The Blame Game
A perturbed Joshua Green at The Atlantic pushes back at Brad DeLong. Green’s rejoinder seems convincing to me, except for this line:
Unlike, say, health care reform, climate issues generally break down by geographic region rather than by party.
That’s too sweeping a statement to make, especially with respect to specific legislation like the dead and gone cap & trade bill. On larger issues related to climate science, such as whether or not anthropogenic global warming is for real (as opposed to some grand hoax), well, I think it’s fair to say at this point in time that that breaks down by party in the U.S.
UPDATE: Joe Romm scores in favor of DeLong.
<i>That’s too sweeping a statement to make, especially with respect to specific legislation like the dead and gone cap & trade bill.</i>
10 of the 14 States considered ‘solidly republican’ have easy and inexpensive access to Wyoming Coal.
Map of Red and Blue States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Red_state,_blue_state.svg
Delivered price of coal by state
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table4_10_a.html
The delivered price of coal per mmbtu in South Carolina where that Flip Flopping RINO Climate Change Sympathizer Lyndsey Graham lives – $3.64
The delivered price of coal per mmbtu in Oklahoma, where Senator ‘Climate Change is a Fraud’ Inhofe lives – $1.72
Whoever is responsible should be given credit not blame. With Democrats having rigid control of the House and never less than 59 seats in the Senate, the Republicans had nothing to do with the success or failure of “climate legislation” – no input, no decision making, no votes.
That Romm echos DeLong is good for a laugh as was his post wondering if the President should mention climate in the SOTU. In the halls of government, his climate catastrophism is but a mouse; while the climate concerned wonder if they backed the wrong candidate in the last election.
I’m still pretty confused about the supposed inaction… A few people in the China thread gave examples where the US was able to mobilise itself under pressure. My example was of the Bush government leading the nation and the world into war- which occured with massive resistance taking place all over the globe in the lead up to this step (not that the MSM was interested in that). In a way, I don’t see how the supposedly most powerful man in the world, the President of the United States- can’t get whatever he wants doing, done. So I would tentatively agree with Paul Kelly @ 2 that this must probably be a failure of the present government- (although I remain very ignorant on American politics in general, this seems atleast reasonable to me given the previous effectiveness of the Bush government).
Just saw this…
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/24/nasas-hansen-presses-obama-for-a-carbon-cost-and-nuclear-push/
It was Browners fault.