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The Problem With Carbon-Cutting Programs
Med-trump writes "Alberta's $60 million carbon-cutting program is failing, according to the latest report from the Canadian province's auditor-general, Merwan Saher. A news article in Nature adds: 'the province, despite earlier warnings, has not improved its regulatory structure — and calls the emissions estimates and the offsets themselves into question.'"
What? Do you really think the tarsands province has an interest in putting carbon emissions on its beloved oil? Or that the federal Conservative government of the corporate elite wants them to either?
It's not much of a surprise. Kyoto was designed (intentionally or not) as a subsidy that would allow business as usual while just writing a check to Eastern Europe. The baseline CO2 levels were set at 1990 levels, which was right before the collapse of the USSR and the resultant massive decrease in their CO2 output levels. (Likewise, our CO2 production has decreased since 2007 since our economy has tanked.)
The various carbon markets and carbon trading schemes have likewise been plagued with fraud. It comes as absolutely no surprise that Alberta's emissions trading scheme has run into identical problems.
While carbon trading schemes are admirable in their attempt to internalize external costs, in practice they're just not a very good idea.
Alberta is the home of the tar sands... the dirtiest source of petroleum. Do you actually think they are interested in cutting carbon emissions?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Like the Alberta government is going to do anything effective when almost their entire economy rides on the oil and gas industry. And like the Conservative Federal government is going to call their heartland to task.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Well as long as the air remains breathable here, then I would sat that it is worth it.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
For those that don't bother to read TFA, the one-sentence summary is that "offsets", where rather than paying the tax companies pay for credits obtained for emission-cutting programs in agriculture or in developing countries, are often dubious because the "offsets" are not properly audited and often just pay for activities that would have occurred anyway without the subsidy This is relatively easy to fix. Just tighten up the rules on offsets. It doesn't damn emissions trading in general.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Some passionate NGO spokesperson comes up with a master plan to correct the problem they've achieved public passion for or recognition of, legislators pass legislation allowing a plan to be implemented. The actual implementation and regulations are then turned over to government employees. Per TFA:
"In Alberta, the Department of Environment and Water requires facilities to have their emission estimates (and offset projects) independently verified. The department also uses another set of verifiers to confirm reports for a sample of those facilities that are signed up to the scheme. The UN’s CDM keeps track of all eligible projects in an online registry."
Gee, how could something like that possibly fail?
Gently reply
That fact remains that the air is completely horrible in China. Sure it is not a permanent or perfect solution to move pollution to china but in the short term, at least, it greatly improves our quality of life.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
...did that read weird to you? Never mind. What happens is highly industrialised states go cap in hand to developing states and buy carbon allowance off them - basically a license to carry on polluting at the rate they are yet still meet their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
This should have been classified under "YRO", not "Science".
Science disappeared a long time ago from Canada's tar sands industry discussions.
The Alberta and the Canadian governments try to call their approach "scientific" (a MP even used the expressions "based on facts" when talking about the conservatives' agenda - hilarious!) while forbidding scientists to present the results of their research, cutting their fundings and replacing their voices with marketing.
Americans will get free solar energy, and the British Over Lords will collect less money. So to compensate the Royal Family decided to impose a carbon tax, so every American will pay a tax on every exhale of a breath. God **** the Queen.
Seriously. They have tied the emissions to a unit of production. That is just plain stupid. It is as worthless as tying emissions to another variable of PER CAPITA. Ppl move around all the time. In addition, gov. lie (China comes quickly to the forefront, but no nation is a saint). Basically, we need emission limits tied to PER SQ KM. Period. We need a fixed value to work from. Will a few nations like Canada, Australia and Russia look better Sure. So what. That is minor in the scope of things. By putting taxes on ALL GOODS from an area (both local and imported) based on the CO2 PER SQ Km from which the final product and perhaps the largest sub-component come from, it pushes ALL NATIONS to lower their CO2.
Cap and Trade is beyond a shadow of a doubt only useful for helping the local area and more importantly, will lead to cheating since all govs., either implicitly or explicitly, KNOW that businesses will flee to places that have cheat. But with the tax approach it prevents that. If businesses flee to nations that cheat, then the business will later on be hit with large taxes as they export.
And the per sq km is the ONLY VIABLE MEANS TO PREVENT NATIONS FROM CHEATING. It is also allows the amount to be fixed to something that is relatively fair.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
First, there is a maximum of CO2 which earth can process, lets call that value X. Second, there are 7 billion people on earth. Logic and principals of the enlightenment allow us to conclude that every person has the same right and therefor the same share of that CO2. In recent years that value was calculated and the result was 1.5t CO2 per person. So if everyone gets a certificate over 1.5t CO2. The problem with that. Every Chinese is already at 2.5t, European are at 10t and the US with 19.78t CO2 per person. So after January the US citizens have to walk, as they are out of CO2 certificates. Logically that would not work. What will work is to divide the total man made CO2 production (Y) and divide it by the number of people. Then every person gets their certificates. Y will be definitely bigger than X. So we reduce Y over 20 years until it reaches X. And people and countries producing all the CO2 have to buy certificates, while others can sell their certificates. I know that was the initial idea behind those certificates. But somehow they failed. In Germany they failed because they where handed out for free to big polluters. So we have to have a change in certificate brokerage ;-)
mod this down; it's a response to a Goatse troll and deserves to suffer.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
You know, businesses don't seem to have a problem with fines and all manner of requirements. Why not simply REQUIRE the reductions where technically possible (forget about 'cost efficiency') and update the requirements as new technology arrives.
They can and they will do it. They will scream about "lost jobs" and "cutting back" and crap like that, but it's a huge lie -- they know if they want to earn more, they have to product more. If there is additional overhead involved, they will eventually accept it and move on just like they always do. In all my years, I have never seen it go any other way.
It's past time for this sort of decisiveness.
Loads of problems with that. /., then you should know that 20 years is really not going to work. ZERO chance of it.
First, CO2 is far more tied to economics and ag than to ppl, so per capitia is not only unfair, it is just plain brain-dead.
Secondly, nations will lie about population.
Thirdly, this encourages ppl growth, not cutting them back. You actually REWARD a nation to have more ppl. Kind of a foolish concept.
Fourth, US is already below 18 and probably closer to 15, while EU is climbing towards 15, unless you choose to ignore those nations with all of your growth.
Fifth, the idea of handing out certificates, is BS esp. when you point out that Germany is cheating at it. Germany and Japan speak of wanting to do the right thing, but they are now cutting their nuke plants, rather than pushing for SAFE nuke plants. So what will work? Well over the next 20 years, it will not be AE. So, they will have to move nukes to coal and gas. If they do that, their costs go up and businesses will move production to China, India, Brazil, Poland, Slovania, etc, all places with massively growing CO2 emissions. IOW, your idea will make things WORSE, by pushing manufacturing to those nations that choose to cheat, or have been granted a cheat.
Finally, if you listened to some of the stories in
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Until you require ALL nations to do this, then it will simply lead to businesses leaving a place that is fairly clean (read expensive) to places with high emissions and climbing. China is by far the worst example, but India, Brazil, etc will happily follow the path if it brings businesses their way and they have exceptions.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
When you can get your conscience clear by buying a couple of trillion carbon from http://www.freecarbonoffsets.com/home.do ?
The primary idea is, that the people get the certificate not the state. So companies have to buy CO2 certificates from people. And as the CO2 amount of certificates is reduced every year, it will get more expensive for those polluting the most. For example, when the Chinese would increase their CO2 output they need more certificates making it for them more expensive. And in when the population growth in one country certainly that country's people get in total more certificates. However, the total number of certs will still be reduced every year.
Alternatively you could allow countries with a CO2 sink to issue certificates which will result in the preservation of those sinks.
And BTW: When the US is at 18t or even 15t CO2 per person, than it is still more then 10 times higher as sustainability would allow the US citizens. Logically the same applies to the EU. However, an decrease of CO2 emissions during an economic crisis is normal. So the reduction to 17.5t for the US in 2008 (according to your data) might be just indicating reduced activity. I hope it is not and the US is going in the right direction.
Remember the goal is 1.5t
Then the next obvious answer becomes "tariffs and embargoes." The fact is, this is the planet we are talking about -- the only planet we have access to. We are seriously putting money before survival? We need a little more sanity.
China will stop polluting when it becomes a requirement of doing business. The EU, I have little doubt, would follow the US if such trading requirements were made. After that, you would see some amazingly fast reform occur when China's best customers won't buy from them. And in the short term, manufacturing in the US would return... what I wonderful thing that might be.
Here in the states, we have a number of old coal plants that are being shut down and converted to natural gas or 'cleaner coal'. For example, in Colorado, we are shutting down over 1.5 GW of coal plants from the 40's-60's, and they will be replaced by a smaller number of new high temp. natural gas plants and one shared high temp coal plant (which has the ability to convert to natural gas). In addition, since 2009, America has had growth, but most results show that emissions are still dropping. Finally, unlike EU, we are still looking to move towards nukes and still grow our AE faster than does EU overall, and japan.
Simply put, America is likely lowering our emissions, while EU is idling.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Finally, the goal of 1.5t per person is a joke. The reason is that our population is still increasing and per capita has little correlation to CO2 emissions. Instead, economic output or better yet, a fixed item such as land mass, are much much better and fairer than per capita certificates.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Actually, tariffs and embargoes are the WORST way to go. It will lead to nations producing inefficiently. So, by nations putting taxes on ALL GOODS, they get themselves and the foreign nations to change their habits.
As to China, it is already a requirement of doing business that they allow their money to float, stop subsidizing, stop dumping and even per the Japanese treaty, stop the heavy polluting. Yet, they simply ignore it and other nations allow it because businesses push this so that they can get into the Chinese market.
IOW, the current situation proves your last paragraph totally wrong.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The program may be failing...
and that may mean the policy is succeeding.
I invite you to read The Energy Trap.
Enjoy the other articles on that blog too.
bjd
Next time you are standing on a road, have a look down and contemplate what you are standing on, why it is there, how it got there, and who paid for it.
Who paid for the crusades in Iraq? Who benefitted? Why? While we are at it, what is the cost of the middle east policy? Who benefits? Why?
Without even jumping into climate destruction ( although, again, who will pay for it? Who benefitted? Why? ), there is the 'other' environmental disaster - air pollution. How much does it cost? Who pays for it? Why?
Subsidy doesn't quite describe the situation; perhaps "hand out" or "graft" are closer to the mark.
Turn that into a slowly increasing carbon tax and you have the same effect with the benefit of improved state/federal finances.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Corporations will just tell their employees (i.e. senators/representatives) to enact an exception for them. See Sears in Chicago.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Various new carbon derivatives have been created by the same JPMorgan Chase (and ISDA-type) Blythe Masters, responsible for creating the credit default swap and variations on those CDOs, etc., etc.
And who owns all those climate exchanges, clearinghouses, etc.? Of course, the global bank/oil cartel. (Sure, Al Gore, together with several of his Goldman Sachs' buddies, started Generation Asset Management, to trade in the carbon market, and they purchased 10% of the Chicago Climate Exchange, owned primarily by Climate Exchange, PLC, registered on everyone's fav offshore finance ceter, the Isle of Man, but Gore has always been a faux crat, and neocon, and fervent supporter of every "free trade" agreement --- NAFTA, CAFTA, etc. --- and GATT, etc., etc.)
Why don't you tax Africa. 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from making charcoal and burning wood for fuel in Africa.
It's the dirty Africans ruining the planet, not people driving cars w/ catalytic converters.
First, I seriously doubt that is true. However, we will find out when we have OCO2 doing measurements around the globe. It will be able to see how much CO2 flows in and then out of a nation. That is actually important. Whether it is per sq km, per $ of production, or per capita, it is all tied to national boundaries. Once we have real numbers and not simple guess work, things should be quite a bit different.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Localized pollution has been known for a long time. Smokestacks served no practical purpose initially, other than move pollution away from the source. So sending the pollution elsewhere is an improvement. Pollution in China does not pollute the US to the same degree pollution in the US would.
Learn to love Alaska
it is all tied to national boundaries.
Unfortunately, it is all tied to money. Saving the world, one tax at a time.
'Tar sand' is the historical name, and even Britannica lists 'Bituminous sand' as an alternate name for 'tar sand'. Notice 'alternate', not a primary.
White washing, a speciality of weasels, won't disguise the travesty that mining the tar sands is. Oil sand, and every other lame euphemism the clueless promote, will be just as dirty as 'tar sand'. It isn't just sticky, like tar, to the touch.
Why not simply REQUIRE the reductions where technically possible (forget about 'cost efficiency') and update the requirements as new technology arrives.
1. Because it is disconnected from the physical limits of the environment.
2. Because it would require a myriad of standards, each one of which will be twisted by it's fight with industry. (ie: it makes "divide and conquer" an obvious strategy for industry)
I'm not saying that standards enforced by law are a bad thing, I just don't think they're the best solution to such a broad problem. In the early 90's Reagan was proud to be a leading supporter of the international cap and trade treaty that is now in place for sulphur emission. As usual, economic alarmists of the day all started screaming about an economic apocalypse. The treaty was signed by most industrial nations, the economic apocalypse failed to materialise and acid rain has gone away as a major environmental problem. As you say this is how it always goes, at least it has been in the 50yrs I've been watching. Some other examples are, lead in petrol, asbestos, clean air act(s), DDT, tobacco health warnings, the list is long and the propaganda on every one of these issues from industry has been without exception utterly immoral.
International cap and trade treaties are by far the best long term solution to AGW and many other tragedies of the commons (such as overfishing)...
Cap - Because there is time dependent physical limit to the resource.
Trade - Because capitalist markets are the most efficient way to distribute a finite resource.
The size of the cap is the only detail that is rightfully determined by science, the rest of the detail is politics and accounting. Will greed and fraud occur? - Of course, it does everywhere else.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The effect of "carbon cutting programs" will simply be that people export the carbon emissions to countries where they are free. Any attempt to put import duties on the products is also going to fail. And trying to impose carbon emission taxes globally isn't going to work either.
So, all this climate change debate is pointless, since nothing can be done about the carbon emissions anyway even if we should. (But we really shouldn't reduce carbon emissions anyway.)
And what's "fair"? The majority of the extra carbon in the atmosphere is still due to European emissions. Even more is due to the vast deforestation across Europe over the last two millennia. Is Europe willing to absorb, say, 80% of the worldwide cost of reducing carbon in the atmosphere? Because that's what would be "fair".
Asking people to pay and reduce based on current emissions, on the other hand, is not "fair".
You know, businesses don't seem to have a problem with fines and all manner of requirements.
Wtf?
No, they actually do things like leave the state if they're lucky. They go out of business if they're not.
Ok, lets look at it like a programming perspective. Imagine you could only run your program on one computer, and it's in a fixed state.
And EVERY layer of management used to be a coder, and are adding to the project. To help, to justify their jobs, and to show that they're "Fixing problems".
Old code almost never gets removed, and they system just gets slower and buggier over time.
You can't just keep on adding more rules and regulations, eventually people will have to ignore them just to function. That is, if they're staying.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
The initial purpose of a smokestack is to provide draft to the hearth, the heated flue-gasses are expanded and therefore lighter than air, so the taller the smokestack the more air is drawn through the hearth.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
It would be much simpler for each country to tax carbon, and redistribute the revenue equally among all citizens of that country. It would give everyone an incentive to conserve, without being a hardship on anyone.
Markets work best when market failures, such as negative externalities, including carbon emissions, are corrected. If creating CO2 has a nonzero detrimental effect on the environment, then it just makes sense to internalize that cost into the price of, for example, gasoline.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
You have a good point. But the good news about this tax is that it will disappear over time. The reason is that most nations will change rather than have their businesses lose ground due to other nations pouring money into changing, while they do not.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The same massive industries that report that they make no taxable profits also report that they now run on unicorn burps and pixie sneezes? Gasps of amazement.
If you make a box for it, they will check it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Actually, new rules and regs isn't anything like programming. But to go with your programming analogy, by tightening constraints, you force the coders to make their code more efficient and perhaps even learn to write in assembly language to get things done instead of using inefficient canned functions.
As I said before, this method is already in use for other forms of pollution and has been wildly successful against everything from acid rain to the hole in the ozone layer, from clean water to cleaner land.
The measures work and work for everyone. Reducing carbon emissions may be the last real industrial problem which needs to be reigned in... that is until the next one... like maybe RF pollution or something.
Here's the deal. First, America passes the Fair Tax, a consumption tax that completely untaxes its industry. Then, along with the Donald Trump idea of a 25% tariff on everything Chinese, America recaptures industry it lost long ago from all corners of the world.
American manufactures again!
America passes a law that all new electricity to run these factories must be at least as clean as natural gas. America has oceans and oceans of natural gas, a gas that is chiefly methane, which has a chemical formula of CH4. So, we get 4 hydrogen atoms combining with the atmosphere in this huge exothermic reaction for every one dirty old carbon atom that produces CO2.
Once we get the generating capacity up, someone will likely have invented the magic battery by that time that will power a car for 300 miles, recharge or be replaced in the amount of time that a regular car refuels with gasoline, and costs little enough to allow for $30K cars that perform well, we will then be able to begin getting off oil entirely.
Note that by luring the manufacturing back to the USA, it means that that same manufacturing is NOT being done in China or India where all they know how to do is dig coal. We convert, by economic means, a lot of the world's manufacturing from coal to natural gas by economic means, and via a method that will produce prosperity in the USA, and so get the USA into the "green" category.
Finally, as technology advances, the natural gas is eventually replaced with solar and geothermal energy as it become cost-competitive with natural gas. We then have the problem of million-volt power lines to get the power distributed without too-bad losses from the desert southwest to the rest of the nation.
I think we should get started. We deserve to be an environmental good-guy for a change and doing it like this will bring us prosperity, too.
I'm all for it...
this is actually interesting. The entire idea of cap and trade is that a maximum is allowed if we count every business everywhere. How would cap and trade not also fall victim to this stream? Does this idiot proclamation apply to everyone who thinks this is a good idea?
There is nothing good about it. Think about it for a moment.
Lets say we tax carbon emissions, in a broad manner, as proposed. What will this accomplish ? It will burden the US, as the entire country is designed around the use of cars, and reward nations that don't care, like China. More production will shift to China and away from the US, with no net change in gas emissions.
Lets assume a best case scenario, where the tax collected will go towards producing solar panels. All that happens so far as emissions is concerned, is the source has shifted, from the coal fired power plant that produces electricity for you to use, to the pv cell factory that produces solar cells for you to purchase and use. Solar cell production uses an incredible amount of energy, which is why solar cells are currently an expensive form of energy.
No amount of price distortion will make the world a better place, and that is what taxes do, distort prices and divert resources towards arbitrary efforts.
If you really want to address greenhouse gas emissions, you need to address waste, not tax *everything in sight*. For example, a simple change to building codes, that requires R30 insulation instead of R19. It's almost no more complicated than changing a single number. This would reduce waste, and gas emissions, and energy expenditures, with no additional administrative costs, and it would phase in over time, as new houses are built, or old houses are remodeled. It would be paid for by the cost savings, and it would boost efficiency instead of punishing use. It is said that 15% of the energy generated, actually makes it to your wall socket, due to losses in production and transmission.
Conservation is a win-win, taxation is a giant vacuum cleaner sucking money from an already strained economy and handing it to less developed nations who will continue to pollute.
Who cares if they burn WOOD? That's not a fossil fuel, and the CO2 would likely have entered the atmosphere as much more harmful methane, anyway, as it decompises. Burning it will actually make it _cleaner_ overall.
Excellent observation. Deforestation ... the solution to all our problems.
I would argue that was a discovery that was well used. But that the guy at the base of the fire was more interested in getting the mess up out of the building he was in than oxygen control.
Learn to love Alaska
That's a bit of a naive analysis. The government is elected by the people. I suspect that the people of Alberta are more willing to put up with extractive industries than we would like, although I'm sure they are by no means unanimously in favor of the tar sands: the main winning things in Alberta that I'm aware of are agriculture and mountains. But there's no doubt quite a bit more short term money in tar sands than in growing wheat, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to us that the Alberta government isn't doing a very good job of controlling emissions in the tar sands project.
You have it totally backwards.
.5-1GW EACH WEEK and they have said that they have ZERO intentions of stopping this for the foreseeable future. IOW, their emissions from coal will continue to get worse. In addition, they are buying new gas/diesel cars at breakneck speeds. They will not move to electric cars anytime soon because they do not have enough excess production to support it. Basically, China has not choice but to continue what they are doing, OR, they must pay BILLIONS, if not TRILLIONS, out to western nations for technology. That is why they spy on us so heavily. We have the technology that they need to avoid paying us. And since the Chinese gov. sees themselves in a cold war with the west, that is the last thing that they want to do.
China gets about 85% of their electricity from Coal and natural gas, of which 75% is from coal. Now, China is building 1-2 NEW COAL PLANTS of
Now, America's CO2 profile is interesting. The largest emissions that we have is our electrical production. It accounts for more than 41% of our CO2. Of that, the majority comes from Coal, not natural gas. Unless you inject the CO2 from coal into the ground, then the best burning coal is still worse than natural gas. Yet, our coal usage continue to drop. It used to be over 70% and is now below 45%. It is expected to be below 33% by 2015 (or was it 2020?).
The second largest emitter in America is Transportation (of all sorts) is about 33-36% of total emissions. How easy is it to move off gas/diesel? Well, are slowly moving towards natural gas vehicles as well as electric. We have BOTH in cheap supply (relative to most other nations). A number of natural gas supply states are pushing to buy state fleets and add natural gas fuel stations. Electric cars are coming in a big way here over the next 3 years. The reason is because of the cheap electricity and the already built up grid that can handle 100% of our vehicles being converted to electricity (except in the northwest; it would need some work; not a big deal). That will drop the second largest amount by a great deal over the next 5-10 years.
Just on a per capitia basis, America will see our CO2 emissions drop by 25-50% over the next 10 years. China's will not only continue to climb, but once OCO2 is on-line, then China will not be able to stop reports from getting out. It will be shown that China's emissions are more than 3x what we think it is. Add the fact that China has ZERO intentions of slowing emissions and you suddenly realize that a business does not want to go elsewhere and suffer the taxes that they would be hit with. Far better to upgrade local.
As to tax vs. conservation, great. I agree. Far better to use conservation. HOWEVER, a tax on the CO2 waste, allows govs. businesses, and consumers to decide how best to lower their emissions. Telling others that they MUST DO SOMETHING, well, that is not working so well. Do note that with taxes increasing, then there is an incentive to lower your CO2 emissions and have the least amount of taxes hitting you all around the world, as well as the local businesses in your neck of the woods. However, the tax approach makes us ALL work towards it. Forced conservation will be ignored by govs. all over.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Electric vehicles are more expensive for a reason. They cost more to produce. Cost, in terms of energy. If the entire US switched to electric vehicle usage tomorrow, the raw materials to produce those electric vehicles and the batteries would come from China. You've done nothing to reduce emissions, and in fact, you may have made them worse.
As for telling people how to reduce consumption, we already mandate X amount of insulation in homes. Having worked construction, I can tell you, the standard home, at least in Florida, has a thin layer of cellulose or rock wool sprayed into the attic, and not much in the walls. We *already* tell people to use *some* insulation. We *should* mandate the *optimal* form and amount of insulation. Science and the laws of thermodynamics do not care how people feel, and how people feel doesn't matter in regards to the outcome of a mathematical equation.
As for shifting all production to China, thats a great way to reduce the US emissions. Noone will have a job or be working. As far as the planet Earth is concerned, nothing will have changed.
It's all based on a LIE. And about 30% of people buy it. The percentage is quite high among /.ers so I will now be modded down. But who cares? SOMEONE has to speak the truth.
Actually, electric cars cost a bit more than a gas car for a short time longer. Within 2 years, that will be a none issue. Tesla's batteries are dirt cheap and last longer compared to other cars. That is why a car that takes on $200-250K ferrari and lotus is just around 100K. Likewise, the model S at 50K has performance and styling of cars that cost around 60-70K. ANd it will continue to drop in price, not increase.
Does florida require ALL HOMES to upgrade that way? Nope. Just new ones. That is a different issue. And that is happening. Oddly, if a tax is placed on all goods, then businesses will push local gov. to push conservation quickly so that they are not hit by taxes from other locations.
And NO, we should NOT mandate the optimal forms, etc. Instead, we should require all new homes and regular commercial buildings to have 50-100% of their HVAC (and it must include AC as well as heat) from local site AE. In doing that, it will encourage different solutions. For example, some builders will throw on solar panels to do the job. THat will will work in some places like Tennesse. Most will choose to add more insulation, seal things tighter, etc, and then add a smaller amount of solar panels. Finally, others will choose to add the insulation, but also switch to geothermal HVAC so that they they have next to nothing to put on top (and it will probably be the cheapest). With this approach, it allows the market to decide how to deal with things. If we take the approach that you suggest, it will lead to similar situations like we got with drywall and katrina: cheap horrible drywall from china, loaded with lead, mercury and other contaminants.
if a business switches to China and then exports the goods to America, but finds the taxes high because china is the largest polluter all around, then they will not want to be there. Even now, outsourcing is slowing down. Finally.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
"Alberta is the home of the tar sands... the dirtiest source of petroleum. Do you actually think they are interested in cutting carbon emissions?"
I live in Alberta, I've flown over the oil sands, and I've seen the tailing ponds. Calling it the dirtiest source of petroleum is just stupid.
If you don't think resarch is being done to reduce carbon emissions, then it's clear you haven't actually looked into the matter. All the major players are invested in it, often collaboratively. Same with research on tailing ponds - which, finally, are starting to be reclaimed. Slowly, to be sure. It's a tough problem.
Now go and research what's been done all over Africa and Asia, where unrestricted petroleum industry has left vastly polluted environments, and toxic chemicals in riverbeds. Try the Niger Delta, and get a little perspective. Quit quoting similarly misinformed environmental nutbags.
Alberta has its problems, but we're working on it. Now perhaps you go away, whittle yourself a computer out of some plentiful wood that runs on a light breeze and a hint of jasmine and uses a reflecting pool for display, and then come back and engage in unreasonable hyperbole again.
So, how long did it take for the Amazon rain forest to get as bad as LA? Oh, it never has, and never will? Then fuck off, you idiot.
Learn to love Alaska
I guess that you miss the concept that CO2 from wood is no different than CO2 from burning fossil fuel which is no different than CO2 from frozen methane.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Burning wood is carbon neutral, as the tree that produced the wood had been making that wood out of carbon it had extracted from the atmosphere in the first place. It's not the dirty Africans, nor the clean Africans, nor the people driving cars with catalytic converters. It is the people cutting down trees and not planting saplings in their place that are ruining the planet. Plants are the air purifiers of the planet. If you want to reduce CO2, start a garden.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
What you describe as "ancient" technology was anything but at the time. State of the art would be the way to describe it back then. Just as the technology we use to extract energy now is considered "state of the art". As for the cost, it looks cheap compared to what they use now, but Ill bet at the time it was considered very expensive to drill a well. There are still independent producers that drill wells all the time for relatively little money. Sometimes they are successful, sometimes not. Just like 100 years ago. Also, the 'other' alternatives you mention are very heavily subsidized as well.
Next time you are standing on a road, have a look down and contemplate what you are standing on, why it is there, how it got there, and who paid for it.
First thing that should have come to your mind is that the road works just as well for biofuel-burning or electric vehicles as it does for fossil fuel-burning vehicles, that is, it doesn't force a choice of fuel. So it is disingenuous to claim it is merely a subsidy for fossil fuels. Especially when you consider that a considerable tax on gasoline exists in the developed world.
The "crusades" in Iraq? While a lot has been spent on them, most of the money hasn't had much to do with securing oil and more to do with padding government contractors who don't for the most part have much to do with oil or its infrastructure.
And "climate destruction"? No climate has been "destroyed". Air pollution is much better in the developed world than it was in the 50s, all paid for by the people who burn fossil fuels.
So many questions, so few answers. I'll help you with the first ones
I'm standing on a road.
It's made of asphalt, largely a petroleum product
It was built to facilitate the movement of people and goods from point A to point B
It was paid for by the taxpayers who wanted it and who's lives would be a lot harder without it.
It is just silly to consider a road a subsidy, graft, or handout to a particular industry sector. Try riding your bike to get to work through miles of mud.
If you want to tax China, the largest polluter, go ahead, tax China. You don't need to first tax the entire rest of the planet before you tax China. Wtf. Seriously.
It was a facetious comment on my part.
No one will tax Africa, because there isn't anything to tax. This greenhouse gas carbon dioxide trading boondoggle is just that, a boondoggle.
Al Gore must need another 50 acre mansion, because that is what the net result of a carbon tax trading exchange will be. All the evil banker wall street types, that master and extract profit from the financial exchanges, will extract a profit from the greenhouse gas exchange, and the average family will get screwed, again. I know, because I'm an evil wall street banker type.
No amount of wishful thinking, good intentions, and taxation schemes, will magically create a cleaner greener planet. It will just incentive and divert money to polluters.
Create real, physical solutions that reduce energy consumption and pay for themselves, and the market will quickly adopt them.
Create magical fairy tale trading schemes, and professional traders will get rich, while grandma and grandpa starve and eat cat food.
Air pollution is much better in the developed world than it was in the 50s, all paid for by the people who burn fossil fuels.
I.e., the pollution emitters used inequitable free trade to relocate to China and India. And we can't even say "Well, at least it isn't here!" 'cuz apparently the guy who was supposed to tell the wind to stop blowing got pink-slipped in the rush to offshore jobs.
Air Pollution Is Much Better in the Developed World Than It Was in the 50s", the movie.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Actually, you DO need to tax EVERYONE. For starters, putting a tax on a single nation that you import from, or all nations that you import from, is called a tariff and is pretty much illegal with WTO. Besides, we are about to enter into a trade war with China. China's real estate bubble is popping and China will do their damnedest to avoid what is going to come their way.
Secondly, while China is by far the worst emitter (they are not the 22-25% that many claim: it is 3x higher; scary), they are not the only ones. We ALL contribute to this. So, by putting out a fair tax that is applied to all products (save perhaps food, but I think that should also be taxed), it would force 99% to change their habits. And yes, we need at least that to really make a difference.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
BTW, your objection appears to be to the tax itself, rather than how to deal with the issue of CO2 (and pollution). I am guessing that you are neither scientist nor economist. Applying a tax that can not be changed does little good. That is what cap/trade does. Basically, it is a bunch of crap that is failing all around. That approach only really works on a small number of emitters (say uranium emissions, which will come only from burning coal). When you have a large diverse set of emitters (alll fossil fuel burnings: wood burning: etc) then certificate and cap/trade are worthless. Absolutely worthless.
However a tax that increases slowly, but one in which you CAN GET OUT OF, will actually encourage changes. For example, China, India, South Africa, brazil, Poland, Slovenia, etc are all increasing massively in emissions. Why? Because they have high growth rates and are cheating at every corner (they ALL make massive use of coal and growing faster). But all nations will stop the new production if they know that taxes are coming. And even here in America, it would hasten our conversion from coal to natural gas. Interestingly, rather than being the death of coal, I think that we will see liquid fuel conversion, such as blue gas from great point energy become the norm for another 20 years.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Do you even read what you write? One car with a smoky exhaust will kill the planet because the moment the smoke leaves the exhaust pipe, the entire world is as dirty as that exhaust pipe.
Learn to love Alaska
I personally would prefer a taxing mechanism too, as it works more effectively than rights and grants. However, the is this market dogma hanging around ...
Deforestation is indeed a problem, but burning wood as such is not. Therefore they need a wood management. And as far as I know they're making progress.
About 30 percent of the funds go into actual projects that reduce emissions, such as a wind farm in a developing nation, reports BBC.
The rest of the money goes into the following channels:
30 percent – Investment banks often buy up carbon offsets before a project is up and running, and they take an average 30 percent of the total in profits and operations.
15 percent – Shareholders of the companies putting the offset project together tend to take 15 percent in profits.
15 percent – Taxes, bank interest and fees.
10 percent – The margin normally taken by the retailer of carbon offsets, who sells them to corporations, individuals and other entities.
I.e., the pollution emitters used inequitable free trade to relocate to China and India.
"Inequitable free trade"? The proper term here is "comparable advantage". These places have cheaper labor and more tolerance for polluting industries, so they tend to attract them. Your notion of "inequitable" is just your uninformed opinion.
Also how is clamping down on developed world pollution supposed to help? Looking at your movie, I don't see pollution coming from the developed world. Nor do I see your movie saying anything about 50s era air pollution.
Canada is the third worst CO2 emitter per capita in the world behind the US and Australia. (Surprise! China is actually quite low per capita, lower than than any EU country.) At 40M tons of CO2 per year the tar sands oil production is the single largest emitter of CO2 in the world, but even if the oil sands shut down completely, Canada would still be #3 ahead of Saudi Arabia. The sad part is that only 10% of the tar sands can be made into marketable oil by current means, the other 90% requires more energy to process, which means emitting even more CO2 per barrel. Already the process requires half the energy the oil can release to process it. Even if it reaches 100% they'll still do it if it makes money. They're going to need several nuclear power plants to keep up with production targets.
Granted, any country with long cold winters has a serious disadvantage. Air conditioning usually has to make a 15-30F difference to beat the heat, but in Canadian winters the furnace is called upon to make a 50-70F difference compared to outside temperatures. Up here, air conditioning is optional, heating is not. Many European countries employ district heating systems to provide more fuel-efficient heat, but the lack of population density makes it less feasible in Canada to the extent seen in Scandinavia for example.
Here's a nifty gadget to check the CO2 emissions of any country. I found Sweden to be interesting, they have roughly the same climate as Southern Ontario, the most populated area of Canada.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
OK, I think I have this figured out. You must have just learned the "high comma" and the proper use of your you're and your, and have this compulsive need to show off. I do think that you need to find more examples of proper use so everyone doesn't find this so formulaic.
The proper term here is "comparable advantage".
Guess if you call a combination of criminally negligent or absent environmental laws and rigging your currency exchange rate to ensure an incomparable advantage equitable, you might be right. Or you might be a GE manager or otherwise work for the communists in the PRC....hard to say; but I am again forced to note that you're not familiar with American sarcasm which I personally found to be common in Asia.
And there is still too much pollution originating from America...we're partly responsible for the biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases. Mostly responsible, if you include the fact that our multinational corporations are jacking their profits and management salaries up by taking advantage of the aforementioned environmental criminal negligence in India and China.
Which will, of course, affect America. It is hilarious, in a way: Those "scary" Eastern nations are indeed attacking us, but the operators of the weapons - in the final analysis - are Americans.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
The movie title is commonly known as "sarcasm" in America - intended to point out and support the rest of my post; to whit, the 1950s era pollution (x 10) that was once a killer in the "developed world" is now sourced from China and India - but still blows over here.
Sarcasm only works if it hits the mark. Even with the contribution from the rest of the world, the developed world has far lower air pollution than it did during the 50s.
Guess if you call a combination of criminally negligent or absent environmental laws and rigging your currency exchange rate to ensure an incomparable advantage equitable, you might be right. Or you might be a GE manager or otherwise work for the communists in the PRC....hard to say; but I am again forced to note that you're not familiar with American sarcasm which I personally found to be common in Asia.
Whine whine whine. So why should my society pay for the sins of another?
And there is still too much pollution originating from America...we're partly responsible for the biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases. Mostly responsible, if you include the fact that our multinational corporations are jacking their profits and management salaries up by taking advantage of the aforementioned environmental criminal negligence in India and China.
There's a solution to this. Only come back when you have something real to complain about. The problem is the environmental state of these third world countries. We already know from the examples of the developed world how to fix that. But they aren't interested because they have more pressing problems such as poverty to worry about.
Which will, of course, affect America. It is hilarious, in a way: Those "scary" Eastern nations are indeed attacking us, but the operators of the weapons - in the final analysis - are Americans.
The target of the blame remains the same no matter who actually commits the harm. That tells me that you have a deeply ingrained bias which prevents you from understanding this subject.
The target of the blame remains the same no matter who actually commits the harm. That tells me that you have a deeply ingrained bias which prevents you from understanding this subject.
It would have been a simple matter to shape free trade to mandate environmental controls equal to or better than our own. It is, after all, an expense incurred primarily during factory/power plant design and construction. Given the fact that trade (the treaties which enabled it, to be precise) was not shaped to include environmental responsibility as a prerequisite and given how much U.S. money went and is going into constructing massive pollution sources in China and India and given how much U.S. industry immediately relocated to those nations now sourcing so much of the planetary toxic loading in large part as a means of increasing their profits by evading U.S. environmental laws, of course I correctly point the finger at those responsible.
I wouldn't leave a handgun out where my child could access it and say "Not my fault!" if and when the horrific happened, either.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
You're both kind of idiots. But you actually don't understand him. His point is that pollution is actually carried across the Pacific ocean by winds, some percentage of Chinese emissions end up in the Western U.S. thus because of the vast disparity between pollution regulations in China and the U.S., the U.S. will eventually get as much pollution as it would have if the industries had never left in the first place (unless something changes).
Your strawman argument indicates that you don't understand. Given enough time one smoky exhaust would pollute the entire world, but fortunately it would take a very long time for a single tail pipe. However, there is a fundamental difference between a lone tail pipe, and China, the world's leading polluter. China by itself is now capable of geoengineering the planet. They've dimmed the atmosphere with sulfates and temporary reduced the global warming signal.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
It would have been a simple matter to shape free trade to mandate environmental controls equal to or better than our own.
Just like it's a simple matter to prevent drug smuggling? The US has done the tariff war thing before. It doesn't work, especially with all the perks and benefits society apparently wants. If you want gold-plated environmental regulations (as you apparently do), then the industries need to go somewhere else or the regulations need to be selectively enforced.
Interestingly, it worked for acid rain... But you are correct, in that an escalating (over time) tax on carbon emissions would be more effective than a trading scheme.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Just like it's a simple matter to prevent drug smuggling? The US has done the tariff war thing before. It doesn't work, especially with all the perks and benefits society apparently wants. If you want gold-plated environmental regulations (as you apparently do), then the industries need to go somewhere else or the regulations need to be selectively enforced.
Drug smuggling? lollll...now rather than accept reality you attempt to equate the smuggling of items with an enormous value-to-size ratio to massive ships full of cargo containers?
And "the regulations need to be selectively enforced"? That is what puts the "inequitable" in "free trade"; environmental regulations are selectively enforced rather than being uniform across all of our trading partners. When everybody faces the same costs of environmental responsibility, it is a level playing field. Our manufacturers and energy generators/consumers don't like that, so they alternate between fleeing to nations where they can safely pollute America from a distance and attempts to destroy America's environmental laws and regulations.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
No, it didn't work for acid rain. It reduced acid rain, in the US, and created more of it, elsewhere, like in China, where noone gives a shit. It swept the 'dirt' that is acid rain, under the rug that is China.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5290236.stm
That's an interesting claim, but it doesn't seem to hold water. Sulfur emissions are predominantly from power plants (73%), and the U.S. hasn't exported power plants to China. You could argue that exporting industry to China has effectively exported power plants to China, but as far as I understand the number of power plants in America has not fallen by 33%, thus actual reductions have been achieved and the sorry state of China's sulfur emissions are the result of China not taking any such measures. And the most likely consequence of not having done anything about acid rain in the U.S. would be more environmental degradation in the U.S. with no major impact on China's situation. Environmental regulations aren't a real reason for exporting industry to China.
It's quite probably that MBAs specifically and Business training in general are the reason for excessive offshoring. Business studies are teaching managers to maximize ROA, return on assets. There are two ways to increase that ratio, maximizing returns and minimizing assets. Offshoring and outsourcing are easy ways to reduce the assets side of the equation and to artificially meet ROA targets. Of course, the end result is you end with a company which is good for nothing but it's brand name, but MBAs are notorious for being short-term thinkers. The inescapable consequences of their management decisions are for the suckers who haven't already jumped ship to a better paying job at another company.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
If you step on a grasshopper and destroy it, accidentally or otherwise, no amount of money can rebuild him. For clarification please replace the word grasshopper with ecosystem.
Anyone who refers to the Iraq war as a "crusade" is obviously an idiot. The fact that you apparently think roads only existed after the advent of the automobile only serves to cement that assessment. Whether you're intentionally trolling is a different question, but the fact that you got moded "informative" says a lot about the plummeting intelligence of the average slashdot member.
One of the most important achievments of the Roman Empire was the construction of a massive system of roads, starting in 500 BC. I guess the chariot-makers corporations must have had a massive hold over the Roman Senate, huh?
Alberta is the on province in Canada without ANY sales tax. The reason for this is the oil companies pay enough to basically run government on those revenues.
If you don't see a conflict of interest there, you are blind.
He's a professional troll. Note the numbers after his name change because he has to have multiple acconuts to post his trolls with the frequency he does. So yeah, I'm trolling the troll. I know how it works.
Learn to love Alaska
That's not fossil CO2 being introduced into the atmosphere so it's not comparable - that's carbon neutral in fact.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Drug smuggling? lollll...now rather than accept reality you attempt to equate the smuggling of items with an enormous value-to-size ratio to massive ships full of cargo containers?
That just means they'd have to use moderately different tactics. The value is still high enough to bother. For example, the US smuggling networks already smuggle in a lot more than just drugs.
This is just another case of holding back the tide which a lot of people seem to hold to. Somehow we can bring back the glory days when there wasn't credible foreign competition for developed world workers by erecting trade barriers that can never be crossed. I think it's self-destructive to give in to this particular delusion. Those days can't exist in a world dependent on trade.
And "the regulations need to be selectively enforced"?
Consider the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of last summer. Before the spill, the rig responsible passed government inspection (with possibly a few correctable violations). Afterwards, when the US government no longer had an interest in the viability of this particular well, they found something like 200 violations. My view is that while Deepwater might have been pushing the envelopment, it probably wasn't unusual in its level of compliance with federal regulation. One could probably shutdown off-shore drilling in the US and in Europe merely by rigorously enforcing existing regulatory law.
When everybody faces the same costs of environmental responsibility, it is a level playing field.
They already do. Some parts just choose to accept a lower threshold of public health and greater pollution than the developed world does. What you propose is to attempt to force countries to comply, which can't. A country with a significant number of people at subsidence level, can't value the environment or its citizens' lives like a wealthy country can. It can't afford this sort of luxury.
Now, I think we're seeing that the developed world really can't either. A country which spends its energies creating and complying with burdensome laws and regs (such as requiring minute release of pollutants, rules on packaging of products, recycling mandates, quotas for levels of green energy, high taxes on gasoline, etc) is a country which isn't making stuff competitively.
He may not have got the sarcasm/humour in your comment as you didn't add a laugh track. We all know you don't laugh or get it until you are told to in the US.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
Next time you think about elevating yourself to an Aristotelian level, you should consider your audience might know more about the subject than you do.
For instance, one of them - say, me - might have written the FCAT essay question on the history and development of the US Highway System.
As it predates the Iraq War by some fifty years, your inclusion of that fallacious little talking point was strictly political.
In your entire post, you got only one thing right: "Subsidy doesn't quite describe the situation". Your correction however, wasn't.
Crusades to Iraq? Interesting that no US oil company has any of the major concessions there now, isn't it? How do you explain that except that the "war for oil" meme was always a bogus claim. Private oil companies control about 10-12% of the world's oil. The rest is controlled by governments. The oil company haters are about 40 years out of date in their knowledge.
Air pollution? We've been paying for its clean up for forty years and the process is going well. Still more to go of course. In fact, we should continue to focus on that and not the AGW hypothesis.
Climate destruction? That's a new one.
And let's not forget that SCOAMF's Stimulus cost more than Iraq and Afghanistan combined.... for far less result outside of funneling campaign contributions to Democrats.
Nonsense, Mevels. We have roads because people want roads. The Romans built their roads primarily for their military, but the people loved them. And if you want to know who paid for them look at the taxes on gasoline and other fuels.
We have the oil in North America to be free of the middle east, if only we would develop them.
As for climate destruction, you aren't keeping up with reality. Right now we are in a CO2 famine. Plants grow bigger using less water as we approach 1000 ppm (that's what greenhouses artificially keep their atmosphere at). We are way below that right now.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=AF8F5B20-802A-23AD-49FB-8A2D53F00437
As for subsidies, Oil companies are good corporate citizens paying a lot of taxes (Oil companies Top 3 U.S. Oil Companies Paid $42.8 Billion in Income Taxes in 2010 --http://cnsnews.com/news/article/top-3-us-oil-companies-paid-428-billion
oil and natural gas companies employ 9.2 million Americans and account for 7.5 percent of GDP. Those companies added about 2 million jobs to the economy between 2004 and 2007. They employ 9.2 million Americans and account for 7.5 percent of GDP)
Some parts just choose to accept a lower threshold of public health and greater pollution than the developed world does.
The driver for that, of course, is that the CEOs and the shareholders of the (too often nominally American) multinational corporations that produce in and/or source from those "lesser developed" nations don't want to give up the income represented by the expense of pollution controls sufficient to avoid the eventual wholesale slaughter of the indigenous populations...the same theory of operation as American corporations have ever employed in all third-world nations.
Your argument seems to be that inflicting death for profit is justifiable - which I would note is precisely the argument of the mob of old and the gangs of America today.
The inevitable question, of course, is when the bill for poisoning their lands comes due will the peoples of nations like India and China conclude that all of America is their enemy as those riled by Big Oil's manipulations in the Middle East did, or will they restrict their attacks to Corporate America's owner/operators? I.e., will they go after "the 99%", or just "the 1%" in America - the people who truly "profited" through inflicting lasting and even permanent harm upon their nations and their futures? (Quite possibly all the way down to a chromosomal level.)
For it is Corporate America - at the insistent urging of Wall Street, of course - that rushed to offshore America's industry to/source from their lands - lands where they could emit staggering tonnages of toxins with impunity - in order to evade the crimp that America's environmental regulations put into their profits...I doubt not that the peoples of those nations already understand that.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Your argument seems to be that inflicting death for profit is justifiable - which I would note is precisely the argument of the mob of old and the gangs of America today.
Perhaps you ought to read my argument rather than construct strawmen? I merely point out that it is delusional to expect third world countries to meet the lofty environmental standards of developed world countries who've had a few decades to pile up follies. Or to expect people to sacrifice greatly for some ridiculous environmental standard when they can just buy smuggled goods instead.
The inevitable question, of course, is when the bill for poisoning their lands comes due will the peoples of nations like India and China conclude that all of America is their enemy as those riled by Big Oil's manipulations in the Middle East did, or will they restrict their attacks to Corporate America's owner/operators?
So avoiding blame is somehow important to you. I wonder how much they'll hate us, if we force bogus environmental regulations on them and cripple their economies and kill off many of their people? I bet they wouldn't like that either.
And I see an example of the blame game you seem concerned about in your very writing. You're blaming the "CEOs" and their "profits" even though the real problem is that the developed world is no longer a good place for industry in part due to people like you who care more for the profits of CEOs than the future of their countries.
He may not have got the sarcasm/humour in your comment as you didn't add a laugh track.
OR because it was a pretty dumb attempt at sarcasm. We don't need to blame everything on ethnicity when simpler explanations suffice.
That is, your argument that they - the peoples of those lands - "chose" to kill themselves is inaccurate; Corporate America and other Western multinationals "chose" to kill them as that is more profitable than controlling pollution and because they could as their own governments do not value their citizens enough (because they are communistic or because of thousands of years of a "caste" system that views some humans as...disposable) to defend their quality and length of life.
If you are concerned for no other reason, you should be concerned about giving such a wonderful strawman argument to the PRC for use in motivating their people should they decide they must have more land upon which to grow food.
They'll need it, you know; to quote the Beijing Review:
Luo Wenxi, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said earlier this month that one sixth of China's farmland is polluted by heavy metals and only 11 percent of local arable land in Guangdong Province is heavy metal free.
Investigations done six years ago found that 20 million hectares of land in China, one fifth of the country's total arable land, had been polluted by heavy metals like cadmium, arsenic, chromium and lead.
Due to heavy metal pollution, the annual grain production of arable land around the country is down by 10 million tons, while 12 million tons of grain have been polluted with heavy metals. Heavy metals can cause chronic diseases.
Yes, if it turns out the PRC needs more...lebensraum...they'll have quite the handy villains. Like I said, I do hope that the peoples of India and China remember that it was only our 1% - represented exclusively by the Republicans (with a handful of neoliberal Democrats thrown in for spice) - who truly bear responsibility.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
lollll...yes, avoiding blame for the wholesale destruction of the planet and India and China in particular is important to me.
You can start by repudiating your previous posts in this thread. The current situation has over the past few decades greatly reduced the poverty of the world, particularly India and China. Among other things, poverty correlates well with shorter human life spans, poorer quality of life, and environmental harm.
Merely, imposing onerous environmental restrictions and trade barriers, while it benefits you and your society, doesn't benefit the vast number of humans still rising from poverty.
I find it interesting how people, such as you, nakedly pursue selfish interests, while claiming its for some greater good. Basically, you want to create a walled society, isolated somehow from the evils of the world, with cushy benefits for the "99%" such as yourself.
Historically, there have been cases of isolationist societies which have grown powerful, or at least stayed viable (though it's worth noting that they generally fall apart after a few generations), but there's also plenty of examples of societies that have destroyed themselves by doing so. For example, if the US were to do so, it'd probably fail both because it is highly dependent on trade and because it would have a society hostile to the sort of innovation and ambition that makes for a modern society.
Yes, if it turns out the PRC needs more...lebensraum...they'll have quite the handy villains. Like I said, I do hope that the peoples of India and China remember that it was only our 1% - represented exclusively by the Republicans (with a handful of neoliberal Democrats thrown in for spice) - who truly bear responsibility.
Utter nonsense. The so-called "1%" doesn't have that power. The governments of China and India do. This is the sort of clueless drivel I've come to expect from the fringe 10% who thinks they represent anyone else.
Sure, you have a great story for your morality play, but what you don't have is something that works.
The so-called "1%" doesn't have that power.
lolllll...yeah, I'd start bobbin' and weavin', too.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
I notice the "99%" are more likely to crack jokes than reason or notice when they're wrong. All this talk about the environment ignores that poverty is a deeper problem (and one which needs to be solved as a precondition for any sort of environment improvement).
Similarly, the villains, the so-called "1%" aren't responsible for the state of the rest of the world. They don't run these other countries.
Yes, you *could* make them efficient, but they don't.
The whole Constitution was the constraint.
You almost stated the problem. Now it's carbon emissions. Next it's RF emissions, or something else. Nothing is ever good enough. There will always be the next thing to regulate and create new rules over and interfere with the things that make progress possible.
Read up on doing business in the old countries. Countries that have laws going back thousands of years. Not because they're good laws, but because it's hard to get a law off the books.
I predict that once the pile of rules becomes too onerous to comply with, people will just ignore them. At best a corrupt official will use them to extract money from your business personally, or bring the full weight of the law down on you.
So, do you really think those other forms of pollution were fixed? Or simply moved elsewhere?
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.