Banished Words Of the Year (Guess what’s No 1.)
December 31st, 2008
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Lake Superior State University is known for one tradition that has been going on for thirty four years: “The Banished Word List.” The list is basically a collection of fifteen words of the year that have been so overused, so misused so hyped, so trendy that they have come to define everything annoying and lame about the previous year. The list therefore suggests that, for the good of society these words and phrases simply need to be banished from the English language (and presumably any other language that their equivalent is overused in.)
It’s all in good fun, of course, but the list has become enough of an institution to get some major press coverage. The words are selected by staff and professors based on nominations which are submitted by website visitors as well as those in the news media, politics and education.
Of the fifteen words, guess which one came in number one. Here’s a clue…
Myself, I would have liked to see a separate note for the phrase “Green Collar.” Much as I hate the word “green” used in combination with any other words to imply that something has environmental benefits, the words “green collar” just make my skin crawl every time I hear that stupid term. Perhaps the word green should be more associated with greenbacks, as in dollar bills, which the green lobby seems to get quite a lot of. Too bad money is not green in most other countries. In any case, I’m about to turn green, (as in nausea) over the whole green idiocy.
By the way: green is still okay (at least with me) when it means the literal color, as in “red, green and blue” or “The light turned green.” I’d appreciate it if this hijacked word could be returned to its original purpose and usage.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Culture, Enviornment, History, Humor, Just LAME. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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December 31st, 2008 at 5:29 pm
I too am getting irritated by the use and over use of the term green like it is a buzz-word for what is hot and trendy and the latest thing in healthy, ecologically friendly, effecient things.
I really think the term comes from the need to have a word to stick onto things to promote them with an adjective that is considered positive but is too ambiguous and can’t really be pinned down to one thing or another.
If you call something ‘high effeciency’ or ‘low impact’ or even ‘renewable’ then there’s a real definition to those words that can be refuted. You can call something green though, and it doesn’t matter what it is. You can stick the word green on an incinerator and promote it. There’s no defining what is greener than something else. It’s meaningless.
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December 31st, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Agreed, with one exception. “nuclear green” like on Charles Barton’s page should be exempt. I think he’s making a valid point that if you think green means good for the enviornmental impact of man then nuclear is the way to go.
Therefore, I’d say green is bad when used frivolously.
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December 31st, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Number two were also environmentalist catch phrases as well: CARBON FOOTPRINT or CARBON OFFSETTING.
Dare we hope that some sanity is returning to the environmental/energy issue?
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December 31st, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Green, adj.: Originally just naïve, now one with nostalgia for the Stone Age.
OK … so I stole this definition.
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December 31st, 2008 at 8:05 pm
DV82XL said:
I have always hated the whole idea of ‘carbon footprint’ and the whole idea that people should be calculating how much carbon dioxide emissions or other enviornmental impacts their own existance has on the world. I think it’s partially a guilt trip, but the whole concept is just so arbitrary, because what the hell do you calculate? The fuel you burn? The fuel used to deliver the fuel to you? The secondary issues, like the fuel used to manufacture the truck that delivers the fuel to you? Then ‘carbon offsets’ are even worse for just smelling like pure bull****.
You know what it is in the end is that it’s part of this mentality that we all working on our own should try to cut our emissions is going to do something. If every yuppy in the world replaces their light bulbs it won’t do any measurable good in the big picture and will only make them feel good about their carbon footprint. It’s been gone over on here before. If we all did what the enviornmental groups want us to with our cars and homes and lifestyles it would only have the smallest of changes in things. We need POLICY CHANGES and INSTITUTIONAL CHANGES. You can cut your energy in half but as long as our energy all comes from dirty sources that won’t do. Lightbulbs and attic insulation are all well and good, but we need to attack the BIG sources and those are the most important!
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December 31st, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Lack of carbon market regulation, verification and independent audit of carbon saving schemes mean that this whole thing is just a huge incubus for fraud. Inconsistent standards of measurement and false accounting for emissions and carbon saving are just two of the areas that have not been addressed.
On top of which the idea that one carbon offsets as forgiveness for the sin of producing too much carbon dioxide, smacks of medieval practice of buying indulgences – which just goes to show how morally bankrupt the Green Movement is.
Carbon offsetting is right up there with ethanol as perfect examples of government supported greenfraud.
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December 31st, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Dividend and tax. Start the equal dividing-out with the very large existing fuel carbon revenues. That will so take the wind out of fossil fuel promoters’ sails that increased taxes on it may not be necessary. (The more they are increased, the more money is transferred from the high-carbon-burn half of the population to the low-carbon-burn half.)
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January 1st, 2009 at 12:32 am
I think I might be one of the few here who is totally against the idea of carbon taxation or (even worse) cap and trade. I think it’s a horrible idea because you can’t just slap a tax on something to make it expensive and think that will solve the problem for one thing and secondly not be horribly regressive and at the same time encourage individuals to avoid taxation by just unregulated releases. (if you tax heating oil enough people will burn tires, garbage, wood or whatever, and you can’t hope to regulate and cap all combustible matter in the world).
As things now stand nuclear, as an alternative to fossil fuels is not immediately viable as an alternative for political and regulatory reasons. Think that it will boost nuclear energy by taxing everything else until nuclear energy becomes the only economically viable source? I don’t think so. It might get more interested in building nuclear plants but as things stand now, it can be ten years from proposal to ground breaking on a nuclear power plant. Nuclear power plants are a nightmare to build. You can invest a billion dollars in one and then have a court injunction or something stop the project cold. Look at , Marble Hill, Bellefonte, Shoreham, Watts Bar etc.
You can’t expect huge expense of other fuels to break down the walls of regulation and the numerous channels that groups have to stop reactors, delay them or force cost overruns. If you start taxing carbon you are going to cause a massive energy tax while the war is fought over each and every new nuclear reactor.
Beyond that, every carbon cap and trade program I’ve ever seen has not offered crap to a nuclear power plant generating gigawatts of power where as solar and wind get enormous credits
I know what someone is going to say. “If we make coal expensive then people will demand nuclear energy and thus it will happen.” Well, I say no it won’t. What will happen is people will demand wind and solar. More money will go into building them. People will believe that the cheap energy from wind and solar is just around the corner. When asked why energy is so expensive they’ll say it’s because we don’t have enough wind and solar and they’ll say that it must be because of the evil corporations and the government not building enough.
Why? Because the green groups are powerful and have a good image and the general public is stupid.
You think you can’t fool people that something is “just around the corner”? Believe me you can, just about indefinitely as demonstrated by Christianity which has been doing it for two thousand years.
There’s only one way I’ll ever even consider carbon cap and trade being a good idea: Once the nuclear regulations and site requirements are changed to actually make it possible to build a damn reactor without fighting a war of paperwork for years or decades and billions of dollars in extraneous fees.
Change the regulatory system. Build some plants and once I’m convinced that construction of nuclear plants is happening and going smoothly for a few years at least, then I’ll consider the idea of phasing in carbon caps.
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January 1st, 2009 at 1:20 am
No indeed. Huge expense of other fuels means huge revenue for someone, and if that someone is a relatively small part of society such as, I don’t know, government employees, could it be possible they might slip a little of their winnings to groups that try to delay reactors?
Now, if you start with a dividend, of very large existing fuel carbon tax revenuesand leave the tax for later or maybe never, notice how those delayers’ pursuit begins to be its own reward. (“Its own reward” is a nice way of saying they don’t get paid.)
“A single carbon tax rate can be adjusted upward affecting all activities appropriately. With 100% dividend the public will allow a carbon price adequate to the job, i.e., helping us move to the post-fossil-fuel world” is where James Hansen was recently at. If he could be nudged to put the 100 percent dividend in front, he’d he there.
Happy New Year!
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January 1st, 2009 at 2:49 am
drbuzz0 said:
No you’re not. Canada has been playing with the idea since the last election, so the topic has had a lot of exposure up here. As far as the consumer is concerned, cap-and-trade will have exactly the same effect as a carbon tax, namely, to increase prices. The only potential difference is who is on the receiving end of that extra money: with a carbon tax, the government gets the money, and with cap-and-trade, that money is rent for those who own the permits. If the permits are auctioned off by the government, the two programs are essentially equivalent.
Frankly I like the name the locals gave it in New Zealand – the fart tax.
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January 1st, 2009 at 2:56 am
In general I prefer to go as far as one can get with the carrot and take out the stick out only after the carrot-based method has been used to the maximum extent.
France doesn’t have a carbon tax and has the one of the lowest per-capita CO2 emission rates of first world countries.
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January 1st, 2009 at 5:35 am
“Green” is a PC buzzword to make people feel good about themselves without actually doing anything to help the environment.
Wind and solar generation of electricity has a 40-year history of minor, expensive and unreliable performance in spite of considerable subsidies and tax advantages. Wind turbines are veritable Cuisinarts for birds while solar panels kill all life in their shade. Geothermal generation is older still at about 60 years; it produces enormous amounts of dangerous waste, such as radioactive strontium and cesium and huge quantities of deadly arsenic.
Also, those units are small, producing 20 to 30 megawatts of electricity each as compared with an 1,100-megawatt nuclear plant. Two of these three “alternative” sources of energy are also unreliable by being mostly unavailable during hours of maximum demand. Any effort to increase their miserable and tremendously expensive contribution to our energy needs will plunge any Western economy into the ranks of Third World countries.
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January 1st, 2009 at 8:41 am
I think wind and solar are too difficult to attack directly, but pretty much everyone hates Big Fossil Fuel (even if they don’t believe in man-made global warming, they still probably despise it for its profiteering).
To borrow a chess analogy, I think we need to skewer wind and solar through gas and oil.
Here’s an anti-Amory Lovins poster I designed.
In addition, has anyone though of infiltrating the NRC or anti-nuclear activist groups, to ferret out as many connections as possible between the opponents of nuclear power on the one hand, and fossil fuel companies and neo-Malthusian organizations on the other hand?
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January 1st, 2009 at 11:28 am
George Carty said:
Rod Adam’s blog Atomic Insights has looked at this in a series of posts titled Smoking Gun which you can find in his archives.
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January 1st, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Here’s Tell Barack Obama the Truth — the Whole Truth (PDF). You’ll find a lot to agree with.
— G.R.L. Cowan (How fire can be domesticated)
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January 1st, 2009 at 1:46 pm
DV82XL said:
radioactive strontium and cesium from geothermal power? Uh, I don’t believe that those occur in nature except in minute amounts as a result of spontaneous fission. Both elements, however, are somewhat common fission byproducts in the form of Sr-90, Sr-89, Cs-134, Cs-135 and Cs-137.
You sure you didn’t have a couple extra ****tails for new years?
By the way: My opinion on geothermal energy is that it is not going to provide any really large portion of the world’s energy supply and indeed in many cases the use of injection wells and discharge of the water does create problems with bringing toxic minerals to the surface. However, I am still for using geothermal power wherever there happens to be a favorable geological occurrence of near-surface heat.
There are different kinds of geothermal power systems and it depends on how the local formations are. In some cases there are already some steam springs naturally occurring and practically begging to be tapped for energy. This is basically the case in Iceland which, as luck would have it, is blessed with numerous formations that are perfect for geothermal energy.
But that is not everywhere. There are a few geothermal sites out in California that practically gave out energy for free and with minimal effort or impact to tap them. There are others that required a lot of drilling, pumping, injection etc to get the energy out and sometimes with a lot of unwanted discharge. Obviously I do not have as favorable an opinion in such cases.
The issue is that nature only hands us optimal geothermal reserves on rare occasions. Those are the exception and not the rule.
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January 1st, 2009 at 2:26 pm
drbuzz0 said:
In fact it was a local poison made with blueberry wine and white rye that we drink in Quebec this time of year.
Should have read: “Geothermal generation is older still at about 60 years; it produces enormous amounts of dangerous waste, such as radioactive radon as well as strontium and cesium and huge quantities of deadly arsenic.”
Of course it’s a bit of a red herring, but like coal burners, geothermal plants are permitted to release radon in quantities that would have a nuclear plant loose its license. The amounts, as well as the sludge issue and its level of NORM varies from field to field, and probably doesn’t represents a hazard, it’s just the damned hypocrisy that gets me going.
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January 2nd, 2009 at 7:43 am
DV82XL said:
Sorry – I misphrased it.
What I meant was links between the NRC itself and fossil fuel interests, as well as neo-Malthusian influence on both the NRC and activist anti-nuclear groups.
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January 2nd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
George Carty said:
Fossil fuel interests were a big reason for the existence of the NRC to begin with. There’s some pretty solid evidence that the US Congress and the Ford administration were lobbied heavily to create a more “balanced” energy program by eliminating the AEC in favor of the NRC and then the DOE taking on the non-regulatory roles of the AEC.
The fact that there were years of people like Glenn Seaborg at the helm of the agency that regulated nuclear energy, while at the same time promoting nuclear energy rigorously was something that many fossil fuel interests were not happy about.
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January 2nd, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I’ve never met anyone at the NRC who seemed to think nuclear power was a bad idea. While they can appear to be obstructive, I think they really are just trying to keep the public safe from the potential problems. And they mostly recognize that a bad accident at any of the plants would kill the chances of any new plants being built. They idea that they are ‘moles’ in the pay of the coal & gas industry sounds almost paranoid.
Now the commissioners (as opposed to the staff) – as political appointees, who knows what’s possible. The best you can say is they dont last too long.
Samuel Walker has written a very interesting history of the AEC, “Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1963-1971.” Wow, I just checked amazon to be sure I had the title right, one used copy at $200.
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January 3rd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
George Carty said:
If you can afford the subscription price of $2,375.00/yr there is Platts Inside NRC which among other things we are not supposed to know about, report on, “Who’s trying to influence regulatory policy — and what the advocates, lawyers and government officials are saying about vital policy issues.” Despite it’s name it dishes the dirt on all the world’s nuclear regulators.
If that’s not enough. they publish two other news letters: Nuclear Fuel at $2,695.00/yr and Nucleonics Week at $2,315.00/yr, the latter being of some note as it was the place that A.Q.Khan’s nuclear smuggling network was outed. By all accounts, the intelligence network that Platts has developed on the energy scene, not only in nuclear, but in oil gas and coal rivals that of most governments (which often depend on it for timely information.)
I very much wish I had access to these, but alas the prices are a bit too rich for my blood.
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January 6th, 2009 at 1:58 am
Yes I am sick and tired of things being called ‘green’ and also I hate it when ever something is said to be good for the enviornment and the various groups don’t like it they say ‘Oh, it’s just greenwashed by the big corporations.’ ANy time someone says nuclear is good for the enviornment they say ‘oh it’s greenwashing’
Who the hell do they think they are? Why do groups like the Green Party think that it’s only good if they approve it? Who the hell appointed them the authority on what is green versus what isn’t? it seems to me the word is just hijacked as a buzzword to be used by groups with some kind of superiority complex that makes them think they can dictate the standards for the world.
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January 7th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Cap and trade is great. It can help efficiently cut carbon, and industries which offer good jobs can be given free credits which can then be traded. The auto-industry right now for example is suffering, so I think Obama and the Democrats will favor them with more credits while industries which offer lower wage jobs and bad health benefits can get fewer. It increases economic efficiency and helps further progressive ideals.
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January 7th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Bruce said:
By creating tradable financial assets worth tens of billions of dollars for governments to distribute, a cap-and-trade program also introduces powerful incentives to cheat. Corrupt practices will almost certainly distribute permits in ways that favor political supporters and understate their actual energy use and emissions.
Given these and numerous other drawbacks, cap-and-trade’s principal justification appears to its political feasibility. Many environmental activists assume that a cap-and-trade program is more achievable politically than straight up carbon taxes, because most everyone agreed to Kyoto and most people resist higher taxes. However on close analysis, the Kyoto agreement is too weak to signify a meaningful consensus for an effective cap-and-trade system. Numerous analysts have found that Kyoto would have very little effect on climate change even over a 60-year period; and the first effort to apply it in an enforceable way, the European Emissions Trading Scheme, is expected to have virtually no effect on emissions whatsoever.
There really is no upside to this system, though proponents will argue that it does have a firm cap on carbon emissions, although I have yet to see some foolproof way to make even that happen.
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January 7th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Dividend and tax looks good. It is easy to sell because it starts with the equal dividing-out of existing fossil fuel tax revenues.
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January 7th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Bruce said:
Companies already have an incentive to keep their energy usage down. And unfortunately, when carbon fuels are what we rely on, carbon credits become energy credits. So it amounts to rationing. Rationing is never good for the economy. Sure, if there were major sources of energy that were carbon free then the scheme might make sense. As things stand though, it’s a bad idea. Even if we started building nuclear plants today as fast as we can, it’s realistically going to be a good ten years before coal plants start being shut down.
Now here’s the second point: ” The auto-industry right now for example is suffering, so I think Obama and the Democrats will favor them with more credits” In this case, they “give them” to an industry that suffers because it will help the industry to give them something valuable that they can sell for money. Well hell, if that’s the end goal then why not just give them gold bars or stip the whole “valuable item” and give them a cash handout.
Then the statement “industries which offer lower wage jobs and bad health benefits can get fewer.”
You know, the fact that a thinking human being could actually say that is.. well it’s terifying. This whole “progressive ideal” is for the government to judge which industries are ‘good’ and provide ‘good benefits’ and then hand them stuff for no reason other than those are good industries? MY GOD, that’s just crazy! The LOBBYING THAT WOULD CAUSE! The pet industries and projects! Every little darling industry of the politicians is going to be rolling in it: Wind, solar, biofuels, companies that make gay pride buttons, comunes and everything. Because you know, those are all so good for progressive ideals. Damn, I would not want to be one of the companies that the politicians think are not “good”
Now lets consider the natural outcome of a carbon (Think ENERGY tax) or rather rationing. Germany tried something similar where they were trying to raise prices of energy and impose effeciency taxes and everything. The result? They found that a lot of emissions were coming from wood burning stoves. Now they’re trying to clamp down on wood burning stoves. Will they ever learn? Look, if you ration energy then it will get expensive. People won’t pay through the nose for high prices heating oil or electricity. They’ll simply find something else to burn.
So what do you do then? Go to every home and business in the country and try to regulate their stoves? Fireplaces? Tax firewood? Wood in general? Trees? Garbage? Tires? Grass clippings. Hell, people will always find crap to burn and you’d have a hard time trying to stop it.
Of course, not everyone will need to burn random stuff. Rich people will still be able to use heating oil to fuel their furnaces or pool heaters or yachts, because, after all, with “cap and trade” the pockets of those granted the credits get lined, those who can afford it buy the stupid credits and everyone else just freezes.
Maybe consider the carrot and not the stick. Nobody is forcing the French to emit less carbon, yet they’re one of the lowest European nations per-capita. Simple fact is that they don’t need to burn anything because they’ve got clean energy at a reasonable price to begin with.
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January 7th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
drbuzz0 said:
That’s not what I meant! A company making gay pride buttons has nothing to do with what we are talking about. The Auto industry effectively employs hundreds of thousands of Americans in good jobs. They also offer health benefits instead of health negatives, like the coal industry. The coal industry releases bad pollutants like Mercury (and even more Mercury thanks to George W. Bush). Why should they be getting free credits?
Not to mention, why should industries which give their employees poor benefits and donated massively to Republicans in an effort to stop environmental regulations be allowed to pollute the environment for free? That makes no sense.
This is a real chance for progressives to actively lead the way to more sustainable future. That’s part of being a progressive. Along with a living wage, good benefits and worker’s rights. Empowering people and equality are tied together with environmental sustainability. Eight years of the Bush disaster make that clear.
Your comparison about gold bars isn’t the same. Carbon credits are free for the government to issue. This should help explain it. It is a bit old so it doesn’t include the newer proposals which would help industries and states hit hard like Michigan with free credits.
http://www.earthportal.org/news/?p=484
You mentioned nuclear, and Obama does support nuclear if all the problems can be safely addressed. Until then, the Democrats realize that we have solutions that work like solar and wind.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/5/73622/06487/849/530019
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January 7th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Bruce said:
Look around you nit-wit. Do you see any evidence that corruption will not effect this sort of program, that it will not be used for pork-barrel politics? Are you really that naive?
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January 7th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
DV82XL said:
That’s why you have oversight and we get rid of the Republican culture of corruption.
http://www.republicancorruption.com/
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January 8th, 2009 at 2:14 am
Bruce said:
I presume from the smiley that you are fully comfortable with acknowledging you’re just taking the p*ss?
Perhaps the Bulgarians could ask the Danes and Germans to divert some wind and solar electricity their way to help make up for the loss of Russian methane supplies.
Or here in the real world, maybe this is the shock some Eastern European nations need to finally tell the EU where to stick their stupid demands to shut down perfectly functional nuclear plants.
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January 8th, 2009 at 2:25 am
Bruce said:
You’ve got to be kidding me. Absolutely ridiculous to the point that I am almost floored by it. You really think that one political party has a monopoly on corruption and the other is completely free of it?
Wasn’t it a democratic governor in Illinois who offered to sell Obama’s vacated seat?
Look, I’m disipoined by the republican leadership too, but if you’re so gullible as to think that by putting a little donkey next to their name instead of a little elephant there will be no corruption then you’d just plain nuts.
Industries lobby BOTH parties. The party they lobby more usually depends on their relationship with the party, whether the party is in power in general, which senators or congressmen sit on committees that they need etc etc. Democrats take just as much money as republicans.
Bruce said:
Ah so here we have it. We judge each industry independently. Who does the judging? Oh, the government of course. The car industry? Well they give good enough benefits, so they’re okay. What constitutes a good living wage? It’s arbitrary! What about the coal industry? They employ lots of people. They pollute though. So that’s no good, huh?
How about cement? Hey, they product a significant amount of the Co2 by humans, but they’re also vital to construction. Construction jobs are good and high wage. So what do they get?
See? Someone has to make the judgement call as to what industries get the free handout and which ones suffer. And it’s the government which decides which ones are “progressive”
Bruce said:
The most injust, dangerous, oppressive, Stalinist thing I’ve read in a long time. My god that’s so absolutely terrifyingly tyrannical that it’s chilling. PUNISH THOSE WHO DONATE TO THE POLITICAL PARTY YOU OPPOSE!
You know what makes no sense? Leaving it up to the government to decide which industries are worthy of credits based on their definition of “good benefits” and who supported the political rivalry.
That is one half step away from outlawing opposing political parties and sending the supporters to the camps.
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January 8th, 2009 at 2:44 am
Okay, so since the gobment is deciding who is worthy of support and credits…
Coal gets no carbon credits, because they’re bad, right? They produce lots of mercury-laden emissions and everything bad like that.
What about the steel industry? Seems like they’d deserve the carbon credits, right? Because they are an old unionized industry complete with all the trappings of the working class stiffs and good benefits, right?
Now lets say we have a coal company which operates a mine that produces exclusively high grade coking anthracite for the steel industry. Seems they shouldn’t be lumped in with the big coal burners, eh? I mean, that’s different.
Okay, what if the mine produces mostly coking coal but also some lower grade coal that they sell to be burned in power plants?
What if the steel industry gets lots of carbon credits but at the same time the local electric company is raising rates because they have to buy carbon credits to allow them to burn coal, because all they have is coal plants because the local politicians won’t let them build any nuclear reactors? Now the steel plant needs to buy electricity at an inflated price because the electric company needs to buy creidts. Shoots them in the foot, don’t ya think?
Has it occurred to anyone that this would require an absolutely insane degree of micromanagement to evaluate who is entitled to the credits?
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January 8th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Q said:
Blagojevich is one person and does not reflect a culture of corruption. He may also probably be insane. Asking $100,000 for a senate seat when he likely knew his phone was tapped? The man is obviously not right in the head and I don’t think this shows corruption rather an unfortunate personal breakdown.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2008/12/is-blagojevich-insane.html
Q said:
I don’t see how punishing people who sought to destroy the environment is “unjust.” It isn’t about party politics, its about protecting the environment before its too late. The Republicans could chose at any time to take a stand for the environment but they have failed to do so, this is their own doing and the American people spoke very clearly in the last election I think you would agree.
Living wage is not arbitrary, sites like the center for American Progress outline the idea carefully in good terms:
http://www.americanprogress.org/
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/issueguides_livingwage_livingwage (Progressive think tank)
“What if the steel industry gets lots of carbon credits but at the same time the local electric company is raising rates because they have to buy carbon credits to allow them to burn coal, because all they have is coal plants because the local politicians won’t let them build any nuclear reactors? Now the steel plant needs to buy electricity at an inflated price because the electric company needs to buy creidts. Shoots them in the foot, don’t ya think?”
How about the local industry switches to renewable sources so they dont need to buy carbon credits, that’s the whole idea.
Besides I thought this was a bad science blog, not a right wing blog. Wow.
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January 8th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
I’m not right wing. I’m 100% against fundamentalist Christians. I think the republican party is a bunch of hypocrites. I think the war in Iraq was, at best, a bad idea, and at worst, one of the largest forign policy blunders in recent history. I don’t like Bush’s policies in general. I think the republican party has been generally playing favorites and supporting certain interests way too much.
However, it’s entirely arbitrary to say that some groups have destroyed the enviornment. The coal industry has lobbied in their own self-interest, just like every industry does. Furthermore, I think the democrats bare a lot of blame when it comes to the enviornment. Wasting money on renewables that don’t work, promoting unfounded solutions and not reforming policies that needed to be.
The Carter Administration hit the energy and enviornmental sector harder than any other single political entity.
You can’t go around just deciding what is “good” and “bad” because you consider one kind of pollution justifiable and the other kind not.
Bruce said:
Now, see? That’s the complete kind of fantasy and lack of understanding of energy issues that gets us in trouble. It’s not a political issue either. It’s a technical and scientific issue. The amount of energy avaliable from the ‘renewable’ sources is too dilute to be sufficient to provide power to an industry as energy intensive as steel. It simply can’t be done. The energy is not there. Steel needs many gigawatts and that’s totally infeasible.
Now lets consider corruption: Yes, there is plenty of corruption in the Republican party. However it’s not confined to the republican party.
Governor Jim McGreevey – Appointed his gay lover to a position that he was not qualified for and an inflated state wage.
Rep Dan Rostencowski – Indited in the Congressional Post Office Scandal for embezzling money in 1994
Jim Guy Tucker – Governor, Lieutenant Governor and other positions in Arkansas. He was convicted for fraud and tax evasion.
Governor Don Siegelman – Alabama Governor found guilty of mail fraud and obstruction of justice
Rep Bertram L. Podell – Convicted of bribery and related charges in 1974
Then of course, we have Ted Kennedy who killed a woman by driving drunk into a creek and then didn’t even try to pull her from the sinking car. He didn’t report the incident and tried to cover it up. I know people think that’s ancient history and it’s not fair to bring it up. I disagree. He killed someone by his own actions. It’s so outrageous that it trumps everything else he’s ever done. Hell, I’ve never killed anyone!
Look, I know you can produce just as many egregious and disgusting examples of republican conduct. That’s the point. NEITHER party is immune from human tendencies toward greed and corruption. No party ever has been and none ever will be. There will always be political corruption but it can at least be kept in relative check as long as we do not fall to the illusion that we don’t have to worry about it because of a given party being 100% honorable and as long as we do not give the government too much power.
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January 8th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Bruce said:
If you want to protect workers in the United States and other First World countries, you need to stop the influx of cheap-labour products from Asia. How do you suggest this be done Bruce? The WTO wouldn’t like it…
drbuzz0 said:
Pro-nuclear activists should fight back by linking opposition to nuclear power with fossil fuel money (‘coz practically everyone hates fossil fuel profiteers). Rod Adams has done a good job of this with his “Smoking Gun” series of blog posts.
drbuzz0 said:
The American Founding Fathers expected politicians to be corrupt, and designed the Constitution with that in mind. The problem with today’s United States is not the corruption of individual politicians (although that has had some nasty effects — didn’t may US cities lose their streetcars because of corrupt politicians in the pocket of oil companies or car manufacturers?), but excessive corporate power – a result of two disastrous Supreme Court decisions:
1. Santa Clara County versus Southern Pacific Railroad (1886), which gave corporations the same rights as human beings – even though corporations (especially today, when they are legally mandated to maximize profits) would be classed as psychopaths if they were human.
2. Buckley v. Valeo (1976), which allowed candidates for Congress to spend unlimited amounts of their own money on their election campaigns, practically guaranteeing that Congress would be dominated by millionaires.
Corporate consolidation of the mass media has also had a devastating effect (especially as newspapers are now funded largely by advertising, rather than the people who buy them). This means that the mass media is packed with pro-corporate propaganda.
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January 8th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
George Carty said:
I agree with this in part, but I really think a big part of corporations getting too much power comes from their influence on politicians. Yes, Buckley v. Valeo does have some problems with stacking the deck with millionaires. I also think that the situation has been made worse by campaign finance reform. It’s made it impossible to compete with individuals with deep pockets by trying to get enough medium-sized donations together. I see it as being a double standard. My biggest concern with campaign financing is not that there’s too much money but that it’s not open enough.
I’m very critical of McCain for how he made campaign finance so much worse than it was to begin with.
I’ve got nothing against big corporations in general, but when they start to get influence beyond their own market influence then things get way out of hand. Many corporations rely on government connections to get what they want. Don’t forget that despite how powerful big corporatrions seem on the surface, even the largest, apparently most powerful can (and have) all come crashing down practically overnight.
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