Protecting the Nation’s Frigid Air

For the last two days Mother Nature has expressed her opinion of the global warming debate by dumping a ton of white powder on yours truly. The snow drifts in my back yard are waste high and my beagle transformed into a dolphin this afternoon to navigate them.

Maybe Mother Nature is trying to tell me something, only it is difficult to determine what that is. It seems obvious to me that a very cold day, or week, or even a decade of flat line temperatures tells us little or nothing about long range climate trends. Judah Cohen, writing in the New York Times, thinks otherwise.

It's all a snow job by nature. The reality is, we're freezing not in spite of climate change but because of it.

Only a fool could doubt the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis since, apparently, virtually any data confirms it.

Tomorrow will be a bitterly cold day here, whatever that means, and it will be the first day of the rest of Barack Obama's first term. One of things that Obama/Reid/Pelosi failed to do so far was to pass strict limits on carbon emissions. If they couldn't do it when they controlled the White House and both branches of Congress, they won't have better luck now that Orange John Boehner is replacing Pelosi as Speaker of the House.

Never mind. The Pittsburgh Post-gazette informs us that the limits are coming anyway.

The decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to move forward on limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and refineries is a welcome step, especially because it comes as Congress stubbornly refuses to enact measures to protect the nation's air.

The EPA announced last week that it will propose standards for new and refurbished power plants in July and for new oil refineries next December; rules for existing power plants -- there are 16 coal-fired power plants in Western Pennsylvania -- would follow in 2015 or 2016. Nationwide, the plants and refineries emit about 40 percent of all greenhouse gases, and the rules are aimed at reducing carbon dioxide and other substances that are fouling the air today and harming the planet in the long term.

I am not quite sure what it means to "protect the nation's air." Air is one of those things that no government, however rapacious, has yet found a way to seize. Clouds drifting ashore over Seattle drift from further east, and the EPA has precious little jurisdiction over China.

I do know what it means for a bunch of executive branch bureaucrats to try to impose a policy favored by Democrats that failed in a Congress that Democrats controlled. It means big trouble for the President and his party.

Cap and Trade legislation failed because there is no way on God's green earth that the American people would put up with it. Maybe green technologies will one day flower and give us abundant energy while shrinking our carbon footprint back to the days when firewood was carried on donkey carts. Meanwhile the only way to achieve significant reductions in carbon emissions is to dramatically reduce energy consumption by making energy much more expensive. That means that everything produced with energy becomes more expensive, and all of us become poorer. The voters will notice.

Congress failed to pass restrictions on carbon emissions because Congress is directly responsible to the voters. Even in boom times such legislation would have been a dubious proposition and these ain't boom times. The folks who staff the EPA don't have to run for office, so they are more insulated from the people.

Barack Obama does have to run again, if he wants a second term. If the EPA really tries to protect the nation's air by putting the screws to the nation's power plants, that will mean either a big rise in energy bills for pretty much everyone or energy shortages. Either would be a great gift to whoever wins the 2012 Republican nomination.

I have a hard time believing that Obama will really give the Republicans so generous a gift. He surely wants to convince his core support on the Left that he is serious about this issue, because the Left cares. So the EPA will do something. Congress has provided the template. The Cap and Trade bill that passed Pelosi's House contained so many loopholes that it would have been ineffectual if it had become law. That's how cap and trade worked in Europe. I am guessing that the EPA regulations will look something like that.

Welcome to the second half of Barack Obama's first term. Happy New Year!

Comments

[William McPherson]

I'm confused about your views. Do you favor or disfavor EPA regulations, cap and trade, or any other policy?

It may be true that controlling pollution will cost money in the short run, and alienate voters, but in the long run it will save money. The job of leadership, including the incoming Republican members of Congress, is to make that clear to the voters. It should be obvious to all that our current energy policies are destructive not only to the environment but to American military and economic security. This point has been confirmed by many studies, including CIA and Defense Department reports. Congress must address this rather than playing games with climate change.

[Donald Pay]

Yeah, this post is very confused. It's quite obvious, as you state, that you are "...not quite sure what it means to 'protect the nation's air.'" Everything else said here seems to flow from your obvious ignorance about air quality regulation.

Regulation of air quality has been a part of US law since 1955, and have been updated through amendments and regulations since then. Before these laws, several particularly bad pollution events killed scores of people in Donora, PA. Those deaths, together with the thousands that died in the London, England "Great Smog" spurred the first laws, and as studies continued to show health and environmental impacts of air pollutiion, the laws were expanded.

When you start with your level of ignorance about environmental regulation it is virtually impossible to have a constructive conversation.

[KB]

WM: I thought I was perfectly clear. "Cap and Trade legislation failed because there is no way on God's green earth that the American people would put up with it." My argument is that significant restrictions on greenhouse emissions aren't going to happen.

I am opposed to such policies for the general reason that policy should aim at something that can actually be done. I also think you are flat wrong in your cost benefit analysis. Precisely if the AGW thesis is correct, only very severe reductions in greenhouse emissions would do any good. Even the U.S. somehow had the political will to impose such reductions, that would only result in a shift of production to other countries. In point of fact, the costs of climate change under any reasonable calculation is simply much lower than the cost of preventing climate change.

Finally, I think that the short run solutions are often as bad or worse for the environment than the problems they are intended to solve. European nations that have heavily invested in wind power, for example, have not managed to reduce their carbon emissions.

[Donald Pay]

Let me point out that the EPA's action on this is in line with Supreme Court decisions on the responsibility of the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

[Jimi]

I love it when people talk about what the U.S. should do about air pollution and Climate Change.

The United States was a leader from the begining on envirnmental regulations, and it will NEVER make a lick of difference what we do here in the U.S., because we are not the main problem.

Until you get Russia, China, and India on board....the EnviroPsyco's can go to hell.

There are two camps:

1.) The people who are making their idealistic decisions based on emotion, and haven't the slightest clue that there is a massive political machine trying to complete a long term, well thought out, aggressive agenda who's main purpose is to attack the Capitalist System and defeat it. They actually believe there is a grave threat.

2.) The people who are actively participating in the long term political agenda, but refuse to admit that it has nothing to do about Environmentalism, and everything to do with controlling behavior, and attacking the Capitalist System. They actually believe the U.S. is the problem on the planet, and believe if we are Europeanized somehow this will be better.

Donald....I think your in Camp #2, what do you think?

[Donald Pay]

I think, Jimi, you don't know what you are talking about. Anthropomorphic additions of carbon to the atmosphere has been noted since the beginning of industrialization. These are the important totals, since carbon additions accumulate i the atmosphere. The totals of cumulative energy-related CO2 emissions from 1900 to 2005 are as follows :

US : 30% of total cumulative emissions
EU: 23%
China 8%
Japan 4%
India 2%
Rest of the world 33%

A major problem on the planet is fossil fuel socialism, which is a problem in the United States and China. However, China is doing far more than the United States to address the issue. Some basic information:

China's fuel economy standards are much higher than the US CAFE standards.

China has a Top 1000 Company energy reduction goal that is significantly more stringent than the toughest standards proposed in the toughest US state (California). The US government has set no goals.

China devoted twice the real dollars in economic stimulus to green energy (four times when based on GDP).

On a per capita basis, China emits 60 percent of the carbon dioxide as the US.

[Jimi]

Donald,

"The US government has set no goals."

This is political rhetoric! Why do you think all the major industrial companies took their operations overseas. It didn't have anything to do with the regulatory environment did it?

CO2 is a "Minor" Greehouse gas, your side of the isle still has yet the scientific evidence to show the "Net" effect of Carbon Emsissions. Take the Major Greehouse Gases into account....you know a measure that actually matters...rather than attempting to play the political game of CO2 output.

CO2 output means nothing....and you can't prove otherwise...Period!

[Donald Pay]

Jimi,

The Supreme Court has already ruled---carbon dioxide needs to be regulated. The science is clear. There is no credible evidence on your side of the argument. Get over it.

[Jimi]

Donald,

It over yet pal!

"The Supreme Court will hear arguments most likely in March, with a ruling expected by the end of June. It will be the most important environmental case of the term, and the biggest since the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2007 that federal environmental officials can regulate greenhouse gas emissions."

&

"The science is clear"

This is a absolute lie. You should be ashamed to take that minority position.

[Donald Pay]

I don't think you understand the significance of the case the Supreme Court is taking up.

http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20101212/ISSUE01/312129971