Global Warming Stuff

[Metsfanmax]

Even if you somehow managed to spook the central government and persuade them to legislate some onerous carbon tax

I don't need to spook China's central government into wanting a carbon price. China is already looking into it.

[mrswdk]

Even if you somehow managed to spook the central government and persuade them to legislate some onerous carbon tax

I don't need to spook China's central government into wanting a carbon price. China is already looking into it.

China is launching a carbon trading system similar to the EU's (in fact, I believe they consulted with the EU on it).

That's different a a blanket tax on all non-renewable energy use though. What you're proposing is a) more wide-ranging and b) more expensive.

Happily, as those articles you linked point out, the chances of the US doing anything about climate change are zero, so this debate of ours will forever remain hypothetical.

[_sabotage_]

A 50% reduction based on what rate?

A starting rate of $10/ton, increasing at a rate of $10/ton every year thereafter.

With the six major oil companies calling for a tax, how will it be possible not to have a global marketplace for it?

A global marketplace needs a global regulator, and none exists for something like this.

With the US foregoing 50% of its consumption while foreigners are increasing emissions, are we just the whipping boy?

We are usually the stumbling block when it comes to a global accord: we demand that other countries pay for their emissions without being willing to pay for the emissions we were responsible for in the past. Since we won't own up to that, we don't really have a choice but to go it alone our own way.

How do you account for governments poor performance when it comes to providing solutions when it accrues vast amounts of taxes to do so: the war on drugs, education, war, spying, prison population, poor infrastructure and little public transport?

The government also has good examples of success in certain cases. See the CFC reduction after the Montreal Protocol as an example of a similar example of the success we could achieve on this issue.

Currently 93% of goods made by US companies in China are not meant for the US markets. How will the impact of a weakening dollar, lack of an attractive marketplace and high taxes affect US businesses?

What does this have to do with a carbon tax?

What makes a business "American". If Ford is making all it's cars abroad, directed from abroad, focusing its products on foreign markets, is it still American?

A question fit for a philosopher indeed.

Or we could just develop thorium, and see the same reduction.

Yes, perhaps, if thorium reactors can be operated at scale at reasonable life-cycle operating costs. (And if there wasn't such a thing as an electricity demand curve.) It makes no sense to bet the whole thing on thorium.

While you are philosophizing about it, the corporations are writing our bills, choosing our politicians and playing musical chairs with government/corporate director seats.

The U.S. cannot sustain its debt and corporations are busy getting themselves situated in cost effective manufacturing markets to target non-US consumers. At the same time, they are drafting bills and lobbying to fast-track them in utter secrecy.

Your carbon tax, which will only ever happen with the corporate nod, already given by big oil (your long held alleged boogeyman) will not be written with the intent to provide competition, it will be written by those whose interest lies elsewhere.

While it's slightly amusing that you are so naive, it's rather inconvenient that you express your naivety on issues you have zero understanding about.

Just so there is no confusion, Mets, et al, believe that carbon concentrations which follow warming by hundreds of years (Mets himself lauded a study which brought the figure down to 300 years), is what caused the warming. The sum of his theory rests on this.

He believes that CO2 emissions are spurred by a positive feedback. Not only has it proven to be not positive, but negative. GHGs act as coolants in the upper atmosphere. Not only are they not experiencing the supposed positive feedbacks, but they themselves lack their own supposed warming capacity. His theory suggested no ice caps, and then climate change researchers get stuck on the ice shelf.

Every point of the theory has been proved wrong, including opposition by big oil. And yet he still maintains it. Why doesn't he ever report that the the feedback system which was theorized to increase CO2 warming by 3-5 times, in fact decreases it? He has an ideological blind spot. Why when it's pointed out that cigarette taxes have lead to more deaths, more profits and more addictive cigarettes does he still pursue it?

And what absolute nonsense, a reduction by 50% in emissions. A $10 per tonne tax increases the gallon price by under $0.10. It's not hard to see what a $0.10 increase does at the pump: very little.

This is the guy who thinks we should kill off all of our livestock. And then make killing it as punishable as killing a person.

Sorry Americans, your corporation's love is no more. They are still happy to write your laws and take your tax dollars, but not willing to conduct business domestically. They are willing to vote in a carbon tax to make their true manufacturing centres abroad more competitive to supply their true, non- American customers, but they sure as shit aren't willing to take a pay cut.

[mrswdk]

'Corporations' aren't to blame. A nation's private businesses are nothing more than a reflection of its people.

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

Is anyone surprised that MrsWDK is more resistant to the idea of taxing non-renewable fuels globally? The idea of global manufacturing and exporting/importing is fundamentally against sustainability, as the most environmentally method of producing goods for the global market is to manufacture locally and remove transportation altogether. The economies most affected by a change towards this will be those who use cheap labourer as an economic driver, of which China is one (though this is changing). The more expensive it is to use energy, the less importance labour cost has upon business choices.

There is a major business which has shown that you can sell to the global market without overuse of transportation. McDonalds. They source locally, "manufacture" locally and sell locally. The product is altered to match the local resources. Throughout all of this it is the american economy that reaps the rewards of this local scale.

This goes against everything that is currently understood about the benefits of globalisation, which is the main problem. Ideas can be passed around the world in seconds, but freight does not travel particularly more efficiently or quickly these days.

[_sabotage_]

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/di ... id=9354310

Article about study:

http://www.businessinsider.com/major-st ... chy-2014-4

Invisible hand quote from investopedia:

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/invisiblehand.asp

"Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it ... He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."

What those "..." left out of the quote: https://plus.maths.org/content/adam-smi ... sible-hand

"By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value"

We have an oligopoly which has little to no interest in domestic industry and finds security elsewhere still able to dictate our markets and the laws governing those markets. Detroit died, but the automakers live on through tax payers dollars used to secure foreign markets, with foreign manufacturing and paying foreign taxes, using fewer and fewer US dollars.

If you think it's a good idea to let these guys, this very same oligopoly, who have refused to pursue solutions to the problems they caused, use the situation that they created, to further consolidate their stranglehold on resources, then I what can I say?

If climate change researchers had spent 30 years pursuing clean energy instead of trying to contrive the existence of a hotspot, then I'd be more willing to take them seriously. Why are we even discussing a carbon tax? We can produce over 3000 gallons of biofuel per acre on marginal land. The total US consumption can be supplied by an area the size of Arizona. From a national perspective, it would create jobs, security, help end the fear of CO2 emissions, lower the price of fuel. It would enable us to pursue domestic infrastructure. Once thorium and cellulosic biomass are available, all of this nonsense goes away.

And the oligopoly have no interest in losing their place in the market and will transition when and as they damn well please and write the laws to suit them as they do. They don't reflect the people.

[mrswdk]

Their businesses wouldn't exist if people didn't keep patronizing them.

[Metsfanmax]

Your carbon tax, which will only ever happen with the corporate nod, already given by big oil (your long held alleged boogeyman) will not be written with the intent to provide competition, it will be written by those whose interest lies elsewhere.

You're the one who talks about how corporations are secretly controlling all the puppet strings in the background, and yet you feel justified in saying that I'm the one who thinks corporations are boogeymen?

(For the record, the extent of my dislike of oil companies is the extent to which they have tried to manufacture doubt about the scientific consensus on global warming. I don't have any problems with them providing a service that the people demand, which is to keep drilling for oil.)

proven

[Lord Arioch]

Feels a bit like the comment in "the marlboro man" something like this cancer why would marlboro give u cancer then they would run out of customers?

I love global warming it means hotter here in Sweden ... dont it ? trouble is it dont seems to work....

[_sabotage_]

I've talked about oil companies providing a controlled opposition to climate change because climate change policies will benefit them.

Countless times you've blamed any and all opposition to climate change on big oil. You've ignored the fact that they will benefit from policy regarding it. You took the strawman and run with it. Is denial a prerequisite to climate change belief?

Are the feedbacks positive?
Is the forcing equal and positive at all altitudes?
Has CO2 been shown to proceed warming?
Is there a hot spot?
Have the ice caps melted?

Every aspect of your theory remains unproven.

Your ideas regarding tax, where the proceeds will go, who will handle them, how they will be distributed: a fairy tale. You might as well post the unabridged script of Green Eggs and Ham. The only function you may ever serve is to falsify demand that will then be used for purposes utterly outside your influence.

18 years. 18 years and on carbon tax date he found out climate change wasn't his. Now, I ain't saying you a gold digger.

[Metsfanmax]

Countless times you've blamed any and all opposition to climate change on big oil.

Do you actually read my posts, or do you just assert that my beliefs about climate change are whatever beliefs about climate change you don't agree with?

[_sabotage_]

Yes I do. For instance, before writing the figure of $300 per tonne carbon tax, I looked it up as you had provided that figure in a previous thread. When you wrote you never advocated for such a rate, I just let it slide, pointing it out doesn't get us anywhere.

It appears you change your beliefs at will. Perhaps I will do a search and post some links to you dismissing data with "big oil funded it".

[Metsfanmax]

Yes I do. For instance, before writing the figure of $300 per tonne carbon tax, I looked it up as you had provided that figure in a previous thread. When you wrote you never advocated for such a rate, I just let it slide, pointing it out doesn't get us anywhere.

Oh, do you mean this post?

It's nice to slip it in at a low amount and then once on-board, increase it.

Correct. If we instituted a $300/ton tax that was off one year and on the next, it would devastate the economy. It has to start small and gradually increase over time to give businesses and individuals time to react.

Somehow by the next page of that thread, that had turned into

He himself agrees that a tax of $300 per tonne of emissions is necessary to combat climate change.

Because, again, you like reading what you want to hear and not what people actually say. The basis for even mentioning $300 per ton was not my own beliefs on the issue, but rather the random statement you had made:

You say that many places have a carbon tax in effect, and quote at $30/tonne. According to the most popular estimates from the changist crowd, they require ten times that amount to tackle the issue.

I got $300 by taking $30 and multiplying it by the factor of 10 you arbitrarily asserted, and it managed to turn into the thing I was advocating instead of the thing you were arguing. Beautiful.

Note that I explicitly mentioned my actual policy proposal elsewhere in that thread, so there should have been no confusion:

I propose a tax starting at $15 per ton and rising $10 per year.

Now, pointing this out doesn't get us anywhere in particular, but no conservation with you goes anywhere, because you're arguing against a straw man of someone's position instead of their actual position. The least I can do is point this out so that other people don't make the same mistake.

Perhaps I will do a search and post some links to you dismissing data with "big oil funded it".

Shit man, if you can find any post of mine where I unironically use the phrase "big oil," I will concede to your mastery of climate science.

[mrswdk]

[_sabotage_]

What was so easy to search only a few hours ago is now nowhere to be found.

I suppose if you weren't so determined to cut US emissions by 50% and hadn't suggested annual increases for twenty years approaching that rate, and other climate scientists hadn't suggested that rate, then I would believe you weren't advocating for such a rate.

What remains is that you want to impose a penalty so drastic as to utterly alter the way of life while refusing to try to find alternatives. You want to further consolidate the power of the few and disengage the many. And all you have is a weak bullshit theory that has cost hundreds of billions and lacks a single proof.

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

Sabotage, you realise its the large oil companies that are doing a lot of the research into renewable energy because they see the end for their current revenue streams and are preparing for the future. All Mets is suggesting is that we speed up the progress.

In the automotive industry the alternatives are already available, but consumers are stubbornly scared of switching. They need to be incentivesed.

The problem with your argument is that we can only know if pumping CO2 into atmosphere is going to make the planet uninhabitable after humans are extinct. So really its irrelevant whether global warming is happening or not, it is, and always will be, beneficial to the human race to minimise our impact upon the environment, because anything we do will have an impact, and we will never truly know what the form of that impact will be.

This is a shame, I was enjoying reading Mets vs MrsWDK.

[_sabotage_]

I realize it was the big oil companies who bought out Chicago's compressed air network and buried the technology, that they bought out the streetcars, helped discourage public transport, and otherwise ensured the maximization of profit from oil.

I realize that there is technology currently available which would enable us to to get off fossil fuels. If you wanted to watch them play paddy cake, then forgive me, but the whole issue is moot.

As for not being able to determine if CO2 emissions could lead to catastrophic results, we're at peak oil so if we can't tell yet I suspect it means that burning the other half won't be very noticeable either.

"Consumers are stubbornly scared of switching."

You haven't a clue. Search for best mpg cars and you'll get a list of hybrids and electric that use rare earths, have a life expectancy of 7 years and an engine full of potentially expense technical issues. What you won't find is mention of diesel which has double the life of a gasoline engine and has been getting higher mpg than hybrids for over 30 years.

Consumers are not stubbornly refusing to switch, regulators in pocket with business makes suitable alternatives impossible. Brazil was the same way til they were forced to and what was found is that the consumer was not stubborn at all.

In respect to America's biodiesel programs, they used a shitty feedstalk which uses decent agricultural land and said, we failed. Why didn't they start with a good feedstalk? Biodiesel and the concept of using it aren't new. Diesel himself made his engine to run on biofuel. Ford tried to get people on biofuel. But it's the US government who not only through the Petrodollar but also through taxes earns more than anyone on fossil fuels and has prevented competition.

The day we have free energy, is the day we no longer have a government. How you can possible give a shit about a debate over a fictional problem with zero scientific support is beyond me.

[Metsfanmax]

What remains is that you want to impose a penalty so drastic

I don't see a carbon tax as a "penalty" because I advocate for a full return of all the revenue, and I don't see it as "drastic" in light of the damages global warming is causing and will continue to cause.

as to utterly alter the way of life

I also have no interest in altering anyone's way of life, except maybe for saving them trips to gas stations in the future.

while refusing to try to find alternatives.

The carbon tax is the way we find alternatives. It empowers the market to determine which is the best solution to our reliance on fossil fuels, without requiring that Metsfanmax, sabotage, or anyone else be certain that they know what the right future energy mix will be.

You want to further consolidate the power of the few and disengage the many.

A carbon tax is the least likely type of policy to be passed in Washington due to its simplicity, transparency, and relative difficulty of being used for pork barrel projects. It requires significant citizen engagement and that's one of the things our movement is building.

And all you have is a weak bullshit theory that has cost hundreds of billions and lacks a single proof.

There's not much I can say on this point except to note that the only justification you can have for completely ignoring global warming is to be really damn sure that climate scientists are completely and totally wrong. This would be a level of arrogance that it is hard to imagine most people even attempting.

[Metsfanmax]

Even if you somehow managed to spook the central government and persuade them to legislate some onerous carbon tax

I don't need to spook China's central government into wanting a carbon price. China is already looking into it.

China is launching a carbon trading system similar to the EU's (in fact, I believe they consulted with the EU on it).

The price per ton of carbon dioxide in the EU trading system is something like $8 per ton, with no signs that it will increase substantially in the future. This is far too low to make a meaningful dent in emissions even in the EU.

That's different a a blanket tax on all non-renewable energy use though. What you're proposing is a) more wide-ranging and b) more expensive.

China has discussed implementation of a carbon tax. That was in one of the articles I linked. They've been discussing it for several years now, although it's been pushed down the road a couple times and it's not clear if it will be implemented. I pointed it out mainly to make the observation that China was discussing it at a high level before a carbon tax was considered to have any political life here in the US.

Happily

There is nothing happy about failing to act on climate change.

the chances of the US doing anything about climate change are zero, so this debate of ours will forever remain hypothetical.

No. The US is going to take action, and it will be a lot sooner than anyone thinks.

[_sabotage_]

What remains is that you want to impose a penalty so drastic

I don't see a carbon tax as a "penalty" because I advocate for a full return of all the revenue, and I don't see it as "drastic" in light of the damages global warming is causing and will continue to cause.

as to utterly alter the way of life

I also have no interest in altering anyone's way of life, except maybe for saving them trips to gas stations in the future.

while refusing to try to find alternatives.

The carbon tax is the way we find alternatives. It empowers the market to determine which is the best solution to our reliance on fossil fuels, without requiring that Metsfanmax, sabotage, or anyone else be certain that they know what the right future energy mix will be.

You want to further consolidate the power of the few and disengage the many.

A carbon tax is the least likely type of policy to be passed in Washington due to its simplicity, transparency, and relative difficulty of being used for pork barrel projects. It requires significant citizen engagement and that's one of the things our movement is building.

And all you have is a weak bullshit theory that has cost hundreds of billions and lacks a single proof.

There's not much I can say on this point except to note that the only justification you can have for completely ignoring global warming is to be really damn sure that climate scientists are completely and totally wrong. This would be a level of arrogance that it is hard to imagine most people even attempting.

So those not exhaling CO2 will receive the revenue, gotcha. You advocate for it, so you don't see it as a penalty, gotcha. I"n light of the damages climate change is causing", must be causing those problems in the dark, because climate scientist are yet to find them.

Carbon tax is the way we prevent alternatives. Agree. Just as e-cigs have been shown to be the most effective method to quit smoking and they have been banned in several places, including my province. Just as taxes on wars have stopped them, social security has prevented spending the money we will need in the future, just as the marijuana tax stopped the few people smoking it when passed, just as tax on alcohol has curbed it use...

"I have no interest in altering anyone's way of life", except anyone who uses energy, concrete, plastic, transport, communications, electronics, store bought goods, drives, has kids, doesn't have kids, doesn't drive, uses leather, cotton, eats, works; but Mick Dodge is cool, except for breathing, eating, wearing clothes and being filmed.

"A carbon tax is the most likely policy to be enacted because it increases government revenue and control," yes, yes it does. You advocate they return this money, so surely they will. They won't spend money on opening a thorium plant for fear of not making optimal use of existing resources, but they will collect a tax from everyone and then use it to defeat the need to collect a tax. Your planet sounds complicated.

"Citizen engagement, which is one of the things our movement is building" engagement in what? "Family Arrested for Going Off-Grid", didn't see your movement standing up for the right to not use carbon there. BP produces 3000 gallons per acre at under $1.15 per gallon (2012), don't see your movement promoting it; raspberry-pi eliminates waste and planned obsolescence, and the climate changists go quiet. Permaculture increases yields while reducing inputs, healthy for the environment, healthy for farmers payrolls; don't see your movement there.

What I do see from your movement is the promotion of the idea that no matter what they can't solve their problems, they need you and big government. I see Agenda 21. I see the demonization of anyone who shows contrary evidence. I see the ideological training that we need to reduce population. Don't see any good come out of it yet and you've guys had billions upon billions to work with.

The Red Cross apparently provided 130,000 people with homes for $500m. Turns out they made six permanent homes, is that what this movement means by citizen engagement? We trained them to use tools they don't have, to work with material they don't have, to build homes on land they don't have, and we collected $500m in salaries to provide the training.

The justification I have for completely ignoring global warming is that it is a theory which made only failed predictions. Hot spot: no. Positive feedbacks; well they were negative, but let's not mention that. Increasing temperatures: no. Melting ice caps: no. And the points it has made all corrupted: hockey stick, Mike's nature trick; historical temperature record, adjusted down for the thirties making recent times appear unprecedented; hot spot, kriging; water has a negative feedback, let's not talk about it; eruptions of NO and CO2 into the upper atmosphere causes cooling, we prefer our models the way they are, so we'll just leave that out.

You should tell people that you base CO2 causing warming on the fact that warming begins first, and then once nature has inhabited more regions and begins to die off after hundreds of years, CO2 rises. You don't. You are not honest.

You have a bullshit theory, that you will lie blatantly about and to demand we provide further funding and control to the government, on a global scale, to ensure we hear about it forever.

[DoomYoshi]

What does Red Cross have to do with anything?

"I'm telling you man, Einstein was wrong, my theory works better cuz alpha isn't constant".

[mrswdk]

Even if you somehow managed to spook the central government and persuade them to legislate some onerous carbon tax

I don't need to spook China's central government into wanting a carbon price. China is already looking into it.

China is launching a carbon trading system similar to the EU's (in fact, I believe they consulted with the EU on it).

The price per ton of carbon dioxide in the EU trading system is something like $8 per ton, with no signs that it will increase substantially in the future. This is far too low to make a meaningful dent in emissions even in the EU.

Quite. The action China is taking is not comparable to the carbon tax you are proposing, which is what I was arguing against.

Happily

There is nothing happy about failing to act on climate change.

It is happy for China's continued economic development.

the chances of the US doing anything about climate change are zero, so this debate of ours will forever remain hypothetical.

No. The US is going to take action, and it will be a lot sooner than anyone thinks.

One of the articles you linked said that the idea of carbon taxes was basically taken into a parking lot and shot in the back of the head the second it reached the upper levels of American government. There is clearly fairly little appetite in the US for much stronger environmental regulation than currently exists.

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

Global warming does not cause an increase in average air temperature. The name "global warming" is a massive misnomer.

Global warming causes an increase in fluctuations of the weather to the extremes. More extreme high temperatures, more extreme low temperatures. More periods of drought, more periods of snow. Reduction in temperature conditions in between.

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

@MrsWDK and Mets.

If you look at the large economies in the world, they all have some form of industrial revolution. This was when finite resources were used at low efficiency to accelerate growth. The problem with a global carbon tax, is it affects those nations which have not yet had their industrial revolution. Its basically punishing others for our mistakes.

[mrswdk]

What does Red Cross have to do with anything?

"I'm telling you man, Einstein was wrong, my theory works better cuz alpha isn't constant".

He's probably referring to a scandal in China a while back where some people in charge of the Red Cross were found to have embezzled tens to hundreds of millions of dollars of funds that were supposed to be used helping Yunnan province recover from an earthquake. I can't work out what relevance that incident has to his rant though.