Hot off the presses, after a stunning show of Citizen Climate Action all across the country yesterday:
How to fight climate change
by Julian Zelizer, CNN Contributor -- Feb 18, 2013
(CNN) -- Thousands marched in Washington this weekend to call for action to counter climate change.
With organizers estimating 35,000 people filling the National Mall, the Forward on Climate Change march was said to be the biggest demonstration thus far in support of this issue.
[...]
Members of Congress know that climate change legislation doesn't offer tangible benefits to voters, so they're unlikely to act unless they feel pressure from activists in their districts.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, and Barbara Boxer, D-California, have taken the lead on the issue by putting forth a bill to impose a tax on the country's largest polluters, requiring them to pay $20 per ton of carbon and methane emissions, a sum that would rise over time.
Under their bill, the government would invest the money in developing renewable fuel and more efficient energy policies, including a plan to weatherize more than a million homes.
[...]
Marching is good. Making Carbon Polluters pay
is better.
US senators propose long-shot carbon tax bill for big polluters
WASHINGTON -- Feb 14, 2013
(Reuters) -- Two of the most liberal U.S. senators on Thursday proposed a bill to tax carbon emissions, raising up to $1.2 trillion in revenue over 10 years that would largely be returned consumers.
Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from California, attempted to seize on the momentum from Tuesday's State of the Union speech when President Barack Obama expressed support for efforts to battle climate change.
[...]
The bill would set a goal to slash heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 - in line with the Obama administration's long-term emission reduction target.
It would set a $20 tax for each ton of carbon dioxide equivalent a polluter would emit beyond a set limit, which would rise 5.6 percent annually over a 10-year period.
[...]
The tax would target upstream emissions from 2,869 of the country's largest emitters, such as coal mines, oil refineries and natural gas processing points, or 85 percent of the economy. But it does not target power plants, which would continue to be regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency.
[...]
Until there is an "
actual price paid" for polluting OUR skies --
they have no incentive to change.
Competitive forces demand it. That they cut costs however possible, even if that means an open, unfiltered smokestacks. It's called Easy Money -- "making hay" for as long as they can. For as long as the market will bear.
This new bill looks to "re-level" that free-market, carbon-competitive playing field. This new bill seeks to make it MORE Profitable NOT to pollute.
What a Concept!
Marching is good. Making Carbon Polluters pay is better.
sanders.senate.gov
Today's News -- February 18th, 2013
Pipeline Protest Organizers said 35,000 people marched around the White House Sunday in opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, which environmental groups say would worsen the risks of climate change by encouraging development of Alberta's oil sands. Environmentalists have been encouraged by Obama's pledges to tackle global warming, first in his inaugural address and then again in the State of the Union speech. Last week, Sens. Barbara Boxer and Bernie Sanders introduced legislation that would tax carbon emissions, Bloomberg reported.
Global Warming Sens. Boxer and Sanders on Thursday rolled out their legislation that would impose carbon emissions fees on producers and importers of coal and petroleum, among other features. Boxer said she wants the bill to come to the floor by summer. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it is too soon to talk about specific climate measures, according to The Hill.
Climate Commentary The Sanders-Boxer bill “would represent a major victory for the planet,” Chris Hayes commented Sunday on MSNBC. Sanders “thinks the winds are changing,” Thom Hartmann said on WRRL-AM in New York. Sanders and Boxer “focus us on our moral obligation to leave a country and a planet to our children that is not damaged and polluted,” Richard W. Caperton of the Center for American Progress blogged. “It will need support from the bottom, not just the top,” Princeton Professor and CNN contributor Julian Zelizer wrote. The Boxer-Sanders proposal “is the least economically damaging proposition,” according to Reason magazine online.
[...]
There are few better in Congress when is come to making Climate Change an ever more topical and urgent issue ...
boxer.senate.gov -- Environment
Senator Boxer has earned a reputation as the Senate’s leading champion on protecting our environment. She chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and is the first woman in Senate history to do so. Throughout her career, Senator Boxer has fought to protect California’s spectacular coast, mountains, deserts, rivers and forests to preserve them for future generations. She continues to work to protect our health by improving air and water quality and to promote the sustainable use of natural resources. She has led efforts in the Senate to fight global warming and create millions of clean energy jobs in America.
[...]
Fighting Global Warming
Leading Efforts to Address Global Warming -- When Senator Boxer became the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2007 she immediately began to address global warming. She held a series of groundbreaking hearings to focus attention on the threats of global warming. In 2008, she joined Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia and Independent Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut in crafting a bill to confront global warming and move the United States toward a clean energy future. She took that bill -- with the support of 54 senators -- to the floor of the Senate.
I try to explain it this way -- the rational for a Revenue-increasing Carbon Tax:
If it were FREE -- to simply dump our trash in the streets,
No one would be able to get anywhere.
Because someone (some Corporation) would always, take them up on the offer -- as long as it was Free of Fines, Free of Fees. Free of additional clean-up costs.
This is effectively the situation we have now for large Carbon Polluters --
They get to simply toss their CO2 Pollution "out in the streets" -- Free of Fines, Free of Fees, Free of Concern. And they are making big bucks in the process, by passing on the inevitable costs of their carbon-trash onto others, further on down the line. (Onto us and our kids.)
Until we get real Market-based solutions, as alluded to by President Obama in the SOTU address -- until the very real human and economic costs of CO2 and Methane, are priced into each ton of gas released -- well there will not be much "economic" incentive for the emitters of these gases to change. What's their incentive?
They have none. Because Corporation are NOT people. They couldn't care less about making the world a better place. That's NOT their problem. It's OURS. It's a problem for actual humans. For future humans who will inherit this legacy.
Until then, until the Real Cost of Carbon get priced into their Economic equations -- we'll keep getting their "Trash Bill" -- until someone makes it "too expensive" for them to pollute. Makes it cheaper for them to scrub their waste. To change their energy sources. To do the right thing.
Then Corporations will change their ways, when it Saves them a Buck -- well actually 20 Bucks per ton, under Boxer and Sanders proposed true Cost of Carbon bill.
We need to get behind this legislative effort -- this will hit the trash-creators where it hurts -- in their Quarterly Profit Statements. This will give the "economic incentive" to finally clean up their act.
That is, if the Bill passes of course. If polluters have to finally pay the price of their very profitable polluting activities. Which up until now, they have been SCOTT FREE.
The privilege of Polluting our common skies should not be a Market-given Right, an automatic given. Because Pollution ALWAYS exacts a price on someone or something, somewhere down the line. Someone always end of paying its price.
Shouldn't that include the guys who are actually tossing the trash out the nearest window? Shouldn't the trash-creators have to the pay the costs of their eco-stupid actions, too?