Can you really show clear evidence that you or another individual has been directly and measurably harmed by the portion of atmospheric CO2 that has been emitted by human activity? That's what you should need in court to show any sort of damages...
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, and so on and so forth exist but also have externalities. In addition to them not being without a downside, they are for the most part not as easily transported and stored as fossil fuels are. The reason fossil fuels are so valuable and useful is primarily due to energy density, availability, and mass storage.
You can call externalities a "subsidy" as much as you want, but pretty much everything can affect the population at large. You can't account for every impact of one industry sector and call it a subsidy because every other sector also has externalities that affect the population. Do you consider hydro subsidized because eminent domain force relocated populations from flooded areas? How about the fact they don't pay for earthquake damages from geologic changes from creating a lake? Changing weather patterns, different animal populations, increased mosquitoes... I could go on all day.
The way you make a fair competition is you assume a baseline amount of quality of life and don't impose artificial costs on sectors you don't like if they don't make a meaningful reduction in the quality of life. Coal powerplants in China that cloud entire cities with toxic clouds? Yes, that is a direct cost and you might consider it a subsidy for coal since they don't pay for the pollution. Powerplants in the US that the EPA regulates as far as their emissions limits based on safety considerations for the public? Not really as applicable. Energy companies already spend huge amounts of money to reduce emissions of harmful chemicals to protect the public. The exception is CO2, which as I stated before is not toxic at any atmospheric levels and any claim to direct damages via climate change is a huge stretch to "heavily subsiziding."
Cities like Miami are at higher risk of flooding and hurricanes based on their location. Should federal governments and companies be responsible for increasing that risk by an incalculable amount? Surely the Federal government already pays more than the fair share of providing disaster relief and rebuilding funds to offset any of their role in increasing the risk. As for the companies, it's going to be a hard sell that companies should be responsible for emissions that the entire state has contributed to... It would be one thing if Miami residents knew climate change was making their city more at risk and were above average in reducing emissions and prevention. It's another entirely if they expect companies to pay for the damages while they continue increasing their own risk.
It's like blaming the pet shop for selling dogs to people because your yard is full of your own dog's shit that you refuse to clean up. Did the pet shop know dogs shit? Yes. Did they downplay the shitting aspect of dogs when they made the sale? Yes. Did you know full well that dogs shit when you made the purchase? Yes. So maybe instead of demanding the pet shop start cleaning up dog shit, you invest in stuff to deal with the shit yourself.
Your complaints about oil here are no different than any other natural resource be it iron to make steel, rare earth metals to make electronics, or even gold. They all require environmental damage to extract, refine, and use.
We are not just using fossil fuels out of habit, we are using them because they are extremely useful and valuable and there aren't any viable alternatives that can provide the same benefits.
Perhaps, but how much electricity production relies on oil to keep producing power? How do you think all those solar panels, wind turbines, and power distribution systems get built and maintained?
Also, liquid fossil fuels aren't big in the power industry, but gas fuels are becoming increasingly common (often produced along with the liquids) and solid fuels are still quite the staple of electricity production.
I really wish that was a legal option. Every time people go out and mass protest the construction of a new pipeline, companies should turn off the pumps on existing pipelines... It would end protests pretty quick when they could no longer drive to protest sites.
Hell I live in the state of Georgia which is pretty much entirely dependent on two pipelines (actually 5ish pipes) to provide fuel for most of the state (Savannah area gets it by ship), but the legislature killed a new pipeline project that would have connected those pipelines to Florida (who gets zero fuel from pipes since there are no pipelines into the state). It didn't help that that new pipeline would have gone through Savannah and the port owners didn't want the competition and were politically connected... But no, it was all about the environment!
Atlanta went nuts when fuel became scarce when Colonial shut down twice in one year for a week or so. Imagine how quickly opinions on pipelines would change if all the pipes stopped...
What's also uncertain is if the warming that will occur will be net negative, damaging, debilitation, or devastating to human populations. Looking at only damages from storms and attributing all, or even just the most severe storms to climate change is a poor way to measure the cost of climate change. It also doesn't help that people continue to want to live and property values continue to rise in some of the most disaster prone areas... Meanwhile large sections of the human population that might be benefiting from a warmer climate are not being counted.
The gas company is the one with the money and they are the source of the problem.
Says the addict who probably still stops to fill up their car several times a month... Pass that buck on. You know climate change is real, but you still have a gas powered car, burn natural gas to heat your home and probably to cook with, and chances are good the electricity you are using to type comments on Slashdot doesn't come from solar or wind...
Who stands to lose if more strict actions are taken to control greenhouse gas emissions?
Umm, the poor? Sure it's nice to live in a first world society where you can bullshit on Slashdot every day... But if you are desperate enough to risk your lives for a pot full of gasoline from a spilled tanker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., there is probably something you have to lose if more strict actions are taken to control greenhouse gas emissions.
It would be a bit unfair if the "nuclear waste" that's been released to the environment for years is the same substance emitted by every living animal on the planet. CO2 is not pollution at any level we emit today. No one considers the CO2 itself to be toxic at any atmospheric concentrations. It's the "global climate catastrophe" which is where they are claiming damages which is going to be hard to prove a causal link and even harder to establish a monetary value of damages.
I don't know how you can claim copyright over sitting still and not playing an instrument... I mean, the idea of calling that a "performance" is novel, but the act of not playing happens inadvertently and intentionally all the time and that does not make it infringing. As far as I am aware, the only "successful" litigation over 4'33" have been over a video recording of the "performance" and a settled without resolving the issue payment over a CD that included 1 minute of silence and had the name "Cage" on the CD.
Except that is a restriction on two-dimensional useful articles, three-dimensional works of artistic craftsmanship, and models. There are no such uncopyrightable limitations on WORKS OF THE PERFORMING ARTS AND SOUND RECORDINGS in 406 Limitations on copyrightability.
White noise probably can be copyrighted under the bullshit system in which John Cage copyrighted not creating any sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
But yeah, the list prices are outright blackmail. They'll charge as much as they can get away with or they damage your health. What is costs them to produce is irrelevant. You want to make an immediate impact on the price of medical care? Make drug and medical service discounts illegal. If insurance companies have to pay the same price as non-insured patients, costs will drop precipitously and immediately.
Oh and all those people out there who think medical companies should be non-profits? That does nothing... They still ridiculously overcharge and convert the extra cash into lavish buildings, equipment, and salaries for executives.
They are pumping the swamp. But have you even been in a swamp. You can pump the swamp all day long, but shit flows in as fast as you pump it out. All we are doing is rotating the festering assholes in the swamp.
Already kids go deep into debt for degrees which are worthless when they start. Very few people are affected by shifts in the economy in the 4 years (becoming increasingly 5 years) while they are in school. Most of them might start in a useful degree, then decide they are lazy, unintelligent, or just to drunk to complete that degree and drop to something easier like political science or underwater basket weaving to come home with a degree.
Reading the news, many of the planes weren't able to be filled or emptied because the jetways require electrical power. A modern airport can't really accommodate the amount of passenger throughput without even simple technology...
No, most of us would rather not go back to that because CAPITALISM brought us above that. The corporate slavery thing wasn't even a true free market. But by all means Anonymous Coward, tell me about how your straw man had it so bad.
Is that more or less of a dick move then promising them pensions that would come from future tax revenue? If you can't fully fund pensions today, you are demanding money from the future to pay for today. That's a dick move to me. Taking it away when the dollars don't magically appear in the future isn't a dick move, it's reality.
The trick to a UBI is to provide just enough that people won't starve or die due to exposure or sickness, but not enough that they are comfortable and happy their whole lives. It sounds cruel to give people just enough to be miserable but alive, but they are free to work for additional to improve their lives. If they choose not to work for additional resources, they can live in misery.
The worst thing you can do (arguably what we do now) is convince a population that they have a right to success and happiness. If someone is denied what they are convinced they have a right to, they will likely become violent to obtain it.
Ahh, the money stuffed under the mattress theory... What rich person do you know holds large amounts of cash and does nothing with it? At the very least, they put their 800 in the bank where it is available to loan to the other 9 people... But no, rich people obviously have large private vaults where they swim in gold coins right?
100+ years ago most people were literally dirt poor. It probably has little to do with the quality of their diet, but rather the quantity. We've gotten fat because compared to 100 years ago we are all rich, rarely have to walk, and food is cheap. Hell we throw more food in the landfill today than was available for people to eat 100 years ago.
I'm all for going back to reasonable foods not produced by chemists in a laboratory, but let's not use how humans ate when they were quite possibly shooting rabbits in the woods to feed a family of 8.
Slashdot Mirror
It's clearly causing harm.
[Citation Needed]
Can you really show clear evidence that you or another individual has been directly and measurably harmed by the portion of atmospheric CO2 that has been emitted by human activity? That's what you should need in court to show any sort of damages...
There is no such thing as a free lunch. Nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, and so on and so forth exist but also have externalities. In addition to them not being without a downside, they are for the most part not as easily transported and stored as fossil fuels are. The reason fossil fuels are so valuable and useful is primarily due to energy density, availability, and mass storage.
You can call externalities a "subsidy" as much as you want, but pretty much everything can affect the population at large. You can't account for every impact of one industry sector and call it a subsidy because every other sector also has externalities that affect the population. Do you consider hydro subsidized because eminent domain force relocated populations from flooded areas? How about the fact they don't pay for earthquake damages from geologic changes from creating a lake? Changing weather patterns, different animal populations, increased mosquitoes... I could go on all day.
The way you make a fair competition is you assume a baseline amount of quality of life and don't impose artificial costs on sectors you don't like if they don't make a meaningful reduction in the quality of life. Coal powerplants in China that cloud entire cities with toxic clouds? Yes, that is a direct cost and you might consider it a subsidy for coal since they don't pay for the pollution. Powerplants in the US that the EPA regulates as far as their emissions limits based on safety considerations for the public? Not really as applicable. Energy companies already spend huge amounts of money to reduce emissions of harmful chemicals to protect the public. The exception is CO2, which as I stated before is not toxic at any atmospheric levels and any claim to direct damages via climate change is a huge stretch to "heavily subsiziding."
Cities like Miami are at higher risk of flooding and hurricanes based on their location. Should federal governments and companies be responsible for increasing that risk by an incalculable amount? Surely the Federal government already pays more than the fair share of providing disaster relief and rebuilding funds to offset any of their role in increasing the risk. As for the companies, it's going to be a hard sell that companies should be responsible for emissions that the entire state has contributed to... It would be one thing if Miami residents knew climate change was making their city more at risk and were above average in reducing emissions and prevention. It's another entirely if they expect companies to pay for the damages while they continue increasing their own risk.
It's like blaming the pet shop for selling dogs to people because your yard is full of your own dog's shit that you refuse to clean up. Did the pet shop know dogs shit? Yes. Did they downplay the shitting aspect of dogs when they made the sale? Yes. Did you know full well that dogs shit when you made the purchase? Yes. So maybe instead of demanding the pet shop start cleaning up dog shit, you invest in stuff to deal with the shit yourself.
Your complaints about oil here are no different than any other natural resource be it iron to make steel, rare earth metals to make electronics, or even gold. They all require environmental damage to extract, refine, and use.
We are not just using fossil fuels out of habit, we are using them because they are extremely useful and valuable and there aren't any viable alternatives that can provide the same benefits.
Perhaps, but how much electricity production relies on oil to keep producing power? How do you think all those solar panels, wind turbines, and power distribution systems get built and maintained?
Also, liquid fossil fuels aren't big in the power industry, but gas fuels are becoming increasingly common (often produced along with the liquids) and solid fuels are still quite the staple of electricity production.
I really wish that was a legal option. Every time people go out and mass protest the construction of a new pipeline, companies should turn off the pumps on existing pipelines... It would end protests pretty quick when they could no longer drive to protest sites.
Hell I live in the state of Georgia which is pretty much entirely dependent on two pipelines (actually 5ish pipes) to provide fuel for most of the state (Savannah area gets it by ship), but the legislature killed a new pipeline project that would have connected those pipelines to Florida (who gets zero fuel from pipes since there are no pipelines into the state). It didn't help that that new pipeline would have gone through Savannah and the port owners didn't want the competition and were politically connected... But no, it was all about the environment!
Atlanta went nuts when fuel became scarce when Colonial shut down twice in one year for a week or so. Imagine how quickly opinions on pipelines would change if all the pipes stopped...
What's also uncertain is if the warming that will occur will be net negative, damaging, debilitation, or devastating to human populations. Looking at only damages from storms and attributing all, or even just the most severe storms to climate change is a poor way to measure the cost of climate change. It also doesn't help that people continue to want to live and property values continue to rise in some of the most disaster prone areas... Meanwhile large sections of the human population that might be benefiting from a warmer climate are not being counted.
In the same way you have wealth because a database entry says you own a house, a car, and have a bank account balance?
Anyone can buy oil and sell it on the open market... You don't have to be an oil company. Even NPR can do it.
https://www.npr.org/sections/m...
The gas company is the one with the money and they are the source of the problem.
Says the addict who probably still stops to fill up their car several times a month... Pass that buck on. You know climate change is real, but you still have a gas powered car, burn natural gas to heat your home and probably to cook with, and chances are good the electricity you are using to type comments on Slashdot doesn't come from solar or wind...
Who stands to lose if more strict actions are taken to control greenhouse gas emissions?
Umm, the poor? Sure it's nice to live in a first world society where you can bullshit on Slashdot every day... But if you are desperate enough to risk your lives for a pot full of gasoline from a spilled tanker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., there is probably something you have to lose if more strict actions are taken to control greenhouse gas emissions.
It would be a bit unfair if the "nuclear waste" that's been released to the environment for years is the same substance emitted by every living animal on the planet. CO2 is not pollution at any level we emit today. No one considers the CO2 itself to be toxic at any atmospheric concentrations. It's the "global climate catastrophe" which is where they are claiming damages which is going to be hard to prove a causal link and even harder to establish a monetary value of damages.
This lawsuit is politics, pure and simple.
I don't know how you can claim copyright over sitting still and not playing an instrument... I mean, the idea of calling that a "performance" is novel, but the act of not playing happens inadvertently and intentionally all the time and that does not make it infringing. As far as I am aware, the only "successful" litigation over 4'33" have been over a video recording of the "performance" and a settled without resolving the issue payment over a CD that included 1 minute of silence and had the name "Cage" on the CD.
Except that is a restriction on two-dimensional useful articles, three-dimensional works of artistic craftsmanship, and models. There are no such uncopyrightable limitations on WORKS OF THE PERFORMING ARTS AND SOUND RECORDINGS in 406 Limitations on copyrightability.
White noise probably can be copyrighted under the bullshit system in which John Cage copyrighted not creating any sound:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Cancer is a bastard. Sorry for your loss.
But yeah, the list prices are outright blackmail. They'll charge as much as they can get away with or they damage your health. What is costs them to produce is irrelevant. You want to make an immediate impact on the price of medical care? Make drug and medical service discounts illegal. If insurance companies have to pay the same price as non-insured patients, costs will drop precipitously and immediately.
Oh and all those people out there who think medical companies should be non-profits? That does nothing... They still ridiculously overcharge and convert the extra cash into lavish buildings, equipment, and salaries for executives.
They are pumping the swamp. But have you even been in a swamp. You can pump the swamp all day long, but shit flows in as fast as you pump it out. All we are doing is rotating the festering assholes in the swamp.
Already kids go deep into debt for degrees which are worthless when they start. Very few people are affected by shifts in the economy in the 4 years (becoming increasingly 5 years) while they are in school. Most of them might start in a useful degree, then decide they are lazy, unintelligent, or just to drunk to complete that degree and drop to something easier like political science or underwater basket weaving to come home with a degree.
I would think LUV would be the heart of the air transport system...
Reading the news, many of the planes weren't able to be filled or emptied because the jetways require electrical power. A modern airport can't really accommodate the amount of passenger throughput without even simple technology...
No, most of us would rather not go back to that because CAPITALISM brought us above that. The corporate slavery thing wasn't even a true free market. But by all means Anonymous Coward, tell me about how your straw man had it so bad.
A van that is on the brink of repossession is not paid off.
Is that more or less of a dick move then promising them pensions that would come from future tax revenue? If you can't fully fund pensions today, you are demanding money from the future to pay for today. That's a dick move to me. Taking it away when the dollars don't magically appear in the future isn't a dick move, it's reality.
The trick to a UBI is to provide just enough that people won't starve or die due to exposure or sickness, but not enough that they are comfortable and happy their whole lives. It sounds cruel to give people just enough to be miserable but alive, but they are free to work for additional to improve their lives. If they choose not to work for additional resources, they can live in misery.
The worst thing you can do (arguably what we do now) is convince a population that they have a right to success and happiness. If someone is denied what they are convinced they have a right to, they will likely become violent to obtain it.
Ahh, the money stuffed under the mattress theory... What rich person do you know holds large amounts of cash and does nothing with it? At the very least, they put their 800 in the bank where it is available to loan to the other 9 people... But no, rich people obviously have large private vaults where they swim in gold coins right?
100+ years ago most people were literally dirt poor. It probably has little to do with the quality of their diet, but rather the quantity. We've gotten fat because compared to 100 years ago we are all rich, rarely have to walk, and food is cheap. Hell we throw more food in the landfill today than was available for people to eat 100 years ago.
I'm all for going back to reasonable foods not produced by chemists in a laboratory, but let's not use how humans ate when they were quite possibly shooting rabbits in the woods to feed a family of 8.