CO2 emissions

Maintenance/Repairs
21

See below for your “global cooling” ideas. (Also unless you live somewhere very close the ocean, the fact that you’re walking on marine fossils has to do with uplift and plate tectonics, not climate change).

As for your ideas of government, you’re damn right everything they do is politically motivated. Luckily in a democracy their interests are our interests (obviously the system isn’t perfect, but it’s better than most). How do you like your clean air, clean water, efficient transportation network, police, fire department, etc? If you really think government makes such a shambles of everything, why don’t you move somewhere like Somalia which doesn’t have a functioning government?

22

I do definitely agree that overpopulation is the elephant in the room for this and, really, most other issues.

23

Scientists believe the earth to be about 4.5 billion years old. It has gone through countless heating and cooling cycles way, way larger than any we’re currently monitoring for its entire existance. Our “science” (I use the term loosely) on climate change is based on what, 30 years of research? By people who’ve created a living from government grant funding on the issue? The same people sho 30 years ago said that of we didn’t change our habits we’d enter another ice age?

My personal feelings are that this is pseudo-science, driven by money and power.

However, my real point is that the EPA has been given free rein to regulate a natually emitted gas that constitutes a very small portion of the 1% of air that is not nitrogen or oxygen (I’ve read that CO2 is approx .11% of the 1%), and that this regulatory agency has already proven itself capable of making a mess of things. Counties in NH are subject to emissions testing for air quality problems brought in by the air from areas in the midwest not subject to testing. We need not even discuss the disaster of MTBE.

Does anyone else here feel that the federal regulatory agencies are on a power trip and that this trip is being sanctioned by the administration and the increasingly-liberal federal court system?

Does anyone else here feel that Washington is obliterating state’s rights?

Does anyone else here feel that this ruling has established a really nad precedent?

Is anyone else here concerned that the EPA on it’s blind quest to regulate CO2 will make the ICE so expemsive to “clean up” that it’ll be impractical as a mobile power source? Will be have industrial-strength anti pollution systems weighing down our cars?

24

About 40% of the CO2 emitted in the US comes from coal fired power stations. The EPA will certainly want to cut those back as well. Since no one wants to be without electricity, it will force a conversion to gas which generates about half or less CO2. In addition, solar and wind power will be pushed, and nuclear power revived.

I don’t think the EPA will legislate the Internal Combustion Engine out of existence. It has not happened in Europe which has tailpipe standards that would make US car emission be reduced by about 50% without anyone not having acess to a car.

What the EPA will do is destroy the myth that a pickup truck, a van, and an SUV as currently used, is NOT A CAR!

The result of all this will be much more expensive electricity, and some increase in the cost of owning a car, but not the death of the ICE. It will give a boost to electric cars for urban use.

25

Doc, you’re among the more intelligent members of the community at large and have been all over the world. Does this ruling bother you from a standpoint of changing the groundrules for regulatory agencies, allowing them to determine what they can regulate and to what level without being bound by legislatve standards? Making regulations with the effect of law without there having to be laws? Do you sense that they can now do an “end run” around the legislative process?

“the EPA will legislate”…that statement bothers me. Regulatory bodies are supposed to create regulations to monitor compliance with legislation, not legislate. Even penalties are ostensibly created by the legislation and not the regulation.

26

mtnbike - we’ve been to similar places in other discussions. I’ll be able to take anyone’s anti-government rants much more seriously when they are accompanied by anti-corporate rants. The thing to be afraid of is not exclusively big government but big organizations - public or private. Both concentrate & centralize power and trample over all sorts of things. And big corporations did come first in the US. Big government and big labor both came along afterward, largely in response to issues produced by big business.

Along those lines, here’s one kind of thing that I can’t make sense of in current debates: “My personal feelings are that this is pseudo-science, driven by money and power.” There’s that weird “global warming is some liberal conspiracy” thing that people do. But the serious money and power still lies in the fossil fuel industries whose interests are most threatened by attacks on CO2 stuff. Those interests and the actors that carry them are pretty clear and identifiable. The other side, not so much. Grants do not go into people’s pockets - one doesn’t get a DOE grant and buy a personal jet with it.

So my point is not to turn it around and say “government good, corporations bad” - it is to say “big organizations bad” - if you decide to make your wagon bigger and stop putting “government” in its own special category I’m on your wagon.

27

It’s political bunk and the only reason the issue has gotten as far as it has is because the media and political hacks have made an issue of it.

The current C02 level is about 375 PPM if I remember correctly. In the distant past before man came along, it was around 3000 PPM.
So if anyone wants to make the point that man is responsible for this then it could be asked about the 10 X higher CO2 level in the past; who done it?

And for what it’s worth, the predominant greenhouse gas by leaps and bounds is water vapor. The current gloom and doom CO2 increase is simply a miniscule increase of a already existing miniscule amount and even that is based on an interpretation of a computer model.

This ruling is simply a backdoor mandate since it has not been done legislatively and it’s a bad deal; as most will likely find out in the future.

28

In a nutshell, it is simply a way for the government to make a grab for everyone’s wallet.

Pollution is not a good thing…I don’t think that anyone will disagree on this, but to attempt to shape the issue so that man is the cause of any climate change is not honest. How do you feel about revenues that have been collected from you and me for BS Carbon Credits later being confiscated from the US Treasury and sent to other hopeless countries? It is like the taxpayer has been double-screwed…once by Uncle Sam, the once by the UN…

Remember- the people that are crafting this policy in DC probably couldn’t keep a Subaru running. (Reference to another ongoing debate in this chatroom…)

29

Okay, for one, climate scientists aren’t getting rich off of this. Perhaps Al Gore is, but he no more invented this than he did the internet. If you want to see where the money and power are in the equation, look at the other side-- some of the largest corporations in the world are intimately and (they would say) inextricably dependent on keeping carbon emissions cheap.

Another point to make is that most of this work isn’t from “climate scientists”-- such a field didn’t really exist until recently. The vast preponderance of evidence is from fields that are only obliquely related to climate, like geology, oceanography and meteorology. These are people who definitely do not depend on any money that is tied to climate change.

I found it interesting that Exxon-Mobil, back when they were the main climate change deniers, commissioned these studies by scientists in largely unrelated fields to publish these studies that cast doubt on climate change. I think this is ironic because Exxon-Mobil is one of the largest employers of earth scientists. Understanding of how climate change works in the geologic past is an essential tool for understanding the paleogeography and, in turn, where you’re going to find oil. Any one of Exxon’s petroleum geologists would have been more qualified than the hacks they hired to make these studies.

But now even Exxon Mobil admits that climate change is a reality. You can make all sorts of arguments about what should be done about it, but denying that it is occurring is simply not a viable position any more.

30

That was back before there were plants, so I think you can probably work out why the atmospheric concentration was higher. I can also guarantee you wouldn’t have liked living back then-- imagine just about everything from south of 45 degrees looking like Death Valley.

31

The EPA has been granted the power it has because of the flawed lawmaking process in the US political system. The CAFE standards, for instance, which originally made a lot of sense, were emasculated by the classification of SUVs, minivans, and pickup trucks as “commercial vehicles”. That happened because congress is at the whim of pressure groups; carmakers and union in the North, and oil companies in the South. As well, the guy in the White House was also against any change. This is finally changing somewhat.

If the US is to address climate change and energy conservation, it needs a powerful central entity to drive the process, but answerable to the head of state and congressional committee, on a regular basis.

Yes, I agree that an agency that is so powerful it can override the legislative process smacks of KGB style totalitarianism. But there should be enough oversight to keep the agency in check, if it goes too far. That’s what a functioning democracy should be like.

The American Civil Liberties Union, on the other hand, would want an all encompassing ban on things they don’t like to hear and see. That’s real totalitarianism! I have lived and worked in countries like that. I was told what I could criticise (not much) and what was beyond criticism! One country, where the British Economist magazine is regulary sold, skipped the issue that criticised that country. The censors had stopped it at the border!

No matter how “holier than thou” Nancy Pelosi looks and acts, she is being pushed every which way by special interests.

When Ralph Nader forced the government to look at how dangerous cars really were, the subsequently appointed highway safety csar was deemed to be too powerful. But, as we know safety glass in cars had to be legislated pane by pane. And cars are much safer now.

It is really all about a proper balance of power and getting the job done.

I’ll give you one very dramatic example to demonstrate the point:

In 1953 The Netherlands, a country that’s 2/3 below seal level, had a catastrophic flood with many of the dikes rupturing. This was one of those 300 year storms, and 1500 people drowned! The federal governemt afterwards decided that this should NEVER happen again. They drew up a long term plan that would reinforce the dikes, cut off some sea arms, and generally make the country with 10 million people living below sea level, “flood proof”. The final protection barriers were put in place a few years back, and the country is as safe as any now. The Brits did something similar on a much smaller scale, to the Thames to protect London.

Fast forward to Louisiana.

The US Corps of Engineers, good professionals, were painfully aware of the vulnerability of the Mississippi Delta. They recommended a $7 billion improvement plan which was shot down by George Bush, and other special interests. The rest is history. A similar number of people drowned. The reconstruction has been painfully slow, to say the least.

The difference between the Corps of Engineers and the Dutch “Water Estate”, the agency that looks after the dikes, is that its head can even overrule the Dutch prime minister, should he (the prime minister) want to scimp on dike maintenance, and appeal directly to the Queen, who can actually dissolve parliament (the government). That has never happened since no prime minister wants to be unseated by a civil servant.

You could argue that the Water Estate chief has too much power, but politicians can get sidetracked from the real problem with disastrous results. This guy is non-partisan and his job is to keep more people from drowning which was accomplised.There have been no further dike ruptures.

In summary, decision making in a federal state with diverging regional interests is very difficult. At some stage the head of state needs to appoint a single entity (under the watchful eye of a committee) to get the job done.

I don’t know if that answers your question.

32

Yup, that addresses the question. Beautifully. And with excellent illustrations.

Being a consitutionalist, I have serious issues with regulatory bodies making law. They are not elected representatives, and generally once the “laws” they create are “enacted” the only real oversight is vis civil actions. Unfortunately, the average person regulated by these “laws” does not have the recourse to stand against them.

The legislative process is clearly flawed, and clearly driven by special interests. But I argue that the courts’ finding that creates a system for circumventing the process by regulatory bodies is far more dangerous. And it also puts the balance of powers of the three branches on shaky ground. The judiciary is tasked with interpreting laws, the legilative bodies with making them. The judiciary finding that the legislative process can be circumvented has, to me, serious implications beyond the finding itself.

If a legislature chooses to limit CO2 emissions to a specific level and mandate penalties for violators, I may feel it’s bad law, but the integrity of the system is intact.

In the case of Louisiana, they people were warned many decades ago and often since that the disaster that took place was inevitable. This goes back many decades, generations, long before Bush. Yet development of residences below sea level continued unchecked. The solution would have been for the legislators, either state or local (via local codes and restrictions) to enact mandates controlling development in those areas. Failure of the legislators to do so at every level does not condone turning power to make the laws over to a regulatory body.

I’m unfamiiliar with the system of government in the Neatherlands, so I can’t comment.

33

Yes, Cigroller, we’ve visited this place on other subjects. But it isn’t really an anti-government rant. I belive in the functions of government set forth in our founding documents. The rant is against out of control regulatory bodies and against the courts, who I believe have moved beyond interpreting the laws and into social engineering, and arena that I think the regulatory bodies are illicitly entering. I should note that the courts began doing this decades ago, not just recently.

My coment was seperated out to differentiate it from my main arguement, but make clear that I was not using the main arguement to hide my beliefs on the subject of climate change. Perhaps I didn’t do this well, but the fact that we’ve visited this arena on other topics as well may illustrate the point. I don’t believe the climate change politics it’s a consiracy, but I do believe it’s become a big business driven by money and power. I’ve applied for and administrated federal grants in academia and in state government, the largest being $2.1M. I’ve done the dirty work. I’ve been on the committees. I know how the money flows and how it helps institutions and careers. It does not go into an individual’s pocket, but it sure does wonders for his/her career. Major universities have tenured faculty who don’t teach at all. They’re there because they have the ability to get federal grant funding to build programs, building, and even institutions. And they’re very well treated and very well compensated.

I don’t believe big organizations are bad. And I’d argue that government is its own special category, seperate from the private sector. You cannot lump the government in with a private organization. Its purpose and function are completely different.

34

Fair enough then. I’ll hold out on just a couple of points. First (as GreasyJack echoes below) the array of forces on the other side is so much bigger, more powerful, and more obvious that I don’t really find the “global warming is just a self-interested power game” very convincing.

Second, yes, in some respects large govt and large business belong in separate categories, but all large organizations share basic properties common to size (among other things) that leave them with very similar effects. They trample people, create large “externalities” (both intended and unintended), and ultimately centralize control. The founding fathers actually feared the kind of corporations that we have created just as much as the kind of government we’ve created. This is not what they (or Adam Smith) had in mind.

Just to be clear btw, I’d hope this is taken in the best tradition of civil discussion. More that once I’ve had the feeling that I’d really enjoy sitting down, having a beer, and chatting about it all in that grand old “verbal” tradition. I think I’d enjoy it.

Best.

Oh… and I suppose to just very directly address the original question (which I never really did) I’m not thrilled about the EPA or its powers. But I’m not thrilled without a public oversight agency either. So I’m not really all that happy either way. Putting it all under legislative oversight is not so good since then everything goes thru the political meatgrinder and little that is intelligent comes out. But leaving it outside is also dangerous. I think its a no winner.

35

My oldest son holds a Masters in Paleoclimatology, or the study of long term climate changes and after skimming many scientific journals along with a healthy dose of explanations from him, I will say that this is at odds with what is being spouted by TV, Time magazine, Reuters, AP, an infinite number of political hacks, etc.

I’ll be glad to ask him exactly what the climate was like during this 3000 PPM episode and from my hazy memory, it’s not as bad as you would think.

Also try this. Do a net search about the era from around the 1940s/early 50s when manufacturing production went way up, the car business was booming, etc.
Look at the average temperatures back then and ask yourself why the CO2 and temperatures cross each other on the charts instead of going hand in hand.

36

Fair enough at this end too.

Adam Smith could never have envisioned the global conglomerates we have now. Nor could he have envisioned the global economy. Nor, for that matter, could our founding fathers. And in the time of the founding fathers the representatives were, in fact, members of the citizenry. I doubt the founding fathers could have envisioned career politicians in the framework they wrote. Their idea of what we now call career politicians was probably more like a monarchy. They definitely wanted to avoid that!

Yeah, this is definitely a civil and respectful discussion of what are actually some very complex issues, all filtered through our respective philosophies and backgrounds. No correct exact answer exists, only different perspectives. I too think it would be fun over a cold brewsky. I love discussing politics. And I respect those hwo disagree with me with a good argument behind their views. Or those who probe me to provide a good arguement for my views. I think everyone’s level of understanding rises.

You make a good point in your closing paragraph. There is no easy answer here.

37

MB, the EPA was allowed to make rulings and act on them in the Clean Air Act. If they overstepped their bounds, someone will sue them to stop their efforts. This is by no means the first time a sitting administration has tried to hijack the governing process. It’s a long-standing tradition. The previous administration made considerable efforts to get their way without legislative approval.

38

Unelected bureaucrats!-Kevin

39

Mountainbike; thanks for the response. The regulatory bodies creating these “laws” should have previously been empowered by the government of elected members of the houses.

They merely put the meat on the bones of a workeable law.

The US Corps of Engineers has been jerked around for most of recent years; during the depression many great public works were created, TVA, Hoover Dam, and others.

In the case of the Dutch public works, the government, i.e parliament led by the prime minister decides what is needed in principle, i.e. no more dike ruptures and dead bodies. The Water Estate creates the workeable plan and puts a budget figure and time schedule on it. If some loony bin special imterest group tries to torpedo the plan, parliament nips it in the bud. The parliamentary style of government is more responsive this way since the country’s leader is also the parliamentary (congressional) leader. The Dutch government also has a “senate”, but it basically endorses the legislation, unless they find a major constitutional or technical flaw.

When climate change legislation gets enacted, the ultimate goal in CO2 emissions must be agreed upon by all. Then the EPA has the job of engineering a working plan. Some powerful senator or congressman from a coal producing state should not be able to unduly influence that process.

40

You must mean the CEO of Exxon-Mobil then.