"The Story of Cap & Trade"

13 posts / 0 new

Tue, 2009-12-01 09:49

hsfreethinkers hsfreethinkers's picture

[URL=http://storyofstuff.com/capandtrade/]"The Story of Cap & Trade"[/URL]

Quote:
The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill. Host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street financiers at the heart of this scheme and reveals the "devils in the details" in current cap and trade proposals: free permits to big polluters, fake offsets and distraction from what’s really required to tackle the climate crisis. If you’ve heard about cap and trade, but aren’t sure how it works (or who benefits), this is the film is for you.

Tue, 2009-12-01 10:23

KenS

News flash:

We live in a capitalist system. Every regulatory and/or pricing regime for carbon emissions has major drawbacks and/or opporunities for profiteering and gaming.

Comparing the advantages and disadvantages of different regimes is not easy, and involves a lot of inherently apples and oranges trade-offs.

Taking abstracted potshots at any of these systems- divorced from comparisons- is nothing more than muckracking. Worse than muckraking, which certainly has its place, it sets us back from the kind of considered debate we need to have.

taking potshots at the soft targets of 'energy traders' is as elevated and 'useful' as the knee jerk leftie populist 'analysis' that carbon taxes hurt poor people.

Tue, 2009-12-01 11:30

autoworker autoworker's picture

The last thing this planet needs is another boondoggle. Carbon taxes shift the paradigm, whereas cap & trade shifts the carbon and maintains the status quo. Major polluters get to maintain their positions, while others pay to get in the game. Consumer societies resist carbon taxes just as they do consumption taxes like the HST. Isn't it preferable for governments to generate revenue from taxes that curb excess CO2 rather than issue permits that may very well encourage emissions, let alone contain them?

Hypothetical: What if the WTO penalized countries that didn't meet their GHG targets?

Tue, 2009-12-01 11:45

KenS

autoworker wrote:
Carbon taxes shift the paradigm, whereas cap & trade shifts the carbon and maintains the status quo.

This is a perfect example of the kind of knee jerk disinformation- which it is no matter how sincerely people beleive it- that is such a huge problem.

Both sides of that diad are every bit as bad as the reductionsist 'carbon taxes hurt poor people'.

Carbon pricing schemes of all kinds are part of an overall policy package. We've had plenty of discussions here about whether or not carbon taxes 'shift the paradigm'. In literally thousands of posts on the question, no one yet has offered a shred of evidence that they do that in themselves.

So at the very least, stop trying to just assert that.

Tue, 2009-12-01 14:29

hsfreethinkers hsfreethinkers's picture

I'm skeptical of both cap and trade and carbon taxes. Anyway, here's a companion article: [URL=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daphne-wysham/cap-and-trade-should-go-t_b_... And Trade Should Go The Way Of The DoDo Before We Do[/URL]

Tue, 2009-12-01 14:37

KenS

Interesting that people say they are equally skeptical, yet they praise carbon tax proposals here, irregardless of what the whole package is like. And I suppose its coincidence that they only post criticisms of cap and trade- leaving aside even that such supposed critiques are equally removed from looking at the whole picture.

Tue, 2009-12-01 15:30

hsfreethinkers hsfreethinkers's picture

KenS, quit being so hostile. This video was released today, and will probably go viral as the Story of Stuff was popular. It raises some significant and pressing issues.

Tue, 2009-12-01 16:00

Unionist

That video is brilliant. Thanks for telling us before it becomes a household word!

Tue, 2009-12-01 20:44

KenS

hsfreethinkers wrote:
KenS, quit being so hostile. This video was released today...

My comment was directed at autoworkers praise of the alleged superiority of carbon taxes. I only included you someawhat out of skepticism about what you said... which admittedly was peripheral.

Not a comment on the video- which I could even find interesting and/or useful. But I can't load them.

Its unfortunate that I'm so cranky about the issue. But I don't really apologize.

Tue, 2009-12-01 22:13

#10

hsfreethinkers hsfreethinkers's picture

Alright then, no worries. I guess the obvious thing is, if we do rely primarly on market mechanisms like cap and trade and carbon taxes, they have to be implemented such that they have teeth, while minimizing loopholes and the potential for abuse. I simply don't trust our governments to do it right. I suspect any carbon tax will likely be too small, and cap and trade will turn out to create windfall profits for polluters.

Wed, 2009-12-02 13:17

#11

Catchfire

That's a great video, hsfreethinkers, thank you. I fb'd that shit.

You have to be careful talking about cap & trade here: remember that the NDP tied its flag to that ship in opposition to a carbon tax, and it was a major distinction (in the NDP's mind) between them and the Dion/May Liberals. One economist repeatedly tried to point out cap & trade was six of one, but eventually left the board in frustration. So be aware that cap & trade is a code word to NDP partisans.

Wed, 2009-12-02 14:28

#12

Policywonk

Catchfire wrote:

That's a great video, hsfreethinkers, thank you. I fb'd that shit.

You have to be careful talking about cap & trade here: remember that the NDP tied its flag to that ship in opposition to a carbon tax, and it was a major distinction (in the NDP's mind) between them and the Dion/May Liberals. One economist repeatedly tried to point out cap & trade was six of one, but eventually left the board in frustration. So be aware that cap & trade is a code word to NDP partisans.

Yes, and no. A carbon tax is still part of BC NDP policy (which is different than platform for those of you who try to equate them), and many within the federal Party would like a more nuanced position on carbon taxes. To say nothing of those who think that regulation rather than market instruments is the way to go.

Wed, 2009-12-02 15:27

#13

KenS

Economists ALL talk about cap and trade or carbon trade as abstractions. I agree, and have said so repeatedly, that as abstratced carbon pricing approaches, it is six of one or half a dozen of the other.

But we're not talking about what happens in economic models. And its the overall policy package that hits the road, not an abstracted carbon pricing model and what people would like to do with it [them].

One thing very common- most common- is that people cherry pick back and forth saying which they like best based on that alone, not whats actually out there. Its fine to say why you think would be best, that isn't on offer anywhere. But most people around here express a preference- sometimes explicitly acknowledged and sometimes not- in the final analysis for one or the other parties existing programs without regard to or even recognition of how it massively deviates from their abstracted preference.

And that is done as much by 'non partisans' as by identifiable partisans.