Without cap and trade, projects that create tradable carbon emissions credits (CECs) by fixing carbon or otherwise reducing greenhouse gas levels -- things like preserving forests and planting new ones, trapping gases from organic waste and livestock excrement, or getting third-world villagers to use low-CO2-emitting gas stoves rather than free firewood from local forests (which also emits lots of greenhouse-causing soot) -- wouldn't exist. The carbon tax reduces carbon emissions by making it more expensive to burn fossil fuels. But it does nothing about all these other sources of greenhouse-causing emissions. Only cap and trade does.
What's interesting is that to me, this is a feature, not a bug. Everything I've read, heard, and studied about offsets indicates that the audit problem is essentially insurmountable. Favorite private projects like planting trees really don't work at all, because you can't just plant a tree--you have to certify that the land you have planted with trees will contain at least that much tree-mass forever, because as soon as a tree dies, its carbon returns to the atmosphere. This is not really feasible in other than trivially small doses, and the larger plots tend to be in places where you really can't make that sort of committment, because it's too dependent on the continued goodwill of the government in an area where governments are historically very unstable.
The plans to pay Chinese firms to shut down polluting plants, or villagers not to adopt a carbon-intensive lifestyle, are even worse. Carbon has about a 100 year shelf-life in the atmosphere, so it's no good just switching people into developing countries to a lower-carbon technology if the carbon is displaced into some other use. Say you give someone a nice treadle-based irrigation system so that they don't use an inefficient kerosene generator. Great. Now that person has the money they would have spent on kerosene, and a generator. If they buy a motorcycle instead, you have not saved carbon. Steinglass points to phasing out sooty cookstoves, which is indeed a carbon reducer in the short term. But all the stuff that gets burned in the cookstoves would have decomposed and released its carbon in another, longer-lasting form. It's helpful, but no panacea--and it's the absolute best of the initiatives, as far as I can tell.
China is even more problematic, because given the state of the Chinese manufacturing sector, five gets you ten that whatever factory you pay someone to shut down wasn't actually making any money. So you've just created a lucrative business in owning and operating heavily polluting facilities.
The problem is, it's very hard to certify the alternative world-state. I don't mean this as a demand for some impossible proof, but with things like paying manufacturers not to pollute, there's very good reason to think that this might not work--indeed, have the opposite of the intended effect.
A source fuels tax is not nearly as sexy as cap and trade; it is a less sophisticated instrument that will fall too heavily on some of the wrogn people. But it's also hard to game. Given all the observed problems with the European trading system, we should give that simplicity quite a bit of weight.
I suspect that for the proponents the gamability of cap-and-trade is a feature, not a bug. The same people who found a way to trade other emissions want to trade this one. They prefer to play games with pieces of paper for profit instead of producing something real. It's easier.
Carbon cap and trade has clearly not worked in Europe, and looks like mostly an opportunity for speculators to make fortunes without accomplishing anything. My question is why should we be in a rush to do anything? As Congressman Barton says, the debate that Al Gore says is over never took place. Why don't we have it now. The supporters of the cataclysmic AGW hypothesis have typically been reluctant to provide their data for review, and, for example, after Congressman Barton forced release of the Mann hockeystick data, independent reviewers quickly found fatal flaws in it. Basing public policy that will dramatically reduce the standard of living in America on work by the thoroughly corrupt UN without independent review appears to be a bad idea to me.
Carbon has about a 100 year shelf-life in the atmosphere,
According to this, it is 12.
When a tree dies, does its carbon not remain locked up in complex cellulose chains we call "wood"?
If and only if it is sawed up and stored in a dry place. Otherwise it rots over a few years and releases alot of its carbon.
Hence the idea, cheered on by Freeman Dyson, of growing carbon-eating trees and then burying them.
Which is why I still don't understand why burying yard waste in landfills isn't a better idea than composting.
If we buried all that carbon-rich plant matter, who knows what would happen to it if decomposed anaerobically? Maybe it would even turn into something useful. 8-P
Not only does it release a lot of carbon, depending on the conditions, it is likely that much of it will be released and methane, which is a stronger, longer lived GHG that eventually breaks down into CO2. Part of why we now believe hydro-elecrtice is a net warmer, it both produces lots of anaerobic decay and standing water to evaprorate.
What BobW said. This is about having something to game. It's no accident that the big investment banks are heavily lined up behind cap and trade. The "audit problem" certainly didn't stop them from getting big into subprime and banking huge profits & bonuses in the bubble years.
Don't you understand? Wall Street desperately needs a new subprime.
You are SO spot-on here. And, just like with the subprime fiasco, nobody is paying attention. Like dupes in front of a magician, we are all watching the pretty lady and other distractions, so as not to see the actual palming or other such "magic."
Social engineering is so attractive to so many people, it's the perfect distraction. People are BEGGING for this show. They NEED to have a crisis to fight. Now that housing for poor people didn't work out, we'll shift to a fear of our own farts. Sheeple, for sure.
But the banks are clever. They've always been clever, like sharks are always hungry. And they will find a way - or several ways - to fleece the sheeple, even if it once again wreaks havoc with the economy.
That's presuming there's enough of an economy left after what we're going through now. Anyone following how all of Chauncey's TARP money is starting to pick up some velocity, in the form of petroleum futures? Anyone notice that in the teeth of a huge recession, with demand for gasoline way down and stocks at a record high, the price of gas is going up?
The inflation monster lives again... I'm not sure that Cap and Trade will fall on an economy capable of taking it.
In defense of the projects, shouldn't there be an incentive for activities that genuinely reducing carbon. For instance shouldn't engineers be incentivized to create a device that scrubs the atmosphere of CO2? I still like the tax, I just suggest that if you can prove you are actively taking carbon out of the air you be paid the tax per ton, a sort of negative carbon tax.
Ian, as Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway recently said, cap and trade is "almost demented." It is a disaster waiting to happen. So I disagree with you there, but the rest of your post makes sense. If we were to believe AGW is a real phenomenon and that it is a bad thing (two distinctly separate but equally unproven theories), it makes much more sense to focus our technology budget on filtering carbon out of the air than to try and avoid putting it there in the first place.
There you go, thinking again. Asking questions again. People who went to better colleges than you did, whose parents went to better colleges than your parents, people who don't have "Mc" in their names, decided this was a good thing. Your place is to go along with it, if you want to be one of the cool kids.
people who don't have "Mc" in their names
Hey, it's true -- Dr. Michael C. MacCracken, Chief Scientist for Climate Change Programs at the Climate Institute in Washington DC, does not have "Mc" in his name.
The virtue of the carbon tax approach is that we already know that comparable tax approaches change behavior. When hazardous materials were going to be handled only in highest-cost landfills,which land fill developers quickly built in anticipation of demand, industries quickly reengineered their industrial processes to reduce the residuals for which they would have to pay. The land fill developers took huge losses. The carbon tax approach will encourage the same behavior as well as providing money for those circumstances in which collective action is needed to create the reduction ( small truck fleet conversions,etc)
Beautifully put.
A simple tax code would have the same advantage.
It's easy to think of how cap and trade rules could come to resemble tax rules ie: breaks for favored industries in certain situations, etc...
Any time there are concentrated benefits and dispersed costs, the political process is almost guaranteed to be bent to a special interest's will.
On a somewhat related note, lets not forget how that any climate regulation that increases the cost of doing business here will be followed by increasing calls for protectionist policies.
Don't forget that the revenues from carbon tax can towards funding an enormous bureaucracy to administer and enforce compliance with the new regime. Every last dollar of compliance will towards padding that bureaucratic job creation and al-gore's waistline.
It's also hard to get passed by Congress. Scratch that. It's also impossible to get passed by Congress. I'd love to be proven wrong on this score, but I've yet to come across a scintilla of evidence there's the remotest likelihood of an explicit carbon tax in America's foreseeable future. It really does start to get wearying, all this continued talk about a carbon tax. Also, I don't think cap/trade vs. a tax is an issue of sexiness, either. My strong sense is most of those who favor robust government action to curb greenhouse gasses (in other words, liberals) prefer a tax. We just know it's currently not feasible, politically.
Because worst case scenarios, although not certain to come to pass, likewise can't be ruled out, so time is of the essence.
All the figures I've seen imply at worst we'll still experience 95% or so of the economic growth we'd experience sans GHG curbs. Upon what are you basing the claim that living standards will be "dramatically" reduced? In fact they won't be reduced at all. They'll just improve a bit more slowly.
Huh? Is the average climate science PhD at MIT or CalTech or Illinois or NOAA likewise "corrupt?" This often seen slur is silly on its face when you think about: there's vastly more money to be made currying favor with Big Carbon than there is with Greenpeace.
An effective cap and trade will be just like a tax. The proponents of cap and trade may prefer a straight up tax, but they default to cap and trade because they think they can hoodwink the public. This is dishonest policy, and the proponents of this monstrosity are about to have their heads handed to them.
The proponents of cap and trade may prefer a straight up tax, but they default to cap and trade because they think they can hoodwink the public.
Yancey: It's not a matter of "hoodwinking" the public. It's a matter of a bunch of politicians not being willing to vote for something called a "tax." Also, while I personally prefer a tax to cap and trade, it's not a strong preference. I think a well-designed cap and trade plan is likely to work as well as a straight carbon tax. Finally, this "monstrosity" is a fairly old idea -- one that was conceived by, if I'm not mistaken, market-loving conservatives. So, what's "dishonest" about it? It's just an alternate approach to get us to the same goal. The monstrosity would be if we were reckless enough to ignore the findings of the scientific community and hope it's all a hoax, like, um, acid rain or CFCs.
Jasper,
The monstrosity is the bill being prepared by the Congress today.
And, yes, it is an attempt to hoodwink the public. Politicians won't vote for a carbon "tax" because the public would rise up and vote them out of office, so the proponents of taxing carbon default to cap and trade as a way to institute the tax by another name, or as you put it, "to get us to the same goal". Just witness the outrage of cap and trade proponents whenever someone points out that it is just a carbon tax in disguise.
I'd happy to witness this "outrage" you claim exists were any in evidence. But nobody who's serious about the issue denies a cap and trade scheme is a form of tax. It's simply one that has a better chance of making it to Obama's desk.
Then, is it or is it not an attempt to hoodwink people? If your answer really is no, then you have your example.
Okay Yancey, sure, have it your way. The evil liberals who are trying to save the planet from the persecuted energy companies are "hoodwinking" the country into adopting a method of fighting AGW that has the same effect as a carbon tax, while the noble conservative climate change denialists are fighting the good fight for honesty in government.
Because worst case scenarios, although not certain to come to pass, likewise can't be ruled out, so time is of the essence.
Of all the AGW arguments this one bothers me the most.
The normal state of the Earth for the past million years has been an Ice Age (about 90% of that time). In an Ice Age, as much as 99% of humanity may die because very little agriculture will exist to support them. It's a true existential threat to our species, and it's so much worse than any possible consequences of warming that by the "worst-case" argument we should be pumping out greenhouse gasses as fast as we can.
And don't think an Ice Age is impossible due to current CO2 levels -- we've had them during periods when CO2 concentrations were ten times higher.
TallDave - Since there is ice over both poles, we are currently living in an ice age, albeit a milder one than what the earth once went through.
And don't think an Ice Age is impossible due to current CO2 levels -- we've had them during periods when CO2 concentrations were ten times higher.
Indeed. CO2 is a lagging, not a leading indicator of temperature change. Which means Al Gore either doesn't understand what he's talking about or is being deliberately deceptive. Evidence tends towards the latter.
there's vastly more money to be made currying favor with Big Carbon than there is with Greenpeace.
There's vastly more money available from various governments to investigate poorly substantiated environmental scares than there is from private industry for debunking them.
And there's vastly more money available from consumers if you can get the gov't to pass laws saying they have to buy your products. Just ask Al Gore.
Energy companies are the planet's most profitable. Your claim isn't remotely credible, especially given the fact that climate research money is barely a rounding error in the budgets of rich world governments.
Al Gore is smart to put his money where the future is going.
Energy companies are the planet's most profitable. Your claim isn't remotely credible, especially given the fact that climate research money is barely a rounding error in the budgets of rich world governments.
Exactly: energy companies have to make a profit. They don't throw money away. Governments seize profit. They give huge amounts of money away.
Al Gore is smart to put his money where the future is going.
Al Gore is actively pushing the future towards his money. Not quite the same thing.
Exactly indeed. Which is why there is vast sums up for grabs for any scientist willing to shill for sellers of fossil fuels. That few take the bait is a testament to the integrity of climate scientists.
Like most highly prominent former politicians, Al Gore can easily earn a comfortable seven or eight figure income giving speeches or sitting on corporate boards. I find it most implausible he'd go to the length of formulating an international conspiracy of scientists to generate new green technology industries in order to manufacture investment opportunities simply out of a need to make a buck. The biggest problem with AGW denialists is that the sophisticated nature of the required conspiracies doesn't just bend Occam's razor, it shatters it in a million pieces.
Which is why there is vast sums up for grabs for any scientist willing to shill for sellers of fossil fuels.
Really? And where are the millionaire scientists being paid huge sums by the evil oil companies? Who is the anti-AGW Al Gore making huge amounts of money from skepticism? The numbers go about 100:1 for the warmenists.
I find it most implausible he'd go to the length of formulating an international conspiracy of scientists to generate new green technology industries in order to manufacture investment opportunities simply out of a need to make a buck.
This makes little sense. If he doesn't need the money, why invest at all, especially since it creates a clear conflict of interest with his environmental crusading?
The biggest problem with AGW denialists is that the sophisticated nature of the required conspiracies doesn't just bend Occam's razor, it shatters it in a million pieces
That's just silly. A lot of people being wrong doesn't need to be a "conspiracy."
Dave, I'm most bothered by that which most bothers you. But I'm most amused by this particular misconception of Jaspers. I've heard believers say a number of times, always in their best Nixonian whisper, "follow the money!" and then they completely ignore the money trail, assuming instead that big oil pulls the strings.
There is far more grant money available for people willing to write scary headlines than there is for people who search for unvarnished data with a willingnes to recognize its limits.
Are we really saying that all the scientists are dishonest? Or are we pointing out the obvious, that if all the money goes to dishonest scientists, then dishonest scientists will be able to buy the biggest bullhorns?
Oh, my.
Everybody is entitled to their own opinion;
Nobody is entitled to their own facts.
AGW has been scientifically _disproved_;
The claimed causal mechanisms do not work that way.
Global temperature variation is a complex system;
Nobody understands it, or can predict what it will do next.
OTOH, everybody knows that while figures don't lie,
Liars do figure; Review recent Wall St. history.
I have here a Diet pill which is guaranteed to work,
because it contains a tapeworm egg; What, no takers ?
100%. Arctic ice is coming back, and thickening. Antarctic ice is the highest in recorded history. Ocean levels haven't risen even though CO2 is at a "dangerous" level. In the few areas of the world where *reliable* data has existed for even 100 years, it appears that things are trending back towards the average (what a surprise).
But the Goracle's followers will point to calving of Antarctic ice and say "that sheet is the size of BELGIUM!" Of course they don't have the common sense or honesty to point out that the calving is due to the mass growing to beyond where the ice can hold itself - NOT to "warming."
The politburo needs something to scare the sheeple with, and the sheeple are all too willing to fear their own farts.
JUST TELL US WHAT TO DO TO BE SAFE, AND WE WILL GIVE YOU *EVERYTHING* WE HAVE!
If it was 3,000 years ago these would be the Israelites who ignored Moses and offered everything they owned to a calf made of gold. Why? Simple reason: they created it. They could decide what was and wasn't their "god."
People don't want to accept that there is an actual God, and they're not Him.
Some things never change.
The idea trace amounts of CO2 are driving climate is pretty iffy anyway, the opinions of people receiving government money to study the problem notwithstanding. We've had Ice Ages at CO2 concentrations ten times higher than today's.
GCMs have virtually no predictive reliability (the granularity is too large, and even if they fix that you just can't get around the Navier-Stokes turbulence problem), and forecasting scientists say the IPCC predictions have, quote, "no scientific basis."
The modern proxies suggest warming may not be happening any faster than since the interglacial started, and the slope of the satellite data suggests the surface stations are just measuring an increase in heat islands (although Hansen has so abused the GISS data with "adjustments" that it should probably be thrown out anyway).
The current satellite temperature anomaly? .09 degrees. That's after 30 years of warming.
No, TallDave, it's not "iffy" -- and it's not "trace amounts" anyway -- it's the highest concentration of atmospheric C02 (quoting from memory) in hundreds of thousands of years (a spike in C02, as it happens, that pretty neatly correlates with the advent of the mass use of fossil fuels and the industrial revolution). The fact is the vast majority of the climate science community agrees with the AGW hypothesis. Also, what does the presence of government funds have to do with anything? Governments support cancer research. Do you therefore doubt the work of cancer researchers? Governments support work in theoretical physics. Are you a skeptic of physics researchers? Perhaps you do possess credentials in this area, for all I know. Are you a climate scientist? Please do tell...
No, TallDave, it's not "iffy" --
In fact it is very iffy. Historically CO2 levels trail temperature rises. That makes a cause/effect relationship unlikely. It's much more likely CO2 is a very small positive feedback relative to the natural variation in the system.
and it's not "trace amounts" anyway --
CO2 levels are measured in hundreds of parts per million. It's a trace gas by definition.
it's the highest concentration of atmospheric C02 (quoting from memory) in hundreds of thousands of years (a spike in C02, as it happens, that pretty neatly correlates with the advent of the mass use of fossil fuels and the industrial revolution
So? No one disputes we're increasing atmpospheric CO2, just the consequences.
The fact is the vast majority of the climate science community agrees with the AGW hypothesis.
The vast majority of the "climate science community" have jobs highly dependent on whether climate change is a real problem.
Also, what does the presence of government funds have to do with anything? Governments support cancer research. Do you therefore doubt the work of cancer researchers
No, because no one doubts cancer is a problem. You can actually see people die from it.
Preposterous. The heat trapping properties of carbon dioxide are well known. Google "Venus" some time. Not that you're likely to accept the views of those "corrupt" climate scientists, but here's a link to a detailed discussion of this topic:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/
I didn't say it wasn't a "trace gas." You used the term "trace amount" as if too imply the current, elevated C02 levels in the atmosphere aren't warming the planet. This is manifestly incorrect. There is now no longer any credible basis for denying that a) human activities have increased the concentration of green house gasses in the atmosphere and b) said increase is warming the planet. Not even Lomborg denies this. The only debate to be had is how damaging this warming will be, and what can/should we do about it.
If you want to cite the influence of money, you should note that the potential returns to climate scientists are almost infinitely outweighed by the tremendous sums faced by every person, firm and government on this planet in dealing with AGW. Picture a scale with a few billion on one side, and a few trillion, perhaps a few tens of trillion, on the other. At least in medium term (ie., the next half century), the big money would be found in stopping global efforts to combat AGW.
We can actually see people die from AGW, as well. AGW has been cited as a cause of epidemics, malnutrition and rising geopolitical tensions. Even the Bush administration-era US intelligence apparatus had begun to sound the alarm. I suppose the spooks in Langley are also on Al Gore's payroll?
Google "Venus" some time.
Venus has an atmosphere 100x as thick and Venus' atmosphere is 96% C02, whereas back here on Earth it's a trace gas. You may not have noticed Mars' atmosphere is 95% CO2 and isn't very warm.
The heat trapping properties of carbon dioxide are well known
No one disputes them. But by most calculations the direct effect of doubling CO2 concentrations here on Earth is about 1 degree.
You used the term "trace amount" as if too imply the current, elevated C02 levels in the atmosphere aren't warming the planet.
It's a trace gas, hence we are talking about trace amounts. The notion that a trace gas drives climate change is a fairly odd one, and definitely not supported by the temp/CO2 record.
We can actually see people die from AGW, as well. AGW has been cited as a cause of epidemics, malnutrition and rising geopolitical tensions.
That's a perfect example of the junk science being done on behalf of AGW. Someone says "Oh, this disease would have been X amount less deadly if it were 1 degree colder." It's crap, because no one says "X number of people would have died from cold if not for AGW." Even if you assume AGW exists, warmth has always been a net benefit to mankind.
If you want to cite the influence of money, you should note that the potential returns to climate scientists are almost infinitely outweighed by the tremendous sums faced by every person, firm and government on this planet in dealing with AGW.
Climate scientists only have a job that needs doing if they can establish global warming as a major threat. The returns to them otherwise are nil.
Governments support work in theoretical physics. Are you a skeptic of physics researchers? Perhaps you do possess credentials in this area, for all I know. Are you a climate scientist? Please do tell...
See, this is precisely the problem with climate "science." I don't need to be a physicist to know when a physics claims is junk -- I can drop a ball and watch it accelerate at 10 m/s/s. Thousands of scientists can perform billions of tests to confirm the prediction of quantum mechanics, and with some moderately expensive equipment you can too. This is why we know physics textbooks are correct, not because scientists say so.
But you can't test global warming. Instead, we get GCMs -- computer models that are a poor "best guess" at what the future holds written by people who often have a vested interest in finding a problem, models that forecasting scientists say have "no scientific basis." This would all be of trivial interest, except that some people are loudly demanding this nonfalsifiable claim of future warming be accepted as a basis for spending trillions of dollars.
This isn't scientists versus non-scientists. This is pseudoscience versus real science.
There is now no longer any credible basis for denying that a) human activities have increased the concentration of green house gasses in the atmosphere and b) said increase is warming the planet. Not even Lomborg denies this. The only debate to be had is how damaging this warming will be, and what can/should we do about it.
I've already noted no one disputes A. B has always been a question of degree. And right now the most reasonable estimate is that the effect is not large enough to spend trillions of dollars over the next 100 years.
Not only is there a question of degree, there's a question of sign. Moderate warming is likely to be beneficial.
It's not an "odd one" at all -- it's simple chemistry and physics. It may well be true that such activity isn't well documented in the planet's history, but this is because human-induced industrial revolutions haven't been seen before now.
Well wait a minute. First you say it's an "odd" notion that C02 is driving climate change, but now you say it's a matter of degree. So which is it? Are the greenhouse gasses we're dumping into the atmosphere heating up earth or aren't they? You AGW denialists ought to get your stories straight.
According to a few cranks and charlatans like Lomborg. But not according to received wisdom of the scientific community, the the governments of all developed nations including our own, or the UN.
Of course we can "test" the hypothesis that human activities are making the planet dangerously warm. Observation, inquiry, study, experimentation and lots and lots and lots of research by thousands of people using the scientific method have indeed proven beyond a doubt the AGW scenario. The only questions involve degree, and solutions strategy.
Of course you don't. Nobody is claiming otherwise. But you do have to possess a level of expertise in physics. The more subtle or complex the claim, the greater the degree of expertise required. The AGW hypothesis wasn't casually derived at in a year or two. It's a theory that has been steadily augmented over the decades by the work of tens of thousands of experts in the field. Again, the UN, the scientific community, the CIA, and the governments of the entire rich world -- and nearly all the non-rich world, too, conclude that the GHG emissions of our species are endangering a wide swathe of biosphere. But you and the folks fighting for creationism have proven otherwise, is that it?
Thank God the adults are finally in charge.
I love the notion that we can't pass a carbon tax that might do some good, so instead we should pass a carbon cap-and-trade measure that demonstrably (see Europe) will not. Hey, never waste a crisis that could be used to rip off the general public to reward your supporters!
Seriously, the notion that cap-and-trade can work outside the limited scope of large producers (which made acid-raid reduction reasonably feasible) is simply laughable. Carbon emissions occur everywhere; it is simply not possible to limit them without a taxing scheme (which will itself have plenty of leakage). If, like me, you don't like the regressive effect, make it revenue-neutral by cutting income taxes, and send out a rebate equal to the average household's carbon "consumption" (emission).
The argument that the EU's cap-and-trade system doesn't work is outdated. Everything I've read refers to data gathered up to 2007. Material written in 2008 and on says the system works. People I know who work in the field (trading emissions credits on the EU market) say the main problem is uncertainty about the expiration of Kyoto in 2012 and what the new system will be.
Actually I'm really looking forward to this. I forsee "no taxation without representation" really coming back into play. And it worked out so well for the last ruling party that tried to saddle that one on us.
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that global climate is changing as the direct result of the accumulation of carbon emitted by the combustion of fossil fuels and the emissions of methane from a variety of sources. The current warming trend, which arguably began in ~1650 (the trough of the "Little Ice Age", for the non-Mannians in the group) and apparently went "on vacation" in ~1998, produced a peak warming of ~0.8 C above a reasonably accepted long term average temperature and of ~2.3 C from the trough of the Little Ice Age. Since 1998, the warming above the reasonably accepted long term average temperature has declined to ~0.1-0.2 C (UAH MSU / RAH MSU).
NOTE: I have not used GISS above because the warming being discussed is less than 1 C and the average GISS measurement station is prone to errors in excess of 2 C (www.surfacestations.org) based on the NCDC evaluation criteria. Therefore, the GISS reporting of temperature anomalies to 2 decimal place "accuracy" is highly problematic.
It is as yet uncertain whether the current warming trend, which arguably began in ~1650, is still "on vacation", or whether it has been replaced by a cooling trend indicative of the onset of a Dalton or Maunder Minimum on the part of our currently somnolent sun.
However, assuming that the current climate change scenario is the result of anthropogenic carbon emissions, which began to manifest as increasing atmospheric carbon concentrations in ~1750 (~100 years after the temperature rise began), we can posit that halting the increase in atmospheric carbon concentrations would require reducing GLOBAL annual anthropogenic carbon emissions to some rate less than the rate of emissions at which the atmospheric carbon concentration began to increase. That would require a decrease of ~99.95% in GLOBAL anthropogenic carbon emissions from current emissions rates.
Also note that UN FAO estimates that ~18% of annual GHG emissions are the result, not of fossil fuel combustion, but rather of domesticated animal husbandry. Eliminating that contribution to anthropogenic climate change would require the GLOBAL adoption of a vegan diet. (I will not attempt to estimate the impact of a GLOBAL switch from animal protein to legume-sourced protein on human methane emissions.)
Therefore, if one accepts the concept of anthropogenic climate change, it is quite obvious that none of the "solutions" proposed to date is, in fact, a solution to the issue. It is also obvious that the US alone, or in cooperation with the other developed countries, is not capable of halting anthropogenic climate change, even ignoring the stated intent of the developing nations to continue increasing their carbon emissions for the forseeable future. The currently projected increases in China's carbon emissions over the next 10 years would "swamp" any reasonably achievable reductions by the developed countries.
My estimate of the US investment required to achieve the Waxman-Markey "wish" of an 83% reduction in US carbon emissions by 2050 is ~$700 billion per year (one TARP per year), or nearly $30 trillion over the period. This does not include any carbon tax or allowance auction revenues intended to flow through the US federal government into a group of as yet unidentified "rat holes".
A simple cap, established initially at current annual emissions rates and reduced by ~2% annually through 2050 assures the achievement of the W-M "wish". A simple trade mechanism allows US companies which reduce their emissions at a rate faster than 2% per year to sell their excess allowances to companies for which the reductions are more difficult or more expensive. (International credit exchanges are, indeed, an invitation to fraud and abuse.) The flexibility to trade would be particularly important for electric utilities, since many of their customers can achieve their emissions reductions by shifting from direct fossil-fueled processes to electric processes, thus transferring their emissions from themselves to the serving utilities. The utilities have no such option, but they do have the obligation to serve.
If our current depression puts an end to cap and trade and the lunatic fringe that comes with it, it may all be worth it.
Ed,
Thanks for bringing up the science. This is the most frustrating part about the discussion about global warming. There are fanatics on both sides of the argument who have never looked into the actual science and make broad categorical sweeping statements based on inconclusive data. What we really need is a debate about the science of anthropogenic global warming.
You're welcome.
Regrettably, Congress is not focused now on reducing emissions or on how that would be accomplished. They are, rather, focused on raising revenues; and, perhaps even more importantly, on what they would do with those revenues. Congress can resist anything but temptation.
The issue of how the mandated emissions reductions would actually be accomplished and funded is the "polluters'" responsibility.
The issue of a global approach which would actually have any hope of halting AGW appears totally beyond them.
I agree. If CO2-induced AGW is a reality (and skeptics should acknowledge that can't be ruled out), then we should be looking at real solutions. That probably means some kind of geo-engineering. Putting a cloud of mirrors into space is one of the better ideas our there. It can probably be done in the next hundred years, and it could be useful whichever way the climate turns, as well as having other practical uses.
Unfortunately, much of the global warming crowd doesn't really care about that. Theirs is a semi-religious crusade against industry and man's influence on the earth in general.
Cap and trade is a worthwhile, modest attempt to transition from toxic, wasteful 19th century technology to clean, efficient 21st century technology. The cost to consumers will be modest, electricity rates will increase by 2.7 to 2.9 percent over the next ten years. The upside will be well-paid manufacturing, installation and maintenance jobs that can't be outsourced. Cap & trade is a modest proposal, with modest implications.
(read more: http://cyclopsvue.blogspot.com/search/label/Energy)
I suggest you add the ~$7 trillion which would have to be invested to actually reduce carbon emissions over the next ten years into your consumer cost calculations, since the investors would reasonably expect a return, which would ultimately be reflected in consumer prices as well.
That ~$7 trillion replaces a lot of "broken windows".
Also, recognize that the emissions reductions over the next ten years would be the easiest, lowest cost reductions. The reductions would become more difficult and more costly as the process progressed. Once it became obvious in 2051 that the 83% reduction wasn't enough to stabilize atmospheric carbon concentrations, the remaining 17% would be even more difficult and expensive.
Please people. There is no such things as AGW. It is an intentional fraud and cap and trade is the money making scheme that is being developed to profit off of the scam. You are being taken in as a VERY large group of marks. Carbon is not only good, it is the basis for life itself. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is NECESSARY for life. How can so many intelligent people be so poorly educated and not, in the least, intellectually curious about the big lie???Global temperature is declining. Please pay attention to the facts, only the facts.
Carbon is not only good, it is the basis for life itself. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is NECESSARY for life.
Sounds like a troll, but I'll respond. Many things that are necessary for life can be pollutants in too high quantities. You need iron to survive, but if you take in too much iron you can die from heavy metal poisoning. Carbon Dioxide is a necessary waste product for humans and toxic at high concentrations to us, but are a necessary ingredient in photosynthesis. It's not as simple as "It's a natural product, that means its good for us"
Almost certainly a troll.
But since you addessed him, I should address the other side of your points.
The greenhouse effect is real, but any warming of imported is dependent on dubious assumption of feedbacks. Any warming we are likely to see should be beneficial, and there isn't any likelihood we could reach toxic CO2 levels unless we tried really, really hard.
It's also important that we realize that physical processes general have negetive, dampening feedbacks. It's social process that generally have positive feedbacks; witness recent bubbles.
The IPCC states that over half of recent warming is man-made. That does not mean carbon based GHGs. It's also changes in land use that affect albedo and water vapor. These statement were also made before the IPCC could incorparate the discovery of PDO effects on climate chagne. Much of the warming we saw the past 30 years is actually due to a warm PDO phase and feedbacks related to that were likely wrongly attributed to GHGs.
The greenhouse effect also dimishes as concentrations increase. Also, the rate of increase generaly falls over times as better technology is used. And there are also limits to how much consumption people can enjoy as there are also diminshing returns on the utitlity of consumption.
The very crucial watervapor feedbacks are far from proven. Not only is water vapor concentration important, but also the effiency of the water cycle. If the water cycle does not slow down, depending on how the additional water vapor was formed, it could result in net cooling (evaporative cooling). Increased temperature is also the assumed driver of increased water vapor, but temperature increases the capacity of air to hold water, not the actually level. It's sunlight incident on water drives the actual water vapor level. Increased cloud cover should limit the temperature feedback.
The IPCC also likes to play the game of assigning numbers to uncertainty. Saying things like "90% certain that most warming is man-made". If you could put a number to it, there wouldn't be uncertainty.
The greenhouse effect is real, but the suggestion that it is dagenerous is just a rhetorical trick.
Good post.
The very crucial watervapor feedbacks are far from proven.
They may actually be negative in the long term.
I'd like to see it kept really simple.
Tax pollution.
Where it's not easy to do -- wood burning stoves, for instance -- offer incentives to encourage cleaner burning.
Tax oil/coal; offer tax incentives for composting facilities that generate methane for burning.
Set policies based on best management practices.
And tax pollution.
Carbon and Carbon Dioxide are not pollution. Language matters. Taxing pollution is not the subject of this thread. Please stop referring to carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
Basil, I didn't refer to carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide isn't the only greenhouse gas.
It's also not the only thing that comes out of a tailpipe or smokestack. I suggested the better, simpler course is to stop worrying so much about carbon dioxide and start taxing pollution.
And you're in total denial about the impact human's are having on atmospheric and oceanic changes.
Carbon and Carbon Dioxide are not pollution.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Supreme Court disagree with you.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/science/earth/18endanger.html
I could not think of a more fitting means to establish the truth of my assertions than the EPA and the Supreme Court disagreeing with me. The Supreme Court, after all, is a committe of (hyper political) lawyers who have decided that black people are not equal to white people and should, therefore, not be allowed to vote and who are property of their masters AND who later decided that black children cannot learn unless they are sitting in a next to white children. This committee of lawyers has also decided that it is lawful, ,no wait, Constitutionally mandated, that unborn children can be killed in service to a political idea that women are (somehow - mystically) emplowered as persons by killing their babies. The EPA has been wrong on so many issues as to be legenadary. If you are going to cite to authority, I would suggest a better source of authority. Were you in favor of Republican EPA pronouncements on issues such as acid rain and Clean Water issues?
Back to the point. The levels of CO2 that are accumulating are infinitesimally samll is proportion to teh overall atmosphere. There are no studies that measure the possible advantages of such a small increase in CO2.
Please stop allowing yourselves to be used by those who stand to profit from this hoax.
Basil, please tone it down a little and take your own advice to hew more closely to facts. You are not a lone voice in the wilderness here. The thread appears to me to be a roughly 50-50 split and your sweeping statements aren't helping your side.
"Tax oil/coal; offer tax incentives for composting facilities that generate methane for burning."
Then, presumably, tax the methane, which also "pollutes" by your definition.
of course.
"Tax pollution" is a gaping legal fill-in-the-blank, available for anyone with a pen to come in and fill it with programs and policies of their choice, whether beneficial or not.
The reason everyone is focusing on CO2 GHG is that it is pretty easy to measure carbon output by watching carbon input, as the maximum amount of carbon released in a perfectly efficient burn can be calculated from the type and volume of fossil fuels being extracted or imported into a country. If a country or region's claimed emissions differ significantly from the known fossil fuel consumption in same, then it is easy to show that someone is gaming the regulator, and by how much.
Even a relatively common secondary emission, like methane, is much harder to target because the emissions from a given source can change drastically with modifiable factors. For methane, diet in the case of cows, or drainage cycles in the case of rice paddies, can change emissions significantly. And what about the guy who decides to freeload a few extra cows in a herd? The required regulatory apparatus to track the emitters becomes nigh untenable and easily dodged or corrupted.
We regulate "polution" already; meaning the stack at the electric plant, the water discharge at the paper mill or sewage-treatment plant, the land fill. In my state, manure handling is regulated near sensitive water bodies; so I'm not sure there's the need to regulate on a per/cow basis (in fact, I'm sure that's a distraction from coal-burning power plants. etc.)
The regulation EPA already does provides a pretty good footprint. That way, we don't need to worry so about rice paddies, christmas trees, or stray chickens in my back yard.
Sure, but cap-and-trade is the topic, and that was only previously done for sulfur dioxide emissions (again, relatively easy to regulate) and is being proposed as a mechanism to deal with GHG, similarly defined as a pollutant. Kyoto named six(?) GHGs but only CO2 lends itself to a feasible regulatory apparatus.
I'd like to see it kept really simple. Tax pollution.
I agree, which is why I think we should probably have both cap-and-trade and a carbon tax. Europe goes a long ways towards doing this: they have extremely heavy taxes on gasoline and a cap-and-trade system for total emissions.
It should be no more expensive to do things this way, because the emissions reductions you get through your carbon tax drive down the demand for emissions credits in your cap-and-trade system, making them cheaper. The carbon tax would make it impossible to circumvent the emissions caps by creating fictive "reductions" in other countries, while the cap-and-trade system would ensure that you can "offer incentives", as you say, to reduce greenhouse gases in areas where the carbon tax won't work.
And have Europe's methods produced lower C02 output or decreased fuel consumption? Both are increasing. So even Europe's excessively high fuel and energy taxes are not punitive enough. Solution? They need more taxes!
All these taxing/trading schemes will do is put more money into the pockets of government and those associated with governments in the trading schemes.
Do not pretend that it will make the system better because Europe is doing it and has been doing it to no effect.
EU CO2 emissions dropped 3.1 percent in 2008 while GDP grew across the EU by 0.8 percent. Your data is out of date.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=aF1KaicdYL9o
You're right I was going off of last years data. Data in growh years when people were consuming. When the economy contracts you're going to see a decline in any production, especially carbon.
EU growth plummeted, which is why they were able to meet their targets.
"Today's numbers tell us two things. They confirm that the recession is leading to lower emissions, with both industry output and power demand down," Kjersti Ulset, a Point Carbon official, said.
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1238663822.76/
Europe's economy didn't grow as fast as projected in 2008. Although the economy grew slightly in 2008 overall (primarily the first half of the year) the overall growth rate was 50% less than the previous year. Don't want to put in too many links and get the comment held up. But grown rates in previous nears were nearly double 2008s.
So when economic growth slows, it's no surprise that they'd be able to meet a target in 2008. Had they grown as much as anticipated there is no way they would have met their targets, just like they failed to in previous years.
Which again proves the obvious point. When most of the people suffer economically, the environment receives some slightly measurably, completely undiscernable benefit.
Whoops, you forgot the second half of the quote you cited. Let me help ya out with that:
"Today's numbers tell us two things. They confirm that the recession is leading to lower emissions, with both industry output and power demand down," Kjersti Ulset, a Point Carbon official, said.
"But they also show that the carbon market works as intended. The emission reductions we see in the power sector are partly a result of the high carbon price we had for the first half of 2008," she added.
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1238663822.76/
I think we can all try to be honest with our data and citations, whatever our position on the issues.
Great, so the cap and trade worked to reduce the economy. I'm sold, let's do it!
Matt, the National Research Council estimates the cost of the externalities of both Enegy Dependance and Global Warming at 26 cents per gallon, combined.
And for Stern to even get all global warming costs to be negative economically, he had to make the dubios assumptions, eg. that a life today is equal to a life in the future, and apply those assumptions over such a long time as to make any model worthless. You need to assume an inability to adapt to justify spending now on reducing GHG emission. You also need zero or negative population growth to assume a life today is worth the same as a life tomorrow.
A fuel tax would work so much better, because even if the theory of global warming is wrong as plenty here seem to believe, it would still be good to slow down the consumption of resources for future uses.
You're right. We should probably do the same with food, lumber, water, minerals. Tax them so much that less people can enjoy their benefits today. We have to preserve the resources so only the wealthy can continue to consume as much as they want. We wouldn't want poor or average income people to be able to live like kings.
The net effect of all this taxation/trading is simply to make it too expensive for an average or low income person to live a more luxurious life. You've heard it said that a poor person in America lives better than a king of old? Well the goal of this movement appears to be to keep the poor person down to where they are "supposed" to live (for the good of the environment and future generations of course) while the kings of today continue to live high.
If I were a Marxist planning things out so the proletariat revolt against the upper class I couldn't plan things out any better. Institute rules to minimize the amount of wealth/consumption the poor people can have and allow the poor people to see how wealthy Al Gore types can continue to live while the workers are crushed with the burden of supporting these types.
Humanity's follies never cease to amaze me. So many times you see policies on both sides of the aisle that have every appearance and end result as if it were designed to muck up the system.
It seems as though the Ferengi will trade on anything.
What is next, asteroids, or land on Mars?
Couldn't you achieve the same effect as Cap-and-Trade with a carbon tax and a transferable tax credit to incentivise negative emission? Except the cap part, of course, but a theoretically efficient carbon tax should result in the same level of emission as a theoretically efficient cap, by definition.
What is the "theoretically efficient carbon tax" rate which would "result in the same level of emission as a theoretically efficient cap" set at 17% of 2005 emissions in 2050?
I don't think there is one; I was using "efficient" in the economic sense. Can you prove, from first principles, that 17% of 2005 emissions will be economically efficient in 2050? If you can, you probably have a good set of tools to calculate the rate of tax on carbon that will lead to that level of emissions.
W-M identifies an 83% reduction (thus a 17% residual) from 2005 emissions by 2050. In that context, it obviously makes no difference whether it is economically efficient or not. It would be the law of the land.
Nothing about W-M is economically efficient, or even rational, in the absence of global commitments to achieve the same levels of reductions. I have no incentive to attempt to prove that the W-M "wish" is either.
I have no doubt that our Congress could increase the carbon tax to a rate which would reduce emissions to 17% of 2005 levels, through an iterative process which would contribute to the uncertainties faced by those required to comply.
(replying to Ed Reid @12:58 here as comments only nest finitely)
I think we may be in violent agreement.
The problems come with internationalization of carbon credits, which carbon tax systems find hard to accomplish. There's no feasible way for US transferable tax credits to be used to reward villagers in Tamil Nadu for switching to more efficient wood cookstoves. And it's hard for a US carbon tax to incentivize a Chinese or Norwegian power company to build a wind farm rather than a gas-fired power plant. The advantage with cap-and-trade and international Certified Emissions Reductions is that countries that can reduce emissions very cheaply can do so, and then trade those emissions reductions to countries that find it more expensive to reduce emissions. You'll get to the lower global emissions targets faster and cheaper that way. This, again, is why I think both cap-and-trade and carbon tax is the way to go.
You could always set up a global government with the authority to tax carbon and issue transferable credits. That's about as complicated, although I imagine that it will sound less palatable to many. "One atmosphere, one tax authority" might sound okay for those that have a Wilkinson-style ideal hierarchy of federalized public-goods distribution authorities.
I'm afraid you've lost me in the thicket of irony. Sorry to be pedantic, but is this a criticism of cap-and-trade, or of people who criticize cap-and-trade on ideal-theoretical grounds? I mean, there already is a functioning system run by the UNFCCC for reviewing programs that claim to reduce emissions and issuing CERs if they're approved, and several trading floors (the European one, and one in Chicago) for trading CERs... I think your point is that getting the same achievements with a carbon tax would require just as much complexity as the already existing system for tradable emissions credits?
(replying to Matt Steinglass @12:55 here as comments only nest finitely)
The only actually intended irony was using "less palatable" to mean "like the apocalypse prophesied by John the Revelator".
In all seriousness, I buy Will's argument that if you're going to have a federal government, you might as well have entities sized to optimally address the problems they are responsible for, from cities to counties to watersheds to nations to atmospheres. Also, I really do think that the problem of coordinating national governments to achieve an effective cap and trade system just is the same as the problem of setting up a global government, in the sense that solving any coordination problem just is the same as the problem of setting up any government. Specifically, I think that getting a practical level of international compliance with a cap and trade system is on the close order of magnitude of difficulty as setting up a global (federal) government or with coordinating a global carbon tax.
Huh. Well, you could look at it that way, but I think that for these purposes, we already have the level of federalized "global government" we need -- treaties and multilateral organizations. Kyoto is allowing global cap-and-trade to function through the EU and UNFCCC; efforts to harmonize a carbon tax would probably have to involve the WTO. That's about the same level of federalized government as the UAE has, and it seems like about as much global government as the world can handle right now.
(replying to Matt Steinglass @8:56 here as comments only nest finitely)
I could buy that; really, I'm not willing to assert relative levels of difficulty with more accuracy than "close order of magnitude", which leaves room for significant differences in difficulty, to be sure. It's not that the details of the particular solution don't matter (they do, a great deal) but that global coordination is inherently difficult and any strategy for dealing with it is going to face problems similar to that of other strategies.
I'd argue that you've given Matt too much love. There so much wrong with that paragraph, it's not worth addressing.
Perhaps the best argument against both taxes and cap-and-trade is that the people who will develope them are fucking retarded.
Ever hear of a write-off or a tax credit?