Nature’s signals are changing American minds about the risks of climate change. But Washington’s minds are lagging, despite President Obama’s stirring call to action in his inaugural speech.
The best hope for achieving the transition to a low-carbon economy is through innovation to reduce the costs of new energy technologies. Energy markets left to themselves will discount climate-change risks, so public action to encourage these innovations is needed. But public action does not mean putting government agencies at the center of the innovation system. Instead, the focus should be on unlocking the immense creativity and resources of America’s private entrepreneurs, investors, producers, and energy users.
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China uses half the coal burned in the world and it's burning more every year. One must ask how much effect the states can have. I submit that anything the states can do is merely eyewash.
Sooooooo . . . . .. . do nothing, 'cause we're doomed?
Well, I guess the cental planners can hunt for the next Solyndra. The free market will work, when there is viable opportunity. Taxing energy use, to put into boondoggles like all the failing green companies is a bad joke. If there is a way, the free market will find it. No central planner can create a profitable industry or business.
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Obviously, making changes for the good of everyone works best, works faster, when driven by government research and government regulation. Some towns and municipalities are already stepping up and doing what they can. For example Brookline is now banning plastic bags and Concord has banned plastic bottles. Small steps, mostly symbolic, these efforts might make people feel good for a bit, but can't hurt. Efforts are too fragmented at that level. States and regions can have more impact, but it still has to come from government. There is not ever going to be a private sector solution if it requires people to give anything up. Has to come from the government, made up of elected officials, voted-in by the people.
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As one who has spent a great deal of his life traveling through the states I do not hold out much hope for the states leading in much of anything. Not because they are incapable but simply because of the deeply divided levels of education and willingness to deal with any complex issues that the nation faces. As a native New Englander and I suppose unlike some who still in live in New England I take great pride in the educational level, awareness and pure hard work attitudes of those from my native section of the country.
Here in Florida and in most of these deep southern states there is no sense of "we the people" need to tackle basic problems of life never mind what they would call "intellectual theories". The school system is in shatters with most of the student body attending "temporary" classrooms. Teachers are underpaid. Florida ranks something like 49th. The governor doesn't believe in mass transportation never mind carbon emissions. The list of things that those from New England take for granted that would be considered "intrusion" here is too long to list.
Regardless of the speechifying and sticking NJ when natural disaster strikes here they look to the Feds. We had a state run insurance program that the governor gutted because its not governments job. But when the next hurricane hits I'll guarantee where the state will look for the money, the feds.
State intitiative? No you won't see that here in the South. They'll take what the fed "forces" on them for regs, they'll take the feds money, but they bloody well won't share in the cost or the effort. As some folks say I'm here because it's warm and that's all. Don't look to the southern states for innovation it doesn't exist.
Mr. Turk: Nice to see you are finding out not everyone in this country thinks the same way as New Englanders do. But you knew that from your military service. What New Englanders do not find "intrusive" is indeed considered to be such in most of the country, not just the south. Your point is well taken however, we are not going to see states getting behind or leading a charge towards reducing carbon emissions.
My question is like one I saw below, since China is doing one heckuva job pumping pollutants into the atmosphere, just how is it America will be conquering the climate issue? The only way is obviously by convincing China and some of the other emerging industrial nations to cooperate. Kerry has said he is going to work on on global warming, be interesting to see how far he gets with China. Want to make any bets?
I have always known New England was a special place in a lot of ways. A lot of New Englanders don't realize how well their states function relative to other parts of the country. Nor do they realize how superior many of their state resources are to other regions running from eductational to employment. The south is a great place to retire too, but not a great place to raise a family or make money.
As to Kerry he is a good negotiator has done a lot of special envoy gigs and done well. It will be indeed interesting to see how China balances what it's leaders have acknowledged as a problem and its need for growth. In one of those interesting ironies we want everyone in the worlds standard of living to rise but when it does we create other problems in the area of sustainability and growth.
As states like California and Massachusetts have proved, many measures to combat climate change can be accomplished at the state level, such as mandating utilities to use more renewables like solar and wind, thereby creating a market for renewable energy credits (RECs) paid out by utilities; and offering incentives such as rebates for energy-efficiency upgrades, energy-saving appliances and the such.
But as the author notes about other initiatives, that won't be nearly enough, and many states will not be able to finance programs.
Energy needs do vary by region, but the federal government can still do a couple of great things to help. One is enact a carbon cap and trade system, a successful market-based Republican idea from George H.W. Bush's Clean Air Act. Another is to enact a Home Star proposal that has enjoyed bipartisan support and would award immediate, significant rebates for energy-efficient upgrades in homes and could spark an efficiency retrofit industry that we badly need. Imagine how many jobs could be created by making energy-efficiency upgrades to all our homes and buildings.
Like energy production, an "all of the above" strategy for conserving energy at the federal and state levels would work best.
too bad its not real........
Yesterday the Research Council of Norway—that would be one of those national research bodies that the climateers relentlessly tell us we should pay attention to—issued the conclusion that global warming is likely to be much less severe than the “consensus” estimate of 2 – 4.5 degrees C. The Norwegian body thinks it will top out at 1.9 degrees:
I am James Lovelock, scientist and author, known as the originator of Gaia theory, a view of the Earth that sees it as a self-regulating entity that keeps the surface environment always fit for life… I am an environmentalist and founder member of the Greens but I bow my head in shame at the thought that our original good intentions should have been so misunderstood and misapplied. We never intended a fundamentalist Green movement that rejected all energy sources other than renewable, nor did we expect the Greens to cast aside our priceless ecological heritage because of their failure to understand that the needs of the Earth are not separable from human needs. We need take care that the spinning windmills do not become like the statues on Easter Island, monuments of a failed civilisation.
"be" So what? That is the question I ask when deniers or relativists say it won't be that much or it is not all just because of man. So what? Does that mean we do nothing? Does that mean we let our skis look like Bejing or the way LA used to look in the summer during an inversion. So what? Do we just let it go as is? All very nice but the question whether to degree or whether to cause changes nothing. You can't just sit there. Like gun control, like every other problem that we face, many individuals and my old party simply want to say. There is nothing we can do. How sad.
no, but should we do cap and trade? wind which werars out in 10 years and adds nothing? the zealots are on the wrong end.
The innovation entrepreneurs are risk averse and need a little taxpayer money before they are willing to invest in solutions. Ok. Will they commit to capping compensation, sharing profits, and paying taxes when their ships come in? Or do the taxpayers get to assume all the risk?
The editorial calls for the spending of Billions of dollars to explore what Man can do to effect climate.This money should be spent to help poor people instead.
In spite of the consensus, which automatically cuts off debate, man's role vs Nature is still open to debate.
I don't believe the weatherman's predictions for tomorrow, let alone 50 years from now.
The predictions are based on "models" similar to the recent previous model predictions that housing prices would continue to increase, (which of course they did not), model predictions that the stock market would continue to rise (the great recession followed instead), etc., etc, etc.
Immediately, an energy plan, similar to the Manhatten Project should be developed by the federal government. The actions of all states should be determined and coordinated.