US greenhouse gas emissions will grow nearly as fast over the next decade as they did during the previous decade, according to a draft Bush administration reportAnd this is a good thing? Read the article above and identify some of the externalities associated with continued growth in greenhouse gas emissions. What policy of emission reduction did President Bush support during his first presidential campaign that he has since abandoned? Why might Mr. Bush's "voluntary greenhouse gas intensity reduction" initiative fail to achieve a socially optimal level of greenhouse gas reduction? Post your comments to this article here.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
It's gonna be a warm one (decade, that is...)
"US sees its emissions growing without letup"
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4 comments:
Ok well obviously the greenhouse gases that the American economy is producing is creating massive negative externalities. The snow is melting early and disappearing = no water and the air is becoming polluted = can't breathe... I'm pretty sure thats bad. What Bush should do is become more anti-emission, join the Kyoto Accord and create regulations/corrective taxes... Like a bit of jail time for failing to comply with a regulation or a massive fine per unit of pollutants. And I bet Myron Ebell is a liar.
The first action taken by Bush the President, was to reject the Kyoto Protocol. This was done after "[As governor of Texas and as a candidate, the president] support[ing] mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions," said David Conover.
Since, his idea that "voluntary greenhouse-gas intensity reduction" will work is utterly preposterous.
As we saw in the corporation video in class, corporations, the ones who pollute, suffer from complete lack of consideration for others. This corporate psychological disorder means that there is absolutely no way they will sacrifice profits for a cleaner world.
Even more, the intoxication of this idea of profits appears to be an epidemic. Rather than try and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Myron Ebell, who directs climate and energy policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a group aligned with industries fighting greenhouse-gas curbs, said that "Since 1990, for every 1 percent increase in emissions the economy has grown about 3 percent." She tried to sugar-coat it by saying "that's good, and it's better than the European Union's performance."
It's not good, and it does not solve the problem either.
Obviously the voluntary reduction effort doesn't work, so mayb Bush should consider being decisive about this issue, and get tough on the corporations and industries. Ultimately, you can't expect them to voluntarily internalize their costs, when they've worked so hard at externalizing them
According to The Climate Action Report, if greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow as fast over the next decade as they did during the previous decade, there will be increasing risks to water supply, coasts, and ecosystems throughout the United States. During his first presidential campaign in 2002, President Bush supported mandatory limits on carbon and dioxide emissions. However, environmental campaigners have argued that Bush’s limitations and policies of reduction are far too low and claim that it is necessary to establish more serious policies in order to decrease the emission of greenhouse gases. President Bush’s “voluntary greenhouse gas intensity reduction” will fail due to the fact that he aims to limit climate risks while also boosting the country's energy and national security. Therefore, the amount of emissions being released into the atmosphere continues to grow, and the socially optimum level of greenhouse gas reduction will not be reached. In order for this socially optimum level to be achieved, it is necessary to take into account all of the external costs of the greenhouse gases, including the drought risks in the United States, and the damage to water supply, coasts, and ecosystems. A corrective tax equal to these costs should then be estbalished, so that the new supply curve matches the supply curve which includes private and external costs.
As it is inevitable for the growth of pollution to increase dramatically with the increasing population along with technology, actions have to be taken just as the article states. Although Bush
is in support with mandatory limits on the productions on things such as Carbon Dioxide, several campaines in the country also did state that the limits is far ffrom enough. The problem here is essentially important as it will affect many aspects of the country. Having further pollution increase rates cause serious environmental problems such as droughts which will force the government to deal with it by spending money. Therefore, it is very very important for Bush to impose not just a limitation on the production of greenhouse gas, but also other forms of ways the government can help prevent market failures as such through effective taxing which will force the industries into taking pollution and the promotion of environmental friendly procedures into account.
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