Even thought "this winter snowstorms blanketed Massachusetts."
"Environmentalists call for a Mass. carbon tax" by Erin Ailworth | Globe Staff, June 24, 2013
A group of environmentalists plans to ask voters to make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to adopt a so-called carbon tax by imposing new levies on gasoline, heating oil, and other fossil fuels based on the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.
(Blog editor really can't believe he' seeing that. Leading on gay marriage and this is not a good legacy to leave)
The group, which has registered with the state as a political committee, is launching a campaign to place the issue on the ballot for the 2014 state elections. If approved, such a tax would add several cents to the price per gallon of gas and could generate as much as $2.5 billion in revenue a year, according to an economic analysis that was done for the group, the Committee for a Green Economy.
As if the price of gas wasn't high enough on the falling further behind economically citizenry.
Good God, man, if Massachusetts voters approve this (or worse, the machines and counters are rigged) ki$$ this state goodbye.
The goal is to combat climate change by reducing consumption of fossil fuels and the carbon dioxide they produce when burned in cars, trucks, and heating systems. Increasing levels of carbon dioxide are accelerating climate change and the chances of environmental disaster, scientists say.
We are $ick and tired of these kinds of $cientists, especially from a pos, agenda-pu$hing pre$$. This is really the limit, right here.
“There is grass-roots support for taking this kind of action,” said Gary Rucinski, of Newton, a cofounder and chairman of the group.
Yeah, everyone loves be robbed over a lie.
But the effort will almost certainly attract opposition from antitax groups and businesses not eager to contend with higher taxes and energy costs.
Yeah, what are you guys trying to do, kill the economy?
Some note that Massachusetts already participates in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a program among Northeastern states to cut carbon dioxide emissions by requiring power plants to pay an allowance for every ton they produce.
“Massachusetts is already committed to reducing carbon,” said Robert Rio, senior vice president at Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a trade group. “Raising the cost of living or the cost of doing business just to make a statement would seem counterproductive.”
I can't afford that kind of statement.
No state has adopted a carbon tax, but several jurisdictions in foreign nations have put a price on carbon emissions, including the Canadian province of British Columbia. There, the tax has added roughly 25 cents to a gallon of gasoline.
That's a little more than several.
Climate change, which faded as an issue during the economic crisis, is gaining new attention, in part due to the increasing frequency of destructive storms, such as Hurricane Sandy last fall.
Actually, if you do the research those are down; what IS UP is the BLARING SIREN of the AGENDA-PUSHING, MOUTHPIECE MEDIA when a disaster occurs.
President Obama has made climate change a focus of his second administration and is expected on Tuesday to detail a plan to combat it, according to a video posted over the weekend on the White House website.
He's going to dictate it.
Using carbon taxes to discourage consumption of fossil fuels and fund measures, such as transit improvements, that reduce pollution has been discussed for years, but there has been no headway in Congress or legislatures. In Massachusetts, carbon tax legislation was filed in January, but has languished.
This lack of progress prompted the Committee for a Green Economy to launch its ballot measure campaign, said Rucinski, also Northeast regional coordinator for Citizens Climate Lobby, an advocacy group based in California. The Committee is drafting language for the proposed law, which must be submitted in an initial petition to the attorney general by August.
Hey, look, you can vote to f*** yourself, Massachusetts!
Then begins a quest to gather the tens of thousands of signatures needed to put the issue before voters. The committee declined to say how much money it has raised.
Important things to notice:
Unlike a medical marijuana or tax-cutting referendum, the agenda-pushing, front-page-this pre$$ isn't meeting this one with consternation. It's all positive coverage.
The other thing I have to say is if I see someone asking for signatures I'm going to give them a piece of my mind and ask them what is wrong with you people?
And wait until you get a load of this fart-in-your-face mi$t:
The Committee for a Green Economy hired a consulting firm, Regional Economic Models Inc., to analyze the economic effects of a carbon tax here. The study’s findings, to be released Wednesday, show that taxing consumers on every unit of fossil fuel they use could boost the state’s economic activity by as much as $8 billion over the next two decades, by using the revenues to lower income, sales, and corporate taxes.
Yup, INCREASING YOUR TAXES will lead to LOWER TAXES!
I mean, they REALLY CAN'T THINK that we are THAT 'TOO-PID, can they?
CAN THEY?
The best is yet to come.
The study was modeled, in part, on a bill filed in the Legislature by Representative Thomas P. Conroy, a Wayland Democrat, and Senator Michael Barrett, Democrat of Lexington.
In addition to lowering income and corporate taxes, the bill would set aside $100 million annually from carbon tax revenues to fund transportation improvements, limit increases in public transit fares, or pay down transit-related debt.
Oooooooh! This is ABOUT GETTING MONEY into the HANDS of BANKS in the form of DEBT INTEREST PAYMENTS because of the BIG DIG and MBTA!
Related: Massachusetts Sales Tax Swindle
Yup, $100 million here, $100 million there, pretty soon we are talking real money in an age of austerity!
The Committee for a Green Economy’s consultant analyzed a similar but slightly different proposal to tax fuels based on the amount of carbon dioxide they produce. For instance, Rucinski said, a tax of $45 per metric ton of emissions could hypothetically add 45 cents to the price of a gallon of gas.
SAY WHAT?!!!! That is a LOT MORE than SEVERAL!
“We experience 45 cent swings in a gallon of gas all the time,” Rucinski said. “Phased in over several years, it doesn’t seem like it would be a daunting prospect.”
Maybe not for him! What an arrogant jerk!
Skeptics say a carbon tax would make it harder for Massachusetts businesses to compete with companies in other states where no such tax exists.
Of course, when it comes to handing out tax subsidies to Hollywood and well-connected special interests, it's give the loot away.
Even some environmentalists, preferring federal to state-by-state approaches, wonder if it would have much impact on lowering overall greenhouse gas levels.
And it won't even work, great!
“We are strongly in favor of having a price on carbon and having a market signal that greenhouse gases need to come down over time,” said Peter Rothstein, president of the New England Clean Energy Council, but “is doing a carbon tax at a single state level going to be most beneficial to the state and to dealing with climate change?”
I thought it was global warming.
Susan Reid, Massachusetts director of the nonprofit Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy group in Boston, said, “Addressing climate change is an all-hands-on-deck scenario.”
Easier to pick your pocket that way.
--more--"
Yeah, you forget the harsh winter, the cold snap, and record spring snowfall, Massachusetts citizens.
And half a world away:
"Kerry seeks India’s help on global warming ‘challenge’; Obama expected to put forth rules on coal plants" by Deb Riechmann | Associated Press, June 24, 2013
NEW DELHI — Secretary of State John F. Kerry urged fast-growing India on Sunday to work with the United States on global warming before it’s too late....
Kerry spoke on climate change in a speech in New Delhi, the second stop on his two-week swing through the Mideast and Asia, just two days before President Obama is to unveil his long-awaited plan for the United States on the issue.
Maybe FLYING AROUND the PLANET on a NON-STOP BASIS isn't helping either!
Related:
"President Obama is planning a major push using executive powers to tackle the pollution blamed for global warming in an effort to make good on promises he made at the start of his second term."
We call that a dictator, and I'm against pollution! That's the real threat, and it's entirely separate from the fart mist!
Also see: Slow Saturday Special: This Post is Swollen With Stories
‘‘The world’s largest democracy and its oldest one must do more together, uniting not as a threat to anyone, not as a counterweight to a region or some other countries, but as partners building a strong, smart future in a critical age,’’ Kerry said in a reference to how India is often viewed as a counterbalance to China....
Oh, the fart mist is cover for this geopolitical crap.
The United States is backing a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline that would bring energy to a power-starved region.
And go around Iran, too!
Speaking at a convention center to a crowd of several hundred businessmen, students, and others, Kerry noted that federal scientists in May reported that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere passed 400 parts per million — a level never before experienced by man.
Pfft! How can they even know that? Man has been around a lot longer than their shitty instruments.
‘‘When the desert is creeping into East Africa, and ever more scarce resources push farmers and herders into deadly conflict . . . then this is a matter of shared security for all of us. . . . When the Himalayan glaciers are receding, threatening the very supply of water to almost a billion people, we all need to do better,’’ he said.
But it's not receding!
See: Continuing the ClimateGate Lies
Yeah, thanks, you pathetic piece of puke.
And STOP GASSING UP the ENVIRONMENT with the TAXPAYER-FUNDED AIRPLANE!
During his first trip to India as secretary of state, the top US diplomat was expected to discuss a myriad of other topics, including enhancing security in the region and prospects for finding a political resolution to the war in Afghanistan.
As NATO troops leave, India fears the country could fall into the hands of a Taliban-led regime, endangering many of India’s interests there.
Kerry reassured India, which has invested more than $2 billion to reconstruct Afghanistan, that the US commitment to the Afghan people will not end at the close of next year when NATO-led combat troops complete their withdrawal.
We are never leaving, Americans, because we never do.
--more--"
And nothing from Kerry about the floods in India?
"Flooding in India strands thousands; more than 100 dead" by Biswajeet Banerjee | Associated Press, June 21, 2013
LUCKNOW, India — Days after floods killed more than 100 people — and possibly many more — rescuers used helicopters and climbed through mountain paths to reach about 4,000 people trapped by landslides in a narrow valley near a Hindu shrine in the northern Himalayas, officials said Thursday....
You know why they are having floods? The record snow in the mountains is melting. I know you didn't read about that in the AmeriKan media.
Amit Chandola, a state spokesman, said authorities so far have been unable to reach eight villages feared washed away by the weekend floods in the worst-hit districts of Rudraprayag and Chamoli....
A joint army and air force operation has so far evacuated nearly 14,000 people stranded in the area but nearly 61,000 people remained cut off, officials said....
Hundreds of distressed people looking for relatives flocked to Dehradun, the state capital, where flood survivors were taken by plane and helicopter. As those rescued exited the aircraft, those searching for missing people showed them pictures of their loved ones in hopes that someone had seen them....
Oh, a comparison to 9/11 -- and Kerry didn't mention it?
--more--"
"Death toll near 600 in India floods" Associated Press, June 22, 2013
JOSHIMATH, India — Rescuers found bodies in the River Ganges and in the muddy, broken earth left by landslides, raising the death toll from monsoon flooding in mountainous northern India to nearly 600 Friday, officials said.
The air force dropped paratroopers, food, and medicine for those trapped in up to 100 towns and villages cut off since Sunday in the Himalayan state of Uttrakhand where thousands of people are stranded, many of them Hindu pilgrims at four shrines in the area.
Uttrakhand state Chief Minister Vijay Bahguna said 556 bodies have been found buried in slush and the army was trying to recover them.
Rescuers on Friday found 40 bodies floating in the Ganges at Haridwar, a holy city, said officer Rajiv Swaroop.
Rakesh Sharma, another state official, had said the death toll might reach into the thousands....
--more--"
Isn't Kerry French?
"Floods close Lourdes pilgrimage site in Pyrenees" by Bob Edme | Associated Press, June 20, 2013
LOURDES, France — Heavy floods in southwest France have left two dead and forced the closure of the Catholic pilgrimage site in Lourdes and the evacuation of pilgrims from nearby hotels.
Muddy flood waters swirled on Wednesday in the grotto where nearly 6 million believers from around the world, many gravely ill, come every year seeking miracles and healing. It has been a major pilgrimage site since a French girl’s vision of the Virgin Mary there in 1858....
Interior Minister Manuel Valls said days of sustained rains and sudden snowmelt made the flooding worse, and left some villages isolated....
--more--"
That explains this:
"Authorities in parts of central Europe issued disaster warnings and scrambled to reinforce flood defenses Sunday as rivers swelled by days of heavy rain threatened to burst their banks. Several people have died or are missing in floods in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland since Thursday."
"Flood waters wreaking havoc in central Europe; 8 reported dead; transit, sewage systems halted" by Matthias Schrader | Associated Press, June 04, 2013
PASSAU, Germany — Water gushed into the old section of Passau in southeast Germany on Monday, reaching levels not seen in more than five centuries. The city was one of the worst hit by flooding that has swamped central Europe after heavy rainfall.
Eight deaths were reported and nine people were missing because of floods in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic. The swollen rivers have stalled shipping and driven thousands from their homes.
‘‘The situation is extremely dramatic,’’ said Herbert Zillinger, a spokesman for Passau’s crisis center.
Much of Passau was inaccessible on foot and the electricity supply was shut down as a precaution, he said. Rescuers were using boats to evacuate residents. Authorities evacuated a prison that was in danger of being flooded Monday, moving 60 inmates to two nearby facilities on higher ground.
But with water from the Danube, Inn, and Ilz rivers relentlessly pouring into the city, previously dry streets were inundated — in one case going from dry to ankle-deep within half an hour. Markers set in 1954, when the city suffered its worst flooding in living memory, have disappeared beneath the rising water.
The German news agency DPA said the water levels were the highest recorded since 1501 in Passau, a city of 50,000 people that dates from before Roman times.
The German army said it has sent 1,760 soldiers to help local authorities and volunteers reinforce flood defenses, particularly in the south and east of the country. Chancellor Angela Merkel planned to visit flood-hit areas Tuesday, her spokesman said.
Authorities in the Czech Republic said more than 7,000 people had to flee their homes as the Vltava River continued to rise.
Those who left included residents of southern neighborhoods in Prague and the town of Terezin also known as Theresienstadt, the former Jewish concentration camp during the Nazi WWII occupation, which is located north of the capital.
Prague’s central sewage treatment plant was shut down on Monday to prevent damage by the high water. That means sewage from the capital goes directly to the river. The plant may be restarted Tuesday or Wednesday.
Interim Mayor Tomas Hudecek said animals from a zoo near the river had been taken to safety. Parts of the city’s subway network also were shut down.
The Charles Bridge — normally packed with tourists at this time of year — was closed as were some other popular spots near the river at the foot of Prague Castle. Rescuers evacuated some 2,700 people across the western half of the country, where the government declared a state of emergency in most regions.
Some had to leave their homes in the southern neighborhoods of Prague, while further evacuations have been underway in the northern Czech Republic, awaiting a flood wave.
Germany’s national meteorological service forecast more heavy rain through Tuesday in the east of the country and in the Bavarian Alps in the south....
--more--"
How long can you hold your breath?
"Concern, relief as Central Europe contends with flooding; Elbe surge leads to evacuations; Danube recedes" by Geir Moulson | Associated Press, June 11, 2013
BERLIN — The swollen Elbe River breached another levee early Monday on its relentless march toward the North Sea, forcing German authorities to evacuate 10 villages and shut down one of the country’s main railway routes.
As the surge from the Elbe pushed into rural eastern Germany, there was some relief further upstream as the river slipped back from record levels in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt State.
To the south, the Danube hit a record high Sunday evening in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, then began to ease back Monday. Officials said the city escaped significant damage, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban said soldiers and rescue workers would shift their focus farther south.
Weeks of heavy rain this spring have sent the Elbe, the Danube, and other rivers such as the Vltava and the Saale overflowing their banks, causing extensive damage in central and southern Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary. At least 22 flood-related deaths have been reported....
In Budapest, the Danube peaked late Sunday about a foot above the previous record, set in 2006. The Danube widens noticeably below Budapest, reducing the threat of flooding....
River levels across the Czech Republic were falling Monday, although thunderstorms during the night caused some local flash floods....
--more--"
Maybe I ought to just go live in a hut.
Also see: Zoning changes could produce new farms in Boston
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
Obama climate plan to limit emissions at plants
Students try to keep their cool
And not because the government and banks are screwing them on student loans.
