<p>If one wanted to really examine “global energy use” and it’s relationship to global warming, one might do well to start with where it is actually used: in the transportation of goods and services over long distances, in the skyrocketing production of those goods and services in places far away, and in global defense energy expenditures (both in production of equipment, in air flights, in infrastructure, in protection of shipping lanes, etc.) </p>
<p>$6 gasoline (which I favor), implemented tomorrow, won’t get us where Al Gore says we need to be in 10 (now 8) years.</p>
<p>China and India contain about a third of the world’s population. Until they start limiting pollution while they modernize, it really does not matter whether global warming is called a liberal issue. Any greenhouse gas reductions by the US will be countered by China and India.</p>
<p>You’re half-right. The reason they don’t limit greenhouse gases is that U.S. corporations move there to produce “stuff” because of (among other reasons) the lack of environmental controls. If they weren’t producing for U.S. markets (with the tremendous expenditures of energy in transport and defense that goes along with it), they wouldn’t have to limit greenhouse emissions.</p>
<p>Neo-liberalism has a single model for so-called “modernization” - immiseration of the poor, alienation from the land. the crowding of the labor force into cities, and cheap production for export markets. As long as folks like Al Gore embrace it, fixing global warming in the timeframe Gore deems necessary is a dead-letter. But he is too intellectually dishonest to admit it.</p>
<p>Kluge - I don’t disagree. I just don’t think that the federal level is the proper place to start long-term change. Land use, gas taxes, roads, mass transit - that’s all state stuff.</p>
<p>Where is the Constitutional basis for federal regulation of the environment? Check the document, please - it’s not in there. Hence, for “conservatives” in the sense of legal conservatives, environmentalism is a state issue.</p>
<p>Weenie - I never said that they were. Please don’t put words into my mouth then criticize me for your version of what I wrote - your post is utterly patronizing and simply uncalled for. </p>
<p>Simply put, 70% of the country’s water resources are spent on agriculture. Going vegetarian reduces water consumption for agricultural purposes by roughly a factor of 10. Fish farming, livestock farming, antibiotics, growth hormones, and raising of animals is all a tremendous burden on the environment. I don’t think that one needs to be a vegetarian to care about the environment; I’m just pointing out that, if you’re really serious about doing something, its’ a great place to start. Also an excellent example of the free market in action. :)</p>
<p>Oh, please. No constitutional basis for environmental regulation? Start at the state level? Give me a break.</p>
<p>The Interstate and Foreign Commerce Clauses as interpreted since the beginning of the Republic, and certainly the past 70 years, not to mention the Executive’s inherent power with respect to foreign relations, and the Treaty clause, provide ample basis for Federal environmental regulation – and precisely because the effects of pollution are inherently interstate and international. We have a somewhat federalized system of environmental regulation because the various key acts passed in the Nixon years gave the states some amount of discretion in how to meet federal targets, but air/water/waste have been thoroughly regulated at the federal level for 35+ years. Plus, any kind of market-based system would have to be implemented on a Federal level to be efficient.</p>
<p>That is not to say that states haven’t been jumping into the field. But the various state regulations are often vulnerable to a Commerce Clause challenge, and it doesn’t exactly make sense to force manufacturers to meet different standards for sales in different states.</p>
<p>i don’t know why global warming is such an issue. yes - i’m well aware that people <em>may</em> have had a small effect of this. and i appreciate all those pictures that al gore showed in his movies about ice caps melting and stuff. but heres the thing - if we all lived 20,000 years ago during the end of the ice age - what would we be saying now. the ice caps came down to virginia and then receeded back up the artic circles.</p>
<p>sometimes theres just global warming…just a thought</p>
<p>Ariesathena, I think it would be great if there was action at the local and state levels. But I can assure you, from personal experience, that the officials at the local level are waiting for the officials at higher levels to tell them what to do.</p>
<p>Jags - wild guess here - you’re not a liberal, are you?</p>
<p>The reality is that no liberal that I know of acts as if the global warming described by Al Gore – “we have 10 years (now 8) until we reach the point of no return” – is real. Liberals lack credibility on this issue, much as they blew their credibility in the 1970s, the dark days of “limits to growth”. Other than a little corporate bashing (but while supporting the very trade policies that lead to increased global warming), liberals gain no traction from global warming, because, frankly, the solutions that would fit the diagnosis don’t “feel good”. They’ll keep buying Priuses, at least two per garage, not being willing to acknowledge that the problem is buying new cars at all.</p>
<p>And before someone puts forward the canard that buying the Prius is better than nothing at all, well, actually, in terms of both energy consumption and global warming, it’s not. Nothing at all is in fact much, much better. We don’t need new “energy efficient” cars and trucks; we need an end to grapes from Chile, blankets from Pakistan, shrimp from India, aluminum from Viet Nam, tomatoes from Mexico, and beef from Texas. Of course, that’s only true if Al Gore is right. (almost no one really believes he is.)</p>
<p>kluge, i don’t think i made a reference 1 way or the other.</p>
<p>i’m simply asking a question (one ive asked several people before) and no one seems to be able to answer it.</p>
<p>I’m simply saying that theres more to global warming than a couple of styrofoam cups, cheese spray cans, and high performance cars. The facts are that there was an Ice Age around 20,000 years ago - before humans had any technology, and it ended with - surprise - global warming - a much greater case of global warming that what is claimed to be going on today.</p>
<p>No, jags, you didn’t say one way or the other. But you’re kind of the test case for the hypothesis. People who push the position you’re pushing are generally not liberals. (And yes, asking that kind of a question, in that way, is pushing a position.) So - what is it? Are you the exception? The liberal who chooses to buck the consensus of qualified scientists on this question? Or are you the norm - someone who chooses to highlight the superficially plausible questions which qualified scientists seem to agree don’t change the analysis - who is on the rightish side of the political spectrum.</p>
<p>I’m guessing the latter, becuase it fits my original hypothesis. </p>
<p>P.S. Of course I don’t have the answer to your question. If it was that easy, there’d be no controversy, would there? I’m just taking the weight of scientific opinion at its word, because I accept that the science behind the global warming theory is over my head.</p>
<p>global warming isn’t going to destroy the planet. global warming has occurred 1000s of times before humans existed and will occur 1000s of times after we become extinct. in short, im not worried about it - worse comes to worse, my great great great great grandchildren will suffer - and quite frankly, after 4 generations - i don’t care.</p>
<p>I imagine then, jags, that you don’t much care about the life you will leave for your children or their children either then, when global warming will become more than a peripheral issue.</p>
<p>No prob…continue to drive your Suburban! Life is good! :)</p>
<p>When Larry David (Seinfeld creator) and his wife - the leading couple of the Hollywood green movement - decide to stop riding in that Gulfstream V intecontinental business jet, they and the other SUV-bashers might have a bit more credibiltiy</p>
<p>Meanwhile the Global Warming hypsters cannot explain (among other things) why Cape Cod once a massive glacier - just 15,000 years ago (about one second in geologic time) - seemed to have warmed up quite spectacularly in recent years</p>
<p>Cooling and Heating and accelerations and de-accelerations and cooling phases within heating phases and heating phases within cooling phases -are all quite natural for earth</p>
<p>GLOBAL WARMING is a politial issue now, and that’s why one might label it “liberal” - because its primarily about politics not science at this point</p>
<p>"I’m so worried about what’s happening today,
In the Middle East, you know.
And I’m so worried about the baggage retrieval
System they’ve got at Heathrow.</p>
<p>I’m so worried about the fashions today,
I don’t think they’re good for your feet.
And I’m so worried about the shows on TV
That sometimes they want to repeat.</p>
<p>I’m so worried about what’s happening today,
In the Middle East, you know.
And I’m so worried about the baggage retrieval
System they’ve got at Heathrow.</p>
<p>I’m so worried about my hair falling out,
And the state of the world today.
And I’m so worried about being so full of doubt
About everything anyway.</p>
<p>I’m so worried about modern technology,
I’m so worried about all the things
That they dump in the sea.
I’m so worried about it, worried about it,
Worried, worried, worried.</p>
<p>I’m so worried about everything that can go wrong.
I’m so worried about whether people like this song.
I’m so worried about this very next verse,
It isn’t the best that I’ve got.</p>
<p>And I’m so worried about whether I should go on
Or whether I shouldn’t just stop.
I’m so worried about whether I ought to have stopped.
And I’m so worried because it’s the sort of thing I ought to know.
And I’m so worried about the baggage retrieval
System they’ve got at Heathrow.</p>
<p>I’m so worried about whether I should have stopped then,
I’m so worried that I’m driving everyone round the bend.
And I’m so worried about the baggage retrieval
System they’ve got at Heathrow.</p>
<p>“Our country DOES have a fighting chance. We do not pay $6 a gallon (yet) as they do in Europew where the extra taxes have long paid for schools and hospitals. This should be OUR opprtunity to raise the gas costs and DEDICATE the extra revenues exclusively to a series of incentives, ranging from making the hybrid and electrical cars 20% CHEAPER than their gas powered counterparts to other corporate tax incentives.”</p>
<p>For once xiggi and I are on the same page.</p>
<p>People, across the board, absolutely refuse to make even tiny reductions in their immediate convenience for their own long-term benefit. You have to make it MORE pleasant/cheaper/convenient to do the right thing, or it won’t get done. There’s just no other way.</p>
<p>That being said, I don’t see any political will to make these changes from any party. We’ve got one that’s actively fighting to make the problem worse (subsidies to oil companie, etc.) and one that isn’t doing quite as many poisonous things. So even though the solution exists, that doesn’t mean I have any hope.</p>
<p>JHS - yes, under a completely ridiculous interpretation of the Constitution that was well beyond ANY founding intent. If it’s necessary, fine - then amend the document. The clauses you cite were interpreted to allow for environmental regulation because “pollution” is considered to be an item of interstate commerce. Now, I don’t know how you have to twist “commerce” to get “pollution,” but it happened when people wanted to radically expand the power of the federal government, beyond that which it had been allowed for over a century. The fact that you ignore jurisprudence for the first 100 years of the constitution does show that there is no basis in it for environmental regulation on the federal level. </p>
<p>It all does crack me up, now that Republicans are in power - the liberals loved the new set-up, because they got power on the federal level for a solid 50 years. Now that conservatives get to pick who runs the administrative agencies, the wailing and gnashing of teeth is amazing.</p>
<p>Well, if the Constitution (specifically the 14th Amendment) wasn’t interpreted in the 1880s to give corporations the rights of a “legal person”, a lot of these issues could be taken care of through personal liability law. The 14th Amendment was NEVER intended to do that (I don’t know a single Constitutional scholar who will argue that it was), but it just goes to show one how when it comes to legal interpretation or anything else, money goes a long way in providing explanations.</p>
<p>“Limited” liability was only affirmed as a Constitutional principle in 1897. And during the time of the founding fathers, charters (and the protections they offer) were given to corporations only for public purposes deemed worthy by Legislatures. </p>
<p>When it comes to corporate matters, referring to the founders, who lived before the age of corporate socialism, is generally meaningless.</p>
<p>Ariesathena: The Constitutional interpretation to which you refer is so “ridiculous” that I doubt you could get a single Supreme Court Justice – and I expressly include Scalia, Roberts, and Alito in this – to disaffirm it. It may be fun to yap about stuff like that at Federalist Society meetings, or wherever you do it, but it’s not part of the real world.</p>
<p>Mini: Limited partnerships and other methods of raising capital without exposing the investors to personal liability in excess of their subscription were well-known before the use of corporate charters for private purposes became common.</p>