Sen. John McCain hopes to solve the country’s energy crisis with cold hard cash.
The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting thinks the government should offer a $300 million prize to the person who can develop an automobile battery that leapfrogs existing technology.
What do you know? I actually agree with McCain on this. Over the last few years, I think I’ve become a lot more market-oriented, but government incentives are still necessary at times.
On a slightly different but related note, what do people think of instituting a carbon tax if other taxes are reduced to make it at least close to revenue-neutral? One thing I’ve thought of as a possibility is a carbon-added-tax with a certain tax applied to each unit of cardon (however much that might be) that is added at each stage of production. Of course, I’m no economist; so this might be a terrible idea in practice. Anyone have any thoughts?
Energy crisis? Probably. But I gotta tell you that the general level of city noise in Memphis has been reduced by half. There is noticeably less traffic on the streets and especially noticeable is less “cruising” going on by the loud car stereo set (gang banger types) who are particularly active in the warm weather months.
At the moment, I’ve died and gone to heaven.
….I would agree with this only if the inventor would not be able to have exclusive access to the market through a patent. Only if the inventor charged a reasonable price for it…….let’s not let them keep it exclusive, like in medications, so that the company can recoup their expenses of invention. After all, $300 million of tax payer’s dollars should be enough of an incentive. I’m tired of the government underwriting and then the producer reaping the big win, i.e. medicine and oil……
Re #1
On a slightly different but related note, what do people think of instituting a carbon tax if other taxes are reduced to make it at least close to revenue-neutral?
I think this still misses the real point, which is that CO2 is almost certainly not a significant factor in whatever warming has occurred in the last century. Rather, solar activity is likely the major cause. You can tax the sun, but I don’t think it likely you’d collect… 🙂
Kevin, a carbon tax is bad news for two reasons:
First, because it is based idiotic ideas
1. that CO2 is a pollutant rather than a naturally occuring substance and
2. that manmade CO2 is a significant portion of the CO2 in the atmosphere, and
3. that CO2 has any thing to do with increasing temperatures. The evidence shows that CO2 is a product of temperature change, not a cause.
Secondly, these carbon tax schemes, even if the bogus ideas above were accepted, would not lower CO2. It would just create a new level of control and taxation that can be exploited by the powerful at the expense of the weaker while funneling money into massive bureacracies.
Ask yourself this. What do you do that doesn’t produce CO2? Do you exhale? Do you want tax controls and government agencies aimed at that? Even were it possible to measure someone’s true so-called “carbon footprint” (we’re carbon based lifeforms, after all, what other kind of footprint are we supposed to leave?) the size of government required to calculate and measure it, let alone regulate it, would be massive. You would basically be signing away all your freedom to this new power.
Want to lower CO2 emissions? Plant more trees, grass, and shrubbery…….ziliions of ’em! It works!
Mr. Fischler (#4),
Could you cite some references for that claim? I checked some sources and found just the opposite. For example:
[url=”http://publishing.royalsociety.org/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf”]Proceedings of the Royal Society, 2007[/url]
[url=”http://solar-center.stanford.edu/sun-on-earth/glob-warm.html]Stanford Solar Center[/url]
[url=”http://www.exploratorium.edu/climate/primer/index.html”]SF Exploratorium[/url]
[url=”http://epa.gov/climatechange/fq/science.html#10]EPA[/url]
[url=”http://www.conservationinstitute.org/climate_change/globalclimatechange.htm]Conservation Science Institute[/url]
[url=”http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/19990408/]NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies[/url]
This [url=http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=1]ICSC[/url] article details soem of the evidence and explains why the earth’s temprature hasn’t increased since 1998.
Um, what exactly is the ICSC? I checked out the website and still am not sure. Frankly, I’ve never heard of them. You gave one (debatable) source. I gave several reputable ones. Sorry, but the overwhelming evidence is not in your favor.
I plan on voting for McCain and oppose Obama quite strongly (and energy policy is one of the key reasons). But this smacks of a gimmick more than a thoughtful, responsible energy policy. “Hey kids! Want $300 mil?” One shots prizes are well and fine but what about the consistent, long term approach?
Kevin, the IPCC is not a reputable source when you look at how they had bureaucrats write the conclusions. But you believe what you want to believe. I’ve heard this BS about sea rise for years. Since I live on the water in Maine I can verify the veracity of that claim first hand. It hasn’t risen an inch. I know history. I know about the history of climate change and what we are seeing is nothing unusual or unprecedented. But you aren’t likely to get a government grant saying things like that. There’s lots of money in Climate change BS. And there’s lots of incentives for governments to ride that BS all the way into government regulation. Hence the IPCC. When your side can stick to one credible understanding of the weather and make predictions off your theory it might lokk more credible to those of us who pay attention.
Here’s an interesting article from the Business & Media Institute:
[url=http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2008/20080617110633.aspx]Meteorologist Says Money Behind Warming Alarmism ‘Can Corrupt Anybody'[/url].
[blockquote] “[Y]ou know, there was some great power in that movement back in January of 2007,†(James) Spann (a broadcast meteorologist for ABC) said. “It’s pretty rapidly running out of gas and it just seems like every day more and more people are coming out with the fact that that’s pretty much a hoax. And these are Ph.D climatologists that are pretty much saying what I said all along.†…
“Of course, the root of this whole thing is money,†Spann said. “And, there is a vast amount of wealth being generated by this whole issue. And I always recommend to folks – if anyone speaks on the subject, get a disclosure and find out their financial interests in it.â€
The same claims are often made by climate change alarmists – global warming skeptics are in it for the money from big energy corporations. Spann told Perkins he has never accepted any money for speaking out about global warming alarmism, but he had reservations about money’s effects on government policy pertaining to climate change. “When I speak on this topic, I’ve never accepted one dimeâ€[/blockquote]
Read it all, it’s quite interesting.
Oh, carbon taxes and carbon credits are the selling of indulgences of the 21st Century.
Oh, by the way, back on topic:
McCain’s idea is perfect. The one sure way to make improvements on the energy front is to let capitalism have at it. The Socialists/Communists in the former Soviet Union tried to mandate improvements in industry etc. and came up way short, keeping their people in poverty and gloom. Ever see the pictures from inside the Iron Curtin? smog, gloomy skies, 50’s style cars in the 80’s, project housing developments, etc.
Not something I’d like to see here.
Jim Elliott
#11. I live near the ocean in Maine myself, and I wonder how you can tell it hasn’t risen an inch over the years. Tidal averages fluctuate so much, day by day and year by year, I have yet to see data that shows anything conclusively, one way or t’other. Larry
[blockquote]Rather, solar activity is likely the major cause.[/blockquote]
I’ve known this going back to when I was a Radioman in the military during the Vietnam War. There is very little being stated with respect to the effect of solar activity and the resulting impact it has on Earth’s atmosphere and climate. Sun spots are cyclical and have an enormous influence on us, though few have a clue about this. We had “Pubs” which provided very important information that we used to alter frequencies significantly to compensate for changes in atmospherics, depending on longitude/latitude/date & time.
What few people realize is that the absence solar activity is a real heads-up for scientist and technicians as it can foretell a result a resulting mini-Ice Age, should the phase last a bit too long. An observation from such a scientific summary which highlights this sort of thing states:
[blockquote] There is not much room left for the anthropogenic greenhouse effect. H. N. Priem [90] aptly remarks:
“Recent studies show that solar variability rather than changing CO pressure is an important, probably the dominant climate forcing factor … The current and anticipated fleet of spacecraft devoted to the study of solar and solar-terrestrial physics will therefore pobably prove to have more bearing on the understanding and forecasting of climate change than the orchestrated assessments by politically motivated international panels biased towards global warming exclusively by the enhanced greenhouse effect.†[/blockquote]
You can refer to the whole report [b](WARNING: It’s a bit heady)[/b] which can be found at: http://www.john-daly.com/solar/solar.htm .
Larry, you’re right that it’s nearly impossible to measure sea level to the inch with the varying tides and storm surges. What I meant is that, looking at a set of old grantite pilings by the dock on our island, I haven’t seen the water rise any higher than it has before. We still have freakish high tides in which the pilings are just covered and freakish low tides. But if the sea had risen those freak high tides should be more frequent. They aren’t.