A growing number of business owners and taxpayers are mobilizing nationwide against the House-approved cap-and-trade energy bill, which would reduce energy consumption but could raise energy prices and harm small businesses
By Joseph Abrams
The revolution will not be televised: it’s been blinking along on a giant bakery sign in St. Louis, Mo., instead.
Fed up with his congressman’s vote on a sweeping climate-change bill that passed the House of Representatives in late June, the proprietor of McArthur’s Bakery took to his street sign and posted a clear message to all passersby:
“Russ Carnahan voted to … close us and other … small business.”
David McArthur, vice president of the 52-year-old family operation, a Gateway City institution, is one of a growing number of business owners and taxpayers nationwide who are mobilizing against the so-called cap-and-trade bill, which would levy harsh fines on energy consumption that harms the environment.
McArthur told FOXNews.com that every aspect of his business relies on the forms of energy targeted by the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and that his congressman, Carnahan, was supporting “a direct tax increase on small business” by voting for it.
“We make (our product) with electricity, we bake it with gas, we refrigerate and freeze it with electricity and we distribute it with gas and oil,” said McArthur, who said he worries that high prices could cost his company up to $15,000 a year in an industry with a very tight margin for profit.
You know, I’m wondering why stories like this one aren’t widely reported.
Just like the tea-parties that have been going on for quite a while, and are still happening. Of course, if you depend on the major networks for your news, you would think that the tea-parties have all stopped, and everybody just went home.
This cap & trade scam bill, if it passes the Senate, will put a lot of small businesses out of business. It’s going to create massive layoffs in the manufacturing industries, not to mention the exodus of many manufacturing companies to China and India.
It’s a lose-lose situation.
I can’t believe I’m saying this but, we need to look at what is happening in Europe with their cap & trade nonsense.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124691243941002053.html
“Businesses and unions finally are starting to speak out against intrusive and expensive emissions regulations. In December, Phillipe Varin, chief executive of Corus, Europe’s second-largest steel producer, told the London Independent that the cost of carbon credits and new technologies needed to reduce emissions would destroy European steel production, forcing manufacturing overseas.”
If you don’t think that will happen here, you are as dumb as a box of rocks.
“But it is the awareness itself that will drive the change and one of the ways it will drive the change is through global governance and global agreements.â€
-Al Gore
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/1893/Gore-US-Climate-Bill-Will-Help-Bring-About-Global-Governance
If you still think it’s all about the climate, then you’re dumb as a box of rocks.
Renowned NASA climate scientist James Hansen, argues the Waxman-Markey approach would fail to reduce carbon emissions enough to prevent catastrophic warming.
“Continuing to increase burning coal, oil and gas will soon drive atmospheric CO2 well over 400 ppm and ignite a devil’s cauldron of melted icecaps, bubbling permafrost, and combustible forests from which there will be no turning back,” Hansen says. “The Waxman-Markey bill locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like ‘cap-and-trade’ scheme… It sets meager targets — 2020 emissions are to be a paltry 13% less than this year’s level, far short of the trajectory needed to return atmospheric CO2 to safe levels — and the bill sabotages even these by permitting unverifiable ‘offsets,’ by which other nations are paid for projects, most of which would have been undertaken anyway. A far superior alternative to cap-and-trade is a rising carbon fee, which provides the best incentive to move to ever higher energy efficiencies and carbon-free energy sources. As engineering and cultural tipping points are reached, the phase-over to post-fossil energy sources will accelerate.”
“The Senate must do better than the House,” says Tom Stokes, coordinator of the Climate Crisis Coalition. “Cap-and-trade tries to hide the carbon price, which gives opponents license to make outrageous claims about its cost. In contrast, the cost of a revenue-neutral carbon tax would be clearly known. With unemployment at 9.5% and consumer spending down, using carbon revenues to boost every worker’s take-home pay will help address both the climate and the economic crisis.”
Rob:
Blah blah blah!
James Hansen manipulates data, and refuses to release his experiment notes so they can be replicated by other scientists.
Oh, and quoting someone from the climate crisis coalition downplaying the cost of cap & trade, isn’t exactly convincing.
I repeat: Blah blah blah!
I don’t see Rob quote Spencer. Does he read both sides? Lemming are all the same. Follow thy leader.
Paul:
That’s his story and he’s stickin’ to it. It doesn’t matter. As long as it brings about the social changes he wants. Why should it?
Rob will continue to ignore everything that counters his views including what is said by scientists like Spencer. He also ignores what is unfolding with the real world data like this: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
Are you suprised? I’m not. It’s OK to lie as long as it gets you what you want. That’s the Liberal way, the ends justify the means.
Umm, guys- I posted it because he’s saying he’s against Cap and Trade. Just thought you might find that interesting. Guess not.
Rob:
Yeah, saw that.
Rob, what do I think about AGW caused by CO2?
If you answered “I don’t know” then you are really dense.
If you answered “you don’t believe that it’s happening” you would be correct.
Now, given that I don’t believe that CO2 is causing AGW, what do you think I think about a carbon tax as a viable alternative to cap and trade?
Rob:
That’s like asking me if I’d rather be shot through head with a lead bullet, or a silver one.
“I like lead.” I eat it in my venison every year. Neil, Take heart. Once the truth is know on the costs and how it affects the normal people, truth will prevail. Always has, always will. That said, there will be speed bumps in the road.
Paul:
I don’t think that time is going to come soon enough. Serious damage will be done before that happens, I’m afraid.
I agree. Damage will be inflicted, however, I see light at the end of the tunnel as peoples eyes open up. By the way, I hope “the light” is not a freight train coming our way! Later.
Paul:
You’re right, there is some light. Here is a little bit:
http://www.media.rice.edu/media/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=12794&SnID=1419357327
“In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record,” said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. “There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models.”
Rob:
You know, I did hastily read your post and I did misunderstand something. I carefully re-read it. The last line of Mr. Stokes comment raised my eyebrows.
“In contrast, the cost of a revenue-neutral carbon tax would be clearly known. With unemployment at 9.5% and consumer spending down, using carbon revenues to boost every worker’s take-home pay will help address both the climate and the economic crisis.â€
This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Come on man! You name one instance of any kind of tax going towards boosting ANY workers take home pay ever. That’s just not how it works!
I don’t know how you can take things like this seriously. I mean, come on, I disagree with 99% of everything that you say, but I never thought you were stupid.
The article didn’t fully explain what he was talking about. Often Liberal/progressive ideas include real benefits to the middle-class (that’s why the DFL exists) but propaganda muddies the water, so people like you guys fight against your own best interests. But I’ve mentioned that before, and you refuse to even entertain such an idea, let alone research it fully- i.e. not rely on right-wing sources. No wonder so many politicians have given up and sinmply take the corporate money and vote for the big guys. At least they appreciate it. And Neil, stop your lying- you’ve always thought I was stupid.
Rob:
You almost did it to me again! But I’m going to stick to the issue.
This is about the carbon tax or cap and trade. Both are based on the theory that production of CO2 is warming the atmosphere.
They are both “solutions” to a problem that does not exist.
The world is not warming, and in fact is cooling.
Hmm, lets see, CO2 is still on the rise, but the world isn’t warming.
On the other hand, the activity of the Sun is very low and nobody knows when it will pick up again, and the world isn’t warming.
I’m just struggling to figure out which of those two things drive our climate.
Is it a trace gas in our atmosphere, or is it that huge orb of plasma 93,000,000 mi. away at the center of our solar system?
You know that all the worlds major scientists are in consensus that it’s the trace gas.
Before Capernacus, the consensus was that the universe revolved around us.
Let’s see how that young thin ice is doing.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
Melting rapidly?
No.
Melting at the same rate as the old thick ice of 07-08?
No.
Anything unusual about this season’s melt?
No.
Prediction of rapid melt-off materializing?
No.
Are any of the dire predictions of AGW alarmists coming even close?
No.
Face it AGW true believers, there is no evidence that your pet theory is true. In fact the evidence against your pet theory is mounting. It’s time to throw in the towel.
If the planet was warming, and the alarmists were proven correct, I would give up on my opposition and join you. Really I would.
But the shoe is on the other foot. If you continue to hold onto this theory you will be in complete denial of reality.
Rob:
I always thought you were pretty smart the way that you steer a conversation away from the original subject.
It’s not your intelligence I question. It is your beliefs, and motives that I wonder about.
Cap and Trade legislation is just another wack at the middle class. It is not intended to save the environment, but to have more control over our everyday lives. They want to destroy the middle class, and this legislation will be the last nail in the coffin.
Dan- the middle clas is the goose laying the perpetual golden egg for the elite. Have no fear my paranoid friend, I don’t think they are that stupid to kill that goose. They may be THAT greedy to want to, but hopefully not that stupid.
Now of course in your dsytopian outlook, the ultimate goal of the elite is to create another evil communistic wasteland where only one percent or less rule and benfit (think Russia and China, who both BTW are now in varying degrees embracing US style capitalism and will continue to do so barring some kind of very bad global depression). Even though the good ol’ US of A is clearly at that point, more or less (more than less), under the guise of said capitalism. So you see- why fear something that may not occur over something that IS occurring right before your very eyes? Well, I can’t answer that for you…
Rob is a work “not in progress.” He is regressing in untrained thought. He must watch MSN.com where hate spews from their mouths.
THIS is the last nail in the coffin…, not some paranoid fantasy about a world-wide conspiracy re: global warming. This folks is REAL:
Washington, DC–The American Independent Business Alliance, a non-profit organization helping communities design and implement programs to support independent locally-owned businesses, today filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Citizens United v. FEC, No. 08-205, a case in which the Court has taken the unusual step of requesting reargument to overturn long-standing First Amendment doctrines regulating the engagement of for-profit corporations in political campaigns.
The brief argues that the Court’s invitation to overrule key First Amendment precedents would undermine, rather than advance, First Amendment values by granting corporations the power to use huge corporate treasury funds in electoral campaigns even though such funds were not accumulated for political purposes. Elevating corporations to the status of citizens has no constitutional basis and would harm not only citizens, but America’s small businesses.
“In a democracy, citizens should determine the rules governing the economic marketplace,” said Brenda Wright, Director of the Democracy Program at Demos and one of the counsel for AMIBA. “The Supreme Court is threatening to reverse this key assumption of democracy and give for-profit corporations, with their enormous economic clout, unbridled power to influence who will be elected to office to govern the citizenry. We urge the Court to honor the First Amendment precedents ensuring that citizens, not corporations, exercise sovereign power in our democracy.”
“The liberty of democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power.” -FDR
My God, where’s the roof to jump from? Are you serious? Now, that said, George Soros and Al Gore come to mind. Ring a bell??
Talk about a conspiracy theory!!!