Recently in CO2 Taxes Category

Hard to imagine this won't impact the looming eventual (?) CO2 tax debate.

Interesting overview of Arctic temps here, and this video via the link.

MORE: From the comments, "Hard to believe that such scattered surface sources could be used to create an Arctic temperature average accurate enough to guide trillion dollar policies."

Investor's Business Daily:

Already 20,000 overnight hotel stays that had been reserved for the December United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen have been canceled. Either a lot of people are losing interest — or they're thinking it will just be too cold.

InsideEPA.com:

The House-passed climate cap-and-trade bill would prohibit EPA from using the PSD program to regulate GHGs, but Jackson has said that if Congress fails to pass a bill then EPA will use its air act authority to issue CO2 rules—though Jackson and other administration officials say their preference is for congressional action.

PublicIntergrity.org - "Agriculture, Higher Ed, Natural Gas, You Name It. Everyone’s Got a Lobbyist"

Numerous religious groups, from Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America , to the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, have been lobbying on the bill over the past year. In the second quarter, another advocacy group joined in: the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, concerned about possible subsidies to “faith-based” organizations for energy system retrofitting.

Because, you know, subsidizing the cost of double-pane windows in churches clearly establishes government religion.

Edmunds.com:

The current system of measuring a vehicle's efficiency by mpg creates an inaccurate perception about fuel consumption. Because as the mpg rating of a vehicle rises, it appears that it does so proportionately. What this means is if you were to trade in a car getting 12.5 mpg for one getting 25 mpg, it would obviously deliver fuel economy that was twice as good. But if you later traded that car getting 25 mpg for one getting 50 mpg, that exchange would not save you twice as much.

Here's why: Imagine three cars lined up side by side. They all drive 100 miles. Since each car has a different fuel economy rating, they each burn different amounts of gas to travel that same distance.

12.5 mpg = 8 gallons per 100 miles
25 mpg = 4 gallons per 100 miles
50 mpg = 2 gallons per 100 miles

Now look at how much gas is saved in each case. Over a 100-mile drive, the 25-mpg car saves 4 gallons over the 12.5-mpg car. But over the same distance, the 50-mpg car saves only 2 gallons over the 25-mpg car. Taken to the extreme, if there was such a thing as a commercially available 100-mpg car, it would only save 1 gallon of gas over the 50-mpg car.

What Does This Mean to You?
Once you understand the concept, it reveals two key points:

• Trading in a gas guzzler for a midsize sedan provides substantial savings.
• Trading in a midsize sedan for a high-mileage hybrid would hardly be worth the expense in fuel (especially when the taxes and related fees are considered).

The new system also reveals three related concepts that are largely unrecognized:

• Fuel-economy improvements from 12-20 mpg are significant.
• Once vehicles get over 25 mpg, the gains are much less dramatic.
• While extremely high-mileage hybrids provide eco bragging rights, they don't save much more gas than midsize sedans.

Here's a calculator if you're interested.

UPDATE: Honda trades mileage for "utility, affordability" and "fun" in the new Insight. Well sure. My '06 CIVIC still gets almost 38 on the highway and low 30's in town. Got it for about seven thousand less than a hybrid version, and it's a blast to drive. Environmentally-unfriendly batteries aren't required. Low emissions too.

Of course, if you really want to get a lot of mileage out of your Honda...

UPDATE: Cash for Clunkers could turn out to be one of the Obama Admin's most efficient ways to cut CO2 emissions and reduce fuel use if the goal is to get folks from the 12.5mpg to the 25mpg range. Hopefully they won't mess with that...

UPDATE/Bumped: "Hopefully they won't..." Dang. Spoke too soon.

UPDATE: Interesting backstory on the down side of destroying tens of thousands of perfectly reliable $4,500 cars. More here.

Climate McCarthyism at EPA and elsewhere. If scientific credibility is what you're after, this doesn't help. But given this is D.C. and a lot of dollars are at stake I s'pose it's inevitable.

American Insurance Group, even after a $180,000,000,000 taxpayer funded bailout, has dumped its climate change program. Treehugger says it was a risk/reward decision. Former AIG Environmental CEO says the program was annoying clients. Two former VPs say the program - including lobbying efforts - is dead, while a current AIG spokesman says climate related products and services are "still available." Treehugger observes:

It's kind of ironic, really--the company that had a hand in creating a global recession by making unsustainable investments was on the brink of making some of the most important, most sustainable investments of all.

Not ironic at all, my green friends. Important and sustainable rarely mean profitable when government is regulating the investments.

UPDATE: On the other hand, Wal-Mart (aka "not bailed out") is taking a stab at making green profitable:

What's interesting about the way Wal-Mart is going about this program, however, is that it hopes to provide an accurate rating on each project. I suspect lots of products that currently call themselves green won't fare so well when put to the Wal-Mart test.

Yep.

In climate change debate Sen. Evan Bayh is in the driver's seat.

Bayh is among a handful of Democrats who hail from industrial and coal states who are airing big concerns about the idea of creating a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions.

Read more here.

-D

Rasmussen:

As is often the case, there’s a telling division between the views of populist or Mainstream America and the Political Class. Sixty-seven percent (67%) of Mainstream Americans say they are not willing to pay higher taxes and utility costs to generate cleaner energy and fight global warming, compared to only 17% of the Political Class.

For 57% of the Political Class taking steps to stop global warming is more important than job creation, while 71% of Mainstream America believe job creation is more important.

A matter of who stands to gain most? Are the politicos just that much smarter? Whadda you all think?

Adding biologics to climate models. About time.

Arrigo says biogeochemical processes were not modeled because scientists thought that the physical and chemical processes relating to increasing greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide trapping heat in the atmosphere, ocean circulation transporting heat poleward, clouds reflecting sunlight and sea-ice melting, were more important. Such processes might be more important, but nobody knows for sure because no one has extensively modeled biogeochemistry in GCMs before.

Another reason for not including biogeochemical cycles in GCMs is the extra layer of complexity they add "in a model you didn't trust very much to begin with," said professor Stephen Schneider, referring to the uncertainty inherent in modeling future climates.

Two questions:

- Does this still mean the science is beyond dispute, delay is no longer an option, denial is no longer an acceptable response?

- If the IPCC et al find out biologics sequester enough CO2 to cancel out model-driven doomsday scenarios, can I keep my lightbulbs?