CA Braces for the Complex World of Carbon Markets

Russ Steele

CARB recently held a conference in San Francisco to help academics, policy-makers and business people navigate the changing landscape of carbon markets: “Navigating the American Carbon World.”

Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board is California and the states top air regulator has to make carbon trading a reality. In her remarks to the carbon conference, she signaled to the participants there are a lot complexities ahead. Details at KQED Climate Watch:

“There’s a lot of uncertainties out there,” she told the audience of several hundred. “I don’t want to say I feel sorry for the oil companies, because they’re doing pretty well, thank you,” she said. “But I would say that, you know, if I were in the utility business, I would be giving a lot of thought to what my business was going to look like.”

If I were a business that relies on power from utility companies I would start worrying about what my business was going to look like when the utility company passes AB-32 carbon fees on to my business.  I would be looking around for a more business friendly state – Texas maybe?

Nichols also acknowledged that while there are real economic benefits to California being a leader, there’s no guarantee that other governments will follow its example. Currently no other state (in the U.S.) is. And on Capitol Hill, cap-and-trade is a non-starter.

“If by 2020 we don’t have a government in the United States — and I would say a government in Canada as well — that have stepped up to the plate and adopted some form of national commitment to reduction of greenhouse gases, and joined in some sort of an international program to accomplish this goal, then I would say our claims of leadership are not all that they were cracked up to be,” Nichols said.

California’s first carbon permit auction is scheduled for November, with a practice run in August.

If I were Mary Nichols, I would start worrying about all those other states and Canada who are going to be reassess climate change, as there has been no AGW or any warming for the last 15 years, and noted NASA Astronauts, Engineers and Scientist are calling for NASA/GISS to abandon their climate models and return to the real world of science.

It is clear to anyone with an open mind that the climate models based on CO2 amplification are not valid.  CO2 is increasing while temperatures are falling.  The AGW myth has been overcome by reality!

Green Job Reality Check: Pickens’s Lost My A** in Wind Power

Russ Steele

News Busters has the story – - T. Boone Pickens: ‘I’ve Lost My A–’ in Wind Power – ‘The Jobs Are in the Oil and Gas Industry’

Oilman T. Boone Pickens made a statement on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Wednesday that should make every green jobs advocate including Barack Obama, Al Gore, and Van Jones sit up and take notice.

“I’ve lost my a–” in wind power. This came moments after he said, “The jobs are in the oil and gas industry in the United States”  Go HERE and check out the video. 

If Boone Pickens cannot make money on the wind, what are the lesser folks going to do to change the game?  Every time I go past the wind turbines standing mute in the breeze, it seem obvious that once the subsides stop, so do the profits.

The folks in Kansas have figured out how to create jobs in oil and gas.

And while the government continues to waste our hard earned money on “green jobs” and “green subsidies” that never seem to produce anything, traditional private sector investment finds a way to turn a healthy profit and invigorate the economy in Kansas.

“Kansas’ oil boom is important for two reasons. Firstly, here we have another example of the incredible job-producing abilities of brown industry. Compare the furor over Kansas’ oil and gas explosion with the unfulfilled and overhyped “green” jobs, which have yet to materialize. And while green jobs will require subsidies for years, brown jobs don’t require federal upfront money — and will deliver taxes to the Treasury right from the start.”   Read the whole thing from Walter Russell Mead.

H/T from Mark Meckler for the Kansas information at Across the Fence.

Leading From Behind Again – WH Females Earn Less than Males

Russ Steele

Obama makes a big deal about fairness, mouthing all the words, but when it come to action he come up short again and again. Here is yet again another example of his duplicity.

Details in the Washington Free Beacon:

Female employees in the Obama White House make considerably less than their male colleagues, records show.

According to the 2011 annual report on White House staff, female employees earned a median annual salary of $60,000, which was about 18 percent less than the median salary for male employees ($71,000).

Calculating the median salary for each gender required some assumptions to be made based on the employee names. When unclear, every effort was taken to determine the appropriate gender.

The Obama campaign on Wednesday lashed out at presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney for his failure to  immediately endorse the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, a controversial law enacted in 2009 that made it easier to file discrimination lawsuits.

President Obama has frequently criticized the gender pay gap, such as the one that exists in White House.

Did you hear about this is hostile work place in the Lame Stream Press or an AP Story. No, you heard about it form the alternative press, on line bloggers. Stay Tuned. There is more.