If they can't use broadband they will sell it as "high speed Internet" or whatever. I'm fine with them selling 4 Mbps service as long as you actually get 4 Mbps.
So what? In my country they don't use the word "broadband" at all and we couldn't care less. Also some Internet services below 25 Mbps are still worth it. In fact my corporate Internet is below that and we are doing just fine.
Unless it happens to be fossil fuel production and usage. Then we tend to pretend positive externality doesn't exist.
They might exist but the negative ones far outweight the positives.
So what? We were looking for something comprehensive that covers the whole issue and was more accurate than the Stern report and other such reports. I found one such.
We were talking about credible, peer-reviewed reports.
And if we're paying for our own externalities, shouldn't we also get compensated for our own externalities with the opposite sign?
Yes. Generally if we consider something has positive externalities we tend to subsidize it.
How about the Stern report where you take the estimated cost of global warming and divide it by ten. Then take the estimated cost of carbon dioxide emission reductions and multiply them by ten? That's a report that probably has more accurate cost/benefit analysis than the original report.
Oh really. Now you are taking numbers out of your ass. If you think you are right, publish it. I am sure your methodology will be laugh at.
Yes, don't use the service that all your friends are on. That's just silly.
These friends don't have a phone number or an email address? If so, I agree, whatsapp is proably the only protocol to reach them. To bad there aren't any open ones available.
What's your willingness to pay out of your own wealth to protect these things? That tells me exactly how valuable these things are. And that's how you transform any preference into a purely economic question.
It's more complex than that. Of course your willingness to pay for them will be $0. And let say they are willing to reduce their CO2 emission to close to 0 because they don't want their country to disappear. It won't be enough. Their sea level will still rise because of you. Does it mean they should pay the cost (losing their island) because you emit CO2? Seems unfair to me. You should pay for your own negative externalities, and not push them to other people or other generations.
Here's a propaganda lesson for you. These are first past the post arguments from authority. Just because they existed before most counterarguments were formulated. doesn't mean that they were the best arguments even at the time of their creation. For example, the Stern report's flawed time value factor was readily apparent, meaning that reinterpreting the study through a more appropriate time value is already at the time of the publishing of the Stern report, is already better than the Stern report was.
Alright, where can I read these reports? I want something comprehensive that covers the whole issue. So don't give me a source that covers only a specific country/region or a specific consequence.
Of course. And the evidence shows that global warming is happening, and that human activity is responsible.
And economics is a science, should we choose to treat it as such.
We do. But how much do we value a pacific island nation that would disappear because of climate change? I mean not only the land but its people and culture. How much do we value species that would go extinct? That's not an answer for economists, it's a moral/political one. You can't answer that with science. Therefore you will never have scientific evidence that we should invest X$ to fight climate change, just like you will never have scientific evidence of the opposite. And this is not a valid reason for not doing anything. So the best we have are reports such as the Stern, Garnaut, and IPCC reports. They all conclude we should lower our emissions.
I think there's a better chance of a good outcome waiting on a demonstration of the supposed dire nature of global warming. Keep in mind that there's plenty of evidence indicating that the effects of global warming are long in coming, slow to occur, and moderate in effect.
Of course a rise of 2 Celsius might seem a "moderate" effect but the consequences aren't.
It is near trivial for a human civilization to adapt under those circumstances. I don't see the compelling reason to act that a significant, likely asteroid impact would have.
There you go. You didn't understand the whole point. Global warming has never been about the death of the human civilization. No wonder why you think we shouldn't do anything. Of course we would adapt. All those who pretended otherwise are alarmists without any clue about the real issue. But the real problem is that the costs of not doing anything are higher than acting.
Documentation != evidence. The fallacy of argument through obfuscation is just as much a fallacy as anything else.
There is no evidence in politics. And economics is a social science. Don't expect the same kind of evidence as in physics or biology.
So what?
So waiting to be 100% sure that global warming is happening can mean it will be too late (more expensive), and is just as stupid as waiting to be 100% sure the comet will it the earth.
The problem of developed countries is that they didn't have the means to measure their emissions. That's why the deal in the Kyoto protocol included that developing countries started to measure their emissions, while developed countries started to reduce them. Phase 2 was supposed to be about developing countries reducing emissions too, but developed countries such as US and Canada broke the deal by not reducing their emissions at all.
Not on the same scale. Most Android/iOS apps still work on tablets from 3-4 years ago. Apps developped next year (Windows 10) likely won't run on Windows RT devices sold this year. Just like WP7 apps didn't run on WinMo devices sold the day before.
Android provides incremental updates. Microsoft tend to break the compatibility either completely (like from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7) or mostly (like from Windows Phone 7 to 8, and now 8 to 10).
Android updates are comparable to updates from WP7 to 7.5 to 7.8 or 8 to 8.1
It's worse than that. We can bet no one will develop for Win RT and everyone will target Windows 10 instead. It's worst than Android/iPad tablets not being updated because most Android applications are compatible with devices as far as version 2.2/2.3 or 4.0 in the worst case and the same goes for iOS.
Unless, it has a negative effect on air quality and city air quality turns out to be worse. The big problem with global warming remedies, is that they can increase global poverty. That tends to increase not decrease pollution.
If we realize we were wrong it's easy to start emitting a lot of CO2 again. If we were right, and did nothing, it will be a lot more expensive.
And I disagree that things like the Stern Report are more within our current knowledge than the skepticism about these reports.
The problem is that skepticism is not as seriously documented. Most simply deny global warming is happening, or that human activity has something to do with it (which is against the scientific consensus, we are no longer talking about economics and politics here). Where are the reports acknoleging AGW is happening, but that the costs of doing nothing is lower than the cost of acting against it? I haven't seen any.
Sure, it is. As Earth shifts to higher temperatures, the amount of heat radiated to space increases as well.
With a given constant amount of CO2 emitted, do you agree that the temperature will be higher without polar ice than with polar ice? Water absorbs more heat than ice. Ice reflects more heat than ice. The fact that the hotter is the planet, the more heat radiate to space doesn't change that.
It's not a basic spec, it requires a "dual mode" DP chipset: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
Most do. However it makes them more expensive than HDMI.
The rest of the world just isn't interested aside from relatively susceptible outliers like Bangladesh or the Micronesia countries.
The rest of the world is interested, as long as the developped world, who contributed the most to global warming, lead the way. I think that's fair. But countries like US and Canada are so bad a reducing emissions that I understand the rest of the world don't want to do anything.
At least I can connect to hangout using a 3rd party XMPP client. So it's a start, even if it's missing most advanced features.
Also it's not limited to a single hardware vendor.
As I said, we suppose we are 90% confident that this will happen. The OP said that we should never act before the science is settled. So in this case, applying this logic, we shouldn't do anything and hope for that 10%.
The Stern report in question overestimates future damage from global warming due to overly low time value (of money and other things) by using an artificially low economic growth rate value in place of the actual inflation-adjusted GDP growth (or similar measures of growth of economic value). For example, the cost of harms a century in advance were overstated by a factor of two.
There are criticisms about this report. But where is the report saying that global warming is happening, but that doing nothing will end up being cheaper than acting? There is none.
Politics can never be 100% evidence based. See my example about the comet. We have to act according to what is the most likely with our current knowledge.
Even if global warming was a hoax. Let say we reduce our CO2 emissions by 10%.
City air quality will end up being cleaner.
And heat radiates into space as the fourth power of temperature. There's your global warming negative feedback.
It's not enough. It's an equilibrium. If more ice melts, the earth temperature equilibrium shift to higher temperature.
Of course radiation to space means that that positive feedback won't last forever. And anyway if all the ice melts the positive feedback will stop.
It's not about giving money to anyone. It's about reducing fossil fuel consumption. An effective way to achieve this is to tax fossil fuels. It doesn't matter where the money goes, it could even be burned, and it would still discourage people from buying it.
Where's the analysis of the relative costs and benefits of acting and not acting?
There have been many, including the Stern Report. But at this point this is economics/politics, not climate science. Because to answer that question, we must answer questions such as what is the "worth" of a Pacific island nation. Assuming that this worth is > 0, then we should invest a non-zero amount of dollars into avoiding/mitigating/adapting to climate change.
Not acting has substantial benefits with respect to dealing with future global warming
How so?
Global warming has a positive feedback. Warming melts polar ice, which in turns means less ice reflect solar heat into space, which means more warming of the earth.
while acting has both substantial present day harm and not very impressive future benefits even if global warming is as bad as claimed.
Reports indicate that the earlier we start acting, the less costly it will be for mankind.
Global warming isn't about the end of life on earth. It's about being poorer, globally. We will be poorer in 100 years if we do nothing, because warming will have a significant cost.
I guess you can. Just like you can install bash on Windows (using cygwin). But not with the default install. You have to get mac-ports or some other obscure repository. Most people don't seem to bother getting it.
With Linux, it "just works".
Slashdot Mirror
If they can't use broadband they will sell it as "high speed Internet" or whatever. I'm fine with them selling 4 Mbps service as long as you actually get 4 Mbps.
So what? In my country they don't use the word "broadband" at all and we couldn't care less. Also some Internet services below 25 Mbps are still worth it. In fact my corporate Internet is below that and we are doing just fine.
Can someone explain why you need a "broadband" definition exactly? And who cares if that 4 Mbps services doesn't meet that definition?
Unless it happens to be fossil fuel production and usage. Then we tend to pretend positive externality doesn't exist.
They might exist but the negative ones far outweight the positives.
So what? We were looking for something comprehensive that covers the whole issue and was more accurate than the Stern report and other such reports. I found one such.
We were talking about credible, peer-reviewed reports.
And if we're paying for our own externalities, shouldn't we also get compensated for our own externalities with the opposite sign?
Yes. Generally if we consider something has positive externalities we tend to subsidize it.
How about the Stern report where you take the estimated cost of global warming and divide it by ten. Then take the estimated cost of carbon dioxide emission reductions and multiply them by ten? That's a report that probably has more accurate cost/benefit analysis than the original report.
Oh really. Now you are taking numbers out of your ass. If you think you are right, publish it. I am sure your methodology will be laugh at.
If start with "If they were really my friends they wouldn't do X" you end with no friends.
Yeah, that's why I am currently jumping off the bridge to follow my friends.
Yes, don't use the service that all your friends are on. That's just silly.
These friends don't have a phone number or an email address? If so, I agree, whatsapp is proably the only protocol to reach them. To bad there aren't any open ones available.
What's your willingness to pay out of your own wealth to protect these things? That tells me exactly how valuable these things are. And that's how you transform any preference into a purely economic question.
It's more complex than that. Of course your willingness to pay for them will be $0. And let say they are willing to reduce their CO2 emission to close to 0 because they don't want their country to disappear. It won't be enough. Their sea level will still rise because of you. Does it mean they should pay the cost (losing their island) because you emit CO2? Seems unfair to me. You should pay for your own negative externalities, and not push them to other people or other generations.
Here's a propaganda lesson for you. These are first past the post arguments from authority. Just because they existed before most counterarguments were formulated. doesn't mean that they were the best arguments even at the time of their creation. For example, the Stern report's flawed time value factor was readily apparent, meaning that reinterpreting the study through a more appropriate time value is already at the time of the publishing of the Stern report, is already better than the Stern report was.
Alright, where can I read these reports? I want something comprehensive that covers the whole issue. So don't give me a source that covers only a specific country/region or a specific consequence.
There is evidence in climatology.
Of course. And the evidence shows that global warming is happening, and that human activity is responsible.
And economics is a science, should we choose to treat it as such.
We do. But how much do we value a pacific island nation that would disappear because of climate change? I mean not only the land but its people and culture. How much do we value species that would go extinct? That's not an answer for economists, it's a moral/political one. You can't answer that with science. Therefore you will never have scientific evidence that we should invest X$ to fight climate change, just like you will never have scientific evidence of the opposite. And this is not a valid reason for not doing anything.
So the best we have are reports such as the Stern, Garnaut, and IPCC reports. They all conclude we should lower our emissions.
I think there's a better chance of a good outcome waiting on a demonstration of the supposed dire nature of global warming. Keep in mind that there's plenty of evidence indicating that the effects of global warming are long in coming, slow to occur, and moderate in effect.
Of course a rise of 2 Celsius might seem a "moderate" effect but the consequences aren't.
It is near trivial for a human civilization to adapt under those circumstances. I don't see the compelling reason to act that a significant, likely asteroid impact would have.
There you go. You didn't understand the whole point. Global warming has never been about the death of the human civilization. No wonder why you think we shouldn't do anything. Of course we would adapt. All those who pretended otherwise are alarmists without any clue about the real issue. But the real problem is that the costs of not doing anything are higher than acting.
Documentation != evidence. The fallacy of argument through obfuscation is just as much a fallacy as anything else.
There is no evidence in politics. And economics is a social science. Don't expect the same kind of evidence as in physics or biology.
So what?
So waiting to be 100% sure that global warming is happening can mean it will be too late (more expensive), and is just as stupid as waiting to be 100% sure the comet will it the earth.
The problem of developed countries is that they didn't have the means to measure their emissions. That's why the deal in the Kyoto protocol included that developing countries started to measure their emissions, while developed countries started to reduce them. Phase 2 was supposed to be about developing countries reducing emissions too, but developed countries such as US and Canada broke the deal by not reducing their emissions at all.
No, as long as the developed world does more. And that's fair, by looking at the per-capita emissions we know who should do the most effort.
Not on the same scale. Most Android/iOS apps still work on tablets from 3-4 years ago. Apps developped next year (Windows 10) likely won't run on Windows RT devices sold this year. Just like WP7 apps didn't run on WinMo devices sold the day before.
Android provides incremental updates. Microsoft tend to break the compatibility either completely (like from Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7) or mostly (like from Windows Phone 7 to 8, and now 8 to 10). Android updates are comparable to updates from WP7 to 7.5 to 7.8 or 8 to 8.1
It's worse than that. We can bet no one will develop for Win RT and everyone will target Windows 10 instead. It's worst than Android/iPad tablets not being updated because most Android applications are compatible with devices as far as version 2.2/2.3 or 4.0 in the worst case and the same goes for iOS.
Unless, it has a negative effect on air quality and city air quality turns out to be worse. The big problem with global warming remedies, is that they can increase global poverty. That tends to increase not decrease pollution.
If we realize we were wrong it's easy to start emitting a lot of CO2 again. If we were right, and did nothing, it will be a lot more expensive.
And I disagree that things like the Stern Report are more within our current knowledge than the skepticism about these reports.
The problem is that skepticism is not as seriously documented. Most simply deny global warming is happening, or that human activity has something to do with it (which is against the scientific consensus, we are no longer talking about economics and politics here). Where are the reports acknoleging AGW is happening, but that the costs of doing nothing is lower than the cost of acting against it? I haven't seen any.
Sure, it is. As Earth shifts to higher temperatures, the amount of heat radiated to space increases as well.
With a given constant amount of CO2 emitted, do you agree that the temperature will be higher without polar ice than with polar ice? Water absorbs more heat than ice. Ice reflects more heat than ice. The fact that the hotter is the planet, the more heat radiate to space doesn't change that.
It's not a basic spec, it requires a "dual mode" DP chipset: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... Most do. However it makes them more expensive than HDMI.
The rest of the world just isn't interested aside from relatively susceptible outliers like Bangladesh or the Micronesia countries.
The rest of the world is interested, as long as the developped world, who contributed the most to global warming, lead the way. I think that's fair. But countries like US and Canada are so bad a reducing emissions that I understand the rest of the world don't want to do anything.
To a point. But it's not as widespread as say, email and phone, fortunately.
At least I can connect to hangout using a 3rd party XMPP client. So it's a start, even if it's missing most advanced features. Also it's not limited to a single hardware vendor.
Big enough to kill thousands of people.
Unless, of course, it's not that big.
As I said, we suppose we are 90% confident that this will happen. The OP said that we should never act before the science is settled. So in this case, applying this logic, we shouldn't do anything and hope for that 10%.
The Stern report in question overestimates future damage from global warming due to overly low time value (of money and other things) by using an artificially low economic growth rate value in place of the actual inflation-adjusted GDP growth (or similar measures of growth of economic value). For example, the cost of harms a century in advance were overstated by a factor of two.
There are criticisms about this report. But where is the report saying that global warming is happening, but that doing nothing will end up being cheaper than acting? There is none. Politics can never be 100% evidence based. See my example about the comet. We have to act according to what is the most likely with our current knowledge. Even if global warming was a hoax. Let say we reduce our CO2 emissions by 10%. City air quality will end up being cleaner.
And heat radiates into space as the fourth power of temperature. There's your global warming negative feedback.
It's not enough. It's an equilibrium. If more ice melts, the earth temperature equilibrium shift to higher temperature. Of course radiation to space means that that positive feedback won't last forever. And anyway if all the ice melts the positive feedback will stop.
It's not about giving money to anyone. It's about reducing fossil fuel consumption. An effective way to achieve this is to tax fossil fuels. It doesn't matter where the money goes, it could even be burned, and it would still discourage people from buying it.
How big is this comet?
Big enough to kill thousands of people.
Where's the analysis of the relative costs and benefits of acting and not acting?
There have been many, including the Stern Report. But at this point this is economics/politics, not climate science. Because to answer that question, we must answer questions such as what is the "worth" of a Pacific island nation. Assuming that this worth is > 0, then we should invest a non-zero amount of dollars into avoiding/mitigating/adapting to climate change.
Not acting has substantial benefits with respect to dealing with future global warming
How so? Global warming has a positive feedback. Warming melts polar ice, which in turns means less ice reflect solar heat into space, which means more warming of the earth.
while acting has both substantial present day harm and not very impressive future benefits even if global warming is as bad as claimed.
Reports indicate that the earlier we start acting, the less costly it will be for mankind. Global warming isn't about the end of life on earth. It's about being poorer, globally. We will be poorer in 100 years if we do nothing, because warming will have a significant cost.
I guess you can. Just like you can install bash on Windows (using cygwin). But not with the default install. You have to get mac-ports or some other obscure repository. Most people don't seem to bother getting it. With Linux, it "just works".
I agree nobody wants it. Which reveals even more of Blackberry's problems.