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OK, that explains why you define Capitalism as Free-Market Capitalism only.

No, I use capitalism as a voluntary exchange. A free market is included in that though. I am a member of 2 coops, and I include that as well.

You are into Mises/Austrian "economics."

Actually I don't know that I am, I don't know much more about it than what I posted earlier.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments is classic. Smith was a great empirical philosopher.

Another author I should have included as recommended reading is Thomas Paine, especially his "Common Sense" and "Rights of Man". I'd also include the book "Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution".

Falcon

Warming, for all its predicted deleterious effects, would potentially thaw out land that is currently unproductive for food crops.

Warming would also take land out of agricultural production. Some land that's now used for growing crops will become deserts. Other areas will become flooded. Especially with saltwater. As it is now, Southern California is a major source of produce. However all those crops get their water from the Colorado River, which is drying up. As another /.er has posted a number of tymes, people in Colorado can't even use cisterns to capture and store rainwater without a license or permit as people downstream already have "rights" to that water. Farmers in a desert have more "rights" to rainwater than those who live where it rains?

I can see your economic education has been dismally incomplete.

And yours is compleat? The book "Natural Capitalism", called by Frances Cairncross, a writer for the Economist and others as breaming with ideas to bridge the gulf between business and the environment. Some have said it's the followup to Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations". In it a number of studies are cited whereby businesses have reduced their ecological footprint and saved money at the same tyme. Environmental responsibility can even be traced back to Adam Smith the father of capitalism.

You're making the assumption that this climate change -- if it even exists

Even skeptics of human induced global warming admit the world is warming. Heck even President Bush said it was real.

I bet even the day after you won't get 100% agreement, being afterwards, on the cause.

And I'm sure you're right. There are still people who believe the Earth is flat. Those people are a decided minority.

Just as those who deny Global Warming is false is a decided minority. To me there's little difference, both discount or ignore facts. Yes, there are facts showing cooling in some places, but the world as a whole is warming.

Falcon

I don't know your exact age, but I know your about 10 years younger then me.

How do you know you are 10 years older than I am if you do not know my age? Are you making an ass of yourself again by assuming what my age is?

if energy costs what it does today because of all the subsidies, then without the subsidies, the alternative energy would cost that much more.

This and the following can qat least partially dealt with with increased efficiency. As you say cheap energy has made things cheap however with higher prices for energy manufact5uring and transportation will become more efficient. Back in the 1970s US auto makers said more fuel efficient couldn't be made, but during the fake oil embargo Japanese auto makers ate their lunch. Now while Detroit struggles Honda, Toyota, and other Japanese, as well as European auto makers are opening factories in the US. Yea, part of it is because local and state governments give them tax breaks and other subsidies I oppose to them, but they also build more efficient vehicles. The book "Natural Capitalism", which a writer for the "Economist" said was "Brimming with examples and anecdote, Natural Capitalism will exasperate some and excite others--but leave every reader with the hope that the old battle between business and the environment can reach a peaceful and constructive conclusion" is filled with examples and case studies of how businesses have been able to cut resources used whether energy or raw materials and cut their costs at the same tyme. Simply with the end of cheap energy we need to improve efficiency.

Falcon

So can you cite a reliable source for this story? It still sounds like an urban legend that has been contoured to fit Mr Lovins political theories.

University of Maryland Listserv has a message with the part from Lovins' "Natural Capitalism". Both provide the message and the book provide the sources they got the info from:

"Cheng, F.Y. 1963. Deterioration of thatch roofs by moth larvae after house spraying in the course of a malaria eradication programme in North Borneo. Bull. WHO 28:136-137."
"Conway, G.R. 1969. Ecological aspects of pest control in Malaysia, pp. 467-488 in Farvar, M.T. and J.P. Milton, eds. The Careless Technology. Natural History Press, New York, NY."
"Harrisson, T. 1965. Operation cat drop. Animals 5:512-513."

Try googling for just "thin egg shells lead" instead of leaded gas

Ok, I used leaded gas because that's what you used. Dropping "gas", wow too many results. Try thin egg shells lead birds OR eagles OR falcons, some of the first results were about fish eggs. The second result is from University of Southern California, The Brown Pelican which blames their "population decline and the threat of extinction" on DDT but says nothing about lead. Going through 8 pages of results looking for science or university, college, links I didn't find any saying or suggesting lead had anything to do with thin egg shells. You may wonder why I only checked science or educational links. That's because I wanted scientific links. Ah, here's one although how qualified it is I don' know. Anyway here's what ScienceMaster says on the influence of lead:

"In addition to the adverse effects of DDT, bald eagles also died from lead poisoning as a result of feeding on hunter-killed or crippled waterfowl containing lead shot and from lead shot that was inadvertently ingested by the waterfowl. (In 1991, a 5- year program to phase out the use of lead shot for waterfowl hunting was completed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.)"

I don't discount heavy metals and other things can affect egg shells, however I also think DDT does as well. I also believe spraying DDT to exterminate mosquitoes, and exterminating them, does have unforeseen cascading effects. Such as killing parasitic wasps, which allows their prey wood eating caterpillars to increase their population.

Perhaps I've been going through this the wrong way as I don't oppose controlling mosquitoes, what I oppose is how they are controlled and what causes their numbers to increase. Studies, including a United Nations study, concluded mosquito populations increase where dams are built. And the economic reasons for dams have been shot down as well. Dams cost more than they were originally sold as costing and the benefits are less than they were sold for. The study Incidence of malaria among children living near dams in northern Ethiopia: community based incidence survey" shows the incidence of malaria in children is significantly higher, sevenfold, near dams than away from them. WCD To Study Brazil's Tucurui Dam and Amazon/Tocantins River Basin says dams are "creating a vast reservoir in which disease-bearing mosquitoes breed". Methods of controlling mosquitoes, other than not creating places they can breed, are available. Though not used alone, bats can help control mosquitoes. As can birds, frogs, and lizards. From University of Florida:

did you ever come across any philosophers/schools of thought that exemplify the kinds of stances you are developing?

Wow, great question. The short answer is "not exactly".

One place to start would be the British newsweekly The Economist. I've been reading them for ages now, and I'm sure I've soaked up a lot from them.

Aside from being an excellent way to get your news, they believe in free markets not for their own sake, but as a tool to make the world a better place. Some American progressives mistake them as a conservative outfit, but that's wrong. They're economically pretty conservative, and socially very liberal. From an American perspective, that can be confusing. Mainly, they're data-focused pragmatists.

As far as using markets as tools, it's worth checking out the way a lot of greens have come to embrace them. A green pal tells me that they were anathema 15 or 20 years ago, but now they're pretty popular. She recommended Natural Capitalism as a good place to start.

If it's more a question of how capitalism can avoid being evil, take a look at Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. It's a memoir from the founder of Patagonia, and it's an enjoyable and inspiring read. It's the spiritual opposite of the grinchy Randite tone, but the guy is still a smashing success who started from zero, just like their heroes.

Hope that helps!

The point is, the libertarian position is directly against wealth redistribution. In most modern societies, this is done through progressive taxing, luxury taxes, and estate taxes. Without those tools, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and eventually are so far behind that they are pretty much slaves.

Stealing from the rich and giving to uncle Sam you mean? Allow more people to keep more of the money they earn then they can create new jobs which benefit everyone. They can do this in two ways. The more money people can keep that they earn, the more they can invest and/or spend. Investing means more money can be used for research and for job creation. The more people spend the more jobs can be created as well. Whereas with government, with few exceptions government is less efficient than the capital market. Also more money goes to the already wealthy.

For instance in the US large multinational agriculture corporations get billions of dollars in subsidies yearly. That was a big reason the WTO meetings in Geneva fell apart. India and other countries demanded the EU, Japan, and the US to stop subsidizing these businesses because with subsidizies multinationals can sell food in India, South Korea, and Mexico cheaper than farmers in these countries can grow food. If you live in the US do you ever wonder why so many Mexicans and other Latin Americans come to the US as "illegal aliens or immigrants"? Many of them are being driven off of their farms because they can't compete with subsidized US agribusinesses who are able to export food to Mexico and sale it cheaply there.

Read some Marx.

I have read him, as well as Hilter's book. I've also read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations , various writings from Thomas Paine, and Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L Hunter Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Of course the anti-capitalists (which is the true goal of the so-called environmental movement) would never present a low probability wild guess based on intentionally falsified data (such as the "hockey stick") as fact...oh wait...that's exactly what they did.

Do you really need to name calling for those who you disagree with? You're doing the same thing as what you accused the grandparent of doing. Fact is is not all environmentalists are anticapitalists, sure some are but not all. I know people who, like me, are both environmentalists and capitalists as well. And more and more companies are getting into the act as well. The book Natural Capitalist offers a bunch of case studies and such illustrating how businesses have been able to cut expenses by reducing resources and waste. The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) is a nonprofit that "shows businesses, communities, individuals, and governments how to create more wealth and employment, protect and enhance natural and human capital, increase profit and competitive advantage, and enjoy many other benefits--largely by doing what they do far more efficiently."

If waste were taxed (the manufacturer taxed, not the consumer), it would be amazing how quickly corporations found ways of recycling and reusing old versions of their products. And what is fascinating is that if corporations did this voluntarily, it could actually increase their profitability, not cut it into it.

The book Natural Capitalism cites many studies wherein because a business cut the waste it produced it was able to reduce it's costs as well. One company cited was Interface Corporation, a manufacturer of carpet. They switched from selling carpet to leasing it. They lease the carpet then when it needs to be replaced they remove what's there and lay new carpet. Instead of the old carpet ending up in a landfill, dump, they then are able to use it to make new carpet.

This will need quite a few nuclear reactors, solar panels + most of us will go to work by bicycle.

More nuclear power plants aren't really needed, as it is now there are techniques that will reduce the use of fossil fuels. A simple change in light bulbs reduces the electricity used in building. All of my bulbs are cfls, compact florence lights, that use 1/4 the power and provides the same amount of light as a regular incandescent light, of course the light from them has a different effect on film than incandescent lights. New appliances are also more energy efficient and can be made even more so. For instance look at refrigerators and freezers. On most the compressor and motor is in the back on the bottom. However both compressors and motors create heat and heat rises, so when they operate the heat goes through what is being cooled thus requiring more energy to be used. Some companies, like Sunfrost manufacture refrigerators and freezers with the compressor and motors on top, so they are more energy efficient. More energy efficient tips can be picked up through magazines like Solar Today , Home Power , and Natural Home and Garden as well as several others. Those who live off the grid by generating the power they use use these techniques as well as others. Many other things can be done commercially and industrially to reduce power needs as well. Natural Capitalism documents case studies of how different businesses have reduced their energy as well as raw material needs.

I'm reminded of an article I saw on slashdot about using ethanol as fuel for cars, and someone's response to it. They said that we had arrived at our current problem with oil by being nearly solely reliant on oil, and that the solution lays in finding many different sources of fuel for cars. I think the same can be applied here - the solution to our energy problems will be nuclear and solar and wind and bussing, walking, riding your bike etc rather than taking the car (which will run on solar and petrol and ethanol and hydrogen), as well as being more effecient with our electricity at home (turning off lights, monitors, air conditioners & heaters, clever design of new houses so air conditioners aren't needed, etc etc)... you get the point. The environmental and economic benefits that can come from being energy efficient alone are quite exciting. Have a read of "Natural Capitalism", a book that touches on this and other subjects, downloadable from http://www.natcap.org/sitepages/pid20.php. There are many many things we can be doing, and we should try to do as many of them as possible, in my humble opinion :-)

The basic premise that economics is based on is that we all act self-interested and by doing so we are ALL better off and the world becomes a better place.

Ah, spoken like someone who knows Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" . I'd like to reread it. Another good book along those lines is Natural Capitalism .

Something else I've wondered..... If everyone dropped proprietary software and went to Open Source, what would all these developers do to pay the bills and put food on the table? If it weren't for commercial companies willing to pay developers a salary so they can pay their bills, they wouldn't be able to develop other stuff for free. Or will everyone live off of Open Source bounties and "Donate" buttons?

Are you saying FOSS programmer don't get paid unless someone donates? Though it's a drop in the bucket compared to MS RedHat reported $12.4 million in earnings this past quarter. I wouldn't exactly say they are starving. Novell wouldn't of bought SUSE if they didn't think they could make money.

Disposing of the computer will be necessary sooner or later, and the costs of this will, one way or another, ultimately be passed on to the consumer.

The advantage of capitalism in this case is that placing the responsibility of disposal on the manufacturers gives them incentives to reduce those costs. Consider:

- the manufacturer chooses the materials used to build the computer.

- the manufacturer determines the costs of disassembly (quote from the car industry: "BMW designed the Z-1 sports car's recyclable all-thermoplastic skin to be strippable from the metal chassis in 20 minutes on an unassembly line mainly for environmental reasons, but that configuration also made repairs much easier.").

- the manufacturer has an incentive to make it's products last longer!

That said, I agree that any disposal fee should be paid with the purchase of the computer, if only to prevent the computers landing in dumpsters or by the side of the road.

See also "Natural Capitalism", chapter 4, for some interesting facts on recycling. :)

Ah, now here's a book that should be required reading in high school if not jr high, Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations". Another good one to read also is Natural Capitalism-Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L Hunter Lovins.

Are you a Randian? How about an Objectivist? I started to read one of her books, is it "Atlas Shrugged" with the architect? But I didn't finish it, I may later. My sister used to be a Randian, read and loved almost all of her books, but them she found out about Objectivism and that turn her off as she's Christian. As for myself the books I read and loved were Adam Sith's "On Wealth of Nations" and Thomas Paine's or TomPaine.com, "Common Sense" and others in a collection of his. A new one I loved is "Natural Capitalism.

Read the appropriate section of the book Natural Capitalism by Hunter S. Lovins. Green Buildings and Bright Workers Go for lots of windows (natural light), proper temperature, low noise, and you'll see a good jump in productivity. The rest of the book is a great read, too.

Read up on Natural Capitalism, co-written by Paul Hawken, which you have no doubt heard of in that field.

There are several interesting ideas in there, and best of all the book is available in its entirety for free :)

I thought I'd add a few interesting ideas and resources to this discussion.

Check out the works of Amory Lovins / L. Hunter Lovins / Paul Hawken;
they have an interesting book which can be read free online or be purchased
in print depending on one's desire --
Read 'Natural Capitalism' free online or buy the book!
Read 'Natural Capitalism' free online
Read 'Natural Capitalism' free online

Amory Lovins has a lot to do with the Rocky Mountain Instutute
Rocky Mountain Instutute and there's a lot more information about efficient
technologies and industrial / social evolutions there.

"Natural Capitalism: Creating the next industrial revolution" is all about
paradigm shifts that evaluates efficiency and resource conservation as
being key factors both for environmental reasons as well as economic reasons --
economics is about the market prosperity of the most efficient products and
services, and surely there are disadvantages in inefficient use of one's
inputs.

"Achieve multiple benefits with single expendutures" -- and the book/ebook
is full of really thought provoking and compelling practical paradigms to
illustrate the power of that thinking!

Ok so my next salient point and resource on the subject of power supply efficiency is to look beyond the power supply to the load and realize that
computing itself can be as close to a "zero power needed" technology as one
cares to implement. Current digital circuits waste the vast majority of their
power by irreversably converting 1's to 0's and 0's to ones, basically charging
up capacitors to make a high voltage "1" where there was no voltage before
and then wasting all that energy a bit later shunting it to ground / zero volts
to make a "0" again. This isn't necessary to achieve the computing function!
And here are some interesting readings on that area:

"Reversible Logic" is one such practical approach to it --
Article At MIT

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=%22rever si ble+logic%22+%2BMIT

And otherwise: Book Info: "Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information"
"Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information"
a great read on the relationship between information theory, computing,
and thermodynamic entropy's relationship to data entropy, even touching
on how many "bits" of information a black hole must accumulate based upon
the entropy of the infalling matter/energy!

Besides classical circuit theory implementations like "Reversible Logic"
to save power there are very exciting opportunities in other quantum-computing
technologies like "Spintronics" (e.g. using the spin-quantum of currents flowing between magnetized metals / semiconductors to represent "1", "0" or
multi-level logic which is basically related to the way a NMR device gets
its signals):
Spintronics
Google It ...and various other quantum-effect computing technologies.

As for efficient power supplies, how about one that's 99% efficient,
generally non-toxic, cheap to manufacture (actually it's self manufacturing!)
and generates perfectly 'clean energy'?
Wired: Algae based fuel cells!
How about using the same kinds of photosynthesis that every green plant
on earth uses to split Hydrogen apart from Oxygen and create a microscopic
electrochemical fuel cell complete with the option of integrated
efficient 'storage batteries' for holding power when the sun's no

Aqueous Solutions (pdf) is a chapter from Natural Capital. It explores various options for using water efficiently.

Did you know that agriculture uses four fifths of the water in the US? That a short visit by a conservation specialist can cost-effectively save 10 to 20% of the farmer's water use? (i.e. they start saving money right away!).

In urban settings, much of the peak demand for water is used in landscaping. Education and better pricing structures can also dramatically reduce the need for water.

Conservation is so incredibly cost effective that desalination plants should really only be a very last resort. Please read the above linked chapter, and tell your elected officials to do the same thing before they go on wasting millions of dollars.

Aqueous Solutions (pdf) is a chapter from Natural Capital. It explores various options for using water efficiently.

Did you know that agriculture uses four fifths of the water in the US? That a short visit by a conservation specialist can cost-effectively save 10 to 20% of the farmer's water use? (i.e. they start saving money right away!).

In urban settings, much of the peak demand for water is used in landscaping. Education and better pricing structures can also dramatically reduce the need for water.

Conservation is so incredibly cost effective that desalination plants should really only be a very last resort. Please read the above linked chapter, and tell your elected officials to do the same thing before they go on wasting millions of dollars.

How optimistic are you about the world's energy supply holding out for a generation?

Fairly optimistic, actually...

In 30 years of energy market predictions, the expert with the best track-record has been Amory Lovins. Even if you think the guy's a kook, at least we have to admit he accurately predicted today's energy consumption to within 2% - something no one else even came close to.

His new book, Natural Capital is available online for free. It lays out a number of real-world examples where people have made very high returns on investment on energy efficiency.

The Worldwatch institute also has some interesting stats on sustainable energy generation: it's growing by 30%+/year, and prices are going down steadily.

We're starting to see some nice economies of scale, and with new materials (think roof-top PVs at a fraction of the cost as have been featured here on /.) prices should fall precipitously.

Growing demand, falling prices... it's a self-reinforcing loop.

Given the nature of feedback loops and exponential growth, I think we can confidently predict that if renewable energies keep growing at 30%/year for the next 20 years as they have for the past 20, they will entirely clobber the oil/coal/nuclear/fusion industry. Seeing how prices typically fall when you mass produce items, this seems quite reasonnable.

I don't see how this will buy us time... if anything, spending money now on R&D for this technology is money that could be better spent on a renewable future.

Why can't I just plug my car's engine into my house?

A great idea, and one that gets discussed by Amory Lovins in Natural Capitalism (See chapter 2, "Reinventing the Wheels", about half way through).

Lots of details to be worked out, of course. What happens when your car's not there? When it breaks down? Do you store energy yourself at home (H2, whatever), or do you rely on the grid?

What does the grid become? I was shocked (groan... bad pun) to learn how much power the transmission lines lose. What if lots of people are doing the same thing with their cars, and supplying surplus power back to the grid? Then there's not so much power being transmitted over long distances because the power you use is being generated within a mile or so of your house. But can such a system be stable/reliable enough?

And, of course, we'd need to take a good look at pollution. The idea of everybody's car engines running 24 hours a day instead of 2 hours isn't a pretty one, but we'd need to do the math, and work out how much pollution is being reduced by closing down power plants.

But since it's already possible to sell power back to the grid in many places, I guess someone is probably already doing just what you suggest...

Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute has been proposing something like this for a while now, but with an interesting bootstraping step. Quoting a bit from Natural Capitalism (full text is available online):

A sufficient production volume to achieve $100 per kilowatt could readily come from using fuel cells first in buildings--a huge market that accounts for two-thirds of America's electricity use. The reason to start with buildings is that fuel cells can turn 50 to 60-odd percent of the hydrogen's energy into highly reliable, premium-quality electricity, and the remainder into water heated to about 170F--ideal for the tasks of heating, cooling, and dehumidifying. In a typical structure, such services would help pay for natural gas and a fuel processor to convert it into what a fuel cell needs--hydrogen. With the fuel expenses thus largely covered, electricity from early-production fuel cells should be cheap enough to undercut even the operating cost of existing coal and nuclear power stations, let alone the extra cost to deliver their power, which in 1996 averaged 2.4 cents per kilowatt-hour. Electric or gas utilities could lease and operate the fuel cells most effectively if they initially placed them in buildings in those neighborhoods where the electrical distribution grid was fully loaded and needed costly expansions to meet growing demand, or where fuel cells' unmatched power quality and reliability are valued for special uses like powering computers.

Once fuel cells become cost-effective and are installed in a Hypercar [his term for an aerodynamic, lightweight, fuel cell vehicle, described in more detail in the book], the vehicle becomes, in effect, a clean, silent power station on wheels, with a generating capacity of around 20 to 40 kilowatts. The average American car is parked about 96 percent of the time, usually in habitual places. Suppose you pay an annual lease fee of about $4,000 to $5,000 for the privilege of driving your "power plant" the other 4 percent of the time. When you are not using it, rather than plugging your car into the electric grid to recharge it--as battery cars require--you plug it in as a generating asset. While you sit at your desk, your power-plant-onwheels is sending 20-plus kilowatts of electricity back to the grid. You're automatically credited for this production at the real-time price, which is highest in the daytime. Thus your second-largest, but previously idle, household asset is now repaying a significant fraction of its own lease fee. It wouldn't require many people's taking advantage of this deal to put all coal and nuclear power plants out of business, because ultimately the U.S. Hypercar fleet could have five to ten times the generating capacity of the national grid.

Educate yourself first. Learn the issues. Know the vested interests. Find something that really makes you mad and fight for it.

I have one suggestion: Natural Capitalism. The best book I have ever read on the subject. This book is totally infuriating and completely inspiring.

Did you know that the subsidies that go to coal mining in Germany, if paid to the miners directly, would give them an annual income of US$65,000? Crazy...

Start with this book. Support the authors who work everyday on these issues. Check out the web site: http://www.natcap.org

and here's link concerning the powertrain:

here

fuel cells!

check out natural capitalism

turn off that tv, save some power, and read.

2. The Economist approves of the book because it doesn't want to upset it's right leaning advertisers/readers?"

Implication: Science and Economics are religions. Ignore them both. They're each eating the Earth - and our bodies as part of it.

For non-ideological argument regarding ecology and energy and body impact on human health etc.:

'natural capitalism' especially energy incentives
'global climate institute' especially 'value of life' stuff
Rocky Mountain Institute especially service economics
Hubley versus groupthink
Hook versus amoral purchasing
Milani on green micro-economics
Moore on secession
Mattioli listing books on what happens if you ignore the above

Anti-ideological "deep green" references are not concerned with "left versus right" industrial bargaining tactics or absurd moral code swapping (all morality is aesthetic anyway, ethics is the sharable stuff). It's all, only, about energy and process and creativity. Just and only that.

The central thesis of the book is that while getting incremental improvements in resource/energy efficiency may be expensive, radical improvement that comes from leveraging synergies within a system can often be more cost-effective than the status quo. Companies and individuals who realize this will profit significantly in the 21st century.

Read the book. Even if you disagree with it, you'll learn a lot about systems thinking and optimization. And maybe even wind up saving a few bucks (and a few barrels) down the line.

-- Chris

Since it is Earth Week, if you are interested in efficient building, check out the Rocky Mountain Institute. I just heard Amory Lovins (co-author of Natural Capitalism) speak last night. In their energy-efficient headquarters, located in the mountains of Colorado, they grow bananas year-round.

Beat that, black paint people!