So are you saying CO2 is poison like arsenic? I suppose that kind of ill-informed comment is easier than addressing the substance of the issue.

Most people understand that CO2 is a trace natural gas, source of all plant growth, and the product of respiration of all animals. It is sophistry, pure and simple, to equate CO2 with toxic air emissions such as particulates, mercury, etc. You are intentionally trying to confuse people to think that CO2 is dangerous like the toxins that cause lung disease. Fortunately, the average person understands when he is being propagandized. By the way, average global temperatures have not increased for fifteen years; the climate computer models cannot explain this as CO2 has continued to rise while temperatures have not.

I believe that a number of the solutions to California’s problems do not lie with taxing and spending at the state level. We need to use the federal government to create long term low cost credit for investment in development projects that will increase the real economic productivity of the economy. We need to restore Glass Steagall to protect the community banking function from the depradations of the Wall Street investment banks, to get credit flowing to productive enterprise as opposed to speculative ventures. We need to build new natural gas fueled electrical power plants to lower the cost of energy in the state. We need to junk the greenhouse gas regulations that increase the cost of manufacturing in California while providing no meaningful benefit in the way of climate change mitigation. Most importantly, we need to build great water projects to bring water from Alaska and the Yukon to the great plains of Canada and the US, the southwest, the intermountain west and California. The North American Water and Power Alliance project (NAWAPA) was conceived and designed in the 1960s, promoted by President Kennedy, and the plans have sat on the shelf since then. Building NAWAPA would put four million people to work, and it would require mobilization and training of the undereducated and underemployed youth of today, just as was done by FDR in the great depression. Think of the impact that the federal investment in NASA had on the quality of education in the 1960s. We need to keep in mind that it was government investment in great water projects – the California State Water Project, the federal Central Valley project, the Colorado River project – that have made it possible for 30+ million people to live in California today. We need to replicate this investment for our children and grandchildren.

The top income tax rate in California is 10.55%. Only Oregon and Hawaii have a higher top income tax rates at 11%. California’s personal income tax rates are among the highest in the nation, and our schools are among the nation’s worst. What makes you think that approving higher taxes as Prop 30 proposes will actually improve our schools? Contrary to the political propaganda, there are no assurances that the money raised by Prop 30 would go to the schools. How is it that other states with lower taxes have better schools? If you look at the history of our state there is no evidence that raising personal income tax rates will solve our problems in California. I agree that we need to fix the public infrastructure in our state, but I would argue that in the absence of other reforms, there is no reason to trust that the legislature will spend the money competently.

Voters simply do not trust the democratic legislature in California to spend their tax dollars wisely. Sacramento is widely perceived to be controlled by the public employee unions, and there have been no serious steps taken to reform public pensions. Many public employees in California in general pay only a small part, if any, of their own contribution to retirement. The renewable power requirements that the legislature has imposed on our state mean that instead of building new gas fired electric plants to capitalize on today’s incredibly low cost of natural gas, our utilities are mandated to spend ratepayers’ dollars on boondoggle solar power arrays in the desert and windmills, with some of the costliest electric power in the country. All this in the name of cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which has negligible impact on global emissions as China and developing countries increase their own emissions. We are living off the great investments in water supply, freeway, and university infrastructure that was built by our fathers’ generation. We are now reaping what we have sown by not investing in new great projects for the benefit of our grandchildren. California was the golden state in the 1950s and 1960s, and we have lost this due to the incompetency of our leadership, both democratic and republican, in Sacramento. Brown was a poor governor thirty years ago, and he is doing a poor job again today. Why should we give Sacramento more money to spend when they have acted so incompetently for years?

Many people agree we cannot support either Obama or Romney. But the altenative green party has a deep flaw embedded in its program, and that is the low energy green investment plan into solar and wind boondoggles, which serve only to increase the cost of electricity. We need an alternative pro growth pro development program to build great infrastructure projects. We need to rebuild the locks and dams on the Mississippi river and it’s tributaries. We need to build the North American Water and Power Alliance to bring water from Alaska and the Yukon down the Rocky Mountain trench to the great plains of Canada and the US, the inter mountain west, the southwest and Mexico. This project was conceived and designed fifty years ago — see NAWAPA.

Our forefathers had the vision and the will to build the great water and power projects which transformed the real economic productivity of America. As John Kennedy said, when dedicating one of these great western dam projects, we need to build this today for the benefit of our grandchildren. This same imperative is directed to us today.

Unfortunately, the green party fails because it’ is ideologically opposed to great physical development projects. Contrary to the green program, we must increase our ability to manage the distribution of water in north America to manage the impact of drought and support our growing population.

Who will advocate today for renewal of the great water projects, which have made possible the growth and existence today of the western United States?

This is no substitute for reinstating Glass Steagall and breaking up the big banks. Greater capital requirements could be a helpful step, but it does not get at the root of the problem. We must reorganize the derivatives gambling debt and toxic assets on the big banks’ balance sheets, and re-create a clean break between investment banks and commercial banks. Until the big banks are broken up, and until we protect commercial banking (loans to businesses and consumers) from investment banking gambling, we will not see a recovery in real investment.

First stop the foolish conversion of corn to ethanol. Then we need to build the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA). This great infrastructure project, originally conceived and designed in the Kennedy years, would bring water from Alaska south along the Rocky Mountain trench to the arid west and the great plains. Building this project would put 4 million people to work, and it would make a great leap in the real physical economy of the United States and Canada. Not only would irrigated crop lands expand, but the new water introduced to the center of the continent would increase rainfall as the water is evapotranspired. This is the long term solution to the catastrophic droughts that repeatedly visit the US.

The only way to take back our government is to reinstate Glass Steagall rules to separate commercial banking from the predatory investment banks. This is a necessary first step. There are now 70 bipartisan sponsors of Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s H.R. 1489 bill to reinstate Glass Steagall.

She was such a great hero for so many millions of Americans.
I remember how excited and happy we were when she flew the space shuttle.

Thinking back on Sally Ride and her accomplishments, if you compare those years to our present situation it shows how much we have declined as a nation in our commitment to advancing humanity and traveling to the moon and mars. We need leaders who can rekindle the commitment of our country to accomplish great projects of science and exploration. It is our human destiny to explore and know the galaxy.

Neither Obama nor Romney understand the American system. The American system was designed and put into practice in the early nineteenth century. The core of the American system was its opposition to the British system of free trade, which from the beginning was designed to keep the colonies as agricultural and raw material producers, with Britain to provide cheap manufactured imports. In sharp contrast, he American system promoted the development of USA manufacturing by providing protective tariffs, and through a national credit policy for government financed infrastructure projects. It was the American system that changed us from thirteen small colonies to the largest economy in the world at the end of the 19th century. The same issues confront us today, as true American patriots confront the free trade economic policies of the British and Wall Street, which have led to the de-industrialization our country and export of millions of manufacturing jobs overseas. Both Obama and Romney embrace the British policy of free trade and are opposed to the great transformative infrastructure projects such as the North American Water and Power Alliance, which would transform the western US real economic productivity by importing water tithe great plains and the west from Alaska and the Yukon. The American system led to the construction of the Hoover Dam, Grand Coulee Dam, California’s central valley project. The water and power from these great projects made a modern economy possible in the western US. The Romney camp is correct that Obama does not understand the American system, but neither does Romney and the wall street financial crowd.

The oil being produced from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan is considered to be high quality “sweet” crude oil that is desirable for refining. It seems to me it is preferable to transport this oil to market in new pipelines as opposed to rail tank car trains. Less likely to have a damaging spill from a new pipeline than from thousands of rail tank cars.

Here’s the question I have for the LA City Council’s decision in favor of the feed-in tarrif program. How much per kwhour will the Dept of Water and Power pay to buy solar power, and how does this compare to the cost of buying more natural gas for our gas-fired plants. The US has the lowest natural gas prices in the world, and this is expected to last for a long time. Gas generated electricity is far cheaper than solar power. The Los Angeles Dept of Water and Power is planning very large rate increases for the millions of users of water and power in the City. With people hurting from the recession and unemployment, the City should be going for the lowest cost power and water. How large a subsidy will the rate payers be forking over to support the solar electric industry which otherwise is completely uneconomic.

the article you cite is from 2007. CERN’s recent results prove the 2007 study was incorrect. We are fortunate that the majority of the American people have educated themselves sufficiently that they no longer accept the human-caused global warming theory. There will be no national carbon tax in the US. The global warming zealots have lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people. Nuclear power, coal and natural gas are the future.

There is no real evidence that CO2 emissions from human activity are causing global warming of significance. The hypothesized multiplier effect has not been demonstrated. In contrast there is overwhelming evidence that solar activity drives climate. Look at the correlation over long term between cosmic ray intensity, which is modulated by solar activity, and earth’s temperature — the relationship is quite clear. The sun is becoming less active than it has been for centuries. We are on a trajectory for a repeat of the Dalton minimum or the Maunder minimum which were associated with global cooling and massive crop failures. Please read the evidence.