A campaign is underway to prompt CARB to “remove the polluter giveaways and strongly implement our global warming law.”
“In the first public referendum on climate change legislation, we crushed Prop 23, delivering an overwhelming mandate for strong climate action,” according to Credo Action, a publication of Working Assets. “Now we have to ensure that California’s top environmental officials enforce our state’s landmark global warming bill, AB 32, as strongly as we voted to protect it.”
“The potential impact of our action and leadership in California — given the astounding urgency of global warming, and the growing wave of science-denying GOP leaders in Washington — cannot be overstated.”
“Neither is best served by excessive pollution giveaways in the current cap and trade rules, to the industries that have reaped billions in profits while freely wreaking havoc on our climate. Had this plan been drafted after the resounding defeat of Prop 23, no doubt it would have been stronger. Now is our chance to help CARB do the right thing and fix it.”
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Jeff,
Just remember, the cost of the those “pollution credit give-aways” will show up on everyone’s gasoline and electricity bills. And certainly the price of concrete if anyone is planning to build anything.
And all for what? If we stopped ALL economic activity in California, would it really make a difference in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
John
Yes, it will hurt the wallet, immediately. Absolutely. Failure to acknowledge that is destroying us. In the bigger picture, reducing dependence on fossil fuels which are becoming more expensive and less abundant all the time, is the only way to preserve some sense of economy in the future. Some pain now = some hope at a future. Thing is, we’ve built ourselves so high up on a crutch of complete dependence on cheap fossil fuel that there may be some … unexpected rough air while making the transition. Head in the sand, struggling in futility to keep everything the same as it always has been, or head out of the sand, acknowledging that our entire energy regime, and our entire economy which is backed by cheap oil, is gonna change and maybe we should think about preparing. That’s the choice to make.
Sadly, the sand is really nice and warm and cozy and familiar.
CO2 is a direct side-effect of whichever choice we make. Oil price and availability will force the issue.
From today’s Peak Oil Notes: (suggested free subscription: http://www.aspo-usa.org/index.php/newsletters/peak-oil-review/subscribe-peak-oil-review/)
——————————–
Developments this week
So far it has been an unusually volatile week with oil prices rising $2 a barrel on Monday, falling
$2 on Tuesday and rising again by $2.64 on Wednesday to close at $86.75. In London Brent
Crude settled at $88.87. On Monday the Irish bailout was seen as the key impetus for the move
coupled with colder weather in Europe. By Tuesday Europe’s debt crisis seemed to have
worsened so that fears the EU would have to bail out more members sent the euro lower taking
oil prices with it. Gasoline in NY increased by 11 cents a gallon on Wednesday suggesting that
a $3 average nationwide gasoline price is not far away.
A new factor entered the picture when it was announced on Wednesday that, contrary to market
fears two weeks ago, the Chinese economy still continued to boom in November. When a US
jobs report was released showing a higher-than-expected increase in US employment and the
euro rebounded, US equity markets took off taking oil prices with them. Lost in the euphoria
were the reports that unemployment benefits just expired for 2 million Americans who are now
without any source of income and concerns that the European debt crisis seems to be
spreading.
The weekly stocks report showed total US commercial petroleum inventories basically
unchanged from last week. Total product demand in the US is still running 2.4 percent higher
than last year with gasoline and jet fuel demand down and distillate demand up by nearly 9
percent. Goldman Sachs is now forecasting that oil will average $110 a barrel in 2012, up from
$100 a barrel average in 2011.
Tom,
You are right about the availability of a product driving the price: So why do we need the government mandates?
John
And don’t forget, AB32 is only one small part of the puzzle: Here are some other mandates that will up electricity prices by almost 15%: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-brown-jobs-20101202,0,2842087.story
Yep, the left REALLY cares about the little guy!
John
John – (out of Reply levels) – good solid question. Seems like the main reason for the mandates is to make up for the subsidies that have skewed the market in the first place. That might sound kind of libertarian, i.e. the market shall fix everything when S=D once again – that’s not my philosophy but in this case getting rid of ethanol subsidies and oil subsidies (and accepting all of the market-changing international implications, i.e. market gets flooded with cheap brazilian sugarcane, putting our ethanol farmers out of work or forcing them to…. wait for it … re-skill!) would get rid of a lot of artificial monkeying with the S&D curves and then many of the actions that AB32 is trying to force would take place just as a natural function of the market. Ironic. Not to say that everything will be fixed if we just have a truly free market, but things would be a lot less skewed and we’d be making progress towards learning what we’ve really got to work with on this planet.