Comments on: John Kerry Responds To Sarah Palin

By: Fritz

Fritz — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:41:23 +0000

Of course they won’t. And, for any small reductions they make, they will demand $$$ from the G8 countries.

By: Christoher Skyi

Christoher Skyi — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:25:52 +0000

Man, here’s an argument that the poor just won’t get with the program:
Why Poor Countries Won’t Curb Emissions (And new U.S. tariffs won’t make them)

Here’s Shikha Dalmia bottom line:

“Consider what would be necessary to slash global greenhouse-gas emissions just 50% below 2000 levels by 2050–a far less aggressive goal than what the enviros say is necessary to avert climate catastrophe

The human toll of this is unfathomable: It would require these countries to abandon plans to ever conquer poverty, of course. But beyond that it would require a major scaling back of living standards under which their middle classes–for whom three square meals, cars and air-conditioning are only now beginning to come within reach–would have to go back to subsistence living, and the hundreds of millions who are at subsistence would have to accept starvation.

In short, the choice for developing countries is between mass death due to the consequences of an overheated planet sometime in the distant future, and mass suicide due to imposed instant starvation right now. Is it any surprise that they are reluctant to jump on the global-warming bandwagon?”

By: Eclectic Radical

Eclectic Radical — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:48:57 +0000

Cap and trade has some serious flaws. I think so and I am as rough on business as the left gets. While I understand the need to collect government income, I believe the best way to do so is through basic taxation of personal and corporate income. Wide ranges of specialized, punitive taxation is simply foolish. If punitive taxation succeeds as a deterrent, then the added income is lost, while if punitive taxation fails as a deterrent then it does not meet its stated policy goals.

Some forms of industry will never be completely green, and we will have to deal with the environmental costs of said industry if we wish to reap the benefits of said industries. While there may be cases where scrapping said industries or finding ways to improve the efficiency of said industries is worthy of discussion, cap and trade is kind of stupid.

Unfortunately, political reasons make alternative methods of addressing environmental issues difficult for politicians. I just don’t think this is a good enough reason to support cap and trade. I do support more thorough research and development into green energy, careful re-expansion of a pragmatic nuclear energy program, and transition from oil to natural gas and from conventional gasoline to cleaner diesel variants in the interim. I believe more robust government pressure on corporations in this direction is at least as warranted, for national security reasons, as say the invasion of unfriendly countries in the Middle East, if not much more so. But cap and trade is silly.

I do have to note, however, that the biggest costs of economic weakness threaten many Americans equally seriously in times of economic strength because of the increased concentration of wealth in the hands of corporate entities and the corporate class. We have reached the point where we all share the costs of economic collapse without truly enjoying the benefits of economic strength. The middle class has been slowly squeezed into a position of economic serfdom as the corporate class has enriched itself at their expense, and no one even cares about poverty anymore.

Arguments about the cost of economic weakness do bear merit, but it is important to remember the flipside… economic strength has been stripped of its benefits for many and there are people for whom the recession has changed very little in a meaningful fashion because of that fact.

By: Posts about Huffington Post as of July 15, 2009 » The Daily Parr

Posts about Huffington Post as of July 15, 2009 » The Daily Parr — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:39:25 +0000

[...] problems in order to be more effective at solving them.If the US is going to be an innovative John Kerry Responds To Sarah Palin – liberalvaluesblog.com 07/15/2009 John Kerry has responded to Sarah Palin’s op-ed on [...]

By: Fritz

Fritz — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:46:14 +0000

Do people think that there is not a high death toll to economic weakness? Levying high energy taxes on a weak economy will have serious consequences.

By: Christoher Skyi

Christoher Skyi — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:45:19 +0000

Common — admit it! You’re sad about Palin’s resignation because: Palin Was The Best Thing That Ever Happened to The Left: “Palin, especially for the left, was an obsession because she was a great, a terrific, distraction. On the one hand, Palin was a conservative train wreak. On the other hand, Obama’s gone off the reservation in terms of what everyone thought or hoped he would do before he was elected. Liberal centralist and the radical left would prefer to keep the spotlight off these issue albeit for different reasons. Most liberal bloggers agreed that the op-ed managed to avoid any actual discussion of global warming and climate change. There’s good reason for this (and liberal bloggers should be grateful Palin didn’t bring it up). She and others usually don’t talk about global warming and climate change because cap and trade regulations are going to do next to nothing to combat global warming and climate change unless the U.S. penalizes other countries who don’t go along with controlling their own emissions , i.e., an early draft of Waxman-Markey already contained triggers that gave the president the choice to introduce carbon tariffs if jobs and industry “leak” overseas to countries that don’t constrain emissions so dramatically. While the language is not finalized, some kind of carbon tariffs triggers will have to be there or the bill will be useless. This is the issue the left-wing would like to avoid talking about (as Kerry did in his response). However, Palin’s op-ed and the left’s complaint that she didn’t address climate change turned the spotlight on exactly what the left would prefer to keep in the shadows. Unfortunately (for the left), the distracting shadow of Palin is shinking . . . and weary eyes will soon turn back to Washington D.C.