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Environment

Will the Senate Move Us Toward Legislation To Cap Global Warming Emissions?

The Progress Report. Posted June 2, 2008.


The Senate will engage for the first time in full debate on legislation to cap global warming pollution and create a market for pollution permits.
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This piece was written by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Ali Frick, Benjamin Armbruster, and Brad Johnson.

Today, the Senate begins an historic floor debate on legislation that calls for mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, Sen. Barbara Boxer's (D-CA) version of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (S. 3036). This is the first time the Senate will engage in full debate on legislation to cap global warming pollution and create a multi-billion-dollar market of tradeable pollution permits.

Lieberman-Warner would limit emissions from coal-fired power plants, oil refiners, and other major carbon polluters, reducing total U.S. emissions by 18 to 25 percent below current levels by 2020, and 62 to 66 percent lower by 2050. Such legislation would mark an important first step in the transition away from a fossil-fuel economy.

Although the bill is "by no means perfect," as Daniel J. Weiss, Center for American Progress Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy, argues, "the Climate Security Act is the most comprehensive and potentially effective global warming bill ever before the U.S. Senate." Not surprisingly, this fundamental restructuring is encountering stiff opposition from industry polluters. As former British prime minister Tony Blair wrote, this week's debate represents "a hugely important signal of intent on behalf of U.S. legislators."

Key Issues

Three core principles by which to judge climate legislation are whether it is scientifically sound, whether it makes polluters pay, and whether it ensures social equity. Lieberman-Warner takes major steps in the right direction with its mandatory reductions framework, assistance for low-income households, and many provisions to spur new jobs, renewable technology, and energy efficiency. Yet it falls short in a key aspect: auctioning revenues.

A Center for American Progress report released today explains the clear benefits of auctioning 100 percent of the greenhouse gas emission permits, as reflected in a bill introduced by Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) last week. In contrast, Lieberman-Warner directs hundreds of billions of dollars of "transitional assistance" to polluters and allows 30 percent of the allowance market to be "offsets" instead of direct reductions.

A new call to action signed by 1,700 top climate scientists and economists calls for significantly deeper greenhouse emissions reductions than the bill would achieve. Last year, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) determined that industrialized nations like the United States, whose prosperity is built on a century of unlimited greenhouse pollution, need to reduce emissions by at least 36 percent from current levels by 2020 and at least 85 percent by 2050 to have an even shot at avoiding climate catastrophe.

Polluter Allegiance

Even after recent lobbyist purges, Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) campaign is still run by corporate lobbyists who represent foreign and domestic oil interests -- such as top adviser Charlie Black. McCain's corporate tax cut would save just the 20 largest energy and utility companies around $3 billion a year,in addition to the $4 billion tax break for America's five largest oil companies. His voting record shows consistent opposition to renewable technologies and support for big oil.


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View:
Cap and Trade : Another Charade ...
Posted by: mmckinl on Jun 2, 2008 1:31 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Cap and Trade is just another boondoggle that will hide the shenanigans corporations will have hidden in the Bill. It is just another open can of worms of market solutions that aren't solutions but trading profits and scamming opportunities.

What we need are carbon taxes, plain and simple.

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Too little too late
Posted by: dobermanmacleod on Jun 2, 2008 11:29 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Why legislate wildly expensive emission cuts that are too little too late?

"Way too little and way too late," runs the refrain, followed by the claim that nothing less than an 80% reduction in emissions by the year 2050 will suffice – what I call the "80 by 50" target. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have endorsed it. John McCain is not far behind, calling for a 65% reduction...By the year 2050, the Census Bureau projects that our population will be around 420 million. This means per capita emissions will have to fall to about 2.5 tons in order to meet the goal of 80% reduction. It is likely that U.S. per capita emissions were never that low – even back in colonial days when the only fuel we burned was wood. The only nations in the world today that emit at this low level are all poor developing nations, such as Belize, Mauritius, Jordan, Haiti and Somalia." --"The Real Cost of Tackling Climate Change," WSJ

"I'm going to tell you something I probably shouldn't: we may not be able to stop global warming. We need to begin curbing global greenhouse emissions right now, but more than a decade after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, the world has utterly failed to do so. Unless the geopolitics of global warming change soon, the Hail Mary pass of geoengineering might become our best shot." --Bryan Walsh, Time Magazine, 17 March 2008

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80 by 50 is pure fantasy
Posted by: dobermanmacleod on Jun 2, 2008 11:36 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I know of no realistic person who thinks carbon dioxide emissions are going to do anything but grow. Most European countries are not meeting their emissions goals, and of the ones that have, it's because their economies are collapsing. In the United States, this notion that we're going to reduce our emissions by 80 percent is pure fantasy. --Pete Geddes, Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, 2 April 2008

"Japan, like the European Union, hasn't let its failure so far to meet Kyoto emissions-reductions targets stop it from setting even more ambitious goals, like a 50% reduction in GHG emissions by 2050. But how to do that? If getting within shouting distance of Kyoto's targets could cost Japan $500 billion, how much would it cost to cut emissions twelve-fold more?" --Keith Johnson, WSJ, 19 March 2008

Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon dioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide — a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. "Beware of the scale," he stressed."

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Greenhouse gas could be a fart
Posted by: uncleeddie on Jun 3, 2008 4:58 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Please quit calling it greenhouse gas emissions when in fact you mean CO2. CO2 is good not bad. No proof has been given it causes temperatures to rise. Worry about real problems not propaganda that says CO2 is a poison.

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another system for the benefit of the corporations.
Posted by: richholland on Jun 4, 2008 2:09 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Is it not remarkable the same corporation causing the pollution now are making the big profits.

Asume first you beat your neighbor and then you bring him to the hospital and demand $ 100, for transportation.

Our planet is in danger and our fear is another vehicle of prosperity for the already Rich.

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We need a 90% reduction by 2050 or we go extinct in 2100
Posted by: AsteroidMiner on Jun 4, 2008 7:25 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Environmental policy = energy policy
Energy policy = environmental policy
because Global Warming
can lead to Hydrogen Sulfide gas coming out of the oceans.

Hydrogen Sulfide gas will Kill all people. Homo Sap will go
EXTINCT unless drastic action is taken.

October 2006 Scientific American

"EARTH SCIENCE
Impact from the Deep
Strangling heat and gases emanating from the earth and sea, not
asteroids, most likely caused several ancient mass extinctions.
Could the same killer-greenhouse conditions build once again?
By Peter D. Ward
downloaded from:
http://www.sciam.com/
article.cfm?articleID=
00037A5D-A938-150E-
A93883414B7F0000&
sc=I100322
....................Most of the article omitted......................
But with atmospheric carbon climbing at an annual rate of 2 ppm
and expected to accelerate to 3 ppm, levels could approach 900
ppm by the end of the next century, and conditions that bring
about the beginnings of ocean anoxia may be in place. How soon
after that could there be a new greenhouse extinction? That is
something our society should never find out."

Press Release
Pennsylvania State University
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, Nov. 3, 2003
downloaded from:
http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2003/prPennStateKump.htm
"In the end-Permian, as the levels of atmospheric oxygen fell and
the levels of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide rose, the upper
levels of the oceans could have become rich in hydrogen sulfide
catastrophically. This would kill most of the oceanic plants and
animals. The hydrogen sulfide dispersing in the atmosphere would
kill most terrestrial life."

www.astrobio.net is a NASA web zine. See:

http://www.astrobio.net/
news/modules.php?op=
modload&name=News&
file=article&sid=672

http://www.astrobio.net/
news/modules.php?op=
modload&name=News&
file=article&sid=1535

http://www.astrobio.net/
news/article2509.html

http://astrobio.net/news/
modules.php?op=modload
&name=News&file=article
&sid=2429&mode=thread
&order=0&thold=0

These articles agree with the first 2. They all say 6 degrees C or
1000 parts per million CO2 is the extinction point.

The global warming is already 1.3 degree Farenheit. 11 degrees
Farenheit is about 6 degrees Celsius. The book "Six Degrees" by
Mark Lynas agrees. If the global warming is 6 degrees
centigrade, we humans go extinct. See:
http://www.marklynas.org/
2007/4/23/six-steps-to-hell-
summary-of-six-degrees-as-
published-in-the-guardian

"Under a Green Sky" by Peter D. Ward, Ph.D., 2007.
Paleontologist discusses mass extinctions of the past and the one
we are doing to ourselves.

ALL COAL FIRED POWER PLANTS MUST BE
CONVERTED TO NUCLEAR IMMEDIATELY TO AVOID
THE EXTINCTION OF US HUMANS. 32 countries have
nuclear power plants. Only 9 have the bomb. The top 3
producers of CO2 all have nuclear power plants, coal fired power
plants and nuclear bombs. They are the USA, China and India.
Reducing CO2 production by 90% by 2050 requires drastic action
in the USA, China and India. King Coal has to be demoted to a
commoner. Coal must be left in the earth. If you own any coal
stock, NOW is the time to dump it, regardless of loss, because it
will soon be worthless.
I have no financial connection to the nuclear power industry.

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