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The debate at the national level right now among Democrats is between a Carbon Cap and Trade System and a Carbon Tax. I've read both sides of the issue and I'm still not sure which would be more effective in the short and long term.
Sen. Boxer seems to support a Cap & Trade system, while Rep. Dingell supports a straight up Carbon tax.
What do you guys think? Which is better to stave off global warming? Which is better from a Peak Oil perspective?
The politicians still haven't got it.
After the first shock, the OPEC Embargo in 1973, the U.S. should have increased the gasoline tax by $0.25. After the Iranian Crisis, another $0.25 should have been added. After the 1980's tanker war and Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, another $0.50 should have been added. That total of $1.00 should have been doubled to $2.00 per gallon by now. I place blame directly on people like Ronnie RayGun, who had the great opportunity to keep prices high in 1986, after KSA flooded the market and drove the price of crude down to $10/bbl, but chose to sit back and enjoy the ride for another election cycle.
Once we know for sure that we are past Peak Oil, it will be too late to use the tax mechanism to limit consumption as the price of oil is likely to skyrocket. The only hope then will be gasoline rationing and a massive campaign of conservation and building of alternatives. All of Samuelson's "wedges" will be options. The Democrats still don't get it. They can't just say "NO" to the kids that are throwing tantrums about the "high" price of gasoline.
E. Swanson
"I place blame directly on people like Ronnie RayGun, who had the great opportunity to keep prices high in 1986, after KSA flooded the market and drove the price of crude down to $10/bbl, but chose to sit back and enjoy the ride for another election cycle."
Ahhh, Black_Dog, but maybe the flood of cheap oil during the 1980s was part of a Reagan administration plan to bankrupt the Soviet Union?
I've heard that claim before. However, I suggest that the Soviet system failed in large part because of their excessive expenditures on their military, instead of attempting to satisfy their consumer demands and basic needs. Also, the proliferation of the fax machine made it nearly impossible for their secret police to monitor the activities of their dissidents. The basis of their ability to control their population was lost. Ever wondered where their news organization Interfax began? Unfortunately, information technology appears to have caught up with the Revolutionaries again (except in Iraq). Smile!! That lady with the cell phone stuck in her ear is really taking your picture...
E. Swanson
Perhaps they amount to the same thing, since FSU got so much of its money from energy and then spent so much on military. When energy prices tanked and the military kept its share, poof. It seems as well that the degree of environmental devastation from military (and oil) within the FSU was larger than anyone thought - just as is so in our southwest. [Mike Davis "Dead Cities"]
cfm in Gray, ME
Arkansawyer
"The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space," he recalls, adding that U.S. satellites picked up the explosion. Reed said in an interview that the blast occurred in the summer of 1982.
"While there were no physical casualties from the pipeline explosion, there was significant damage to the Soviet economy," he writes. "Its ultimate bankruptcy, not a bloody battle or nuclear exchange, is what brought the Cold War to an end. In time the Soviets came to understand that they had been stealing bogus technology, but now what were they to do? By implication, every cell of the Soviet leviathan might be infected. They had no way of knowing which equipment was sound, which was bogus. All was suspect, which was the intended endgame for the entire operation."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4394002
Kinda like CDO's in Money Center Banks today.
Now that the US has offshored most of its manufacturing capabilities, has the thought not occured to anyone that a similar trick could be played on us?
I am sure that the thought has occured to the Chinese, if nobody else. I wonder if the lead paint and pet food scares were just trial runs? Testing us to see how good & fast we are at detection?
Everyone under 40 has been raised on TV programed to produce 'pure' consumers. It's everyone under 40 that's throwing tantrums, from the ones that ripped off the younger one's with ARMs because they are not being bailed out after commiting fraud, to the younger ones being told to blame, not the '80s college crowd that ripped them off, but the liberal generation that came before. None of them were ever taught how to reason, how to critcally think. Therefore they are just thrashing around demanding to be bailed out, demanding SOMEONE to make everything better, looking for someone to blame and burn at the stake. A very sad state of affairs. I have some things to say to them. Yes, you have been lied to. Yes, you have been ripped off. No, there is not enough for everyone to have everything. No, there is not enough for everyone period. The world is used up. There are VERY HARD times ahead. Ther is no one who can save you. There will be no salvation. Your world is over. Bite the bullet, pull it together and live. Throw your tantrums and break things and die.
"Therefore they are just thrashing around demanding to be bailed out, demanding SOMEONE to make everything better, looking for someone to blame and burn at the stake."
Oh, my God! I just described pre-WWII Germany. Oh, sh*t.
Wow, how much more proof do you need to know that we're going to become a Nazi state?
Seriously, weren't you just pontificating about the lack of critical reasoning abilities?
"'Therefore they are just thrashing around demanding to be bailed out, demanding SOMEONE to make everything better, looking for someone to blame and burn at the stake.'
Oh, my God! I just described pre-WWII Germany. Oh, sh*t."
On which note, isn't it reassuring to know that Britain's most repellant political party (featured in: "BNP: No real commitment to energy issues by Labour!") is at the forefront of warning of the consequences of peak oil. They will certainly find someone to blame - probably anyone they don't classify as British.
doctorbob, you beat me to it.
For US readers, the BNP is the British Nationalist Party, a very right wing and very Peak Oil aware political party.
If things get bad maybe many more people won't find it so repellent ... they didn't in pre-war Germany. :-(
Xeroid.
Heck - even VERY right wing doesn't state it...
...BNP leaders have sympathized with the Nazis on many occasions and their candidates often run on the idea that people with brown skin should be "sent back where they came from"
This is why it is worrying that mainstream politicians ignore Peak Oil, to me. Cos when people like the BNP start being right people will start asking, well what else are they right about.
--
When no-one around you understands
start your own revolution
and cut out the middle man
Does this mean that praying to dog isnt going to save them? If they lose faith, get no more cheap gas, cant afford the latest consumer electronic gadgets, are not able to purchase Chinese junk at swell-mart, then what is left for them? Their lives are ruined! What will they do when frozen pizza and pop tarts are gone from the shelves? I see an outstanding opportunity for a new deity...The F 150 In The Sky.
Does this mean that praying to dog isnt going to save them?
No, but if you want dogs attention, offerers of meat work well.
Everyone under 40? I'm under 40, and I'm not asking for anybody to bail me out. Actually, none of my friends, most of whom are under 40, are asking or even need anybody to bail them out. As far as I've been able to tell, the people being foreclosed on aren't screaming out to be saved. No, instead, the banks, mutual and hedge funds, pensions, and other large financial institutions are. Guess what? Those guys are run by the 80's college crowd and the liberal generation that came before.
- Scott
"Try sour grapes; you might like them."
Don't worry artaxt - the boomers get cranky every now and again on here and start ragging on those of us younger, and then when we point out any culpability they may have in anything they tell us we're whining and blaming them.
They're the most pampered and pandered to generation in history. You gotta take it with a pinch of salt.
But in Cid Yama's defense... I am having to hire 20-somethings... and I am shocked by the lack of critical thinking skills and general get-up-and-go... and their frightening levels of consumerism - in broad brushstrokes. Of course the boomers were running the education system for these kids - so it's hard to see that they get a free ride on that one either...
Personally... I really enjoy the input of the older folks on here cos they tend to know more than I do about so many things that will be important in the coming years. I have a lot to learn from them, and try to. But it will have to be those younger than 40 that pick up the pieces... and there is plenty of blame to go around - just attacking the younger generation while overlooking any responsibility for why the situation is as it is, well it's just daft.
We cannot ALL be completely useless, surely?
--
When no-one around you understands
start your own revolution
and cut out the middle man
It was really the WW II generation that planted the seeds of our destruction.
At least some of the baby boomers tried to stop the wars.
The 20-somethings today are just sitting there staring at Cheney and Iraq, without a clue what to do about them. Here's a clue: start breaking some stuff. That scares them.
Blaming generations is completely stereotypical. Each generation contains both good and bad.
Actually the seeds of our destruction were planted at least as far back as the 18th century. Think about it: our great-great-great grandparents, the ones who slaved away in the mills of the Industrial Revolution, were really very evil people.
"Everyone" was a poor choice of words, and because of my using it you missed the point of what I was saying. Television allowed for broad indoctrination across the board. Not just political, but corporate.(Are my teeth white enough?, can others 'smell' me?, What will other people think of me?, etc.) They created a painful self-consciousness among the population that can only be temporarily relieved though consumerism. Another thing television did was substitute for reading. Critical thinking is first encountered through the written word. What television did was create a default to 'talking head' experts who tell them what to believe. Lacking a foundation to determine the veracity of what the 'talking heads' are saying, debate has devolved into quoting 'talking heads' at each other, the 'talking heads' 'rightness' being directly tied to their popularity.(and usually their popularity directly tied to 'air-time') I said 'those under 40' as those were the ones exposed from birth to this process after the corporations understood and refined it. These are the people that will find it hardest once consumerism is no longer possible. No blame or criticism being applied. Just raising the red flag that the world is used up. Anger, scapegoating and seeking out the 'best' 'talking head' to save them are counterproductive to ultimate survival, and those under 40 have this history that will make it twice as hard for them to survive.
and who exactly controlled the levers of power and education during this period - that gave you first the generation X slackers (my lot) and now the generation Y i-don't-know-what-to-call-them (in their 20's and lower now)
at the end of the day boomer votes gave us Reagan and Bush I - i think it is easy to overstate the liberal part of the 60's and claim credit for a whole generation of liberal minded people when the votes show otherwise - a significant group who did much no doubt - but not everyone in that generation was liberal by a long chalk... and the decisions they have made are still ones that haunt us today with Peak Oil and Climate Change
but the sad truth is that certainly at the younger end of that spectrum you mention (i have to say i find it less and less as you get up to the thirties and closer to forty, but it's still there) the average young American is not going to do much about this - I see a frightening lack of agency in their behaviour and increasing amounts of programmed automatic consumer behaviour...
i just don't see enough of them changing quickly enough
--
When no-one around you understands
start your own revolution
and cut out the middle man
"at the end of the day boomer votes gave us Reagan and Bush"
The Liberals born before 1958 are still Liberals. There were not and still are not many Conservatives among our generation. Our generation focused on self actualization and attainment of inner validation. Our generation became comfortable with themselves and not swayed by advertising emphasizing external validation. (Worrying about what other people think about us or "Keeping up with the Jones".)
It was the votes of those born before around 1938 and those born after 1958 that voted Republican. When I was in college in the early '70's, the Young Republicans' office was a closet. There just weren't many of them and they were seen as something deviant and disgusting. The Boomer generation had nothing to do with Reagan or Bush coming to office.
What if we don’t get our act together in time to avoid serious consequences? What would that be like? Would the Already Experiencing It Countries go the way of Katrina? Who would be next? A 1st, 2nd, or 3rd world country? Would those who could, leave? Where would they go? Where would you go if you were one of them? Would the other countries let them die and then harvest any remaining resources? Might there be a new kind of ‘resource war?’ Interesting times… indeed.
The trouble with cap & trade is that it is too easy for the govt to set the cap too high, rendering the whole program worthless.
It is also easier to reset the carbon tax rates quickly if new scientific data indicates that more drastic reductions in volume are needed.
Last year the EU nations issued 15% too many and the price of the permits collapsed.
I remember an article recently proposing to set the carbon task at a varying level dependent on the amount of global warming, the equatorial tropospheric temperature measured by satellite IIRC.
A straight carbon tax means increasingly pricing poorer people out of the market. If you have to have a carbon tax, make it revenue neutral, ie reduce payroll taxes accordingly. IIRC, AlanFBE and WT support this.
Personally, I support Cap and Trade. But only if it has a similar redistribution measure, eg "Contraction and Convergence, or "Cap and Share" .
I have an even better idea to make it revenue neutral. Figure out how much gas each licensed driver uses each year and mail them a check for the amount of gas tax they pay.
For example, 1000 gallons/year and $1/gallon, mail every driver a check for $1000. That way, everybody that drives gets involved. If you do a payroll tax rebate, you cut out the non-working, unemployed, retired and low wage people completely out of the picture.
Why did you cut off non-drivers? I see your idea, but this way people will buy junk cars and not drive them just to get their $1000 check. Better yet split the tax revenue per capita - everyone over 18 would be getting the same amount. This way non-drivers will be fairly awarded for not driving and not polluting altogether. In addition the carbon tax will also increase bus and rail tickets as well as electricity rates. Not only gasoline.
Cap and Trade, along with 'Carbon Offsets' are the 21st Century equivalents of Papal Indulgences.
the 21st Century equivalents of Papal Indulgences.
Carbon offsets, maybe, but cap and trade? If carbon is capped (and the cap is reduced each year) then FF prices will increase until non-carbon alternatives are cheaper. How is this an indulgence?
How is this an indulgence?
Have you heard about accounting tricks? Enron anyone? The Cap & Trade system gives the participants the inherent incentative to overallocate allowances or invent offsets. This is its major flaw, because if there is will, corporations (and lawyers) find a way... A tax you can not escape because it is way too straightforward.
The Carbon gets capped at too high a limit, allowing for the 'trade' in carbon. This creates a) a spurious market and b) enormous possibilities for fraud and c) a pretence that a nation or corporation is 'doing its bit'.
Offsetting enables people to pretend they are doing something, allows people to buy there way out of guilt.
Get this:
Passed in traffic last week by a top of the line Range Rover (something like a 3.6 litre Diesel) Brand spanking new about £40k's worth of mummy-wagon.
Bumper Sticker? yess... guess what it said:
This Vehicle has been Carbon Offset...
truly.
I think there are very good reasons the politicians love 'Cap and Trade' regardless how inefficient it has proven to deal with the problem:
1) They are controlling the allowances. More power, more pork.
2) They can overallocate them in their mandate and leave reducing them to... whoever has the political will to do it. Any volunteers?
3) They are creating a 'carbon market' from which their connected corporations may benefit... for example by planting trees in Malaysia (to be quietly cut down the next year for biofuels).
The overall societal cost is enormous while the benefit is minuscule.
The only effective measure that could do something about our FF consumption - a revenue-neutral carbon tax is known very well, but is hated by politicians. It would penalize excessive consumption and this will reduce corporations profits... how bad could this be???
Wikipedia has a bit about the C&T system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cap_and_trade
C&T and a carbon tax purport to achieve the same goal. However, the C&T system is laced with government intervention at every turn. Which industries or companies should get how much? Do you allow past gross polluters an easier path toward reduction? If so, why should an industry get favoritism for their past bad practices? How does the government decide that one industry deserves more carbon use than another?
Anyway, a carbon tax system seems like the most transparent and efficient one. With the money taken in you can reduce income tax reductions and/or refund money evenly to all citizens.
Cap & trade is BS; a whopping carbon tax would be great.
Glad I could clear that up.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way and still have a blank box to put text in, I'll also suggest a way to make it possible. Tongue in cheek but just stupid enough it could work.
American citizens hate taxes. Thus, politicians don't propose them. What Americans like is "free stuff now".
In fact, Americans will agree to ANY damn thing to get "free stuff now". That's the whole rationale behind the right to bear ARM's (adjustable-rate mortgages that is), the credit card industry, cashback bonuses when you buy a car, etc etc. Yet this powerful core truth has never been harnessed for conservation!
Thus I give you.... (drum roll)... the Patriot Rebate. This is about keeping America's wealth in america, sticking it to those foreign oil-sellers, about mom and apple pie. It's a tax that starts as a bonus. Yes, every citizen will get five thousand dollars FREE the first year! And lesser amounts each year thereafter, until it becomes a heavy and rising carbon tax on the 5th year and beyond.
The ostensible reason will be to allow the poor to buy energy-efficient vehicles. Will they? Hell no! But they will have been PAID to, so won't be able to bitch about it credibly. In fact, they'll all spend it on stupid stuff.
This is money that the Fed is going to have to inject ANYhow to keep the economy from collapsing in the coming few years, so why not tie the give-away to a deep carbon tax?
In other words, to any presidential candidates who are listening: Americans want free money and they want it now! They'll be for the tax because the world 5 years from now isn't real to them! They'll DEMAND it.
You will awaken a sleeping giant and fill it with a wonderful resolve. History will love you for it, and you will be remember fondly as long as the nation endures. Which is to say 20-30 years, give or take.
Thanks for your kind attention.