Al Gore is hysterically funny.
Category: Anthropogenic Climate Change
Carbon Tax Update
Well, it’s beginning to look like France will impose its own carbon tax €17 ($24.90) per ton of CO2.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to move France toward greater reductions in carbon emissions, but it is also a reflection of just how big a failure that Europe’s cap and trade regime has been, with the creation of false offsets overseas, construction of hydroelectric plants without transmission lines in China, and paying farmers not to grow food.
In addition to that, there is the detail that the markets simply do not work, creating a “pollution fire sale,”* which makes this system a joke.
In any case, I ran the numbers,† and got about $0.2212/gallon, which in the scheme of things is not a huge chunk of change, particularly in France, where the price of a gallon of gas is about $6.00 including tax, but it is likely to make coal powered electricity much less competitive, particularly if the tax goes up over time.
France is emulating Finland and Sweden, who implemented carbon taxes over a decade ago, and got reductions in emissions, as opposed to the EU cap and trade, which hasn’t ever worked.
On a related note, both Caterpillar and Federal Express are lobbying for a carbon tax instead of a cap and trade too.
They mention a number of reasons, not the least of which is the giveaways to big coal, but the big reason is buried a few paragraphs down here:
A predictable, graduated tax would have an impact on the role of the military overseas, improve the environment and be good for the economy, [FedEx CEO] Smith argued.
(emphasis mine)
Simply put, they don’t want to live in a world where the cost of carbon credits will fluctuate day to day because of the machinations of that great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity,‡ Goldman Sachs.
FedEx and Caterpillar, and pretty much everyone but the coal burning utilities can live with a carbon tax, it effects them all equally.
If you make carbon permits a trade able market commodity, and suddenly you have where the difference between survival and bankruptcy are choices in an opaque and volatile market.
You end up diverting enormous resources from upgrading equipment and doing research on more efficient ways to do things, and drive it into the blood funnel of the vampire squid.
*Original author’s pun, not mine.
†I assume that the tax is actually per tonne (metric ton), so that is 1000 kg of CO2, which is 273 kg of carbon. This means that the actual tax for a kg of carbon is about €0.0623 per kilo of carbon.
A good approximation of the formula for gasoline is C8H18 (It’s actually a witches brew of different hydrocarbons), and the weight of a liter of gasoline 0.76, so the weight of carbon in a liter is about 0.64 kg.
This gives a tax of about €0.03989/liter, or about $0.2212/gallon
‡Alas, I cannot claim credit for this bon mot, it was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.
Life on Mars
Click images for full size
When the World Ends, All that Will Be Left are Cockroaches and Australian Surfers
Odd Day at the Playground
The Iconic Opera House
Satellite Image
If you want to see more, your best bet is Google Images, though you can get the proverbial, “rest of the story,” from the Mail Online (and here), BBC NEWS, the CSM, and see this video at the bottom.
Whatever the case, it is clear that the mars analogies seem almost universal.
An Idea from Texas that I Approve of
And yes, it is a bar sign in Austin, so whether or not this sign is quintessentially Texan, or is quintessentially Austin, is up for debate.
Why Carbon Cap and Trade is a Fraud
I’ve always said that it is rife in opportunities for gaming the system and abuse.
We now can say that the system has already been gamed and abused:
China dams reveal flaws in climate-change weapon
By JOE McDONALD and CHARLES J. HANLEY – 1 day ago
XIAOXI, China (AP) — The hydroelectric dam, a low wall of concrete slicing across an old farming valley, is supposed to help a power company in distant Germany contribute to saving the climate — while putting lucrative “carbon credits” into the pockets of Chinese developers.
But in the end the new Xiaoxi dam may do nothing to lower global-warming emissions as advertised. And many of the 7,500 people displaced by the project still seethe over losing their homes and farmland.
…..
This is not a but, it’s a feature. If you want Wall Street and its worldwide siblings to run this shell game, this is what is called “value added”.
This is why a carbon tax is the way to go.
Antarctica is warming, not cooling: study | Environment | Reuters
Another nail in climate change denier’s coffin, it turns out that Antarctica is warming, not cooling.
I Recall an Anime Movie About This
Specifically Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle.
Only this one is real, or at least in prototype state courtesy of those wacky Danes from art collective N55 in Copenhagen.
The theory is that when rising ocean levels from global warming make your current location to wet, the house walks somewhere else.
Reminds me of that bit of dialogue from a Get Smart episode:
99: What’s that?
Max: An electric snake, we’ll send it it to get
information.99: What does it run on?
Max: Tiny Little Feet.
Heh.
‘Roo, It’s What for Dinner
But not in my house, it’s not kosher, but it looks like there are people in Australia who think that a greater reliance on Kangaroo meat will reduce global warming.
Kangaroo meat, which has a taste similar to farmed venison, was banned from sale for human consumption until 1995 on Australia’s eastern seaboard, including in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, according to Kelly of the kangaroo association.
So it doesn’t taste like chicken.
Republicans Kill Global Warming Bill
This is not unexpected. Those guys will never admit that Al Gore was right.
Maybe next congress we will get 60 votes.
Acid Seawater as a Result of Globan Warming
One of the issues with most of the models of global warming is that they have been wrong most of the time.
The problem is that they have been wrong because they’ve been too conservative, and each time new data comes out, it’s worse than predictions.
Now we are seeing Acidified seawater showing up in Pacific coastal waters about a century ahead of schedule.
Basically, as ocean water heats, it absorbs more CO2, and this turns the water more acid.
The measurements found a pH of 7.6, as opposed to the normal 8.1
Polar Bear Added to Protected Species List
Truth be told, I did not expect this action from Bush and His Evil Minions™ in the Department of the Interior.
Not only does it make things more difficult for big oil operating in the Arctic, it is also an acknowledgment of global warming.
CO2 at 650,000 Years High
Nope, nothing to see here, move along.
The readings from ice cores in Antartica show CO2 levels rising twice as fast as ever observed, and another article in the same issue of the journal Science ocean levels at a 100 million year high.
We’re All Gonna Die
I think that we are heading down a steepening slope, and I would not be at all surprised if there is blue water between the three islands that make up Greenland (they currently share an ice field) in my lifetime.
Southern Baptist Agree that Global Warming is Real
You know, when the Southern Baptist Convention decides to stop being the Republicans bitch on global warming, it’s pretty significant.
Reasons why it’s significant:
- They are saying that Al Gore is right.
- They are recognizing reality.
- They are realizing that their alignment with one political party is harming them.
- A realization that global warming is not a plot of the one-world-government liberals.
Give them time. I think it was 1995 when they finally admitted that they were founded to support slavery, and apologized, because slavery was a bad thing.
Carbon Trading: Once Again, Speculative Market Type Solutions to Real Problems Fail Abysmally
It appears that they have discovered that outright fraud is destroying carbon trading.
According to the World Wildlife Fund, one out of every five carbon credits that’s been issued by the United Nations may be bogus in the sense that the projects being credited for reducing emissions are in fact increasing emissions.
The justification for carbon trading has been that speculative markets will magically find truth and the best way of doing things.
The real justification is that people with MBAs can create complex instruments that generate them lots of fees for doing things that do not benefit the public, or achieve the stated goals of the program.
Basically, this is gambling, and Wall Street sets itself up as the house. It’s what the FDR era regulations were supposed to minimize, and what 30 years of deregulation, starting under Carter, have given us.
It’s a system that encourages phony numbers and lying to generate fees and profits.
Carbon trading is a carbon tax, they both serve to raise the cost of releasing carbon into the atmosphere.
The only difference is that the former benefits Wall Street types, and the latter benefits everyone, so under today’s morality, the former is good, and the latter is bad.
Sonny Perdu is an Idiot, and He Will Kill Atlanta Through Thirst
Most of you not from the far SE US are probably unaware of the fact that Georgia, Alabama, and Florida are fighting over water rights.
Well, alabama and Florida have just won a major case, over the allocation of water from the federal Lake Lanier reservoir.
The judge ruled that, “agreement between Georgia and the Army Corps of Engineers that would have given Georgia rights to use nearly a quarter of the water …. was void because the two parties had not first obtained Congressional approval.”
As is the case with most such cases, this has been bubbling along* for the past 20 or so years, and has been compounded by the drought, and by Georgia’s unwillingness to take steps to ensure adequate water to feed its growth.
In related news, the very next day,Sonny “He’s Not a Schmuck Because a Schmuck Has a Head†” Purdue has announced will be allowing folks to fill their swimming pools and water their lawns.
This is a metaphor for what will be the next resource fight, potable water.
If conflict over the past 35 years has been largely defined by fights over oil, fights over the next few decades will be over water.
It will be far more brutal, because people don’t die without oil.
*Pun intended.
†True…Learn your Yiddish.
Clean Coal, Toxic Water
Note that I have just added the Washington Independent to my blogroll…It’s a good source for news and commentary.
Check out this article on the toxic waste of “clean coal”.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s own research, coal ash dumping can lead to higher rates of cancer, developmental problems in children and adverse effects in women of child-bearing age. Despite the fact that coal ash contains mercury, lead, arsenic, chromium, cadmium, selenium, beryllium, and other toxic metals, the EPA has yet to categorize coal ash as hazardous waste. In addition, coal ash has been found to be up to 100 times more radioactive than nuclear waste, due to the concentrations of uranium and thorium that increase 10-fold after coal is burned.
Hell Freezes Over
No global warming, my ass.
Pentagon Refused to Invesgigate KBR Rape Charges
Just lovely.
I guess that it might interfere with Dick Cheney’s deferred compensation package from Halliburton.
Bush and His Evil Minions™ Have EPA Block California Air Quality Rules
No big surprise here. Bush loves polluters. Governor Schwartzenegger* says that he will file suit. The EPA is using the recently passed energy bill as one of the justifications.
Since 12 other states follow California regulations, and 5 other states are considering it, this is a significant thing.
*I still have a problem getting my head around, “Governor Schwartzenegger”.