George Bush was the greatest ecological President that ever lived. Reason? He promoted hydrogen. Result? The Honda FCX fuel cell powered car was named the Green Car of the Year. Bush is like a genius artist, acknowledged only after his time. The FCX award validates his belief in Hydrogen and shows that Bush had the right ideas at the right time.

Honda FCX Clarity wins World Green Car award at N.Y. auto show

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock News/2267145/

Appreciated the rant ... and the quite thoughtful 'placing it in context' apology.

1.  At least some of the critiquing (Romm & myself included) has given good grades re energy and energy efficiency elements of the bill, while raising questions about the climate section.

2.  This is a "discussion draft" ... discussion not allowed? Only cheerleading?

Bailo, always good for a laugh.

Several decades hence, when we're looking back and asking "Where did we go wrong?" I think part of the answer may be that people like you were approaching this purely as a political issue and refused to confront the fundamental policy issues. I don't advocate scrapping cap-and-trade and substituting a tax -- there are no "silver bullets" -- but if you and Friedman were to take your blinders off and address the substantive policy issues you might recognize that cap-and-trade and taxes are not mutually exclusive alternatives, and you might find common ground on fashioning more effective regulatory policy.

Friedman said cap-and-trade amounts to a tax. So what? Why is that such a bad thing? Can you identify specifically what characteristic of a tax makes it so much more politically reprehensible than cap-and-trade? I'm not suggesting that it isn't, I'm just questioning whether you can explain why it is. Taxes and cap-and-trade both put a price on emissions. With a tax, you know what the price is up front. With cap-and-trade "The price is unknowable in advance, since no one knows what it will end up costing to achieve the cap targets." So can you explain why it is that politicians and industry prefer cap-and-trade to a tax?

those famous writers who not only fail to inform the public

that the destabilization of climate is an issue of genocide-by-famine,

but also use their texts to undermine the long awaited US legislation on the issue,

richly deserve such critique.

Those who don't see this I guess don't yet see the scale of the genocide that is being prepared.

Maybe it's worth noting that being American is unlikely to grant them immunity ?

Regards,

Billhook

those famous writers who not only fail to inform the public

that the destabilization of climate is an issue of genocide-by-famine,

but also use their texts to undermine the long awaited US legislation on the issue,

richly deserve such critique.

Those who don't see this I guess don't yet see the scale of the genocide that is being prepared.

Maybe it's worth noting that being American is unlikely to grant them immunity ?

Regards,

Billhook

However, of course, I have to disagree with you about something -- the use of the word "green left". I'm not sure what that is (maybe another apology/context post?).  Now, there is a "left", however broadly that might be defined.  My experience is that people outside of the envrionmental movment who are in progressive, or even "left" wingers, don't like cap-and-trade.  They don't understand why the environmental community is excited about the concept.  maybe I'm talking about what you would call the "far left", or whatever word you want to use, but nobody in "there" would call Friedman a leftist, and I don't know if Friedman would call himself that either, he's radically centrist, if I'm not mistaken.

The obvious alternative to carbon pricing is direct government investment/spending.  The environmental community, in general, does not seem to take this route seriously, possibly as a result of being bludgeoned by conservatives for decades, but the really unfortunate consequence of this is that public transit goes off the radar because the government has to invest something to make trains work.  I know there is plenty of mentions of transit, but it's obviously not a major plankof the platform.

And I repeat  my request -- please point to your/grist links that go into detail about the otheer parts of the bill -- I think even the bill's defenders seem to be obsessed with carbon pricing, and don't discuss the other parts.

Anyway, get mad more often.

Now, to the substance of your argument. Here is a response from the infamous green left! 

I think you are angry because people like me are not wildly supportive of cap-and-trade, and we are suspicious about Democratic energy proposals.  Actually, we probably are mildly in favor of it - we just think that our efforts are better put in other directions.Grassroots organizing and developing a communities are a much better use of my time.

If you (meaning Democrats and mainstream environmentalists) want the support of people like myself, then it would be good to offer us something in return.  As it is, I don't think you understand what we are doing, nor do you have much respect for it.

And then we feel kicked in the teeth when you say ridiculous things like the "worst enemy turns out to be the green left."  That's just plain silly.  Do you even know who the green left is? Are we mounting expensive disinformation campaigns against the Democrats?  Is there anybody on the green left whose work even appears in the mainstream media? 

I think you're just frustrated and picking a target at random.

It's too bad, because we can be your allies.  But you have to offer us something in return. You can't just yell at us because we don't support you bllindly.

But a quick point on David's argument. The idea that criticism of having a 648 page energy bill to move a cap/trade is based entirely on "jurisdictional (read: ego) issues" is nonsense. That gives a lot of people on the fence who see a lot of big industrial money asking them to vote no an awful lot of excuses to vote no.

Your purity contains truth but its missing a layer of reality and complexity that comes with maturity on this subject.  And its also just being a hater.  A misanthrope. 

We'll see who is more effective at displacing CO2 in the next 20 years:  the piss and vinegar purists who act only from an energy space of "reaction to past abuses", or the real work of actually collaborating with all kinds of different people under one tent to solve this problem.  Have you ever read "The Death of Environmentalism?"

Wanna place your bets now?  Pound for pound, which approach is going to displace more CO2 and get more middle Americans on board?

I have recently moved from a small town in Northern California which was largely made up of the demographic referred to as "people like myself" two posts earlier, to a town with a more varied political and social demographic. It has been almost unbearably frustrating trying to talk to people who seemingly know nothing of what I now take for common knowledge.  This demographic though still makes up a good deal of our population.

Yes, I want more when it comes to environmental and energy legislation. But just because we won't get everything we want in one fowl swoop doesn't mean we stop fighting.  In simplistic terms Dave's argument is the old "give a mouse a cookie and he'll ask for a glass a milk".  However, the environmental movement has become so frustrated with our political scene's historic disassociation from the "reality" of climate change, that as we are offered the first step, we have become too jaded to even accept it.  Preaching to the choir, no matter how right the choir may be, is not the most effective strategy.

Short term compromise is not the same as long term concession. If you still believe that the only way to fix everything is in one fowl swoop, I urge you to stand up, pack your bags, and move out of your intellectual comfort zone to a part of the country where you will be forced to mingle amongst those people you probably like to pretend don't exist.

Alas, the argument in this article is not about the semantics of calling cap-and-trade a tax or not.  It is about our propensity to dwell on what we are not getting rather than providing support and constructive criticism for a political chance that only a year ago, we would have been ecstatic to see signed into law.

Since I only read english and not Washington double-speak I can't figure out how much of this bill is committed to installing solar panels, wind turbines, transmission lines, geothermal power and conservation retrofits. I see a big smokescreen disguised as an actual attempt to address climate change. The apology was nice but I'm still thinking Freidman has a closer bead to the wishes of the american public. We're not demanding support because we don't like the bill before us.