She talks about the 'serious cuts' that America is making, countering it with the increase being allowed by China and India. There is one issue here the cuts that Obama is making is only going to take the US down 3% on 1990 levels, which is actually behind where most of the rest of the developed world already is beyond. The thing is that America wasn't allowed to increase it carbon emissions the way that it did under Bush and republican lead houses that batted away attempts by Clinton to bring about a change. If anything the serious cuts from America are long overdue and too little at this time.
She also goes on to say that carrying out the proposed cuts will put America at an economic and competitive disadvantage. Well she is clearly ignoring the economic and competitive advantage that the USA has benefited from by ignoring the directives of Kyoto while others of us have pushed for reductions. Indeed instead of job losses it has seen more inventiveness and jobs moving in other directions. Indeed when I was studying environmental economics 20 years ago at University it was of the considerations that we addressed. There where several major difference that had to be made.
- The things that were produced
- What they were produced from (i.e. recycling rather than finite raw material)
- How we went about producing them
- How the workers environment changed to meet the challenge (this was mainly the home working model)
So if twenty years ago we were aware of the issue what happened in East Anglia after that is one thing that will have no impact. As someone who isn't a johnny come lately to the argument but spent a good part of my University years studying this and the economic impacts and been a keen follower of developments since I can say that Sarah once again has shown her ignorance of the facts.
However, she does speak a few lines of sense in her Comment is Free piece. One of the them is:
"Our representatives in Copenhagen should remember that good environmental
policymaking is about weighing real-world costs and benefits."
She is right. But from ready her article she makes the very basic economic mistake in thinking that all costs and benefits are measured in GDP. In the real world our social, environmental and sustainability costs and benefits are all to be taken into consideration. If we didn't we'd all be working 25/7/365 because the financial costs are of such a great boon.
4 comments:
Glad you acknowledge that Kyoto has indeed had a serious economic cost. For example the Teeside stel closures are directly because of this eco-fascism. That is why every single LibDem candidate who is not wholly corrupt has publicly said how pleased they are about it.
I thought that in previous discussion here you had been unable to produce any evidence that catastrophic warming is happening. Since we also now know that it is a total & deliberate government funded fraud to promote your sort of fascism perhaps you could say what factors lie on the alarmist side of the scales to match the impoverishment & government totalitarianism you are creating? Or is totalitarianism one of the matching benefits?
I am astonished at just how non-sensical the only comment left to your intelligent article is...I just have to write in to say I agree with you. I too, having studied a political economy master's, am very aware of just how little the general American public is aware of economics for one thing, and let alone the fact that changing now to a greener economy like other counntries have done, would be to their economic advantage- not disadvantage. The only ones the status-quo keeps wealthy are those who benefit from GDP- which is not distributed among the people. I am continually astonished by the lack of understanding of how currency works, and what markers like 'GDP' really means to one's everyday life. What Americans have been convinced is that if multinational corporations keep making millions and billions of dollars (GDP) and keep setting the political agenda, that somehow this is good for the economy and their personal welfare. Scary actually, just how unaware of what path people who advacate this are going, when clearly, and there are many examples today of economies that have gone green- in doing ensuring a greater distribution of wealth through the creation of jobs, and the added bonus of not being reliant on big box stores for all of life's necessities, but rather being more self-reliant. This would also have the effect of bringing back some uniqueness to American towns and cities (rather than all of them looking the same with the same chains). It would also redistribute power. I can't believe that average American citizens turn a blind eye, never speaking about one of the most important problems being that major corps sit in office making laws that benefit their profit making ability, over the small-medium size firms. Sarah Palin, with her stated position on the economy is only more of the same,...she's not a new fresh anything- in fact, she would have oil companies continue profiting while the American future gets dimmer and dimmer in the light of what has been proving itself in many other places of the world as being the direction to go- yet, she's not in for change and taking the money out of the hands of those who expropriate all of our resources- no, she'd like to ensure their continued monopoly. Wow, the American's know very little about politics and economy, and how these things inter-relate.
correction- the general American public is 'unaware' of economics
It seems Stellarquest you are too - "The only ones the status-quo keeps wealthy are those who benefit from GDP"
And the only plants that grow better with CO2 are those that are made of carbon.
Your programme of state control of everything to prevent human innovation producing wealth will doubtless appeal to many calling themselves "Liberal Democrats".
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