Comments ballmerboy has made
SkyTrust
A few points:
- The original version of Sky Trust addressed concerns about equity for workers displaced by the increased cost of CO2 emsissions. Twenty-five percent of the funds collected from the auction and the sale of additional credits would be disbursed to the states to help those most dramatically affected, such as coal miners. The states’ share would decrease by 2½% yearly and the money added to the pool distributed to the public. I don't know when or why Mr Barnes modified his thinking, but I don't think the changes are for the better.
- The lump-sum payments would be more than "incentive to stay alive." They would be a bribe to support the painful policies necessary to deal with climate change. I don't see that as a bad thing in a country where the atomizing effect of the market and the cult of individuality have overcome much of our sense of nationally- or communally-shared action and sacrifice.
- It's nonsense to think people don't change their household energy use in response to price. Remember the late 1970s? Conservation? And if folks can't (or won't) change it, they may look for other ways to get those energy services. That could be a boon to alternative technologies.
- A $2 rise in the price of gasoline is equivalent to $800/ton of carbon, not $200/ton.
- I wonder if we are only now beginning to see reductions in gasoline demand and increased bus ridership because of the pathetic state of mass transit in this country. Might folks have started getting out of their cars when gas was $2.75/gal if the prospect of negotiating their local transit system didn't fill them with horror?
- Why allow ourselves to fall into a mindset where the money from carbon credits, all alone, must deal with the problems that will arise, must serve all purposes? Eliminating tax subsidies to the fossil industries could supply money, too. And, of course, we could always take several hundred billion dollars a year from that five-sided black hole on the Potomac.
- The original version of Sky Trust addressed concerns about equity for workers displaced by the increased cost of CO2 emsissions. Twenty-five percent of the funds collected from the auction and the sale of additional credits would be disbursed to the states to help those most dramatically affected, such as coal miners. The states’ share would decrease by 2½% yearly and the money added to the pool distributed to the public. I don't know when or why Mr Barnes modified his thinking, but I don't think the changes are for the better.
So 2
Another point I wanted to make and forgot. The Blue-Green Alliance is a sham. There may be an office with a person named David Foster answering the phone, but the idea of a partnership between the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers is a bad joke. Just ask all the people who worked so hard for the Global Warming Solutions Act in the Maryland legislature. The bill would have cut CO2 emission in MD by 90% by 2050 and its prospects looked pretty good until local steelworkers "partnered" with industry lobbyists to sabotage the bill. They wouldn't even consider language changes that would have assuaged their concerns.
I support unions, but their leaders, like liberal Democrats, have morphed into gutless snivellers. On What we learned from the stymied Climate Security Act, and what comes next posted 1 year, 5 months ago 5 Responses
So
Critics who complain about the way Sen Boxer handled the bill are missing a crucial point: it was a BAD bill. It deserved to die, and we're lucky that it did or we'd have been stuck with its egregious provisions forever. The groups that were pushing this legislation with the argument that "any bill is better than no bill, even if it's a bad bill" were the usual coterie of quasi-green corporate enviros: NRDC, ED, and the NWF. They are wrong and the Republicans did us all a favor.
Also, I'm unsettled by Kate Sheppard's use, in referring to the next president's role in this issue, of the term commander-in-chief. American culture is already far too militarized. Let's avoid any FOX-News-like misrepresentations of the nature and extent of a president's power and role in civilian issues.On What we learned from the stymied Climate Security Act, and what comes next posted 1 year, 5 months ago 5 Responses