The Climate Change Elevator Pitch
| Thu Jul. 16, 2009 10:55 AM PDT
Sarah van Schagen wants to know how to talk to a cab driver about cap-and-trade. Matt Yglesias responds:
The main point has to do with car ownership. One good reason to take a cab somewhere is that you don’t own a car. Conversely, one good reason to drive somewhere is that having already bought a car you’ve incurred the bulk of the costs involved in driving anyway. So if you nudge people toward less car ownership, you’ll end up with fewer total vehicle miles traveled but more cab riding. It’s win-win. More generally, insofar as people live in denser patterns of settlements (which cap and trade certainly encourages) that’s more business for cab drivers.
Well....OK. But I'd take this question a little less literally: not "what's in it for cab drivers," but "how do you convince an ordinary schmoe that higher energy prices are worth paying"?
Which is, admittedly, a very tough question indeed. Unlike plain old regulation, in which the costs to consumers are hidden, cap-and-trade brings it right out in the open. The whole point (well, one of the points) of cap-and-trade is to raise the price of conventional energy so that people will use less of it. But who wants to volunteer for a higher electric bill or a more expensive fill up?
One tack, obviously, is to emphasize that your electric bill is likely to go up only modestly and that you'd get a rebate check that would cover some or all of the increase. Another would be to point out that some of the money will be used to subsidize cleaner energy sources, something that most people support. A third alternative is......
What? Let's face it: this is a hard sell. Global warming is a long-term problem that's hard to get people genuinely hot and bothered about. What's worse, self-interest is far and away the most potent political force there is, and when policies leave the realm of airy rhetoric and enter the realm of kitchen table reality it's pretty hard to persuade people to vote against their self-interest with only a fig leaf and some righteous wonkitude as cover.
So I dunno. Just keep plugging, I guess, with the understanding that there are a large number of people who won't ever be convinced to sacrifice even a small amount in return for a better planet in the future. For people like this, it's probably best just to move on and save your energy for someone whose mind is yet to be made up.
Unless, of course, you have a better idea. Which you might. I remember once trying to explain something to a group of order entry clerks and having no luck. They just didn't get it. But the manager of the group understood what I was getting at and rephrased it in a way that wouldn't have occurred to me in a million years. Immediately they all nodded their heads. Mission accomplished. So maybe all we need is the right translator.
Continues Below
Continued From Above
Comments
Well, I would point out that
Submitted by OhioBoy on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 11:07 AM PDT.
Well, I would point out that energy prices are going to go up anyway when we run out of oil. We don't know when that will happen, but we know it will. So your gas prices can either go up a.) an unknown (but significant) amount, at an unknown time, with the profits going to Arab sheiks, or b.) a (more-or-less) known amount, at a time of our choosing, with the profits going to the US government; i.e., the US taxpayer. Even aside from, you know, catastrophic climate change, it seems like a clear choice to me.
You're right global warming
Submitted by MacGruber on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 11:22 AM PDT.
You're right global warming and cap-and-trade are hard sells. Especially with even more news damning the PETM model, upon which all the nightmarish AGW are based:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090714124956.htm
And the infamous "hockey stick" model has also been debunked:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2005/2004GL021750.shtml
And to those who would attack this because it isn't "science," realize that Mann's model wasn't science, either. It was simple regression analysis gone wrong.
But go ahead and try to convince Joe Six-Pack that the increase in energy prices is worth it. Just don't do it when he loses his private health insurance (even after Obama promised this wouldn't happen):
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854
It’s an externality
Submitted by Max Kaehn (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 11:29 AM PDT.
We’re all going to pay for that CO2 being emitted; the question is whether we pay less now (in terms of cap and trade) or more later (in terms of damage caused by climate change).
More and more really smart people are saying that if we don't do something about this pretty damn quick, there's a good chance your kids won't be able to live where you do. Global warming is gonna hit us fast and hard, and since we've never seen anything like this before, we don't know where it's really going to hurt. But it's going to hurt a lot; not you, but your kids.
Would it be easier to
Submitted by EB (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 11:35 AM PDT.
Would it be easier to explain, if, you know, the cap-and-trade actually fixed climate change?
Responsibility
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 11:59 AM PDT.
I agree with the kids bit, but play on people's sense of responsibility:
Imagine I start up a brewery (yay beer). I make fantastic beer at a great price. But I dump all the waste product into my neighbor's yard. My neighbor freaks out. "Stop dumping your waste in my yard!" I respond, "But then I'd have to spend a lot of money to dispose of it properly, and that will make my beer more expensive. You don't want the public to have to pay more for my beer, do you?"
We're not paying the total cost of generating energy, because we're dumping waste into the air. That makes it cheaper for us, but someone eventually will need to pay to clean it up. And that will be our kids. And it only gets more expensive the longer we wait. What kind of jerk leaves that kind of mess (and expense) to their kids so they can get a better deal now?
Anonymous says - What kind
Submitted by John Hansen (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 12:09 PM PDT.
Anonymous says - What kind of jerk leaves that kind of mess (and expense) to their kids so they can get a better deal now?
Obviously you must be referring to the trillion dollars of debt this administration is foisting on future generations? I don't think you should call the President a jerk.
MacGruber Have you read the
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 12:00 PM PDT.
MacGruber
Have you read the ScienceDaily article you cite? I just did and the error in the model is that it UNDER PREDICTS the amount of heating that occurred in the PETM. Quoting from the article itself " ... In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record." Ok. BUT, the article also says, in the second paragraph "... The study, which appears in Nature Geoscience, found that climate models explain only about HALF [my emphasis] of the heating that occurred during a well-documented period of rapid global warming in Earth's ancient past.".
So, you are saying "The models are wrong, wrong wrong, I tell you!" I'll grant you that. They probably ARE wrong. But in this case wrong in the way we don't want them to be wrong. The models predict things will be COOLER than they might be. Just wonderful. Just what we want - errors that understate the looming disaster.
As for your other non-apropos links - the Geophysical Research Letters article is a quibble about the assumptions Mann et al initially made which affect their results. Perhaps the quibble is justified, time will tell. But you have misrepresented the article by saying that they are "debunked". No so fast , my friend.
Finally, who in the Kevin Drum world pays any attention to anything the Investor's Business Daily says. IBD is SO CONCERNED about the health care of Americans, I am drowning in their flood of crocodile tears.
People React To Pricing
Submitted by steverino on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 12:04 PM PDT.
When gas was at $4/gal, I modified my driving habits. With gas back down, and keeping the same habits, it is obvious how much gas I have been saving. All the exhortations in the world had no effect on my mileage until I was taking a heavy hit in the pocket.
With consumers eager to lower their electric bills, and the incentives from the gov't, the Energy Star rated appliances are everywhere. Given the proper motivations, business can produce energy-efficient products. The key is motivations.
Cap-and-trade provides the motivation for business to reduce their emissions, just as high gas prices/consumer demand motivated individuals and businesses to change their behavior.
steverino
Why is it hard to sell cap
Submitted by John Hansen (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 12:07 PM PDT.
Why is it hard to sell cap and trade? Because..
1. The people pushing global warming have greatly exaggerated the effects it will have. ( i.e. pictures of NYC under water ).
2. The "greenhouse effect" is easy to understand. But we literally have no idea how to compute in light of all the difficult feedback loops, the real effect of CO2 emissions. Anyone who says that their computer model is very accurate is pulling the wool over you eyes.
3. No one gets excited about a projection that might happen 70 years from now, because they can work backwards and see what people in the 1930's though would be the problems of the year 2000.
4. Liberals have cried wolf over things so many other environmental scares. They have an incredible record of being completely wrong.
Based on this, an intelligent taxi-cab driver says. What in the hell is Congress doing passing cap and trade? Its completely bogus.
False conclusions based on faulty science usually are a hard sell to average folk.
Why is it hard to sell cap
Submitted by Dorothy (not verified) on Wed Aug. 12, 2009 8:05 AM PDT.
John, taking your points one by one,
1. Much of lower Manhatten will be under water, but barriers can possibly protect it, at least in this century.
2. Yes, computer models can be wrong, especially if you're dealing with rates of Arctic sea ice melt and CO2 increase that surpass any in geologic time. Back in 2002, the Arctic was predicted to lose its ice by 2100. Now it's pretty certain the summer ice will be gone within the next five years. And this is really bad news, when you consider the global effect of the loss of the white ice's albedo.
3. You're right when you say, "Nobody gets excited about a projection that might happen 70 years from now." What you don't seem to know is that climate projections from authoritative source such as MIT, NOAA and the British Met Office Hadley Centre show that global temperature WILL increase dramatically by 2040-2050. Like light from distant stars, this has already "happened." It just hasn't reached us yet.
Read the Hadley Centre Dr. Vicky Pope's response to the question, "Are these predictions inevitable or can we still limit the effects of climate change?
"Pope: When we look at the impacts up to 2040, 2050 many of those are already set because of the emissions that we've already produced and so we will need to adapt to those changes."
Here's the transcript: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/ukcp/dr_vicky_pope_talk_...
4. Dangerous climate change is not a political issue and shouldn't be treated as such. Whether it's caused by humans or not is an irrelevant time-wasting arguement. We're all in this together; the lives of our children and grandchildren are at stake.
There is no "e" ...
Submitted by BobH (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 12:17 PM PDT.
... in schmo.
fossil fuel crisis coming in any case.
Submitted by BigTom (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 12:21 PM PDT.
Not just like ohio boy says, recent price instability has already hurt our economy substantially. Its not like we can happily consume oil, then someday -oops its all gone, but as it gradually gets harder to produce creating increasing pressure for prices to go up. Of course we also see extreme volatility, so whenever the price crashes, it is easy to think -ohh -problem over. Compared to the volatility of future fuel costs, and their inexorable rise in price, any increases caused by cap and trade will be small. But, at least with cap and trade we get money spent on conservation and alternatives. Because of them it's net cost may even be negative, i.e. if I use less fuel, not only do I pay less because I consume less, but the pressure on the price decreases as well, which allows your cab driver to buy cheaper fuel.
All, that is a pretty big mouthful though. Don't know how to make the case to Joe Sixpack.
Conflation
Submitted by SecularAnimist (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 12:27 PM PDT.
If your cab driver is a weak-minded, ignorant, dishonest, idiotic Ditto-Head like MacGruber and John Hansen, then my advice is don't waste your breath trying to explain anything to him. Like them, he already "knows" that anthropogenic global warming is a vast conspiracy by the United Nations and all of the national academies of science of every nation on Earth to establish a global Liberal Dictatorship headed by Al Gore.
Apart from that, I think Kevin is conflating two different things.
Are you trying to explain to your cab driver what anthropogenic global warming is, and why it is a serious problem?
Or are you trying to explain what a cap-and-trade system is, and why you believe it is an effective solution to the problem of global warming?
Those are two very different matters. As Kevin is well aware, there are plenty of people who understand that anthropogenic global warming is a serious problem, but who disagree that cap-and-trade is an effective solution.
it is all in the marketing
Submitted by Captured Shadow (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 12:27 PM PDT.
Do you buy soap because you like the smell, or the way it kills germs?
Or maybe because everyone else says you should?......
Turn loose with some of the those kind of rationalizations, for instance;
I'd say it is a way to stick it to the fat cats that are wasting energy. Finally those guys with the 40' power boats will have to kick in some dollars to pay for the waste coming out their exhaust pipes.
Or it is the best way to finally get the car and oil companies to come up with a decent car that is electric.
Or that it is the best way to finally get the foreign oil monkey off our backs.
All of the those are true - but maybe not the primary reasons
I was complaining about this
Submitted by Matt D (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 12:44 PM PDT.
I was complaining about this to a friend the other day:
If you tell conservative-leaning folks that they're going to have to borrow tens of thousands of dollars so they can go to school for 4+ years and then spend the next 40-50 years bouncing around fairly boring jobs at various large companies just so they can afford to see a doctor when the need arises, they'll have no problem with it. If you suggest that they should, say, use a different brand of soap, or drive a slightly more fuel-efficient vehicle, or take the bus, or ride a bike, or recycle, or compost, or eat less meat, or buy more energy-efficient appliances, etc, all so as to avoid environmental destruction on either a global or local scale, they'll freak the hell out. Conservatism, unfortunately, is a lot about preserving and justifying the status quo, no matter how ridiculous it actually is.
Kevin, you cannot be
Submitted by James2 (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 1:09 PM PDT.
Kevin, you cannot be serious.
Cap-and-trade brings things right out into the open? Are you fucking kidding me? A carbon tax would do that. Why didn't congress go for a carbon tax? BECAUSE NO ONE WOULD VOTE FOR SUCH REGULATION IF IT WAS RIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN!
You are right though. Your electric bill probably won't go up at all. Why? The bill has nothing to do with energy producers. (This obviously means the bill will have a negligible effect on climate as well...) This bill is targeted square at oil and gas. It is, in effect, the gas tax the left has clamored for for so long. Which, obviously, makes it even more ironic that the impetus for the post is to explain the bill to a cab driver.
I seriously don't understand how you could write, with a straight face, that this is a win-win for cabbies. 2 things will happen as a result of this bill, if passed in its current form: gas prices will go up and people will take fewer cabs, either because of the increased fare prices, or, if the muni's don't let them raise rates, because many will quit or go out of business.
Kevin, I really didn't think you were this dumb. Are you, or are you just being disingenuous on a laughable scale?
focus on short term benefits
Submitted by Abby (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 2:13 PM PDT.
there are ancillary benefits to cap and trade that a cab driver (in particular, perhaps) will appreciate: less congestion and lower rates of asthma, which, if he is an inner city cab driver, his kid is probably suffering from.
A few bucks a week to give
Submitted by Stephen (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 3:28 PM PDT.
A few bucks a week to give my kids a chance to live in a decent world? Easy sell for me. Maybe the scientists exaggerate and maybe they're right and maybe it's worse than they think. The average American isn't going to have to spend all that much -- compared to say, health care or college or dental work, all the other things we parents pay for because we care about our kids future. Sell it by linking it to one of the great primal urges.
selling a tax...hmmm
Submitted by MarkH on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 4:01 PM PDT.
Americans are used to capitalism and economic trade-offs. So, if you're going to raise taxes you had better show them what they're getting for it. It's what they're used to...pay money, get something.
For example, taxing the rich to pay for healthcare doesn't come out of most people's pockets, so they'll be okay with it. But the rich will want to know what they're getting for the dollars. First off we stop calling them "idiots" that will give us a day or two to get the system running and lowering their healthcare costs. THAT they'll respect. Improved employee health, regularity at work and improved productivity they'll respect. Less paperwork and hassles they'll respect. Getting somebody else insured means nothing to them.
You could quiz people in the business sector for hours and for them it will always come back to one thing: money. Do they get the money they need to run their business? Do they get value for their investments? Does their biz have stability (or growth) over time? Right now most of 'em are seeing shrinkage and they hire temps and it's tough on them. Perhaps they're even nostalgic for 'the good old days'. Maybe you could sell them on the idea of a return (of sorts) to good economic times that these reforms could produce.
Imagine a future that's successful, profitable, equitable, fun...that's the fantasy to sell. LOL
Please, think of the children.
Submitted by IdahoEv on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 4:15 PM PDT.
Just invoke the oldest argument in the book: please, think of the children.
Specifically, describe the world that global warming is creating: a world of drought, water and food wars, mass refugee displacement, and Florida sinking under the ocean. Ask them if this is the world they want for their children and grandchildren to inherit.
Invoke images of their grandkids getting drafted to fight peacekeeping wars in drought- and disease-ridden African countries. Of desperate efforts to build 5-meter dikes all the way around New Orleans, Florida, and Washington D.C.
They don't, of course, want to leave that kind of world to their kids, and the only way to avoid it is for all of us to band together and make a little sacrifice today.
Specifically, describe the
Submitted by John Hansen (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 9:04 PM PDT.
Specifically, describe the world that global warming is creating: a world of drought, water and food wars, mass refugee displacement, and Florida sinking under the ocean. Ask them if this is the world they want for their children and grandchildren to inherit.
Yeah, this ought to do about as good as previous generations who told young men they will grow hair on their palms, because your statement is just as scientific and just as true.
Grow up and read some scientific literature instead of your scare manuals. Stop poisoning the debate with exaggerated claims. This is why intelligent people do not believe liberals.
Water Cooler Ammo
Submitted by RobertWaldmann on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 4:27 PM PDT.
Yeah "taxi driver" was wrong. Guy wants water cooler ammo as in ahhh love that cool water, just hope the oceans stay cool and don't flood us etc.
I think it is very very easy to design a cap and trade program that would be an easy sell to most people
"you'd get a rebate check that would cover some or all of the increase" not so hot.
"Unless you are a lot richer than I think, you will get a rebate check which will cover more than all of the increase" works better.
Cap and trade or a carbon tax are somewhat regressive, which means they cost poorer people a larger fraction of their income. However they cost richer people more dollars (on average). If 100% of permits are auctioned and the money is rebated equally, most people would get a net transfer.
If people were selfish and rational, then almost all of them they would be very angry about giving carbon permits to the shareholders and top managers of electric power companies (all but said shareholders and managers). They should not worry so much about cap and trade itself.
Giving permits away got Waxman Markey out of committee, but it guarantees that cap and trade won't win the support of the selfish block (not a majority I hope but usually needed for a majority given disagreements among the public spirited) .
The temptation to spend the revenues on green spending priorities is strong, but even for someone who cared only about the global climate it amounts to letting the best be the enemy of the good. Tax (or cap and trade) Carbon and spread it out thin. Soak the rich and finance green investment and R&D. Two separate popular programs add up to the environmentalist dream plus rich to non rich redistribution.
Or how about "God I hate that hypocrite Al Gore. Says he cares about the environment, but his house is so huge that if cap and trade with 100% sold permits and 100% rebates passes then we can take $X,000 from him and share it equally among ourselves. Makes me so pissed that I support cap and trade just because I would like to take $X,000 out of his pocket to share it equally among us normal folks."
For the cause, I'm sure Al would be willing to tell you X.
history lesson
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 5:48 PM PDT.
I tend to lean toward the quick history lesson. It goes something like this:
Way back when, there was this event in our history called the Permian–Triassic extinction. It's a pretty neat story.
Our really long history is broken up into big chunks of times called "periods". One of those periods was called the Permian period. It was a time of amazing plants and insects and animals, including the oldest ancestors of mammals. The Permian was a prosperous time for all kind of life on Planet Earth.
But it ended. It ended with 95% of all ocean species extinct and 70% of all land organisms extinct. It ended with 99.5% of individual living things on Planet Earth dead.
What exactly caused this catastrophe? We're still working on understanding the whole picture, but our leading scientists believe that it was the result of volcanic eruptions producing so much carbon dioxide that it raised planet's temperature about 8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Eight degrees in the planet's average temperature killed 99 and a half out of every 100 plants on Earth. Eight degrees in the planet's average temperature killed 99 and a half out of every 100 animals on Earth. 99 and a half out of every 100 living things.
What does this have to do with today's debate on climate change? A lot, actually.
Today, the scientific community is in quite strong agreement that if we keep going the way we're going, producing all the carbon dioxide that our modern world is producing, Earth's average temperature is going rise somewhere between 3 and 12 degrees in the next 90 years.
Eight lives right near the middle of that range, doesn't it.
Let me repeat. The global scientific consensus is that the Earth's average temperature is going to rise between 3 and 12 degrees by the end of this century.
If it's on the low side, it might just be unimaginably horrible with sea levels rising and our coastal cities drowning, with most of the world's people falling into deep poverty and starvation, and with global warfare erupting over the remaining food and clean water.
If it's on the high side, most living things on Earth will die, including all of us.
So, we have a choice.
We can do nothing, and take our chances that a one or two of our children and grand children will be the lucky few survivors of a catastrophic global extinction. Or, we can invest some of our ingenuity, determination, and yes, money, in making sure that we don't bring an end to almost every living thing on Earth during our children's and our grandchildren's lifetimes.
Buck up!
Submitted by David Duck (not verified) on Thu Jul. 16, 2009 9:44 PM PDT.
Kevin, you are thinking about this too much.
Global warming is complicated like the rest of life is. That does not mean that you can't give people a simple overview.
"Cap and trade is an efficient way for us to reduce our CO2 pollution. We need to reduce CO2 pollution because it is causing global warming. If we don't clean up our CO2 pollution, global warming is going to make a lot of things worse in the US. Many parts of the country will end up with more droughts, but at the same time we'll have stronger hurricanes. We'll have worse heatwaves. And before too long the ice sheets will melt, which will flood huge parts of the US coast.
"We need to get to work on this, because these problems are going to affect our kids. And if we don't get serious about it - quick - our kids will have a terrible problem cleaning up the CO2 and dealing with the climate, which is already changing now."
Please don't assume some cabbie or whoever can't handle that arguement, or won't respond to it.
And for the love of God, please stop looking at your shoes and mumbling about auctions vs giveaways and the weaknesses of Waxman-Markey or whatever, if you are actually in this situation. There is a lot to know about climate but the big picture is very clear and really simple.
And when the conservative in the elevator makes some noises about the deficit, look him in the eye and congratulate him, saying he must be so proud to have voted for Al Gore since that other fool blew the national debt through the ceiling. And when it turns out he did not vote for Gore, tell him that his guy was a disaster, blew up the national debt, and destroyed our economy, and if he is going to try and blame the deficit on Barack Obama six months into his first term, he can take the damn stairs.
Kevin said, "it's pretty
Submitted by Mike (not verified) on Fri Jul. 17, 2009 4:46 AM PDT.
Kevin said, "it's pretty hard to persuade people to vote against their self-interest with only a fig leaf and some righteous wonkitude as cover."
I don't know - the republicans have been doing it for years. Maybe we need to tell them cap and trade will piss of the liberals, or gays are against it, or if we don't pass cap and trade, the baby jesus will cry.
David Duck - please show
Submitted by MacGruber on Fri Jul. 17, 2009 6:44 AM PDT.
David Duck - please show scientific proof that all those calamities will happen. I just want proof; not models based on flawed regression analysis.
Ditto-Head slapstick clowns
Submitted by SecularAnimist (not verified) on Fri Jul. 17, 2009 6:55 AM PDT.
John Hansen and MacGruber are deliberate liars. They repeatedly post statements that they already know are false.
When they post a tired old lie that they have posted many times before, which has been shown to their faces to be a bald-faced lie many times before, and someone points out -- yet again -- that they are lying, they whine about "ad hominems".
Ditto-Heads like John Hansen and MacGruber don't care about the truth -- they only care about the "rush" they get from obediently, slavishly repeating the ExxonMobil-scripted lies that Rush spoon-feeds them. They like to imagine Rush patting them on the head and saying "Good boy!"
They also enjoy impressing themselves with their ability to deliberately waste people's time with bullshit.
They are clowns and their only contribution to the "debate" is comedy relief -- assuming you enjoy the sort of slapstick comedy in which sad-sack, clumsy, goofball clowns repeatedly trip over their own feet and fall on their faces, over and over and over again.
Picture Florida Under Water and Once Shrewd American Businessman
Submitted by dennisS (not verified) on Fri Jul. 17, 2009 7:02 AM PDT.
Some people miss the point of an elevator pitch. Hint; it's got to be short.
I've got two; 1) We don't want to lose Florida to the Atlantic.
Everybody knows Florida and more people than not like it. And, it gets at the scope of the problem (really just one of the problems but an easy one to picture.) We can't dike the whole state, nor the rest of the low-lying heavily populated most-valuable real estate in the world. Is this an exageration? Not really, especially compared with the other side's ridiculous claims-- "anthropomophic warming doesn't exist" and "real science doesn't support alarming conclusions."
2) If Americans were really shrewd they'd push cap and trade hard.
Because, we have the know-how to solve the problem and with cap and trade the incentive. Later, when China can't sell their products to the rest of the world because of trade sanctions they'll beg us to sell them the solutions. Americans like to think of themselves as being shrewd because it's a good thing and we were once before fundamentalists took hold of the country. Perhaps that image of ourselves isn't so buried in the past we can imagine it and reclaim it again.
No thank you MacGruber
Submitted by David Duck (not verified) on Fri Jul. 17, 2009 7:43 AM PDT.
MacGruber, I don't have time and this is not the place. We are having a discussion here about how to communicate with regular folks about the real dangers of climate. We don't have time to engage those who jump in here just to deny reality. Life is too short.
Elevator pitch
Submitted by Tom Fuller (not verified) on Fri Jul. 17, 2009 8:27 AM PDT.
"Moving away from foreign oil is good for America. Cleaning up our current energy production is good for your health. Giving you a smart grid will give you a chance to make money by selling energy to the utilities. Weatherising your home will save you money. Investing in new technology will keep America strong going forward--that's the way it has always worked in this country."
Not only that, there are concerns about global warming that may prove to be true. If so, this is the best insurance we can offer the world--doing what's right for you, and doing what's right for America, turns out to be doing what's right for the planet."
