Ralph Nader Is Not Impressed

Katherine Mangu-Ward | May 11, 2009

Ralph Nader, in a chat with the New York Times' energy and business blog, had harsh words for the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill:

"It’s not going to work. It’s too complex. It’s too easily manipulated politically."

Read the whole interview, including Nader agreeing with Reason's own Ron Bailey on the superiority of a carbon tax rather than cap-and-trade.

Via Marc Morano

Comments

|5.11.09 @ 4:21PM|#

"Read the whole interview, including Nader agreeing with Reason's own Ron Bailey on the superiority of a carbon tax rather than cap-and-trade."

Ron Bailey may want to rethink his postion.

As a general rule, if I don't have time to properly research an issue, I look at what Nader says and go the other way.

Shannon Love|5.11.09 @ 4:30PM|#

It would seem that the best way to do cap-and-trade would be to just give every adult American a carbon credit equal to 1/300,000,000 of our credit total. After all, the resource we're supposedly trying to conserve is the total planetary environments ability to absorb CO2. Since this is a new form of property, everybody has an equal right to a part of it.

Everybody could get a share with their tax/welfare checks and then they could resell them to CO2 producers. This would depoliticize the process and help offset the cost of CO2 suppression for ordinary Americans.

Or we could just build nuclear plants and fix the CO2 problem for the entire planet but that would be two easy. A complex political solution is much more fun than a quick technological fix.

|5.11.09 @ 4:30PM|#

"As a general rule, if I don't have time to properly research an issue, I look at what Nader says and go the other way."

You should read the interview. There are a couple of points where you might agree with him, albeit for very different reasons.

For example, Nader says: "I would have said no more loan guarantees to nuclear plants in the appropriations bills, and no more subsidies from the executive branch."

I find it hard to disagree with that, but I'd go much further and apply the same principle to all power producers, including alternatives.

I also share his preference for carbon tax over cap & trade, but I'd have an even stronger preference for "none of the above".

|5.11.09 @ 4:36PM|#

Heck, it's easy to find Jim Hansen saying bad things about cap-and-trade, and preferring a carbon tax.

Cap-and-trade will largely be designed so as to avoid doing anything, because actually doing something would result in paying costs. However, in this, it probably does match the median voter's preferences. People want to seem concerned with global warming without actually paying any costs to try to stop it.

|5.11.09 @ 4:36PM|#

Russ R

I said "as a general rule." Just because Nader opposed the War in Iraq doesn't mean I supported it.

Think of it as a time-saving shortcut.

|5.11.09 @ 4:37PM|#

"It's not going to work. It's too complex. It's too easily manipulated politically."

Those words would have a lot more impact if they weren't preceded by proposals that were every bit as complex and vulnerable to political manipulation. Ralph is great at spotting the weakness in what the establishment says. But I'm even more afraid of his "just put Ralph Nader in charge and I'll take care of everything" alternative.

RichRuins|5.11.09 @ 4:44PM|#

Nader seems to be confused by his own idealology.

stuartl|5.11.09 @ 4:45PM|#

People want to seem concerned with global warming without actually paying any costs to try to stop it.

No, they want someone else to pay for it. Someone else is anyone who makes more money than they do. To see this in action, watch MNG's comments.

Kindle|5.11.09 @ 4:49PM|#

"Read the whole interview, including Nader agreeing with Reason's own Ron Bailey on the superiority of a carbon tax rather than cap-and-trade."

This is like saying shit is superior to vomit as a garnish.

squarooticus|5.11.09 @ 5:03PM|#

Reason's own Ron Bailey on the superiority of a carbon tax rather than cap-and-trade

Indeed, a cow poo sandwich is probably preferable to a cow poo sandwich with plutonium dressing. Calling one superior to the other, however, isn't saying much.

The Angry Optimist|5.11.09 @ 5:05PM|#

I am touting my much more superior position: carbon outputs and the commensurate externalities are the costs of living in a free and productive society. Fucking deal with it.

squarooticus|5.11.09 @ 5:06PM|#

Not sure how often we agree, TAO, but this is certainly one of those times. You FTW.

|5.11.09 @ 5:31PM|#

It's too easily manipulated politically.

Is Nader trying to collapse himself into a naked singularity of irony?

TAO - +++1

|5.11.09 @ 5:49PM|#

I can hear the taunts in the reason© locker room now.
"Nyah, nyah, nyah. Ron agrees with Nader, Ron agrees with Nader".

|5.11.09 @ 6:02PM|#

Nick stops combing his hair long enough to snap him with a towel.

MJ|5.11.09 @ 10:04PM|#

Ah, the late sixties/early seventies, that miserable period when people thought that burnt orange and puke green looked good...together.

|5.11.09 @ 10:39PM|#

--== Cougarster.Com ==-- It's where Cougar (women who are mature, rich and experienced) and men who like them can meet.

alan|5.11.09 @ 10:43PM|#

The Angry Optimist | May 11, 2009, 5:05pm | #
I am touting my much more superior position: carbon outputs and the commensurate externalities are the costs of living in a free and productive society. Fucking deal with it.

This is one paleo who would gladly be a foot soldier in your army. That made my nipples shiver from its sheer awesomeness.

Mark|5.11.09 @ 11:24PM|#

I'm not a "Right-wing" extremist.

Currently, former vice president Al Gore is one of the leading baton twirlers in this parade, but you have a small army of propaganda peddlers out there who are working day and night to "sell" this 'Inconvenient Truth'.

The "Global Warming" promotion campaign is very much in the same propaganda vein as the 'peak oil' campaign, formerly headed up by CIA family alumni Michael Ruppert (who has now fled the country apparently), and discussed at length on our 'Peak Oil' index page.

They keep on pounding at these propaganda themes in order to get you to SUBCONSCIOUSLY accept them as true. That's why these lying jackals continuously employ words like "truth", "true", "honest", "sincere", etc., while they are lying through their teeth. Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Gore, Clinton, etc., do it ALL the time; pathological liars, one and all of course, but Tavistock-trained pathological liars.

They use television 'documentary' production companies like WGBH in Boston (Nova) or Frontline to manufacture these 'truths'. Their productions are very well done and to the unknowledgeable and naive, they appear VERY convincing and persuasive, but if you had the advantage of a good education and have learned to think on your own, you can discern the carefully crafted distortions and fabrications that they weave into these propaganda productions. Recently, I saw a program on public TV called "Building on Ground Zero". It's the second so-called 'documentary' that I've seen on TV that pretends to explain how the World Trade Center towers collapsed. The program made a mockery of physics and real-world science, all the while using "experts" who claim to speak for science! It was a continuous lie from beginning to end. It included wonderful computer graphics and simulations, of course, but it was a fanciful load of horse manure all the same.

Somewhere between the mid 70's and mid 80's, they were continuously hammering away at a similar propaganda theme which claimed that chlorinated hydrocarbons (CFC, chlorinated fluoro-carbons), such as freon, were responsible for creating huge "holes" in the ozone layer. We heard this from 'documentary' productions companies and politicians alike for at least ten years. The story was utterly untrue and was in fact concocted by Tavistock. Big Illuminati chemical companies like Dupont (one of the top 13 Illuminati families) made an awful lot of money selling the expensive substitute chemical which was used to replace the far less costly freon refrigerant. Of course, you had to replace the freon in every sort of refrigeration and air conditioning system in existence because it was mandated by law. These laws were passed because, after ten years of propaganda hammering, everyone simply KNEW that CFCs caused the hole in the ozone layer!

I recognize that there is physical evidence of the warming of the polar regions, Alaska, etc. Some people will argue that it's a normal fluctuation cycle that the earth has gove through many times before. My own suspicion is that they are using secret technology to create the atmospheric warming over polar regions. HAARP is an obvious one, but I'm sure there are other secret systems that we know nothing about.

If there is coastal flooding in coming years due to melting ice caps, it won't happen suddenly and give you a tidal wave effect. It will be very gradual and you'll have plenty of time to relocate to higher ground. I wouldn't worry so much. It's mostly hype.

Sincerely, Ken

http://educate-yourself.org/lte/globalwarming13sep06.shtml

The Angry Optimist|5.11.09 @ 11:36PM|#

I'm not a "Right-wing" extremist.

No, of course you aren't. *snickers*

*gets on the paging system*

Alex Jones or George Nory, please pick up line two...Mark is on the phone.

squarooticus|5.11.09 @ 11:52PM|#

My own suspicion is that they are using secret technology to create the atmospheric warming over polar regions.

Um....yeah. You can borrow my tinfoil hat if you're feeling paranoid.

Paul|5.12.09 @ 1:09AM|#

"It's not going to work. It's too complex. It's too easily manipulated politically."

Wow, Ralph Nader in the house... a statement which could apply to almost every modern regulatory scheme the government employes, including the immoral and unfair income tax system.

Fist of Etiquette|5.12.09 @ 6:45AM|#

People want to seem concerned with global warming without actually paying any costs to try to stop it.

I'm still pinning my hopes that people will start looking into this whole global warming claim before legislators can get any real traction on their latest attempt at power accumulation.

Invisible Finger|5.12.09 @ 12:27PM|#

"It's not going to work. It's too complex. It's too easily manipulated politically."

It's not going to work... if your metric is CO2.

If your metric is legal fees, it'll work better than anyone thinks. And legal fees were the sole purpose of the scheme. Only an sucker would think CO2 reduction is the purpose.

|5.12.09 @ 1:03PM|#

Did Shepard Fairey go back in time to do that inspiring Time cover illustration of Ralph Nader?