Wall Made of Coal?

The weekend before Christmas is the last chance to get preparations done for the holiday.

Growing up in New York it usually meant a trip into Manhattan, maybe to Radio City (when it showed movies) with the smell of chestnuts and pretzels in the air, busy shoppers everywhere, and old jack frost nipping at your nose.

I remember a few trips to the Santa at Macy's who we knew was the real one based on the movie.

It was a magical time with a feeling of joy and wonder for the young people and maybe not as carefree for the older folks, but still they strived to make it a wonderful time for their families.

We knew the story about scrooge, but even he got the Christmas spirit at the end.

I'm sure it was very similar everywhere,

This year of course we have our very own scrooge putting coal in everyone's stocking, or at least trying to.

Lets make one thing clear, the wall does not mean border security.

A few poor immigrants crossing the border illegally is not much of a threat to this country.

Plus, a wall won't stop them.

This rhetoric about how illegal immigration is hurting this country is simply that, rhetoric.

It impacts almost no one in any significant way.

It certainly isn't worth shutting down the Government for Christmas.

It will create a lot of uncertainty for those Government workers who have nothing to do with the issue.

Its not going to get him a wall and most of us don't want to spend money on it.

Its probably self destructive for him and his party, but it is causing human anguish and suffering too.

He needs to grow up and realize you don't always get what you want.

Hot Tomorrows

I gather some people still don't accept the scientific evidence about climate change or don't think human activities play a part.

The evidence is really beyond reasonable or any doubt so I think that is simply wishful thinking.

Either way why would you not want to stop the abuse we impose on nature every day?

It shouldn't be a political issue, although it has been turned into one.

The main opposition comes from those whose profits are related to polluting the earth and who don't want to cut into profits to stop.

This is similar to the cigarette manufacturers who argued their product wasn't dangerous just to make some extra money.

They mostly got away with it and the victims who suffer from or have died from lung cancer and other ailments are the victims.

In this case we are all going to be the victims of the changing climate with admittedly varying results.

Certainly our coastal communities should be the most concerned but heat waves, fires and droughts might impact many areas as the temperature keeps rising.

We shouldn't be rolling back regulations, we should push harder for clean air and a better tomorrow.

We need forward looking leadership, not ones trying to switch into reverse.

Climate bill?

The House today narrowly passed the Climate Bill. This bill is basically an attempt to reduce environmental pollution by putting a cap on hot house gas emissions and taxing anyone who exceeds the limits. Ultimately any costs will be passed on the the American taxpayer although it includes some provisions designed to help lo income consumers.

There is tremendous opposition to this bill and its chances in the Senate are far from certain. The question has to be whether the cost to reduce carbon emissions is less that the cost of buying carbon credits. Effectively, if you can reduce your emissions, you get a cap credit that you can sell. Like everything else some will benefit and some won't. It also raises the question as to whether it will have a net impact of more jobs or less jobs. As constituted it seems to do a number of things that I don't think are beneficial for the economy.

First, it penalizes coal, one of our greatest resources. Now I understand that we would like to reduce hot house gas emissions and coal is potentially the worst offender, but I think the legislation should have been drafted to help reduce reliance on foreign oil to a greater extent. If you really would like a cleaner energy future, the best way to go would be to tax foreign oil and use that money to subsidize conversion of electric plants to natural gas, and using coal to produce synthetic oil. Ultimately we do need to move to renewable energy and the policies should be geared that way, but it is pretty unlikely that wind and solar will ever be at a stage where they do not need a backup generating capacity for, well, cloudy or calm days.

Second, it has a ton of concessions designed to win votes that twist the bill into a bit of a political nightmare. Some of these aren't even fully disclosed right now. All bills like this have compromises but the desire to pass this was so intense and its chances so slim that the concessions reached epic proportions.

It is a sad thing in this country that we can't achieve a meeting of the minds on what seem fairly clear and common issues. The great majority of Americans would like to reduce environmental contamination and would like to reduce reliance on foreign oil. I don't have confidence that this bill does either of those things very well and is therefore flawed from the outset. However, instead of taking the time to craft a bill that accomplishes those two objectives, with a clear additional objective of creating a renewable energy growth industry in this country, politicians tie themselves up a belief that if they don't accomplish something right now, they may never be able to.

When some of our leading environmental groups oppose the bill, you have to believe it has real problems, lets hope it fails and we rethink the approach.