotion and economic unsound economic policy then real, practical solutions only wastes time.
This race is not one that should be fought on the basis of climate change, but because no one wants to breath dirty air, drink polluted water, not be able to relax under a tree on a hot summer day.
Nor do people want to worry about having to get to work, feed their families and stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
Technology will get there, but it needs the market to demand it. 25 years ago, a cell phone cost $2,000. That is almost $4,000 in today’s dollars. But today a far more advanced cell phone than anything that could be dreamed of in 1985 costs less than $300.
Why? The market demanded it.
Also, ByteMe, oil is sold on the world market. Nations (or refineries in those nations) buy oil on that world market. If the world produces 10 million barrels a day and the market demand is 9.5 million a day, then supply and demand will almost be in equilibrium with slightly more supply. Once storage runs out of space, then the price will drop to try to move the excess inventory. We see oil prices fall slightly.
If the US can add an additional 5 million barrels a day, then there will be a supply greater than the demand by 5.5 million barrels. There would be a short term price drop as OPEC tries to meet to cut production to bring that price back to the higher price at equilibrium.
The problem is, when oil is cheap, there is much less of an incentive to innovate towards greater fuel efficiency.
Jason, I think we’re in agreement on a lot of your points. I know: it’s a sign of something bad about to happen in the world.
The problem — as you pointed out — is that the market will not demand change until oil is at a premium to other possibilities. However, national security and health demand it today. We know that.
So that’s where the government needs to step in and say: We need a plan and the plan can’t be “more of the same”. We can’t drill our way out of the health part of the equation and we can’t implement a harsh tax that will immediately force a serious disruption to our current existence. Last summer’s $4.00/gal disruption was enough pain, but that’s coming again if the global economy starts to get its legs again any time soon.
Which is why I think a $0.01 per month increasing tax that funds technology research into alt fuels and energy storage technologies is in our national security interest. Slowly adjust the market in a way where people can actually plan to replace their car in the coming years with one that’s more efficient or to let a city plan to replace their aging school busses with ones that are more efficient or to add trains if that’s what’s best for them, and let the market slowly adjust to the new reality. Meanwhile, we’re funding technology that will help us lead the world in energy innovation. I’d rather lead than follow China and Korea… and they’re hard at work on the problem now.
Isn’t that called protectionism?
Not when you’re dealing with a cartel on the other side of the transaction.
The only way you do that is if you want to start a trade war.
With countries that we trade nothing with other than oil? Won’t happen (if it’s the non-Nafta countries). Worth staking the whole WTO over it, if necessary.
We have never had a trade war when OPEC decided to manipulate the market to rape us over their monopoly. I don’t know why we would have to have a trade war when we decide to raise the price and rake the profits on our end.
Icarus,
I don’t think the inceased price will mean lower demand. In most cases, that is true. However, with gas, we need that to get to our jobs and other things we think we have to do. It will just mean that people will be poorer.
If you are looking to give the left something, tell them we are drilling in ANWAR to save the whales and it’s for the children. They should eat that up like cornflakes.
Doug,
the reason I’m suggesting that the tax be phased in over a period of years is to send a strong signal to the market that gas prices are going up, so they can make long term decisions (i.e., next car purchase) using “rational expectations”.
It’s true that when we face gas price spikes, most people are unable to make drastic changes to purchase less gas. But over time, people are able to change their patterns and behavior. 18 months ago, people were re-evaluating what they could do differently, and there was a significant drop in demand.
Phasing in price increases allows people to prepare in advance, as opposed to a lot of the panic that generated a lot of bad, short-term, reactionary decisions that cost many more than they saved in efficiency. (i.e., trading in Suburbans for $5K under book to pay over sticker for a Prius.) Those Suburbans are now getting over book, and Prius’s were deeply discounted until Cash for Clunkers came along.
We’ve already forgotten about many of those good habits we were learning just a year or so ago. And when we do nothing for another couple of years except talk past the other side, we’ll all pretend to be surprised again in a couple of years (or less) during the next price spike, and be not closer to an actual solution.
Hi Icarus,
Will I do not disagree that purchases went down when prices went up, I do disagree that it was actual demand that went down. I think that people just said we can’t afford a vacation this year, or we can see grandma next year. That maybe discretionary travel, but people were starting to be concerned for their jobs, and rightfully so. Gas purchases are down this year compared to last.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/steo
Phasing in artificial prices via tax increases because the government knows was it is best just hurts everyone. The government should not be in the business of manipulating the auto industry or any other market segment. Setting safety standards are one thing, but cash for clunkers was a horrible mistake and poorly implemented. The market will determine what a prius and a suburban are really worth.
IF I were suggest a government solution other than drilling and less regulation, I might suggest a bonus to any car manufacturing plant that will meet the specifications of the average patrol car for sheriffs departments. The interceptor should be able to from 0 to 60 or 0 to 90 in X amount of time. It should be able to get X amount of MPG, or using the average cost of one years worth of gas be able to run on that many dollars or less with an available fuel source. It should have a distance of 400 miles or more. The reward for producing such a car? Any county that receives federal money for roads has to buy replacement vehicles from the company that is making the best car. This spurs innovation, competition, and is founded by greed. It’s not just for Ford, Chrysler, or GM. If Nissan, or some other company builds a better car, that’s what we need to buy. The UAW needs to wake up and realize that they have almost killed GM, and if someone is building better cars and if they are cheaper, with better fuel efficiency, they will be out of a job. I don’t think any company is too big to fail.
I’m scratching my head a bit now, Doug.
You say that we’re using less gas but demand didn’t really go down, make a statement that the government doesn’t know everything, and finish your argument that I thought was about cap and trade alternatives with a solution that we should acknowledge that the UAW is bad and Nissan needs to build us a police car with a range of 400 miles.
I guess there was a reason that Reagan was called the great communicator. For one, he was able to say on message.
I will readily admit that I am no Reagan. My point is that a free market should provides us with the best alternatives to almost any economic problem if we leave it alone and give it enough time. Government interference is just that, interference.
The thread may have started on cap and trade, but it looked like the conversation had turned toward gas consumption. If you want my opinion on cap and trade, I am not a fan. Is that on point enough for you?
But you are starting from the assumption that the market is “free” right now. Yet the government controls where gas can be drilled and not drilled. It already levies taxes per gallon of gasoline. It has entered into WTO agreements that further restrict what can and can’t be done in the name of trade. And though many would argue, a large part of our overseas military spending is targeted directly at protecting sources of foreign oil and its supply routes.
So when you argue that if the govenement acts, it’s a violation of “free market” principles, you’re essentially stating that the government intervention that we curently must endure is optimal.
There’s nothing “free” about this current market. Changing the government’s level and method of involvement doesn’t necessarily mean we’re making it less free.
And that’s exactly why we should reduce government interference and drill in ANAWR and off the gulf coast. If it’s good enough for the Russians to drill in the Caribbean, we should too. We should make the market more free, not less free. I know it’s not totally free now, but we should do what we can.
O.K., now go back and study oligopolies, and throw in negative externalities just for fun, then tell me how an unregulated “free market” in the oil industry will provide the U.S. with the optimal results possible.
My suggestion (philosophy) isn’t limited to the oil industry, but considering that’s the topic on hand and not cap and trade, I’ll try to stay on topic.
When dealing with oligopolies, or even monopolies, the rules change. In negotiations, we shouldn’t leave an economic competitor in a superior position. There is no way we should ever sign the Kyoto treaty while China and India do not have to play by the same rules.
I have a question for anyone who cares to answer, how does not drilling in ANWAR or off the coast help us? It may not be your perfect solution, but tell me how it doesn’t help?
If you look at what I suggested here, it was about how we get drilling in ANWAR, as well as off the Florida and California coasts.
But in typical form, you reject any idea that you might have to give anything to get what you want.
Then you started spouting meaningless talking point phrases like “free market” and” no government regulation” with no apparent compreshension of how these phrases apply and don’t apply to the issue at hand.
Ask Sarah Palin how “free market” the oil industry is. Her biggest accomplishment as governor? Breaking the oil industry cartel (oligopoly) to get the trans-Canada pipeline underway.
You’re arguing against yourself here, and you don’t even realize it.
Icarus,
If one of us was a deciding senator and the other were the deciding congressman and we knew that the president would go along with whatever we worked out, I would consider adding the tax if it got the drills going. I would want to see how much of a tax, exactly how much it would change the price of gas per gallon in my home district or state, and I’d want to see some real projections of what we would get from drilling and when we would get it.
I am not arguing with you, but faced with this choice, then I might be arguing with myself . GHW Bush said “read my lips, no new taxes.” He then broke that pledge in an effort to strike a deal with the dems to get a balanced budget. They stabbed him in the back and because he broke his pledge of “no new taxes,” he lost reelection. (That’s the main reason, IMO)
You may think the idea of “a free a market as possible” is silly, but it’s more of a philosophy than a fact. I think your idea of taxing to get people used to the idea of paying a higher price (lowering demand) is silly.
That doesn’t mean I am not above compromise; as long as I don’t have to compromise my principals. If I had made a pledge never to raise taxes, I’d have to pass. There are very few times when a new tax might be appropriate, but the problem is spending and that’s a whole different topic. I’d have to look at the details before I agreed because that’s where the devil maybe found.
I’ll call this progress.
I don’t find the philosophy of the free market silly. I just find the expectation that our condition of reality is a free market to be silly. Especially when we’re dealing with the oil market. Both the countries that are the producers act as an oligopoly, and to some extent, the companies that produce do as well.
I’m going to skip trying to give you a lecture on supply and demand at this point. If you’re really interested and think it may change your mind, I’ll try to prepare the explanation behind my assumption.
As for the tax “increase”, my original proposal was that it would be revenue neutral, meaning that other taxes would need to be cut to consider it. I’d have no problem with any Republican entering into a negotiating with that as their condition to finding a solution “acceptable” to them.
I would hope that GHWB taught politicians of all stripes from making “read my lips” kinds of statements. I personally think it was his “flip flop” that killed him, not the tax increase itself.
In summary, we import about 30% of our oil from people who want to kill us. The market price of this oil does not capture negative externalities inherent in this oil. (i.e., the cost of our military in the middle east, the ability of a cartel to control our energy supply and the ability it gives them to do what happened two years ago and twice in the 70′s, each time tanking our national economy).
Drill Here, Drill Now is a nice slogan. But so long as it remains only a slogan, we remain hostage to our enemies, and volnerable to a public that will hold us accountable to not finding a real solution to this problem.
Screw global warming. For me, it’s national and economic security. For that, I’ll pay and extra $.50/gallon.
In your hypothetical situation, this is the first mention that the tax increase would be revenue neutral. If we are moving one tax to another, that’s more palatable.
I would probably want to make sure the taxes went to build more refineries. The threat of a hurricane makes our prices go up.
I agree that it was the flip flop that killed him and that was my point. Whomever is in the position to make this hypothetical deal work, shouldn’t have to go back on their word to do it. An extra 50 cents in gas would be huge to the average tax payer, unless we can show them that it will keep prices from going up by a dollar. There is a good chance that the market price would drop so the full 50 cents is not felt, and it may only seem like a 20 to 25 cent increase. Who knows? The price at the pump might stay close to where it is now.
I tend to think that once we started drilling, even if it’s 20 years before the oil ever gets here, the price per barrel being traded will drop because that the market will know we will not be as dependant on foreign oil in the future.
To end, my position hasn’t changed, and neither has yours. We have just discussed it enough so that we understand each other’s positions better. We didn’t have to yell or call each other names. Others should take note.
Got the same press release from mike evans earlier this week. Guess somebody’s just not paying attention.
The ones not paying attention are the Republican voters in the 9th who haven’t realized (yet) that Mike Evans is a lobbyist. We have a year to go, and they will before it’s over.
Great, Sign a pledge against a clean environment… way to CONSERVE it. The only thing he seems to want to conserve is big business profits.
Why do you hate America?
Isn’t it obvious?
“The one thing elected officials should all be able to agree on is that global warming shouldn’t be used as an excuse to hike taxes on citizens and businesses,” said AFP-GA State Director Virginia Galloway.”
What if one doesn’t believe in the Global Warming theory? (Of course this makes them a heretic).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TqqWJugXzs
Let’s try that again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TqqWJugXzs
Not a heretic, but not informed either.
I believe the followers of this Global Propaganda, not warming are the uninformed ones.
I’m not sure that made sense. Or maybe it’s just me and it’s only 10 a.m.
I’m not sure it does either. lol Let me try again.
I believe the followers of this Global Propaganda (not gobal warming) are the uninformed ones.
Ok, that sentence made more sense!
Ok, what you say is important only in the political sense, definitely not the scientific sense. Scientifically, the world is definitely getting warmer. The ice around the polar caps is retreating faster. The carbon levels in the atmosphere is about twice what plants can consume and rising.
Politically, having the willpower to do something about our role in this happening is where we’ve gone off the rails.
Don’t you know it’s now “climate change”? The earth is not getting warmer. The political push for power and control over our lives drives this madness. I believe in taking care of our planet but the politicians and the extremist want to control and tax everything we do under a false premise that the earth is being destroyed by us. I don’t think scientist have studied the climate long enough to know what its natural cycle is. In the 7o’s it was Global Cooling, in the 90′s Global Warming; now Climate Change. Give me a break.
Byte,
Read up on some biology. The current level of CO2 is not all that far above the limit in which photosynthesis starts to shut down. Optimal CO2 for most plants is closer to 1000 ppm, which is about 3 times the current limit. Many green houses, in fact, push the CO2 up to this level because of it’s beneficial effects.
The climate changes ALL THE TIME. And it changes in unpredictable ways. Eventually, the Earth will go back to a glacial period like it is 90% of the time and likley a huge portion of humanity will dies of starvation. What we are seeing now, if the poorly collected temperature data is accepted as fact is 0.5C.
The average temperature is about 15C. Now, lets base this off of absolute zero and put it into perspective. 0.5C = 0.5 K (since it is a differential) and 15C = 288K. So, the “anomaly” that we are talking about is 0.5K/288K = ~0.2%. It is equivalent to if you set you thermostat in your house on 70F and it shot up to the blazing inferno of 71F. This is after 100 years of supposed warming.
It is not even outside of the error of most of the temperature devices used to measure temperature over the course of that time period. Even today there is a reliance on aviation weather stations that have a +/- 2F error, because the are NOT MEANT TO BE USED FOR METEROLOGY or any other form of science.
Doug, your analysis is missing a couple of steps you skipped over.
Yes, plants love CO2. But they can only absorb so much of it and convert it back to O2. So if we have too much CO2 such that the plants cannot absorb it, we end up with two outcomes: plants grow more plentiful or we continue to have CO2. The first is a nice outcome, but it’s not really happening. The second is not so nice an outcome for humans who need the O2 and not high concentrates of CO2.
Other part you skipped was the part where the increased CO2 is causing the permafrost to melt and the carbon trapped in that from dead plants is hypothesized to dramatically increase the CO2 in the atmosphere. Now I’d love for that hypothesis to turn out to be wrong, but I’m guessing it’s going to be right.
The problem is not where we are today. It’s where we’re heading. The trajectory isn’t getting better, it’s getting worse. And people are the cause. But people want to sit on their hands and say “it’s not a real problem yet”, which is what we Americans do well (wait for a crisis before we act). I’d just rather not leave the crisis for my kids.
Yes, climate changes all the time. You bet. But we’re doing ourselves a disservice by claiming that continuing to pump excessive CO2 into the atmosphere is somehow beneficial to our lives.
Byte,
I do not have time to describe it now in too much detail, but we are not talking about the same thing. You are talking about mitigation of atmospheric CO2, I am talking about the effect of current and projected levels on the ability of plants to thrive.
I agree that we need to eventually watch our step with CO2, but that date is centuries away. Instead of flagilating ourselves to appease Gaia, we should be working on developing things like nuclear power.
“Global” not gobal; I’mhaving a rough morning
Let your elected officials know how you feel about a tax increase masquerading under the guise of climate change at http://tinyurl.com/klfut8
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