Comments on: Gop: It Is That Easy Being Green

By: JG

JG — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:41:18 +0000

Taxing or regulating C02 is distinguishable because of w essential it is to emit C02. We breath it out, plants consume it. Arguably, it’s not a pollutant, and certainly not in the way radioactive waste or particulate emissions are. Nearly every form of industry, production, transporation, even food preparation, requires C02 emissions in one way or another. Taxing or regulating C02 is exerting government control over every American entity and individual on a scale not often seen – the ultimate left wing power grab. It has the potential to hamstring our economy and our way of life.

By: danbmil99

danbmil99 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:23:43 +0000

What exactly distinguishes a CO2 tax from other environmental regulation? It seems much more flexible than strict limits, which will require a huge bureaucracy to handle all the exceptions and special cases and permits and so on. Either we think C02 is a pollutant, or we don’t.

By: JG

JG — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:34:05 +0000

We can’t just throw up our hands and say “oh well, the argument that CO2 is bad has won the day, let’s just get on board with taxing carbon emissions.” My party is not a party that taxes me when I buy my gas and then taxes me again when I burn it. Or taxes my electric company when it buys coal and taxes it again when it burns it.

What we need to do is distinguish between sensible environmentalism, and, for lack of a better term, extreme, anti progress and anti capitalist environmentalism. Limits on where you can dump waste and how you can dump it, drinking water standards, maintaining compliance with current non California auto emissions standards, elements of the Boone Pickens plan, things of that nature? That’s sensible environmentalism that the party can support.

Taxing C02 (Cap & Trade = Tax), bans on offshore but out of sightdrilling, closing Yucca Mountain before it opens and stifling the nuclear energy industry, increasing CAFE standards for automakers forcing them to make cars consumers have no incentive to buy, saving the snail darter at the expense of farmers – that’s extreme environmentalism that the party should not support.

By: Tom B

Tom B — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:24:09 +0000

Just alittle tech info on the electrical grid. It currently operates instantaneously to load requirements. Always has, even without the so called smart grid. You turn on a lite, a power plant somewhere increases output power. That power was priced the hour before or the day before, the expected demand factored in based on previous load patterns based on weather, day of the week, time of day.

You logging into a computer is tell someone you are plugging in a car will provide no benefit.
I don’t want to rain on your parade, that is just the way it works.

By: Stewardship

Stewardship — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:32:49 +0000

Sinz54: Point well taken and correct. I used a broad brush stroke. Obviously, even switching over to clean and renewables just to send electricity to our homes can’t be accomplished overnight. It is going to take years…and yet our society still can’t agree on a target or goal. Thanks!

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:55:13 +0000

Stewardship: We cannot just “switch to clean and renewable energy now.” Over half of our energy needs are in transportation. I can’t run a car or truck or airplane on solar power. Retooling our personal transportation system away from gasoline is going to be enormously expensive–and it’s going to take a very long time.

By: gibberish

gibberish — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:17:22 +0000

The jury is out on whether UK Conservative enviromentalism is mere greenwash but at least they look like they are aware of the issues and have purged the denialist loons from public awareness.

By: Stewardship

Stewardship — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:25:54 +0000

Jamie, welcome! Something Dittoheads inconveniently forget is that George H. W. Bush institued cap and trade to stop acid rain…our economy went on a twenty year run unlike any we’ve ever seen. Ronald Reagan negotiated the elimination of chemicals that were decimating the ozone. No harm to the economy. Republicans can’t win without reversing the 2-to1 margin the Dems enjoyed last November among young adults (one third of our population). The environment is a major issue and priority in the demographic group. The argument that cap and trade will raise costs to consumers might be true…but that is short term…by switching to clean and renewable energy now, we all but guarantee that our children and grandchildre will enjoy lower costs in the future…lower energy costs, lower costs of remediation of climate change impacts (we are spending $400 million right now to relocate a tiny Alaskan village that is sinking into the ocean as the permafrost melts). Good stewardship, whether it be from a conservative or Biblical perspective, works to insure future generations do not suffer do to our own excesses.

By: danbmil99

danbmil99 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:55:44 +0000

Advocate123: that ship has sailed. The public thinks climate and environment are issues, so they are issues. The GOP has dissipated any credibility it ever had in the area of scientific opinion with its idiotic attraction to creationist science and its constant politicization of hard science. This is yet another issue where the GOP is seriously out of step, and needs to change course. If Obama’s cap/trade policies are wrong, suggest another way to curb carbon emissions. “Drill Baby Drill” and “Who cares about baby seals?” is really not the way to go right now. Certainly we can argue timing wrt the economic crisis, but flat-out denialism is what got us here, and it ain’t getting us out

By: Advocate123

Advocate123 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 02:45:02 +0000

What on Earth are you talking about?

The Green movement is going to bankrupt this nation, and every other nation that tries to cap carbon. Green jobs are essentially breaking everyone’s windows and pays the unemployed to clean up the mess. They are worthless.

The only reason why the “Drill Baby Drill” movement didn’t work past the summer was because we hit an economic crisis that tanked the price of oil.

McCain was the worst possible choice because he advocated the, “What if we’re wrong Environmentalism” ideology. If the Green movement is wrong, which they are, the cost of living goes up and it hurts the poor.