Climate Politics

A finger to ineffectual Democrat talkers, and a thumbs up to a possible alternative

This week the Middle Finger Flag gets waved at the Democrats. Yeah, that’s right, the whole lot of ’em. Recently Obama released a budget proposal that included a carbon cap-and-trade plan that would auction — rather than give away to polluting companies — 100 percent of the pollution credits. This is exactly what every policy […]

Obama tells business leaders he’s serious about changing energy policy

Obama spoke on Thursday to the Business Roundtable, whose members include the leaders of energy giants like ExxonMobil, Shell Oil, Southern Company, Peabody Energy Corporation, and Arch Coal. Message: Yes, we’re serious about this green energy thing. But the truth is that these problems in the financial markets, as acute and urgent as they are, […]

WSJ: hacks and handout-seekers hate O's climate plan

Environmental Capital reports that Obama's approach to climate change legislation is foundering, because it's tied to an ambitious social agenda. Which is weird, because Obama's cap-and-trade proposal isn't tied to an ambitious social agenda.

Many Democrats are upset that President Obama's budget earmarks most of the $646 billion in cap-and-trade revenue for generic tax cuts and to help fund other programs, rather than for specific help to cushion the blow of increased climate regulation.

This is a bit tricky to parse, but it helps if you understand that the word "earmark" here is used to mean "the opposite of an earmark." Congresscritters want the money from cap-and-trade for projects in their own states (green infrastructure, vote-buying, what-have-you), and Obama wants to return most of it to taxpayers.

So where is this "ambitious health and social welfare agenda" stuff coming from? For that, we are referred to Bush-era EPA official and liar G. Tracy Mehan, III. Mehan has penned a fairly boring article in which he runs down the usual pros and cons of various flavors of carbon taxation, and then concludes:

W.Va. state senator drinks ‘coal slurry’ as a political statement

Well, that’s one way to make a point about the need to regulate coal waste: CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) — A West Virginia State Senator made a unique statement Thursday by drinking a bottle of what he referred to as coal slurry. Senator Randy White (D-Webster) introduced a bill on the senate floor that limits coal […]

It is conservatives, not environmentalists, who want to redistribute costs and burdens — to future

In a boilerplate 'winger column on cap-and-trade, the Wall Street Journal's Kimberly Strassel says that Obama's carbon policy, despite all the rhetoric about reducing emissions and preventing climate change, is secretly just an effort to REDISTRIBUTE WEALTH [bwa ha ha, etc.].

In a similarly boilerplate 'winger column on climate change, Dan Gainor (The Boone Pickens Fellow at the Business & Media Institute -- wonder what T. Boone thinks about this) says that no matter what environmentalists say about "science" and "public health" and so forth, their secret agenda is to CONTROL PEOPLE [evil laugh].

These are very, very common conservative charges against environmentalists. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find 'wingers saying anything else on the subject. So it's worth addressing briefly.

Now, as Jason Grument said in response to Strassel's column at the Eco:nomics conference, any government policy redistributes resources: cancer research, invading Iraq, loosening regulations on banks, food stamps, carbon policy, anything. That is the nature of government. The relevant question is whether it's a wise or just redistribution of resources.

But it's important to go beyond that. Lurking behind these attacks is a bedrock conservative faith: that absent government intervention, the market allocates resources with perfect efficiency and those within it are free. Anything government does effectively disturbs a state of grace. Conservatives wouldn't put it so bluntly, but it's the only thing that makes sense of their rhetoric.

So it's worth occasionally reiterating: right now, with respect to climate, we are allocating resources inefficiently and imposing enormous costs and constraints on future generations. We are making them less free -- controlling them, you might say. Environmentalists do not want to control people for the sake of controlling them. They want people to bear the costs and burdens of their own behavior instead of sloughing them off to their kids and grandkids.

Conservatives think running up this enormous ecological and economic debt is "freedom." They think its proper distribution of resources. That's twisted and irresponsible.

Are emission targets ever really ‘science-based’?

Are emission targets ever really ‘science-based’? Or are we playing a dangerous game of self-deception? Last month, Senator Barbara Boxer proposed six principles for climate legislation, the first of which was: 1. Reduce emissions to levels guided by science to avoid dangerous global warming. The National Call to Action on Global Warming, announced last week […]

Tom Vilsack shows you how to get to Sesame Street

Politico followed Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Tuesday as he made an appearance on Sesame Street with Cookie Monster. See the video for some shameless pandering to cookies, and a jab at beets:

Will a comprehensive climate and energy bill help or hinder global warming action?

It’s looking increasingly likely that Congress is going to move one unified climate and energy bill through both chambers this year, rather than breaking it out into several pieces. But while some are cheering this as a way to expedite the process, others on the Hill are skeptical of the chances of passing one giant […]

In the interest of fairness and balance, a shout-out for what the WSJ is doing right

The other day, I had some not very complimentary things to say about the Wall Street Journal Eco:nomics conference. (Summary: no booze.) And earlier today I had some even less complimentary things to say about a WSJ editorial. (Summary: propagandistic lies.)

So I want to take this opportunity to point out something at WSJ that most decidedly doesn't suck: the WSJ Environmental Capital blog.

It's not written with the same, um, opinionated flair (hey, you wanna call it some thing else, get your own blog) as this blog, but I don't know of a blog going that is more comprehensive and information-rich on the subjects of energy and the environment. I've come to take it for granted, but really it's somewhat odd that a mainstream paper like WSJ -- especially with its rightward leaning editorial stance -- supports writers like Keith Johnson and Jeffrey Ball who really get into the details of green finance, technology, and policy, and do so with accuracy and understanding (rare enough on any blog!).

When you think about it, it would be much easier for WSJ, and probably get them more traffic, to do something gimmicky and vapid like National Review's Planet Gore. Instead they've created something that's a real value-add for policymakers and other opinion leaders in this space.

So kudos, WSJ! Now don't screw it up.

Wall Street Journal editors make bone-headed mistake; get called on it; fail to correct

The Wall Street Journal editorial page has been an organ for intellectually dishonest, fanatically ideological douchebaggery for years and years. That they publish something stupid is scarcely worth noting. But recently WSJ editors made a mistake so egregious it crossed the line into malpractice -- and to boot, refused to correct the mistake, or even publish a letter that pointed it out.

In this column, on how cap-and-trade is going to kill ponies impoverish people in energy-intensive states, the WSJ ran this chart:

Wow, people in Wyoming emit 154 tons of CO2 a year! Around seven times the national average! They must fly in private jets and live in castles! They must gargle oil and fart methane! They must drive Hummers to get the mail! That's ... f*cking crazy.

Or, you know, just horribly wrong. You see, the WSJ is showing per-capita numbers based on states' energy production, not energy consumption. They produce lots of coal in Wyoming. That doesn't mean Wyomingans (Wyomingites?) are frantically burning it as fast as they can. They export it for chrissakes. It tells us nothing at all about what the citizens of Wyoming are going to pay in energy costs if cap-and-trade passes.

If you did a similar chart with per-capita energy consumption numbers (very tricky numbers to get, by the way), you'd see that the differences among states are not nearly so stark, and the alleged wealth redistribution from cap-and-trade not nearly so extreme. You'd be more accurate, but you'd lose your pretense for Real America vs. The Coasts faux-populism.

Anyway, Rich Sweeney pointed out this mistake on his blog. Then he talked to some folks at the WSJ. Then he and a colleague sent them a letter, gently pointing out the error.

The WSJ refused to run it.

I guess WSJ editors can live with a little deception in service of the fiction that liberal elitism -- rather than the corporate elitism to which they've devoted their newspaper for decades -- is the real threat to the nation's middle class.