The War on Coal

• gut

  Websurfinbird wrote:
  Completely understand your point. While the sincerity may be in question, if the end result is more economical, cleaner, efficient energy then I am all for it.

  I would, too, but let me further clarify: T Bone - and water rights is a great example - is more about exploiting perceived imbalances in supply and demand. He's pushing this because he sees a profit opportunity he can exploit. It says much more about the economics of supply and demand (that can be driven by irrational choices, as much as anything) than the economics of efficiency.
  
  If you do a little further reading - and there are always critics who may be less than objective and even less factual - there's a lot of interesting stuff about his manipulation/influence of regulations and policy in this regard to suggest profit, rather than altruistic, motives. That doesn't have to be mutually exclusive but there is no doubt which end of the spectrum Pickens heavily favors.
• Writerbuckeye

  

  I'll start believing in man-made global warming when these scientists can explain how the Medieval Warming Period could be warmer than what we have today for about 500 years -- when there wasn't enough of man to have caused it.
  
  Until that happens...it's nothing but a hoax and a money/power grab.
• believer

  

  Human impact on climate change (if it even exists) is easily dwarfed by the true source of global warming and cooling cycles...the sun.
  
  Man-made global climate change is rapidly revealing itself for what it is: A political scheme and a hoax of epic proportion designed by global socialists (and with the somewhat frightening cooperation of a significant number of "scientists" beholden to the left) to control free market capitalism, world resources, and redistribution of wealth via arbitrary & capricious methods such as "crap & tax."
• bman618

  fan, the "true costs" theories are far from precise to pull down the best economy in the history of the world with taxes that will crush the middle and poor classes and invest into energy sources that would not exist without the strong hand of government subsidies like solar or wind. Models have been wrong and numbers have been fudged by folks like Hanson. 40 years ago, most of science was trying to decide how to prevent what they were certain was an oncoming ice age. And at the end of the day, even if you take there numbers, we can only change the temperature by at most a few tenths of a degree.
  
  As for sulfur dioxide, I was referring to a pollutant that we should try and continue to clean up. I'm not saying that is the only pollutant man puts into the atmosphere.
• bman618

  At the end of the day I believe global warming is being used by authoritarians to try and get more power over the people by saying what they can and can't do and force higher taxation. The Supreme Court in a ridiculous fiat decision saying carbon dioxide, what we need to live, is a pollutant is a political decision. Humans like to think we have more power than we actually do. The sun and natural earth elements such as volcanos and oceans ultimately are big factors in the weather that we have no say over. The earth has warmed but I believe it is mostly due to these natural elements and that if man has had a factor in it, it has been extremely small and at the end of the day won't make a difference. There have been warmer periods, such as the Middle Age, when there won't SUVs putting out CO2.
• Hesston

  

  Ohio gets 80+ % of its power through coal and I believe the Nationall average is 60+%. Natural gas is a good cleaner source but we don't have enough here to power our country, gas has been described to me as the icing on a cake and coal is the cake, that's the ratio between the 2.
  I'm all for cleaner resourses, wind/solar but they're not going to power our country now either. cap & trade would hurt our state and nation
• fan_from_texas

  bman618 wrote: fan, the "true costs" theories are far from precise to pull down the best economy in the history of the world with taxes that will crush the middle and poor classes and invest into energy sources that would not exist without the strong hand of government subsidies like solar or wind.

  They're not particularly precise, which is one of the major advantages of cap-and-trade, as it allows industry to calculate its own cost of abatement and react accordingly. The GHG emission costs being discussed aren't going to "pull down the best economy in the history of the world." They're fairly minimal, and most will be borne by shareholders. I'm not 100% sold on cap-and-trade, but I think it's important to combat the misinformation about it. My general thought is that we are going to see some sort of GHG emission regulation. Our options are either legislative or regulatory, and I think a legislative, market-driven solution is a million times preferable to the typical Clean Air Act top-down command-and-control. Either way, this is going to be regulated, and by fighting cap-and-trade, you're encouraging EPA action. That could be potentially disastrous.
  

  Models have been wrong and numbers have been fudged by folks like Hanson. 40 years ago, most of science was trying to decide how to prevent what they were certain was an oncoming ice age. And at the end of the day, even if you take there numbers, we can only change the temperature by at most a few tenths of a degree.

  I haven't yet heard anyone suggest that humans make more of a warming impact than nature, but that doesn't seem to be a reason not to do anything. Noting that one variable isn't the primary variable doesn't mean you should ignore it. For example, intelligence matters more than studying for SAT performance. But if someone is stupid, that doesn't mean they shouldn't study--on the contrary, because they can only control that variable, they should do everything they can to increase their chances there, even if the larger variables are out of there control.
  
  Undoubtedly the vast majority of climate change is driven by natural cycles. I haven't heard anyone deny that. But it does appear likely that our actions play at least some role in what's going on. Inasmuch as we can minimize that impact (while balancing it out against affecting the economy today), I think it's irresponsible not to have the discussion and figure out if there's something we can do now not to screw over our kids' generation. Screwing the future to make the present easier is a baby-boomer sort of thing (thanks, mom and dad, for all the taxes and entitlement spending!)--I don't like it when previous generations have done it to us, and it's irresponsible for us to do it to the future.
  
  There are real costs to abating GHG emissions. Aggressive mandates will likely slow GDP growth by ~1% a year, which results in real impacts to the quality of life and standard of living of billions around the world. I don't think we should kowtow to radical environmentalists and turn luddite on the world to reduce carbon--it's vitally important to consider how this will affect people around the globe, and to do it in a socially responsible way.
  
  That said, I think the progress will be made when people drop the narrow-minded, simple, and off-repeated mantras and start addressing the complexities of the issue.
• believer

  

  fan_from_texas wrote:That said, I think the progress will be made when people drop the narrow-minded, simple, and off-repeated mantras and start addressing the complexities of the issue.

  As usual FFT, you have well-informed views but I'm going to say this again at the risk of appearing "narrow-minded"...cap & trade will do little to control man-made global warming (since it's caused almost entirely by the SUN). Therefore - again - the sole purpose of cap & trade is redistribution of wealth, control of global resources, and to attack capitalism.
  
  But I digress...some sort of cap & trade is inevitable and will have minimal impact on our day-to-day lives...except for the fact that these new costs will be passed on to the consumer not the shareholders as you suggest.
  
  Bottom-line: Cap & trade is a new back-door tax that will be paid for by the consumer and is largely unnecessary. It's not that complex and it's the truth IMHO.
• bman618

  Fan, the cost of additional taxes are always passed onto the customers. So the people who can afford it the least will be most affected. And at a time when we have a serious national debt problem that needs to be addressed somehow, I don't see how we can start adding indirect taxes on the American people when we might have to increase them for the debt as a combination of things to start paying it down or at least getting control of it.
  
  I see climate change as driven by nature mostly. Out of 387 parts per million of carbon dioxide, our emissions are about 12 parts. I am for cleaner sources of energy or cleaning up the ones we have now, but I believe the free market will drive it best as people are typcially not for pollution, but will do so in a manner that balances it with economic status.