ConservaDems, Status Quo Joe and sheepdogging Bernie and climate change

Oh, it's fun with the Overton Window gang that can't shoot straight!

Status Quo Joe is caving in to Big Coal Boss Hogg Joe Manchin on the climate change of Build Back Better, or Can We Build Something, or whatever. Maybe if we put some of Sinema's Big Pharma Big Bucks drug products inside wind turbines, would she kill Manchin? ConservaDem Jon Tester can stand up for Biden's bill; why can't they?

Meanwhile, St. Bernard of Sanders, fulfilling the sheepdogging of his past and most recently mentioned by Counterpunch for that, blames the media for not knowing what's in the bill. Since there's really not a fixed bill yet, even as Sleepy Joe gives away more, this is sheepdogging. Of course, nobody's asked Bernie about those F-35s for the Vermont National Guard. It's always good to be selectively against more defense spending.

To break the Senate impasse, or Boss Hogg's obstruction, Ron Wyden is now proposing a carbon tax! I'm all for it, but it has zero political chance unless Wyden attaches a carbon tariff, which is the globally right thing to do anyway. I've said more than once, more than ten times, that a carbon tariff, at least to a degree, forces the whole world onto the same carbon emissions page. Sure, there's international measurement issues and cheating concerns. But, there's the same thing with private biz on carbon offsets and cap-and-trade as I type.

But a carbon tax has other devilish details all its own. First, how high do you set it? Second and related, how much below the final price do you start at to phase it in? Third, without making it too painful, how do you do something besides direct rebates to help out carbon taxpayers? (I've argued with Chris Tomlinson and others that there HAS to be some pain for it to work.)

Credit to Wyden for phasing out fossil fuel tax credits as part of his bill. It's stupid indeed for something like the House Ways and Means carbon tax idea to keep them in place.

At the Atlantic, via MSN, Robinson Mayer supports the Clean Energy Program, which Boss Hogg reportedly opposes instead. It's true that we need more renewable energy, especially to recharge electric cars in the future beyond replacing fossil fuel electricity. But, this doesn't have to be an either-or, and shouldn't; both-and is what we need. It's carrot and stick, large scale. Meyer does have one point. A carbon tax leaves the gummint possibly becoming dependent on that revenue. What happens when it does get phased out? This is like funding National Park Service repair catch-ups with money from Interior oil and minerals leases.

This all said, per the one link near top? Tester isn't signed off on all climate change plans, though he is interested in electric tractors, should they come around. (Actually, even with bigger farms, if you're out west and got rooftop solar? An electric

Finally, as the Pentagon is the country's biggest carbon emitter, how do you tax it?

High Country News does it again on climate change issues

Ten months after being called out by me for confusing — or to be less charitable, conflating — a carbon cap and trade system with a carbon tax, High Country News is at it again, now offering a he-said, she-said piece claiming carbon offsets work, but wondering if they might be an excuse for big companies. Given that Eric Niiler works for Wired, shock me that he'd write something like this. And, it's not even he-said, she-said, it''s he-said, he-pretended-she-said. The last two paragraphs reflect this:

(T)here are signs that offsets might help in the long term by forcing carbon-polluting industries to become a bit more creative.  …  (I)t may buy us a bit of time, time that is fast running out.

No, they won't. They'll buy more excuses, is what they will do.

So, they're more than that, more than an excuse for big companies. They go beyond the companies.

They're like a modern version of indulgences for environmentalists. In other words, they're an excuse for middle-class, upper-middle-class and rich neoliberal white environmentalists to not face the need for radical, post-capitalist changes to the domestic and world order. Those largely white neoliberals would include, per my first link, most readership as well as staff of HCN, environmental groups like Sierra Club and its youth movement front Sunrise Movement, and Democrats ripping off a Green New Deal from the Green Party and any actual Socialists who want to join in. 

And, no, that's not a new thought on offsets as indulgences. I blogged about that THIRTEEN years ago. As I did about the degree of difficulty in monitoring such offsets. 

That offsets Niiler's "creativity" claim here:

A Swiss livestock company, for example, sells a special garlic-and-citrus cattle feed supplement to help cows produce less methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. It just gained approval from Verra, a nonprofit that develops standards for carbon offset projects. Farmers who use the feed and lower their methane emissions can then, after an audit, sell the carbon credits as an additional source of income.

If you are going to be a capitalist, also, Niiler, how do you know if this feed blocks as much methane as claimed? What's the carbon cost of the supplement? And? How do you even price other social costs of this versus just biting the bullet and eating less beef (or less dairy from Brown Swiss)?

Why not tell people to eat less meat? Maybe in part because HCN still promotes the myth of the rural West, in spite of it being the most urbanized part of the country and in spite of BLM or USFS fattened cows only producing about 3 percent of US beef?

Showing nothing is new under the sun, Pro Publica wrote about the difficulty in monitoring offset programs in the so-called developing world just last year. Niiler even linked to that (with HCN's usual problem for me, at least on Chrome, of the link refusing to open in a new tab. Or open at all.) Of course, that's why they've been migrated there. It's deliberate. It's even harder to monitor, let alone oversee and run herd on, a tree-planting program in Brazil than one in Oregon. Niiler doesn't even talk about that.

And, all of this ignores the biggest issue. Contra Niiler period, carbon offsets by their nature are just designed to hold carbon emissions flat. They're specifically NOT designed to reduce said emissions, when we desperately need them reduced. Holding carbon emissions flat is like asking the electric chair executioner to drop the voltage from 20,000 to 15,000. He's still going to kill you.

Just click the "carbon offsets" tag below to read more.

Of course, Sierra has been a hypocrite on carbon emissions issues for that long itself.

The phony European refugee crisis

Now that I've got your attention with that headline, let me explain what I'm talking about.

It's not that refugees from Syria, Iraq, Libya, or even further south in African are phonies in person, or their reasons for leaving their old countries are phony.

It's arguable that part of the grudging European acceptance of the refugees — a grudgingness most notable in the UK and David Cameron — is the phoniness.

(That sets aside the issue, as shown in this piece about Germany taking temporary border measures to try to force the hand of other E.U. states, how "Europe" ultimately remains a concept more than anything else.)

Hundreds of thousands of refugees are hitting Europe, yes. That said, before the Great Recession made opportunities here in the U.S. less attractive, millions of migrants — some whom might well be identifiable as refugees — hit American lands from Mexico, and increasingly, from points further south. (Mexico itself is near zero population growth by birthrate, like the U.S.)

And, while we've had our share of clamor about the largely Hispanic influx of illegal immigration, it's arguably nothing like that of Europe.

Let's start with some additional context. Europe is about the same geographic size as the U.S. minus Alaska, per this site, which talks about making fair, geographic-based comparisons between Europe and America in other ways. Even if we throw out Russia and other countries of the old Soviet Union, the rest of Europe is as big as the US west of the Mississippi.

With half again as much population as the whole U.S.

And, without even going into the issue of legal vs. illegal immigration, as for actual, documented, United Nations-referred refugees? The U.S. has taken 70 percent of the world's share in the last five years. (To be fair, I should note that, as the Chronicle fails to note, our invasion of Iraq created a lot of those refugees.)

Now, some Europeans might argue that means they have no room. On the contrary, Europe has no deserts, no semi-deserts like the Western high plans, and while it does have the Alps and their extensions, the US has both the Rockies and the Sierras, among other things. And, if we're throwing out Russia, Europe has no North Dakota, eastern Montana or northern Minnesota in terms of winters, either.

To put this in terms of population densities, Hungary, a mainly flatland Central European country, might be taken as "representative." Ohio, a mainly flatland state in the non-mountainous, non-desert part of the U.S., not the most dense, and fighting Sunbelt migration, might be compared.

And, the have almost equal population densities at around 110 people per square kilometer. (So does France, with a mix of densely urban areas and the densely-rural-like Central Massif.)

In short, Europe can handle the refugee "flood." It can do so at least as easily as the United States. U.S. states like Minnesota, with less high-density use land than Hungary, have in the past taken significant numbers of Hmong and Somali refugees.

Controlling #CO2: What chance do we have?

Gernot Wagner, an economist at the Environmental Defense Fund, in a distressing, depressing, but honestly realistic op-ed at the NYT, says: Not a lot.

Unless we end what he calls "planetary socialism":

(M)arkets are truly free only when everyone pays the full price for his or her actions. Anything else is socialism. The reality is that we cannot overcome the global threats posed by greenhouse gases without speaking the ultimate inconvenient truth: getting people excited about making individual environmental sacrifices is doomed to fail.

That said, Wagner claims cap-and-trade systems are already cutting CO2 in Europe, and slated to do so "everywhere from China to California."

Not so fast. Tradeable caps were underpriced, and gamed, in the EU. I'll believe that cap-and-trade is workable in a nation as corrupt as China about 20 years after it's implemented. And, in California? Not too much good on a state-level bases, given the way our federal system works. And, CO2 isn't point-source pollution, so it's ... well, it's intellectually dishonest, in a sense, for him to point to cap-and-trade's success with point-source air pollutants.

So, Mr. Wagner should perhaps be more pessimistic. And more honest. Only carbon taxes, combined with carbon tariffs on recalcitrant nations, stand a real chance of success.

And, those of us who recognize that should be depressed that another leading light in another Gang Green environmental organization can depress us, but ... won't depress us quite as much as is needed.

Texas, La Nina, global warming, Perry's prayers

This used to be a 5,400-acre lake.

Oops, oops, oops. Looks like Rick Perry needs to pray hard at The Response - real hard.

The U.S. Climate Prediction Center says La Nina may return in just a couple of months, which would guarantee the current drought extends into 2012.

As if it's not bad enough right now:

Also Thursday, the state climatologist declared this the most severe one-year drought on record in Texas. Officials expected to declare soon that it has become the worst drought since the 1950s.

Cities in West Texas that have long relied for much of their water for small lakes dammed on upper stretches of Texas rivers fear they may run out of water next year.

And, in East and Central Texas, especially, this ain't the 1950s:

In the mid-1950s, Texas had a population of 7 million.

"We got a state with 25 million now. You can see the impact would be significantly greater if we had a drought that the 1950s had," said Travis Miller, a member of the state's Drought Preparedness Council and AgriLife Extension Service leader.

That said, the climate center does not directly link an early La Nina return, or its strength, to anthropogenic global warming. But, it's hard not to tentatively make that connection, if La Nina returns that quickly, especially if it's a strong one again.

If Obama had any cojones, he'd link further disaster relief for Texas (and Oklahoma) to Congressional action addressing global warming. Period. End of story.

But, we already know he doesn't.

And, I mean more than cap-and-trade, which is toothless anyway. But, getting that passed would open the door. And, while there's no chance of a carbon tax passing, there are other things ... further upping mpg requirements for trucks and SUVs, promoting LED as well as CFL lights, abolishing alt-fuel exemptions for car, truck and SUV CAFE ratings and more. I'm sure readers can think of even more examples.

Joe Barton admits to keeping himself uninformed

The National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences said, in a new report, that the need to take action to counteract global warming was "pressing."

The reaction of Smokey Joe Barton?

“I see nothing substantive in this report that adds to the knowledge base necessary to make an informed decision about what steps — if any — should be taken to address climate change.”

As I said, per his own words, he admits to keeping himself uninformed.

That said, there is a silver lining of sorts in the report — it inches toward supporting a carbon tax instead of cap-and-trade:

The report outlined four areas that demanded immediate action by the federal government.

For starters, it emphasized that reducing carbon emissions was critical to keeping the United States from having to make dire choices in the future. While stopping just short of recommending a carbon tax, the committee did praise its efficacy.

“Analyses suggest that the best way to amplify and accelerate such efforts, and to minimize overall costs (for any given national emissions reduction target), is with a comprehensive, nationally uniform, increasing price on” carbon emissions enough to “drive major investments in energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies,” the report said.

It also called on the federal government to play a much more active role in researching new technologies and in helping the nation adapt to the changes in the natural world that are already inevitable. Even with a reduction in carbon output, the report said, some climate change will continue to occur.

“The federal government,” the report said, “should immediately undertake the development of a national adaptation strategy and build durable institutions to implement that strategy and improve it over time.”

That said, we'll all be dead, or sweltering to death, before wingnuts like Barton come close to accepting a carbon tax.

And, whenever I read a story like this, I think of The (THE!) Dallas Morning News firing columnists Jim Frisinger and Timothy O'Leary over Smokey Joe Barton. And the Snooze did that, even if it continues to lie about it.

Father of cap-and-trade says "hold on" on using it on CO2

Thomas Crocker, then an economics Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,came up with the idea of cap-and-trade pollution regulation back in 1966. But now, he says it's not so good for carbon dioxide. He says a flat rate carbon tax makes more sense, and would do more.

I agree.

All well and good. But, now, he's backing off doing too much about CO2 period:

“The economists who have studied this problem, say, ‘Yes, it’s worthwhile taking some measures,’” Crocker said. “But to get into a great big panic and jump overboard right now is really not appropriate.”

That's bad enough. And, we've seen just how well economists have done with their ideas in the last couple of years.

Crocker then shows himself a climate change skeptic:

“There’s a great deal of ambiguity with respect to the natural science,” he said. “These models that they employ seems to me, they are numerical simulations, and as with any numerical simulation, a great deal depends upon what values you attach to unknown parameters.”

Stressing that it’s “worthwhile” to work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Crocker advocated for a cautious approach to policymaking. “One should hedge, but one should not make big jumps,” he said.

Uhh, the numerical simulations are far more accurate than the ones your economist friends at Moody's and other raters ran on CDOs, etc. Big fail.

You can get enough election blogging from elsewhere; I'm going light on it.

Why did cap-and-trade fail in Senate?

Lee Wasserman blames a mix of Obama, Congress, Big Polluters and the general public. Krugman faults conservative greed, plus sellouts by a few previous backers, listing Schmuck Talk Express by name. Douthat says conservatives brought a history of skepticism to the plate, yet pointedly does not give them blank-check absolution, while referring to the same "Rube Goldberg" status of the House bill that Wasserman does.

Team Obama blames enviros for the failure of cap-trade bill

Oh, this complaint is rich on so many levels.

First, it's arguable that's what you get when you have Dems and Gang Green enviros in bed together.

Second, it's arguable that, per Ed Schultz, Obama just doesn't get it on really fighting the GOP.

Third, what climate bill? Yeah, just a bit snarky, eh? But, true, true, true. Given what the financial "reform" bill turned out to be, a final "cap-and-trade" bill probably would have been worse than nothing.

Hansen vs. Krugman battle on carbon cap-and-trade

Paul Krugman says
he may be naive on the success possibilities of carbon dioxide cap-and-trade deals coming out of the Copenhagen climate summit or elsewhere. I’d agree.

So does James Hansen

NASA planetary and climate scientist has a headline of “Cap and Fade” on his column. He didn’t write the column himself, but it sums it up well.

Unlike cap-and-trade boosters, and even some opponents, he rejects the analogy of its predecessor, pollution trading permits. He claims they haven’t worked as well as claimed, either.

Cap and trade also did little to improve public health. Coal emissions are still significant contributing factors in four of the five leading causes of mortality in the United States — and mercury, arsenic and various coal pollutants also cause birth defects, asthma and other ailments.

That puts it pretty basically.

Hansen strongly favors a carbon tax instead. So does Joe Stiglitz, who arguably trumps even Krugman in economic insight.

Krugman now responds that Hansen doesn't understand the economics of cap-and-trade.

True as that may be, it only makes clear that Krugman doesn't fully grasp the science involved. Nor, on the economics side, does he apparently get, as some of his commenters DO get, that cap-and-trade is easily gamed.

Too bad Hansen can't blog back at Krugman at the NYT site.

Original cap-and-trade creators doubt its CO2 use

Thomas Crocker and others who came up with emissions cap-and-trade systems to control traditional air pollution doubt its applicability to global warming. One difference is the global nature of, er, global warming. Another, he said, is that warming’s costs haven’t been sufficiently quantified yet to properly price caps.

The better answer, Crocker and others say, is carbon taxes.

At the same time, the National Association of Manufacturers and other big biz groups claim the Waxman-Markey climate control bill, a cap-and-trade bill, could cost 2 million jobs. Nonsense. Nobody in Europe talks about job losses even close to that, let alone job losses in the abstract as a major fallout of the bill.
-END-

Specific fault of neoliberalism – cap-and-trade

Michael Lind makes a convincing argument for Barack Obama to be more Rooseveltian, especially on climate-control action, calling for a Manhattan Project type approach.

Class-based carbon and climate control? I like it!

Reuters says a new study from the National Academy of Sciences has a provocative new way to address carbon dioxide and global warming.

For example, if world leaders agree to keep carbon emissions in 2030 at the same level they are now, no one person's emissions could exceed 11 tons of carbon each year. That means there would be about a billion "high emitters" in 2030 out of a projected world population of 8.1 billion.

By counting the emissions of all the individuals likely to exceed this level, world leaders could provide target emissions cuts for each country. Currently, the world average for individual annual carbon emissions is about 5 tons; each European produces 10 tons and each American produces 20 tons.

Within the U.S., then, if 11 tons per person were the target (actually, of course it needs to be lower), the U.S. (and the Eurozone, which would also be over that level) could figure out how to cut that figure on individually-focused policies.

China? We would internationalize carbon emissions cap and cap-and-trade systems. Not that I’m a huge fan of the WTO, but it would stand to reason that it would be the administrative and regulatory body.

And, here in the U.S., if it read to a “yacht tax,” fine by me. And, spare me the bullshit about how many people work on building yachts. Besides, they can build more plebian-type boats anyway.

Anyway, read the whole story. This is huge. Huge enough to throw a grenade into the Copenhagen round of climate change negotiations.

Dems less likely to understand cap-and-trade than GOP

Want more proof, or concern, that the Democratic Party, all in all, may really niot be that progressive?

According to Rasmussen Reports, Democrats are less likely than Republicans or independents to understand what carbon dioxide cap-and-trade proposals are.

British Columbia ground zero for CO2 environmentalism

British Columbia’s provincial parliamentary elections are getting worldwide attention due to their focus on a carbon tax to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The real twist is that B.C.’s Conservatives support this, and the New Democratic Party, Canada’s liberal party (the Liberals are actually akin to U.S. neoliberals) oppose the carbon tax, for what the NDP claims is high-minded reasons, but appears to be election pandering to the pocketbooks of BC voters.

Since, if the Conservatives stay in power, BC will definitely be ground zero on a carbon tax, it’s good to clean up some myths about such a tax, including that it’s not a gas tax and isn’t designed to be consumer-punitive.

Why not a carbon-emission cap-and-trade program, like the European Union already has in place and the U.S. is talking about? Because the EU one doesn’t work, and, so far, member states have not taken the initiative to set permit prices high enough to make it work.

As if Michigan could sink much lower, oh Detroit News?

The Detroit News has a boilerplate-hot editorial against President Obama’s cap-and-trade carbon dioxide plans. saying they could “sink Michigan.”

First, while somewhat snarky, my title isn’t totally that way.

Second, as every environmentalist knows, the Big Three was working on much of this technology 30 years ago and deliberately dumped it. Where was the Detroit News editorial over that? The editorial over the Big Three sinking Michigan in exchange for short-term profit?

That would be crickets I hear.

Third, the reason EU cap-and-trade didn’t work was because standards were set wrong, cap-and-trade amounts were oversold, etc. But, that’s what happens the first time you try something so new — you get to work out bugs. Also, the “punitive” complaint was partially based on the U.S. not having any sort of CO2 plan.

Fourth, you think Michigan is underwater now? It could be really in trouble if climate change decouples Lakes Superior and Michigan from Lake Huron. Lots of inland shipping down the tubes.

That said, is there some way to link this cap-and-trade with encouraging green auto jobs in Michigan? Sure.

But, given the past history of the Big Three, quasi-protectionism be damned. “Japanese” carmakers, at least those that also have plants in America, should have a chance to get in on the same action.

Rex Tillerson looks at green light, plays Jay Gatsby

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson is now calling for a carbon tax, saying it’s more “transparent” than a cap-and-trade system.

Well, given what a mess the EU’s cap-and-trade system has become, he’s right.

But, if you thing he’s doing this out of the goodness of his heart, or some newfound greenness, I’ve got some “clean coal” in Barack Obama’s Illinois to sell you.

Having protested outside multiple annual eXXXon shareholder meetings here in Dallas, there's no way Rex Tillerson has looked at the green light and seen anything but Jay Gatsby's orgiastic future.

Best case scenario, from the point of view of We the People? He thinks this will save his corporation more money than a cap-and-trade system.

Not so good case? He thinks that either, or all of the above below:
• He can get a tax watered down as hurting the economy in today’s environment;
• he can muddy the waters of public consumption and have that become fallout in Congress;
• He can play some sort of either bait-and-switch or moving the goalposts after Congress says OK to the tax idea.

CAPP, not Cedar Hill, could be stuck with global warming costs

Coal-fired electricity could clash with green image, and carbon cap-and-trade

Updated from an earlier post:

In exchange for locking in electric rates for 24 years with electrical provider Luminant via the Cities Aggregation Power Project, Cedar Hill (and other participating cities) are getting all coal-fired electricity.

THAT is how they avoid the volatility of commercial electric rates priced on natural gas rates.

But, Cedar Hill Mayor Rob Franke, and the city, have in the past presented an environmental image. How does coal-fired electricity square with this?

In case you have forgotten, or did not know, here is a reminder of just how dirty the Luminant coal-fired plants are in terms of mercury emissions – four of their plants produce 5 percent of all mercury pollution in the country.

And, if President Obama and the incoming Congress pass a carbon cap-and-trade system, coal-fired electric prices are surely going up. Is there an "out" in the contract for Luminant if that happens? Was the possibility even discussed?

It appears that, according to the city of Cedar Hill, and from what I've seen in the CAPP contract (though I haven't looked at it recently), there is no such provision.

All good news on the economic side for Cedar Hill and other cities. But, what if we go beyond cap-and-trade to a full-blown carbon tax? Luminant still appears on the hook... unless it deliberately tries to break the contract.

Oh, and in case you have forgotten, or did not know, here is a reminder of just how dirty the Luminant coal-fired plants are in terms of mercury emissions – four of their plants produce 5 percent of all mercury pollution in the country.

Cautions on Obama climate speech

The speech that President-elect Barack Obama made to the governors’ climate conference sounds good as far as it went. But, then again, one could say that about many an Obama speech.

First, what’s missing? Carbon taxes, in my opinion.

I don’t believe a cap-and-trade will work well, or that it’s strong enough by itself, to effect real change on controlling carbon dioxide emissions. Also, no details yet on how a U.S. cap-and-trade system would be better than the original EU version.

Second, Obama is going to need some source of revenue for the $15 billion a year he wants to spend on research on how to reduce carbon emissions. Well, with a carbon tax, there’s your money.

Plus side? He didn’t mention carbon offsets as a serious part of the solution.

Behind the CO2 and mirrors, little new in Western carbon pact

Seven Western states, led by California, and four Canadian provinces (how eastern Ontario and Quebec got into this I don’t know) have formed a carbon-dioxide cap-and-trade organization.

But, behind the rollout are a couple of stark facts.

First, its setup is similar to the European Union’s original carbon market, which was later found to be badly skewed.

Second, Utah is a member. Can it really be that rigorous?

Yes, it’s the “most far-reaching effort in North America” yet.

That’s about like being the best snowmobile driver in Florida.

Read for yourself, though, to see if this is more hope or hype.