February 2008

Carbon tax? Not yet, thanks. We want more coal and oil: Corcoran

by Julie Walsh on February 13, 2008

in Blog

Too much can never be said of the great climate change policy farce. As many parts of the world suffer through harsh cold spells, record snow and deep-freeze conditions, governments and politicians continue to pursue hilariously contradictory policies to make the world colder still.  Or so they claim. What's really going on is another matter. Consider the latest news on oil and coal.

In the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan and other countries, there is official endorsement of carbon taxes and carbon trading to raise the price of carbon-based energy so as reduce emissions.  How bizarre, then, to read the statement signed by finance ministers from these same nations calling for lower oil prices.

Spain and Italy to Spend $10B on Carbon Credits

by Julie Walsh on February 13, 2008

in Blog

Spain and Italy, the European Union’s worst performers under the Kyoto treaty effort to curb carbon dioxide emissions, will not meet their commitments by 2012 unless taxpayers dish out up to $10 billion to buy carbon credits, mostly in the developing world.

The two Mediterranean countries are responsible for around 75 percent of the E.U.-15’s excess carbon dioxide discharges. By 2012, according to Kyoto, those discharges were supposed to be cut to 8 percent below 1990 levels. Although both countries have imposed strict additional limits on their carbon-intensive industries (in addition to other emergency measures), they will still need to offset the carbon dioxide produced by their expanding economies by buying carbon credits through the so-called flexible mechanisms.

Climate change costs ‘must not harm competitiveness’

by Julie Walsh on February 13, 2008

in Blog

EU finance ministers cast some doubt on the cost of the Commission's ambitious plans to combat climate change, saying at their monthly meeting that it must not harm competitiveness.

Finance Minister Brian Cowen said there must be a fair and transparent sharing of the burden of creating a low-carbon economy.

GW Sinks Nessie

by William Yeatman on February 13, 2008

It seems that the recent failure to obtain sonar “hits” of Nessie are a sign that the beast has been doomed, and by global warming. Sit back and savor that logic for a moment.

If true, the timing of this, by some accounts, Pleistocene relic (given the Loch’s age, probably not, let alone Jurassic) is curious. After all, there have been numerous, far stronger warmings during the oh, 2 million years preceding that of the late 20th Century – including the 1930s, when she was first sighted – but presumably the most recent warming weakened her to be unable to deal with the cooling of recent years.

Scotland’s (relatively) more modern history, however, also raises some questions about this newest application of the today’s “Twinkie Defense” for all things we cannot rationally explain (or emotionally extinguish). This might also explain why ET and other cryptozoological specimens have made themselves scarce as of late.

The worst part is we also haven’t seen Champ, meaning she, too, may have gone the way of the Loch Ness Monster. Just as I was preparing an endangered Species Act petition seeking her listing as threatened, to remind the hippies what it’s like when their abusively expanded rules designed to limit other peoples’ land use hit home.

By 2030, China’s Emissions May Equal Global Emissions Today

by William Yeatman on February 13, 2008

in Blog

G7 Calls for Increased Fossil Fuel Production

by William Yeatman on February 13, 2008

in Blog

Street lights to be switched off at midnight

by Julie Walsh on February 12, 2008

in Blog

Street lights in suburban areas are to be switched off after midnight as part of council plans to save energy.

A series of trial blackouts will be carried out over the next few weeks by local authorities in the Home Counties, Hampshire and Essex among others.

Buckinghamshire council is reported to be switching off more than 1,700 lights along 25 miles of road in an attempt to meet energy targets.

Cheap Carbon Credits: To Japan, From Russia With Love?

by Julie Walsh on February 12, 2008

in Blog

Japan, famous for its hybrid cars and solar panels, may become an environmental pioneer in another sense: buying cheap carbon offsets abroad to minimize the burden on its domestic industry to clean up its act at home.

Japanese and Russian officials agreed over the weekend to launch talks about Japan buying surplus greenhouse-gas emission permits from Russia. Such a sale would mark a major – and controversial – development in the geopolitics of what to do about global warming.

Camelot meets the New Deal

by Julie Walsh on February 12, 2008

Reuters wrote a piece the other day making a statement that struck me as odd. Specifically, “Global warming has become a key issue in the race for the White House.” I had missed that, and Reuters’ evidence also betrayed the theory: it is an issue because “…the top candidates in both political parties seek[] to put a cap on greenhouse gases blamed for rising global temperatures.”

Back in the day, political issues arose when candidates disagreed.

The piece also contained another great-debate-that-isn’t line. “‘The debate is between the carbon tax and cap and trade,’ [Sen. John McCain] said. ‘I will do whatever I can to get consensus on cap and trade legislation.’” I confess that I am unaware of any cognizable political movement to impose a carbon tax, with politicians instead huddling safely around the fire of the less menacing “cap-and-trade” scheme…which of course the Congressional Budget Office calls an (inefficient) energy tax, giving McCain’s whole effort to construct a me-vs.-them strawman scenario an even stranger patina.

In short, candidates are trying to make global warming an issue where it isn’t, even if it should be. This was affirmed in a speech by McCain’s fellow and presidential candidate Barack Obama at a rally in College Park, MD, yesterday. In the course of this address Obama seized the mantle of “hopemonger,” in contrast to those other “mongers” out there. He then proceeded, however, through three separate stanzas about global warming, to reveal he is also a warmmonger, offering a fairly routine routine about impending disaster unless we demand the government assume various interventions in the economy.

A key line is plush for political cynics like me: “we are going to spend billions of dollars on solar, wind and biodiesel.”

Yes, it's criminal we haven't done that yet. Can’t you just smell the debate this will prompt?

Not so amusing was the end of that paragraph: “We will hire young people who don't have a trade and give them a trade making homes more energy efficient, insulating homes, changing light bulbs, reducing our dependence on dirty power plants.” So, the idealistic, modern-day version of the ask-not-what-your-country-can-do-for-you president stakes out the turf of telling slackers who only get exercised about “global warming” not to worry, the government will provide (the somehow romanticized) windmill and light-bulb-changing jobs after graduation.

That’s not Camelot, it’s the New Deal, which oddly hadn’t seized on global warming alarmism as a hook even though it was warmer in the 1930s.

California proposes a global-warming fee on businesses

by Julie Walsh on February 12, 2008

in Blog

In the first such program in California, and perhaps the United States, Bay Area air pollution regulators are proposing to charge an annual fee to thousands of businesses based on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit.

The fee – 4.2 cents per metric ton of carbon dioxide – would affect everything from oil refineries to power plants, and landfills, factories and small businesses like restaurants and bakeries.

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