Why would you expect the effects from temperature rise to be any less drastic than they were with the drop?
Well, the simple answer is that a lack of energy is more damaging than a surplus - in a warmer world (especially with more CO2), we get more plants, and less need for expensive heating. Tropical areas support more life than arctic ones.
But of course, the Little Ice Age begs the question - should we have *tried* to keep the temperature low then? Do we have any sort of quantification of what the "ideal" global average temperature should be?
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
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A revenue-neutral flat sales tax would be ruinous for the poor and middle class.
I think you're probably right, but it's just that kind of ruinous reality check that would pressure government into lowering revenue, and shrinking the size of government. As it is, both the poor and middle class are already "ruined" by a system that doesn't directly cost them, but indirectly costs them in terms of higher prices and lower wages.
The very wealthy would see their effective tax rate drop precipitously because they spend such a small percentage of their income/wealth.
Keep going with the thought experiment - you're Mark Zuckerberg, and you now end up with $1 billion less in taxes. What happens to that $1 billion?
Well, I suppose he could go all scrooge mcduck, put it in a big fat vault of $100 bills, and go swimming in it. But let's say he just does something normal like put it in a bank...that bank is going to have more capital for loans that help grow economies. Or let's say he invests it in some sort of stock...that company is going to have more capital for expansion of more jobs, and improvements that will lower prices.
You can take the same example for a company - you lower their effective tax rate, and you'll have rising wages, and lower prices.
Now I don't doubt that if you implemented a revenue-neutral flat sales tax *tomorrow* the disruption would be severe - prices are sticky going down, and wages just aren't going to rise that fast, and the disconnect between where we are *now* and where we should be is significant enough to cause problems. But honestly, we need to start thinking about how to make that transition.
If you study the science behind global warming, you'll know that all the other known potential causes of global warming have all been eliminated.
I'll beg to differ there - all other known potential causes of global warming have been *ignored*, not eliminated. And, even if all other *known* potential causes were eliminated, that still leaves a myriad of *unknown* potential causes.
Natural causes (known and unknown) have been sufficient for billions of years before humanity's existence to cause sweeping and dramatic climate changes on every time scale. By what rationale do you assume that *now* nature is no longer sufficient? Have you accurate measures of all climate variables going back 4 billion years, and those same measures for the past 60 years, and a sufficient delta that it must be explained by some *unknown* variable (and happens to fit a favored variable, human CO2 emissions)?
As for #3, well, sudden major shifts in the status quo is a destructive thing in every other situation.
Let's see...having a child is a sudden, major shift...I suppose you could call that destructive. Or the advent of the internet, which was sudden and major - I guess you could call that destructive. Or the invention of gunpowder. Or the adoption of the internal combustion engine. Or the inventions of vaccines and medicines. Or any other scientific "eureka" moment...
Pink Pistols (http://www.pinkpistols.org/) puts it well:
Some people dislike gays. Some people dislike guns. We should not base our laws on personal dislikes.
To bring it back on topic, I think that on the topic of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, you've got *plenty* of people who aren't bible thumping jesus h. capitalists who simply look at the *science* and remain skeptical of sweeping claims, much less sweeping prescriptions of action. Caricaturing skeptics as some sort of unreasonable fundamentalist christians is like assuming all black people are basketball playing rap stars.
im gun toting. athiest...libertarian(to an extent). Definitely not Homosexual.
Well, nobody is perfect:)
The fact is cheaper=better.
Agreed. But I'd also assert that government subsidies/taxes/discounts/market intervention can only make things *appear* cheaper - a fashionable and compelling illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.
The time to switch to alternative energy like solar and wind is when it can compete, without government intervention, with the cheapest natural gas we frack out of the ground. And all that talk about externalities is a bunch of BS.
some locales may not see ANY change. some locales may get freaking hot. some locales may get cold. some locales may become rainforests. some locales can go humid, some go dry. some become exceedingly windy. ANYthing goes.
All of that can happen when global average temperature stays the same.
All of that can happen when global average temperature *falls*.
All of that can happen when global average temperature *rises*.
And actually, not only *can* it happen in all three cases, it *does* happen in all three cases!
I want a third corner for gun-toting-gay-atheist-libertarians who think that abolishing the EPA is a good thing, aren't worried about a trace gas in the atmosphere, don't want prayer in school, and just want to find and marry Mr. Right:)
...Big Oil must've airlifted extra snow up there when nobody was looking!:)
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
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· Score: 1
Hrm. Any specific questionable premise or leap of logic you'd like to point out?
Bastiat seems at least aware of a possible accusation of hypocrisy in his text, and handles it pretty well:
"This must be said: There are too many "great" men in the world — legislators, organizers, do-gooders, leaders of the people, fathers of nations, and so on, and so on. Too many persons place themselves above mankind; they make a career of organizing it, patronizing it, and ruling it.
Now someone will say: "You yourself are doing this very thing." True. But it must be admitted that I act in an entirely different sense; if I have joined the ranks of the reformers, it is solely for the purpose of persuading them to leave people alone."
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
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· Score: 1
I do care how it affects people, and believe it would open people's eyes to the true cost of government, and dramatically reduce waste.
Yes, it is regressive. But if you want a society that is aware and cognizant of the costs of government, a tax must be as evenly distributed as possible, rather than skewed in such a way that some people don't experience the cost of government.
You always run out of other people's money...
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
on
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· Score: 1
Basic economic theory - just like any other price curve, the higher the cost, the lower the consumption. Unless you'd like to posit some other way for people to invest in companies, other than stock, increasing the cost of stock via taxation will discourage its purchase.
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
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· Score: 1
Somalia doesn't have a government in place to protect negative rights - which is what it *obviously* needs. It doesn't need OSHA, or an FDA or an FCC, it needs *basic* security and a justice system to collectively use force to protect negative rights.
Did you read Bastiat's "The Law" before replying?
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
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· Score: 1
I'd argue that interest on savings is immediately fungible, and that "interest" on stocks and shares is only theoretical, but I think that's a semantic answer, not a substantial one.
My more substantial argument is this - a system that sets up a tax on asset value growth (in this case, either savings interest income, or stock share gains), makes it so that only the hyper rich can really afford to own things. It forces people who are *succeeding* in the market (be it because they're savers or stock investors), to sell off their assets in order to pay taxes. Only those with sufficient disposable assets to pay the taxes on the higher valued assets end up getting to own anything that is growing quickly in value.
More to the point, though, if we're going to have a system that taxes you on the way up (say, your shares move in value from $100 to $1,000,000), will we also have a system that refunds those taxes on the way down? Although in general the value of savings is only destroyed by inflation (get 5% interest, pay the tax on that, but suffer 10% inflation, and your real purchasing power has decreased), stock share prices go *both* ways. Setting up a "tax you on the way up" system is going to essentially drive money out of stocks and investment in companies, choking the economy, since it's a game you can only lose.
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
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· Score: 1
You're right, nominally a flat sales tax means the poor will actually feel the impact of government more directly. They'll be more concerned with budget deficits and large government programs because large government will directly, and adversely affect *them*. Even better, yearly government budgets will avoid much of the ups and downs they currently have due to the high dependence on variable income.
As it stands, the more progressive a tax you levy to combat this perceived injustice (that basic needs spending by poor people is a greater proportion of their income), the worse off it is for poor people. If you have a high enough income that you're putting away savings, you're indirectly funding economic growth and job creation. If the government is coming in and taking away the money you'd put into savings, and then deciding what to do with it, it is stifling growth, distorting the market, and subsequently destroying industry. Progressive taxes levied on any corporation that sells goods either drives the industry overseas, or raises prices paid by consumers (making again, an effective regressive tax on the poor).
For luxury/sin taxes, the problem of course is that by depending on them, governments have the perverse incentive to *encourage* luxury spending and *encourage* sin.
I guess in the end, I'd argue that the flat sales tax to replace all income taxes would be better for economic growth because it makes the cost of government explicit and visible. Whenever you hide the costs of something from a consumer (say, third party payer health care), you get waste. Pretending that raising taxes on "the rich" (aka, employers) doesn't have an impact on "the poor" (aka, the employees), distorts the perceived cost of government spending, and that's a bad thing.
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
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· Score: 1
Are you suggesting that without large government interventions into peoples' lives, society cannot be orderly, or capable?
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
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The Zuckerberg Tax
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· Score: 4, Interesting
When billionaires can get away without paying most taxes (surely they pay sales tax on things that they purchase?) yet working stiffs have to pay 20% of their incomes in income+medicare+ss alone, something is clearly out of whack.
The really ironic thing is that the first income tax was essentially a "billionaire tax", that was never meant to affect normal working stiffs:) While adjusted for 2012 dollars, the 1913 income tax did technically affect non-bill/millionaires, they were only those in the top 5% of income (and I couldn't find any real statistics on the accumulated wealth of the top 5%, just yearly income).
I'd go for the flat sales tax as the "easy" fix (http://www.cato.org/speeches/sp5-11-5.html) - the problem with it is that such even-handed treatment would send all the special interests who already have all kinds of deductions/subsidies/loopholes into a tizzy. Not to mention that when *everyone* is paying the same rate for taxes, all of a sudden large government programs that cost lots of money become *real* to people because they experience the tax rate every time they buy something - be it wars, social welfare programs, or industry bailouts. When people aren't personally confronted with the costs of something (say, healthcare), they spend more, and get less benefit from it - waste is just too easy to do.
Re:Such systems have been proposed before
on
The Zuckerberg Tax
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· Score: 2
Well, in CA, the whole prop 13 thing was designed because of property tax increases that were essentially driving people out of their homes. Of course, it's a wild mess now since corporations can establish a line of ownership that doesn't change, and therefore doesn't get taxed at higher rates the way normal people might if they bought a house.
It seems that if you were to decide to tax stocks in the same way you might tax property, you'd have fewer people willing to buy stock, and subsequently less investment in the economy.
I guess the reducto ad absurdum is why not tax savings? If you've got $100.00 in the bank, why not tax you 15% every year on it? In ten years, you'll end up with less that $20 bucks. Or why not tax the perceived value of your antique record collection?
At least for property tax there's some sort of implied quid pro quo (you're getting roads, fire, police for your taxes). What exactly does a government give you for savings or stock that is equivalent?
The warmists must have plenty of mod points saved up.
Look, if you can read the article with a clear head, it's *obvious* that the same sort of caveats must apply to a complex and chaotic system like global climate. Why is it that a scientifically minded person can look rationally at a critique of a cholesterol drug, but freaks out when the topic is climate?
"So 800 years of lag is insufficient, but 4000 years would be?" - Yes, go look at the time periods of transitions between glacial periods and the length of time for a typical interglacial period and it is obvious why I picked a number bigger than 1000 and less than 20,000.
Spell it out. It isn't obvious, and we can't see your mind movie.
If historically, CO2 changes have *lagged* temperature changes, it's *obvious* that CO2 is not a driver, but a follower. This would be true if CO2 changed lagged by 10 years, or if they lagged by 4000 years.
Deciding that somehow human CO2 is magically different than any other sourced CO2, and that *today* it's acting like a driver, when in the past it has always followed, is something that isn't obvious simply looking at the length of interglacials.
I said it wasn't the topic of conversation, not that I repudiate the results.
Actually, you made it the topic of conversation - "Fine, show me that say 80% of the methods we use to measure temperature are invalid". NASA GISS is one of the primary global temperature datasets, and if you're going to look askance at Watts, it would seem that Hansen could be looked at similarly. But to be specific, I'm not asking you to look askance at Hansen - I'm asking you to understand that *your* feelings towards Watts have a rational and opposite counterpart.
Link to the paper. I'm not reading another blog for you, it isn't my job to fill in your ignorance.
You asked me for an experiment. I gave you one. These are the ones I can think of at this stage because all experiments that undermine climate models at this stage are either longitudinal or completely undermine vast swathes of contemporary physics.
You're making an assertion that isn't tenable - the mere existence of contemporary physics does *not* lead to the conclusion "human CO2 emissions are causing global average temperature increases that are bad enough to require restrictions on human CO2 emissions".
Again, the difference between *necessary* and *sufficient* don't seem to be clear to you.
. The only other option I can see is to find some way to show that the empirical parameters of existing models (of which I admit there are a few) cannot take the values the fits currently suggest.
Okay, let's play with models for a second. Take, say any 2 dozen models with the basic, hard coded premise that human CO2 emissions are a primary driver of temperature. They obviously diverge simply between *themselves* in their predictions. Why is it that the assumption is that their basic hard coded premise is correct, and that all variation is due to *other* tweaked variables? It is just as reasonable to assume that their CO2 hard coding is as suspect as any other tweaked variable.
My urine is, statistically speaking, significantly warm than the ocean. Me pissing in the ocean will not warm it in any meaningful way.
Okay, let's run with that. Human CO2, statistically speaking, will have an impact on global average atmospheric temperature, arguably non-zero and arguably positive. At the same time, human CO2 will not warm the atmosphere in any meaningful way. Nothing inconsistent with those two statements.
At first I assumed that you were vaguely familiar with the scientific method, but it is now clear that is not the case.
And after all this time, you *still* haven't started the scientific method by a clear statement of a falsifiable hypothesis:)
If you were one of my students I'd suggest you take basket weaving
I would've guessed that that was what you actually teach:)
Step up to the plate, and make your falsifiable hypothesis statement, understanding that we are looking for both those factors that are *necessary* as well as those that are *sufficient*. Relying on physical constants as the sole prop for the validity of tinker toy models is avoiding the question, and you know it:)
And yes, they have a peer reviewed study, but far be it for me to appeal to authority:)
- Yes, and to invalidate the current climate models I expect you to show that these lab experiments have the wrong result.
You're asserting a tautology. Can you admit that it is more than possible for CO2 to have specific wavelength absorption properties, and *still* not be a primary climate driver? Your citation of a physical parameter as a both necessary and sufficient to determine the validity of a tinker toy model is puzzling.
"Put a number on it." - Fine, 4000 years with an error of no more than 1000. You find me say six deglaciations with the properties I suggested which cannot be explained by effects already in the literature I will reconsider.
So 800 years of lag is insufficient, but 4000 years would be? Care to explain *why* those two values imply a qualitative difference?
"UHI is negligible" - The UHI is negligible when talking about global mean surface temperatures.
How can you assert that? Wouldn't the observation of statistically significant UHI falsify that? Again, put a number on it - "negligible" seems to be open to interpretation.
"All industry is carbon heavy" - Let me rephase my suspicion. Who pays your wages? You can just state what industry it is if you like.
Who pays your wages? What industry are you in? Me, I'm in IT. Put more specifically to your suspicions, no, I don't work for an oil company, or coal company, or any other type of dig in the ground for stuff company. However, like *all* companies, inexpensive energy is a benefit, so from that perspective, any rational being will be in support of inexpensive energy. I hold my well considered positions out of principle, not pocketbook though - I could be convinced that human CO2 emissions *must* be reduced, if someone would simply start with a falsifiable hypothesis statement, which, despite very well written comments, has failed to appear:)
Remember, it's not simply sufficient to say "well, if the speed of light isn't c, my theory is wrong", because simply having the speed of light as c doesn't specifically imply *every* theory you care to cite. You need a list, that I suppose would be much longer than you'd like, that asserts *all* of the ways that your hypothesis could be falsified.
In the simplest case, you could simply make a claim that a specific CO2 level and a specific global average temperature would falsify it. You might want to hedge your bets, so maybe you'll add solar output to that equation, so you don't get falsified during a Maunder minimum, or something like that. Or maybe add in variables for volcanic activity, or any number of other things you think might still matter.
But at this point, you're still just poking around the edges of the real question - I mean, if the CO2 absorption spectrum was say, 1nm off of what you think it is, would *that* falsify your hypothesis? Yes, a certain range of absorption might be *necessary* for your hypothesis to hold water, but it certainly isn't sufficient.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the simple answer is that a lack of energy is more damaging than a surplus - in a warmer world (especially with more CO2), we get more plants, and less need for expensive heating. Tropical areas support more life than arctic ones.
But of course, the Little Ice Age begs the question - should we have *tried* to keep the temperature low then? Do we have any sort of quantification of what the "ideal" global average temperature should be?
I think you're probably right, but it's just that kind of ruinous reality check that would pressure government into lowering revenue, and shrinking the size of government. As it is, both the poor and middle class are already "ruined" by a system that doesn't directly cost them, but indirectly costs them in terms of higher prices and lower wages.
Keep going with the thought experiment - you're Mark Zuckerberg, and you now end up with $1 billion less in taxes. What happens to that $1 billion?
Well, I suppose he could go all scrooge mcduck, put it in a big fat vault of $100 bills, and go swimming in it. But let's say he just does something normal like put it in a bank...that bank is going to have more capital for loans that help grow economies. Or let's say he invests it in some sort of stock...that company is going to have more capital for expansion of more jobs, and improvements that will lower prices.
You can take the same example for a company - you lower their effective tax rate, and you'll have rising wages, and lower prices.
Now I don't doubt that if you implemented a revenue-neutral flat sales tax *tomorrow* the disruption would be severe - prices are sticky going down, and wages just aren't going to rise that fast, and the disconnect between where we are *now* and where we should be is significant enough to cause problems. But honestly, we need to start thinking about how to make that transition.
Well, there's a difference between *determine* and *predict*. If you want to show a prediction, you'll have to provide a cite :)
I'll beg to differ there - all other known potential causes of global warming have been *ignored*, not eliminated. And, even if all other *known* potential causes were eliminated, that still leaves a myriad of *unknown* potential causes.
Natural causes (known and unknown) have been sufficient for billions of years before humanity's existence to cause sweeping and dramatic climate changes on every time scale. By what rationale do you assume that *now* nature is no longer sufficient? Have you accurate measures of all climate variables going back 4 billion years, and those same measures for the past 60 years, and a sufficient delta that it must be explained by some *unknown* variable (and happens to fit a favored variable, human CO2 emissions)?
Let's see...having a child is a sudden, major shift...I suppose you could call that destructive. Or the advent of the internet, which was sudden and major - I guess you could call that destructive. Or the invention of gunpowder. Or the adoption of the internal combustion engine. Or the inventions of vaccines and medicines. Or any other scientific "eureka" moment...
I think you have yet to prove your assertion.
Pink Pistols (http://www.pinkpistols.org/) puts it well:
Some people dislike gays.
Some people dislike guns.
We should not base our laws on personal dislikes.
To bring it back on topic, I think that on the topic of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, you've got *plenty* of people who aren't bible thumping jesus h. capitalists who simply look at the *science* and remain skeptical of sweeping claims, much less sweeping prescriptions of action. Caricaturing skeptics as some sort of unreasonable fundamentalist christians is like assuming all black people are basketball playing rap stars.
Fair enough. It seems without accuracy on that topic, there's no way they can make any accurate sea level predictions.
Well, nobody is perfect :)
Agreed. But I'd also assert that government subsidies/taxes/discounts/market intervention can only make things *appear* cheaper - a fashionable and compelling illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.
The time to switch to alternative energy like solar and wind is when it can compete, without government intervention, with the cheapest natural gas we frack out of the ground. And all that talk about externalities is a bunch of BS.
You can have #1 without #2.
On top of that, the implied #3 (GW is a bad thing) is also disputable.
So, say we agree on the actual temperature *data* observed and stipulate to #1. What data would convince you that #2, or #3 aren't true?
Do any climate models actually predict how much rain fall will happen over land versus over water?
Sounds like another unforeseen variable that needs an ad hoc special pleading :)
All of that can happen when global average temperature stays the same.
All of that can happen when global average temperature *falls*.
All of that can happen when global average temperature *rises*.
And actually, not only *can* it happen in all three cases, it *does* happen in all three cases!
I want a third corner for gun-toting-gay-atheist-libertarians who think that abolishing the EPA is a good thing, aren't worried about a trace gas in the atmosphere, don't want prayer in school, and just want to find and marry Mr. Right :)
...Big Oil must've airlifted extra snow up there when nobody was looking! :)
Hrm. Any specific questionable premise or leap of logic you'd like to point out?
Bastiat seems at least aware of a possible accusation of hypocrisy in his text, and handles it pretty well:
"This must be said: There are too many "great" men in the world — legislators, organizers, do-gooders, leaders of the people, fathers of nations, and so on, and so on. Too many persons place themselves above mankind; they make a career of organizing it, patronizing it, and ruling it.
Now someone will say: "You yourself are doing this very thing." True. But it must be admitted that I act in an entirely different sense; if I have joined the ranks of the reformers, it is solely for the purpose of persuading them to leave people alone."
I do care how it affects people, and believe it would open people's eyes to the true cost of government, and dramatically reduce waste.
Yes, it is regressive. But if you want a society that is aware and cognizant of the costs of government, a tax must be as evenly distributed as possible, rather than skewed in such a way that some people don't experience the cost of government.
You always run out of other people's money...
Basic economic theory - just like any other price curve, the higher the cost, the lower the consumption. Unless you'd like to posit some other way for people to invest in companies, other than stock, increasing the cost of stock via taxation will discourage its purchase.
http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Dummies-Business-Personal-Finance/dp/0470879483
Somalia doesn't have a government in place to protect negative rights - which is what it *obviously* needs. It doesn't need OSHA, or an FDA or an FCC, it needs *basic* security and a justice system to collectively use force to protect negative rights.
Did you read Bastiat's "The Law" before replying?
I'd argue that interest on savings is immediately fungible, and that "interest" on stocks and shares is only theoretical, but I think that's a semantic answer, not a substantial one.
My more substantial argument is this - a system that sets up a tax on asset value growth (in this case, either savings interest income, or stock share gains), makes it so that only the hyper rich can really afford to own things. It forces people who are *succeeding* in the market (be it because they're savers or stock investors), to sell off their assets in order to pay taxes. Only those with sufficient disposable assets to pay the taxes on the higher valued assets end up getting to own anything that is growing quickly in value.
More to the point, though, if we're going to have a system that taxes you on the way up (say, your shares move in value from $100 to $1,000,000), will we also have a system that refunds those taxes on the way down? Although in general the value of savings is only destroyed by inflation (get 5% interest, pay the tax on that, but suffer 10% inflation, and your real purchasing power has decreased), stock share prices go *both* ways. Setting up a "tax you on the way up" system is going to essentially drive money out of stocks and investment in companies, choking the economy, since it's a game you can only lose.
You're right, nominally a flat sales tax means the poor will actually feel the impact of government more directly. They'll be more concerned with budget deficits and large government programs because large government will directly, and adversely affect *them*. Even better, yearly government budgets will avoid much of the ups and downs they currently have due to the high dependence on variable income.
As it stands, the more progressive a tax you levy to combat this perceived injustice (that basic needs spending by poor people is a greater proportion of their income), the worse off it is for poor people. If you have a high enough income that you're putting away savings, you're indirectly funding economic growth and job creation. If the government is coming in and taking away the money you'd put into savings, and then deciding what to do with it, it is stifling growth, distorting the market, and subsequently destroying industry. Progressive taxes levied on any corporation that sells goods either drives the industry overseas, or raises prices paid by consumers (making again, an effective regressive tax on the poor).
For luxury/sin taxes, the problem of course is that by depending on them, governments have the perverse incentive to *encourage* luxury spending and *encourage* sin.
I guess in the end, I'd argue that the flat sales tax to replace all income taxes would be better for economic growth because it makes the cost of government explicit and visible. Whenever you hide the costs of something from a consumer (say, third party payer health care), you get waste. Pretending that raising taxes on "the rich" (aka, employers) doesn't have an impact on "the poor" (aka, the employees), distorts the perceived cost of government spending, and that's a bad thing.
Are you suggesting that without large government interventions into peoples' lives, society cannot be orderly, or capable?
Bastiat had something to say to you: http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
The really ironic thing is that the first income tax was essentially a "billionaire tax", that was never meant to affect normal working stiffs :) While adjusted for 2012 dollars, the 1913 income tax did technically affect non-bill/millionaires, they were only those in the top 5% of income (and I couldn't find any real statistics on the accumulated wealth of the top 5%, just yearly income).
I'd go for the flat sales tax as the "easy" fix (http://www.cato.org/speeches/sp5-11-5.html) - the problem with it is that such even-handed treatment would send all the special interests who already have all kinds of deductions/subsidies/loopholes into a tizzy. Not to mention that when *everyone* is paying the same rate for taxes, all of a sudden large government programs that cost lots of money become *real* to people because they experience the tax rate every time they buy something - be it wars, social welfare programs, or industry bailouts. When people aren't personally confronted with the costs of something (say, healthcare), they spend more, and get less benefit from it - waste is just too easy to do.
Well, in CA, the whole prop 13 thing was designed because of property tax increases that were essentially driving people out of their homes. Of course, it's a wild mess now since corporations can establish a line of ownership that doesn't change, and therefore doesn't get taxed at higher rates the way normal people might if they bought a house.
It seems that if you were to decide to tax stocks in the same way you might tax property, you'd have fewer people willing to buy stock, and subsequently less investment in the economy.
I guess the reducto ad absurdum is why not tax savings? If you've got $100.00 in the bank, why not tax you 15% every year on it? In ten years, you'll end up with less that $20 bucks. Or why not tax the perceived value of your antique record collection?
At least for property tax there's some sort of implied quid pro quo (you're getting roads, fire, police for your taxes). What exactly does a government give you for savings or stock that is equivalent?
Really? Modded troll?
The warmists must have plenty of mod points saved up.
Look, if you can read the article with a clear head, it's *obvious* that the same sort of caveats must apply to a complex and chaotic system like global climate. Why is it that a scientifically minded person can look rationally at a critique of a cholesterol drug, but freaks out when the topic is climate?
Spell it out. It isn't obvious, and we can't see your mind movie.
If historically, CO2 changes have *lagged* temperature changes, it's *obvious* that CO2 is not a driver, but a follower. This would be true if CO2 changed lagged by 10 years, or if they lagged by 4000 years.
Deciding that somehow human CO2 is magically different than any other sourced CO2, and that *today* it's acting like a driver, when in the past it has always followed, is something that isn't obvious simply looking at the length of interglacials.
I'd suggest you take a look at some Feynman lectures: http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/
Pay special attention to his points about how physical law translates through space and time.
Actually, you made it the topic of conversation - "Fine, show me that say 80% of the methods we use to measure temperature are invalid". NASA GISS is one of the primary global temperature datasets, and if you're going to look askance at Watts, it would seem that Hansen could be looked at similarly. But to be specific, I'm not asking you to look askance at Hansen - I'm asking you to understand that *your* feelings towards Watts have a rational and opposite counterpart.
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/M&M.EE2005.pdf
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/MM03.pdf
You're making an assertion that isn't tenable - the mere existence of contemporary physics does *not* lead to the conclusion "human CO2 emissions are causing global average temperature increases that are bad enough to require restrictions on human CO2 emissions".
Again, the difference between *necessary* and *sufficient* don't seem to be clear to you.
Okay, let's play with models for a second. Take, say any 2 dozen models with the basic, hard coded premise that human CO2 emissions are a primary driver of temperature. They obviously diverge simply between *themselves* in their predictions. Why is it that the assumption is that their basic hard coded premise is correct, and that all variation is due to *other* tweaked variables? It is just as reasonable to assume that their CO2 hard coding is as suspect as any other tweaked variable.
Okay, let's run with that. Human CO2, statistically speaking, will have an impact on global average atmospheric temperature, arguably non-zero and arguably positive. At the same time, human CO2 will not warm the atmosphere in any meaningful way. Nothing inconsistent with those two statements.
And after all this time, you *still* haven't started the scientific method by a clear statement of a falsifiable hypothesis :)
I would've guessed that that was what you actually teach :)
Step up to the plate, and make your falsifiable hypothesis statement, understanding that we are looking for both those factors that are *necessary* as well as those that are *sufficient*. Relying on physical constants as the sole prop for the validity of tinker toy models is avoiding the question, and you know it :)
So you repudiate NASA GISS temps and dendro reconstructions? I'm cool with that :)
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/trc.html
And yes, they have a peer reviewed study, but far be it for me to appeal to authority :)
You're asserting a tautology. Can you admit that it is more than possible for CO2 to have specific wavelength absorption properties, and *still* not be a primary climate driver? Your citation of a physical parameter as a both necessary and sufficient to determine the validity of a tinker toy model is puzzling.
So 800 years of lag is insufficient, but 4000 years would be? Care to explain *why* those two values imply a qualitative difference?
How can you assert that? Wouldn't the observation of statistically significant UHI falsify that? Again, put a number on it - "negligible" seems to be open to interpretation.
Who pays your wages? What industry are you in? Me, I'm in IT. Put more specifically to your suspicions, no, I don't work for an oil company, or coal company, or any other type of dig in the ground for stuff company. However, like *all* companies, inexpensive energy is a benefit, so from that perspective, any rational being will be in support of inexpensive energy. I hold my well considered positions out of principle, not pocketbook though - I could be convinced that human CO2 emissions *must* be reduced, if someone would simply start with a falsifiable hypothesis statement, which, despite very well written comments, has failed to appear :)
Remember, it's not simply sufficient to say "well, if the speed of light isn't c, my theory is wrong", because simply having the speed of light as c doesn't specifically imply *every* theory you care to cite. You need a list, that I suppose would be much longer than you'd like, that asserts *all* of the ways that your hypothesis could be falsified.
In the simplest case, you could simply make a claim that a specific CO2 level and a specific global average temperature would falsify it. You might want to hedge your bets, so maybe you'll add solar output to that equation, so you don't get falsified during a Maunder minimum, or something like that. Or maybe add in variables for volcanic activity, or any number of other things you think might still matter.
But at this point, you're still just poking around the edges of the real question - I mean, if the CO2 absorption spectrum was say, 1nm off of what you think it is, would *that* falsify your hypothesis? Yes, a certain range of absorption might be *necessary* for your hypothesis to hold water, but it certainly isn't sufficient.