1. While fossil fuels must be phased out the speed with which we must do it is debatable.
Even under your cap and trade concept we'd continue to burn fossil fuels possibly in great quantities. So lets not goal post move the situation into unreasonableness.
What we need to do is burn less of them over time and have that rate of burn reach zero. The speed with which we reach zero is an issue of contention with some likely wanting it to be immediate which is impossible and some wanting it to be never which is counter productive.
I think we can come up with ways to make the process pretty painless so long as we are sensitive to that concern.
You run into the problems mostly by not taking care to avoid them.
As to collapse of the fossil fuel industry, you don't really understand what they do apparently. I'm not insulting you... I'm just noting that you don't understand that they're very complicated companies with diverse skill sets.
They have extensive chemical processing capabilities that can be turned to other products pretty easily. Consider that much of our industry relies on hydrocarbon byproducts of some kind. Plastics etc all come from the petroleum industry. So no... you will not destroy them by phasing out fossil fuels. They will dominate the bio fuel industry that comes after and continue to dominate many segments of the chemical industry.
What's more their skill in heavy engineering is almost unparalleled. The extreme projects they've undertaken largely unnoticed are a marvel of the modern world. That sort of skill can be applied to other projects such as tunnel construction etc.
As to contesting facts... I don't contest facts. I contest interpretations of facts which are opinions about facts.
I believe you'd would agree I am allowed to contest opinions? Yes? Good.
As to alternative solutions, there are many things we can do... the primary challenge is getting a portable energy source. Gasoline is very portable and energy dense.
I frankly don't think we can improve on it for the foreseeable future which is why I think the real solution here is to produce carbon neutral biofuels that can replace gasoline.
The economics of that currently are uncompetitive but there are some unconventional ideas that might lower the costs. As I said previously we might try decentralizing the fuel production system which would cut transport costs and most of the middle men out of the equation. All of that might be enough make the fuel cheap enough. Augment that with cheap nuclear power to supply the grid and that should keep us going for generations which is enough time to come up with other technologies assuming we're not totally happy with the above.
As to the costs going up, radically, I don't think there is any evidence of that. We have a standing problem which is getting worse but I'm not sure there is any evidence to say that we're at a fever pitched crisis either. As to this fairytale that only the evil opposition has been manipulating... you do know you've got Al Gore pushing your side right? You know he's a politician right? I'm just checking. The point is that you have plenty of propagandists on your own side so lets not go spinning fairytales.
As to the solution hurting, I don't think it has to hurt.
I think we can avoid the pain if we're considerate in our policies.
We don't need to damage people. We need to give them better options. In many cases this will mean governments or corporations giving up control of things to individuals or local communities.
We have a lot of really exciting technologies that can make a difference. I cited previously small scale SynGas generators which are extremely viable in rural areas producing power, gas for heating, and even gas for driving cars if you're so inclined. And the SynGas generators run on waste hydrocarbons. You can burn wood chips or wood pellets in them. And you can make wood pellets from almost anything. Saw dust, corn husks, leaves, gras
Then why should a mexican immigrant be able to own property without 50 miles of coast in the US? But a US immigrant is not?
That is one example of many laws in Mexico designed to keep Americans from immigrating. And frankly I think all of them should be abolished in return for reasonable immigration terms from the US. Its unfair to Americans that we open our doors to the world. That many countries push their immigrants on us by the millions. And when Americans go seeking another place to live... we find a much colder reception.
We have a bargaining position with our immigration policy. Heads of state petition the US to make its immigration policy more open all the time. Go to these same people and offer them a reciprocal deal. For every American they will accept in their country we'll accept one of theirs... on the same terms.
I'm tired of these countries claiming the US is unreasonable or unduly harsh with their immigrants when they're far harsher with ours.
If you instituted my policy you'd get a huge influx of immigrants from all over the world as their host nations dropped most conditions for immigration. And many of the clever Americans would know that that was their moment to take their money and run somewhere else.
And then the people pushing open border would get precisely what they want.
Equality. The US would lose a large portion of its population that would run off somewhere else and the US would gain millions upon millions of people without a clue about how to be a citizen in a real republic.
Actually you did. You're doing it through implication and insinulation. You're attempting to passive aggressively argue a point which lets you push an argument without having to defend it.
That's invalid.
Your post is either null or you have to defend your points.
Which is it?
Did you waste bandwidth or are you going to defend your point?
Rome didn't fall because it didn't have open borders.
Rome fell because it was hopelessly corrupt. And when called to fight in the name of corrupt senators etc the free men that typically filled the legions chose to let it burn.
Rome fell because the free men were tired of being out competed by literal slave labor and forced into slavery themselves.
If the Germans had invaded 200 years earlier they would have met able and fierce Roman Legions that would have driven them off as they had driven off all other enemies before them.
Rome was not defeated. The people it depended upon to defend it - abandoned it to the wolves.
Given that the primary point of dispute is what to do about AGW and not AGW itself, we are utlimately debating opinions.
The best or correct solution to AGW is not a matter of scientific fact. You can't say "its science" and then use that to justify carbon credits. There's no climate model that proves carbon credits will or won't be the best policy.
That is all opinion.
Which means its your opinion versus their opinion... and that means you have one of two choices.
1. You can negotiate and good faith and come to a reasonable compromise.
2. You can fight tooth and nail to dominate them and they'll return the favor leaving you both screaming at each other to no particular purpose.
Kindly think for yourself rather then quoting pithy comments from people that don't actually apply to my post or this topic.
Your reading comprehension is appalling. I didn't say they were currently on welfare. I said they would be the instant they were given citizenship.
Why would I work for a below minimum wage job, in unsafe conditions, with no rights when I can now just collect a check from the government for about the same amount of money or more for doing nothing?
They'd have to be stupid to do that. Americans don't do those jobs because we make more money doing nothing.
You really are one of those sad fools that thinks money comes from no where and there's no limit to it don't you?
Well then why should any of us work... we'll just get the fed to print more money.
The only reason you're getting people deny AGW is because they don't like your solutions to AGW and they think you're going to take the validity of AGW to force policies on them that they don't want.
So they undermine AGW so it undermines your proposed solution to AGW.
Do you understand? If your solutions were no big deal there would be no big blow back over AGW. Most people wouldn't care because it wouldn't effect them.
But when you say you're going to do something drastic then people are going to react to protect themselves.
So for the last time. Your solutions and your tone in negotiations triggered this situation.
Your solutions were too expensive, too punitive, and your tone made people feel powerless and disenfranchised. You gave people no voice or power over the situation.
They were browbeaten and told that they had no right to an opinion or any right to change policy. So they reacted to take all your authority and credibility away.
That is what happened.
If you want to walk this whole thing back and start over... you can do that. But you're going to have to show some respect and some patience.
If you refuse to do that then you really can't expect people to respond to you any differently then they are... they're going to shut you down, shout you down, and cripple anything you try to do by any means.
Tell me what you get as a yearly income under your idea for doing nothing? Because I assure you that the only people showing up to pick strawberries without being in pretty desperate financial shape are going to be children.
Which is traditionally how you dealt with the farm labor situation. A lot of these jobs used to be done by kids. They weren't abused. There was nothing wrong with it.
Local kids would go out there and help out in the fields and got paid well enough that they could buy pretty much whatever they wanted because the money didn't go to pay for food or shelter. Kids get that for free. That money went right into their personal pocket change. And under those terms the money is pretty good.
Think of all the things illegals do... mow lawns... deliver newspapers... See a pattern here? Most of the things they do are things US teenagers used to do. They've taken the first jobs that Americans used to get. Their introduction to the labor force. The same kids now spend the same time doing something unproductive in most cases.
It also depresses automation that we would have put in place ages ago and of course removed labor that was traditionally done by teenagers.
My father worked in a California fruit boxing warehouse for a few summers. Not because he was poor but because kids were expected to get summer jobs back then.
We did just fine before the rampant illegal immigration. Those that think we can't survive without it either suffer from an unforgivable lack of imagination or are spinning tales.
A one time amnesty in return for a lasting long term fix to the problem would have been a reasonable compromise.
It still would be reasonable today IF we could get real reform in return. But we can't. So amnesty is a bad deal because they're offering literally nothing in return for it.
Blame FDR if you want to blame someone for changing the dynamic. He created the welfare system. And when that was added to by LBJ with the Great Society program it meant that being a US citizen puts a liability on the US government to provide for you.
In our early colonial phase do you know what the US government was required to provide for you?
Law and order. Protection from invasion. Due process in courts.
That's about it.
So tell you what, scale back all the federal welfare to that... and you can open the borders as wide as you want. But if you keep the welfare system in place and open the borders... the system will choke.
We're already seeing a lot of inflation at current expenditures and that is before the ACA and medicare expansions hit the budget. If you add open immigration on top of that we're going to turn into a hyper inflationary banana republic.
On the bright side... think of it like this... we'll finally have made Mexico equal to the US... by making the US equal to mexico.
Happy? You always wanted to live in Mexico right? Well, the US is going to be mexico if this goes through. And its hard to think of a funny punch line to this whole stupid mess.
None of you deserve to live in first world country. You lack the wisdom to grasp what it takes to preserve such a society. So you do this and you won't live in it anymore. None of us will. You'll have killed it.
We disagree as to the futility of compromise. By all means... go out and try to force people... have fun with that little mission. You could count me as a supporter if you were willing to look for mutual options but if you're not I'll at best be a spectator and at worst an element of opposition.
Just what is... I don't think we're going to get anywhere by pushing people around and intentionally ruining people. I think the means are the ends. And if you go about doing that sort of thing you're going to create an authoritarian regime which is hardly what I'd call libertarian.
Your argument is that the United States should be the only country in the world with open immigration?
Okay... lets do that. And then lets see how long your welfare and entitlement programs last with millions crossing the border and suddenly getting full social security benefits, EBT, etc.
You're so convinced of your own superiority that you've not actually bothered to think any of it through at even the most simple level. You're worse then stupid. A stupid person can't think. They don't have the mental tools to get from point A to point B... you probably are smart enough to figure it out but you choose not to do it. You're a moron by choice.
No... I'm saying that our immigration policy is looser then any other country in the Americas. That is what I'm saying. We don't need to make it even looser.
And no other country has grounds to complain about our policy because their policies are all much stricter then ours.
It should not be harder for me to become a Mexican citizen as a citizen of the United States then it is for a Mexican citizen to become a citizen of the United States.
True, though Reagan was promised border enforcement in return for that. The deal as understood at the time was "I'll give you amnesty now as a one time deal and in return we fix the system"...
Reagan delivered his end and then fixes promised never happened.
Its something republicans are still extremely bitter about and one of the reasons they're not respective to the same idea all over again. We're being told "just give us amnesty now and we'll fix the border after"... well... one bitten twice shy.
Because being a US citizen has benefits that are paid for by the US economy where as being a citizen of Mexico or Honduras or Guatemala has few benefits and Americans can't enjoy them even if they try to go through the legal process.
Riddle me this... which country do you think its easier to become a citizen in... The United States or Mexico?
Do you know what you have to go through to become a citizen in either? Compare them. The US has pretty much the loosest immigration policy in the Americas. I don't think there's any other country in the America's that even close... north or south America.
And yet as loose as our policies are it is we that are called the racists and monsters for having a policy more humane and inclusive and permissive then any other in in the Americas.
Explain the logic on that.
You want open immigration? Fine... no really... we'll do that. But understand this, if you do that and leave the welfare system intact the country will go broke very quickly.
The welfare state and open immigration are exclusive concepts. You cannot do both at the same time. The simple math on that should be obvious to anyone that thinks about it.
The surge of people we're getting at the border right now are only showing up because they think they'll get amnesty. Its a related concept.
Really the sick thing is the whole immigration problem is driven by a shadow economy of cheap labor.
People say "oh I want these people to get US citizenship" but if they have it will they work for below minimum wage under currently illegal health standards with no insurance or legal rights?
Probably not. And the corporate interests that are pushing for amnesty are very strange in this regard as well because again if they actually get amnesty they're not going to show up for work. They're going to go get EBT cards and welfare because it pays better then those terrible jobs. Which is why most americans don't do those jobs. We're paid more to do nothing then we are to do that stuff.
By all means argue against the welfare state if that's what gets you going but the point is that the whole immigration issue is irrational.
Our society cannot survive open borders. We can't afford it. And if we did that all the cheap labor the companies think they're going to get would suddenly be gone because they'd just sit in subsidized apartments laughing about when they got up at 3 in the morning to go to work.
And that doesn't address how the whole thing depresses the wages of actual citizens or causes all sorts of other distortions of our economy.
The whole thing is sick.
The first thing that needs to happen is that hiring illegal immigrants needs to be something that is ACTUALLY illegal. As in few do it because you go to jail or suffer huge crippling fines.
Do that and most of the illegal immigration stops immediately without having to do anything at the border.
A really effective mean to police the thing would be to offer people a bounty for catching it. Say 10 to 50 percent of collected fines. So if you're fining companies 10 thousand dollars per illegal employee... and some of these operations employ thousands... you'll be looking at 10 thousand times thousands. Who wouldn't turn that in?
It would police itself. Sure, you'd get witch hunts and false positives etc. But I'm not saying you show up with SWAT teams either. Just a federal official with a camera, notebook, and badge. He goes in, sees what is going on, makes some notes, takes some pictures, and then goes back to the office to process the paper work. Nothing aggressive needed. You don't even go after the illegals directly. You go after their employers.
If they can't find work here they won't come. Just that simple.
What with the insane situation we have at the border right now...
Say what you will about our immigration policy... say what you will about the politics... it looks very bad for people supporting amnesty right now simply because there looks to be a free for all at the border.
If you are precieved as acting in bad faith, where the conclusion of whatever you're doing is going to be harmful to a lot of people... you're going to get struck down INSTANTLY. They're not going to wait for you to get through some process. They're going to drop you as fast as they can so that if anything fails to stop you they'll have many opportunities to do it again and again and again. And by the time you get where you're trying to go you'll be so weak and reduced from all the hits that you'll be no threat.
That is the game.
So no. You're not going to get people to agree on anything unless they believe you're going to respect their interests down the road. If you're not... then they have an interest in dropping you where you stand.
Which is why you get such resistence on the AGW issue. They're not attacking you because they don't believe in AGW. They're attacking you because they are terrified of your "solutions". They see the denial as a means to stop that. So they do it.
Is this not obvious?
It seems very obvious to me. Were your solutions to AGW something like "do nothing, have a beer, fist bump, and go on with your day" then do you think anyone would be attacking AGW research? Probably a lot less.
And the politicians also wouldn't be gloming on to you because there's no power for them to suck off the issue.
its the "solution" that is the problem not the AGW science itself. That's not really at issue at this point.
Politically it will be at issue... but again that's only because its been made political.
If you want the AGW stuff to get accepted and a rational scientific discussion to happen... you need to put the weapons away. You need to make people believe you're not gearing up to fuck every one.
If you can't do that... then you shouldn't be surprised that you're getting resistance.
Really this is all very obvious... at least it seems obvious to me.
As to there being no win win, that is your position and opinion. It is an opinion that comes with a cost that so far is not affordable... as in the check bounces... politically, economically, legally... it bounces.
You'll of course keep trying to cash it... and it will keep bouncing.
As to opposition being inevitable because fossil fuel companies suffer is not actually inevitable at all.
Fossil fuel interests alone are unable to oppose a plurality of the public. And the public will mostly support the fossil fuel interests if they see it as in their interest.
If you only hurt the fossil fuel interests and not everyone at large then the fossil fuel interests can be isolated and do little to harm your efforts.
What is more they could be very useful in switching over to a carbon neutral system if we switch to fuels generated from plants or other sources that draw from our atmosphere directly rather then from sequestered fossil fuels.
There's no reason to cut them out at all. They have enormous technical capability and industrial capital that can be turned to these issues.
Rather then trying to destroy people you can work towards solutions that profit everyone.
This is one of the consequences of the political groups taking over the environmental lobbies because they care more about attacking political enemies then they do about actually protecting the environment.
Oil companies don't want to hurt the environment more then anyone else. Its just a consequence of where their product comes from.
Consider that most oil companies don't own the oil fields they're tapping. They lease them and pay a fee for what they take out of the ground. As such they have very little capital sunk into the actual land itself. Their capital investment is in machinery, distribution, refining, etc. Well, that can be turned to other purposes.
Have you ever seen a deep sea oil rig? They're amazing. They have teams of men that go deep below the sea to weld pipes etc living at extreme pressures for weeks. They live in pressurized capsules that allow them eat and sleep at that pressure and then the capsules are depressurized slowly in shifts.
Its effectively a commercial space program. When you see the suits they wear the nature of their work, the conditions. It looks very much like a space operation with EVA's etc. Only its at the bottom of the sea rather then in outer space.
These remarkable industries with good people that have made very impressive technical accomplishments. Don't label them as evil and dismiss everything they've done or try to utterly annihilate their industry wholesale. That's unfair to them and a breach of our common civil duty to each other.
Is there a problem with their industry? Yes. But they're not the enemy. What would you do if they just stopped making fuel tomorrow? Your car wouldn't work. Your plane wouldn't fly. The heat in your house would go out.
Be reasonable. This is a complex issue that needs to be solved in an adult manner. Not attacked mindlessly for the petty profit of one political interest or another.
As to how I propose to get somewhere, I start by making it clear I'm not going to run roughshod over people. Part of the reason you're getting so much resistance is that people are afraid of you. They think if given a little room to work you'll just do whatever you want, screw everyone that gets in your way, consult no one, get the permission of no one, and then say it was all in the name of the greater good.
People don't like that. So there is an effort to contain you. Part of that is undermining the legitimacy of AGW itself. Think of it as a layered defense.
Now frankly, you don't seem like the sort to respect people's interests and rights in these matters. You seem to think you have the right idea and that you therefore should just go forward from here in a straight line and slap anyone that gets in your way aside like they're nothing.
And that means people going to put barriers before you.
I'd generally agree. I'd also agree with your notion that many of the proposed fixes and energy around the movement is impractical.
That said, I think we can agree that in a perfect world we'd not have this CO2 emitted or have to worry about it.
We can take steps to make it better. Things that don't cost anyone much or anything but make the world a better place.
Take something like biodegradable plastic. Does that hurt anyone? Not really. You use it in places where you need something to last for a short period of time and then you want it to break down. So you employ it in say grocery bags etc. And when they're thrown away assuming they're not packed into airless/waterless landfills they'll break down harmlessly in compost.
I think I said somewhere in here we could use solar power to generate more fuels that could be used in cars as a carbon neutral fuel source. And yeah, they'd be more expensive then conventional fuels if you did it the conventional way. But maybe we can make them practical by decentralizing production. Micro sized refineries... ones so small they only produce enough fuel for maybe one or two cars could be a household appliance drinking a mixture of solar power from the roof and cheap off hours grid power. They could suck CO2 from the air and produce fuel in chemical reaction chambers.
We have the technology to do this right now.
We also have other fun things we can do like SynGas... which has been used on and off since around WW2. There are people selling machines that cost about 6000 dollars that can produce 15KW from wood pellets... and they also produce a flammable gas very much like natural gas which can be combusted in cars or used in any other task you'd find acceptable for natural gas.
All of which is carbon neutral because you're using fuel that draws its CO2 from the air. Its a closed loop. Zero net CO2.
I'm not advocating hitting people with nasty taxes or regulations. I don't think that's productive. I think that just pisses people off and makes a few politically into little tyrants that get to control everything.
Rather, I advocate win win technological changes that profit EVERYONE. Things that on balance you'll prefer because it will be cheaper or more convenient or something.
I believe we can come to common cause on the issue. But we have to respect each other's rights and interests and not push people around.
It wasn't stating that AGW is real that generated the controversy but rather the proposed solutions to it.
If you told the world "AGW is real but no one has to do anything about it" then you wouldn't be getting the blow back you're seeing now. The various factions you are dealing with are mostly undermining the validity of AGW as a proxy to attack the proposed fixes for AGW which is really what they have a problem with in the first place.
Once you understand that, you can grasp that what you really have here is a negociation between different groups. Some factions offered solutions... many of those ideas were rejected. They tried to push them anyway after they were rejected... which meant the political factions that rejected it had to prove why getting their acceptance was important or they'd have no legitimacy in that issue or other issues.
These factions you must appreciate would have no value if they were unable to get their will enforced. Who cares about republicans or democrats? who cares about labor or conservatives or liberal democrats or greens or whatever?
Well... they make you care. They must or they have no value. No reason for anyone to waste any time with them at all.
So... Lets understand that the issue of AGW itself is not really an issue of contention. Its the proposed solutions.
Are you willing to negotiate on those and arrive at win win options that are acceptable to a plurality of factions? You won't make literally everyone happy but if you can make 75 percent happy then we'll be in good standing.
If you can't do that... then you you're unfortunately going to have to struggle against their political power to get what you want. And in doing that the environmental issue will get wound up with the thousand other things those political factions are trying to do all the time and in the end your issue won't matter. It will be just one of a thousand things they bounce between while trying to get reelected. A talking point... a means to generate funding or get out the vote. Little more.
I obviously think that's a big mistake. But maybe I'm wrong and you'll overwhelm all political rivals, your politicians will be honorable, everyone will maintain political will against entrenched financial interests, and the world will be saved by your enlightened will.
I obviously don't find that very likely... but that's just my opinion.
CO2 is naturally sequestered. If we stop emitting new CO2 that will be an enormous help.
I am not saying everything will be fixed if we do that but we won't be making it any worse. All industry if we shift to that system will emit ZERO net carbon.
That's a massive win right there. And once we have that your sequestration ideas might have a point. Short of a zero carbon emission economy you would sequester far less carbon that was being emitted.
And consider that carbon not emitted is as good as carbon take out of the system in the same sense as a penny saved is a penny earned.
Attempting to reverse all the added CO2 by artificial means is probably not practical unless you want to try some of the geo engineering ideas involving sea algae. Though I've heard that would increase ocean acidity by unacceptable amounts.
So I'm not quite sure how you're going to do that.
That's not how this works. You propose your problem then you suggest a solution.
Everyone makes their own evaluation as to the relevance of the problem and the cost of your solution and then either accepts your offer or makes counter proposals.
Keep in mind that AGW is not the only problem in the world. We have wars, poverty, ignorance, starvation, other various natural disasters, crime, corruption, etc etc etc.
Which means you're playing a game of musical chairs with all those issues. Which issue will I under fund to keep your issue funded? You then have to convince people that your issue is more worth funding then something else.
Don't dismiss me as some simple rejectionist. I'm not dismissing you. I'm pointing out that its complicated and you're going to have to be patient and flexible.
If you start bulling over people, brow beating people, throwing political muscle around... well... you're going to get a reciprocal response.
Some have made it clear on this forum that that is exactly the route they want to take... just push through. And that's fine. But once you go down that road the science is meaningless to the struggle. Its merely about power at that point.
If you want this to not be about power and only about power. Then you have to not force people.
I sadly question whether many people know what that means. Everyone seems to only understand force. Its rather sad.
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As to things we must do...
1. While fossil fuels must be phased out the speed with which we must do it is debatable.
Even under your cap and trade concept we'd continue to burn fossil fuels possibly in great quantities. So lets not goal post move the situation into unreasonableness.
What we need to do is burn less of them over time and have that rate of burn reach zero. The speed with which we reach zero is an issue of contention with some likely wanting it to be immediate which is impossible and some wanting it to be never which is counter productive.
I think we can come up with ways to make the process pretty painless so long as we are sensitive to that concern.
You run into the problems mostly by not taking care to avoid them.
As to collapse of the fossil fuel industry, you don't really understand what they do apparently. I'm not insulting you... I'm just noting that you don't understand that they're very complicated companies with diverse skill sets.
They have extensive chemical processing capabilities that can be turned to other products pretty easily. Consider that much of our industry relies on hydrocarbon byproducts of some kind. Plastics etc all come from the petroleum industry. So no... you will not destroy them by phasing out fossil fuels. They will dominate the bio fuel industry that comes after and continue to dominate many segments of the chemical industry.
What's more their skill in heavy engineering is almost unparalleled. The extreme projects they've undertaken largely unnoticed are a marvel of the modern world. That sort of skill can be applied to other projects such as tunnel construction etc.
As to contesting facts... I don't contest facts. I contest interpretations of facts which are opinions about facts.
I believe you'd would agree I am allowed to contest opinions? Yes? Good.
As to alternative solutions, there are many things we can do... the primary challenge is getting a portable energy source. Gasoline is very portable and energy dense.
I frankly don't think we can improve on it for the foreseeable future which is why I think the real solution here is to produce carbon neutral biofuels that can replace gasoline.
The economics of that currently are uncompetitive but there are some unconventional ideas that might lower the costs. As I said previously we might try decentralizing the fuel production system which would cut transport costs and most of the middle men out of the equation. All of that might be enough make the fuel cheap enough. Augment that with cheap nuclear power to supply the grid and that should keep us going for generations which is enough time to come up with other technologies assuming we're not totally happy with the above.
As to the costs going up, radically, I don't think there is any evidence of that. We have a standing problem which is getting worse but I'm not sure there is any evidence to say that we're at a fever pitched crisis either.
As to this fairytale that only the evil opposition has been manipulating... you do know you've got Al Gore pushing your side right? You know he's a politician right? I'm just checking. The point is that you have plenty of propagandists on your own side so lets not go spinning fairytales.
As to the solution hurting, I don't think it has to hurt.
I think we can avoid the pain if we're considerate in our policies.
We don't need to damage people. We need to give them better options. In many cases this will mean governments or corporations giving up control of things to individuals or local communities.
We have a lot of really exciting technologies that can make a difference. I cited previously small scale SynGas generators which are extremely viable in rural areas producing power, gas for heating, and even gas for driving cars if you're so inclined. And the SynGas generators run on waste hydrocarbons. You can burn wood chips or wood pellets in them. And you can make wood pellets from almost anything. Saw dust, corn husks, leaves, gras
Then why should a mexican immigrant be able to own property without 50 miles of coast in the US? But a US immigrant is not?
That is one example of many laws in Mexico designed to keep Americans from immigrating. And frankly I think all of them should be abolished in return for reasonable immigration terms from the US. Its unfair to Americans that we open our doors to the world. That many countries push their immigrants on us by the millions. And when Americans go seeking another place to live... we find a much colder reception.
We have a bargaining position with our immigration policy. Heads of state petition the US to make its immigration policy more open all the time. Go to these same people and offer them a reciprocal deal. For every American they will accept in their country we'll accept one of theirs... on the same terms.
I'm tired of these countries claiming the US is unreasonable or unduly harsh with their immigrants when they're far harsher with ours.
If you instituted my policy you'd get a huge influx of immigrants from all over the world as their host nations dropped most conditions for immigration. And many of the clever Americans would know that that was their moment to take their money and run somewhere else.
And then the people pushing open border would get precisely what they want.
Equality. The US would lose a large portion of its population that would run off somewhere else and the US would gain millions upon millions of people without a clue about how to be a citizen in a real republic.
Instant homogenization.
Actually you did. You're doing it through implication and insinulation. You're attempting to passive aggressively argue a point which lets you push an argument without having to defend it.
That's invalid.
Your post is either null or you have to defend your points.
Which is it?
Did you waste bandwidth or are you going to defend your point?
Rome didn't fall because it didn't have open borders.
Rome fell because it was hopelessly corrupt. And when called to fight in the name of corrupt senators etc the free men that typically filled the legions chose to let it burn.
Rome fell because the free men were tired of being out competed by literal slave labor and forced into slavery themselves.
If the Germans had invaded 200 years earlier they would have met able and fierce Roman Legions that would have driven them off as they had driven off all other enemies before them.
Rome was not defeated. The people it depended upon to defend it - abandoned it to the wolves.
Given that the primary point of dispute is what to do about AGW and not AGW itself, we are utlimately debating opinions.
The best or correct solution to AGW is not a matter of scientific fact. You can't say "its science" and then use that to justify carbon credits. There's no climate model that proves carbon credits will or won't be the best policy.
That is all opinion.
Which means its your opinion versus their opinion... and that means you have one of two choices.
1. You can negotiate and good faith and come to a reasonable compromise.
2. You can fight tooth and nail to dominate them and they'll return the favor leaving you both screaming at each other to no particular purpose.
Kindly think for yourself rather then quoting pithy comments from people that don't actually apply to my post or this topic.
Your reading comprehension is appalling. I didn't say they were currently on welfare. I said they would be the instant they were given citizenship.
Why would I work for a below minimum wage job, in unsafe conditions, with no rights when I can now just collect a check from the government for about the same amount of money or more for doing nothing?
They'd have to be stupid to do that. Americans don't do those jobs because we make more money doing nothing.
You really are one of those sad fools that thinks money comes from no where and there's no limit to it don't you?
Well then why should any of us work... we'll just get the fed to print more money.
What could possibly go wrong.
I'm tired of repeating myself.
One last time.
The only reason you're getting people deny AGW is because they don't like your solutions to AGW and they think you're going to take the validity of AGW to force policies on them that they don't want.
So they undermine AGW so it undermines your proposed solution to AGW.
Do you understand? If your solutions were no big deal there would be no big blow back over AGW. Most people wouldn't care because it wouldn't effect them.
But when you say you're going to do something drastic then people are going to react to protect themselves.
So for the last time. Your solutions and your tone in negotiations triggered this situation.
Your solutions were too expensive, too punitive, and your tone made people feel powerless and disenfranchised. You gave people no voice or power over the situation.
They were browbeaten and told that they had no right to an opinion or any right to change policy. So they reacted to take all your authority and credibility away.
That is what happened.
If you want to walk this whole thing back and start over... you can do that. But you're going to have to show some respect and some patience.
If you refuse to do that then you really can't expect people to respond to you any differently then they are... they're going to shut you down, shout you down, and cripple anything you try to do by any means.
Just the consequences of your policy.
End of story.
Tell me what you get as a yearly income under your idea for doing nothing? Because I assure you that the only people showing up to pick strawberries without being in pretty desperate financial shape are going to be children.
Which is traditionally how you dealt with the farm labor situation. A lot of these jobs used to be done by kids. They weren't abused. There was nothing wrong with it.
Local kids would go out there and help out in the fields and got paid well enough that they could buy pretty much whatever they wanted because the money didn't go to pay for food or shelter. Kids get that for free. That money went right into their personal pocket change. And under those terms the money is pretty good.
Think of all the things illegals do... mow lawns... deliver newspapers... See a pattern here? Most of the things they do are things US teenagers used to do. They've taken the first jobs that Americans used to get. Their introduction to the labor force. The same kids now spend the same time doing something unproductive in most cases.
You completely failed to rebut any of my points.
I'll take that as a concession/forfeiture from you unless you'd like to try again?
It also depresses automation that we would have put in place ages ago and of course removed labor that was traditionally done by teenagers.
My father worked in a California fruit boxing warehouse for a few summers. Not because he was poor but because kids were expected to get summer jobs back then.
We did just fine before the rampant illegal immigration. Those that think we can't survive without it either suffer from an unforgivable lack of imagination or are spinning tales.
A one time amnesty in return for a lasting long term fix to the problem would have been a reasonable compromise.
It still would be reasonable today IF we could get real reform in return. But we can't. So amnesty is a bad deal because they're offering literally nothing in return for it.
The New Deal happened.
Blame FDR if you want to blame someone for changing the dynamic. He created the welfare system. And when that was added to by LBJ with the Great Society program it meant that being a US citizen puts a liability on the US government to provide for you.
In our early colonial phase do you know what the US government was required to provide for you?
Law and order.
Protection from invasion.
Due process in courts.
That's about it.
So tell you what, scale back all the federal welfare to that... and you can open the borders as wide as you want. But if you keep the welfare system in place and open the borders... the system will choke.
We're already seeing a lot of inflation at current expenditures and that is before the ACA and medicare expansions hit the budget. If you add open immigration on top of that we're going to turn into a hyper inflationary banana republic.
On the bright side... think of it like this... we'll finally have made Mexico equal to the US... by making the US equal to mexico.
Happy? You always wanted to live in Mexico right? Well, the US is going to be mexico if this goes through. And its hard to think of a funny punch line to this whole stupid mess.
None of you deserve to live in first world country. You lack the wisdom to grasp what it takes to preserve such a society. So you do this and you won't live in it anymore. None of us will. You'll have killed it.
We disagree as to the futility of compromise. By all means... go out and try to force people... have fun with that little mission. You could count me as a supporter if you were willing to look for mutual options but if you're not I'll at best be a spectator and at worst an element of opposition.
Just what is... I don't think we're going to get anywhere by pushing people around and intentionally ruining people. I think the means are the ends. And if you go about doing that sort of thing you're going to create an authoritarian regime which is hardly what I'd call libertarian.
Your argument is that the United States should be the only country in the world with open immigration?
Okay... lets do that. And then lets see how long your welfare and entitlement programs last with millions crossing the border and suddenly getting full social security benefits, EBT, etc.
You're so convinced of your own superiority that you've not actually bothered to think any of it through at even the most simple level. You're worse then stupid. A stupid person can't think. They don't have the mental tools to get from point A to point B... you probably are smart enough to figure it out but you choose not to do it. You're a moron by choice.
And that is pretty sad.
No... I'm saying that our immigration policy is looser then any other country in the Americas. That is what I'm saying. We don't need to make it even looser.
And no other country has grounds to complain about our policy because their policies are all much stricter then ours.
It should not be harder for me to become a Mexican citizen as a citizen of the United States then it is for a Mexican citizen to become a citizen of the United States.
True, though Reagan was promised border enforcement in return for that. The deal as understood at the time was "I'll give you amnesty now as a one time deal and in return we fix the system"...
Reagan delivered his end and then fixes promised never happened.
Its something republicans are still extremely bitter about and one of the reasons they're not respective to the same idea all over again. We're being told "just give us amnesty now and we'll fix the border after"... well... one bitten twice shy.
Because being a US citizen has benefits that are paid for by the US economy where as being a citizen of Mexico or Honduras or Guatemala has few benefits and Americans can't enjoy them even if they try to go through the legal process.
Riddle me this... which country do you think its easier to become a citizen in... The United States or Mexico?
Do you know what you have to go through to become a citizen in either? Compare them. The US has pretty much the loosest immigration policy in the Americas. I don't think there's any other country in the America's that even close... north or south America.
And yet as loose as our policies are it is we that are called the racists and monsters for having a policy more humane and inclusive and permissive then any other in in the Americas.
Explain the logic on that.
You want open immigration? Fine... no really... we'll do that. But understand this, if you do that and leave the welfare system intact the country will go broke very quickly.
The welfare state and open immigration are exclusive concepts. You cannot do both at the same time. The simple math on that should be obvious to anyone that thinks about it.
The surge of people we're getting at the border right now are only showing up because they think they'll get amnesty. Its a related concept.
Really the sick thing is the whole immigration problem is driven by a shadow economy of cheap labor.
People say "oh I want these people to get US citizenship" but if they have it will they work for below minimum wage under currently illegal health standards with no insurance or legal rights?
Probably not. And the corporate interests that are pushing for amnesty are very strange in this regard as well because again if they actually get amnesty they're not going to show up for work. They're going to go get EBT cards and welfare because it pays better then those terrible jobs. Which is why most americans don't do those jobs. We're paid more to do nothing then we are to do that stuff.
By all means argue against the welfare state if that's what gets you going but the point is that the whole immigration issue is irrational.
Our society cannot survive open borders. We can't afford it. And if we did that all the cheap labor the companies think they're going to get would suddenly be gone because they'd just sit in subsidized apartments laughing about when they got up at 3 in the morning to go to work.
And that doesn't address how the whole thing depresses the wages of actual citizens or causes all sorts of other distortions of our economy.
The whole thing is sick.
The first thing that needs to happen is that hiring illegal immigrants needs to be something that is ACTUALLY illegal. As in few do it because you go to jail or suffer huge crippling fines.
Do that and most of the illegal immigration stops immediately without having to do anything at the border.
A really effective mean to police the thing would be to offer people a bounty for catching it. Say 10 to 50 percent of collected fines. So if you're fining companies 10 thousand dollars per illegal employee... and some of these operations employ thousands... you'll be looking at 10 thousand times thousands. Who wouldn't turn that in?
It would police itself. Sure, you'd get witch hunts and false positives etc. But I'm not saying you show up with SWAT teams either. Just a federal official with a camera, notebook, and badge. He goes in, sees what is going on, makes some notes, takes some pictures, and then goes back to the office to process the paper work. Nothing aggressive needed. You don't even go after the illegals directly. You go after their employers.
If they can't find work here they won't come. Just that simple.
What with the insane situation we have at the border right now...
Say what you will about our immigration policy... say what you will about the politics... it looks very bad for people supporting amnesty right now simply because there looks to be a free for all at the border.
You're not listening. I'm going to try again.
If you are precieved as acting in bad faith, where the conclusion of whatever you're doing is going to be harmful to a lot of people... you're going to get struck down INSTANTLY. They're not going to wait for you to get through some process. They're going to drop you as fast as they can so that if anything fails to stop you they'll have many opportunities to do it again and again and again. And by the time you get where you're trying to go you'll be so weak and reduced from all the hits that you'll be no threat.
That is the game.
So no. You're not going to get people to agree on anything unless they believe you're going to respect their interests down the road. If you're not... then they have an interest in dropping you where you stand.
Which is why you get such resistence on the AGW issue. They're not attacking you because they don't believe in AGW. They're attacking you because they are terrified of your "solutions". They see the denial as a means to stop that. So they do it.
Is this not obvious?
It seems very obvious to me. Were your solutions to AGW something like "do nothing, have a beer, fist bump, and go on with your day" then do you think anyone would be attacking AGW research? Probably a lot less.
And the politicians also wouldn't be gloming on to you because there's no power for them to suck off the issue.
its the "solution" that is the problem not the AGW science itself. That's not really at issue at this point.
Politically it will be at issue... but again that's only because its been made political.
If you want the AGW stuff to get accepted and a rational scientific discussion to happen... you need to put the weapons away. You need to make people believe you're not gearing up to fuck every one.
If you can't do that... then you shouldn't be surprised that you're getting resistance.
Really this is all very obvious... at least it seems obvious to me.
As to there being no win win, that is your position and opinion. It is an opinion that comes with a cost that so far is not affordable... as in the check bounces... politically, economically, legally... it bounces.
You'll of course keep trying to cash it... and it will keep bouncing.
As to opposition being inevitable because fossil fuel companies suffer is not actually inevitable at all.
Fossil fuel interests alone are unable to oppose a plurality of the public. And the public will mostly support the fossil fuel interests if they see it as in their interest.
If you only hurt the fossil fuel interests and not everyone at large then the fossil fuel interests can be isolated and do little to harm your efforts.
What is more they could be very useful in switching over to a carbon neutral system if we switch to fuels generated from plants or other sources that draw from our atmosphere directly rather then from sequestered fossil fuels.
There's no reason to cut them out at all. They have enormous technical capability and industrial capital that can be turned to these issues.
Rather then trying to destroy people you can work towards solutions that profit everyone.
This is one of the consequences of the political groups taking over the environmental lobbies because they care more about attacking political enemies then they do about actually protecting the environment.
Oil companies don't want to hurt the environment more then anyone else. Its just a consequence of where their product comes from.
Consider that most oil companies don't own the oil fields they're tapping. They lease them and pay a fee for what they take out of the ground. As such they have very little capital sunk into the actual land itself. Their capital investment is in machinery, distribution, refining, etc. Well, that can be turned to other purposes.
Have you ever seen a deep sea oil rig? They're amazing. They have teams of men that go deep below the sea to weld pipes etc living at extreme pressures for weeks. They live in pressurized capsules that allow them eat and sleep at that pressure and then the capsules are depressurized slowly in shifts.
Its effectively a commercial space program. When you see the suits they wear the nature of their work, the conditions. It looks very much like a space operation with EVA's etc. Only its at the bottom of the sea rather then in outer space.
These remarkable industries with good people that have made very impressive technical accomplishments. Don't label them as evil and dismiss everything they've done or try to utterly annihilate their industry wholesale. That's unfair to them and a breach of our common civil duty to each other.
Is there a problem with their industry? Yes. But they're not the enemy. What would you do if they just stopped making fuel tomorrow? Your car wouldn't work. Your plane wouldn't fly. The heat in your house would go out.
Be reasonable. This is a complex issue that needs to be solved in an adult manner. Not attacked mindlessly for the petty profit of one political interest or another.
As to how I propose to get somewhere, I start by making it clear I'm not going to run roughshod over people. Part of the reason you're getting so much resistance is that people are afraid of you. They think if given a little room to work you'll just do whatever you want, screw everyone that gets in your way, consult no one, get the permission of no one, and then say it was all in the name of the greater good.
People don't like that. So there is an effort to contain you. Part of that is undermining the legitimacy of AGW itself. Think of it as a layered defense.
Now frankly, you don't seem like the sort to respect people's interests and rights in these matters. You seem to think you have the right idea and that you therefore should just go forward from here in a straight line and slap anyone that gets in your way aside like they're nothing.
And that means people going to put barriers before you.
If y
I'd generally agree. I'd also agree with your notion that many of the proposed fixes and energy around the movement is impractical.
That said, I think we can agree that in a perfect world we'd not have this CO2 emitted or have to worry about it.
We can take steps to make it better. Things that don't cost anyone much or anything but make the world a better place.
Take something like biodegradable plastic. Does that hurt anyone? Not really. You use it in places where you need something to last for a short period of time and then you want it to break down. So you employ it in say grocery bags etc. And when they're thrown away assuming they're not packed into airless/waterless landfills they'll break down harmlessly in compost.
I think I said somewhere in here we could use solar power to generate more fuels that could be used in cars as a carbon neutral fuel source. And yeah, they'd be more expensive then conventional fuels if you did it the conventional way. But maybe we can make them practical by decentralizing production. Micro sized refineries... ones so small they only produce enough fuel for maybe one or two cars could be a household appliance drinking a mixture of solar power from the roof and cheap off hours grid power. They could suck CO2 from the air and produce fuel in chemical reaction chambers.
We have the technology to do this right now.
We also have other fun things we can do like SynGas... which has been used on and off since around WW2. There are people selling machines that cost about 6000 dollars that can produce 15KW from wood pellets... and they also produce a flammable gas very much like natural gas which can be combusted in cars or used in any other task you'd find acceptable for natural gas.
All of which is carbon neutral because you're using fuel that draws its CO2 from the air. Its a closed loop. Zero net CO2.
I'm not advocating hitting people with nasty taxes or regulations. I don't think that's productive. I think that just pisses people off and makes a few politically into little tyrants that get to control everything.
Rather, I advocate win win technological changes that profit EVERYONE. Things that on balance you'll prefer because it will be cheaper or more convenient or something.
I believe we can come to common cause on the issue. But we have to respect each other's rights and interests and not push people around.
It wasn't stating that AGW is real that generated the controversy but rather the proposed solutions to it.
If you told the world "AGW is real but no one has to do anything about it" then you wouldn't be getting the blow back you're seeing now. The various factions you are dealing with are mostly undermining the validity of AGW as a proxy to attack the proposed fixes for AGW which is really what they have a problem with in the first place.
Once you understand that, you can grasp that what you really have here is a negociation between different groups. Some factions offered solutions... many of those ideas were rejected. They tried to push them anyway after they were rejected... which meant the political factions that rejected it had to prove why getting their acceptance was important or they'd have no legitimacy in that issue or other issues.
These factions you must appreciate would have no value if they were unable to get their will enforced. Who cares about republicans or democrats? who cares about labor or conservatives or liberal democrats or greens or whatever?
Well... they make you care. They must or they have no value. No reason for anyone to waste any time with them at all.
So... Lets understand that the issue of AGW itself is not really an issue of contention. Its the proposed solutions.
Are you willing to negotiate on those and arrive at win win options that are acceptable to a plurality of factions? You won't make literally everyone happy but if you can make 75 percent happy then we'll be in good standing.
If you can't do that... then you you're unfortunately going to have to struggle against their political power to get what you want. And in doing that the environmental issue will get wound up with the thousand other things those political factions are trying to do all the time and in the end your issue won't matter. It will be just one of a thousand things they bounce between while trying to get reelected. A talking point... a means to generate funding or get out the vote. Little more.
I obviously think that's a big mistake. But maybe I'm wrong and you'll overwhelm all political rivals, your politicians will be honorable, everyone will maintain political will against entrenched financial interests, and the world will be saved by your enlightened will.
I obviously don't find that very likely... but that's just my opinion.
CO2 is naturally sequestered. If we stop emitting new CO2 that will be an enormous help.
I am not saying everything will be fixed if we do that but we won't be making it any worse. All industry if we shift to that system will emit ZERO net carbon.
That's a massive win right there. And once we have that your sequestration ideas might have a point. Short of a zero carbon emission economy you would sequester far less carbon that was being emitted.
And consider that carbon not emitted is as good as carbon take out of the system in the same sense as a penny saved is a penny earned.
Attempting to reverse all the added CO2 by artificial means is probably not practical unless you want to try some of the geo engineering ideas involving sea algae. Though I've heard that would increase ocean acidity by unacceptable amounts.
So I'm not quite sure how you're going to do that.
That's not how this works. You propose your problem then you suggest a solution.
Everyone makes their own evaluation as to the relevance of the problem and the cost of your solution and then either accepts your offer or makes counter proposals.
Keep in mind that AGW is not the only problem in the world. We have wars, poverty, ignorance, starvation, other various natural disasters, crime, corruption, etc etc etc.
Which means you're playing a game of musical chairs with all those issues. Which issue will I under fund to keep your issue funded? You then have to convince people that your issue is more worth funding then something else.
Don't dismiss me as some simple rejectionist. I'm not dismissing you. I'm pointing out that its complicated and you're going to have to be patient and flexible.
If you start bulling over people, brow beating people, throwing political muscle around... well... you're going to get a reciprocal response.
Some have made it clear on this forum that that is exactly the route they want to take... just push through. And that's fine. But once you go down that road the science is meaningless to the struggle. Its merely about power at that point.
If you want this to not be about power and only about power. Then you have to not force people.
I sadly question whether many people know what that means. Everyone seems to only understand force. Its rather sad.