See here.Gore just thanked Rep. Rick Boucher. "There is a sense of hope...that this United States Congress will rise to the occasion [on climate change]." We face a "true planetary emergency." Population is stabilizing, but it's quadrupled in the last century. Side effects of what we're doing sometimes does unintended harm. We've adopted a short-term way of thinking different from our grandparents. Global warming is the biggest market failure in history. "This short-term focus is part of the problem that we call the climate crisis." There are times, rare though they be, when a relatively small group is called upon to make decisions and show courage...because what they do will shape the prospects for all future generations. This is one of those times.
Greatest generation - "you knew it took vision and a 50-year timeframe." "It's time that we steered by the stars and not the lights of every passing ship." "What we're facing now is a crisis that is by far the most serious we've ever faced, and the way we're gonna solve it is by asking you on both sides of the aisle to do what some people have...begun to fear that we don't have the capacity to do anymore. I know they're wrong." "I came here today...with some messages to the Congress...from 516,000 people." "There are lots of Americans who feel as strongly as I do." This is building...in both parties. Faith, evangelical communities, business leaders, leading CEO's. "These are not normal times." "I promise you a day will come when our children and grandchildren will look back and ask...what in God's name were they doing, didn't they see the evidence...what was wrong with them, were they too blinded, numb...to take a deep breath and look at the reality of what we're facing...did they think all the scientists were wrong... Or, they'll ask another question...how did they find the uncommon moral courage to rise above politics and redeem the promise of American democracy and do what some said was impossible...do what's right."
New evidence just in the last few months...this may be even worse than has been described. New studies in Science Magazine...Arctic ice cap melting more rapidly than had been predicted...could completely disappear in summertime in as little as 34 years. "This problem is burning a whole at the top of the world in the ice over...if it goes, it won't come back on any timescale relevant to the human species." Glacial earthquakes...32 this past year. Billions of tons of frozen methane in tundra areas, melting proceeding more quickly than anyone predicted...methane's much more powerful than C02. "We need to turn the thermostat back down before that melts." Fires, earlier spring, decreased precipitation available, drier soils, drier vegetation. Australia's having a 1,000 year drought. "We do not have time play around with this...politics as usual"
What we need to do:
1) We need to immediately freeze C02 emissions in USA, then begin program to reduce emissions 90% by 2050.
2) Start using the tax code to reduce taxes on employment and production and make up the difference with pollution taxes, principally C02. Right now, we're discouraging work and encouraging destruction of planet. It would make us more competitive, discourage pollution, encourage work. Carbon pollution is not presently priced into the marketplace; it's considered an "externality." Revenue-neutral tax shift.
3) A portion of those revenues must be earmarked for those in lower income groups who will have a more difficult time making this transition.
4) We need to be part of a strong global treaty. "I fully understand that Kyoto as a brand has been demonized." We should work towards de facto compliance with Kyoto. We ought to move forward the starting date of the next treaty from 2012 to 2010. Next President can use political chits not just trying to fight a rearguard action but to work towards...all-out sprint to negotiate a new and tougher treaty. Need a creative way to bring in China, India, developing nations.
5) This Congress should enact a moratorium on the construction of any new coal-fired power plants that is not compatible with carbon capture and sequestration. All-out push to develop carbon capture and sequestration.
6) This Congress should develop an electra-net, a smart grid. We ought to allow homeowners and small businesspeople to put up photovoltaics, small windmills and allow them to sell that electricity into the grid...
7) Raise the CAFE standards.
8) Set a date for ban on old, inefficient incandescent light bulbs. People will adjust.
9) Buildings: carbon neutral mortgage association ("Connie Mae"). All of the things we need to do to cut carbon emissions add to selling price of house but don't pay for themselves for several years. We ought to set up a carbon-neutral mortgage assocation...
10) SEC should require disclosure of carbon emissions. It's a material risk. Investors need to know.
Unprecedented nature of the challenge. Crisis: danger AND opportunity. This is the most dangerous crisis we've ever faced, also the greatest opportunity. There are lots of problems...rise to the challenge of global warmingm, find a capacity we didn't know we had and give us the ability solve other problems. I'm going to be out there stirring up support for you to do the right thing as you undertake this historic challenge.
This is not going away, either the problem itself or the efforts to solve it. Amory Lovins - instead of putting a minus sign in front of expenditures to solve this crisis, put a plus sign in the sense that this will save you money and help the economy. Zero-carbon buildings in Sweden...more than pays for itself. We can improve our economy's productivity and performance. Pollution is waste...you've got to buy raw materials in order to make pollution; use raw materials more efficiently, you'll save money. Cost to our economy of NOT solving this crisis would be devastating.
Joe Barton (R-Big Texas Oil) expresses skepticism, says temperature drives C02, not vice versa. "Your ideas aren't all bad." Gee, ain't that sweet? Opposes a carbon tax or cap on carbon while China is adding coal-fired plants. Claims cap-and-trade isn't working in Europe. Opposes freeze on C02 emissions. Blah, blah, blah. So who's going to run against this guy?
Gore responds. There is a scientific consensus on this issue and is calling on you to act. "The debate on global warming is over." It's a stronger consenus on just about anything except for gravity. When C02 goes up, temperature goes up. "The planet has a fever."
Rick Boucher now speaking. Currently evaluating alternatives. Cap and trade for sulphur emission worked out well.
[Note: I've gotta go. Please feel free to use this as an open thread on Gore's testimony.]
16 years on the pathway back to American Greatness!!!!
Candidates shold avoid me like the plague.
Betta gedda bucket.
Don't you love you these guys keep trying to slide what's considered extreme or extremism further and further to the right. Pretty soon, they'll claim Bush is a liberal. Good grief.
PS Message to Inhofe: Single studies don't prove squat. But a preponderance of evidence means something.
Joe Barton (R-Big Texas Oil) expresses skepticism, says temperature drives C02, not vice versa. "Your ideas aren't all bad." Gee, ain't that sweet? Opposes a carbon tax or cap on carbon while China is adding coal-fired plants. Claims cap-and-trade isn't working in Europe. Opposes freeze on C02 emissions. Blah, blah, blah. So who's going to run against this guy?
As someone who has taken this piece of work on, it is the sort intra-urban, exurban, rural district that makes it extremely difficult to dislodge the bugger. I improved the margins from the 40s to the 30s, recruited a candidate that brought him from the 30s to the 20s, but Barton still has to slip below that 60% threshold before the DCCC starts to consider funneling money into the district.
That being said, there is more than one way dislodge him. And as someone that knows how truly contemptible he is (he was a character witness for a man who raped a homeless young black woman at gunpoint), you can rest assured that I want him sent off to early retirement.
What on earth? Why would even someone as heinous and ignorant as Joe Barton do that?!? Wow.
"My views are very consistent with the Republican Party platform at the state and federal level," said Barton, who has introduced legislation on issues ranging from financial privacy to medical devices. He's known for loyalty to his party and allies. When the son of a staff member stood trial this past May on charges of stalking, kidnapping, and rape, Barton went down to Waxahachie to testify as a character witness. According to the Associated Press, Barton said he had no objection to the staffer in his campaign office using the fax machine there to send paperwork to his son's defense attorney. (Joseph Wesley Bouldin eventually pleaded guilty to first-degree aggravated sexual assault in exchange for dropping the other charges and received a 5-year prison sentence.)
:)
As it stands now, the cheapest, the cleanest, and the most readily available source of electricity, all which is quicker to implement AND which has the least amount of impact on the environment and private property, is none other than ENERGY EFFICIENCY & CONSERVATION (EEC) measures.
US RPS OF 15% WOULD REDUCE ENERGY PRICES BUT NOT GHG EMMISSIONS
http://www.platts.co...