G-8 Failure Reflects US Failure on Climate Change: Hansen advocates carbon fee-and-dividend

[Karmadillo]

Hansen's analogy to McNamara and Vietnam is interesting. The steps we're taking (and not taking) are going to have huge consequences in the not too distant future. Obama is facing a lot of problems and deciding what to focus on is never easy, but this is one area where I wish he was a lot more out front in educating the American people. It's pretty clear he can't rely on the corporate media to do the heavy lifting.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/10-8

G-8 Failure Reflects US Failure on Climate Change
by James Hansen

It didn't take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama's agenda. As the president was arriving in Italy for his first Group of Eight summit, the New York Times was reporting that efforts to close ranks on global warming between the G-8 and the emerging economies had already tanked:

The world's major industrial nations and emerging powers failed to agree Wednesday on significant cuts in heat-trapping gases by 2050, unraveling an effort to build a global consensus to fight climate change, according to people following the talks.

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With a workable climate bill in his pocket, President Obama might have been able to begin building that global consensus in Italy. Instead, it looks as if the delegates from other nations may have done what 219 U.S. House members who voted up Waxman-Markey last month did not: critically read the 1,400-page American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 and deduce that it's no more fit to rescue our climate than a V-2 rocket was to land a man on the moon.

<edit>

The essential step, then, is to phase out coal emissions over the next two decades. And to declare off limits artificial high-carbon fuels such as tar sands and shale while moving to phase out dependence on conventional petroleum as well.

This requires nothing less than an energy revolution based on efficiency and carbon-free energy sources. Alas, we won't get there with the Waxman-Markey bill, a monstrous absurdity hatched in Washington after energetic insemination by special interests.

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Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who died this week, suffered for 40 years -- as did our country -- from his failure to turn back from a failed policy. As grave as the blunders of the Vietnam War were, the consequences of a failed climate policy will be more severe by orders of magnitude.

more...

[JDPriestly]

1. Be patient. Remember, the science that Bush bequeathed to Obama

was bad. I mean that Bush had placed a lot of people in high places who made sure that our government's research on environmental issues was unreliable and just plain bad in some cases. A lot of basic work has to be done. That takes time. But, it is being done.

Obama cannot just put a vague policy in place on climate issues. He has to have facts and numbers. I have reason to believe that his administration is trying to get better data, better facts, a better picture of just what needs to be done. Yes, you will say, the information is out there. But the administration's policy has to be more concrete than that. First, they have to throw out the trash left by the Bush administration, and then they have to get information based on the solid research (of which there is an overwhelming amount) and decide what precise policies they will propose. It's a big job. We lost eight years. We wasted eight years.

[Karmadillo]

3. I hope you're right. I worry that adoption of cap and trade is going to lock us in

to a less than adequate approach. The debate so far is generating no real sense of the emergency among the American people. If some of what I've read is true, this is going to be an issue of time and tide not waiting rather than one of patience.

[slipslidingaway]

2. knr nt