Reality Check

from a conference David Roberts attended. From one speaker:

1. Aggregate global use of fossil fuels will not fall in the next two decades.
2. American "energy independence" is an unrealistic pipe dream driving bad policy.
3. The Biofuels Initiative won't achieve anything environmentally speaking, and is a grotesque example of pork barrel politics.
4. Consumer and lifestyle steps being taken by Americans are all but irrelevant.

And Joseph Romm at Climate Progress (while batting down one of the truly most clueless of economists, who of course worked for Bushnev) demonstrates how high a carbon tax would have to be to have any impact on our gas prices and thus our driving and the efficiency of our cars. It’s more than anyone will go for. It will take institutional action on a global scale to get us anywhere close in the time we have. And that’s slow in developing, if at all (as in Bushnev’s opening the West to more drilling, like 160% more). I’d sell my coastal properties if I were you.