Monday, April 19, 2010

Would Poizner, Whitman, and the other anti-AB 32 people want the rest of the world to act like them?

I'm pretty certain that governor candidates Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman accept climate change even while they propose suspending California's premier law to address the issue, AB 32.

I would love to see someone corner them with this question: should the rest of the world act just as they would, and suspend action to address climate change for the same one or more years that they suggest? Do they really want China to keep building coal plants at the same rate? If they think that China shouldn't increase its emissions, when China's emission are one-third the per-capita emissions of the US? I'm pretty certain that even if AB 32 is implemented without delays, China's per-capita emission in 2020, the law's final year, will be less than California's.

I just can't see how they could give a satisfactory answer to this question. A child could see through a response that says we should "temporarily" quit trying but the rest of the world must keep trying, and saying everyone should quit trying for years is unacceptable. I expect they'd try to avoid answering it, but at this stage of the game, an extended interview could force them into uncomfortable positions.


Somewhat related: I was reading the nonsense put out by the Orwellian AB 32 Implementation Group, which included a claim that the law would cost $60/ton and cost "a winery" $2.6 million annually. First, $60 sounds pretty high for a law with modest aims, and the figures in the same document from the California government seem to show it as the high end of plausible figures. Also, dividing 60 into 2.6 million gives 43,000 tons of CO2, which also sounds like a lot. Is it? The Climate Registry claims to create public reporting of GHG emissions, and it has at least one winery (Sokol) as a member. The only thing I can't find on their incredibly extensive website is this public registry of emissions, not just for Sokol but for anyone. So much for this one effort to fact-check the forces of evil, and meanwhile I'm wondering what the heck is public about the Climate Registry.

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