Does the public need to understand cap-and-trade? 12

Comments View as Flat

1. 

   wesrolley Posted 11:00 am
   12 May 2009

   What the public needs to understand is that is is not being flim-flammed.  I don't think that the back room negotiations to produce a "passable" version of Markey-Waxman will be passable when the smell test is applied.
   However, I could not agree more with your final sentence.  The way off the ship is not to end our dependence on foreign oil but to end our dependence on fossil fuels.  Unfortunately we have the entire fossil fuel lobby telling us otherwise, daily, sponsoring NBC's Nightly News, underwhiting PBS's News Hour and Nightly Business Report.It is all that 'don't need to know' stuff that makes me think it is a montebank's game.

   Permalink

2. 

   AntonioSosa Posted 3:31 pm
   12 May 2009

   What Americans need to know is that global warming/cap and trade is a criminal scam that threatens their future and the future of their children.   Cap and Trade “would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb directed at the U.S. economy—all without any scientific justification,” says famed climatologist Dr. S. Fred Singer. It would significantly increase taxes and the cost of energy, forcing many companies to close, thus increasing unemployment, poverty and dependence. To increase their power and wealth at our expense, Obama and his billionaire fraudulent friends (Gore, Soros, Goldman Sachs, the Chicago Climate Exchange guys, GE, etc.) have been trying to brainwash us with the man-made global warming scam.  GE, for example, has bombarded us with daily propaganda -- through its NBC networks, that includes MSNBC and CNBC -- to make us swallow the scam. Why? Because they stand to make BILLIONS from the scam. Not only GE is the largest wind turbine generator maker, but it may benefit as the sole “secondary market” trader of the cap and trade credits.  More and more scientists and thinking people all over the world are realizing that man-made global warming is a hoax that threatens our future and the future of our children. More than 700 international scientists dissent over man-made global warming claims. They are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/3562/218/

   Permalink

   1. 

      engrjim Posted 12:27 pm
      13 May 2009

      Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, we've been putting CO2 into the atmosphere - an uncontrolled experiment on a global scale.  Now bad things are happening.  Climate changes are happening faster than species can adapt and they're going extinct.  That hasn't happened in a very long time.  Since the unprecedented rise in CO2 and the extremely infrequent climate change are happening at the same time, the probability that they're unrelated is vanishingly small.As far as I can tell, the scientists may not have come up with a detailed mechanism that shows exactly how the CO2 causes the climate changes - modelling the climate is a whole lot more difficult than modelling the weather - but the probability argument is good enough for me. 

      Permalink

3. 

   engrjim Posted 4:12 pm
   12 May 2009

   "Cap and trade" is fine.  The politicians who pander to the Santa Claus cult would call any other term taxes.  People need to understand that we're hurting.  If we'd been smart years ago, we'd be fine now; but the adjustable rate has gone way up and there's nobody to bail us out. Somebody's going to pay in the short run so that we'll all be better off later. 

   Permalink

4. 

   Teuthis Posted 5:26 pm
   12 May 2009

   We have enough trouble with ignorance, and people (including me, sometimes) not understanding what we talk about, without you actively advocating it.Yes, "the public" doesn't grasp the details of carbon cap-and-trade (and I don't either, really).  Yes, getting it done shouldn't require first making sure everyone is perfectly informed.  But laypeople who want to educate themselves about it and its likely effects should be aided by intelligent sources.  Saying, in effect, "You don't need to know what this is but we'll all die if you don't let the authorities do it" is not advisable IMO. 

   Permalink

   1. 

      engrjim Posted 12:05 pm
      13 May 2009

      The rest of us do need far better information on the climate problem and the methods of reducing the danger. As you say, the "authorities" who make unsupported claims and expect people to line up and join the cause aren't all that effective.  They should be giving the facts with the arguments and counter arguments and let people come to their own conclusions.  Regardless of what some politicians think, people aren't stupid.  Once they understand the facts, the majority will support what needs to be done.I don't think that the details of our carbon cap and trade have been worked out yet, but Wikipedia explains the concept and what it's like in Europe.  The term is well enough established that it shouldn't be changed.   

      Permalink

5. 

   SallyVCrockett Posted 12:16 pm
   13 May 2009

   Consumers should absolutely be aware of the relative merits of both cap-and-trade AND the alternatives. 

   Permalink

   1. 

      engrjim Posted 12:38 pm
      13 May 2009

      Absolutely.  Way too much of the climate change information is presented without any background - or alternatives.  The argument that I find convincing for cap and trade is that it gives more incentive for innovation.  A carbon tax would encourage people to spend their time and effort looking for loopholes.

      Permalink

      1. 

         SallyVCrockett Posted 8:30 am
         14 May 2009

         I disagree.  I would argue that a revenue-neutral carbon tax both incentivizes green R&D and encourages people to conserve energy on a personal level precisely because it is more straightforward and transparent than a cap and trade system. 

         Permalink

      2. 

         engrjim Posted 8:56 pm
         14 May 2009

         Here's my understanding of the carbon tax/cap and trade trade off:Cap and trade -Polluters have to buy credits for the right to pollute.  This forces them to charge higher prices and gives the non-polluters a competitive advantage so that they become more able to attract venture capital. Innovaters are given strong incentive to develop the most efficient, and therefore most profitable, means of producing energy.Carbon tax -Taxes are imposed near the point of CO2 production.  In the case of electric power plants, that would have a very similar effect on competition to that of cap and trade - and does seem simpler to administer.  I don't know whether a tax at the pump is still proposed for gasolene.  If it is, the profitablity of oil companies wouldn't be affected.  Nah.  The policy makers would have to understand that.  They'd tax the oil companies in order to make things work right.  So the government would just slap a tax (tariff) on oil and let it go at that.  Sounds straightforward to me.Revenue neutral -Big problem, pretty much the same for each scheme:  How do you fairly distribute the burden of higher prices?Wrap up -You got me Sally, a carbon tax does look better. 

         Permalink

6. 

   aariddle Posted 9:18 am
   15 May 2009

   Your analysis of carbon taxes and cap-and-trade shows how imperfect understanding can lead to a faulty conclusion (and THAT'S why it's important for the public to understand).Taxes and cap-and-trade use two different mechanisms for achieving carbon reductions.  Carbon taxes, as you said, tax carbon producers at the source for the amount they produce--essentially, they set a price on carbon, allowing a firm to decide how much they can afford to emit before they try to make reductions.Cap-and-trade, however, does something similar.  In systems where cap-and-trade is mandatory, such as under the Kyoto Protocol, the polluters do in fact buy permits for the right to pollute.  The difference is that governments in these areas distribute a set number of permits to begin with, guaranteeing that they achieve the amount of reduction that they want (which taxes do NOT do).  In addition, firms that can easily do so can reduce beyond the amount they have a permit for, and then sell the permit they no longer need to those cho can't.  Mandatory cap-and-trade systems achieve the amount of protection they want no matter what, are efficient in that they allow those who can easily reduce to make up for others, and allowing them to profit from doing so. 
   I'm not sure what you mean by revenue neutrality, quite frankly--you seem to be thinking about ways to keep carbon measures from being too costly for certain income brackets.  If that's the case, then I'd say it's pretty much agreed that unless we can find a way to charge sales tax based on income rather than a set amount (which we can't do for a whole host of philosophical and practical reasons), there is no way to prevent either of these measures from hurting the poor.  Taxes are imposed at the source, but the source makes up for these costs by charging more for their products down the line.  Cap-and-trade makes dirty industries more costly to run.  Either way, the poor will always suffer more from any kind of measure like this, regardless of what it is.

   Permalink

   1. 

      engrjim Posted 10:44 am
      15 May 2009

      Guaranteed reduction -Yeah. maybe.  We know how regulations (eg cafe standards) have worked: endless delays and lawsuits about setting the standards.  The companies that just got busy and pushed the state of the art, meeting or exceeding the proposed standards, got rich, of course, but who can say if our industry has learned anything?Incentive to reduce -Got it, I think.  Cap and trade makes for a different cost-benefit analysis.  A company would find it desirable to reduce its emissions as much as possible rather than just to a point where the taxes balanced the cost of reductions.  But wouldn't there be a similar point at which the value of credits matched the cost of reductions?Revenue neutral -I understand this to mean that the government gets no net increase of revenue from the carbon reduction system - that the income goes to reducing the burden of cabon reduction on the public.  Gasolene cost represents a far higher proportion of poor people's disposable income than it does for affluent people, so the poor should get more rebates - which could be deducted from income taxes and calculated based on their gas receipts.  People who are too poor to pay income tax could receive a negative tax.  Under either system, it'd be complicated to figure out a rebate amount from the amount of gasolene purchased.Incentive for the public to conserve -The government has to walk a tightrope.  If people feel too much pain, our elected officials who are working to reduce carbon emissions will get voted out.  If people don't have to pay more for gasolene, they won't see the need to conserve.Wrap up -Hey this is great!  I hope that our discussion is as helpful to you folks as it is to me.  Thank you all.

      Permalink