Thursday, March 25, 2010

Harvard: $9/gal gas needed to meet Carbon targets

Seems the boffins have looked at the numbers, and it looks grim:
A new Harvard University study (Analysis of Policies to Reduce Oil Consumption and Greenhouse-Gas Emissions from the U.S. Transportation Sector) offers a sobering assessment of what it will take to meet the emission reduction targets proposed by President Obama and the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.

...

The Harvard study makes even more obvious what should no longer be controversial. Congress has not yet adopted tough controls on GHG emissions not because a “well-funded denial machine” is “confusing the public,” but because Members of Congress seek above all else to get re-elected, and inflicting pain on voters is not a smart way to win their support!
Not that the Democrats shy away from socking it to the Little Guy with massively regressive taxes. Taxes that raised gas to $9/gal would hit the typical family with $5000 - $10,000 in added tax burden. No wonder Congress doesn't show much interest in getting serious about Cap And Trade.

4 comments:

scotaku said...

Do we take the $9/gal and apply it to building nuclear power plants? Which could then be used to ease our reliance on oil (and other fossils)?

Or does the money go somewhere else? Say, to promote the Arts? The Children™? To fight the Obesity epidemic?

Just wondering, 'cos I didn't rtfa. No coffee in the system, you see.

Paladin said...

I drive by a gas station under construction on the way to work each day. This week they were installing the LED price sign, and the display showed 9.99 per gallon.

I thought to myself - There's more than a little potential for me to see that for real, before long.

bluesun said...

If it's market price, that's one thing, but forced into it?

The people in Europe can get away with gas prices like that because everything is close together, and they have trains going every whichaway. The U.S. ain't no Europe, not in the attitudes of the people, nor the geography. The "intellectuals" are the only ones who want to be Europeans.

SiGraybeard said...

I have a friend who says he'd pay "reparations" to descendants of slaves if they would just STFU and stop whining all the time and playing the Race Card roughly every 15 nanoseconds.

This is pretty similar.

I don't know that I'd pay $9/gal, but I'd go $4.50 or $5 if they'd just STFU about this global warming/climate change crap and GO AWAY. The mere fact they're still talking about this intellectually bankrupt "science" shows it's nothing but social engineering. Wouldn't it be more direct, and intellectually honest, if they just went down to school bus stops and stole lunch money from 4th graders?