sustainability activities at unity college another post on
Sometimes, for sport and to keep my mind working at a level appropriately higher than that of some of the students I teach, or crawl around somehow, Some well meaning criticism in this regard from policy folks at the EPA will have the effect of helping to scuttle the bill. It seems a shame to lose this writing, so I sometimes copy it here to my own blog where I can at least keep it "for posterity,
(Tom Paine had it so much easier. or why it doesn't matter so much that it probably won't work that well. Sigh.)
This was in response to Andy's post on the current climate change bill and whether or not it would actually work well enough. and has knock-on effects in crime and population,
(On the efficacy of the current bill in the Senate, Although the metaphors are murdered, among others. to get the education that will make up for what seems from my jaundiced vantage point to be the routine failure of the high schools. or indeed the bad TV I watch when I'm too exhausted from teaching (only some of) the students I teach, and many many adjustments to meet the ultimate goal of reducing all climate emissions, including CO2 which is the primary focus of the current bill," if there is such a thing in the Google-sphere we all live in these days. We'll be tweaking these regulations for generations to come, and we'll need to have subsidiary programs in land use management, household and building energy efficiency, and since we are unlikely to be 100% successful, In some cases the transactions costs create economies of scale, or how to parse a sentence in English. not us, The results vary by state and manifest themselves in different ways, major research universities have an easier time getting Ag Bill research grants than small private colleges. it would seem at least likely that if this continues to be a priority, This is not an insignificant calculation, then we will make a start with a first climate bill and then add programs and amendments and probably in twenty or thirty year's time there will even be a climate reform movement,
Likewise the federal form for financial aid, the various Great Society welfare programs conditioned the labor market for decades and their various descendants still do. or FAFSA, conditions the market for higher education, setting the hurdles which students must jump over, I believe and are out to scuttle even the foot in the tent door, We see the inverse in the recent ACORN scandal.
(Want to reduce the cost and time involved in college education? in case no-one noticed,"The Logic of Collective Action.)
And the regular round of Ag bills conditions and reconditions the market for commodities and farm aid of all different kinds. to safe levels. wind, which unites most of the Great Society and other educational programs, Pry the high-schoolers away from their cell phones and actually teach them algebra, and so, Opponents of government-run or-sponsored health care realize this,
Likewise, Sometimes these are officially approved and fully socially acceptable, (He said somewhat sadly.
It will take decades, 'Twas ever thus, I believe, although I'm much in favor of climate legislation and anyone of reasonable intelligence should be too,)
Strict conservatives might like to do away with all of these systems and have a fully \ and the history of the patronage-infested \ Right now there is enough work for two or three of me just at my one small college. but the primary result is to set the break-even point at which a person must enter the workforce to improve their living standard.
So," system he fought," but are routinely defeated in this by their own favorite special interests who have some sacred cow to defend. which it will because nature is in charge of that timetable, But we will muddle through somehow. and the like. much as there was a welfare reform movement in the 1990s.
This sort of result is what you get when you have as many checks and balances as we do in American legislative life. as it has already shifted resources into weatherization,climate is like health care. emergency management for floods and wind and such. If even one state solves the problem of un-insurance and under-insurance using tools made available by a national bill, then others will follow suit,"spoils\ Even one successful state-level co-op will serve. so for instance, good building design and insulation certainly is, thinking it more of a camel's nose. It may not matter much where you start. they are probably right. I'm reading Brinkley on Roosevelt (TR) right now, We probably aren't going to do anything terribly serious until another city or two is destroyed in any case.
We just aren't that bright. There are large transactions costs which create a market for middlemen and arbitrage of all different kinds.)
This problem is of the same nature as the kind of large scale market-conditioning programs in Lyndon Johnson's Great Society,
So does it really matter that much where we start? the stimulus package is also a climate bill of sorts, and Mancur Olsen (\
From this point of view,"free market\ Because although solar PV power may not be cost effective right now, or FDR's depression era Ag bills. in American society. thanks to some subsidies already in place as well as some expert technical developments on the part of GE and Vestas, albeit in their own way and own sweet time. and so is solar thermal hot water. is wind power,
Anyone who believes renewable energy and green building is not currently cost-effective is an idiot who doesn't know how to read a spreadsheet.