California voters back weakened climate law
-The opinions are the author’s own-
California voters on Tuesday rejected a measure to suspend the state’s innovative climate change law. But the state’s emission trading scheme has been substantially diluted to buy off opposition from energy-intensive industries and allay fears about job losses.
If it is true that “as California goes, so goes the nation”, the past 10 days have confirmed the lack of political support for tough emissions curbs.
The survival of California’s cap-and-trade scheme has kept alive hopes for enacting a patchwork of state and regional schemes in the absence of a federal program. Supporters hope establishing even a diluted system will lay the groundwork for a program that can be toughened as the economy improves.
But the state government’s last-minute decision to give away most emissions allowances rather than auction them suggests voters and politicians are not ready to embrace the steep increase in energy prices needed to decarbonize the economy.
“NO” ON 23 Proposition 23 would have suspended the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) until the state unemployment rate fell below 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters. Proposition 23 would have effectively killed the law because unemployment is currently over 12 percent and has only rarely dipped below 5.5 percent in the last three decades.
Voters rejected it by a wide margin following a heavily funded campaign pitting clean technology companies, environmentalists and moderate lawmakers against parts of the oil refining sector. With 92 percent of precincts reporting, “No” votes led “Yes” votes by 4.2 million to 2.6 million (61 percent to 39 percent), according to the Los Angeles Times.
from The Great Debate UK:
Why Pakistan monsoons support evidence of global warming
-Lord Julian Hunt is visiting Professor at Delft University, and former Director-General of the UK Met Office. The opinions expressed are his own.-
The unusually large rainfall from this year’s monsoon has caused the most catastrophic flooding in Pakistan for 80 years, with the U.N. estimating that around one fifth of the country is underwater. This is thus truly a crisis of the very first order.
Heavy monsoon precipitation has increased in frequency in Pakistan and Western India in recent years. For instance, in July 2005, Mumbai was deluged by almost 950 mm (37 inches) of rain in just one day, and more than 1,000 people were killed in floods in the state of Maharashtra. Last year, deadly flash floods hit Northwestern Pakistan, and Karachi was also flooded.
It is my clear view that this trend is being fueled both by global warming (which also means extremes of rainfall are also a growing world-wide trend), and indeed potentially by any intensification of the El-Nino/La-Nino cycle.
To understand the reasons why global warming is playing a role here, one needs to look at the main climatic trends in South Asia. In addition to more extreme rainfall events, there is also a decreasing thickness of ice over the Tibetan plateau and changing patterns of precipitation, with less snow at higher levels, plus more rapid run off from mountains.
How does climate change help explain this?
To pay for vital programs, Congress must make tough choices
- Deborah Weinstein is the executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs. The opinions expressed are her own -
As the House and Senate Budget Committees begin work this week on their versions of the Congressional Budget Resolution, the usual suspects are lining up to oppose proposals that would pay for health care reform, reduce global warming, create more jobs and improve our education system. Beyond the expected Republican opposition, however, some key Democrats are also calling for changes that would seriously weaken Presidents Obama’s groundbreaking budget.
Although the chairs of the House and Senate Budget Committees are expected to craft resolutions that remain faithful to the President’s priorities, many of the revenue sources proposed by Obama are being called into question. Further, the skittish-on-spending Blue Dog Democrats in the House and similarly inclined Senate Democrats are urging reductions in domestic appropriations, which pay for education, job training, housing, child care and child welfare services, public health, and other family and community services.
Last week’s significantly increased deficit projections from the Congressional Budget Office have provided further ammunition for those waving the banner for reduced domestic spending. In large part because the economy worsened dramatically since the Obama Administration prepared its budget, CBO projected a deficit of $1.4 trillion for fiscal year 2010 compared with the Obama budget estimate a $1.17 trillion.
As serious as the deficit is, cutting domestic appropriations is not the answer. These programs contribute minimally to the deficit, and are crucial to pulling our country out of the deepest recession in decades and creating long-term economic stability for all Americans. And while cutting waste in such areas as Medicare, military contracts and farm subsidy programs are important sources of potential savings, they won’t provide enough to fund the desperately needed shift in priorities called for under President Obama’s budget.
Instead, those who criticize the President’s proposals must come up with fair and responsible alternatives for increasing revenues and reducing the deficit over time.
The President’s budget provides a blueprint for doing just that. To pay for health care reform, for example, Obama proposes funding his $634 billion expansion of health care, which would take a giant step towards quality care for most Americans, in part by lowering the value of income tax deductions for the wealthiest households (those making more than $250,000 a year) from 35 cents on the dollar to 28 cents. This change, which brings the rate back to what it was during the later part of the Reagan Administration, would produce $318 billion in savings over the next 10 years. When combined with the Obama budget’s $316 billion in projected savings from reduced payments to expensive private plans, it would cover much of the cost of the health care reform plan.
The Republican argument about reduction in charitable giving is preposterous. Nobody should depend on charity. The fact that there is charity, and that some people have come to depend on it, is a symptom of how polarized the society is, of the wide inequality created by the “free market”. Yeah, don’t reform the system so we can keep fleecing the sick; this way when they end up bankrupt because of their medical problems, they can come to us for charity, and we’ll give them, if we feel like it”.
from Environment Forum:
Ice Age or global warming?
It looks more like an Ice Age than global warming.
There is so much snow in Oslo, where I live, that the city authorities are resorting to dumping truckloads of it in the sea because the usual storage sites on land are full.
That is angering environmentalists who say the snow is far too dirty -- scraped up from polluted roads -- to be added to the fjord. The story even made it to the front page of the local paper ('Dumpes i sjøen': 'Dumped in the sea').
In many places around the capital there's about a metre of snow, the most since 2006 when it was last dumped in the sea. Extra snow usually gets trucked to sites on land, where most of the polluted dirt is left after the thaw. Those stores are now full -- in some the snow isn't expected to melt before September.
But are these mountains of snow a sign that global warming isn't happening?
Unfortunately, more snow might fit projections by the U.N. Climate Panel, which says that northern Europe is likely to get wetter and the south drier as temperatures rise this century.
"By the 2070s, hydropower potential for the whole of Europe is expected to decline by 6 percent, with strong regional variations from a 20 to 50 percent decrease in the Mediterranean region to a 15 to 30 increase in northern and eastern Europe." it said in a 2007 report (page 60 of this link).
Thanks for the comments — there seems a lot of scepticism about the conclusions by the U.N. Climate Panel, which blames human activities led by burning fossil fuels for stoking climate change. (And of course piles of snow for a few days in Oslo is caused by the usual unpredictable weather rather than the climate, unless it happens repeatedly.)
Maybe try looking at it this way:
If you were in charge of a government back in the 1980s, how would you work out whether the climate was changing? There was a scare in the 1970s about a looming Ice Age, while other evidence was pointing to a warming impact of greenhouse gases. Or maybe it was all part of natural swings in the climate.
The choice then was to set up a group of the top experts to study all the literature and report back an overview every few years that would be endorsed both by scientists and governments.
That U.N. Climate Panel — the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — reported in 2007 that it is “very likely” (a probability of at least 90 percent) that human activities led by burning fossil fuels have caused most of an “unequivocal” warming in the past 50 years.
There’s a chance the IPCC might be wrong, but it says that natural variations don’t properly account for the changes. Yes, the IPCC has shortcomings but it’s the most authoritative stab at understanding the chaotic climate system that governments have come up with so far. Its findings were endorsed by governments, including the Bush administration.
A stimulating energy policy
- Robert Engle is the Michael Armellino Professor of Finance at New York University Stern School of Business and a Nobel Laureate. His views are his own. -
We have faced energy crises before. The last energy crisis was about running out of oil. This one is about the fear that we might not. The future health of our planet is jeopardized by the greenhouse gases emitted by our industrial society. But can we afford an expensive energy policy in this time of economic distress?
The simplest and best solution to reducing emissions is thought by most economists to be a comprehensive tax on the emission of greenhouse gases. Only in this way will individuals and businesses that avoid the tax be doing what is socially desirable. Only in this way will it become profitable to find substitute energy sources; no longer would it be necessary to subsidize alternatives. The price of oil will rise naturally when we begin to run out, but in this proposal, the price would rise before we reach the bitter end. It is only a matter of timing.
However, a tax is generally considered politically impossible and in this time of deepening recession, it is especially unpalatable. But what about the money – what happens to the money that is raised by this tax? This revenue could be divided evenly among all U.S. residents and sent out in a periodic cheque. This check could even be sent before the tax revenue was received. A substantial emission tax would generate a substantial check. This could be used for anything but might well be used to buy a more fuel efficient car, insulate a house, move closer to work or otherwise reduce the impact of the impending tax.
Because this tax would be returned to consumers, it would stimulate the economy. The sectors that might expect benefits would be automobiles, construction and real estate. These all can use good news. Because of the per capita redistribution, this would be particularly beneficial to low income groups who would pay less than an equal share of the taxes. Because the tax would reduce our consumption of oil, we would be sending fewer petrodollars abroad and instead returning it to Americans.
We already know that high oil prices induced dramatic changes in our economic behavior which had clear benefits for reduced emissions. Driving miles fell, sales of SUVs fell and the only growth areas of automobile sales were in small cars. Housing prices fell more in the distant suburbs than in the central cities, and public transportation rider ship increased. But these gains are now being reversed as the price of oil has dropped dramatically.
When I was sick as a kid, mom made soup. Not always the best tasting but it was reassuring, healthy and warm. The “answer” is close to mom’s stew. Too much pepper or not enough meat and sometimes over cooked…so add what is needed as you eat and recooperate. Don’t wait forever to get the perfect recipe. Business is starving. And don’t hand all the ingrediants to the same chef that cooked up the last bubble of growth. New (as in next-generation) macros for our childrens financial health will evolve just as surely as the credit card was like crack to this “me” generation. Green will dominate, so get used to it. Invest, develope and embrace it. Teach the world to fish not beg or revolt. Visualize large areas of water filled with desalination plants powered by floating wind/tide/solar arrays pumping life into the new deserts of the warming planet. Science seems to drag behind occasionally so be patient George Jetson. Don’t expect miracles from politicians or preachers or hedge fund managers. Real people solve real probems.
from Environment Forum:
2008 to be 10th hottest year: warming trend up, or stalling?
This year is set to be about the 10th warmest since records began in the 19th century, according to Phil Jones, a leading British climate scientist -- see story here.
But does that confirm a long-term trend of global warming, stoked by human emissions of greenhouse gases, or show that it has stalled? The warmest year on record is now a while ago, in 1998.
Jones, head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, has no doubt that the underlying trend is still up -- 1998 was an unusual year when global temperatures were boosted by an El Nino weather event in the Pacific Ocean. And this year, the opposite La Nina effect is cooling the planet.
(Among signs of a cooler 2008, some high Alpine ski resorts in Switzerland have opened early...)
And Jones says that the world's thermometers may also be underestimating temperature rises because the Arctic -- visibly warming since summer ice shrank in 2007 to the smallest since satellite measurements began in the 1970s -- is pretty much excluded. That's because there's a lack of records from 1961-90, the benchmark years for judging current global warming, because ships didn't go there.
But Joseph D'Aleo, a meteorologist who leads ICECAP (International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project), wrote in a comment that "flawed science and bad siting" of thermometers often mean a bias towards warmer readings. He says that 2008 might only be in the top 20 or 30 years.
ICECAP says it is that it is worried that "the sole focus on greenhouse gases and the unwise reliance on imperfect climate models while ignoring real data may leave civilisation unprepared for a sudden climate shift that history tells us will occur again, very possibly soon".
DaBear is wrong as usual, its the republicans and the Chamber of Commerce that heavily supports off shoring our good paying middle class jobs, the republicans killed any legislation that punishes companies for doing so.For some bizarre reason they think the minimum wage workers that remain can sustain our government and pay off the national debt. Talk about a bunch of loons, and then they attempt to blame their evil ways on the democrats. Shame on you DaBear, get some education or shut up…