Carbon Pricing
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Milan
Jan 15, 2013, 6:41:04 PM1/15/13
to toron...@googlegroups.com
Bill McKibben article for Grist: Beyond baby steps: Analyzing the cap-and-trade flop
"But this was too big — there was too much money at stake. The climate issue, it turned out, didn’t fundamentally resemble acid rain after all. The fossil fuel companies, which had spent a lot of money helping erect the hard-right political edifice then near its height in D.C., saw that they didn’t have to give away anything. They could block even this small change for now, and continue to put away truly record profits.
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The best chance for these two tendencies to come together in effective climate legislation is, as she points out, something like a fee-and-dividend proposal, where most of the money collected goes to citizens. It’s certainly more just — if anyone owns the sky, it’s us, not Exxon. And it’s possible to imagine ratcheting it up fast enough to matter, since every time the fee rises, so does the size of the check that comes in the mail. Americans like checks — my Harvard bachelor’s degree in political science entitles me to say that, I think.
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This is the first time-limited giant problem we’ve ever faced (unless you count, say, World War II, which also couldn’t be postponed very long). At this point, having delayed action for so long, the easy baby steps are no longer helpful. A small price on carbon won’t get us as far as it would have a decade or two ago."
...
The best chance for these two tendencies to come together in effective climate legislation is, as she points out, something like a fee-and-dividend proposal, where most of the money collected goes to citizens. It’s certainly more just — if anyone owns the sky, it’s us, not Exxon. And it’s possible to imagine ratcheting it up fast enough to matter, since every time the fee rises, so does the size of the check that comes in the mail. Americans like checks — my Harvard bachelor’s degree in political science entitles me to say that, I think.
...
This is the first time-limited giant problem we’ve ever faced (unless you count, say, World War II, which also couldn’t be postponed very long). At this point, having delayed action for so long, the easy baby steps are no longer helpful. A small price on carbon won’t get us as far as it would have a decade or two ago."
Milan
Jan 20, 2013, 3:52:09 PM1/20/13
to toron...@googlegroups.com
http://grist.org/politics/the-problem-wasnt-the-green-groups-what-skocpol-gets-wrong-about-the-climate-bill-fight/
"I think, in retrospect, failure of White House leadership was a major reason reconciliation was not an option. It also appears the business-environmental community played a counterproductive role. But again, if the choice was aggressive White House leadership (i.e. not making the mistakes listed at the top) and no change in the business-environmental strategy for the bill, or the same non-leadership from team Obama and a better business-environmental strategy, I’d take the former in a heartbeat."
"I think, in retrospect, failure of White House leadership was a major reason reconciliation was not an option. It also appears the business-environmental community played a counterproductive role. But again, if the choice was aggressive White House leadership (i.e. not making the mistakes listed at the top) and no change in the business-environmental strategy for the bill, or the same non-leadership from team Obama and a better business-environmental strategy, I’d take the former in a heartbeat."
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