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National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax
eldavojohn writes "Moving for the first time from a cautious message to a message of urgency, the National Academy of Science has advised the United States government to either adopt a carbon tax or cap and trade legislation. This follows a comprehensive study in three parts released today from the National Academies that, for the first time, urges required action from the government to curb climate change."
Its weird that I am not allowed to drop rubbish in the street but disposing of some types of effluent in the atmosphere which we all need to breathe is perfectly okay.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It makes a lot more sense to tax a negative externality than it does to tax something we want more of like income.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The whole Global Warming scheme was thought up by Ken Lay and discussed with both the Bush Jr and Clinton Administrations. Now Al Gore is a parter in a firm that trades CARBON CREDITS and is set to make billions off this scam. I think you all better wake up and research the NWO and GLOBAL GOVERNMENT and see what all are leaders are up to. Its time for the world to change and not in the way the Illuminatti want as they are about to have the light shined right on them and I doubt they will survive.
Being as volcanoes are responsible for an irrelevant amount of CO2, no one. Humanity produces several orders of magnitude more CO2 than volcanoes. It's like suggesting that we tax squirrels for using the road while they cross the street.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Oh noes, the climate is changing. We can't have that, now can we? We should have the climate be like the way it was billions of years ago (eg: not fit for humans), because climate change is bad, right?
or suffer the consequences. It was implied.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
But it's a great way for trading firms and wall street to skim money off the top of everyone's energy bill via high frequency trading and various market manipulation schemes that has nothing to do with actually producing energy.
This may be the first time the NAS have advised specific policies. However the first time NAS warned the US government of the problem was in 1958. This Bell Labs video summarises the contents of that first warning. The NAS has not suddenly flipped from cautious, the urgency has steadilly increased over the last 50yrs to the current position of virtually screaming at congress to pull their head out of their collective arses.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Being as volcanoes are responsible for an irrelevant amount of CO2, no one. Humanity produces several orders of magnitude more CO2 than volcanoes. It's like suggesting that we tax squirrels for using the road while they cross the street.
Sure, but just for kicks, I'd like to see the IRS try to enforce taxes on both volcanoes and squirrels.
Has anybody ever been required to clean the air? Doubt it. Most polluting companies are just fined and then have to clean their exhaust after they have been caught polluting.
So the question I have is, how many "Carbon Credits" would BP have to purchase in order to avoid having to clean up their spill?
Cap and Trade is just a fancy phrase meaning "tax" anyway. I hate the verbal misdirection.
I hate the fact that calling it "cap and trade" actually makes it more likely to get passed than calling it a tax.
In today's political climate, there's far far too much controversy surrounding the individual issues of taxes and energy, alone (much less combined), to permit any real legislation to succeed.
A sane society would tax things like gasoline, diesel fuel, fuel oil, etc., highly enough to discourage its profligate consumption and apply the funds to develop practical implementations of an array of alternative renewable energy sources (fusion, solar, biofuels, etc.).
But in the USA, if you proposed adding another $2/gallon tax on gasoline, it would be political suicide. (Hell, just suggesting it on /. risks karma suicide.) In the meantime, many of us still drive gas guzzling hummers and SUVs, and pride ourselves on it.
We need to break the loop somewhere. As long as that behavior is affordable, it will continue to be popular; as long as that behavior is popular it will continue to be affordable.
And eventually, when scarcity will inevitably drive up the cost of this fuel, it will be the energy corporations who will make the profits on the higher prices, not the governments... perpetuating another problem of too much corporate money influencing government policy. The smart thing to do is drive the price up now, via taxes, and use the revenue to do something more useful than line the pockets of corporate executives and stockholders.
I can see the fnords!
Does anyone else think that naming "carbon" is being overly-specific? I think "greenhouse gasses" provides the right scope and expectations to actually deal with the problem at hand: GHG Tax. Carbon is used constantly by the press as a symbol of greenhouse pollutants, but other gases like methane are a problem too.
Extra, Extra, read all about it! Quasi-governmental organizations tells government to do what head of government wants to do anyway!
1) Water vapor is part of the fast-paced water cycle, and adding water vapor to the atmosphere reduces the time until the next rainfall, so the effect is temporary. CO2 is much more longterm.
2) The whole CO2 thing is misleading. The worst offenders (eg. coal/oil plants) release a lot of other, worse waste (eg. hundreds of times more radioactive waste than modern nuclear power plants), that should also be taxed. CO2 is a way to simplify the problem and falsely render it one-dimensional (presumably so the average person has a simple idea to latch onto, and doesn't have to think for himself).
3) You do realize that normal power plants also have cooling towers, right?
Water vapor amplifies the effects of greenhouse gases as a feedback effect it is not however, strictly a causal agent. CO2 remains in the atmosphere for centuries while Water vapor generally is transient.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I'm not an expert in a relevant field to understand fully this issue, and chances are neither are you. Other than wait and reserve judgment, the only logical choice I can make when there is overwhelming consensus among experts (there is on climate change) is to listen to them. I support cap and trade, not because I think it's a good idea - because I'm not qualified to know that - but because the majority of those who are qualified think it is, and science is not a political process even when the conclusions polarizes people along political lines.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Water vapor gets removed from the atmosphere when it rains/snows/etc.
CO2 doesn't do that unless you're on Mars.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
...but reduced the deficit, income taxes, sales taxes, or all three, it would be a win-win situation. If they do what government normally does -- spend the money faster than it comes in -- at least it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
[who is going] to tax all the volcanos around the world for their CO2 production?
The CO2 out gassed by active volcanoes comes to about one percent of anthropogenic emissions.
Learn to be check the numbers when you hear outrageous claims like this.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
It isn't the same thing at all. For one thing, direct emissions taxes are not as likely to hit specific levels of CO2. For another, the presence of trading in a cap and trade system allows for the efficiencies of the market to come into play. Thus, a cap and trade system works more efficiently than a direct tax.
This already goes on, it's rampant. The solution is more restrictions and regulations on Wall Street to stop people from being able to make money who don't actually produce anything of value. It shouldn't be possible to get rich skimming off the top and siphoning away wealth from the working class that actually moves the economy. This country produces thousands of college graduates every year who go on to be bankers or Wall Street traders when they should be engineers and scientists. We produce people who not only don't contribute anything themselves but actually make it harder for other people to be productive. This can't go on forever, and if we don't put and end to it it's going to put an end to us.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
CO2 isn't that bad, it's just a convenient indicator, being the major byproduct of combustion. The idea is to encourage energy generation by clean technologies that don't involve burning things. Measuring carbon dioxide production is just a simple way of sorting that out.
The whole global warming scare is just an oversimplified way of vilifying CO2 directly. Unfortunately the simpletons have called us on the oversimplification.
The thing about cap and trade is that a lot of left leaning environmentalists hate the idea because they feel that it's a case where markets/capitalism are intruding into environmental matters and the economic libertarians hate it because its government intrusion into markets. Cap and trade worked well for controlling NOX and SOX emissions but had unintended consequences where it was tried in Europe. The Carbon offsets were poorly defined and often lead to fraud.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Finally, we are there as a nation.
I'd definitely like to see IRS personnel inside an active volcano.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Cap & Trade is worse than a tax. Cap & Trade is rationing AND taxation.
The real question is, if Xenu dropped a hydrogen bomb in after them, would their deaths release thetans? Or is it true that IRS employees and lawyers really are soulless creatures belched from the underworld?
We definitely need a tax on politically active scientists.
Its weird that I am not allowed to drop rubbish in the street but disposing of some types of effluent in the atmosphere which we all need to breathe is perfectly okay.
Speak power to truth, comrade!
The "effluent" CO2 coming out of your body in every breath certainly needs to be regulated. In the future, when my "carbon zero" plan is adopted, all people must wear CO2 rebreathers as they go about their daily business - or be "cap and taxed", if you know what I mean. The guillotine is a carbon-neutral device, my friend!
Together we shall end this imperialist capitalist pig pollution chemical weapon! Death to CO2!
No joke.
Satan would probably be standing there like "I just *knew* you guys would come back some day! Yay!"
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
The only way to sell it to the masses would be to promote it as the elimination of Income Taxes. Set a date (20 years?) by which point income taxes will be eliminated, and slowly ramp up the Carbon (GHG) tax while reducing income tax over the same period of time.
What? You're opposed to eliminating Income Tax?
Reality has a liberal bias
So far any carbon trading scheme I've heard of doesn't fully take into account international trading. My country like several others is a huge net agricultural exporter. Argiculture being responsible for 50% of our emissions. Therefore its as if other countries are poluting here, yet the producer/exporter gets the bill under current proposals.
What then of all the high value goods we import (which have a high impact per given mass compared with food), these don't polute here, but some other country has paid the price both in impact and in tax.
What a way to collapse global trade.
Any system needs to a per-ton value on carbon, as a baseline, and then build the system bottom-up from there. Slapping taxes on everything seems to be the only option being considered.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
One scientist who predicted the run-up in temps in the 90s, and the subsequent leveling off in the 00s (meaning he's been much more accurate than most of the pro-AGW scientists) says we're heading towards a few decades of global cooling. Perhaps a carbon tax isn't what we should do?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Cap and trade stifles innovation and encourages fraud/deceit. Every time the government tries to make something non-existent exist, we run into problems. For example patents, copyright, trademark issues, etc. What Cap and Trade would encourage is large businesses either A) Passing on the costs to consumers or B) Use hollywood-style accounting to either get more "credits" than needed and sell them or move their businesses overseas.
any tax on carbon is a stupid, stupid idea. Pollution is wasted energy, technology will eventually catch up with it and make great progress. When you use cap-and-trade the businesses that would be pumping money into R&D for alternate energy sources are instead paying "protection" money to carbon trolls in essence.
Why anyone would want to make yet another government-controlled non-existent commodity in this day and age must be crazy or have a ton of money to burn when energy prices soar higher meaning food and all other prices will go up and our standard of living goes way down. Oh but the polar bears are ok, nevermind the fact that our economy has gone downhill at least the animals are OK. Oh but wait, India, China and all the up-and-coming powers aren't going to do this which means that we pay for a lower standard of living while they have complete freedom and make even more money!
Do you for one welcome your developing nations overlords?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Every resource is "rationed." It just so happens that in Capitalism those with power get more rations than others.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
That's because the cap & trade tax goes to Wall Street instead of the government.
If you thought patent trolls were bad, wait till we now have carbon trolls for cap and trade.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Yeah, the futures market already does this.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Isn't income tax also rationing and taxation? After all, earning more will put you into a higher bracket...
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
That's interesting, I hadn't considered that the Leftists might have a problem with cap and trade but I can see your point. Also, I wasn't aware that it was very effective for doing much in Europe other than making the brokers very wealthy...by that metric is was a great success.
This country produces thousands of college graduates every year who go on to be bankers or Wall Street traders when they should be engineers and scientists. We produce people who not only don't contribute anything themselves but actually make it harder for other people to be productive.
That's a rather shortsighted view you have. Has it occurred to you that the banker and stock investor provide the capital needed by the engineer and scientist before they can produce items of value?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
[citation needed]
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
Every resource is "rationed." It just so happens that in Capitalism those with power get more rations than others.
Interestingly enough it's the same under socialism.......
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The US government created the Department of Energy in the early 1970's to regulate the price of a barrel of oil. It went from $3 to a high around $150 to about $70 today. They clearly have failed. Given that solar power is free(once you buy the solar panels), if the consumer had the choice to pick don't you think the consumer would opt for FREE rather than $70/barrel.
Meanwhile, there are little to no regulations on computers and Bill Gates gets the cost of them down to the point where just about everyone on the planet can afford one. Of course pollution is blamed on the free market while neo-libs continue to destroy our country.
Bottom line: if you don't get the BRIC nations to sign on to any type of comprehensive deal and they actually abide by it, Cap and Trade in the US isn't going to amount to much on a global scale.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
That still doesn't explain why we need an entire class of people who are wealthier than the engineers, scientists, and workers they are supposed to be empowering to produce. I can almost accept that argument if not for the fact that it still doesn't justify those people, the bankers and Wall Street traders, being able to live better than the people who actually have the ideas they support in the first place. Perhaps there is a legitimate place for them, but I think the role they currently play has grown to the point of absurdity.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
EU has it right that we need to address this. EU's solution which is the carbon tax as well as Tax/Trade SUX and is failing BAD. Now, why do I say that? Because they put this in place and yet, America, China, Russia, Brazil, India, etc have done relatively little to drop their CO2 emissions. And if America puts in place the same horrible solutions, it will actually make things WORSE. The reason is that other nations ESP. CHINA will massively increase electrification and transportation. Why? To try and grab as much American companies as possible. And they will not grow it slowly. We will see LOADS of new China's poppiing up while everybody seeks to grab what they can. That means Coal plants and Roads.
So, is there a solution that will work? Yes. And it is the ONLY one that I know that CAN.
Tax ALL goods based on CO2 emissions / km^2 for the item and primary sub-component. The emissions and size of land is verifiable by satellites (co2 out - co2 in == your part). THis has to be done slowly, BUT ASSUREDLY, to give all nations and businesses time to adjust. In addition, and more importantly, it rewards those nations that actually DO change. Finally, one of the bigger issues with making these changes is that it brings success which will actually increase emissions. With this tax, it has a negative feedback to prevent that from happening.
If this has ANY chance of working, this is likely the only way.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
How the CO2 concentration in our atmosphere during the Cambrian was 7000ppm and the average global temperature was 20C, and during the Jurassic the CO2 concentration was 2000ppm and the average temperature was still 20C? Shouldn't the temperature have been much, much higher during these periods? And shouldn't the temperature of the Cambrian be much higher than the Jurassic?
Pollution is wasted energy, technology will eventually catch up with it and make great progress.
Unfortunately, that's not the case. In the most efficient burning of a fossil fuel, the result is CO2 and water. There's no way to make the CO2 not be there. There's no wasted energy. Moreover, added CO2 is an externality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality so individuals have no incentive to reduce the creation of CO2. This is true with pollutants in general. As with most difficult externalities, the impact of the pollution is not directly on the individual who created it, and it is diffuse enough that one cannot easily trace any specific bit of pollution back to any specific source. That's precisely why we have the government regulate the sources. Cap and trade is a very efficient system which takes advantage of market forces to more efficiently reduce pollution.
You are painting with an awfully large brush there. The word "bankers" includes everybody from the CEO of Citi to the branch manager of Small Town Bank, Inc. The second guy is not making millions of dollars.
Besides, who appointed you the arbitrator of how much a profession is "worth"? And what would you do about it? Raise taxes? Cap salaries?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I also have religious beliefs, like you. I believe in pink unicorns and fairies.
There's a lot of both economic theory and empirical data backing up that cap and trade systems are more efficient. See for example this study showing that cap and trade would very well for handling levels of sulfur dioxide pollution in the US http://www.jstor.org/pss/2647033.
Step 1: mess up the environment
Step 2: mess up the financial system
What is step 3?
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
I'd definitely like to see IRS personnel inside an active volcano.
Sorry, they stopped offering tours years ago.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Climate science has abandoned evidence and data and gone straight to propaganda. Check out the data and evidence for yourself, don't listen to the anti-technological propaganda from the politicized climate scientists. http://joannenova.com.au/ http://wattsupwiththat.com/
The IPCC has purposely engineered a massive scientific fraud.
Bill Gates had nothing to do with getting the cost of computers down. In fact, the price of Microsoft's operating systems has continued to increase over time, not just in dollars but as a percentage of the total purchase.
Well, we are taxed by local municipalities to pay for road-kill cleanup, despite the fact that it was the road-kill's own damned fault for crossing the roads. So there's plenty of precedent for paying money for stuff that isn't your fault.
Yes, raise taxes for one. Make the top marginal rate 90% (it has been that high in the past during the 50s and 60s), get rid of regressive taxes like the sales tax. Reintroduce the estate tax. There is also a slew of regulations that could be put on Wall Street to stop the most egregious of abuses. There are also other creative solutions like making the board of directors of publicly traded companies elected by the workers.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
For example, Cap and trade does not stifle innovation. Quite the opposite, if a given industry normally produced a lot of CO2 then under a cap and trade system they have a lot of incentive to find ways to reduce that, more than they do in a general tax
No they don't. How do they have the incentive to do that when they have less and less working funds? If I have $50 million I can put into R&D for alternate energy without a carbon tax or cap and trade or $25 million I can put into R&D for alternate energy with cap and trade/carbon tax which do you think will get more work done?
In fact, cap and trade systems have been tried before.
Yeah in Europe. And what happened? Oh yeah, massive fraud and less innovation. I don't see Europe suddenly having all these great solutions. Look at this http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/europes-cap-and-trade-model-loses-billions-to-fraud/19274092
Yes, regulating So2 has worked because Sulfur was pretty easy to catch and was really unnecessary in burning of fuels.
Unfortunately, that's not the case. In the most efficient burning of a fossil fuel, the result is CO2 and water. There's no way to make the CO2 not be there. There's no wasted energy. Moreover, added CO2 is an externality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality so individuals have no incentive to reduce the creation of CO2. This is true with pollutants in general. As with most difficult externalities, the impact of the pollution is not directly on the individual who created it, and it is diffuse enough that one cannot easily trace any specific bit of pollution back to any specific source. That's precisely why we have the government regulate the sources. Cap and trade is a very efficient system which takes advantage of market forces to more efficiently reduce pollution.
However, as a whole if an energy source pollutes its not that efficient. For example, one gram of coal yields a small amount of energy, one gram of nuclear fuel yields much more power.
Cap and trade will be like patents, perhaps a decent idea but with too many flaws in the implementation businesses will be paying protection money to carbon trolls, lobbyists will get rich, the environment will be more politicized, more expensive everything, lower standard of living and the environment doesn't even improve because falling energy prices in the developing world will lead to more US businesses moving to China and India. After all lets see here if this passes China/India will have:
A) Dirt-cheap educated labor
B) Dirt-cheap energy when compared to Europe/US
C) Lax IP enforcement allowing for better R&D cost to benefit ratios
D) A large population of consumers.
With jobs and businesses already making a mass immigration out of the US, why push them further out the door?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The reason is that they need to be HOT in order to function. And they are hot if the engine is running rich, so that unburned fuel particles can burn in the catalytic converter.
Today's engines with fuel injection and MAF sensors (and complicated computerized calculations) can run very clean without catalytic converters. In fact, cars from the factory run RICH just to employ the cat.
That's why aftermarket tunes that lean out the mixture get more power AND better fuel economy.
The problem is that such regulations don't hurt the people who caused the problems. Those people actually favor greater regulation, it makes it harder for others to compete with them.
For example, these new banking regulations they are trying to pass will probably result in a large number of small banks going out of business because they will not be able to afford to meet the new reporting requirements. Which will mean that the big banks will get bigger. Goldman Sachs, which made money off of the collapse of the financial system, will get bigger and more powerful.
You don't seem to understand that greater government regulation results in more people who don't produce anything, people who make money by taking advantage of the new regulations (whether it is exploiting the loopholes or interpreting the regulations for companies or something else). The solution is simpler regulations (not necessarily looser, just less complicated).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Make the top marginal rate 90%
Few people outside of the far-left would regard it as far to take 90% of someone's earnings.
There are also other creative solutions like making the board of directors of publicly traded companies elected by the workers.
Yeah that's fair. Take the vote away from the people who put up the money to get the company off the ground. Has it occurred to you that might have unintended consequences, such as discouraging investment?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The only reason I would support this is if the money goes straight towards research into affordable ultra-capacitors, solar energy plants, geothermal energy plants, wind farms, and high speed train service between major cities.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
People hate taxes; they tend to assume government doesn't spend the money on something for them, but rather flushes it down the toilet in some way. (And this can be hard to dispute some days).
So make it a sinking fund. Take a ton of carbon out of the ground and into the biosphere, pay $50 into the fund. If you take a ton of carbon out of the air and put it in the ground (biochar a hectare of trees, say) and you can take $50 out of the fund.
Coal-generated power goes up by a crippling 5 cents per kWh; nuclear and renewables become competitive. The price of gas, alas, barely changes, but it's starting to look like electric cars can kick their ass anyway, given one more advance in batteries.
Theoretically, the fund stabilizes in size when as much carbon is going out of the air as into it, either because most forms of carbon emissions have been replaced with cleaner (and now cheaper) fuels, or because "biochar" and ocean-iron-seeding and all that stuff actually works at $50/ton like they claim.
If not, you re-analyse and tweak the $/ton figure. Please note: by definition, this does as much good to the overall economy as harm. Some things that have been causing externalities get more expensive, some things that repair externalities get cheaper.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well, yeah, but suffering the consequences isnt on the table as an offered option. So, AC maybe unintentionally asks a good question.
No they don't. How do they have the incentive to do that when they have less and less working funds? If I have $50 million I can put into R&D for alternate energy without a carbon tax or cap and trade or $25 million I can put into R&D for alternate energy with cap and trade/carbon tax which do you think will get more work done?
Silly hypothetical that doesn't reflect what happens in reality. If there's a cap and trade system, the industries that become very efficient get further gain from trading offsets. This helps in particular the industries that would not be able to do so efficiently. This creates a large incentive for certain industries to do research.
Yes, regulating So2 has worked because Sulfur was pretty easy to catch and was really unnecessary in burning of fuels.
It actually took a lot of research and a lot of work to be able to burn coal without releasing much SO2.
Yeah in Europe. And what happened? Oh yeah, massive fraud and less innovation. I don't see Europe suddenly having all these great solutions. Look at this http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/europes-cap-and-trade-model-loses-billions-to-fraud/19274092
Did you read the article you actually linked to? The problem in question is primarily a problem with the set-up of the European value added tax in general. The scam used has noted by the article you linked been used with a variety of tangible goods before such as cell phones. This problem has very little to do with a cap and trade system.
However, as a whole if an energy source pollutes its not that efficient. For example, one gram of coal yields a small amount of energy, one gram of nuclear fuel yields much more power.
Are pollution and efficiency intrinsically connected? That's almost certainly not the case. It isn't even clear to me how you would go about defining that in a meaningful sense when you aren't talking about the same pollutants (how do you compare radioactive byproducts with CO2 or SO2 or particular for example?) I also don't know where you are getting the idea that energy prices are falling in India and China. Both countries are having a lot of trouble supplying enough electricity to their booming populations. Prices are going up, not down.
When you run the numbers and see that a gallon of gasoline per hour is equal to 39 kilowatts you'll understand why we don't have electric cars. The technology is just not there yet and it won't be for a long time. What else contains that amount of energy and can be refilled in minutes? Nothing short of cold fusion will replace gasoline.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
unless he continues to be right. So far, the "CO2 is the cause" crowd have continued to get it wrong, so why do so many people continue to listen to them? The initial theory of CO2 heating the planet up was based on the observations of Venus' atmosphere and temperature. Venus was described as a runaway greenhouse effect. While it's true that the atmosphere of Venus has a much higher concentration of CO2 than on Earth, it's also true that Mars has a higher concentration of CO2. Venus is much hotter than Earth, Mars is much colder. So what gives? Scientists have more recently concluded that the high temperatures on Venus aren't cause by a greenhouse effect.
No Scientists did not conclude that the high temperatures on Venus aren't cause by a greenhouse effect.
Anthony Watts, a climate sceptic and meteorologist, posted an entry by Steve Goddard (I don't know his qualifications) on his blog that said the high temperatures on Venus aren't cause by a greenhouse effect. If you want me to take that post seriously than show me the paper in a respectable peer reviewed scientific journal that says the same thing. That way I know that at least some knowledgeable scientists have looked at the paper and checked the data and calculations.
I'm sorry but I've seen more than enough "scientific" blog posts and it will take more than that to convince me of an argument.
I stole this Sig
Remember that post a few hundred lines up that suggest fact checking? I would suggest some sanity-checking.
So for a simple tweak in software, cars would not only gain performance, save more gas, but also eliminate the need for expensive (cats are one of the world's biggest uses platinum) catalytic converters? ... oh yeah it's completely wrong and stupid.
Man, it makes complete sense now that the car companies of the world, especially those on the verge of bankruptcy in this economy, don't want the public to know that they are totally IGNORING this simple reprogramming of the ECU for the great reason of...
Cats are there to change NOx (smog, eventually becomes ground level ozone, the kind you WANT depleted) emissions into more harmless NO2.
Problem is NOx emissions come from higher ignition temperatures (why Diesels get great fuel economy and power, but have always been seen as a dirty fuel source/powertrain), _which are a result of running lean_.
As a general point, it's also important to remember that CO2 emissions are different from the "Emissions" that they usually talk about in cars (LEV, ULEV, ZEV). Even the "Zero emission vehicles" (many of which are fuel celled) still emit CO2 and water, it's just that they don't burn anything containing nitrogens, and thus emit "zero" NOX (still a bit arguable since fuel cells run hot, and the atmosphere is 80% diatomic nitrogen).
Anyway, point of the matter, and man I hope people have read this far, is that CO2 is what is being attributed to global warming (save that debate for another thread), but the "emissions" coming out of tailpipes are what's important for whether your children have chronic asthma by their teenage years.
But aren't you at least a little concerned that Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012? And what of the Bats eating kids? Won't anyone think of the children?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Don't give them any ideas. They might decide that, since all these squirrels live in trees on my yard, I have to declare them on my returns. I'm too young to be yelling "get off my lawn", let alone to a bunch of squirrels.
97% of annual CO2 emissions are natural. Only 3% are anthropogenic. It mostly comes from decaying biomass. Look it up. What, don't they highlight this fact on the greenist web sites? My country (Canada) is responsible for 0.06% of total CO2 emissions. Hardly seems worth gutting my standard of living over.
Except that it's not a real tax. Cap and trade means you can shift the costs onto someone else. Game the system in other words. If you generate too much CO2, you don't have to cut back or pay anything if you can find someone who isn't using all their credits that you can trade with. So the whole fight will be about where to put the cap so that no one has to do anything different. Lop off the hills above the cutoff and dump them into the valleys below the cutoff.
Whereas a straight up tax based on amount of CO2 generated, applied to all equally, will be fairer and will encourage big polluters to figure out how to pollute less while those who already took steps to pollute less will pay less (or nothing at all if CO2 they generate is low enough).
The free market is efficient?
But only about 10 or so of those 39 kilowatts are actually useful for moving the vehicle. The rest is just getting blown out the radiator as waste heat.
I will admit that batteries are not yet there, which is why plug in hybrids are being made.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Ok so it is pretty much a given that China, Mexico and the other Asian nations are not going to implement this
in their own countries to the detrement of their fast growing industrial economies. Implementing this is about
as beneficial to the US job market as the new health care bill. Our countries manufacturing industry is already
treading water adding additional costs to do business in this country only quickens the pace.
Got Code?
The same group of deluded elites that knew the Duke Lacrosse team was guilty of rape, now wants to sell you on carbon taxes.
I have to say, this is the weirdest non-sequitur argument I've seen so far. Exactly which of the people on the National Academy of Sciences made any statement about the Duke Lacrosse team whatsoever?
To my knowledge, the number of National Academy of Sciences reports on the subject of Duke Lacrosse is exactly zero.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
A two buck a gallon tax increase on diesel, plus the ups and downs of the speculators we endure already, would put like half the independent truckers and the bulk of the farmers into bankruptcy in short order. It's already tough enough to make any profits at all now.
I hope you have some alternative way to move goods and to get food. Me, I don't care much anymore if I provide food to other people or not, I'll just feed my dogs better with my beef, and all those pro fast fuel tax increases advocates in the cities can..I guess grow lettuce in window boxes and eat rats and pigeons. Or whatever they figure out. Heck, I bet your good friends in places like china, your wall street dream nation, would love to ship you some really "nutritious" cheap food, while you ride your bicycle around. Because they won't be taxing themselves on fuel that much, and are rather lax in the "quality" department. And they are more than happy to take over any market you decide to kill off in random nation x,y or z. They'll take it. they love when national policies kill markets there so they can move in. But that will be your option then once you bankrupt people who directly have to use fuel to work to move your goods internally and provide you with food.
Now there is an alternative to the punitive tax, it is called the anti tax or the tax *credit*. Instead of the tax, the stick (or the club, which is a better analogy), you offer a tax credit, the carrot, the reward.
If the government offered a 100% tax credit for actual implementation of alternative and cleaner energy solutions, it just might work and boost the economy better. Even the partial credits they have and offer now work fairly well, the 10-30% credits, but just imagine if you had 100% credit, something like a five or ten year pro rated credit (say for 25 to 50 grand) for doing such things as adding solar panels to your house, or getting some new efficient car that got over 60 MPG, stuff like that. Think about it, which would you rather. Here's a scenario. Government takes X-dollars income tax from you every year, now you add in the new extra carbon fuel tax and every single thing you buy or use goes up in price to cover that new tax. OR, the government offers the multi year tax credit, and you could finance 25-50 grand worth of your own solar panels, or something like that. Same money out of your pocket, that's a wash, it's spent in advance already, so which would you like better, and which would help to get cleaner energy solutions out there fast?
Me, I always like the carrot method better than the stick method. Ain't if funny only the stick method, the carbon tax, or "cap and trade" swindle, which will go to enrich already bloated government and wall street, is the only one recommended by these grant sucking scientists? None of them ever heard of the tax credit?
That's why I don't take their pronouncements as serious as perhaps I should, because years ago I heard about this carbon tax scam, and you can follow the economic breadcrumb trail right up into the pockets of the goldman sachs crowd, and the global nanny state political activist crowd, the watermelons.
I am really pro cleaner energy and pro much cleaner environment and always have been, I invested some in solar panels when others where investing in dot bomb wall street fairy tales or house flipping perpetual economic motion scams. And I also actually work for a living as a food producer and know what fast sharp energy price hikes do to the economy, at least this subset of the economy. It kills it in a nutshell. So go ahead and do it, throw that tax out there, institute your new legions of carbon police and carbon commissars to go along with it, see what happens.
This is like short term memory theater. We had a fast price rise in fuel due to wall street speculators mostly just two years ago, and there are a lot of us here who remember and had to pay those fast price hikes back during the oil embargo. That combined with the big fast paper financial products
Resources are like slices in a pie. However, that pie grows under capitalism which in effect also grows the slices of said pie. In communism, the size of the pie often stagnates if not shrinks all together once rationing starts. It quickly becomes a run-away situation of poverty and despair.
Perfect example today is Venezuela going down that path. China at least has learned of the folly of Marxist ideology.
Life is not for the lazy.
Right, but that's 3% over equilibrium, and it's cumulative.
He has investments in the cap and trade plan. I am sure he wont make a buck off of it.
In certain restricted contexts, yes. It doesn't work well when there are externalities. Or when there are major information imbalances or substantial transaction costs. The nice thing about setting up a cap and trade system is that if is implemented correctly it avoids these three classic pitfalls.
Changing the top marginal rate won't bring in more income. Rich people will find ways to protect their money, either legally or illegally. Google "The Effect of Marginal Tax Rates on Taxable Income".
While removing the sales tax would be nice, it will reduce government income because the poor people who have to pay it can't escape. Most of the welfare states in Europe rely heavily on VAT taxes, which are economically equivalent to sales taxes. In order to remove sales/VAT taxes, we'd have to drastically cut down on the size of the government.
You can't soak the rich. Life isn't fair. Get over it.
4.5 billion people by 2012 is a bit hyperbolic. If methane in the atmosphere increased drastically it's maybe possible in several decades. What I've heard from the scientific community on the subject is that methane emissions may increase somewhat from global warming effects but they don't see any mechanism short of a volcanic eruption in a methane clathrate bed that would lead to massive methane releases.
90% was the marginal rate, it only applied to income over $3 million.
Funny how the "free market" advocates are so vocal about how humanity is capable of adapting to various changes and yet is screaming and wailing that old troll that it's a choice between Coal and a caveman lifestyle.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
It is, but socialism caps the disparity.
So why doesn't the National Academy of Science make China their top priority? Not only is China the largest emitter of CO2, it is also the fastest growing. Not much can be done with the fully-developed countries like the US, Canada, and Japan. "Cap and trade" is really just a variant of "tax and spend", which inevitably leads to "inflate and borrow".
If this is the best these people can do, their budget should be slashed. Whoever puts out this crap is wasting my tax dollars. Let's just downsize 'em and call it our national contribution to reduce global warming.
Investigate the National Academy of Science and you will find one of those "think tank" organizations that is funded by the government in order to write white papers consisting of what the government wants to hear.
Hmmm... an organization that gets 85% of its funding from the government is advising the socialist government to enact whopping taxation. Oh my, what a surprise!
It's the market oriented solution.
So what? The fact that someone makes a lot of money is not sufficient justification for the Government to take almost all of it.
Aren't leftists big on the concept of equal protection? Explain to me how "progressive" tax structures are compatible with treating everybody equally under the law?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
No it doesn't. The elites still have a larger slice of the pie than everybody else. They are just chosen differently than they would be under a capitalist system.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
China is ahead of the US in investment in clean/renewable energy.
No it doesn't. The elites still have a larger slice of the pie than everybody else.
I did not contradict that. Again, the point is that the amount by which that slice can be larger is capped by the system. The cap isn't foolproof, depending on the particular implementation of "socialism", but it's there.
If you really want to cut or even eliminate CO2 emissions then the last thing you want to do is turn CO2 emissions into a revenue stream for the government. That's just the WORST thing you could do. It's like trying to get rid of cows by eating them. Why not just make other energy sources more attractive by removing bureaucratic nonsense (nuclear energy) or making investments in R&D (solar and wind)?
When the gas engines run for a day to cut an acre of trees,
more CO2 is released in cutting down that one acre of trees
than what the trees would ever release in being burned or
decomposed.
Now, step away from the keyboard and breath a prayer or two
onto your vegetable dinner to take as much poison back in
your body so I don't have to put up with your stink. Bad
enough I breath the same air as eco cowards like you.
Of course you should see it coming. Any person who understands anything about economics understands that you compensate for negative externalities with taxation.
You may not like it, because the environment has been pounded in the ass to keep your energy prices low, but that's the way real economics works. Suck it up and take responsibility for your actions.
Of course you neglected to mention the fact that socialism invariably shrinks the overall size of the pie....
"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." -Winston Churchill
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
So you did get the joke then. That's good. I had thought my sarcasm might be a little too subtle.
It's comforting to know that when we've sucked the Arctica and Antarctic oil reserves dry there's still far more carbon fuels tied up in clathrates sitting on the floor of the oceans than all the oil and coal fuels we've used so far, waiting for anybody who wants to scoop them up and liquefy them. That's nice because I bought my daughter a '69 Camaro for her high school graduation and she's only three. It would be a shame if she couldn't afford gas for the thing in 2025. I should have it running by then. It's a convertible so if the climate is warmer by 2025 then she can tour Canada in it with the top down.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/index.php
Not even a percentage point, nice try though.
Just for gigles, go look at gapminder. See http://www.gapminder.org/world/?PHPSESSID=kinokshem5859bcbqa0iv1v1h3#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=21;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=6;ti=2006$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1gkNuUEXOGag;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1NHPC9MyZ9SQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;iid=pyj6tScZqmEfbZyl0qjbiRQ;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=294;dataMax=76977$map_y;scale=log;dataMin=-1.2196;dataMax=26$map_s;sma=58;smi=1$cd;bd=0$inds=;modified=6 Your argument is a bit silly. It it like a glutton complaining that his neighbors their 3 children eat more than he does, so they should be the ones to go on a diet. Yes, 1.32 billion Chinese use more energy than 0.31 billion Americans. Are we so special that we deserve 4x the CO2 per capita as the rest of the world?
Think global, act loco
Of course you neglected to mention the fact that socialism invariably shrinks the overall size of the pie.
At this point I'll have to ask about your definition of "socialism". For some reason, it's very popular among certain circles to focus specifically on the USSR, China and Cambodia when talking about how "socialism" is detrimental; but then, as soon as it is definitely established that "socialism" always leads to mass murder, starvation, and general economic collapse, turn around, and rant about "socialists" like Obama in US, and "socialist" Canada and Western Europe (with the implication that all evilness established on the previous stage still applies).
So, please clarify - is, say, Sweden or Finland "socialist"?
It is evil. Just because it's not as bad as the USSR doesn't mean that it's not evil. Socialism implies the subordination of the individual to the state. The level of that subordination may vary across the different implementations of socialism but it's always there. I regard that as evil. You doubtless disagree. I doubt we'll see eye to eye on this.
Regarding Sweden and Finland, both are generally considered to be "Social Democrat". Before you hold them up as something that the rest of us should aspire to, it's worth noting that the United States beats both of them for GDP per capita and has a lower suicide rate.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
They only provide the capital because they have most of it in the first place. And how did they get it all? By skimming it off the top, as the GP said.
The ones the GP was talking about, who are university educated and become traders and bankers don't have any capital anyway. They only move around OTHER people's capital (and take their percentage, of course).
Tell that to all the people who are driving BMW Mini-E's or Telsa Roadsters or other pure electric cars out on the roads today (some as for-sale cars, some as test cars from the automakers and some as 3rd party conversions).
Tell that to the people who have signed up to preorder/reserve cars like the Nissan Leaf electric car.
"Carbon tax" has a specific meaning that refers to a different policy implementation than "cap and trade". Also, whether or not cap and trade is a tax depends on how permits are issued. Recently proposed regulations have permits being given away, so cap and trade will result in a transfer of wealth from those without enough permits to those with enough permits, and the gov't won't get a cut.
What makes this smell of political agenda rather than a genuine concern for the environment is that they urge action that will ultimately have no real value.
People will still need to drive to work. Trucks and trains will still need to run. Airlines will still fly, people will still run their AC, wash their clothes and dishes, watch TV, power their lights, etc.
The only difference will be that they will pay more and the government will get a big fat check to spend on more crap we don't need. Gee, more tax and spend, who'd a thunk?
If they had a real concern and really did want to reduce carbon, they would have forcefully and whole wholeheartedly endorsed nuclear power. They would have suggested a Nation Mandate, special legislation limiting lawsuits, standardization on just a few designs, mass production of parts and encouraging U.S. industry to make the parts (I seem to remember that the turbines are ONLY made in Germany and Japan), etc, etc.
Of course all the anti-nuke wackos will start lining up to poo poo this , but they cannot deny that nuclear power is carbon free, far safer than any other energy when properly handled, and far more efficient than any other fuel. And if you can push aside all the crap ( 5 year environmental impact studies, endless lawsuits, etc.) they can probably be built for far less than their traditional cost.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I agree completely. The majority of students getting MBA's are usually taking the easy way out. Their curriculum is a joke, and they all seem to have a false sense of entitlement and exaggerate their own skill and knowledge.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
You see, passing it on to consumers is exactly the point of cap and trade(and a carbon tax for that matter).
The general idea is that in the current system, dirty energy is too cheap because it's not the people selling or buying it who have to pay for cleaning it up. This distorts the market because the technology which is actually cheaper, appears to be more expensive. This means that goods or services produced in a way which emits pollution will always be cheaper than goods which are not. This means no market motivation to fix anything.
With a cost attributed to the producers of carbon, the price of carbon intensive goods goes up, ideally to a level which is higher than the non carbon intensive goods. This means that more carbon neutral goods become in comparison cheaper than the carbon intensive ones. Market forces then take care of the problem.
The market is a wonderful optimizing agent, it's just never been, nor ever will be free, so we have to try and set the constraints on it to get the results we want and let it work everything out for us.
Cap and trade just allows higher polluting companies (coal fired power plants for example) to buy carbon credits from lower polluting emissions without actually reducing their emissions.
A carbon tax forces the higher polluting companies to increase their prices (to cover the tax). This then causes people to switch to cheaper options (right now coal is popular because its cheap, with a carbon tax, coal would be more expensive and other options such as biofuels, nuclear and others might then be competitive with it and gain market adoption)
Any responsible environmental policy includes a plan for reducing the world population over time.
Availability of contraception
Improve life expectancy
Improve rights for Women
That's EXACTLY what I said! OK, fine, so you didn't include the trollish tone and actually fleshed out your ideas, but still... :)
Money can be an incentive to come up with solutions though.
Find about more from a video of a recent meeting of the National Academy of Science
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
When you run the numbers and see that a gallon of gasoline per hour is equal to 39 kilowatts you'll understand why we don't have electric cars.
Umm, we do have electric cars. I've seen a Tesla Roadster (two, actually) on the street, I know they exist. Otherwise, I'm going to be really disappointed come December when Nissan tells me they lied about delivering my Leaf.
Use boron and aluminium as fuel. They have volumetric (what really matters) energy far in excess of gasoline, and consistent or higher mass energy density. In a fuel cell system, you could easily refuel like a gas car.
But, the energy density for batteries is there with standard issue lithium-ion. A Tesla Roadster can go 244 miles on a charge. Its batteries energy density? 70 watt-hours/kg, or over 150 times lower than gasoline. Can it recharge in minutes? No. But it proves that it works. So why don't you drive one? Because its battery pack costs $20,000. Now, try to put that in a family car and you see that it is cost prohibitive. What we need is a cheap battery with similar energy density (NiCad?), not a 500 mile range battery. Second, it needs to be a plug in hybrid. Basically, stick a little 10 kW gas or diesel generator (or maybe a biofuel genset) in there and you solved the recharge problems. You can't recharge a battery fast right now because the grid just can't pump out enough electricity.
In the long run, I hope that cold fusion will replace gasoline. Boron and aluminium blow away gasoline. If you really want energy density, you have to move up to superconducting energy storage systems (think about 500 gallons of gas in the palm of you hand). But you don't need the energy density. You need to cut costs.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
It is evil. Just because it's not as bad as the USSR doesn't mean that it's not evil. Socialism implies the subordination of the individual to the state.
The very existence of the state implies that, since the definition of state is as something that holds monopoly on violence (which it may delegate as needed).
Regarding Sweden and Finland, both are generally considered to be "Social Democrat".
Yes, but it it "socialist" or not?
See, as far as I'm concerned, "socialism" and "welfare state" are orthogonal concepts. Socialism is when the means of production are owned by those actually using them. In that sense, USSR, for example, was more or less socialist. China, less so. Scandinavian states, not at all. Welfare state, per se, does not require socialism - it requires wealth redistribution, which isn't really the same thing, and can co-exist with capitalism (which is, indeed, the most successful model so far).
Before you hold them up as something that the rest of us should aspire to, it's worth noting that the United States beats both of them for GDP per capita and has a lower suicide rate.....
The interesting question though is, if you look not at average, but at median, would US GDP still be higher? I.e. how many people actually enjoy that higher standard on living? Average doesn't show you the whole picture... a theoretically rich country may have most wealth concentrated entirely in the hand of selected few (in case of some African countries, it's quite literally so); while a poorer one may have more people closer to average.
As for suicide rates, it's a well-known (but not fully adequately explained) phenomenon that they rise at both extremes - for countries with very low as well as very high standard of living. Indeed, if we look at the First World as a whole, suicide rates have been climbing gradually in all countries as our standard of living improves. The sweet spot for that is somewhere around where most Latin American countries are.
The joys of malaria that have killed 40 million african children over the past 40 years came to you thanks to the blackballing of DDT by radical environmentalists back in the 60s and 70s. If you're worried about malaria, it's not the temperature that should concern you, it's the irrational demonization of life saving chemicals like DDT.
I like the Leaf, but the range is insufficient for anything other than daily commuting IMO. For me, even a day trip to the next city over would exceed it's limit.
If they made something like a trailer with a diesel generator you can hook up to it to extend the range, I'd be sold.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
That's too mathematical for the AGW denier. Do you have a car analogy?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Just get Chuck Norris on the audit team. He'll freeze any volcano scared cold.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
This is offensive. The National Academy is supposed to be a scientific organization, not a pile of lobbiests. The whole AGW mess comes because scientists have mixed up science with politics.
Three simple steps: open mouth, insert foot, destroy credibility.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Well officer, you see it's like I was doing 150mph relative to the ground in a 30mph limit but the Earth is going around the sun at 67000 mph so my 120mph over the limit is totally irrelevant.
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
No, go with burning pixie farts - it smells better.
[citation needed]
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/2007/07_02_15.html
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
and tell us to take our stupid tax and shove it.
The American consumer will merely be laden with another tax for rules the rest of the world will ignore.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
97% of annual CO2 emissions are natural. Only 3% are anthropogenic. It mostly comes from decaying biomass. Look it up. What, don't they highlight this fact on the greenist web sites? My country (Canada) is responsible for 0.06% of total CO2 emissions. Hardly seems worth gutting my standard of living over.
Sure. What Watts doesn't tell you is that before humans those 100% went straight into building new biomass (and some other CO2 drains). It's called a "balance". Now not only do humans suddenly add 3% on top, they also prevent creation of new plant matter at an increasing rate, mostly by cutting down rain-forests and replacing them with (at best) mono-culture trees.
Let's try an analogy: a river flows through a valley, rain causes flooding - but no, you say, it's not the 3% of water from the rain that causes the flooding, it's the 97% normal discharge.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
This country produces thousands of college graduates every year who go on to be bankers or Wall Street traders when they should be engineers and scientists. We produce people who not only don't contribute anything themselves but actually make it harder for other people to be productive.
That's a rather shortsighted view you have.
As opposed to fuming about Cap'n'Trade because "Goldman Sachs will get rich from it"?
Has it occurred to you that the banker and stock investor provide the capital needed by the engineer and scientist before they can produce items of value?
Did you miss the part where they made trillions of the needed capital vanish into thin air when the house of cards (make that ticker tape) of trading stuff that doesn't exist fell apart?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I thought Thetans were responsible for all of the bad emotions we have. Therefore, they are almost entirely made up of... Well, made up stuff.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
A "leftist" would support equalizing salaries, in which case a progressive tax would be superfluous. Progressive taxation is more of a centrist measure that allows the rich to stay rich. But a 100%-corpse disposal estate tax would probably be an improvement.
Yes, god forbid I pass some of my life's work down to my children. The Government should come and seize it all when I die.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Yes, but thetans are only troublesome because Xenu brainwashed them while they were still alive before he detonated the nuke in the volcano. Duh.
Being that a carbon tax will have little to no effect (per "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" proponents that will greatly benefit, monetarily, should such come to pass) on the amount of human generated carbon in the atmosphere, all talk of such "carbon" or similar taxes should completely scrapped.
It is, and always has been, nothing more than A) a power grab and B) a method to bilk even more money out of tax paying citizens who are already over-taxed in the extreme to help cement further control and enslavement of the United States citizenry. Such taxes solve nothing except continue the craven "re-distrubtion of wealth" meme.
This should be opposed and thwarted at every level and at every opportunity.
I stand corrected. It's good to see that not everyone is walking around in the dark with their shades on.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
And cap&trade skips directly to that result; the size of the pie is capped and reduced by fiat.
You say that like Net Primary Production is fixed and will not naturally increase due to atmospheric CO2 enrichment.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
In about 100 years the effects of global warming will start to become inconvenient for humans. During which time we will likely have made the technological innovations we need to solve this problem without giving up our way of life or stifling our progress and ability to make such innovations.
It's because of of over regulation. Scientists and Engineers don't make the big bucks because over regulation pushed those jobs to China and India. Why would a company choose to be in America to pay 40% taxes instead of elsewhere where they can pay 10%? On top of that, why would they want to spend the large amount of money needed to hire lawyers to interpret regulation and then spend large amounts of money complying with those regulations? These costs make them uncompetitive with companies from other nations. The only solution is to pick up and go to India. If the cost of govt was dropped by 90% and the regulations taken off the books, then inventive engineers would be successful in the good ol' USA. Right now, engineers like me go work for banks because theres money to be made and I'd like to stay employed :-D
Interestingly, usury is a sin in Abrahamic religions, and charging >0% interest is illegal under Islamic law. Because of that, most Middle Eastern countries already have the restrictions and regulations you want.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Indeed, because that's how aristocracies get started.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I have to confess that I don't understand --- what will increase in response to CO2? What is the timescale?
Plant growth, CO2 is a plant nutrient,
and
you said
Right, but that's 3% over equilibrium, and it's cumulative.
and nature reply by sucking 6% more CO2 from the air!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Now not only do humans suddenly add 3% on top, they also prevent creation of new plant matter at an increasing rate, mostly by cutting down rain-forests and replacing them with (at best) mono-culture trees.
wrong answer
and one of the authors, Charles D. Keeling, is from Scripps Institution of Oceanography so the "paid for by Big Oil" meme don't fly here either.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
If the US unlike Europe allows forest preserves to be used as carbon offsets in cap and trade, the Amazon rainforests the WWF have purchased with donated money would be worth an estimated $US 60,000,000,000.00; who says money doesn't grow on trees!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Tax Waste, Not Work
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Lack of regulation allowed them to move to India and China. Why should capital be allowed to freely move across borders but labor cannot? When you have one without the other you have oppression and exploitation. So we either stop both, or allow both (or allow labor to move but not capital).
You said it all right there, "money to be made" Money that wasn't "earned" it was made from nothing; producing nothing, creating nothing, improving nothing. You just manage the capital, and yet you can (or at least some do) live better than the people who actually do the work. That is obscene.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Do you know what is causing global warming ? Did you know that the 'global' warming is tied with the entire solar system warming due to the fact that higher energy levels from the Milky way are making the Sun to burn hotter and emit higher energies ? Go ahead and research the full extent of this Scam called the global warming tax.
Have you looked up in the night and wondered why is it that the solar system is not in the same plane as the galactic plane ? Well, according to Matthew Perkins Erwin's postulate, Earth and the Solar System are from a neighboring galaxy called The Sagittarius Dwarf. The odd angle suggests that our Sun is influenced by some other system. Together with data from the Two-Micron All Sky Survey we now know what it is. We actually belong to the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy. "We sifted several thousand interesting stars from a catalog of half a billion," said co-author Michael Skrutskie, U.Va. professor of astronomy and principal investigator for the 2MASS project. "By tuning our maps of the sky to the 'right' kind of star, the Sagittarius system jumped into view."
Using volumes of data from the Two-Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS), a major project to survey the sky in infrared light led by the University of Massachusetts, the astronomers are answering questions that have baffled scientists for decades and proving that our own Milky Way is consuming one of its neighbors in a dramatic display of ongoing galactic cannibalism. The study published in the Astrophysical Journal, is the first to map the full extent of the Sagittarius galaxy and show in visually vivid detail how its debris wraps around and passes through our Milky Way. Sagittarius is 10,000 times smaller in mass than the Milky Way, so it is getting stretched out, torn apart and gobbled up by the bigger Milky Way.
http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=1207&i=2
http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1942665.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way
http://www.scribd.com/doc/128815/Sagittarius-Dwarf-Galaxy-used-to-be-home-of-our-Solar-System
<b>Other changes happening in our system</b>
The "marriage" of our birth galaxy with our new adopted Milky Way galaxy is causing energy shifts that are obvious just about everywhere. Here are some changes being watched by scientists:
* A growth of dark spots on Pluto.
* Reporting of auroras on Saturn.
* Reporting of Uranus and Neptune polar shifts (They are magnetically conjugate planets), and the abrupt large-scale growth of Uranus' magnetosphere intensity.
* A change in light intensity and light spot dynamics on Neptune.
* The doubling of the magnetic field intensity on Jupiter (based upon 1992 data), and a series of new states and processes observed on this planet as an aftermath of a series of explosions in July 1994 [caused by "Comet" SL-9]. That is, a relaxation of a plasmoid train which excited the Jovian magnetosphere, thus inducing excessive plasma generation and it's release in the same manner as Solar coronal holes inducing an appearance of radiation belt brightening in decimeter band (13.2 and 36 cm), and the appearance of large auroral anomalies and a change of the Jupiter - Io system of currents.
Update Note: A stream of ionized hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. is being directed to Jupiter from the volcanic areas of Io through a one million amperes flux tube. It is affecting the character of Jupiter's magnetic process and intensifying it's plasma genesis.[Z.I.Vselennaya "Earth and Universe" N3, 1997 plo-9 by NASA data]
* A series of Martian atmosphere transformations increasing its biosphere quality. In particularly, a cloudy growth in the equator area and an unusual growth of ozone concentration.
Update Note: Mars Surveyor Satellite encountered an atmospheric density double that projected by NASA upon entering a Mars orbit. This greater density bent one of the solar array arms beyond the full and open stop. This combination of events has delayed the beginning of the schedule
If someone doesn't like the service my company provides they don't have to do business with us. It's as simple as that. It's amazing how many people will stomp out freedom because 1) they think they're idea of the world is the best and 2) they think they can make their idea become a reality.
And we respond by cutting down more rainforest and acidifying more ocean...
snig
Being that a carbon tax will have little to no effect (per "Climate Change" and "Global Warming" proponents that will greatly benefit, monetarily, should such come to pass) on the amount of human generated carbon in the atmosphere, all talk of such "carbon" or similar taxes should completely scrapped.
[citation needed]
It is, and always has been, nothing more than A) a power grab and B) a method to bilk even more money out of tax paying citizens who are already over-taxed in the extreme to help cement further control and enslavement of the United States citizenry.
Yep, those power-mad science types are at it again. As if it's not enough that they created this InterWebs thingie to make us all slaves of technology, now they want to make us slaves of the environment, too! Well enough is enough! I say we go torch every forest we can find. That'll learn 'em!
The largest increase was in tropical ecosystems. Amazon rain forests accounted for 42% of the global increase in net primary production, owing mainly to decreased cloud cover and the resulting increase in
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
1. U.W. Madison Prof. Joel Rogers admit that "...it is all about the money and if we stopped ALL emissions in the U.S., it would make absolutely no difference".
2. AGW (or Climate Change) is nothing more than an attempt to "redistribute wealth", but don't believe me. Just search for quotes of the current U.S. Administration's advisors and appointees. Maybe that will open your eyes a little.
1. "University Science Dude Says" is not a citation.
2. That's fucking stupid. If you wanted to say that "carbon credits" are a form of wealth redistribution you MIGHT be able to make a decent case (probably not). However, claiming that an entire field of scientific research is a wealth redistribution scheme is simply idiotic.
It is a political power issue, period.
And, current administration officials, elected and appointed, are making it such. All part of their "social justice" and "economic" justice meme.
Wake the f*ck up!
It is a political power issue, period.
[citation needed]
Wake the f*ck up!
Stop getting all your opinion from Rush Limbaugh.
No occurrence of the word poison in either of those pages, just an indication that greenhouse emissions are a danger to public health, and *NEWSFLASH* it appears they are, if indirectly.
Oh, by the way, Joel Rogers is not just "University Science Dude Says", here is who Joel is (Wikipedia and other sources):
Joel Rogers is an American academic and political activist. He currently is a professor of law, political science, and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has written on American politics and public policy.
Rogers received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University, his Master of Arts and Ph.D. from Princeton, and his J.D. from Yale Law School.
He is also the founder and director of a research and policy center, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS), at UW-Madison. Rogers has written widely on American politics and public policy, political theory, and U.S. and comparative industrial relations, as well as the "high-road" approach to economic development he is credited as first theorizing.
Rogers is also one of the founding members of the Apollo Alliance. [1]. This group was credited with writing the controversial $787 billion dollar stimulus package for the US Congress in 2009.
Now, go do your own research, you might learn something (at least, I hope you do).