In Ireland, Carbon Taxes Demonstrate Global Left's Radical Environmentalism in Action

This is a mind-boggling story, particularly since it's like a Twilight Zone preview of our Dystopian future, at the New York Times, "Carbon Taxes Make Ireland Even Greener":

DUBLIN — Over the last three years, with its economy in tatters, Ireland embraced a novel strategy to help reduce its staggering deficit: charging households and businesses for the environmental damage they cause.

The government imposed taxes on most of the fossil fuels used by homes, offices, vehicles and farms, based on each fuel’s carbon dioxide emissions, a move that immediately drove up prices for oil, natural gas and kerosene. Household trash is weighed at the curb, and residents are billed for anything that is not being recycled.

The Irish now pay purchase taxes on new cars and yearly registration fees that rise steeply in proportion to the vehicle’s emissions.

Environmentally and economically, the new taxes have delivered results. Long one of Europe’s highest per-capita producers of greenhouse gases, with levels nearing those of the United States, Ireland has seen its emissions drop more than 15 percent since 2008.

Although much of that decline can be attributed to a recession, changes in behavior also played a major role, experts say, noting that the country’s emissions dropped 6.7 percent in 2011 even as the economy grew slightly.

“We are not saints like those Scandinavians — we were lapping up fossil fuels, buying bigger cars and homes, very American,” said Eamon Ryan, who was Ireland’s energy minister from 2007 to 2011. “We just set up a price signal that raised significant revenue and changed behavior. Now, we’re smashing through the environmental targets we set for ourselves.”

By contrast, carbon taxes are viewed as politically toxic in the United States. Republican leaders in Congress have pledged to block any proposal for such a tax, and President Obama has not advocated one, although the idea has drawn support from economists of varying ideologies.

Of course they're politically toxic. Can political elites be more stupid?

It turns out that all is not well in Ireland:

Not everyone is happy. The prices of basic commodities like gasoline and heating oil have risen 5 to 10 percent. This is particularly hard on the poor, although the government has provided subsidies for low-income families to better insulate homes, for example. And industries complain that the higher prices have made it harder for them to compete outside Ireland.

“Prices just keep going up, and a lot of people think it’s a scam,” said Imelda Lyons, 45, as she filled her car at a gas station here. “You call it a carbon tax, but what good is being done with it to help the environment?”

The coalition government that enacted the taxes was voted out of office last year. “Just imagine President Obama saying in the debate, ‘I’ve got this great idea, but it’s going to increase your gasoline price,’ ” said Mr. Ryan, who lost his seat in the last election and now leads the Green Party. “People didn’t exactly cheer us on.”

Keep reading.

Taxes are added by as much as 36 percent of a car's market price at the point of sale, factored into the sticker price. And additional taxes are billed directly to drivers, often adding thousands of dollars to annual vehicle operating costs. And because people at lower incomes are less able to afford newer cars with all the latest "green" technologies, the tax system is heavily regressive. But read the whole thing. You can bet Ireland's experience will be touted as a model for radical environmentalists here at home, and folks in Washington (the progressive political class) have been talking about all kinds of alternative taxes systems, such as value added systems. Unless Americans start turning back toward freedom and free markets, such schemes will be increasingly a part of our lives as well, with the least well-off bearing the brunt of the impoverishment and with our overall standard of living imperiled.

Forward! Canada Lures Energy Workers from U.S.

Well shoot, it's not like it's a tight labor market in the U.S. energy sector, or anything.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Canada looks to lure energy workers from the U.S.":

EDMONTON, Canada — With a daughter to feed, no job and $200 in the bank, Detroit pipe fitter Scott Zarembski boarded a plane on a one-way ticket to this industrial capital city.

He'd heard there was work in western Canada. Turns out he'd heard right. Within days he was wearing a hard hat at a Shell oil refinery 15 miles away in Fort Saskatchewan. Within six months he had earned almost $50,000. That was 2009. And he's still there.

"If you want to work, you can work," said Zarembski, 45. "And it's just getting started."

U.S. workers, Canada wants you.

Here in the western province of Alberta, energy companies are racing to tap the region's vast deposits of oil sands. Canada is looking to double production by the end of the decade. To do so it will have to lure more workers — tens of thousands of them — to this cold and sparsely populated place. The weak U.S. recovery is giving them a big assist.

Canadian employers are swarming U.S. job fairs, advertising on radio and YouTube and using headhunters to lure out-of-work Americans north. California, with its 10.2% unemployment rate, has become a prime target. Canadian recruiters are headed to a job fair in the Coachella Valley next month to woo construction workers idled by the housing meltdown.

The Great White North might seem a tough sell with winter coming on. But the Canadians have honed their sales pitch: free universal healthcare, good pay, quality schools, retention bonuses and steady work.

"California has a lot of workers and we hope they come up," said Mike Wo, executive director of the Edmonton Economic Development Corp.

The U.S. isn't the only place Canada is looking for labor. In Alberta, which is expecting a shortage of 114,000 skilled workers by 2021, provincial officials have been courting English-speaking tradespeople from Ireland, Scotland and other European nations. Immigrants from the Philippines, India and Africa have found work in services. But some employers prefer Americans because they adapt quickly, come from a similar culture and can visit their homes more easily.

Right.

The Canadians need workers to power their energy sector. The Obama regime wants immigration reform to power our Democrat welfare sector.

Nope, America's not relinquishing global economic leadership to our competitors. No sir. Everything's fine and dandy. Just move along. Nothing to see here.

IMAGE CREDIT: iOWNTHEWORLD, "Running On Empty."

UPDATE: Linked at Blazing Cat Fur and Lonely Conservative. Thanks!

Mile-Long Gas Lines in New Jersey

Well, President Solyndra can visit New Jersey 100 times and folks will still be mad as hell after going through this sh*t.

At Bloomberg, "New Jersey Drivers Wait for Fuel as Sandy Curbs Gasoline."

'Obama, the self-proclaimed uniter turned out to be the great divider. So much for hope and change...'

And awesome takedown, from Jake Durbin, Henderson, Kentucky, at The Gleaner, "Letter: Obama's put America on road to economic collapse":

Obama, the self-proclaimed uniter turned out to be the great divider. So much for hope and change. The change America desperately needs now is a new president and real leadership before it is too late. Wake up, America.

RTWT.

And ICYMI, "Romney Seeks Virginia Coal Country Edge."

Romney Seeks Virginia Coal Country Edge

RCP's polling average has Romney up 1.2 percent over Obama, so I guess it's still a toss-up state.

And here's more at the New York Times, "In Virginia, Romney Scours Coal Country for Edge Over Obama":

When Jay Swiney emerges from the night shift in the coal mines to assume his duties as mayor of Appalachia, Va., it is hard for him to miss the partisan forces rocking the heavily unionized Democratic hamlets in the mountains along the Tennessee border.

Billboards proclaim “America or Obama — You Can’t Have Them Both!” and “Yes, Coal; No-bama.” Out-of-work miners are sporting baseball caps that say “Coal=Jobs” and T-shirts with the sarcastic message: “Make Coal Legal.” Yard signs and TV ads for Mitt Romney are everywhere.

Mr. Romney’s campaign is aggressively tapping into anger at President Obama’s environmental policies throughout the Appalachian counties where the state’s coal miners live, hoping that huge margins there will offset Mr. Obama’s equally aggressive campaign to woo female voters in the suburbs of Northern Virginia, just outside Washington.

The battle playing out in Virginia has echoes across the battleground states, where the final days of the presidential campaign have become a test of geographical strategies and an all-important focus on motivation, intensity and turnout. Republicans are pushing hard in suburban Denver and central Florida to appeal to Hispanic small business owners. Mr. Obama’s campaign is probing for white male voters around Toledo, where there are major auto plants that benefited from the auto bailout.

In Virginia, Republicans hope to keep the race razor-close in other parts of the state. If they do, aides believe Mr. Romney’s appeal in the sparsely populated coal country could tip Virginia’s 13 electoral votes into his column, a victory vital to his White House bid. With just 10 days left, few self-described hillbillies in southwest Virginia are undecided.

“I definitely will vote for Romney this time,” Mr. Swiney, 43, who considered backing Mr. Obama four years ago before deciding on Senator John McCain, said in a telephone interview this week. “Not just because of the devastation that’s going on with coal now. I’m a firm believer in giving somebody a chance. We’ve given Obama a chance for the last four years.”

I love that, "America or Obama." How true. How true.

RELATED: "Obama's Promise the Bankrupt the Coal Industry."

Gas Prices Compound Obama's Agony

Well, it's collapsing all around the Democrat ticket, no doubt.

And here's this, at The Hill, "Obama faces dilemma over gas prices as presidential campaign hits homestretch":

President Obama faces a dilemma as Mitt Romney bashes him over high gasoline prices in the final weeks of their close race.

Obama must decide whether to address the attacks head-on, or stay the course on a messaging strategy that has recently been addressing prices indirectly.

Democratic strategists and other experts argue that three weeks before voters go to the polls, Obama should steer clear of big messaging or policy pivots on gas prices.

“Bringing the issue up this close to Election Day would be self-defeating at this point,” said Paul Bledsoe, an independent consultant who was a climate change aide in the Clinton White House.
Dramatic action on energy appears unlikely before the election even as the campaigns tweak their closing arguments.

White House officials have said in recent months that a release from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is an option on the table. But speculation about the prospect has dimmed in recent weeks as oil prices have fallen off their summer highs that reached around $100-per-barrel in mid-September.

Prices closed Friday at $91.86-per-barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Democratic political strategist Michael Stratton said that tapping the SPR would damage Obama.

“Anything with gas prices that would be perceived as manipulative at this point would work against him, and would be perceived by everybody so cynically that it would be ineffective,” he said.

Average nationwide gasoline prices are currently $3.79-per-gallon and have for weeks been setting records for the highest prices on specific days of the year, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). Prices, though, have been dropping in recent days.

Also, the current national average has been skewed upward by the major recent price spike in California, which saw average Golden State prices jump a half-dollar in a week to reach $4.67 on Oct. 9 before falling back, according to AAA.

Well, it just sucks to be Obama, doesn't it?

At the photo, the ARCO station at the corner of Del Amo and Woodruff in Lakewood, where I fill up on the way home from work. Regular unleaded is $4.47 a gallon, down about 10 cents or so from the last time I filled up over there.

Many Californians Angry at Surging Price of Gasoline

I got $24 yesterday, so I could make it to work this morning. It was $4.60 a gallon at ARCO. I'll be glad when prices drop.

Maybe soon, according to the Los Angeles Times, "California gas prices should fall soon, analysts say." Video at the link, and at the Associated Press as well.

Unexpectedly! Gas Prices Rise Overnight to New Record

At the Los Angeles Times, "Gas prices in California rise to another new record."

And Bob Owens gets apocalyptic:

The polimedia seems to be vastly underestimating (or at least, under reporting) that at least some of the conditions for widespread civic unrest are coming to a head in California. When people miss just a few meals, society quickly falls apart. How much more stress can the overburdened system handle before falling apart? I’d say that I hope we don’t have to find out, but with California’s unavoidable bankruptcy and insurmountable bureaucracy, it is more likely that we’re really just facing a matter of “when.”

The New York Times is even on this story, "Gas Prices Rise Again Overnight in California" (via Memeorandum).

BONUS: At American Thinker, "Obama's gasoline prices; a highly regressive tax."

IMAGE CREDIT: Director Blue, "Yes, you can get $1.84 gallon gas in Cincinnati! Just ask!"