That is the choice that George W. Bush constantly offered you. Sure, climate change is a bad thing, and yes, it might have something to do with the billions of tons of carbon that we add to the sky annually, but if we were to actually deal with that problem, it might slow our job growth. So, his solution is to push ethanol production. It was a subterfuge, but it did play well with audiences who cling to the traditional mind set. that mind set goes like this. "I think it is okay to pass environmental legislation in Smoking Gun cases. For example, if the EPA is able to identify a chemical that is killing thousands of people and there is a cheap substitute for that chemical, then by all means get rid of it. But let's not sacrifice jobs in the coal industry just because 98% of climate scientists think that our grandkids are going to have a big problem with coastal flooding and droughts. Our grandkids have not been born yet, and I am betting that it will all blow over."
Now we are going to have a new President in January. Obama campaigned on a promise to do something about climate change. Of course, Bush did too, back in 2000, but never mind that. Achieve sustainability in energy and climate policy? Nah, not when it might cost jobs in the car industry or Exxon; not when it has a price tag and the various bailouts and unemployment packages already took more money than we have. The economy is the looming issue that imperils Obama's hope of a second term, even before he has taken office. If he fails to achieve improvements by 2012, he is toast. In addition to this, Congress will have the same thought. If he were to go to them and say "I would like you to stake your careers on the need to combat climate change" well they are not going to jump on any hand grenades as regards their political careers.
What Obama is looking for here is a win/win. He is seeking a course of action that will address climate change and unemployment at the same time. The only obvious solution is to push some billions at the creation of renewable energy and energy infrastructure. Someobody gets a job putting together a solar electricity plant or transmission stations, and climate change takes a baby step backward. The idea of taking a Giant Step instead of a Baby Step, by creating a cap and trade system? Well, that is possible, but then you run into the opposition shouting that you are destroying our economy when it is crippled already. And let's face it, the Republican Party is on the ropes, and they are desperately looking for an issue, any issue, that would reanimate the electorate to give them more Congressional seats in 2010. Obama and the Dems are probably going to be forced to walk a tightrope on this one. Rahm Emanuel will look at the political realities underlying the policy issues and say, yeah, we will do climate change on the cheap, incrementally, Bill Clinton style, rather than staking our political survival on something that will not bear political fruit for another 50 years.
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Comments: 22
How many jobs can we have if the planet has the atmosphere of Venus ???
And getting away from oil will certainly help our own jobs (creating a new local energy industry), and will fix a lot of political troubles (we're now giving all our money to countries that hate us).
The next step is a high unemployment economy. Things won't return to normal, because there has never been a normal.
A quick parable. Blacksmiths were worried about losing their livelihood when horseless carriages (i.e., cars) started replacing horse-drawn carts. We'll lose our jobs, they said, because there will no longer be horses to shoe. And they did. But the smart ones learned how to make brake shoes...and flywheels...and bumpers...and engine blocks...and suspension systems.
There are opportunities in every new technology. The hard part is to let go of the old way and learn how to gain maximum benefit from the new way. As Obama was fond to say during the campaign...steelworkers can learn how to make wind turbines. Nobody loses. We all win.
The economy will not be fixed by 2012 and not much else will be fixed except maybe to end the Iraq war which never should have been started. Ending the Iraq war will be a good step to helping the economy. Climate change is important but creating jobs to deal with climate change is a short term solution that will not last very long. Government make work jobs are temporary and as much as our infrastructure need repair it still is a temporary fix.
The economy will never be healthy again until our living wage manufacturing jobs are brought back and we stop supporting communism that supplies us with cheap junk and puts us deeper and deeper in debt. If we continue to support globalization we will be nothing but another burnt out empire maker just like history has proven with all empire builders.
Obama/Biden's ideas for increasing national and local service corps is one great medicine for opening minds and freeing some of that useless worry-energy to create useful service ideas.
I think, however, we agree that addressing climate, environmental and security issues by firing up the economy with a major push for solar, geothermal & wind energy, electric cars and hybrids and plug-in hybrids, home solar heating and electricity, etc., will create many jobs.
In addition, this approach would, for once, actually plan for the future while dealing with the present.
I hope and expect the new administration to take this approach, and to abandon some of the positions of "appeasement" that were adopted by the Obama camp during the campaign, for example on drilling for oil, "clean" coal, and nuclear power.
My concerns and doubts have to do with the incoming president's ability to sell the policy to a hurting public. Some of us are more informed than others.
I would much rather have Obama trying to walk this tightope, a man who believes passionately that climate change is a real problem that requires action. Back in the day, when George W. Bush stepped on the tightrope, he immediately jumped off again, saying "Not my fault, nobody could do that". Bull****, George, you had no intention of walking that walk in the first place.
If we continue our car culture, we won't be so hot either.
I fully expect us to fall as a super power very soon. I don't know what that means for world energy, but it sure as heck will cut our energy consumption.
To some extent, yes, our status as a superpower is now in question. We are indeed the sole superpower in terms of our military. But we no longer have economic power to go with it. Other superpowers (Britain most recently) have gone down that road, and lost their superpower status as a result.
That some people look at a problem and see opportunity is a cliche, but is true, nonetheless.
the Italians have a saying: Chi va piano va sano, e va lontano. It means "he who walks softly walks safely, and walks a long way."
When the government picks winners or losers in the economic market place, its record makes it very likely it will be betting on the wrong horse. You want Obama to make choices based on political rather than economic guidelines. Doing so of course is the norm in our government (witness the pushing of home ownership regardless of ability to actually sustain the payments for an idea) and though I decry it, I'm resigned to it happening.
To create jobs in industries that cannot survive without massive subsidies is worse than simply mailing checks to people to stay home. Bush did something akin to this with the steel industry. He raised tariffs on foreign steel to protect a 100K or so jobs, estimates of the cost to consumers was in the hundreds of millions in extra costs. It would have been cheaper to send those steel guys checks to stay home than what we ended up doing. That is now what we are proposing to do, heavily subsidize alternate energy companies to make inefficient products. At a time of decreasing government revenues, adding to the deficit is the opposite of what he has promised the American people.
BEIJING, China (CNN) — China announced plans to inject 4 trillion yuan ($570 billion) into its economy to offset declines in industry and export growth, state-run media reported Monday.
The economic stimulus plan includes loosening of credit restrictions, tax cuts and a massive infrastructure spending program, according to China’s Xinhua news agency.
The 4 trillion yuan will be spent over the next to years to finance several areas, including low-income housing, technological innovation and rebuilding from several disasters — namely the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan province that killed nearly 70,000 people.
OF COURSE China is better off financially than we are, so they can better afford this. That's because they have all our money.
Notice the Chinese are lowering taxes, a normal thing to do in tough times. Why aren't we looking at that rather than targeted consumer cuts for "95%" of Americans, including the 40 odd percent who don't pay Federal income taxes and raising them on the "5%". No plans to cut saving taxes or dividends or corporate taxes either like the Chinese. Loosening credit restrictions is the main reason we had/have a credit crisis, too much loaned at to bad risks-both business and consumer. China has a class of people in the hundreds of millions that we don't have in this land, dirt poor/uneducated peasants. They have to buy them off with housing and goodies or face civil unrest. That factor is not something needing consideration in this country.
Rhetoric aside, the Chinese are selling a lot to the whole world and that because again, they sell cheaper than others. I do wonder what 4 trillion yuan is in US dollars tho..