Quote:You mean like WWII? Yes, they do.Godwin!
Quote:There is a portion of the electorate in Minnesota that needs energy assistance already. Now, double it, and cut the number of tax payers by 20%. In my state, when we run out of energy we die. Rather than die, we move south. I'm very much a pessimist here, but I see the dire down side of a government that forces the price of basic necessities (like food, and fuel) much, much higher.Yeah, the people of Minnesota are right on the edge, earning more than something like 99% of the global population, and one of the higher income states in the Union. I'm sure the place will be a barren wasteland after cap-and-trade, as millions line up to move to Florida, leaving Canadian mercenaries to scavenge amongst the abandoned wastes.
Or, alternately, people will kvetch about higher energy bills, and things will proceed more or less normally.
Can we maybe file this one in the predictions drawer?
Quote:FiveThirtyEight did an analysis of the CBO numbers state by state. Minnesota drops in the middle or residential CO2 due to our forward thinking on wind power, but Alaska is hit hard due to their need to use air planes to get around.Nate's analysis looks pretty good, as usual. Seems about what I'd expect, with a couple of weird outliers (Louisiana? Maine?) but generally reflecting the impact I'd thought: a modest increase in energy prices across the board, but nothing particularily shocking. It's a few hundred dollars a year per household, unless you're in Alaska.
As for Alaska, I don't feel all that terrible about the state that pays people a dividend to live there. If you want to live in the frozen north, and burn carbon fuels to do so, I expect you to pay the price for it. The atmosphere doesn't take into account where you live, only what you choose to burn.
Quote:On the other side of the argument, Greenpeace has come out against Waxman-Markey as well.The entire raison d'etre of Greenpeace is to be the radical environmental voice that never gives an inch, so of course they don't like this. However, they do have a point here. This is weak tea, a first step in reducing emissions, not a solution.
Quote:You scoff at Cato, well here is Brookings (saying the same thing.) "reduce the level of U.S. GDP by around 2.5% relative to what it otherwise would have been in 2050" and "reduce employment levels by 0.5% in the first decade, with large differences across sectors" By 2050, the employment losses might amount to over 7 million jobs.Brookings supports cap and trade. Cato does not. How are they saying the same thing?
Where do you get the 7 million figure from?
Half a percent employment in the first decade amounts to what, maybe 700,000 unemployed? Those jobs will be disproportionately lost in sectors heavily reliant on carbon emissions, for obvious reasons. The sooner the economy transitions away from those activities, the less unemployment it will create in the long run. But this is an acceptable price to pay.
2.5% of 2050 GDP is not a lot of money, considering. For the cost of stabilizing carbon emissions, that seems perfectly fine. Frankly, I'd still be in favour of it if it cost 25% of 2050 GDP; at 1/10th of that, it seems kind of like a bargain. Compared with the damage that even a 2.5 Celsius rise in global temperatures would cause, it's peanuts. Even that would be nothing compared with an apocalyptic 6% temperature rise. There is simply no GDP percentage to describe the impact, which would be nothing less than the total collapse of the global economy as we know it. But that's what we might be looking at, worst case scenario, if we just keep tossing greenhouse gases up indiscriminately, whining all the while about energy costs and economic damage.
-Jester