Keeping the Climate Stable
with Ecological Hosting
joabbess.com is a solar-powered, wind-powered web log about Climate Change, Energy, Technology and Policy, web hosted by Electric Jamie. -
Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway
Posted on August 2nd, 2010 No commentsNaomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway recommend that grassroots Internet writers focus on Climate Change Policy, in this Climate Science Watch interview shot at Netroots Nation 2010.
The subject of government policies to deal with Climate Change borders on the excessively dull – which is why most Internet web loggers (or “bloggers”) don’t want to touch Policy even with a full HazMat suit on.
It’s the kiss-of-interest-death to try to open up discussions on Carbon Taxation, Cap-and-Trade, Cap-and-Share, Cap-and-Dividend, Cap-and-Giveaway, Contraction & Convergence, Kyoto2, Border Tax Adjustments, Clean Development credits, Carbon Intensity and the like.
Only really seriously geeky, mildly obsessive people really want to think about the Big Picture. And many of us get stuck in a corner of unworkable aspiration, where we know something has to change, we fix on just a snippet of the giant problem, and then we find we cannot communicate it well enough for others to understand.
For example – very public insistence that the Coal-burning power generation industry has got to cease trading doesn’t make it happen, despite excellent reasoning and even entire Climate Camps of resistance and protest amongst the activist community.
This is probably because (a) most people don’t understand how banning Coal fits into the bigger Carbon picture, (b) most people don’t know how to go about asking the right people to ban Coal and (c) most of the Coal-burning industry don’t want people to look into their business too deeply so they have invested lots of money in public attitude smokescreens. No, it’s not a “conspiracy”. It’s a documented public relations exercise. Just ask Naomi and Erik.
Behaviour Changeling, Big Picture, Carbon Commodities, Carbon Rationing, Climate Change, Contraction & Convergence, Corporate Pressure, Cost Effective, Delay and Deny, Divide & Rule, Emissions Impossible, Energy Revival, Global Warming, Growth Paradigm, Low Carbon Life, Peak Energy, Pet Peeves, Political Nightmare, Protest & Survive, Public Relations, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Resource, Science Rules, Social Change, Solar Sunrise, Vain Hope, Voluntary Behaviour Change, Wind of Fortune Aubrey Meyer, C & C, C&C, Cap, Cap and Dividend, Cap and Giveaway, Cap and Share, Cap and Trade, Carbon Cap, Carbon Dividend, Carbon Fee, Carbon Tax, Carbon Taxation, Climate Change, Climate Change Policy, Contraction and Convergence, Erik Conway, Erik M. Conway, GCI, Global Commons Institute, James Hansen, Jim Hansen, Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes, Pew Center, policy, The Merchantess of Doubt, The Merchants of Doubt, The Merchants of Merchants of Doubt -
The Price of Carbon
Posted on April 30th, 2010 3 commentsThe Price of Carbon
by Jo Abbess
20 April 20101. Introduction
Policy strategy for controlling risky excess atmospheric greenhouse gas (Gowdy, 2008, Sect. 4; McKibben, 2007, Ch. 1, pp. 19-20; Solomon et al., 2009; Tickell, 2008, Ch. 6, pp. 205-208) mostly derives from the notion that carbon dioxide emissions should be charged for, in order to prevent future emissions; similar to treatment for environmental pollutants (Giddens, 2009, Ch. 6, pp. 149-155; Gore, 2009, Ch. 15 “The True Cost of Carbon”; Pigou, 1932; Tickell, 2008, Ch.4, Box 4.1, pp. 112-116). Underscoring this idea is the evidence that fines, taxes and fees modify behaviour, reigning in the marginal social cost of “externalities” through financial disincentive (Baumol, 1972; Sandmo, 2009; Tol, 2008). However this approach may not enable the high-value, long-term investment required for decarbonisation, which needs adjustments to the economy at scale (CAT, 2010; Hepburn and Stern, 2008, pp. 39-40, Sect. (ii) “The Consequences of Non-marginality”; MacKay, 2008, Ch. 19; Tickell, 2008, Ch. 2, pp. 40-41). Read the rest of this entry »
Big Picture, Carbon Capture, Carbon Commodities, Carbon Rationing, China Syndrome, Climate Change, Contraction & Convergence, Cost Effective, Emissions Impossible, Energy Revival, Growth Paradigm, Low Carbon Life, Nuclear Nuisance, Nuclear Shambles, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Pet Peeves, Political Nightmare, Regulatory Ultimatum, Renewable Resource, Social Change, Technological Sideshow, Unutterably Useless, Utter Futility, Vain Hope, Voluntary Behaviour Change, Wind of Fortune, Zero Net C&C, Cap & Trade, Cap and Dividend, Cap and Share, Cap and Trade, Carbon Price, Carbon Pricing, Carbon Taxation, Classical Economic Theory, Classical Economics, Climate Change, coal, Contraction & Convergence, Contraction and Convergence, economics, economists, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Gas, Global Warming, Natural Gas, Neoliberal Economics, Oil, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Energy, The Price of Carbon -
Cap and Trade is Going Down
Posted on March 31st, 2010 No commentsCap and Trade is….going….down. And that’s probably a good thing :-
Big Picture, Carbon Commodities, Climate Change, Unutterably Useless, Vain Hope Cap and Trade, Carbon Control, Carbon Dioxide Market, Carbon Dioxide Marketing, Carbon Dioxide Marketing Scam, Carbon Markets, Carbon Pricing, Carbon Trading, Carp and Tirade, Climate Change, Financial Services, Global Warming, Privatisation of the Atmosphere, Privatising the Air, Virtual Commodities, Virtual Negative-Value Commodities -
Sidetracked
Posted on February 22nd, 2010 No commentsSidetracked
by Jo Abbess
19 February 2010A number of prevalent ideological frameworks employed for constructing policy to address Global Warming appear to have faulty foundational analysis and are therefore ineffective in addressing Carbon Dioxide Emissions. Politically implementable options that could lead to effective action to combat Climate Change are being kicked into the long grass at every turn, in policy, in investment and in society.
Reasonable proposals are being made over-complex to implement, or delayed by every means possible. The dominant memes of economics hinder good decision-making; for example, not all natural capital can be valued as a commodity, and yet Carbon markets and Carbon tax regimes are the most ubiquitous proposals.
The cheapest options for efficiency are overlooked for subsidy-attracting large-scale projects; and wholescale sustainability approaches are being discarded in favour of focus on obsessional marginal issues such as recycling.
The imperative to deliberately orient investment towards Low Carbon energy is lost in the haze of planning based on non-solutions such as the renaissance of Nuclear Power and Carbon Capture and Storage in the pursuit of so-called “Clean” Coal.
-
Banking on China
Posted on June 19th, 2009 No commentsThe Circle Line can get a bit stifling in the evening. Not as much as the Central Line, which is often only a few tiers from the fires of Hell itself, but the Circle Line is often clammy in Summer, long after the Rush Hour home. Global Warming ? Global Steamy Clammy Heat !
So, I’m trying to maintain my personal cool and composure on the London Underground by not moving very much and reading a self-styled “pamphlet” I acquired at the 5th June 2009 conference “The politics of climate change : from economic crisis to business revolution”.
Read the rest of this entry » -
Money Can’t Buy You Carbon Control
Posted on March 20th, 2009 No commentsIn all the flurry of debate about how to control Carbon Emissions, it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of the goal : Carbon Control.
If we are to “keep our eyes on the prize”, we really need to check how we’re doing and where we are from time to time.
It’s no good submitting to the Uncertainty Principle.
If controlling Carbon is absolutely essential, we can’t put our efforts into policies that have fuzzy outcomes.
Read the rest of this entry »Contraction & Convergence, Cost Effective 350.org, C&C, Cap and Dividend, Cap and Share, Cap and Trade, Carbon Budget, Carbon Control, Carbon Price, Carbon Rationing, Carbon Tax, Carbon Trading, Climate Change, Contraction & Convergence, Copenhagen, Economy, Energy, Kyoto2, resource limits, scary science, truth yelling
Copyright | Powered by WordPress