If tales are to be believed, the implementation of a "cap-and-trade" system of carbon emissions regulations will usher in a new era, flush with "green jobs" and environmental happiness.
As part of the proselytizing occurring with this issue, state Ecology Department Director Jay Manning assured a January 23rd work session of the House Ecology & Parks Committee that Europe was on track to meet its Kyoto-related carbon emissions goals.
Cute claim, but since ,their there is just a little bit of global warming goofiness out there, how about we look at the actual record?
Things haven't been going well for some time now:
EUROPE is failing to keep its promise to cut carbon emissions, new figures reveal.The European Commission disclosed that since the Kyoto treaty targets for cutting emissions were set in 1997, the EU has achieved a 2 per cent reduction.
This means that at its average rate of reduction it would be impossible to achieve its Kyoto obligations to reduce emissions by 8 per cent by 2012.
The European environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, reminded EU leaders that they must act now before they can start to lecture the rest of the world.
"It is clear that many member states need to accelerate their efforts to limit emissions significantly if the EU is to meet its Kyoto target," he said.
Indeed, some have declared Kyoto a total failure:
"The Kyoto protocol... as an instrument for achieving emissions reductions, has failed," it says. "It has produced no demonstrable reductions in emissions or even in anticipated emissions growth."
While carbon emission reduction targets aren't being met, the potential economic cost of compliance is frightful indeed. As even the bigwigs at Davos are acknowledging, economic considerations are infusing a hitherto undiscussed level of reality-based thinking into cap-and-trade implementation.
Failure to achieve goals with a more painful than expected economic cost should give backers of such plans stateside some pause, though the Jay Mannings of the world don't seem to be letting facts get in the way of their preaching.
Looking just a little closer to home, California is having a heckuva time actually finding the supposed promise of its own cap-and-trade plan, plus "green jobs" initiative:
The environmental plan was built on the notion that imposing some $23 billion of new taxes and fees on households (through higher electricity bills) and employers will cost the economy nothing, while also reducing greenhouse gases. Almost no one believes that anymore except for the five members of the California Air Resources Board (CARB). This is the state's air-quality regulator, which voted unanimously in December to stick with the cap-and-trade system despite the recession. CARB justified its go-ahead by issuing what almost all experts agree is a rigged study on the economic impact of the cap-and-trade system. The study concludes that the plan "will not only significantly reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions, but will also have a net positive effect on California's economic growth through 2020."This finding elicited a chorus of hallelujahs from environmental groups. The state finally discovered a do-good policy that pays for itself. Californians can still scurry around in their cars, heat up their Jacuzzis, and help save the planet. But there was a problem. The CARB had commissioned five economists from around the country to critique this study. They panned it.
Harvard's Robert Stavins, chairman of the federal Environmental Protection Agency's economic advisory committee under Bill Clinton, told me that "None of us knew who the other reviewers were, but we all came up with almost the same conclusion. The report was severely flawed and systematically underestimated costs." Another reviewer, UCLA Prof. Matthew E. Kahn, a supporter of the new regulations, criticized the "free lunch" aspect of the report. "The net dollar costs of each of these regulations is likely to be much larger than is reported," he concluded. Mr. Stavins points out that if these regulations are a net boon for businesses and the economy, "why would you need to impose regulations like cap and trade?"
The Sacramento Bee, which has editorialized in support of the new regulations, was aghast at CARB's twisted science. We have to "be candid about the real costs of the transition," a cautionary editorial advised. "Energy prices will rise, and major capital investment will be needed in public transit and new transmission lines. Industries that are energy intensive will move elsewhere."
Rising energy prices and pricey new infrastructure doesn't exactly jive jibe with current economic conditions. That isn't stopping the zealots in California. We can only hope some in the state legislature see the light.
Accordingly, Amber Gunn lays out some serious potential pitfalls of the proposed cap-and-trade plan for the Evergreen State. The Washington Policy Center has some alternative ideas [pdf] to address the same issues without the brutal ramifications. And word on the street is that House Ecology & Parks Chair Dave Upthegrove is none too enthralled with cap-and-trade based on the reality of its record.
That's a start.
Posted by Eric Earling at January 31, 2009 09:09 PM | Email ThisThis whole bill is scary and outrageous, but what appears to be most frightening is the attempt to amend the Growth Management Act ''to achieve and support greenhouse gas emissions reductions.'' If you're wondering what rampant and pervasive eco-extremist-driven socialism in full cry looks like, look no further.
The full text of the Bill runs to an astounding 159 pages; if you want a more concise summary see the 14-page House Office or Program Research Bill Analysis (the ''Part 4 - Comprehensive Land Use Requirements'' section on amending the GMA starts on page 11 of this .pdf file):
HB-1718: A travesty
And on top of everything else:
Scheduling a hearing on something like this without having a fiscal note yet (which if even partially objective will be massive).
The sponsors of HB 1718 deserve to be indicted for malicious legislative malpractice. Add these 8 Legislator's names to the black list:
Representatives Upthegrove, Williams, Hudgins, McCoy, Dickerson, Hunt, Dunshee and Nelson.
The turning point - it's becoming chic to be a skeptic
Posted by: Reality on January 31, 2009 11:14 PM1. drive up the cost of homeownership, possibly to a point where almost everyone would need gov't subsidized housing
2. force us from our cars
3. deny us the right to choose where and how we live
4. drive businesses out of Washington
5. hamper remaining businesses ability to compete with businesses operating in other states
6. limit job growth/type of jobs available
7. limit goods available for purchase in Washington
Are there more? This bill scares the living daylights out of me.
Posted by: Paula on January 31, 2009 11:33 PMHeaven help us....
Posted by: Michele on February 1, 2009 01:55 AM1: "their is" WHAT? It is "there is." Right, you knew that, I hope.
2: "doesn't jive" IT'S NOT JIVE. It's "jibe." Look it up.
Owner operators are already going under in droves right now. Several mid sized trucking companies have already gone under. Imports and exports are already way down.
These clowns now want people to go out and spend 100k for new trucks. The alternative is to pay a $60 tax for each 40' container either entering or leaving the pier.
Might as well just close the ports now and be done with it.
Posted by: Vince on February 1, 2009 07:40 AMIf you knew how quickly that post was thrown together, as with most posts for that matter, you would chill out a bit. Mind is working faster than the fingers are typing. Couple that with no copy editor, and there you go.
Thanks for the catches though.
Posted by: Eric Earling on February 1, 2009 08:37 AMMOST journalists make as many, or more, errors as Eric does. They just have copy editors to fix their errors before they go to print. One of the many pitfalls of editorless media.
Not to excuse it, but it certainly is going to happen a lot in this form of media.
It would appear that we have arrived at that moment I've been waiting for. The left, flush with victory, is about to overreach. These kooks want gas to be more expensive. They want everything to be more expensive. They want to control how we live. They envision a country where everyone lives in a 600 square foot apartment and doesn't own a vehicle. I've been getting laughed at for years when I try to explain this to people.
The left lives to impose its way of life on everyone and they think this is their great opportunity.
The joke however is on them. There is a slumbering mass of politically unaware people in this country that are busy living their lives. They have no idea what the modern left truly believes, but they are about to find out. Once the left's policies begin impacting their lives directly, (as they surely will), I believe we will finally be able to rid ourselves of the horrid legacy of the 1960's. It's about time.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on February 1, 2009 09:06 AMBUT: I contine to be worried that there will be an drawn-out ''interim period'' before hoi polloi finally and truly get it; to the point where enough of them are willing to throw the bums out and fundamentally change the course we are now on. Let's hope it's before we hit the iceberg, after which a course change becomes moot.
Posted by: Methow Ken on February 1, 2009 09:59 AMI believe that is what it is going to take before most people finally get it. Most have been unaware of the incrementalism of the left...political correctness, the movement of the media to the left, the little things like bicycle helmet laws, trans-fat bans, and the annual war on Christmas.
And of course the big thing, their relentless promotion of abortion.
There is a reason liberals have long sought to disguise who they really are. It was only a matter of time before they let the cat out of the bag.
I think we need some good old fashioned tariffs. If other countries like Europe and Asia won't enact real pollution controls like the United States has done for the past 30 years, then they need to be charged accordingly.
A tariff would enable a true market to happen because it would adjust for all the shortcomings of the ROW's lax pollution standards.
Cap and Trade is bunk.
Posted by: John Bailo on February 1, 2009 12:27 PMEr here's another dispatch from Hollywood screenwriters roaming the northwest posing as journalists...
"A small increase in temperatures during the past three decades probably contributed to a doubling of tree death rates in undisturbed old-growth forests across the West, a team of researchers reported in the journal Science today, with the increase in mortality highest in the Pacific Northwest.
The researchers ruled out insect attack, fire suppression, forest overcrowding, air pollution and other potential local causes in the study areas, which include some of the West's most stable and resilient stands.
Posted by: Acid Brain on February 2, 2009 09:43 AMNot that it matters to someone such as you who use manufactured global warming hysteria as a vehicle to push your socialist world view.
The fun part will be when the "global warming" myth is exploded, and that's right around the corner.
Will you people then admit that you were wrong? Of course you won't.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on February 2, 2009 11:44 AMThere is nothing "around the corner" that will refute the observable effects from human induced industrial degradation of the environment and the ecosystems we depend on for our survival. Only the most extreme loyalists to the status quo of the last century seem to need to hold on to the antiquated belief that we can continue to produce more waste than our environment can handle in order to prop up and maintain false economies.
Even if the human effects on climate change continue to be better understood and scientists learn more and the situation becomes different from what we currently understand, there aren't going to be any compelling reasons to continue to remain wasteful or harmful.
With the population rising from one and half billion in 1900 up to six billion in 2000, and expected to creep up on eight billion by mid-century, delivering efficiencies is going to be right where the money and the focus are.
Posted by: Acid Brain on February 2, 2009 12:05 PMNaturally you don't use any of the by-products of "industrial degredation". Having said that I am amazed that you are able to communicate via computer. Surely you realize that your computer is made up of metals that have been mined, and oil that has been pumped out of the ground.
Reason is lost on people such as you, Acid Brain.
You think life was much better when people lived in mud huts, threw spears at each other, and if they fancied a woman they drug them off by their hair. Those people were lucky if they saw 35.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on February 2, 2009 12:21 PMThis link describes the consequences from California's cap and trade system. Terms like disaster and travesty are inadequate to describe the carnage.
Posted by: Paddy on February 2, 2009 12:27 PMEvery liberal proposal ends up as a wallet-ectomy for everyone.
They want higher energy prices to "force" people to live the way liberals want us to. The liberal elite, who are filthy rich, could care less. Pelosi will still wear her pearls, Obama will still send his kids to a snooty private school, and Gore will ride in his limos.
The very people Democrats claim to champion will be the first to feel the misery of their backward policies.
Keep it up, Democrats. You're likely sowing the seeds of your doom. It couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of meanies.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on February 2, 2009 12:52 PMhttp://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/thoughts-on-the-therapeutic-style/
This links to Victor David Hansen (Stanford's Hoover Institute scholar) explanation of "how California is broke, tens of billions of dollars in aggregate debt, despite having among the highest sales and income taxes in the nation".
Posted by: Paddy on February 2, 2009 01:01 PMProves the point, doesn't it? Liberal feel-good solutions never work. They didn't work for Roosevelt, and they ruined the social fabric of the country thanks to LBJ.
One thing you can always take to the bank. Liberals never admit that they have been wrong. It isn't in their DNA.
If they had an honest bone in their miserable bloated fat bodies Barney Frank and Chris Dodd would have done the decent thing and admitted their very significant role in the collapse of the mortgage industry.
Democrats never, ever, admit they are wrong. If you have liberal friends you know this.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on February 2, 2009 01:19 PMLeaving liberalism behind is a wonderful thing. Ronald Reagan did it. I did it. You can, too.
You'll feel a lot better.
Trust me.
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on February 2, 2009 06:36 PMIn English, AB, please. This is America - we like to converse in English.
Try it again - even after running your text through the post-modernist transmogrifying translater, I could still not see your apology for your lifetime of left-wing stupidity.