Megan Birney: Propositions 23 and 26 — Say No to Protecting Polluters

» AN50 on 10.26.10 @ 09:09 PM

Ok, where to begin.

First, California’s “high standards” are what has this state near the top in unemployment.

Second, clean energy jobs created only benefit those industries creating them, largly by gaming the market with crippling costs added to cheaper sources. Gee Megan, if these jobs were so profitable to our economy at large then why do they require arcane and punitive legislation to produce? Haven’t a clue do you?

Third, if clean energy jobs were a panacea to our economic outlook then why are we already $20 billion in the whole even with some of these “green” industries growing at a 200% clip? Did it ever occur to you pie in the sky enviro/obstructionists that the return on investment from these so called new age industries doesn’t exist? That in order for clean energy to succeed you will have to pay through the nose for energy? Nope didn’t think so.

Fourth, since our state has become a welfare magnet to citizens and criminal border jumpers, people who can scarcely afford to pay the exorbitant rent here, how do you so called compassionate liberals justify sticking these people with energy bills they can never afford, let alone those who are barely hanging on after being reamed by the banking industry? You guys planning on subsidizing their heating bills too? Yep and who pays for that? Your white liberal friends, who make sure their money is safely invested elsewhere? Yeah, just hit those middleclass workers between the eyes, huh?

Fifth, you make contributors to prop 23 and 26 out to be evil profit motivated scum bags who only want to hurt you and the environment so they can swim in pools of cash. Megan, if it weren’t for these scumbags and their evil profit motive and the cheap energy they provide, you would not exist in the little shielded dream world you live in. In fact if it weren’t for them you would be working in a coal mine or a sweat shop I suspect. Take a look around girl. The world you live in was built on gobs of gooey cheap oil. It is crumbling now and your expensive clean energy will not rebuild it.

Sixth, prop 26 prevents tyranny of the minority or in this case a weakened democrat party from passing more crippling taxes with a smaller majority. If our state legislators can’t muster a damned 2/3 majority on raising fees, fines and taxes then damn it girl there is something very wrong with state government. If 2/3 can’t agree then its probable better it doesn’t pass.

Let’s not mince words here. The green energy industry does not need punitive and arcane law to succeed. It only needs to produce energy cheaper and more abundant than energy is produced by dirty sources. Those producers smart enough and capable enough to do the job will win with or without more obstructionist law from pseudo environmentalists. That is the beauty of a free market. Anyone can play and the best win.

But you and yours don’t want to play by the rules you want a gamed system. You are the first to cry foul whenever a company or wealthy person attempts to game the system in their favor but never once do you see your obstructionist laws as the same thing. Nice article but full of BS.

» socaljay on 10.27.10 @ 11:18 AM

I would add that the basis for the Clean Air legislation in the first place was based on data that was inflated by 340% according to recent reports.  There was no immediate need to pass the legislation that you say is under attack.  You can always tell a progressive because they live up to their mantra of “the end justifies the means.”  Who cares if eco-warriors lie, as long as the outcome is a cleaner, safer world, right? 

The problem is that these high-minded progressive eco-warriors are selling us down the road.  Let’s use light bulbs, for example.  Eco-warriors have been attacking incandescent light bulbs for decades.  The vast majority of these light bulbs were made in America.  Now we have toxic CFLs as a “green” replacement.  Know where they’re made?  China.  So we traded a home-grown industry for an unproven, untested technology that can kill our kids.  Wonderful.  And we lost thousands of jobs to boot.  Of course, this is the exception, right?.  But the end justifies the means, right? 

I have news for you Megan, most advances in technology within industry were fixing much of what was causing the problems in the first place, all on their own, without the help of eco-warriors.  For example, the technology that existed when GOO was created around 50 years ago doesn’t even exist any more, yet you wouldn’t know that from the rhetoric that comes out of their mouths now.  Maybe because it would diminish their “status” in their own eyes?  Like Don Quixote, they have to keep fighting windmills.  Unfortunately for us, energy is becoming more expensive and it’s killing jobs in droves.  But the end justifies the means, right?

You want to have a discussion about the environment, fine.  But please stop with the rhetoric.  We’re catching on to you and your ilk.  Prop 23 is the first of many pieces of legislation to come that will slow down or turn around the eco-warrior juggernaut that has been riding roughshod over common sense, practical, solutions to the problems that face us.  We can find answers and apply them to the issues at hand without putting us and our children in chains for generations to come.

Wasn’t it Stalin, one of the world’s first powerful progressives, who justified the killing by starvation of millions of Ukrainians because they were creating dissent?  They weren’t toe’ing the party line?  Is that what we have in store for us here in America?  Seems to me that we already have an elite minority shoving mandates down our throats “for the good of the people.”  Is that how progressives justify their actions?  I for one support Prop 23, if for no other reason than to shed the chains of oppression that high-minded progressive elitists would have us wear.  No matter what the reason is, I will not be a slave.

» el_smurfo on 10.27.10 @ 12:47 PM

I’m just glad all the straw men Megan had to muster for this article can’t vote, or common sense wouldn’t have a chance.  As it is, comparing the well reasoned arguments in the comments above to the logical fallacies employed by the author should be enough to convince any voter.  Unfortunately appeals to emotion and “what about the children” rhetoric seem to work all too well in our state.  They really should change the voting machines to employ a toilet lever so we could all get a feel for what we are doing to our state with each election.

» el_smurfo on 10.27.10 @ 02:34 PM

Can someone explain how a person with a Masters in Public Policy and B.A. in Sociology is qualified to make pronouncements on Environmental Science Policy?  More of the same feel good blather that is killing California.

» socaljay on 10.27.10 @ 04:36 PM

sb native (the second poster, not the first),

What in the world are you talking about?  Both you and Allan spout off the same progressive rhetoric.  Cowardly complainers and terrorist minority?  California leading the way?  Did you both read the same play book?  It takes energy to produce products.  Energy that is too expensive drives out industry and kills jobs.  That’s a fact. 

In case you hadn’t noticed, California is dying a slow economic death right now.  It’s people like you two who are pushing us over the cliff and cheering the whole way.  The end justifies the means.  The typical progressive mantra.  The evil capitalist world.  I have news for you, when people don’t work, products aren’t made, revenues aren’t generated, and not even taxation will save the day.  European countries are imploding right now because of that mentality.

Megan, sb native and Allan are all misguided.  And they will rue the day when everything collapses and there is nobody left to blame.  Let me clue you in on a little secret.  There is no “them.”  There is just “us.”  We are the businesses, and the government, and the economy.  When talking about the environment, or jobs, or the economy, there is no enemy.  There are just good decisions and bad decisions.

Allan talks about the terrorist minority.  Look in the mirror Allan.  It’s progressives that are destroying this country.  They are using our free and open society against us.  Environmentalists are using the legal system to create chains for us all.  They are using the judicial system to legislate from the bench.  The People?  Progressives don’t care about the People.  We’re just a means to an end.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say.  If “green” technology and jobs were a thing of the future, why isn’t it working anywhere in the world?  If progressive thought and ideals are so great, why has it failed every time it’s been tried?  I have a simple answer for you.  Because they don’t work.  Any fool could tell you that, no advanced degrees required.

» el_smurfo on 10.27.10 @ 05:39 PM

Great example there sbnative.  You do know that Germany imports 2/3 of their energy from out of the country, largely because they can’t meet their own green standards?  It’s pretty easy to have a high proportion of green energy when you don’t actually produce anything else.  And where does this “green energy” come from…French nuke plants…the very thing that would solve all of our supposed CO2 problems and yet is opposed bitterly by the very greens who seek to shackle our economy.

» SB Common Sense on 10.27.10 @ 07:09 PM

The news is out- If CA implements AB32, it’ll be going it alone without the cover of Cap-and Trade in the U.S. Other states will begin advertising,“Move to our state, where we won’t tax your business into oblivion”....Lets watch CA drive off a cliff… And when unemployment goes up, will the CEC and the pseudo-eco-warriors be paying unemployment benefits to out of work Californians? I don’t think so….Just great…

RIP: Carbon trading
October 26, 2010
In a little reported move, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) is ending carbon trading this year — the very purpose for which it was founded. CCX will remain open for business, however, as it transitions into the murky world of dealing in carbon offsets.

Outside of a report in Crain’s Chicago Business and a soft-pedalled article in the certain-that-climate-control-regulation-is-coming trade publication Carbon Control News, the media has ignored the demise of the only voluntary U.S. effort at carbon trading.

CCX was sold earlier this year for $600 million to the New York Stock Exchange-listed IntercontinentalExchange (Symbol: ICE), an electronic futures and derivatives platform based in Atlanta and London. ICE also acquired the European Climate Exchange as part of the transaction. The ECX remains open to accomodate the Kyoto Protocol-required carbon trading among EU nations. The sale of CCX to ICE allowed climateers like Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management and Goldman Sachs to cash out of investments in CCX.

At its founding in November 2000, some estimated that the size of CCX’s carbon trading market could reach $500 billion. The CCX was the brainchild of Richard Sandor who used $1.1 million in grants from the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation to launch the CCX. Sandor received $98.5 million for his 16.5% stake in CCX when it was sold. Not bad for an idea that didn’t pan out.

Incredibly (but not surprisingly), although thousands of news articles have been published about CCX by the lamestream media over the years, a Nexis search revealed no news articles published about the demise of CCX in the five days since the CCX’s announcement.

With the demise of CCX carbon trading, only the still-pending Waxman-Markey bill is keeping cap-and-trade alive (technically, at least) in the U.S. According to JunkScience.com’s Cap-and-Trade Death Clock, however, Waxman-Markey only has about 68 days of life left before it, too, turns into a pumpkin.

» socaljay on 10.27.10 @ 08:58 PM

sb native (the second poster, not the first),

What in the world are you talking about?  Both you and Allan spout off the same progressive rhetoric.  Cowardly complainers and terrorist minority?  California leading the way?  Did you both read the same play book?  It takes energy to produce products.  Energy that is too expensive drives out industry and kills jobs.  That’s a fact. 

In case you hadn’t noticed, California is dying a slow economic death right now.  It’s people like you two who are pushing us over the cliff and cheering the whole way.  The end justifies the means.  The typical progressive mantra.  The evil capitalist world.  I have news for you, when people don’t work, products aren’t made, revenues aren’t generated, and not even taxation will save the day.  European countries are imploding right now because of that mentality.

Megan, sb native and Allan are all misguided.  And they will rue the day when everything collapses and there is nobody left to blame.  Let me clue you in on a little secret.  There is no “them.”  There is just “us.”  We are the businesses, and the government, and the economy.  When talking about the environment, or jobs, or the economy, there is no enemy.  There are just good decisions and bad decisions.

Allan talks about the terrorist minority.  Look in the mirror Allan.  It’s progressives that are destroying this country.  They are using our free and open society against us.  Environmentalists are using the legal system to create chains for us all.  They are using the judicial system to legislate from the bench.  The People?  Progressives don’t care about the People.  We’re just a means to an end.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say.  If “green” technology and jobs were a thing of the future, why isn’t it working anywhere in the world?  If progressive thought and ideals are so great, why has it failed every time it’s been tried?  I have a simple answer for you.  Because they don’t work.  Any fool could tell you that, no advanced degrees required.

» mikey7280 on 10.27.10 @ 11:09 PM

Let’s hear all the complaints when milk goes to $6/ gal because all the truck drivers need to either get new trucks or retrofit their existing trucks costing $10k or more.  Forces them to increase shipping rates which in turn gets passed on to the consumer like YOU Megan.

Here is another example of the effects of AB32… go to your local gas station and compare the price of unleaded to diesel.  It cost more to bring the gas to the station than what is charged. How do you think your gas gets there?  some underground pipe from the refinery?  Not likely…  A truck brings it, a truck used diesel. Currently the exhaust that comes out of the newer trucks is cleaner than the air going into it.  the more CARB keeps at what it is doing, more drivers will refuse to deliver in california which, as stated above, will raise prices on all products.  Think the 12% unemployed can afford that? I sure don’t.

» socaljay on 10.28.10 @ 01:31 AM

condorhiker ... “On the matter of global climate change, APS notes that virtually all reputable scientists agree with the following observations:” ...

Two points.  First, would you expect the APS to do anything other than to defend their position?  And second, doesn’t the inference that if you are scientist who does not agree with these observations you are not reputable give you any pause at all?

It’s not really all that hard to find numerous articles and reports by scientists and meteorologists all over the world who disagree with the IPCC and APS on global warming.  It doesn’t mean that they are disreputable, all it means is that they have a difference of opinion.  Any reasonable, sound-minded individual would recognize this fact.  All most of the dissenters in the scientific community are asking for is that we don’t have a rush to judgment about something we don’t know enough about.  That seems like a reasonable request to me.

But to add insult to injury by enacting hasty laws and spending billions of dollars that we don’t have is foolhardy at best.  I’m old enough to remember when the scientific community was up in arms about an emerging ice age.  If they were wrong then, isn’t it feasible that they are wrong now?  Is science as we know it that infallible?  I don’t think so.  I’m of the opinion that there is more than enough time to thoroughly investigate both sides of the issue without resorting to ostracization and censorship, as seems to be the recent tactics of global warming fear mongers.

» SB Common Sense on 10.28.10 @ 01:32 PM

Here’s the nub of it- the Leadership of the progressives like Big Al will make $$ billions from the AGW scare, the progressive politicians gain more power and tell everyone what they can and can’t do, and the worker-bee eco-warriors and students are told its a noble cause to “save the planet” and given half-baked half-truths as fodder like “everyone knows CO2 is a greenhouse gas”. The problem is that CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas and doubling its concentration in the atmosphere will only increase the temperatures about 1 degree or less without the magical and almost never discussed “positive feedback loops”. Once the AGW hysterics dies the AGW leaders will fall back on “green is good- of course we should be doing it anyway” as an excuse for the AGW science fraud that they were pushing or unwittingly a part of. Meanwhile AB32 costs CA alot of jobs and drives industry out-of-state. Just remember Spains unemployment is 20%. Spain’s policies were pushed my true believers too. Here’s one of the best summaries on why the hype about AGW is a fraud from one of MIT’s most respected physicists. What happened to Big Al Gore’s and Pelosi’s claim that all “respected scientists” agree that AGW will be a catastrophe?

Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus

Richard S. Lindzen

Richard S. Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Most of the literate world today regards “global warming’’ as both real and dangerous. Indeed, the diplomatic activity concerning warming might lead one to believe that it is the major crisis confronting mankind. The June 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, focused on international agreements to deal with that threat, and the heads of state from dozens of countries attended. I must state at the outset, that, as a scientist, I can find no substantive basis for the warming scenarios being popularly described. Moreover, according to many studies I have read by economists, agronomists, and hydrologists, there would be little difficulty adapting to such warming if it were to occur. Such was also the conclusion of the recent National Research Council’s report on adapting to global change. Many aspects of the catastrophic scenario have already been largely discounted by the scientific community. For example, fears of massive sea-level increases accompanied many of the early discussions of global warming, but those estimates have been steadily reduced by orders of magnitude, and now it is widely agreed that even the potential contribution of warming to sea-level rise would be swamped by other more important factors.

To show why I assert that there is no substantive basis for predictions of sizeable global warming due to observed increases in minor greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons, I shall briefly review the science associated with those predictions.

Here’s the rest-
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html

» AN50 on 10.28.10 @ 05:51 PM

I warned some of my most bitter clingers to the AGW debacle this would eventually happen, scientists, seekers of the truth about how nature works, would indeed begin to turn away from the AGW religion and begin vetting the data more carefully. Now it’s happening. But I don’t gloat; instead I just remind folks that the hallmark of good science is skepticism. Don’t trust, verify. Don’t buy in, opt out. Be independent of thought. Truth is not found in consensus. It is absolute and will come out eventually and it is better to err on the conservative side than put your credibility on the line with something we know little about.
Its true with science and it makes good sense politically as well.

» sb native on 10.28.10 @ 06:56 PM

I hope all of you oldsters are correct…the penalty that will be paid by your willful avoidance of competing viewpoints, sound science, and environmental commonsense will be paid by young people like Megan and your own grandchildren.  The price is already being paid by the flora and fauna of the world…including the SB area.

I’d say that the only ones who DO have the right to vote on these issues ARE the young people…because they will be around to reap the truth or untruth of their position.

» SB Common Sense on 10.29.10 @ 11:23 AM

This editorial in the WSJ today spells out how stupid AB32 is and why Prop. 23 is needed. The author happens to be the Chairman of the second largest solar company in the U.S., Sunpower- based in CA. So, the Chairman of one of the worlds largest solar companies based in CA thinks AB32 is dumb as a bag of rocks. Time to smarten up folks….Megan, please read the whole article and tell us where the Chairman of Sunpower is wrong about AB32….

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304173704575578021936972884.html

Prop 23 and the Green Jobs Myth
Californians could protect a million or so jobs by overturning the state’s self-imposed carbon dioxide limits.

“Most importantly, Californians have an opportunity to vote for Proposition 23, which will prevent implementation of the California law known as AB32. AB32 is yet another tax, this one on carbon dioxide, the substance that we exhale about 50,000 times per day, that comes from our cars when we drive to work, and from our Silicon Valley plants as we use power for our computers and air-conditioning. Pushed by dogmatic green politicians, the tax would put another burden on California companies that our Chinese and Korean competitors will not have to bear.”

» AN50 on 10.31.10 @ 08:55 PM

Celia Alaro, is a progressive media consultant and left wing activist, the site she linked here is about as left as you can get. Hmmm real objective wouldn’t you say? Yep, follow the money alright. George “the criminal currency killer” and “left wing media supporter” Soros, that is!

» AN50 on 11.02.10 @ 12:07 PM

Passing-by, you guys bring it on your selves. I have never seen a more vitriolic, nasty, condescending, arrogant or narcissistic bunch as I have seen in the liberal/progressive movement. Ok, having come from your ranks I understand why. It starts with the narcissistic attitude, you are better than everyone else, smarter than everyone else and better able to cope than anyone else. None of that is true but it’s what you believe so it drives your behavior. The behavior is expressed in this nasty condescension and arrogance, “we’re right so we do what we want and screw all you dummies out there”. That about sum it up?

Look there is every bit as much of the same behavior on the right it’s just that we are aware of it and know it’s wrong whereas you guys don’t see it at all. So quit feeling sorry for yourself and pick yourself up and dust yourself off. We have an ideological fight on our hands, one that portends great concern for the future of our country. That is way more important than whether or not we play nice on the internet.

We on the right do not believe in anarchy like you on the left always portray us believing. We just don’t like the idea of big fascist governments controlling our lives. We have plenty of examples of how bad that is for people. We simply prefer to work things out on a smaller, more local and more personal level than those on the left, who I might add always look to excuse themselves from personal involvement or responsibility. From welfare to abortion the message from the left is “let someone else take care of that so I can go out and play.” Sorry that may be fine for a child but not adults.

That is the fight. The big government folks on the left actually betray their anti-establishment roots by becoming the biggest bullies on the block through government fiat. Hmmmm. Something you aging hippies ought to think about. The other complaint you guys have is big business. You have the power to cripple any industry on the planet in your wallet and yet you want the government to do that for you. Why? The power of the market is in the people. If you act like sheeple instead then yes you abdicate your power and the government fills the void. This proposition, this election is more about people reasserting their authority over government and reassuming the role of leadership. The politicians have shown they can’t handle the job so it’s up to us. Hope that helps you out today when go to the polls. You can say whatever you want here but in that private little space where no one is looking that’s is where you make your real stand.

» AN50 on 11.02.10 @ 04:16 PM

So what you are suggesting R2D2 is we precipitate the economic collapse now, in the middle of an economic collapse. Holy crap, that is the stupidest idea I’ve heard yet.

How about the clean energy folks make their sources cheaper and more abundant than fossil fuels and avoid any collapse at all? What? What was that you just said, they can’t? Ok there is your problem.

What you and most of California’s aging hippies and their proselytized offspring really don’t understand is the cost. EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING you touch, smell, see, or move in this state is effected by energy costs, EVERYTHING. You live a pretty good life here I’ll bet and that life will disappear very fast under your proposal. Not trying to scare you, just being realistic. Unless you do energy cheaper and more abundant then everyone especially the POOR will suffer, period. No way around it. There is simply no free lunch and we are already way too far down the debt road to even consider subsidies or socialism. Too fricken LATE. We need to kill AB32 and send the whiners back to engineering school. This problem cannot be solved by raising energy costs, it’s not just a job killer it’s an economy killer and that means your life style buddy. Say good bye to the free time you have, bought and paid for with cheap energy. You will spend that time working your spoiled ass off making ends meet and by that I mean a roof over your head and enough food to avoid starvation. Don’t believe me though, just do the freaking math.