The UAW: As Green As We Need To Be
The Detroit News reports that the United Auto Workers are gearing up for battle for a surprising new cause: greenhouse gas emissions standards. Alan Reuther, Legislative Director of the newly-green union, wrote congress recently to warn against a bill authored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski which would prevent the EPA from declaring C02 a danger to public health, saying:
The UAW also is deeply concerned that overturning EPA’s endangerment finding would unravel the historic agreement on one national standard for fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions for light-duty vehicles that was negotiated by the Obama administration last year
Not, however, because of the threat of global climate change. Who needs to worry about that when you’re health care fund is tied up in two teetering nightmares that need IPO-ing quick-fast?Incidentally, that particular program only cost about $2.4b. The UAW have become masters at hiding their venal bottom line beneath labor and now environmental justifications, but it’s always there. In this case it comes down to two sentences:
Comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation is the ideal policy tool because it provides support at the scale, predictability and duration needed to fund a meaningful economic and technological transition. Domestic manufacturing incentives funded through steady allowance revenues, could prove crucial in the choices firms make about where to locate production and our economic stake in these emerging trends.
Meanwhile, recent past seems to show that they’re barking up the wrong tree. Battery assembly for the Chevy Volt, which is proudly displayed on the report’s cover, is taking place at a non-union shop. And those scabs are assembling batteries from cells made by a Korean firm. Apparently the green future does not belong to the UAW.
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I used the Times article because I wanted to NOT use a link like Fox News and get piled on for that kind of source. Here's a BBC interview with Phil Jones and quite frankly, he left a lot on the table with his answers (or non answers). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm At least he's finally admitted to a medieval warming period but he bobs and weaves when called on it by using the "no evidence in Asia" gambit. What really gets me is that this guy suddenly falls back on "let's take a multi-dimensional view on this subject"- a strategy he clearly ignored when he was heavily funded to do his research. Honestly, Jones wouldn't be the first academic to keep the cash flowing with specious research but he might be the first to be the architect of the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world. That makes his research wide open for scrutiny and if it doesn't stand up to a 100% screening then why not take a step back and make this guy bring more to the table. We're talking about spending billions and billions of tax dollars in theories like cap and trade schemes.These are far more likely to buy AK-47s than solar power in Third World villages. Applying this same "loosey-goosey" science to the car industry is just plain wrong.They are in no position to experiment these days-this site is based on that premise so why not make Mr Jones jump through at least as many hoops as the runaway Prius driver because at least that guy is a minor irritant and not the master mind behind a trillion dollar burden on taxpayers.
Cap and trade is not a "theory." It has been successfully used to reduce acid rain in the northeast from coal-fired power plants. Some sources of emissions are more readily and cheaply cleaned up than others. So selling your credits for being cleaner than required to another emitter who can't readily clean their emissions is an intelligent, effective approach. Funny thing about environmental problems is when they get mitigated by some means (regulation, cooperation with industry, etc) is that they drop out of the news and become forgotten. Invariably somebody later just concludes that the issue was a "chicken little" event since nobody talks about it anymore...nothing could be further from the truth.