Environmental Outlook: Strategies For Limiting Carbon Emissions
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-01-08/environmental-outlook-strategies-limiting-carbon-emissions
Over the past century, average global temperatures have increased by 1.3 degrees. Higher temperatures have been linked to rising carbon emissions. Scientists warn of devastating effects if the earth warms by another two degrees. As Washington faces another debt showdown, support is rising for a carbon tax as a free-market solution to climate change. And California’s new law puts a cap on carbon emissions. But opponents argue these policies kill jobs and burden low-income consumers. For this month’s Environmental Outlook: the economics and politics of reducing carbon emissions.
Guests
Coral Davenport
energy and environment correspondent for National Journal.
Elizabeth Kolbert
staff writer for The New Yorker and author of "Field Notes on a Catastrophe."
Jeff Keuter
president of The George C. Marshall Institute.
Comments
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Jeff, I'm glad to finally hear someone talk about the facts head to head over global warming. Global warming does occur, but how can the human impact compare to the natural C02 release by Volcanoes, the ocean, or even any other natural occurrence over the course of millions of years?
The earth is more sustainable than people understand or give credit for.
I am for renewable sustainable energy, but not for the wrong reasons or at the expense of hurting those who already struggle to afford resources
Jeff, I'm glad to finally hear someone talk about the facts head to head over global warming. Global warming does occur, but how can the human impact compare to the natural C02 release by Volcanoes, the ocean, or even any other natural occurrence over the course of millions of years?
The earth is more sustainable than people understand or give credit for.
I am for renewable sustainable energy, but not for the wrong reasons or at the expense of hurting those who already struggle to afford resources
Jeff, I'm glad to finally hear someone talk about the facts head to head over global warming. Global warming does occur, but how can the human impact compare to the natural C02 release by Volcanoes, the ocean, or even any other natural occurrence over the course of millions of years?
The earth is more sustainable than people understand or give credit for.
I am for renewable sustainable energy, but not for the wrong reasons or at the expense of hurting those who already struggle to afford resources
Jeff, I'm glad to finally hear someone talk about the facts head to head over global warming. Global warming does occur, but how can the human impact compare to the natural C02 release by Volcanoes, the ocean, or even any other natural occurrence over the course of millions of years?
The earth is more sustainable than people understand or give credit for.
I am for renewable sustainable energy, but not for the wrong reasons or at the expense of hurting those who already struggle to afford resources
Jeff, I'm glad to finally hear someone talk about the facts head to head over global warming. Global warming does occur, but how can the human impact compare to the natural C02 release by Volcanoes, the ocean, or even any other natural occurrence over the course of millions of years?
The earth is more sustainable than people understand or give credit for.
I am for renewable sustainable energy, but not for the wrong reasons or at the expense of hurting those who already struggle to afford resources
Sorry for all the multiple responses, Internet kept erroring out and wouldn't show the post
May have some thing to do with why there were zero comments on first show.
Or maybe DR got tired of seeing so many points posted unrelated to the show?
Anyway at least you got your "point" across.
Definitely some tech difficulties going on because a point I made on gun debate disappeared into ether.
We can afford sustainable energy without hurting those who struggle to afford resources. And we must, because humans have given the natural carbon cycle a good hard kick, that's warming the planet on a time scale that matters to people: not millions of years, but the coming decades. http://youtu.be/85TQHzS88L4
Carbon tax is a good idea. It would be easy to start with a low rate and even if that wasn't very effective, at least it wouldn't put much drag on the economy until the rate was increased. There was some talk on the show that it could be hard to set the right rate for a carbon tax. If it were too low it wouldn't effect carbon emission, while if it were too high it would slow the economy too much, but a perfect rate would not have to be set at first. The rate would most likely be fairly low at first. Maybe it wouldn't be high enough to effect carbon emission, but at least it wouldn't do much harm to the economy. The rate could be ramped up later as droughts and problems caused by global warming become more evident. Eventually, the political climate is likely to evolve more in favor of solutions like a carbon tax as global warming gets worse. Then the mechanism is in place and the tax could be increased.
Another thought. No one mentioned a possible positive effect of a carbon tax on fuel prices. When demand for fossil fuel goes down, price often goes down as well. Soft prices for fossil fuels may, at least partially, offset the added cost created by the tax. The tax could discourage consumption, but in the past when we find consumption going down, the price of the fuel starts to drop as well. Supply and demand.
Good topic and good show.
(In response to TexasPete) Please read up on the subject. You are simply misinformed.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/faqs.html
In response to gmg
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and anyone can find a website biased toward their cause.
Read http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/07/17/that-scientific-global-...
Keep an open mind and don't believe everything on the Internet. Global warming is big business....
As usual, I was not able to listen to this broadcast when it occurred, and I hope the comments I have may still be pertinent and perhaps useful in future discussions.
First, I like the idea of a carbon tax. However, would it be more likely to succeed if we had strong election reform in place first? The influence of those who would be most inconvenienced by this tax would then be on an equal footing with the ordinary citizens of this nation.
Second, once the carbon tax is in place, the inconvenienced extraction and energy companies could apply for grants to pay for research for development of alternatives. Do we remember the heyday of research and development following WWII that put us into a lifestyle that led us to our current situation? And I would like to see this go beyond the obvious – how about development of Hydrogen from algae, biogas (that CO2 would be “recycled”), figuring out how to mimic plants’ use photosynthesis for better, greener solar power, etc.
Also, the NSF and AAAS could be partners with the extraction/energy industries instead of antagonists.
Third, while I am not a proponent of GMO foods for its current applications, some work could be done to find why rice needs to grow in water, leading to methane production, and modify the plants to avoid methane production. In fact, for all of our grain crops, if we could find out which genes are needed for the biomechanism for legumes to live with Rhizobium bacteria, reducing their dependence on nitrogen fertilizers, and put them into these crops, we could be reducing other greenhouse gases, fertilizer-related pollution, and some of the energy needed for farming!
I’d love to hear of some response.
And would you consider having a discussion such as you had today with an auditorium full of STEM-track high school students to ask the questions?
Thank you.
I am disappointed NPR chose to include a climate science denier in this discussion. Jeff/George C Marshall Institute and thereby NPR, continues to forward the misinformation that has served to confuse the public and undermine the science of human-caused climate change and the very real problems it is causing.
We need to be BEYOND that "debate", and i believe NPR should be more responsible in choosing its "experts."
Great comments, Debbie. Regardless of one's belief on climate change or global warming, we need to pull back on human loading of the environment. How could there not be effect? Your ideas are cross-discipline--wish we could get everyone--including high school students-- to throw out ideas and join in debate with our scientists to find solutions. I'm sure you're a great educator.
A small group of us is working on how to pull nutrients and carbon out of waterways. The CO2 absorption, and growing acidity (which affects shell-producing organisms), of our oceans is not very much talked about but is huge in terms of impact. All of these CO2 issues are important. Really no time to waste in finding solutions. Thanks for your comment.