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Pollution In China Could Be Driving Freak Weather In US
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Jonathan Kaiman reports at The Guardian that China's air pollution could be intensifying storms over the Pacific Ocean and altering weather patterns in North America leading to more ... warm air in the mid-Pacific moving towards the north pole. 'Mid-latitude storms develop off Asia and they track across the Pacific, coming in to the west coast of the U.S.,' says Ellie Highwood, a climate physicist at the University of Reading. 'The particles in this model are affecting how strong those storms are, how dense the clouds are, and how much rainfall comes out of those storms.' Fossil fuel burning and petrochemical processing in Asia's rapidly developing economies lead to a build-up of aerosols, fine particles suspended in the air. Typically, aerosol formation is thought of as the antithesis to global warming: it cools our Earth's climate. But researchers say, too much of any one thing is never good. 'Aerosols provide seeds for cloud formation. If you provide too many seeds, then you fundamentally change cloud patterns and storm patterns,' says co-author Renyi Zhang. China's leaders are aware of the extent of the problem and will soon revise China's environmental protection law for the first time since 1989 ... 'The provisions on transparency are probably the most positive step forward,' says Alex Wang, expert in Chinese environmental law at UCLA. 'These include the requirement that key polluters disclose real-time pollution data.'"
China? Tempests on the other side of the world?
It's clearly a quantum weather butterfly
Simple; tax all goods on the amount of pollution used in their manufacture.
So that every american has either:
- less things.
- a higher salary.
Oh, but the money goes to the government, so you can lower general taxes! which gets:
- A little less money for those who must buy cheap Chinese products.
- A little more things for those who buy more expensive products.
Great result.
Taxes are a funny toy.
"Set the level so that it does not effect [sic] the U.S.A." -- you do realize that China's pollution is, in large part, there because US companies moved or contracted most of their manufacturing there, right? This is a nice example of reaping what you sow -- America avoids pollution itself by offshoring, but the process of offshoring trades the pollution for severe weather instead.
Its easy to blame China for massive pollution, but it's industry is merely trying to satisfy massive demand, mostly western.
They cannot be expected to adopt first world environmental standards that took decades for the west to develop. Also US/Euro companies outsourcing manufacturing, are dodging domestic environmental regulations to save on costs. So here at least, no one to blame but the west.
In a way, this reminds me of the financial crisis when it was brewing. We could blame the property developers for profiteering, the real estate agents for overselling, the banks for over-lending, the regulator its for 'light-touch' approach, the politicians for not legislating appropriately and the central banks for not raising interest rates to cool the whole thing down.
But...
Everyone has a share of the responsibility, everyone has little (but many) choices to make daily.
And just as the financial crisis, everyone will be held accountable with the exception of the elites.
Well, you clearly refused to RTFA. They used high-fidelity models and derived at the conclusion that an amazing increase in particulate has affected weather patterns by increasing cloud formation. This is not complext like the 3rd order effects of CO2 which cause AGW, this is a first order affect. It's not complex. You apparently are just as irrationally religious about AGW as the deniers are.
And oh by the way, the western world has rigorous particulate limits that continue to be advanced because we're aware of this.
ahem ahem .... next time you go to walmart, the cheapest microwave oven is going to be $800 ... ahem ahem, next time you go to buy a light bulb, the cheapest is going to be 3 for $25 ... ahem ahem .... next time you buy an iphone, it is going to be $0 which comes with 15 years contract ... ahem ahem ... just saying.
And since the prices go up and replacement is not something you want to have to do very often. Maybe we stop buying based upon what is cheapest and stop getting something that cannot be repaired and is essentially disposable after one use, and we start buying on quality and repairability. Everything is designed for the landfill these days. it didn't use to be that way before we started importing "cheap" junk.
except it's a butterfly dropping dead from the lack of breathable air.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Per capita statistics on energy use aren't very useful. Americans are also productive. If your method of measuring efficiency is per capita usage, then places like the favorite Marxist straw man of Somalia (and favorite neocon straw man of North Korea) would rate very highly.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I bet if you got any typical Climate Scientists drunk and just partied with them, it would eventually spill out that they have no fucking clue what they are doing.
Americans constitute 5% of the worlds population, yet we consume 24% of its energy.
Please stop using this bogus comparison to imply that Americans use more than "their share" of the world's energy. The correct comparison is between inputs and outputs. The USA produces nearly 20% of the world's GDP. If your 24% is correct, we have room for improvements in energy efficiency, but we're not nearly the energy gluttons that you're suggesting. The low ratio of population to energy use is largely due to our high productivity.
"Do the Kock[sic] brothers spend more on elections than other billionaires?"
Yes, through many personal donation and other organization set up solely to fund more money.
They also get pundit to repeat whatever they want, regardless of truth. See Glenn beck thanking them for the information he says about Climate Change.
However, that's besides the point.
They pay a lot of money to organization who specifically fund global warming deniers.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If the microwave was repairable/servicable with magnetron parts available for example, there wouldn't be anything wrong with an $800 unit. In fact, going back to appliances that are designed to be repaired rather than replaced is probably one of the best ideas that can happen in the market.
One example of this are portable generators. I can buy a no-name Chinese model inverter on the cheap. However, if I need to find a carb, jets, brushes, or other parts, I -might- be able to adapt something, or I might just be SOL and have to buy a new one. Or, I can pay the price premium for a Honda, Yamaha, or Champion make, and be able to find parts almost anywhere.
If LED light bulbs mature enough so they have a long MTBF, then three for $25 is a good deal. That isn't a bad thing either.
Similar with a phone. If it were made somewhat modular where RAM, flash storage, and other parts were upgradable, with the antenna being easily swapped out, then paying twice as much for the device wouldn't be a bad thing.
It would be nice to see something other than the absolute race to the bottom when it comes to materials, fit/finish, customer support, and overall quality.
"Taxes never go down"
False. The tax rate for those who made a million dollars a year used to be 90%, now it's 33%
Every income brackets federal taxes has dropped. The richer you are the more they dropped.
"The government can't and won't live within it's means."
Nearly all agency in the Federal government live with in their means. The others are usually dictated by citizens or external factors in unexpected ways during a fiscal year. War, 9/11. natural disaster, etc...
.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Care to explain how a revenue neutral shift in tax base changes who gets government assistance?
Of course:
1 - Tax Chinese items. -> Chinese items go up in price.
2 - Lower general tax with the benefits generated by (1) -> everyone has more money.
[However one must take into account that the money distributed by (2) is the same as the one generated by (1). Therefore]
3 - If an individual buys Chinese items for an exact value such as the tax (1) of those items equals the increase (2) of that individual's money, he ends just as rich as before both (1) and (2).
[However]
4 - If an individual buys more than those exact balance Chinese items, he'll be poorer, and if he buys less, he'll be richer. (as they'll pay for, respectively, a greater/smaller share of the the tax production while getting the same reduction)
[Also]
5 - Chinese items are cheaper than local items, otherwise the problem wouldn't exist in the first place.
6 - Poorer people will have a tendency to buy cheaper (both in price and quality) items because they are poor.
[In conclusion]
Poorer people will have a tendency to buy more Chinese items (6) and will thus become even poorer because of (4).
Richer people will have no need to buy Chinese items (6) and will thus become even richer because of (4).
Of course they'd both be only microscopically richer or poorer, but it's the accumulation of microscopic differences that create the gigantic gap.
http://www.eia.gov/
also the IEA(not to be confused with the eia above))
https://www.iea.org/co2highlig...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's why climate change is a global thing.
Are people laboring under the belief that this will result in purely localized effects?
There is only one atmosphere, and if you screw it up, it's screwed up everywhere.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Because the 'Product of USA' things I can buy have still been manufactured in China, but final assembly and packaging was done in the US and the price was marked up accordingly...
It's cheaper for the deniers. They don't need to do the research. They primarily say "your research isn't good enough, go back and fix it, then we'll talk."
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
On the other hand, Chinese products will go up in price compared to now, so more manufacturing will happen in the U.S. The poor are disproportionatly likely to work in manufacturing, so their employment will increase, making them less poor. As they become less poor, they become less likely to buy Chinese products.
Just do what the EU did and demand better quality. We introduced RoHS for a reason, and now are looking at ways to make manufacturing cleaner in China too. They need to sell to us, we are massive market (bigger than the US) so what we say they have to abide by. If we say only so much CO2 and PM2.5 per product they have no choice but to clean up and meet those requirements.
Just to be clear, RoHS wasn't just about protecting us from harmful stuff, it was about eliminating it from the manufacturing process and from recycling/landfill (which also often happens in China).
In the end prices haven't really gone up due to it, they just fell at a slightly lower rate. Very slightly lower.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Not if it means they can quit that shitty job at McD's and double their income as a microwave oven assembly worker.
Yes, they are funny, which many consequences, some difficult-to-predict. In fact, you are having way too much fun with this. Specifically, don't you think it's a tad disingenuous to focus on just a couple of cherry-picked possible consequences to make some political point? As a counterweight, here are some more (just as biased as your pick): more (manufacturing and such) jobs for the huge number of lowly educated jobless in the USA (many of which don't show up in the "job searcher" statistics because they've given up searching)
--> more people who can afford buying stuff --> better turnover rate of the consumer economy
--> more manufacturing in the USA --> economic growth --> more regular tax income --> opportunity to decrease regular tax rates and/or improve infrastructure
--> less people who are reliant on unemployment and other benefits --> less government expenditure --> opportunity to decrease regular tax rates and/or improve infrastructure
--> less people who commit crime out of desperation
I bet if you got any typical Climate Scientists drunk and just partied with them, it would eventually spill out that they have no fucking clue what they are doing.
My father-in-law is actually a "climate scientist", or at least a high-ranking mathematician for GSFC. He's Russian, so he and his friends actually care little about environmentalism and pollution and littering and social responsibility and other stuff like that, even though they are at times the outdoorsy-type who do like to go hiking and camping in large groups and playing and singing music loudly to the annoyance of nearby campers.
What he does care about is math, and the mathematical models for tuning and interpreting satellite LIDAR and other instruments, and if you're doing the math wrong he will yell at you condescendingly. He does get annoyed, however, at all of the politics that are getting in the way of the schedules and funding for his next satellite launch.
A lot of his work involves collecting data on cloud and vegetation cover, and how that affects the energy balance. Pollution and airborne aerosols often seed clouds and serve to reflect solar energy back into space, so being able to measure the effects of that would give us a better picture of how fossil fuel consumption does help "self-regulate" greenhouse gas effects. It probably doesn't help that one of his main projects these days, DSCVR, is essentially known as "Goresat" within GSFC. But essentially these scientists are much too wrapped up in gathering data and facts properly to worry about pushing any social agenda... to them, any form of politicking is just a waste of time and energy and schedule on both sides. There's SCIENCE to be done! :P
Raging Stupidity like buying Nike shows is what keeps people poor. Only idiots buy "name brands" or brands that have a retard culture that surrounds it. Like the moronic wearing flat brimmed hats with the tags still on them. Only the mentally retarded do that.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.