On Climate Change & Taxes

6/27/2009

Most of you were probably too busy wonder why Michael Jackson died to notice the incredibly important piece of legislation that was ramrodded through the House of Representatives on Friday. It was a bill that outlines the US's response to Climate Change- a CAP & TRADE regulation that will limit the amount of supposedly harmful emissions produced by our country and progressively tax our current resources until someone comes up with an energy efficient alternative to Oil and other energies that are supposedly going to kill us all (I say supposedly because there hasn't actually been consensus in the scientific community as to whether or not humans are actually causing climate change- Al Gore would have you believe otherwise, but there's plenty of evidence on both sides, and this isn't really a forum for debating whether or not people are causing it- let's save that for a different site).

Now, I'm actually really excited about competition in the energy industry.

I just don't feel that the right way to achieve competing energy sources is by jacking up the price of our current solutions so much that someone simply HAS to come up with an alternative in order to remain viable and economically stable. That's just silly.

That's like students who put off their term papers until the last minute because they "work best under pressure." Sometimes it works and they scrape by with an A- but often it results in a sloppy effort that doesn't really meet the expectations of the professor and results in a terrible grade.

The market doesn't react very well to this sort of force, either. It doesn't like to be manipulated under threat. And what I'm afraid is going to happen is something unexpected- something terrible that we can't plan for or predict or react to effectively.

Hopefully, it won't be market failure- but if it is...

You can be sure that the government will blame the market rather than their own manipulation. And when that happens, they'll be quick to put their own restraints and regulations in place so that the market doesn't "continue to fail." This will lead to further failure and more government. Eventually, if things get too bad, we'll be facing total government control of the energy market and we'll be rationed what they think we need.

I don't want to live here when that happens.

Chad Hogg link

6/27/2009 06:45:49 am

Before I continue I should state that I am in no way convinced that this type of government regulation is warranted or wise, and I share your distrust in the ever-growing government. That said, environmental damage seems to me a classic example of a tragedy of the commons, and I am not sure I see a better solution. This is a problem for smarter persons than I.

Anyway, what do you consider to be consensus? Sorry to delve into a topic that you would like to save for a different site, but you cannot make claims that are so seemingly contradictory to what is believed and expect to not have them challenged. Nearly every organization of scientists has issued statements that they have indeed reached such a consensus. See wikipedia's article on "Scientific opinion on climate change" for a very extensive list of such organizations, and a dearth of those who explicitly hold otherwise. (Wikipedia is by no means a perfectly accurate and unbiased source of information, but when it provides such a lengthy list of cited evidence, the burden is on you to explain why it is faulty.)

If you want to make an argument that the scientific view of climate change is colored by political leanings or or strongarm tactics or some such thing I might be somewhat more inclined to find your argument within the realm of possibility, but to say that scientists do not agree on this is to ignore the clear and unequivocal statements of scientists.

Of course, consensus does not mean complete agreement. Otherwise, there would be extremely few, if any, statements on which the scientific community has a consensus. It also does not require certainty. Most scientific statements are of the form "we can say with an X confidence level that Y is true".

Could you please provide some evidence that a significant portion (say 20% or greater) of people who have actually performed research on climatology are unconvinced either that global temperatures are increasing or that actions of humans are a significant cause of this change? I have no doubt that there are a great number of such people, only that they comprise a significant proportion of the experts in the field.

Nathan link

6/27/2009 09:03:07 am

Chad,

Great comment.

You know what, I'm going to be honest- I said "supposedly" caused by man not because I disbelieve this but because I've seen enough libertarian propaganda films bemoaning "An Inconvenient Truth" that I didn't want the debate to begin here as well- especially when I know that some of my libertarian counterparts often leave comments here...

Climate change is happening. If it's not caused by man, being less dependent on oil and "greenhouse gasses" is certainly a pretty decent move. I hate smog. I hate pollution. I hate oil slicks and the smell of aerosols.All the things that we're doing to the planet are making it look pretty crappy and makes breathing more difficult- even if it's not cooking the planet up a few degrees.

That said, I'm really more interested in what happens as a result, and sending us into government owned energy isn't exactly the way I'd remedy the solution.

Nathan link

6/29/2009 01:03:29 am

Extra Credit:

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/06/26/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5117890.shtml

FTP Blog link

6/29/2009 01:32:26 am

When it comes to the global warming issue, I'm just confused with the information that is out there. I can't even trust any source other than direct observation. It seems a little unreal to say that human activity has not had an impact on the environment, but then again is it? I mean, there ARE natural systems on the decline because of poor management practices; in places like Nigeria, India and Ecuador, only to name a few. (Ecuador recently sued Chevron for $27 billion, and the Royal Dutch Shell Oil company in Nigeria recently paid about $16 million in settlement money to Ken Saro-Wiwa's estate (or the Ogoni people, I forget which). I do think that on some level "the scientific view of climate change is colored by political leanings and/or strong-arm [big bank] tactics". Didn't Kofi Annan recently campaign at the Cannes Film Festival to increase the momentum of institutional change required to combat global warming?

Mr. Salk link

6/29/2009 05:42:21 am

Even if it was unanimously scientifically proven that fossil fuels are not a significant contributor to global warming, we should still be working towards long term clean and sustainable energy.
Humans can’t even survive in a garage if the car is running..

Jeff link

6/30/2009 11:12:42 pm

I'm not sure if I buy your analogy to the term paper. Perhaps there's been some cases where a profit motive was utilized to motivate the market in a given direction and it happened the way you say. But if there are some, I'd be interested to hear about them... and to hear about what it is that is inherent to this technique that illicits inefficiency, bad science, etc.
A theoretical problem with unregulated capitalism is that we effectively penalize people who are doing things for the common good if their is no profit built into their activities. The whole program is built on the assumption that the most reliable and consistent motivation for human beings is self-interest. I think that's probably about right.

But there are many things that don't carry a profit with them which we desperately need. Oxygen, for example. Their is minimal profit in countries with rain forests mantaining these. Their are huge profits in clear-cutting these forests and growing cows to feed America's beef addiction. Therefore, this is what is happening.

I think often times free market capitalism has allied itself (probably unknowing and unintentionally) with a medley of other traditionally political conservative beliefs. That's the only reason I can see for the fact that most free market capitalists seem to balk at what strikes me as the natural conclusion of their beliefs:
As a society, we ought to create a profit incentive for all behaviors which benefit the society at large.
We're all comfortable with the idea that if country A has oil and country B needs oil, then country B ought to pay for it.
Most free market capitalists won't apply this to oxygen, or other resources which are more challenging to turn into a commodity. In short: Why don't we assess how much oxygen a country uses versus how much oxygen a countries' greenery creates: Those countries which are using other countries' surplus ought to pay for it.

I'm probably getting off-topic here, so I'll stop. But my overall point is simply that it's a natural extension of capitalism to use it in this manner,

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