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Climate change: Obama to unveil Clean Power Plan

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It's funny how things have changed so quickly. Environmental protection was seen as a 'new age' movement, a luxury, 'tree huggers'. Now we have heaps of scientific evidence that we are doing very damaging things. I can't wrap my head around people who are against renewable energy. How can anyone still think digging or pumping sh#t out of the ground and burning it is the way to go.
 
However, opponents in the energy industry have vowed to fight the plan.
They say Mr Obama has declared "a war on coal". Power plants fired by coal provide more than a third of the US electricity supply.

"War on <enter noun>" seems to be rather common rhetoric among the US, certainly a lot moreso than over here. And on coal? Yes please! The sooner we get rid of it, the better.

This is great news and much appreciated. The US is in a great position to shift it's energy production. The country is vast and varied, with huge areas of desert that lend themselves perfectly to build vast solar farms. Built as Concentrated Solar Power stations, they can even handle baseload, storing the heat generated over the day in large containers.

Long coastlines are great for wave power generation, and off-shore wind farms. Also, biogas from ranches etc. etc. There is huge potential, and with these plans it is finally going to be tapped.

However, there will likely be significant resistance from all kinds of lobbies against this, and they have proven time and again how powerful they can be, and how much they hate to see a change towards a better future.
My knowledge of macro economics is limited, but here's my take on the protesters who say "This will cost good jobs!" - The undertaking is huge in it's proportions, and there will be plenty of jobs to go around. All those alternative powerplants will have to be built, run and maintained by someone. It will either create more jobs than are 'lost', meaning it's less efficient than the current system. But this is outweighed by the huge benefits to the environment and the sustainability of the power generation. Or, it will create less jobs than will be lost, in which case it's more efficient than the current model, on top of the other benefits, and it should be done for economic reasons, too.
People like to argue "But building all this is so expensive!" Yeah well, where does the money go? It doesn't disappear, it goes in a circle. Yes, it's effectively "gone" if it goes overseas, but then you might want to consider making the solar/wind/etc. industry in your country able to compete. Cut taxes where necessary in the name of a cleaner future, I say. The problem is not the money going away, the problem is the money going into different pockets. The old pockets have a problem with that.
 
"One Republican presidential candidate, Marco Rubio, said the plan would be "catastrophic," while another, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, said the plan was "irresponsible and over-reaching".

No fair! How come they get a copy of the plan before everybody else does??

They must have read this thing they're commenting on, right? Right??
 
I can just imagine that the image of dirty power plants will make the anti-EV crowd resuscitate the "long tail pipe" theory on why EV's are not so green after all. Anyway, better and easier to control 100 smokestacks than 100 million tailpipes.
 
"War on <enter noun>" seems to be rather common rhetoric among the US, certainly a lot moreso than over here. And on coal? Yes please! The sooner we get rid of it, the better.

This is great news and much appreciated. The US is in a great position to shift it's energy production. The country is vast and varied, with huge areas of desert that lend themselves perfectly to build vast solar farms. Built as Concentrated Solar Power stations, they can even handle baseload, storing the heat generated over the day in large containers.

Long coastlines are great for wave power generation, and off-shore wind farms. Also, biogas from ranches etc. etc. There is huge potential, and with these plans it is finally going to be tapped.

However, there will likely be significant resistance from all kinds of lobbies against this, and they have proven time and again how powerful they can be, and how much they hate to see a change towards a better future.
My knowledge of macro economics is limited, but here's my take on the protesters who say "This will cost good jobs!" - The undertaking is huge in it's proportions, and there will be plenty of jobs to go around. All those alternative powerplants will have to be built, run and maintained by someone. It will either create more jobs than are 'lost', meaning it's less efficient than the current system. But this is outweighed by the huge benefits to the environment and the sustainability of the power generation. Or, it will create less jobs than will be lost, in which case it's more efficient than the current model, on top of the other benefits, and it should be done for economic reasons, too.
People like to argue "But building all this is so expensive!" Yeah well, where does the money go? It doesn't disappear, it goes in a circle. Yes, it's effectively "gone" if it goes overseas, but then you might want to consider making the solar/wind/etc. industry in your country able to compete. Cut taxes where necessary in the name of a cleaner future, I say. The problem is not the money going away, the problem is the money going into different pockets. The old pockets have a problem with that.


Those that say this will cost jobs, I feel, are ideology fixed in the position that climate change is fake and use the jobs "argument" no matter how unsubstantiated. There is no convincing.
The fact is that the argument is blindly elementary. If you really cared about this issue, you would argue about net increase or decrease in jobs. You would also not have blind faith that one job is as valuable or needed as another. I know what jobs this is going to cost, jobs at FEMA, oncology and pulmonology jobs, and hazmat jobs. I could go on forever, just frustrated. If one Republican will give Obama's plan a single speck of sincere praise, I'd give them huge consideration come 11/2016.
 
You don't have to be a climate change skeptic to understand that this will cost many their jobs. Obama said he would put coal out of business. Those in the coal industry aren't going to find jobs hanging solar panels overnight.

They may have to, the three biggest coal producers in the country are on the verge of bankruptcy, one may file this week. And that's almost nothing to do with coal for powerplants, it's lack of demand for their high-value metallurgical coal combined with high debt loads from big acquisitions a few years back.
 
You don't have to be a climate change skeptic to understand that this will cost many their jobs. Obama said he would put coal out of business. Those in the coal industry aren't going to find jobs hanging solar panels overnight.

The amount of jobs lost by fighting climate change pales in comparison to the number of jobs lost by not fighting climate change. Especially since countries like China and Germany show that there are tremendously huge job markets by plunging full-throttle into a green economy.

Not to mention, a better target of combating job loss would be to combat record-high corporate profit levels, or technology (an incredible amount of jobs have been obsoleted by computers), or the exploding cost of education, or any number of other factors.

Yet, economies always survive and it always grows. I work in a type of job that didn't exist at all 10 years ago, and wasn't even considered mainstream or viable maybe five years ago.

Jobs will be lost, and jobs will be gained--in the case of combating climate change, it's just a matter of whether we cling to the old and lose the jobs, or whether we take the lead and grab a leading market position in the green revolution. This revolution will happen no matter what because in just a few short years unsubsidized coal and solar will beat every other source of electricity generation, so why fight to keep a few coal and oil workers their old jobs and instead support programs that will let them transition into what's inevitably coming?
 
The amount of jobs lost by fighting climate change pales in comparison to the number of jobs lost by not fighting climate change. Especially since countries like China and Germany show that there are tremendously huge job markets by plunging full-throttle into a green economy.

Not to mention, a better target of combating job loss would be to combat record-high corporate profit levels, or technology (an incredible amount of jobs have been obsoleted by computers), or the exploding cost of education, or any number of other factors.

Yet, economies always survive and it always grows. I work in a type of job that didn't exist at all 10 years ago, and wasn't even considered mainstream or viable maybe five years ago.

Jobs will be lost, and jobs will be gained--in the case of combating climate change, it's just a matter of whether we cling to the old and lose the jobs, or whether we take the lead and grab a leading market position in the green revolution. This revolution will happen no matter what because in just a few short years unsubsidized coal and solar will beat every other source of electricity generation, so why fight to keep a few coal and oil workers their old jobs and instead support programs that will let them transition into what's inevitably coming?

Well said, my sentiments exactly.
 
What about the horse buggy makers who were put out of business with the advent of the automobile? Why didn't anyone care about them?

"We're the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do anything about it.... There is no plan B." | President Obama - Aug. 3, 2015
 
Nobody ever said transitioning to green energy would be easy or painless. Or cheap. However, doing nothing is infinitely expensive to the ultimate price of likely removing us from the planet.

The USA (and the west in general) has always been big on pushing ingenuity. And has been largely successful in doing so. Whether it be walking on the moon or ramping up production to build war machines in WWII, when there is a desire and a need to do something, it gets done. The biggest obstacle is in getting agreement that there is a clear and present danger to our existence that needs to be addressed, seriously, and quickly. To be in opposition today is like being an accessory BEFORE the fact, to the crime of genocide. Sounds extreme, I know, but it's pretty much the truth. Too bad it isn't actually a crime.

Obama's first run was the first time I've seen the public (around the world, not just in the USA) genuinely excited by politics. The 'yes we can' attitude seemed to extend beyond partisan boundaries. Unfortunately, the reality of Washington took hold and the altruism faded. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a candidate coming up through the ranks that could take the baton and continue the ideals (any party)?

Oh wait, there is... Donald Trump... :eek: