We must solve the problem of global warming without arousing Republican fears.
"This isn’t a smoking gun; climate is a battalion of intergalactic smoking missiles."
Anthropogenic global warming can not be prevented with legislation untill we overcome the enormous partisan divide in this country about its existence, even among educated Republicans.
fully 43% of Republicans with a college degree say that there is no evidence of global warming, compared with 24% of Republicans with less education.
Why is this? Don't educated Republicans know any scientists? Don't they get National Geographic? Don't their vineyards fail? Don't their kids get asthma? There is something more powerfull fueling this denial hysteria.
Follow me down to an really interesting solution that does not fuel their fear.
First, heres those flaky hippie organisations that support the alarming findings of the IPPC Report:
National Academy of Sciences US
Royal Society UK
Royal Society of Canada
Australian Academy of Sciences
Royal Irish Academy
Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Accademia dei Lincei Italy
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina Germany
Academié des Sciences France
Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts
Academia Brasiliera de Ciências Bazil
Russian Academy of Sciences
Indonesian Academy of Sciences
Caribbean Academy of Sciences
Indian National Science Academy
Academy of Sciences Malaysia
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Science Council of Japan
The following institutions specializing in climate, atmosphere, ocean, and/or earth sciences have endorsed or published the same conclusions as presented in the TAR report:
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
AMS American Meteorological Society
NGISS NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies
AGU American Geophysical Union
NGS National Geographic Society
AIP American Institute of Physics
NCAR National Center for Atmospheric Research
SOCC State of the Canadian Cryosphere
CMOS Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
And heres the responses to a typical article selected for publication yesterday by the WSJ, parroting the WSJ position:
Whoa, Slow Down
Mary Woodford - Chevy Chase, Md.
Forgive me if I missed it, but when and who actually decided that there is complete consensus on the existence of global warming? From what I have read, there have been new cracks in the armor just recently. Why should we start implementing solutions before we have an honest debate about what the best science actually says and what problem we are trying to solve?
Mary clearly reads only the WSJ on this, and they will never publish the organisations listed above, supporting the IPPC findings.
Snake Oil
J. Solters - Jupiter, Fla.
Bingo for Ms. Strassel, she's reading the mail of our "energy industry leaders" that promote carbon taxes and trading. They'd sacrifice America, its economy, and the well being of all average and lower income citizens for a govenment imposed boondoggle for purely selfish goals. At one time most of them admired and/or copied the brilliant Ken Lay's oft-touted progressive approach to energy issues. After all, they're much smarter with better vision than you and I. Just ask them. Maybe they learned too much at that altar. What's the difference between snake oil and carbon taxes? There isn't any.
Corporate America Meets Big Government
Jack Jensen - Ridge Manor, Fla.
So in a nutshell these companies have pretty much had it with the constant criticism and harangue from the left and their enviro whacko friends and decided to capitalize on nonexistent global warming at the publics very great expense. How considerate of them.
Sheer Waste
Nancy Joyce Jancourtz - Brooklyn, N.Y.
Welcome, Ms. Strassel!
I am pleased that you shall be continuing from Paul Gigot's former perch. I hope you have both microscopic and telescopic lenses . . .
We need to permit oil drilling, and atomic power solutions--while encouraging a clean environment. Rather, what the corporations are proposing is merely a hyperwaste of taxpayer dollars that will accomplish nothing positive.
Hubris
Tom Hanson - Victoria, Texas
The insanity and human hubris required to think that humans have much to do with climate change vis-à-vis the totally overwhelming galactic forces of nature is breathtaking. One almost hopes that some super volcano will erupt and cool the earth a good five degrees. But not to worry, after the disaster those who are left will be faced with the same crowd wanting to force others to pay for plowing more CO2 into the atmosphere. The only consolation will be that this actually may be a short term path to a faster recovery.
Unlike the WSJ, The London Financial Times presents to its readers the facts and both the financial opportunities and financial riskspresented by global warming,
It is clear that we can no longer protect ourselves from the risks that climate change brings by ignoring the disasters it wreaks. While the evidence is mounting, it is encouraging to note that millions are invested in tackling climate change through the use of clean energy.
...so this is an American rightwing fear. Conservatives in Europe are much closer to Liberals in thinking.
But, since we will have to solve global warming with the rightwingers we have, not he ones we might wish we had, since this country provides 1/4 of the Co2 emissions worldwide:
Here is an idea that solves the problem (that unfortunately only we Demcrats see, while not arousing the fears typified by these typical responses of presumably educated Republicans ( after all, the WSJ uses big words...) above.
Create a Carbon Innovation Fund, supported by a Carbon Tax, that keeps the money in the industry taxed:
This innovative arrangement would keep the innovation money close to those with the most use for it, provide incentive to invest in accelerated emissions reductions and allay the hysteria about those Demcrats profiting from taxing Big Carbon.
This a straightforward mechanism that, with fairness, predictability and certainty, would put a substantial cork in our carbon emissions.
This cork is a simple carbon tax that would harness billions a year to pave America's path to a green industrial revolution based on a low-carbon economy.
First, a basic fact: In 2004, nearly half our total greenhouse-gas emissions were produced by just a few hundred coal fired facilities. It's much easier to corral emissions from these few facilities than to switch all our SUV's and gas guzzlers in time.
Here's how it would work.
Announce that, effective in 2008, all extractive industry and power-generating large final emitters would be levied an initial modest tax of $30 a ton of Co2 emitted. This would be accompanied by a specific schedule of the carbon tax rise over the coming decades.
The money would be pigeonholed into each facility's trust account and managed by a Carbon Innovation Fund.
The money would not belong to the government, but to the facility itself, with certain provisions.
The facility could use the cash only to finance emission-reduction projects at the facility, up to a maximum of the total value of estimated emissions averted over the project's life.
To spur such investments in the early stages, money deposited in the fund would have to be spent within three years. This would provide a double dividend to companies investing in Co2 reductions: They would get their money back, in a sense, and lower their future carbon-tax bills at the same time.
An industry carbon tax, if applied equally to all industries, would raise billions for the Carbon Innovation Fund, while keeping the money within each Co2 emitting company involved. We all use energy, and a few companies emit most of the Co2 that supplying our energy needs causes.
The key to unlocking latent American innovation coiled up and ready to power a green industrial revolution is this precision-guided carbon tax.
I didn't link at the start of this idea because I want even leaning Republicans to read it, so I translated it, because it is full of all those foreign words like "tonnes", and so on, that get their backs up, and prevent them from hearing truths.
After all they could read the foreign financial news too. This great idea is an idea from outside of this misundereducated country where, most unfortunately for the US economy, most global warming solutions are now coming from.
Because you have to admit theres a problem to start thinking about a solution.