A focus group tells Ben Lieberman, the Heritage Foundation's Senior Policy Analyst for Energy and Environment, what they think about global warming and cap and trade. Lieberman points out some key misconceptions that might change their minds about this new energy tax.
Watch the video:
Lieberman recently addressed the Heartland Institute's Third International Conference on Climate Change where he discussed four questions that are helpful in analyzing proposals to dealing with climate change:
- How much of a problem is man-made global warming? After all, Waxman-Markey or any other solution is a solution only to the extent that there's a problem in the first place.
- If one assumes warming is a problem, how much of it will be solved by the policy under consideration? In other words, if we accept that the increasing trajectory of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is causing net harm, how much of that harm will be alleviated, how much of that rising trajectory will be reduced by the policy measure in question? Are we eliminating 100 percent of the problem, or 25 percent, or maybe only a few percent? And consequently, how much will the earth's future temperature be reduced: a lot, a little, enough to even notice? These are especially important questions to ask of a unilateral measure like Waxman-Markey.
- Whether this particular solution to global warming has been tried elsewhere, and how well it has worked. What is the real-world experience with this approach? Here there are valuable lessons from Europe, which did us the favor of moving much faster than the U.S. and has already implemented the cap-and-trade approach embodied in Waxman-Markey. And this real-world experience needs to be taken into account.
- Whether there are better ways of addressing global warming and, for that matter, better priorities to address than global warming. Looking at all the challenges that present generations face and future generations will face, is this the best use of our resources?
Lieberman concludes cap and trade is not only the wrong approach for the economy but may also be the wrong approach for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. You can read Lieberman's analysis here.
For more info: Obama on cap and trade: 'electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket' ♦ Democrats rush cap and trade vote ♦ Obama will bankrupt the coal industry ♦ Dingell calls cap and trade a great big tax ♦ Obama climate change agenda hits Senate speed bumps
Comments
Obama and his accomplices are desperate to get their killing done before Americans realize what's happening!
No patriotic and informed American can support the global warming/cap and trade scam, a huge Ponzy scheme that will kill the U.S. economy.
Cap and Trade "would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb directed at the U.S. economy—all without any scientific justification," says famed climatologist Dr. S. Fred Singer. It would significantly increase taxes and the cost of energy, forcing many companies to close, thus increasing unemployment, poverty and dependence.
Cap and trade represents huge taxes and cost increases, which will hurt mostly the poor and the middle class while further empowering and enriching Obama and his fraudulent billionaire friends (Gore, Soros, Goldman Sachs, Obama’s Chicago Climate Exchange friends, GE, the United Nations, etc.)-- all at our expense and at the expense of our children and grandchildren.
This article is a few years late. Global warming skepticism is dead and good riddance.
The examiner.com uses spam to advertise their rag in the discussion forums on craigslist.org, so consider the source. Do you trust a site that uses hundreds of forum spams to advertise?
This bill won't "solve" many problems, but it will start an incentive to invest in green technologies which we WILL have to adapt eventually, and can potentially start another technological and industrial revolution ultimately helping our economy and the environment where all out materials come from.
Anyone who thinks the present solution to monetary woes is to spend as little $ as possible is mistaken. We need to put capital in long term investments because it spurs growth.
Also, global warming is a problem. There is a respectable consensus (sure, some scientists are influenced by policy makers to be pro-green but there are as many if not more in the other direction). If you can't trust thousands the most respected scientists around the world, making up the IPCC as well as our own agencies like the EPA predicting negative consequences and prefer to trust a minute media sound bite of simplified science, then I hope to god you don't vote either.
I haven't read the bill, but based on what I read in the press, this bill is not based on science but on politics. Congress has, in the past, attempted to repeal the laws of nature, but without much sucess. Mother nature is strangely indifferent to public opinion polls, conventional wisdom, lobbyists, politics, or any of the other factors which drive our legislators.
Antonio: what's the source of your claim? For once quit thinking like a republican or a democrat, this country at this juncture of crisis needs people to think like Americans and being an American i think we should do what we do best and that is to innovate. This bill does exactly that by forcing corporate America to either invest in Alternative sources of fuel or risk being wiped out of the Industry. The days of bringing positive change through discussions only is behind us, we are in the midst of a Tsunami which demands radical changes, and i strongly believe this legislation is a positive step forward. God bless America!
Through lies, manipulation, intimidation and bribes, Obama’s jobs killing, economy killing bill passed!
Obama’s Cap and trade is another giant step towards Marxism — and the corruption, poverty, enslavement, destruction and despair that Marxism entails.
Obama is working much faster than Hugo Chavez at imposing Marxism. No wonder the Russians are gloating:
From Pravda: “…the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people…” Google for the article. You'll be surprised.
We are NOT hapless sheeple! We must do whatever is necessary to defend ourselves and our children from the Marxist dictatorship that’s being set up in Washington.
Dear American, I’m not thinking as a Republican or as a Democrat. I’m thinking as a naturalized U.S. citizen who loves the U.S. Coming from Latin America, I was horror-stricken when Obama won the elections. I could not believe that Americans would be fooled as Venezuelans, Bolivians, Ecuadorians, etc. Fooled by lies and the CHANGE and YES WE CAN, Latin Americans had elected the Obama-like Marxist thugs who are destroying Latin America. Couldn’t Americans see that? I guess they did not know!
I agree with you that we need to innovate! But Obama’s energy bill will KILL innovation. Our remaining companies are struggling to survive. Additional taxes and energy costs will FORCE them to close or move to other countries, multiplying unemployment and poverty in the U.S. You need MONEY to innovate. Most companies won’t have money to survive, much less to innovate!
Yes, we need radical changes, but in the OPPOSITE direction in which Obama is taking us. Mar
American, what are the sources of my claims? When Obama was elected, I began studying all I could about Obama's plans, hoping I was wrong in fearing the cancer of Marxism was spreading to the U.S.
What I found out made me realize that reality was worst even than what I feared. Obama is destroying the economy and forcing us to swallow Marxism faster than Hugo Chavez is doing it in Venezuela! Chavez himself is saying that Obama is more leftist (Marxist) than himself and Castro.
More than 700 international scientists dissent over man-made global warming claims. They are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. You can google to find information about it.
Additionally, more than 30,000 American scientists have signed onto a petition that states, "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."
As you can see, CO2 is NOT a pollutant and And killing the economy will not help the environment. Poor countries can't protect the environment. Just look at Haiti!
Cap and trade has NOTHING to do with protecting the environment. It's just a tool to kill the U.S. economy and enslave us.
FYI: Marxism= the bougeousie rising up against their authoritarian ruler.
You are speaking of communism. Marxism is actually pretty empowering.
cap and trade has nothing to do with marxism. it's an attempt to solve a tragedy of the commons by closing an externality. look up those terms if you need to.
@smart person: i'm no marxist, but your definition of marxism is way off. marxists believe in a progression of class conflict through history. at present capitalism is the dominant economic system, the bourgeoisie -- who own most capital assets -- its main beneficiaries. the proletariat -- laborers who lack assets and must work for the bourgeoisie -- receive a basic level of subsistence for their labor, but no share in profits. profits go back to the bourgeoisie, who use them to buy more capital assets, and the cycle repeats. marxists see this as exploitation, and wish to remedy it by revolution and institution of socialism, in which the proletariat owns the means of production in common and share in its profit.
@antoniososa: obama is so far from being a marxist. he's desperately trying to keep capitalism from self-destruct
An EPA analysis says under Waxman-Markey, "there will be no reduction in emissions by 2020". The Breakthrough Institute estimates that emissions will continue at their current business-as-usual rate through 2030. And perversities abound; By driving manufacturing overseas to countries with few environmental controls, dirty factories will produce goods at carbon emissions greater than those in the US; The outcome from this ill-conceived bill will be to actually increase global carbon emissions! According to the LA Times, under the bill, the US "would use more carbon-dioxide heavy coal in 2020 than it did in 2005." Time Magazine says that "the total amount of renewable energy generation ... would actually be less than the renewable energy that would have been produced without the bill." Scientists have calculated that even if it were perfectly crafted, it might reduce global surface temperatures by only 1/10th of 1 degree C in 100 years! Tell the Senate to dump this piece of trash!
Democrats resorted to any expedient to pass Waxman-Markey as a long-term play: get the bureaucratic structure in place, then work through regulators, the courts and legislation to tighten the screws later. For them, that's the ultimate promise of the Offsets Integrity Advisory Board, the Carbon Market Oversight Interagency Working Group, the International Reserve Allowance Program and all the rest of the vast regulatory machinery engendered by the bill.
President Barack Obama called it an "extraordinary first step." Extraordinary, indeed
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