Comments on: High/Low: Is There Now Reasonable Agreement on the Costs and Benefits of Waxman-Markey?

By: Houston Chronicle: Knee-Jerk Climate Alarmism, Policy Activism w/o Economic Analysis — MasterResource

Wed, 27 May 2009 12:16:08 +0000

[...] in that year. And that analysis, and the bill’s estimated substantial costs, have not been refuted. Pending further review, in fact, Waxman-Markey badly flunks conventional economic cost/benefit [...]

By: Richard W. Fulmer

Richard W. Fulmer — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:22:08 +0000

A first step that is all pain and no gain may make a second step politically impossible.

By: scientella

scientella — Mon, 18 May 2009 05:57:44 +0000

Even if it costs each househould 10,000 per year, even if it doubles unemployment, even if it halves consumption, it’s worth it. Don’t you get it you ostriches with head in sand, this is a battle for survival, in which this a tiny first step. BY 2020 we will doing a whole lot more than this and the world will be devaztated.

By: What a Cap-and-Trade Energy Bill Will Cost You, And Why You Should Care. « American Elephants

Wed, 13 May 2009 08:34:57 +0000

[...] and dramatically boost reliance on renewable energy. Chip Knappenberger of Master Resource has calculated that Waxman-Markey — the Democrat led bill in congress — would at best avert 9/100ths of one [...]

By: Silas Barta

Silas Barta — Wed, 13 May 2009 01:17:27 +0000

Congrats, Robert_Murphy_(Guest_Blogger)! You figured out why “unilateral disarmament” doesn’t work on this issue! (You’ll forget it as soon as you revert back to that argument you made in a journal article I can’t find at the moment. The one about “don’t worry, we can just use social pressure to get people to do economic calculation on the efficiency of their carbon emissions in the absence of market price”. But hey, gotta give credit where it’s due.)

Of course, instead of suggesting ways to get around the problem of defectors, you felt content to point to how one plan doesn’t do it, shrug your soldiers, and resign yourself to that terrible, terrible fate where coastal dwellers get displaced from their land so that your gas will stay nice and cheap.

Just out of curiosity, though, do you think you could come up with a way that an international agreement could handle the problem of defectors, if you really put your mind to it? I know I did, and it only took a few seconds.

But I guess I had a head start in that I didn’t feel obligated to prove why evicting others from land they own is morally acceptable as long as it keeps gasoline cheap. Needless to say, you don’t enjoy such a luxury.

(Cross-posted at Murphy’s personal blog.)

By: Ed Reid

Ed Reid — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:35:03 +0000

Number Crunch,

Add the ~$30 trillion which US businesses would have to invest by 2050 to actually reduce carbon emissions by 83% and you should have a more accurate number, with which you should be far less comfortable.

By: Number Crunch

Number Crunch — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:12:09 +0000

So, are you saying that this will cost each American household approximately $120,000.00 through 2050? (Actually, that seems low with all the economic disruption and misallocation of resources this will cause.)

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 12 May 2009 18:11:32 +0000

“I fully expected proponents of Waxman-Markey to claim that households would see only modest increases in energy prices, and that faithful adherence to the emissions reductions mandated by the proposed legislation would avert serious climate change.”

They wore out their lying muscles.

By: Ed Reid

Ed Reid — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:28:23 +0000

David Douglas,

Something else that has not been widely reported is the number of jobs we’ll send overseas, to developing countries which are still building coal-fired generating stations and intend to continue to do so.

By: David Douglas

David Douglas — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:24:02 +0000

Something which has not yet been widely reported is the amount of money we’ll send overseas to buy offsets – over $1.5T by 2050. See http://nearwalden.com/blog/?p=998 for details