The Inevitable Failure (by Design) of Cap and Trade
When Scott Brown (R-MA) won his Senate seat, swept into office by his promise of becoming the Senate’s “filibuster breaker,” a lot of people said: “Whew! Now I don’t have to worry about that atrocious health-tax bill, or that cap and trade monstrosity!”
That just shows how euphoria clouds the mind. Because as soon as Republicans began celebrating, Democrats started furtively passing sealed manila folders to one another while making shushing sounds.
Republican elation didn’t last long. There was a distinct feeling of shock when President Obama let slip that health care was “still on the table.” And not just on the table, but that it would wend its way through the Senate via reconciliation, doubtlessly gathering an encrustation of rancid pork as it rolled along.
Well chum, sit down. Because the same thing is happening with the greenhouse gas limiting bill: the cap and trade … and tax, and might as well spend. It, too, has risen from the dead.
Only it never was dead, of course. It was just in hiding, waiting, and now is under active revision with the leadership of John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and Joe Lieberman (I-CT).
At this writing, the public doesn’t know exactly what measures will be adopted in the revised Senate bill, but we can make some intelligent guesses. The first being that the law of unintended consequences is set to strike once more.
Suppose, as is not likely, that it is true that humans are untowardly affecting the climate such that temperatures are everywhere increasing, and that those increasing temperatures are everywhere devastating or harmful and nowhere helpful. Suppose, too, that these temperature increases are directly caused by controllable greenhouse gas emissions, and that if these emissions can be reduced by a few percentage points, temperatures will not everywhere increase nor be everywhere harmful.
Suppose all that is true. Cap and trade is still a bad idea.
We know that greenhouse gas emissions (GGEs) can be reduced in two ways: by requiring utilities to cap production or engage in sequestration; or by requiring from others limitations on demand.
To limit demand, Congress could mandate citizens drive no faster than 55 miles per hour. That happened before in response to another energy “crisis,” so it is rational to believe it could happen again. Congress might also dabble with forcing rental car companies to use only “energy efficient” (i.e., more expensive) cars.
Perhaps Congress could require transportation companies to prove that some function of “miles traveled,” adjusted by fuel type, vehicle weight, and so forth, holds steady or falls. Or manufacturers will be taxed for exceeding energy-use “goals” (which will be set as a function of the influence of each firm’s senators).
Uh huh, more socialist “science” clap trap. The real bottom line is: cap and tax; cap and regulate; cap and control; cap and RULE. These greedy, self-serving clowns are completely disinterested in the “science” and only interested in preserving and promoting themselves. Socialism = utopia = totalitarian control. That is the real game here.
Word!
I have a better idea: let’s vote out each and every member of Congress who believes in this fairy tale of global warming and vote in some adults who can actually think for themselves. Then we can begin to dismantle the bureaucracies that are crippling our economy and reducing our standard of living. We can start building the nuclear plants and oil refineries that radical environmentalists have prevented us from building during the past two generations.
Breaking News: non-economists don’t understand economics. Film at eleven.
Clarity thy name is “Briggs”. But this is too logical for politicians to grasp. Can this be restated using smaller but more enigmatic words?
But it’s all for our own good, of course, because we dumb clingers don’t know how to take care of ourselves. And because we still have a few pennies in our pockets that they haven’t squeezed out yet.
The biggest problem is all the government departments that exist and will continue to exist that are pushing and pushing for more departments and more socialization (and therefore need more money). It is getting to the point where Congress and Senate don’t matter, the country is run by bureacracies. They are growing larger and larger as they are the only ones hiring (and paying well I might add).
Cap & Trade was always intended to be a corruption scheme, and nothing more. It is a way for the politically well-connected to make gigantic amounts of money from . . . nothing.
I have read that Enron pioneered Cap & Trade, and we all know how well that went.
Don’t slam Cap&Trade in general. It is a good tool for what it was designed for, Sulfur.
However, C&T works best in situations with very few emitters where emissions can be reduced greatly, but only in expensive ways that do not bring in money. That was the exact situation for sulfur. Refineries can easily remove sulfur via the Claus process, and coal burners can slightly less easily remove sulfur via scrubbers, but either method is extremely expensive. Therefore, cap and trade allowed the costs to be spread more or less evenly until everyone got their controls online. That’s why America’s acid rain is now so weak that actually acts as fertilizer, while Europe lags behind and Asia is getting worse.
Of course, as the saying goes, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It is a bad thing to use when you do not have good reduction technology (like CO2), when you have a large host of emitters (like CO2), or there are non-control methods of reducing emissions that have negative effects elsewhere (like CO2, a primary source of offsets is plant closures).
In all this inanity about cutting CO2 by some nice round percentage to yell in front of the Mob, a little Truth is overlooked.
North America is a NET CARBON SINK! Other portions and populations of the Earth may be putting CO2 into the atmosphere, but North America is NOT doing so. Despite its advanced western culture and industry America/Canada does not put a single net CO2 molecule into the atmosphere.
North Americans sequester all the CO2 that we humans create here, about 4%, but also all the CO2, some 96%, that our Nature puts there too. Plus some more besides from elsewhere too, for good measure.
How do we do it? We have the most extensive set of Land set-asides of anywhere in the World. We call them Parks, National Parks, National Forests, National Wildernesses, Wildlife Preserves, private Farmland, Ranches, and private Silviculture forests. But CO2 absorbers, and sequestering places they all are, as well.
It is sufficient to remove every single molecule of CO2 we create, and more besides. It is not just me that is saying that, but the Scientists at Princeton University in a whole Series of peer-reviewed scientific Papers, published and promptly forgotten and/or suppressed. (Google CO2 carbon sinks and Princeton for a list of the papers.)
We North Americans have demonstrated to the world that you can have a sustainable, industrial, advanced, society. We 6% of the World’s population produce some 25% of the World’s goods. And yet out air, rivers and lakes are increasingly clean, and unpolluted.
If China or India or Europe emit supposedly harmful CO2, then let them fix it. We did. Our job is Done.
Did you know that America has more land set aside for Parks and Wilderness, than all the area of the orignal 13 Colonies, at the time of the Revolution? It is true. I leave it for you to easily prove it to yourself, from readily available data. My State has only 17% of its land open to humans. And it is not all just ‘junk’ land that nobody wants. How much do you think the land of Central Park, or Grant’s Park is worth, if it were available to build skyscrapers in our two largest cities?
It was expensive for us to do it, but we did. Cease asking us to do even more.
Sounds like a zombie movie, “The Bill of the Dead”. Too bad a shot gun won’t kill this one.