Some really good news for those who understand that our actions and choices are limiting our quality of life and risking the quality of life of our children.
CO2 emissions in US drop to 20-year low
"Mann called it 'ironic' that the shift from coal to gas has helped bring the U.S. closer to meeting some of the greenhouse gas targets in the 1997 Kyoto treaty on global warming, which the United States never ratified. On the other hand, leaks of methane from natural gas wells could be pushing the U.S. over the Kyoto target for that gas."
But noting that at 7% of the world's population, we account for 16% of emissions, there is still work to be done, and some bipartisan solutions to make things better.
A climate change fix conservatives can love
"Yet there is an answer for either candidate courageous enough to take the first step. This answer is steeped in conservative economics: Companies that pollute should be taxed so that a product’s cost to society is reflected in the price of that product. Milton Friedman and Richard Posner agree on this point!"
And as we rebuild the middle class, if we can maintain the disconnect between vehicle miles and economic growth, we can make even greater strides.
It's Official: Western Europeans Have More Cars Per Person Than Americans
"The Carnegie paper explains that car ownership rates are closely tied to the size of the middle class. In fact, the paper actually measures car ownership rates for the specific purpose of using that number to predict middle class size. Comparing the middle class across countries can be extraordinarily difficult; someone who counts as middle class in one country could be poor or rich in another. Americans are buying fewer cars -- is it possible that this is another sign of a declining American middle class? Even if Americans are on average richer than Europeans, after all, U.S. income inequality is also much higher. According to the Carnegie paper, about 9.6 of Americans' cars are luxury cars, an unusually high number; but it unhelpfully defines 'luxury' as "Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Lexus" (no Cadillacs?), which may help to explain why Germany's "luxury car" rate is 26.6 percent."
What we do not need are more direct and indirect subsidies for industry that impose unnecessary infrastructure responsibilities on our future generations.
Who benefits as high-voltage electric lines crisscross Wisconsin?
"For example, MISO on its maps shows a transmission line running from Green Bay into Michigan's Upper Peninsula where the only large electric users are a pair of mining operations. But Wisconsin customers could end up paying most of the construction cost under the current scenarios."
Nor do we need to pull the rug out from under one industry in favor of another....like it or not, our government subsidizes all energy industries, and to hold one industry hostage while subsidizing fossil fuel industries doubles the advantage for polluters over job creators.
Report: A Plea For Extending a Federal Tax Incentive for Wind Energy
"The wind energy’s growth also has been built on the federal energy production tax credit, which first became available in 1992 and has been extended many times. Wind energy producers can get an income tax credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour. The American Wind Energy Association has been lobbying hard to extend the production tax credit, which is set to end on Dec. 31 this year."
Happy Friday!
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