Chuck Schumer: No deal on infrastructure without addressing climate change

[Right_in_Virginia]

Chuck Schumer: No deal on infrastructure without addressing climate change
Washington Post, Dec 6, 2018, Chuck Schumer

Now that Democrats will soon control one branch of Congress, President Trump is again signaling that infrastructure could be an area of compromise. We agree, but if the president wanted to earn Democratic support in the Senate, any infrastructure bill would have to include policies and funding that help transition our country to a clean-energy economy and mitigate the risks the United States already faces from climate change.

For too long, Congress has failed to act in a meaningful way to combat the threat posed by climate change. Powerful special interests have a stranglehold on many of my Republican colleagues; some GOP legislators even refuse to acknowledge that climate change is happening. So despite the immense size of the problem, despite wildfires that sweep through the West and hurricanes that grow more powerful over the years, real action on climate change has been stymied by the denialism of the president and too many Republicans in Congress.

While notable progress was made during the Obama administration to stimulate renewable-energy technology and fashion international agreements to reduce carbon emissions, the Trump administration has shamefully undone much of that progress and appears unwilling to take any new steps to combat climate change. Worst of all, the administration is pulling the United States out of the Paris climate accord, giving a green light to countries such as China and India to increase carbon emissions by unacceptable amounts.


More:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chuck-schumer-mr-president-lets-make-a-deal/2018/12/06/aeae0188-f99e-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.88db9494dbb9

[Right_in_Virginia]

Go for it, Schmuck.

Paris riots over fuel taxes dim hopes for climate fight
CTV News, Dec 4, 2018

[snip]

Economists, policymakers and politicians have long said the best way to fight climate change is to put a higher price on the fuels that are causing it -- gasoline, diesel, coal and natural gas. Taxing fuels and electricity could help pay for the damage they cause, encourage people to use less, and make it easier for cleaner alternatives and fuel-saving technologies to compete.

These so-called carbon taxes are expected to be a major part of pushing the world to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and try to prevent runaway climate change that economists say would be far more expensive over the long term than paying more for energy in the short term.

But it's not so easy for people to think about long-term, global problems when they are struggling to get by.

Macron said the higher tax was his way of trying to prevent the end of the world. But the yellow vest protesters turned that around with the slogan: "it's hard to talk about the end of the world while we are talking about the end of the month."

The resistance to the fuel tax is a personal blow to Macron, who sees himself as the guarantor of the 2015 Paris climate accord, its strongest defender on the global stage. He has positioned himself as the anti-Trump when it comes to climate issues.

The French government quietly fears a Trump-led backlash against the accord could spread to other major economies whose commitment is essential to keeping the deal together.


More:  https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/paris-riots-over-fuel-taxes-dim-hopes-for-climate-fight-1.4206935

[Right_in_Virginia]

[LMAO]

 What exactly this Chuckie Schumer want? More taxes on energy? More regulations on businesses? Laws to band climate change? More clean energy boondoggles?

[The_Reader_David]

Offer to address climate change in the rational way: propose infrastructure projects that will be useful whether the climate warms, cools, gets wetter, gets drier, to wit desalination plants and modern analogues of the Roman aqueducts to move water to agricultural areas and population centers (or from in the event thing get wetter). 

Curbs on fossil fuel use only "address climate change" if we are (1) certain the very dubious general circulation models predicated on greenhouse gasses as the primary driver of climate are correct and (2) certain that greenhouse gas-driven climate change has not passed a tipping point which would make curbs on CO2 emissions irrelevant.  The likelihood of both those beliefs being valid is vanishingly low.  Projects to adapt to climate change are useful regardless of the cause and if cleverly designed regardless of they type of change.

[sneakypete]

Sounds like SOMEBODY had a large bag of cash dropped off on his doorstep,doesn't it?

WTH does a life-long denizen of NYC and DC know about fresh air?

[sneakypete]

What exactly this Chuckie Schumer want?

@LMAO

He wants power. With power he can do anything he wants or is paid to do without questions.

[Sanguine]

So address it:  "the political ideology referred to as climate change is not only bad science but will harm those who are most marginalized and we will not participate in furthering an anti-human political scheme."

[Emjay]

What exactly this Chuckie Schumer want? More taxes on energy? More regulations on businesses? Laws to band climate change? More clean energy boondoggles?

First, Chuck U has to convince people that there is such a thing as man-caused climate change.  There is not.  And why should the U.S. accept the burden of creating roadblocks to industry when the rest of the world is not going along.