You, dear reader, already know why we need a price on carbon. You know that burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, raising the average temperature of the earth and drastically affecting the global climate. You’re also well-versed in modern economic theory, and understand how negative externalities in a market can be mitigated by determining the cost to society and then including it in the price of a good or service. So you don’t need to be lectured on how putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions would use market forces to equitably reduce the threat of climate change and promote sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels. Good for you.
Sadly, though, there are some out there who don’t get it. According to some surveys, close to half of all Americans don’t get it. So, today I am going to give you two powerful tools to use in your quest to knock some sense into people:
OKAY SO this is a bit out of my territory of farming and eating, but I’m not quite up to reaming Monsanto a new one tonight, so instead I’ll just point out something that entertains me greatly.
Apparently this tuesday there was an expo of alternative-powered vehicles on Capitol Hill, featuring new vehicles from the big clunky old guard (Chrystler, GM), the sleek new cats on the block (Tesla and its sextacular Roadster; a little startup company called ZENN, showing off their mind-boggling 280-mpg short-range errand-runner), and even from the local utilities company, which brought its bucket truck that runs on used cooking oil.
Playtime at the Capitol
The Tesla Roadster: Edison's bones are doing somersaults in the mouldy ground
So far so good. But then! Some senators apparently had so little to do with their day that they wandered into the scene and started playing with them! I mean…basically exactly what we would do if we wandered into a green car expo. And because they’re senators, they were allowed to test-drive these sweet babies – which gave us some comedy gold in the form of Evan Bayh (D-IL) and Tom Carper (D-DE) gushing over the Tesla models as “chick magnets.” Ah, American lawmakers, you make us so proud!
Pros and Cons of Congress getting all up in transportation’s bidness
If history teaches us anything, which it usually doesn’t, we’ll take this as good news with some big reservations. On the one hand, to have congress actually down and dirty with the alternative-fuel toddlers of American car companies both old/established and brash/entrepreneurial (and crazy/beautiful) might mean just that little bit more familiarity with the products themselves when it’s time to make big decisions about subsidies and whether to fish or cut bait with the Big Three. It might mean a little more federal support for the startups, and a little more pressure on the big guys to start producing vehicles that impress both on the American car-loving psyche and on the twin bottom lines of economic recovery and ecological sanity.
On the other hand, if we know anything about Congress it’s that once-brainy ideas can end up floating around the Capitol like a mouse in the swimming pool until no one remembers why they were proposed in the first place or, if they finally do get the support they need to get off the ground, have probably become obsolete in the meantime. By the time Carper of Delaware starts pushing his Chick Magnet Stimulus Bill (”i got yer stimulus package…I got it right here…”) in a year’s time, hopefully there will already be a new generation of innovations – and hopefully some out of last-gasp Detroit – that will make the existing crop look outdated. But 9 out of 10 says the lawmakers will again be left holding their gas pumps in their hands as the greenwashers profit and the innovators fail to seal the deal with the public.
President Obama officiates at an electric-vehicle drag race between the House and the Senate.
We’ll see. If the big three CEOs come to their senses and realize that there is massive profit to be had in low-emissions vehicles, we might have a shot at a revived auto industry. Oh, and of course, the Dems need to gently remove their thumbs from their butts and get behind the damn carbon cap-and-trade so that the cost of pollution is actually accounted for in businesses’ economic equations and the alternative-energy profit actually materializes naturally. In the meantime we can hang on tight for the gripping ride – at the full-throttle, heart-stopping 35 mph of the ZENN street car. Clearly we have a ways to go…
Get your shit together. You guys really think the best way to take advantage of a huge majority in two of the three branches of power is to stand up to Obama on the environmental issue? Really? You want to use your new-found political clout to protect the segments of our national economy that are putting out the most carbon? If I see another headline like this one, I think I’m going to lose my mind.
On Friday, former Energy and Commerce Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) – the man Waxman dethroned to takeover the committee – referred to the cap-and-trade system as “a great big” tax.
“Nobody in this country realizes that cap-and-trade is a tax, and it’s a great big one,” Dingell said at a committee hearing last week. The former chairman backs some form of a direct carbon tax that other moderates prefer over the market-based system.
Yes, it is a tax, if you want to look at it like that. Here is another way to think about it: Don’t pollute so goddamn much, and you won’t get taxed. It’s not like you have seen this coming for a bunch of years, and have been studiously ignoring the issue so that, when a cap and trade program arrived, you could whine and complain about the unfair economic burden being put on you by the government, is it? ‘Cause it sure feels like that from where I am sitting. The theory of bottom line business was all well and good, and it made a lot of people very rich. But, for whatever reason (greed), the invisible hand of the market has been giving the earth the finger for years and years. The point here is not to TAX to raise income, but to incentivize people to care about something that they have ignored — to the detriment of the rest of us.
I can’t get the GM’s of the world to stop putting out SUV’s, and I can’t avoid my tax dollars going to bail out the motherfuckers who ran a bad business. But can I at least get a representative government that protects me from the people who I, apparently, don’t rank high enough to be able to protect myself from?
And, why is it ok to directly tax carbon producing things like Coal, but not ok to set up an offset program? That doesn’t even make sense! That just cuts off a few of the big pollution problem areas, and does nothing to collectivize reduction, so that the same set of issues comes down the pike again later when people figure out something else to burn. What possible reason is there to piecemeal tax things you don’t like? Make everyone play by the same set of rules!
It’s absurd and disingenuous to imagine that “the market” could continue to exist in a vacuum that ignored the earth. It’s impossible. It can’t happen. The business minds that realized that something was going to have to be done and started building in some semblance of a triple bottom line — these companies are going to be ok. The rest of you guys: you reap what you sow. I hope all the cash that you made in the 90’s was invested with for-sight and… wait, what? It’s all gone? Oh man! Then what DID you get out of all that shit?
Why shouldn’t business models that create huge amounts of pollution and damaging amounts of C02 output be regulated to the trash heap of progressive business? It’s not even like the cap and trade program is unreasonable. It is certainly more lax then the one I would like, and it gives businesses every opportunity to scale down their pollution going forward as the cap comes lower. None if it even comes into effect for years, meaning anyone with a head on their shoulders can avoid the brunt of the tax with a modicum of intelligent investment in their business structure. The only people who are really worried about this are the folks that are running a business model that studiously ignores reality. To you, I say: welcome to the brave new world where your customer realizes the real costs of what you are selling. If you have to charge more for your products because you have been producing too much carbon, maybe that means that you were under-charging before! Or maybe it means that people will decide they no longer really need what you are pushing.
So why in gods name, centrist democrats, are you carrying the water for people who would rather get theirs then build something intelligent and sustainable? I expect this from the defunct republican party, that crew who continue to belabor the “tax” point as they grow ever shriller and our country grows ever shittier around them. But you! I had thought better of you! Is the 6 month plan really that important to you? Can’t you see beyond the end of your next (hopefully last) term? Is it too much to ask for you to think about the ramifications of NOT putting a carbon cap and trade program into place?
At what point does a complete economic collapse become and indictment of the previous way of doing business? Is it a good plan to rebuild using the same rules that we were playing by before? If we are already re-building, shouldn’t we rebuild in a way that makes sense for more then the next year?
You’ve had 8 years of being out of power to think about these issues and these problems. You are also proposing a tax, but somehow you are managing to rail against the cap and trade program as a hidden tax. You do not make sense. You are like Chewbacca.
Update! Everything has been quite on the Please Do These Things for the Environment front for a little while: not a lot of requests or demands from our in-box. That is, until this week, when everyone went CRAZY!
People been demanding all kinds of stuff from us, but the important one seems to be all surrounding the Bailout Package. Now, as we’re sure you all know, everyone is clamoring to get a piece of the big dollars Uncle Sam is about to be throwing around. And on Wednesday, the Obama Package (hehe) got past the House (along VERY partisan lines) and is on the Senate. Well, Green-For-All, 1Sky and WeCanChange are all suggesting that the package contains a lot of cash for the green-collar based plans. If you are interested in some really interesting reading (watch out: time wormhole!) the we recommend scrolling through both the stimulus bill as posted here and some of the comments sections. We aren’t really sure if the Bailout is popular on the left because Obama likes it, or because it’s actually a good Bill, and we aren’t sure if it was unpopular with House Republicans for the same reasons. It doesn’t seem like it’s all that different then what the Bush crew was proposing, yet the battle lines have totally redrawn. Balls to that.
To add our own voice to the hew and cry, the only thing that we would point out is that Republicans seem to have very short memories when it comes to how these things happened and how the economic crisis came about. To say that a Bailout package that gives money directly to industries instead of lowering taxes is “more of the same” or “more of the Liberal silver spoon elite” seems to ignore the fact that deregulation and giving money back to the taxpayers is what got us into this mess. Turns out that giving a tax credit means that poor folk who need it get a few bucks, and rich folk who don’t want to spend it get a lot of bucks. That’s how it works in a vaguely progressive tax system. Also: we don’t like Kool-aid! We were JUST having a conversation last night that the Kool-aid man sort of creeps us out! Please stop accusing us drinking Kool-aid!
But we digress.
The point of all this is that the stimulus bill might be rife with problems, or it might be pretty good. We aren’t nearly smart enough to know. But the Green-Collar economy lobby is strongly behind this Bill, and that’s the point of this site, ain’t it?
He makes some good points (sorry that its dated to before Al testified before Congress. Old news now. The concern has become the Senate, where a Democratic Majority can not carry the weight) and because it’s Al Gore, we clicked on this link and asked our Senators to support the stimulus. But, then again, they are democrats anyway, so we aren’t that worried who’s side they are on.
(interesting side note: the different green mailing lists we are on are starting to compete for time and compete for numbers. One crew offers that they contacted senators “more then 24,000 times!” other are nearing 40K. We wonder how much lobbying power each group can claim to muster, and we wonder how much of that depends on which form letter we choose to send to our senators when we click that button. Also, can you imagine if the New Senator from NY, Gillibrand, DIDN’T vote for the package? Man, would Paterson come off looking like a dick!)
UPDATE: VAN JONES THINKS I AM AWESOME! HE SAYS:
Here are three things we think you’ll be especially excited about in President Obama’s economic recovery plan: 1. GREEN JOBS ACT: $500 Million
In 2007, Green For All and our allies got the Green Jobs Act signed into law. The Act authorizes federal support for green-collar job-training programs. But last year, Congress failed to appropriate the money. Now, President Obama and the House want to invest $500 million in these programs. (YAY!) (Editor note: the YAY was Van Jones, not me!)
But the Senate wants to create a grant program at half that amount, and divide this smaller pie into smaller pieces – by directing the funds to train workers in various industries (not just green ones). (Boo!)
With the support of the President and the House, full funding for the Green Jobs Act finally is within sight. But we need your help to move the Senate.
2. WEATHERIZATION: $6.2 Billion
President Obama’s recovery package contains the largest weatherization investment in history, as well as funding for a number of other programs that will increase the energy efficiency of America’s buildings. Upgrading our buildings so that they protect us better from the weather means we can spend less energy heating and cooling them.
This is the single biggest thing we can do right now to stop global warming. Nothing in the country uses as much energy as our buildings – not even our transportation. And weatherizing won’t just save lots of energy and reduce greenhouse gases – it will also create a ton of new green-collar jobs!
3. DOUBLING RENEWABLE ENERGY
Efficiency is only part of the solution. We also need to replace the fossil fuels we’re burning with renewable energy. The recovery plan is part of that, with plans to double our capacity to generate renewable energy in just three years. Another big job engine!
If you wanted to contrivbute to Van Jones’ power to Lobby Congress (instead of Al’s) you would do that here.
What with the President wasting no time making hay on the environmental issue, these be exciting times for those of us freaked the freak out by the general inaction of the past eight years. We johnny-come-lately’s to the green scene haven’t been living with a receptive gov’t since we’ve been paying attention: frankly, we’re a little freaked out!
The decision to let States regulate their own auto-emission standards will certainly be an interesting first step, as we’ve observed earlier this week. What it does, however, is remind us of an interesting question we’ve been thinking on before. From my pal BC:
“you mentioned some time ago that energy efficiency ought to trump energy supply questions in policy formulation. why? oftentimes, efficiency encourages more aggregate use, as in increases in energy efficiency don’t necessarily translate into decreases in energy use.” (more…)
We would like to re-establish ourselves as blatantly and apologetically in the tank for a candidate. Before you point out that Obama is the logical choice for the previous statement, we remind you of our early and contentious support of Alice Kryzan.
Well, she’s up in her race against the Republican now, after having swept through a three way primary election. And she’s still talking the same language (though, we notice, couched more in the language of centrism and “our enemies” then it used to be.)
Check out the new video, and get your hands up for Kryzan for Congress. Seriously: the change in energy policy is going to be a complete effort, and someone with the environmental knowladge that Alice has will add a lot to congressional discourse.
Ok, so lets kick things off here with another link to another article by Main Man Thomas Friedman. And, after you’ve read that little ditty, maybe you can help us answer another little question… What. The. Fuck?
Look, we know we are the gullible type, but we had not idea how completely we had been taken in by John McCain’s rhetoric. We realised that some of his green cred was manufactured, but according to T.F, (side note: Thomas Friedman is a pretty good columnist when it comes to the sensible environmentalism thing. However, lets not all get carried away and forget that little black spot on his resume as truthsayer to date: he was one of the worst of the liberal hawks on the way into Iraq, and I don’t know that he ever apologized for being so wrong on that one. So, in this case, consider everything we quote from T.F. to have a grain or two of salt with it) we have been just as suckered as everyone else by a picture of a “wind turbines in your Olympics ad”. And we actually did “think you showed up and voted for such renewable power”. We are so embarrassed.
Green washing is one of the more annoying new byproducts of the new “green is cool” phenomenon, but this one takes the cake. There is simply no way AT ALL that the republicans should be able to claim that they have the country’s best interests at heart when they continue to vote with the kind of record enumerated in that article. This is one of those situations of such blatant and ferocious hypocrisy that it almost makes us speechless: how can you claim that the democrats are “stalling” and “playing politics” when it comes to offshore drilling, and then turn around and refuse to allow real green collar jobs to positively effect this country? How can.. Ack! Argh! Nearly impossible to enumerate the many ways this is shockingly not cool. But really. That’s a good word. We find it truly shocking that the republicans are allowed to get away with obfuscation on this point. Isn’t there some sort of truth in advertising law that forbids people to blatantly lie on the air waves? Oh, what? No? Freedom of Speech? Crap.
To sum up: its not just that the Republican party is doing the usual “we are evil” thing when it comes to protecting the interest of our favorite bugaboo Big Oil. Its that they are doing it whilst hiding behind our own ideas and word choices, and subtly corrupting them to evil. Why can’t the bad guys be more like in the pictures? All demonic evil and shooting puppies and shit.
First, the We Can Solve It crew asked me to do something yesterday for the first time. They wrote me an email asking me to write a letter to the editor of my local papers decrying the inability of congress to take some sort of positive action on the energy situation. Not only did the congress get all gridlocked on the Drilling or not Drilling thing, but they also failed to renew the clean energy tax credits. This means that government incentive programs to support the solar and wind industries will expire at the end of this year, much more immediate then the “support our troops” debate that we all remember so well.
Congress Fail
So, write I did, and for good measure I also sent it to all of my elected officials. Early returns from the We Can Solve It: I’m feelin’ good, and not yet over-pressured. Here is what I wrote, if anyone wants to forward it themselves, or generally get up in the grill of your congresspeoplez:
Congress needs to stop treating the discussion of Global Warming, and the corresponding urgency of converting to alternative energy, as an issue with two sides. Congress was willing to leave Washington without putting any new plans for a solution into motion, which shows how unable they current system is to deal with something on the scale of our current energy crisis. There is simply no space here for political tit-for-tat compromise; the stakes are higher then that, and every summer break of inaction will lead to long term effects on our climate and our economy.
We, the people, need to inject a greater sense of urgency into the discussion of energy policy. As the congress wastes time debating opening up larger off shore drilling areas, they are failing to recognize the need for a bi-partisan full court press. Their distraction has meant more then simply a lack of forward motion. The inability to renew the clean energy tax credits during this congressional session also means that government incentive programs to support the solar and wind industries will expire at the end of this year. Jobs will be lost as a result of their inaction, and we will take another step back that our country can not afford. We need to call on both candidates and their parties to stop trying to score political points on the drilling issue, and instead realize that they all need to be on the same side to make actual progress in moving our economy to clean energy sources.
Second point: The Europeans seem to be having a different set of problems. The issue here seems to be that the government is being too stringent with the rules for green energy, and the populace is chafing as a result. It’s interesting to watch, especially in light of the reactions I observed amongst New Yorkers in line the other day, how much people don’t want to do something because they have been told to do it. Americans, to date, don’t seem to be rushing to install green fixes like solar panels. However, the mean independent streak amongst our fellow countryman almost guarantees that making a law mandating green home improvements would go over poorly. It seems that the only way the government can really make a positive impact here is by increasing the size of the carrot, not beefing up on the stick. I hope, at some point, that we find a better way of getting people to choose to make these decisions, but it doesn’t look like the German model is something we would ever be able to emulate.
for those of us freaked the freak out by the general inaction of the past eight years. We johnny-come-lately’s to the green scene haven’t been living with a receptive gov’t since we’ve been paying attention: frankly, we’re a little freaked out!
