To most of us who hear political talk about proposed "cap-and-trade" legislation, the comments might as well be in a foreign language.
What, really, is "cap and trade" all about -- and what does it mean to "me"?
Cap and trade refers to the legislative proposals in Congress to put a "cap" on manmade carbon emissions, supposedly to curb "global warming." The "trade" part is that those who must emit carbon dioxide in manufacturing processes could "trade" (at a price) for the right to do so with others who do not have problems with objectionable emissions.
What's that to "me," most of us may ask?
For one thing, "cap and trade" regulations would drive some American jobs overseas.
Another problem for "us" is that "cap-and-trade" legislation would not be without costs to us ordinary folks. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the costs involved in "cap and trade" would average $175 a year per household by 2020.
But the highly respected Heritage Foundation has made its own calculations of what a carbon tax would be. It concluded it would cost the U.S. economy $161 billion in 2020. That figures out to about $1,870 a year for a family of four -- and would rise to $6,800 by 2035.
How could that be? Corporations buying "rights" to emit carbon dioxide would have to pay for permits, and would have to pass along their costs to all of us in the prices of their products and services. The cost may be "hidden," but it would have to be paid ultimately in consumer prices.
Actually, the negative effect of "cap and trade" on our economy -- and thus on our costs and our jobs -- is not calculable with any degree of accuracy.
But even if "cap-and-trade" standards were enforced, would they really have any or much effect on "global warming"?
There are lots of arguments about that. Some say "yes," some say "no." Some say that human effects are negligible and that the "jolly old sun keeps on rolling along," having the major effect, no matter what we do.
The fact is that nobody really knows what "cap or trade" would mean, what the costs to all of us in many hidden and direct ways would be -- or even if human activity is a major factor in so-called "global warming."
In fact, there are some scientific studies that suggest we may be experiencing "global cooling."
But one thing is sure: If "cap-and-trade" laws are passed by Congress, everybody's costs will go up, whether there is any "good effect" or not.
You've heard the old saying, "Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread." And you also have heard the good advice, "Look before you leap."
Text Size:
Cap and trade would drive jobs overseas? Give me a break. Look around, companies don't need the cap and trade excuse to move jobs overseas. I know why special interest groups are opposed to cap and trade, but don't expect us who want our kids to have fresh air to breathe to buy the flimbsy excuses.
Do we really believe punishing those bad old companies which help to keep our economy going will make us all breathe easier? Do we really think the already overseas job tendency will not increase drastically if cap and trade, a ridiculous idea, goes through? Do we really believe it can be enforced and will make a provable and justifiable difference? More money in the government trough, less for people, man we better hope our government can actually take care of us when all the current "things" being considered, become law! I suppose enough voters do so to elect the folk we have proposing current "things."
Our human processes have almost doubled the amount of atmospheric CO2 since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. CO2 only amounts to about .03% of the atmosphere but it doesn't go away so the amount we put into the air continuously compounds itself. The relationship of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and global temperature is complicated because the relationship is non-linear (Our atmosphere can be viewed as a rotating heat engine.). Just computing a global temperature is suspicious since the earth's surface area is about 200 million square miles of which about 30% is land area.
The bottom line is that Nature responds to climate changes and if the environment becomes too toxic for current species to adapt to, then, no doubt, new species will evolve from Nature that can adapt, maybe in a few hundred thousand years.
Nature doesn't care about our "Cap and Trade" politics or our religions. It just keeps on, keeping on and will do so until, in about 5 billion years, the sun expands as a Red Giant and consumes the earth.
una61 wrote,
"Our human processes have almost doubled the amount of atmospheric CO2 since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution."
This is merely a much repeated assumption with zero empirical evidence to support it.
"CO2 only amounts to about .03% of the atmosphere but it doesn't go away"
You're right that it doesn't go away, but it does NOT stay in the atmosphere. It is absorbed by the oceans, utilized by plants to manufacture food, and eventually stored in the lithosphere as carbon based rocks, like limestone, and various others. Individual CO2 molecules last 5-10 years in the atmosphere before being recycled in natural earth processes.
Compared to past times, the Earth's atmosphere is CO2 starved as much of the original planetary budget of Carbon is locked away in the lithosphere and therefore is inaccessible at the surface. If the atmospheric concentration of CO2 drops below 0.02%, most all plant life will die off, followed very shortly by all animal life.
In geological times the CO2 concentration was as high as 0.4%, a full order of magnitude higher than today, and the biosphere thrived. There was no CO2 induced "runaway global warming" then, and there will be none in our future.
------------------------------------------------------------
Cap and trade is a non-solution to a non-problem.
Those who proclaim otherwise are either ignorant, or they believe you are.
SCOTTYM
You should call James Hansen at NASA and straighten him out.
nucanuck,
If I made as many mistakes on the job as Hansen has, I'd have been fired a long time ago. The man is an idiot.