States Set to Sue the U.S. Over Greenhouse Gases 440
dnormant writes to tell us The New York Times is reporting that more than a dozen states are gearing up to sue the Bush administration for holding up efforts to regulate automobile emissions. "The move comes as New York and other Northeastern states are stepping up their push for tougher regulation of greenhouse gases as part of their continuing opposition to President Bush's policies. On Wednesday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer's administration is to issue regulations requiring power plants to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions, part of a broader plan among 10 Northeastern states, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, to move beyond federal regulators in Washington and regulate such emissions on their own."
Cars aren't even the majority of emissions (Score:2, Interesting)
So yes, cars are a part of it, but they are NOT the "things holding you up" here.
And if somebody could provide links on this, I'd be grateful.
It's usually the other way around... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:4, Interesting)
Why won't the EPA let them? (Score:1, Interesting)
I can certainly see how the power companies/auto manufacturers would hate this idea, but the EPA? What's going on here?
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:1, Interesting)
Actually, I do (though I'm not the person you were asking). Thanks to "deregulation" (they called it deregulation, but they basically passed a law forcing the electric company to operate as a utility connecting N generating companies and M users. Same idea as the regulation that used to force phone companies to share their lines with other people at cost) I can now purchase units of electricity from companies that run wind farms or nuclear plants or coal or whatever else.
One of those companies offers wind power. For $x, they add $x worth of their wind-generator power onto the grid, which I then take out of the grid on my end, and some fraction goes to the old electric company who now maintains the grid.
Now, is there a way to guarantee that my money is buying wind power (no, the electrons could come from anywhere...) or that the company is actually producing wind power (well, I could take a tour of their wind farm but nothing's actually plugged in and they run 10 coal plants) but that's just part of the problem with the market.
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:2, Interesting)
Nobody's forcing you to like Al Gore; Insurance Companies [cnn.com] are quite convinced they see a lot of downside risk in climate change going forward, and they're the ones that are going to see the bills first.
That was going to happen regardless of anything.
Re:Six Month Notice (Score:3, Interesting)
What, five of them?
Those are the ones that don't get grants and do get fired. No wonder they don't speak out.
Ah yes, it's the great conspiracy. So tell me, when Republicans controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress, were these same scientists being denied federal grants? It seems to me that it's the Conservatives complaining about the silencing of critics, but they were being silenced by officials of an all-Republican run government.
This was before the news that violence has been reduced 70% since the surge.
I haven't heard that. Perhaps it was hidden by the Liberal Media Conspiracy. Could you tell me the number of US soldier deaths in that time frame compared to before, as well as Iraq civilian deaths? "Violence" is a term that has some ambiguity. The piles of dead bodies are hard to hide.
Re:Six Month Notice (Score:2, Interesting)
Because that is exactly what they are told.... over and over and over again. Many scientists, geologists and meteorologists disagree.
What, five of them?
We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
This [oism.org] petition has been signed by over 19,000 American scientists.
Also, JunkScience.com [junkscience.com] is offering $125,000.00 to anyone who can PROVE that humans are causing catastrophic global warming.
Those are the ones that don't get grants and do get fired. No wonder they don't speak out.
Ah yes, it's the great conspiracy. So tell me, when Republicans controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress, were these same scientists being denied federal grants? It seems to me that it's the Conservatives complaining about the silencing of critics, but they were being silenced by officials of an all-Republican run government.
Sorry, but Republicans do not rule the world.
From HERE [nov55.com]:
Several years earlier, in a peer-reviewed article published by the Norwegian Polar Institute, Dr. Jaworowski criticized the methods by which CO2 levels were ascertained from ice cores, and cast doubt on the global-warming hypothesis. The institute's director, while agreeing to publish his article, also warned Dr. Jaworowski that "this is not the way one gets research projects." Once published, the institute came under fire, especially since the report soon sold out and was reprinted. Said one prominent critic, "this paper puts the Norsk Polarinstitutt in disrepute." Although none of the critics faulted Dr. Jaworowski's science, the institute nevertheless fired him to maintain its access to funding."
and HERE [humanevents.com]:
In a paper issued Jan. 3, 2007, UCS accuses ExxonMobil of funding "front groups" opposed to the climate-alarmist agenda of groups such as UCS and of former Vice President Al Gore. The company, said the UCS report, had distributed $16 million to 43 advocacy groups from 1998 to 2005 "to confuse the public on global-warming science."
Let's leave aside the fact that $16 million over eight years can't match the $2 billion that the federally funded Climate Change Science Program spends each year on global warming, or even the $4 million annual budget of just one of the many well-funded global-warming advocacy groups, Strategies for the Global Environment (the umbrella organization for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change). Moreover, the UCS document is hardly an investigative breakthrough. ExxonMobil itself publishes its philanthropic contributions to nonprofit organizations online.
And HERE [kgw.com] is where the state climatologist in Oregon gets fired for questioning global warming:
In the face of evidence agreed upon by hundreds of climate scientists, George Taylor holds firm. He does not believe human activities are the main cause of global climate change.
Taylor also holds a unique title: State Climatologist...
So the governor wants to take that title from Taylor and make it a position that he would appoint.
Then there is THIS [heartland.org] one where a scientist was fired for correcting bad data:
University of Washington climate scientist Mark Albright was dismissed on March 12 from his position as associate state climatologist, just weeks after exposing false claims of shrinking glaciers in the Cascade Mountains...
Cliff Mass, a professo
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Give the man a see-gar! (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, although cow farts are great for humorous comments on the issue, it's been known for some time that cattle produce most of their greenhouse gasses (methane and CO2) from their front end. The methane mostly comes from their complex stomaches, which are marvelous digesters for plant material, but also produce significant quantities of methane as a byproduct. Their large intestines do produce methane, as do ours, but in lesser quantities.
Another fun story on the topic was the study a few years ago that identified the other major source of atmospheric methane: termites. They also digest cellulose, using bacteria similar to those in cattle, and they produce lots of CO2 and CH4 as byproducts, too. They're small, but you wouldn't believe how many termites there are in the world. Imagine a trillion little termites, each continuously burping and farting while chomping their way through wood and other plant material. Try not to grin at the thought.
It turns out that large grazing animals and termites each produce roughly 1/3 of the atmospheric methane, and the remaining third is from zillions of small sources. Human agriculture and industry are high on the list, but a very distant third to ungulates and termites.
As for CO2, though, all animals produce it by necessity, proportional to their metabolism. But we've been augmenting this by mining the planet's storehouses of hydrocarbons (coal, oil, natural gas) and burning it. The amount is pretty well understood, and easily explains the roughly 50% increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last couple centuries (primarily the last half century). Production and consumption of CO2 was more or less balanced until recently, but we've radically upped the production without doing much to increase CO2 consumption. It really doesn't take great genius to understand what this might lead to. It just takes a lot of scientific sleuthing to document the details to the level that we've done in recent decades.
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:2, Interesting)
Besides, if you think modest increases in energy costs will be "cutting off the nose of every regular guy", imagine what the complete annihilation of every major coastal city will do for our economy if glacial meltdown occurs within 100 years as projected from global climate change studies. In fact, I don't even think we have 100 years...
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason I don't agree with carbon credits for trees is that nations will claim plantations are trees, ero replacing native forrest with palm trees will garner even more profit than it does now. Also it is not simply a matter of calculating C02 extraction potential from the size of the plant, there are a miriad of other factors and in some circumstances plants can produce more C02 than they consume. All this uncertainty and potential profit will lead to people doing exactly what you accuse Gore of doing.
I think your wrong about Al Gore, he is not proposing a 'tax' rather he is promoting the IPCC's proposal of a 'rationing' scheme for emmisions, ie: auction the right to pollute by the ton and limit the amount of tons emitted globally to match what the biosphere can physically absorb (~2.5Gt/pa). The idea is commonly known as "cap and trade", unfortunately it looks like the powerfull polluters such as US, India, Russia & China want the "cap" based on GDP (as opposed to the actual physical limit that exists in nature).
BTW: Gore doesn't carry the same political baggage here as he does in the US and you are entitled to an opinion.
Re:Senate (Score:2, Interesting)
You can sit there in your smog filled city feeling smug about yourself, but the fact is, you need us more than we need you. We're self-sufficient as far as the necessities of life go. Have a nice riot when you guys figure out that you can't grow enough food to feed yourselves and can't get enough electricity to provide your air conditioning, heating and subways. I'm sure your centers of commerce will thrive under those conditions.
Re:A major problem I haven't seen mentioned yet (Score:5, Interesting)
-Ted
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:1, Interesting)
They are still formulating their religious explanations for why it is warmer during the "Day" and colder during the "Night", warmer during "Summer" and colder during "Winter", warmer at the "Equator" and colder at the "Poles". They pretend like they have stuck a giant thermometer into the Earth. Well not really, since temperature at the center of the earth isn't anywhere near the temperature at the surface of the earth, and the surface temperature of the earth isn't nearly everywhere on the surface "average" (it varies massively depending upon when and where you are measuring). You don't see Temperature Models specifically and openly published showing variables like S=SUN and GT=Geothermal Activity (like volcanoes) accounting for 95% + of the weight on T=Average Earth Temperature precisely because the global warming fear mongers are FRAUDS. Have you ever seen anything near such a basic temperature model published upfront in these fear mongering studies? Of course not! Because then absurd claims on human activity having as little as a 10% effect on climate would too easily stand out as ridiculous an absurdity as all people jumping up and down simultaneously on the earth would effect the distance from which the earth orbits the sun. There hasn't been such wide-scale attempted perpetuation of fraud to use as justification to rule the masses since the days of the Egyptian Pharaohs and their religious ruling castes. And there are plenty of sheepish fools to repeat the "man-made global warming" FRAUD. In reality, all the man-made fossil burning doesn't register as the tiniest data blip in comparison to the heat power of the Sun and geothermal activity. These are the same fraudsters that call jungles "rain forests", the Earth "the planet", the atmosphere a "greenhouse ceiling". CNN is now using terms like "environmental racism".
Frankly, they can fuck off with their power and money grabbing schemes fueled by perpetrating "delicate balance" and fear. These fuckers fly around in helicopters at the poles shooting wildlife to conduct scientific experiments on them. They fly around on airplanes to conferences. They are far and away the biggest polluters. And they are starting to lose more and more credibility.
Re:One problem with this plan (Score:3, Interesting)
if you lose your status through economic means, trust me, that's the good way. I'm from England, and we fought a lot of wars as we lost ours, so did the French, the Italian/Romans, the Greeks and pretty much everyone that was a major world power.
Empires don't last, their fall is inevitable. if you can let go of yours without losing thousands or even millions of lives, you did well.
Sensible nations act like the swiss, they stay out of wars, and trundle along happily as other peoples empires come and go.