The US Climate Change Bill

Many are calling this Climate Change Bill a monumental piece of legislation that will change America for ever. Surely it puts the US on a path of regulating CO2 emissions from large industries in America, but there is one very large flaw. As it is negotiated currently, 85% of the permits, which is a certificate saying you can pollute x amount, are being given to companies for free. The argument is that if companies had to all-of-a-sudden start paying for the damage they are doing to our environment and society they could not make as much profit as they currently do. That argument has some validacy, but the problem is that by giving away 85% of the permits for free we are giving companies money for being large pollutors. The money generated from selling permits was going to help makeup for the large US deficit that so many people are worried about.

Arguing that giving permtis for free will allow companies to keep their prices low and this will benefit the consumer is false because the consumer is also the taxpayer that is giving these permits for free. It is all just pushing around money and if Americans weren't so fear ridden when they heard the word tax we could just use a simple tax scheme to tax large emitters of CO2, instead of the complex cap and trade system that takes a permit trading bank, regulators for the market and bank, and regulators that make sure that claims of permanent reductions in emissions are honest.

The Gaurdian covers this story

As well as the Christian Science Monitor

And the economist seems to be the only one that understands what is going on, but maybe that is because they know more about economics

For all of the possible environmental catastrophies that we forsee due to our resource use, if technology advances fast enough many of our problems will dissapear into the past. Australian researchers figured out how to put 10 terabytes onto a single cd, that is 2,000 times the space that a DVD currently holds

The Russians are not doing so bad during this downturn because of their natural gas and oil stock that they sell to Europe. Where will Russia be in 50 years when they have sold off most of their oil and gas reserves and have made no grand effort to adapt to a post fossil fuel dependent world?, if we get there.

12/26/08: Oil prices, Oil prices, Oil prices

I have been writing a lot about the price of oil, but only because not enough is being done to protect the health and wealth of humans and the environment. Since not enough is being proactively done we have to wait for the markets to signal investment in alternative energies. What economists are really trying to say in this scenario is that as long as oil is cheaper than wind or solar power there will always be large numbers of humans that will accept the cost to themselves and their environment for prices to be lower in the current moment.

This is an article from the "christian science monitor" commenting on how great it is that oil prices are low and expected to be low in the next year.

These two articles from "business week" are about decreased investment in a sustainable economy because of low oil prices, and this one is about Obama trying to do something governmentally about a market that is not signaling the long term costs and supplies of energy sources.