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Obama administration to announce controversial emissions cap on power plants

vesper said:
We need to help China with their transition? Say what you really mean....U.S. taxpayers need to pay for it. You are willing to make people poor and decrease their standard of living with less consumption and exuberant prices for energy while forcing them to pay for others to "conform" to this so called science that is unsettled. What a scam to bring about global governance.
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Its a tough deal but part of it will involve sharing technology and possibly some subsidies. This is how grown ups do business. We accept the circumstances for what they are and take necessary action to correct problems and make the best of the situation.
 
Verax said:
Its a tough deal but part of it will involve sharing technology and possibly some subsidies. This is how grown ups do business. We accept the circumstances for what they are and take necessary action to correct problems and make the best of the situation.
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Garbage. The tech has long been shared. The Chinese still allow open pit mining and about 15% of their coal resources are alight. Look into coal seam fires.
 
Verax said:
Its a tough deal but part of it will involve sharing technology and possibly some subsidies. This is how grown ups do business. We accept the circumstances for what they are and take necessary action to correct problems and make the best of the situation.
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Thinking minds usually make decisions when all the facts are in. Not on a group of scientists who are affiliated with the United Nations and socialist countries whose vision of the future is a world without borders. In order for that to occur there needs to be a way redistribution of wealth can be obtained globally. Presto!..... the sky is falling, Armegeddon Climate Change is born. Currently only 1/3 of the people on the planet believe this happy horse poop. More and more members of the Church of the Environmentalists are leaving the fold. And that's a good thing.
 
Taylor said:
Not if they've effectively transferred that authority to the executive branch. Oftentimes when crafting legislation, they identify very general goals and give authority to a committee or agency to work out the specifics.
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Dittohead not! said:
That does seem to be the way it's going, give more and more power to the executive branch. Congress already abdicated the power to declare war, and now seem willing to allow the president the power to impose regulations that will cost the nation trillions over time. That's just not how the Constitution set up the balance of powers.
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Not only that, the EPA is legally required to do something about carbon dioxide emissions. CO2 fits the EPA's definition of a pollutant. Congress requires them to regulate air pollutants. The Bush administration dodged this requirement for a while, but eventually the supreme court stepped in and said "Hey, the law says you have to deal with this, so deal with this."

On CO2, the right wingers had their chance. They had ample opportunity to get on board with a market-based solution, modeled after the system used to reduce lead content in gasoline and sulfur dioxide emissions. It was designed under the Reagan administration, implemented under the Bush Sr administration, and expanded upon by Bush Jr's administration. John McCain and Sarah Palin campaigned on this system during the 2008 elections. Other GOP presidential hopefuls of the time like Tim Pawlenty and Mike Huckabee supported such a system. Newt Gingrich support such a system. With lead and sulfur dioxide, this system worked faster and more efficiently than the expected "command and control" system the Democrats were supporting at the time, a fact that the GOP has often lauded. But when it came time to actually do it, a Democrat was in office, so the entire GOP united against it.
 
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jmotivator said:
This is typical begging the question. IF you accept that CO2 is "pollution" then the US is unclean.

But CO2 isn't pollution.
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Accepting the premise of AGW, yes, CO2 is a pollutant under the EPA's definition, which is why they are required to regulate it.

I know you don't accept the premise of AGW, but the EPA does not base its definition on your personal opinion.
 
Deuce said:
Not only that, the EPA is legally required to do something about carbon dioxide emissions. CO2 fits the EPA's definition of a pollutant. Congress requires them to regulate air pollutants. The Bush administration dodged this requirement for a while, but eventually the supreme court stepped in and said "Hey, the law says you have to deal with this, so deal with this."

On CO2, the right wingers had their chance. They had ample opportunity to get on board with a market-based solution, modeled after the system used to reduce lead content in gasoline and sulfur dioxide emissions. It was designed under the Reagan administration, implemented under the Bush Sr administration, and expanded upon by Bush Jr's administration. John McCain and Sarah Palin campaigned on this system during the 2008 elections. Other GOP presidential hopefuls of the time like Tim Pawlenty and Mike Huckabee supported such a system. Newt Gingrich support such a system. With lead and sulfur dioxide, this system worked faster and more efficiently than the expected "command and control" system the Democrats were supporting at the time, a fact that the GOP has often lauded. But when it came time to actually do it, a Democrat was in office, so the entire GOP united against it.
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How can carbon dioxide possibly be a pollutant when it is necessary for life? Without it, the Earth would be a frozen planet and would support no life at all. It's no more a pollutant than water vapor, which BTW, is also a powerful greenhouse gas.

Anyway, as more and more power plants switch from coal to natural gas as the more economic alternative, the carbon reductions should follow without the EPA stepping in at all.
 
Dittohead not! said:
How can carbon dioxide possibly be a pollutant when it is necessary for life? Without it, the Earth would be a frozen planet and would support no life at all. It's no more a pollutant than water vapor, which BTW, is also a powerful greenhouse gas.

.
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You answered your own question.
 
Deuce said:
Accepting the premise of AGW, yes, CO2 is a pollutant under the EPA's definition, which is why they are required to regulate it.

I know you don't accept the premise of AGW, but the EPA does not base its definition on your personal opinion.
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So we should eliminate CO2 from the environment?
 
vesper said:
Thinking minds usually make decisions when all the facts are in. Not on a group of scientists who are affiliated with the United Nations and socialist countries whose vision of the future is a world without borders. In order for that to occur there needs to be a way redistribution of wealth can be obtained globally. Presto!..... the sky is falling, Armegeddon Climate Change is born. Currently only 1/3 of the people on the planet believe this happy horse poop. More and more members of the Church of the Environmentalists are leaving the fold. And that's a good thing.
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Thinking minds huh? Do thinking minds also question the idea that all the scientists in the world are part of a global hoax to steal money in a socialist plot? Sounds kind of silly doesn't it? Seems kind of unlikely doesn't it? Seems like the logistics of such a thing would be almost impossible wouldn't it?

Throughout history there have been hundreds if not thousands of examples of the public rejecting the findings of scientists because it is convenient. Scientists have been persecuted for this for centuries. It took twenty years for society to start to take action and stop putting lead in gasoline from the time it was discovered it was a terrible pollutant. Look into how the fossil fuel industry behaved in that instance, then ask yourself if they might do something like that again, with global warming.

How many times have scientists been caught falsifying research on a grand scale to try and manipulate the public into a financial trap? I can't think of a single time.

Now tell me, what would thinking minds find to be the more likely scenario?
 
jmotivator said:
So we should eliminate CO2 from the environment?
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Yes, that way all the plants die which is the ultimate goal of the Nazi Progressive movement.

Or we could regulate it to avoid excessive levels and the negative consequences that come with it.
 
Verax said:
Yes, that way all the plants die which is the ultimate goal of the Nazi Progressive movement.
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Those catastrophes happen when you start thinking you know what knobs to turn in the environment.

Or we could regulate it to avoid excessive levels and the negative consequences that come with it.
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What level is excessive? What should the climate be? We don't know enough about the climate to even accurately guess what it will be with all the data available to us. Any effort we take on such a damn fool endeavor will be plagued by unintended consequences.
 
jmotivator said:
So we should eliminate CO2 from the environment?
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No. The world makes more sense if you don't think of everything in black and white.
 
jmotivator said:
Those catastrophes happen when you start thinking you know what knobs to turn in the environment.
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We're already turning knobs. Capping carbon emissions means we turn them less, which you seem to agree is a good thing.

What level is excessive? What should the climate be? We don't know enough about the climate to even accurately guess what it will be with all the data available to us. Any effort we take on such a damn fool endeavor will be plagued by unintended consequences.
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Reducing carbon emissions means that we leave the climate up to nature as much as possible. Wouldn't you agree letting nature take its course is the best bet, seeing as how we don't understand those dials we are currently fiddling with?
 
jmotivator said:
What level is excessive?
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400ppm is definitely excessive. There hasn't been that much CO2 in the atmosphere in about 3 million years.


What should the climate be?
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It shouldn't be thrown out of whack by human actions. Prior to us spewing gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere, the atmosphere was pretty much at an equilibrium.

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We don't know enough about the climate to even accurately guess what it will be with all the data available to us. Any effort we take on such a damn fool endeavor will be plagued by unintended consequences.
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We already have a pretty good idea.

In terms of "unintended consequences," that is much bigger issue if we have to resort to geoengineering projects in order to reduce global temperatures. Cutting back on man-made CO2 is pretty much the opposite of that -- it's a mitigation process.
 
Verax said:
Yes, that way all the plants die which is the ultimate goal of the Nazi Progressive movement.

Or we could regulate it to avoid excessive levels and the negative consequences that come with it.
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But, let's not regulate it to the point where the economy suffers.
 
apdst said:
But, let's not regulate it to the point where the economy suffers.
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If reduced crop yields from a changing climate put human lives at risk, how much economic damage are you willing to accept?
 
Deuce said:
If reduced crop yields from a changing climate put human lives at risk, how much economic damage are you willing to accept?
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What about the reduced crop yields from the government shutting off the water to farmers?

You people will do anything to the American people in order to further your agenda.
 
apdst said:
What about the reduced crop yields from the government shutting off the water to farmers?

You people will do anything to the American people in order to further your agenda.
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Water isn't carbon dioxide. Don't try to deflect. This thread is about carbon dioxide, not your silly conspiracy theories about liberals trying to control your drinking water.
 
jmotivator said:
Those catastrophes happen when you start thinking you know what knobs to turn in the environment.

What level is excessive? What should the climate be? We don't know enough about the climate to even accurately guess what it will be with all the data available to us. Any effort we take on such a damn fool endeavor will be plagued by unintended consequences.
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Climate science has this all pegged. There is no question this rapid warming is much, much too fast and the way to slow it down is by reducing carbon emissions. Every molecule of extra carbon we release into the atmosphere adds to the problem. Cutting the incredibly out of historical balance carbon level is the right first step regardless of any pinpoint exact values you would want to conjure up.
 
Deuce said:
Water isn't carbon dioxide. Don't try to deflect. This thread is about carbon dioxide, not your silly conspiracy theories about liberals trying to control your drinking water.
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You're warning of crop failures. Are you equally concerned about crop failures because the government shut off water to farms in California?
 
Verax said:
Climate science has this all pegged. There is no question this rapid warming is much, much too fast and the way to slow it down is by reducing carbon emissions. Every molecule of extra carbon we release into the atmosphere adds to the problem. Cutting the incredibly out of historical balance carbon level is the right first step regardless of any pinpoint exact values you would want to conjure up.
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They have it pegged? Why do they have to rig the research if they have it pegged?
 
Deuce said:
If reduced crop yields from a changing climate put human lives at risk, how much economic damage are you willing to accept?
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Tha argument goes both ways.
 
Verax said:
Climate science has this all pegged. There is no question this rapid warming is much, much too fast and the way to slow it down is by reducing carbon emissions. Every molecule of extra carbon we release into the atmosphere adds to the problem. Cutting the incredibly out of historical balance carbon level is the right first step regardless of any pinpoint exact values you would want to conjure up.
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The climate record doesn't have the resolution to compare current trends to any prior trends.
 
apdst said:
But, let's not regulate it to the point where the economy suffers.
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We can likely do it with minimal impact. The latest estimates show it is surprisingly cheap, especially compared to the consequences.
 
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