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White House Covers Up $2 Trillion Global Warming Benefit
Posted by timethief • 7/11/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: automobiles, carbon emissions, gas prices, greenhouse gas regulations, White House
Given the massive public outcry over gas prices, the public will no doubt be furious to find out that a plan to save energy and money has been kept under wraps by their own government.
The White House has been sitting on a document for more than 6 months now that estimates a long term savings in excess of $2 trillion through 2040 if the federal government was to enact tougher greenhouse gas regulations for new automobiles.
Read the summary here:
www.desmogblog.com/white-house-covers-up-2-trillion-global-warming-benefit
Download Part 1
thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/anprm-may-30-draft-pp...
thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/anprm-may-30-draft-pp...
and Part 2
User Comments
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Where do the savings come from? -
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NY Times: The final version, which was based on revised assumptions, estimated the economic benefit at no more than about $830 billion.
The "public" is not furious! I think it's mainly Canadians that would like to see the "public" furious.-
NY Times: The final version, which was based on revised assumptions, estimated the economic benefit at no more than about $830 billion.
Oh, well then... That's like nuthin'. We can afford that, seeing how the economy's so great and we don't have any deficits or national debt and aren't pouring a gazillion dollars a week down a rathole in some godforsaken desert.
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Not surprised in the least bit.
mad? Yeah, as mad as I can get, anymore. -
Yeah, I still don't see where the economic benefits come from...are they talking about increased tax revenue?
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Yeah, it's from extra taxes. A LOT of extra taxes. California has begun implementing a new "shame on you" number on all new 2009 cars. It's a 'Carbon Footprint' number which will be next to the emissions (smoggy) number. Not only does it take the standard smoggy number thats already there, but it includes the footprint it took to manufacture the vehicle, as well as the refining of the fuel to run it. Nice, huh?
New Yorks will be starting it in 2010.
Some parts of Europe are already adding "fees" for the poorer numbered vehicles, as ultimate regulation (of your life) has already begun.
I'm waiting for the point were us dissenters are forced to start wearing a "yellow star of david" on our clothes for not having drank the Kool Aid.....-
Hmmm, so it's not an economic benefit at all. That makes more sense. I didn't think people liked to release extra CO2 for the fun of it.
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Well the government would benefit. Stop being so selfish. It takes a lot of money to lease all those SUVs being driven around DC.
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that's alot of money! -
Not suprised. -
yah but they don't say WHO saves that money. If it is licensed drivers, that comes out to .31 cents a driver per year (2 trillion divided by 32 years is 62.5 million divided by 200 million licensed citizens is .31 cents saved annually).
If you go by the 144 million or so cars, trucks, and SUV's the savings is .43 cents. I've probably lost more change in a week then I would save in a decade.
And that also depends on everyone buying a new car. How the hell they come up with the re-coup coming in 3-7 years? Do they mean that is when the car loan will be paid off?
This looks like just another silly reason to get people to buy into the notion humans control weather.
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It's not so much a silly notion of humans controlling the weather as it is the freakin' obvious fact that you can't pump millions of tons of stuff into the atmosphere for over a century and expect it to have no effect at all.
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Wisco you haven't addressed the issue that this saves us nothing and in effect entices us to buy products from an industry that is having a lot of financial difficulties. GM's stock value is the lowest in 50 years. They are desperate to find sales.
And let's be honest here, I don't discount the report but we do have to keep the option open that this is not a legit document. So far there is only one reputable source in Dow Jones and a bunch of fringe blogs re-hashing the same info. Let's see some more reputable sources cover this story so we can know its legitimacy.-
GM's stock value reflects years of shortsighted reliance on SUV sales, not any problems caused by environmentalists.
And this was fun:
And let's be honest here, I don't discount the report but we do have to keep the option open that this is not a legit document. So far there is only one reputable source in Dow Jones and a bunch of fringe blogs re-hashing the same info. Let's see some more reputable sources cover this story so we can know its legitimacy.
The blog links to ThinkProgress -- not a "fringe blog," but an A-list blog. The savings, apparently, come in terms of MPG. That cost is paid directly by at the pump. If you want to know whether the document's legit or not, there's always Google news:
news.google.com/news?hl=en&q="white+house"+environment+report+"$2+trillion"...
I get 42 hits. Pick the source you like. -
I used the terms in your search and came up with just a few that were directly relevant but thank you because they show other references.
Think Progress by the way is run by a group heavily financed by George Soros so you have to look for more then just their reporting. Hell, they didn't even mention the estimate was actually 50 mil to 2 tril as I found out in the NY Times version of this story. ThinkProgress picked the story with the high number only.
Case in point right there that research into these things must involve multiple sources and that was my concern. If we are going to look at this stuff objectively, we have to be sure there is more then one source first. Nobody's seen the magic carburator or the Michelle Obama tape but yet according to the media they exist.
Any blog that reports news needs to have two sources at the least. This is part of the reason why the old media looks down on bloggers because a lot of them don't fact-check or get a first-hand source or multiple second-hand sources. -
it is so lazy to diss the source. What you think of George Soros has nothing to do with whether or not something's true. The fact is that the Bush administration has a long history of interfering with and politicizing science. Why this instance is so hard to believe is beyond me.
In fact, the EPA report itself -- which TP helpfully offers -- says "the net benefit to society could be in excess of $2 trillion dollars." That's the freakin' horse's mouth, how better sourced could the story possibly be? I know you'd prefer "to have two sources at the least," but that's a little tough seeing how there's only one EPA. -
Questioning the reliability and objectiveness of a source is never dissing it.
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Questioning the reliability and objectiveness of a source is never dissing it.
Same difference. You're dismissing information without evidence, either way.
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I'm not too surprised by that article, given the government's vow to continuously keep the truth from the public. But then, even if this makes front page news and the media makes a point to tell about it, is the public strong enough to say and try to do something about it?
Almost always, in these cases, it seems the answer is no. What a shame. -
This kind of stories is not gonna kick up the public but useful for the opposition party -
"The EPA still has not complied with the Supreme Court and released an opinion on the health effects of warming caused by carbon emissions. Three major US cities and 17 states have sued the agency to protest the lengthy delay.
When the EPA completed an initial finding in December that climate change poses public health risks, the White House refused to open the message to avoid acknowledging its existence."
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/08/dickcheney.usa?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnew... -
"GM's stock value reflects years of shortsighted reliance on SUV sales, not any problems caused by environmentalists."
Nobody saw $150 dollar-a-barrel coming this quickly either. But if they were managed like you said GM could survive. Toyota had a 21% drop in sales in the US but they had huge huge increases in China.
My big issue is that this stuff always leads to our tax dollars used to prop up a business or make one industry a crapload of money. Why don't they just put a money grab machine in Congress and let the special interest du jour have at it?
Hmm maybe I should market that. hehe...-
I knew reliance on SUV sales was stupid in 2006.
griperblade.blogspot.com/2006/04/driving-straight-for-cliff.html
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The savings come from health benefits first off, less asthma, and less smog related industrial damage. They also come from reduced costs. It costs a lot of money to run cars on gasoline. Increasing gas mileage improves the efficiency of cars in the long run making them cheaper to run.
There are other issues. If we don't improve the efficiency of American vehicles, there will be no American vehicles because the foreigners will have built vehicles with higher gas mileage, lighter safer more advanced materials, and improved manufacturing methods.
Toyota is number one partially because it uses lean manufacturing, which uses less material to make the same car, this is an environmental advantage as well as a business advantage.
There are a number of green business practices which cost more up front, but save and earn much more money in the long, these are. 1) Energy efficiency, 2) Lean manufacturing-- uses less material, 3) Functional recycling-- cradle to cradle-- e.g. Xerox philosophy of leasing machinery and constantly refurbishing supply on a contract basis.
There is also the idea that green product are new products with new designs that are manufactured locally, investing in locally produced American green products helps restart our manufacturing sector. They are also often high quality products energy efficient appliances, lean manufactured goods which require highly trained labor.
Conservatives say it will cost us 3 million jobs. If you look at it closely, exactly 3 million jobs will be replaced with clean industry jobs that are high paying quality American jobs.
It is the classic path of capitalism, while old jobs are destroyed, new jobs arise to replace the old ones with new industries.
www.apolloalliance.org-
I think high gas prices will improve fuel efficiency faster than any government mandate.
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