Re: James Hansen’s ‘Too Little, Too Late? Oops?’

Some blog followers might be interested in a discussion list post “Re: James Hansen’s ‘Too Little, Too Late? Oops?’ ” [Hake (2014)]. The abstract reads:

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ABSTRACT: Climate scientist James Hansen (2014) http://bit.ly/omiMY3, in his report “Too Little, Too Late? Oops??” at http://bit.ly/1m15lmz wrote (paraphrasing):

“Many queries received: is Obama's climate effort ‘too little, too late?’ Closely related query: are we at an ‘oops’ moment, a realization that we have pushed the climate system too far, so consequences such as ice sheet disintegration and large sea level rise are now out of our control? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The answer re ‘too little?’ is obvious from the fact that governments, ours included, are allowing and encouraging industry to go after every fossil fuel that can be found. Rather than dwelling on that fact, let's consider the action needed to avoid ‘too late’.

Citizens Climate Lobby http://citizensclimatelobby.org/ just released a study ‘The Economic, Climate, Fiscal, Power, and Demographic Impact of a National Fee-and-Dividend Carbon Tax.’ A 3-page summary by Danny Richter is at http://bit.ly/1ypEENy.

According to their comprehensive analysis of the impacts of a carbon fee-and-dividend (CF&D) in the United States, with 100% revenue distribution of the money to the public in equal shares as direct payments: the fee would start at $10/ton of CO2 and increase $10/ton each year; 100% of the revenue is returned to households, equal amounts to all legal residents. This approach spurs the economy, increasing the number of jobs by 2.1 million in 10 years. Emissions decrease 33% in 10 years, 52% in 20 years.

Contrary to the wails of fossil-fuel-industry kingpins, the fossil fuel CF&D stimulates the economy, modernizes infrastructure and saves 13,000 lives per year via improved air quality. GDP increases, with fee-and-dividend causing a cumulative GDP increase of $1.375 trillion.

Why do these results differ from previous studies concluding that a carbon tax would be costly? The main reason is that other studies do not have 100% recycling of funds to the public; instead part of the money is taken as a tax, to increase the size of government.”
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To access the complete 37 kB post please click on http://bit.ly/1w3Arx1.

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University; LINKS TO: Academia http://bit.ly/a8ixxm; Articles http://bit.ly/a6M5y0; Blog http://bit.ly/9yGsXh; Facebook http://on.fb.me/XI7EKm; GooglePlus http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE; Google Scholar http://bit.ly/Wz2FP3; Linked In http://linkd.in/14uycpW; Research Gate http://bit.ly/1fJiSwB; Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs http://bit.ly/9nGd3M; Twitter http://bit.ly/juvd52.

REFERENCES [URL shortened by http://bit.ly/ and accessed on 20 June 2014.]
Hake, R.R. 2014. “Re: James Hansen’s ‘Too Little, Too Late? Oops?’ ” Post of 20 Jun 2014 09:08:40 -0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. Online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://bit.ly/1w3Arx1. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists.