Note clarification and correction from Rep. Upthegrove @ comment #3. This is what happens when this blogger posts hastily, with distractions. I stand corrected and chastened.
Why did Sate [sic] Rep. Dave Upthegrove (D-33, Burien) table his own comprehensive global warming bill less than a week after introducing it?
That would be HB 1819, the cap & trade bill we discussed recently, here and here. Here's a theory on Upthegrove's actions:
The Governor has made this an important part of her agenda. The bill was accordingly introduced by him as the Chair of the Ecology & Parks Committee, with a healthy number of co-sponsors.
Yet, Upthegrove isn't thrilled with the actual track record of "cap & trade" and knows the business community will throw itself in front of the proverbial tracks, if needed, to stop the legislation as written. Throw in the truly overwhelming budget situation and a handful of truly pressing policy issues, like the Viaduct, facing the Legislature, and the odds of passing a controversial piece of legislation with an as yet undetermined cost to the economy is incredibly low.
Thus, Upthegrove introduces the bill, gives it a work session on January 23rd, then a hearing on February 3rd. That's his due diligence to the Governor, after which point reality kicks in and the bill in current form dies.
Perhaps some components of it come back later in the legislative session, but with a bruising budget fight already in the works, does Frank Chopp really want to pick a huge fight with the business community prior to a 2010 election cycle that odds say should not be a good Democratic year anyway?
Posted by Eric Earling at February 05, 2009 05:31 PM | Email ThisI think you're confusing the 2 bills. I introduced a bill (HB 1718) to implement all of the recommendations of the Climate Action team, with no intention of moving the bill. That bill was not requested by the Governor, nor did it involve a cap & trade system. I wanted to respect the 2 years of work of the Climate Action Team and use it as an opportunity to seek public input and to educate legislators. I think that's the bill about which Josh was writing.
Apart from that, I also sponsored a different bill, HB 1819, introduced by the Governor, to direct our participation in a regional cap & trade system. I anticipate action on that bill in some form.
...just wanted to clarify.
All the best,
Dave Upthegrove, Chair
House Ecology & Parks Committee
Dang, thought we dodged that bullet.
The science is NOT settled!
Why in heaven's name would we waste billions of dollars on this with only models providing any support for the theory?
Models are NOT reality! They are gross simplifications of an extremely complex natural system and are easily manipulated by those with an ideological or religious environmental agenda.
But why listen to me? I'm only a trained scientist.
Posted by: deadwood on February 5, 2009 07:15 PMA climate action team?! Honestly, I think someone has watched one too many 'Justice league' cartoons when they were younger.
Posted by: Rick D. on February 5, 2009 07:22 PMIt has started again. To add to the climate action team sh...stuff is :
HB 1186, titled AN ACT Relating to small-scale powered equipment, has been introduced in the House of Representatives. The Office of Financial Management has identified this bill as requiring a ten-year projection of increased cost to the taxpayers or affected feepayers.
According to OFM, this bill will cost taxpayers $ 687,800,000 over the next ten years.
Kinda wish I hadn't used my gas chainsaw to cut down that last money tree in my yard.....
Posted by: SouthernRoots on February 5, 2009 07:32 PMPlease do some research. You can start at ICECAP where there are many daily articles based on real science that you can understand.
The earth is not warming, and even if it was warming, we don't know what the correct temperature should be, it is always changing. Further, even Global Warming enthusiasts acknowledge that there are other effects beyond anything caused by humans. What if those effects are working against human induced effects? Our effects might even be helping us. Millions of people weather all types of climes with 70 degree temperature swings being common for humans to endure. A half degree change over a century is more than within human tolerability.
And, the truth is, we don't know much about the climate system. Certainly not to the degree that the IPCC tells us, because there own models have failed to predict the recent cooling of the last decade.
Further, the more important consideration is the politics of crisis. Crisis would be sea level rise of one foot per year. Instead we might see a few inches in 100 years. This is not crisis. So far, the Global Warming crowd has shown nothing at all in the way of evidence that proves the need for a crisis like reaction.
If you are just another Democrat who has glommed on to the crisis manufacturing bandwagon, like President Obama, whereby we can't pass bills fast enough to mitigate every politician declared crisis, well then it is probably too late to change your mind.
On the other hand, if you are simply uneducated about the real science, start reading ICECAP and learn why there is no climate crisis or need for cap and trade legislation.
It's in your best interest to do so, because when all of the crisis fails to materialize, and the voters are stuck with billion and trillion dollar government created scams, they are going to remember who drafted legislation like HB 1718.
WRT Jeff B's pointer to icecap.us @ #9 above:
What he said: ICECAP is an excellent technical resource on ''global warming''.
Sorry Global Warming alarmists, but it's the Earth's cycle... You remain irrelevant in the time/space continuum. Deal with it.
As to Rick D, #11, I believe you about the giant snakes, but why did you have to bring this up right before bedtime? ....
My girlfriend is not in the mood for any giant snakes tonight (I mean, nightmares, of course ;-)
(What are you thinking? Get your mind outthe gutter, boy!)
He needs to wise up and read and understanding "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lonborg and these bills need to be thrown into the dung-heap.
Posted by: KS on February 5, 2009 09:59 PMHe needs to wise up and read and understand "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lonborg and these bills need to be thrown into the dung-heap.
Posted by: KS on February 5, 2009 09:59 PMThe Earth was a full degree centigrade warmer in the Renaissance era. It has cooled since then, and in 2009 it has been determined that this is the correct world temperature. I'm so happy someone is smart enough to know the proper temperature, and how to control it.
Damn! That is one powerful party!
Posted by: bigdawg on February 5, 2009 11:31 PM
The moral of the story: over the last several million years the earth has been in a climate cycle of ice ages that last about 100,000 years with rather short warmer inter-glacial periods that last about 12,000 years.
Why does this matter? Because we're currently at the very end of one of those warm inter-glacial periods. Actually, we're over due for it to end.
One of the interesting things the author points out is that the end of the last six inter-glacial periods was marked by a sharp rise in global temperature over a geologically short time period of less than 100 years. Then the temperature fell dramatically into the next ice age in just about the same amount of time.
If we accept the hypothesis that the earth is warming, it may just be the normal rhythm of ice ages and inter-glacial periods that has been observed from the geological record.
Why doesn't anybody ever bring these facts up? This book isn't the first place I've heard these facts. I remember seeing the same data back in high school and again in my college geology course. The data showing the ice/warm cycles has been observed and re-observed many times over the last few years now that climate science is big business.
I guess the message is: don't fret the temperature rising. I'd bet my retirement that this will end in another ice age whether we caused the warming or not. And it will end in another ice age whether we transform the world into a "green" dictatorship or not.
Posted by: blindman on February 8, 2009 10:48 PMWhat I'm most disappointed about is his willingness to take the easy way out. If we assume that global warming is a real threat and that it is anthropomorphic, the easy road is to expand government and to abuse government power to force people to "comply" with whatever government decides is the solution.
The much more difficult road is to follow in Teddy Roosevelt's footsteps. Instead of green marxism, how about a plan of conservation through private land stewardship? How about firming up property rights so that land owners have legal recourse against neighboring poluters? How about offering long term tax abatements for land owners who preserve land in its natural state? How about requiring the government to purchase property that it wishes to preserve for environmental reasons instead handing property owners losses through new environmental regulation? How about completely deregulating the auto industry so that electric car and other small car startup companies can compete. (The current "safety" regulation regime prevents car startups from happening because it costs tens of millions of dollars to develop a car that passes.)
The government is not going to be able to force the economics of energy to be in favor of "alternative" energy without abusing taxation and regulation. However, there is a considerable consumer demand that can be nurtured to create green business opportunities if the government could just get out of the way by slashing regulations and taxes. For instance, deregulating the car industry completely would create a "green" boom larger than anything dreamed about in the wildest lefty wet dreams. Slashing taxes and simplifying the process of starting and maintaining businesses would make everybody an entrepreneur and free up capital for investment. There is so much the government can do to empower individuals and companies to solve the climate change problems without having to resort to abusing power. It just takes courage to look past the desire to bend people around regulations and abuse them with taxes.
The road of fair and common sense governance that gives maximum liberty to the governed is so much harder than the path of tyranny. It is the path of a true representative of the people and what I would expect from someone halfway intelligent and humble enough to check their ego at the door of the legislative chamber.
For once the government must stop trying to control the outcome and instead get out of the way. No matter what the government does, they won't solve anything because in the end, it will be private enterprise that ultimately makes the technological breakthroughs necessary to make the macro scale changes towards long-term sustainability.
Never underestimate the power of the profit motive; it is the strongest force for creativity and hard work the world has ever known.
So please Mr. Upthegrove, stop playing the belligerent legislator. Instead, put on your big boy pants and create opportunity rather than destroy it. Show some real courage or you can consider me disappointed in an old friend.
Posted by: blindman on February 8, 2009 11:25 PM