There could be a systematic bias where male physicians are not listening to female patients' complaints as readily as [those of] a man,
How about:
(1) male physicians are bigger risk takers and take on harder cases
(2) male physicians are taking a longer view picture and don't waste resources on patients that may not die in the emergency room but will die within a few days
(3) male physicians do, in fact, listen more to their patients, about 20% of whom have do not resuscitate orders, and more who may express a verbal preference against extraordinary measures or a life with severe mental disability
(4) there are differences in reporting between male and female physicians
Or you have a society that values membership of that society, and copes quite well with high income earners paying a greater portion of their income as tax than the low (or no) taxed poor.
The top marginal tax rate in Australia is substantially lower than in the US,
the USA's model of tax cuts for the rich
Since the poor don't pay taxes in the US at all, you can't cut "taxes on the poor". The fact that all tax cuts in the US are necessarily "tax cuts for the rich" shows you how favorable the US tax system is already for the poor.
So, when you're saying that the US should become more like Australia, I agree: the US should cut taxes on high income earners to Australian levels, lower government spending as percentage of GDP to Australian levels, lower public welfare and healthcare spending to Australian levels, and adopt more laissez faire economic policies like Australia.
Actually, the upshot is that we are still outsourcing much of our pollution to China, and it's more every year.
We do that too. But that is unrelated to the fact that it doesn't make sense to set carbon emission targets based on per capita targets. And not only doesn't it make sense, it is counterproductive for the goal you actually want to achieve, reduce carbon emissions.
There is zero evidence for this, and it's trivially easy to provide a counterexample: a beer brewed with coal power vs a beer brewed with solar power. Apply the same concept to any item that uses energy in its manufacture... I'm sure you can come up with a few.
How is that a counterexample? Many breweries already use solar power where it makes economic sense and they use similar energy saving technologies to keep energy costs down. If you impose an additional carbon tax, they will use more solar power, but they will also pass on the tax on to consumers, to about the same degree.
Or should we maybe consider the rate of extinction, which shows us in the running for the very worst event ever?
We certainly should consider the rate of extinction. Now what do we see? Let's use your numbers for the sake of argument: 7% anthropogenic species loss which you reason if continued for "a thousand years" would amount to a mass extinction. But if that's your argument, then anthropogenic climate change is neither the past nor future cause of extinctions: these extinctions started long before anthropogenic climate change, and, in any case, anthropogenic climate change will cease within the next few decades one way or another.
And in fact, anthropogenic extinctions are overwhelmingly due to factors other than climate change, namely habitat destruction, agriculture, invasive species, pollution, etc. And the solutions for those problems are often the opposite of what people advocate for preventing climate change. That is, if you want less habitat destruction, more environmentally sensitive agriculture, less rain forest destruction, fewer invasive species, and less pollution (other than CO2 emissions), you generally need more economic development and more carbon emissions.
So, by all means, do consider the rate of species loss and think about what to do about it, instead of using a serious concern (extinctions) as a justification for your pet policies.
German manufacturers have moved a lot of carbon intensive and environmentally harmful production to other countries (including, ironically, solar cells). Similarly for energy generation.
The whole industrial sector in the USA is only 20% of the total, so it doesn't obviously explain the high per capita emissions in the USA
The primary cause of the higher per capita carbon emissions is simply the higher per capita GDP of the US. We're just talking about secondary effects now, and they are related to the size of different sectors in the economy, import/export, climate, transportation, population, etc. The point is not that one country is more virtuous than the other, the point is that these are things you can't easily change.
Europe hasn't been 90% forested since early neolithic times.
And it declined moderately until about AD 1000, and then much more rapidly. So what's your point? Why shouldn't we set the European baseline at the "natural state" of the continent, pre-civilization? What later point in time do you want to pick off as a baseline and why?
Well, if the population doubled, and emissions per capita in China fell by 60% it would mean lower total emissions, so yes, it would be better for the world.
Good, you are doing the math. But I'm sorry, I made a typo, so now try this case:
So you're saying that if China doubled its population and its per capita CO2 consumption fell by 40%, that would be an improvement for the world?
The wealth of a nation correlates very strongly and super-linearly with both the per capita energy consumption and the per capita carbon emissions (r > 0.7). So what you're saying is "keep Africa desperately poor in order to offset European carbon emissions". I doubt Africans are going to go for that.
In fact, what millions of Africans are actually doing is walking into Europe, where they instantly turn from low per capita carbon emitters to high per capita carbon emitters, something that Europeans seem to actually encourage.
They are a "large part" of both, but at the same time, they composition of European and American economies is different, which means that they have different abilities and motivations to export carbon production. And that's why you can't just look at per capita or even per $GDP carbon emissions when you compare countries to see how much impact they have on global carbon emissions.
The upper management types also have a lot more sociopaths, why don't we figure out a way to teach that in the universities as well?!?
Why do you think there are so many humanities majors in management, as the study finds? It's because we already have figured out a way to teach sociopathy at university; it's what modern humanities departments do when they teach Marx, Derrida, and Alinsky.
Why the funk would a german car maker move production into (non existing) third world countries?
If Germany imposes high carbon taxes, production of carbon intensive products will move to countries that don't impose such taxes.
You can chose if you buy a car that costs $10,000 more because of its high cost in CO2, or buy the other car
Yes, and that other car will actually be worth $10000 less to me, which means that I am in effect, $10000 poorer than I would have been without the carbon tax.
So, the upshot is: you recognize that different countries produce different mixes of goods and services, and that therefore the nominal carbon footprint of countries differs from their actual carbon footprint.
If that continues for a thousand years (a geological eyeblink),
If it continues for a thousand years, then it obviously cannot be due to carbon emissions because those will come to an end within a few decades and at around 1000 ppm CO2 no matter what.
That's similar to saying that there have been many asteroid strikes and volcanic eruptions that didn't cause extinction. While technically true, it's completely misleading - large enough asteroid strikes and periods of massive volcanic activity HAVE caused extreme extinction events
Well, some asteroid strikes and volcanic eruptions may cause mass extinctions and do cannot. We can figure which do and which don't by looking at Earth's history. And we can do the same for the climate. When we do, we find that a warming of 4-5C over current conditions does not cause a mass extinction.
The vast majority of our consumer goods are produced overseas, which seems like exactly the kind of "exportation of carbon emissions" you refer to.
It is. But consumer goods are a smaller part of our economy than of many other Western economies, while agriculture and services are relatively bigger.
Some products use more carbon than others. High-carbon products will be more expensive than low-carbon products (to a greater extent than they already are) if a carbon tax is instituted.
A bamboo chair is a low-carbon product compared to a Macbook Pro. If you slap a 30% carbon tax on the Macbook Pro, I can certainly substitute the bamboo chair, but that doesn't help me if I actually need a Macbook Pro. Within each category of products that can be substituted for each other, products generally already emit the minimum amount of carbon needed to produce a product in that category.
"more than 10-20 years" that would seem the case for all economies, even "advanced" ones especially when you have an administration trying to get coal usage back on the up.
Correct. Which is why the article's statement that "what we do in the next 10-20 years will determine whether our planet remains hospitable to human life or slides down an irreversible path" is such bullshit.
"Those countries could switch completely to renewables for energy generation and they still would be far from carbon neutral." - you'll have to explain that sweeping statement
A significant percentage of carbon emissions come from sources other than energy generation, like agriculture and construction. Switching to renewables doesn't reduce those.
Emissions related to GDP is completely asinine when the topic is reducing climate change. "It's okay if we put ten times as much CO2 into the atmosphere because we made a SHIT TON of money doing it" is not a valid line of reasoning.
Yes, it is an entirely valid line of reasoning because the amount of money we make from producing something tells us how valuable it is to society. If you burn a barrel of oil for heating your private swimming pool (zero revenue) and I burn a barrel of oil to make some life saving medicine (expensive), then the use I put the oil to is much more valuable to society than the use you put it to.
If a country of 10 million is producing as much CO2 as a county of 100 million then clearly this is meaningful and worth trying to do something about it.
Your assumption is that the world owes you crap simply for existing; it does not.
Not only is it an option, but it's actually an option we're already using. Practically everything is imported from China, except cars and other heavy equipment.
That's absolutely not true. US manufacturing is bigger than ever before. What we import from China is consumer goods.
I didn't mention retirement plans, but we spend more on medicare per capita than other countries because we only cover old people
No, you don't understand. I'm not talking about the absurd amount of $11000/enrollee that Medicare/Medicaid spends. I'm saying that Medicare/Medicaid costs about $1.1 trillion per year, or about $3000 per American per year. That is, the US could cover every American in a single payer health system to the same level as the UK or Japan with just the existing Medicare/Medicaid budget. And we can do that with half the population effectively paying no income taxes at all. That's how rich the US is.
Working poor need healthcare too, and my point was that it would benefit the economy as opposed to "make everyone poorer in the long run".
You're making a bunch of assumptions there: (1) there is a large number of people who can't get healthcare, (2) that spending more on healthcare makes people healthier, and that (3) making people healthier is good for the economy. None of those assumptions are true.
Slashdot Mirror
oh, and perhaps the most important one (related to 1):
(5) male and female physicians choose different work environments and see different patient populations
How about:
(1) male physicians are bigger risk takers and take on harder cases
(2) male physicians are taking a longer view picture and don't waste resources on patients that may not die in the emergency room but will die within a few days
(3) male physicians do, in fact, listen more to their patients, about 20% of whom have do not resuscitate orders, and more who may express a verbal preference against extraordinary measures or a life with severe mental disability
(4) there are differences in reporting between male and female physicians
The top marginal tax rate in Australia is substantially lower than in the US,
Since the poor don't pay taxes in the US at all, you can't cut "taxes on the poor". The fact that all tax cuts in the US are necessarily "tax cuts for the rich" shows you how favorable the US tax system is already for the poor.
So, when you're saying that the US should become more like Australia, I agree: the US should cut taxes on high income earners to Australian levels, lower government spending as percentage of GDP to Australian levels, lower public welfare and healthcare spending to Australian levels, and adopt more laissez faire economic policies like Australia.
We do that too. But that is unrelated to the fact that it doesn't make sense to set carbon emission targets based on per capita targets. And not only doesn't it make sense, it is counterproductive for the goal you actually want to achieve, reduce carbon emissions.
How is that a counterexample? Many breweries already use solar power where it makes economic sense and they use similar energy saving technologies to keep energy costs down. If you impose an additional carbon tax, they will use more solar power, but they will also pass on the tax on to consumers, to about the same degree.
We certainly should consider the rate of extinction. Now what do we see? Let's use your numbers for the sake of argument: 7% anthropogenic species loss which you reason if continued for "a thousand years" would amount to a mass extinction. But if that's your argument, then anthropogenic climate change is neither the past nor future cause of extinctions: these extinctions started long before anthropogenic climate change, and, in any case, anthropogenic climate change will cease within the next few decades one way or another.
And in fact, anthropogenic extinctions are overwhelmingly due to factors other than climate change, namely habitat destruction, agriculture, invasive species, pollution, etc. And the solutions for those problems are often the opposite of what people advocate for preventing climate change. That is, if you want less habitat destruction, more environmentally sensitive agriculture, less rain forest destruction, fewer invasive species, and less pollution (other than CO2 emissions), you generally need more economic development and more carbon emissions.
So, by all means, do consider the rate of species loss and think about what to do about it, instead of using a serious concern (extinctions) as a justification for your pet policies.
German manufacturers have moved a lot of carbon intensive and environmentally harmful production to other countries (including, ironically, solar cells). Similarly for energy generation.
The primary cause of the higher per capita carbon emissions is simply the higher per capita GDP of the US. We're just talking about secondary effects now, and they are related to the size of different sectors in the economy, import/export, climate, transportation, population, etc. The point is not that one country is more virtuous than the other, the point is that these are things you can't easily change.
And it declined moderately until about AD 1000, and then much more rapidly. So what's your point? Why shouldn't we set the European baseline at the "natural state" of the continent, pre-civilization? What later point in time do you want to pick off as a baseline and why?
Good, you are doing the math. But I'm sorry, I made a typo, so now try this case:
So you're saying that if China doubled its population and its per capita CO2 consumption fell by 40%, that would be an improvement for the world?
The wealth of a nation correlates very strongly and super-linearly with both the per capita energy consumption and the per capita carbon emissions (r > 0.7). So what you're saying is "keep Africa desperately poor in order to offset European carbon emissions". I doubt Africans are going to go for that.
In fact, what millions of Africans are actually doing is walking into Europe, where they instantly turn from low per capita carbon emitters to high per capita carbon emitters, something that Europeans seem to actually encourage.
They are a "large part" of both, but at the same time, they composition of European and American economies is different, which means that they have different abilities and motivations to export carbon production. And that's why you can't just look at per capita or even per $GDP carbon emissions when you compare countries to see how much impact they have on global carbon emissions.
Now, do you have a point?
You're the gift that keeps on giving: a veritable caricature of the modern European intellectual. Thanks.
Why do you think there are so many humanities majors in management, as the study finds? It's because we already have figured out a way to teach sociopathy at university; it's what modern humanities departments do when they teach Marx, Derrida, and Alinsky.
If Germany imposes high carbon taxes, production of carbon intensive products will move to countries that don't impose such taxes.
Yes, and that other car will actually be worth $10000 less to me, which means that I am in effect, $10000 poorer than I would have been without the carbon tax.
On this world.
So, the upshot is: you recognize that different countries produce different mixes of goods and services, and that therefore the nominal carbon footprint of countries differs from their actual carbon footprint.
I take it from your lack of factual responses that the citations I gave back up all the claims I made to your satisfaction. You're welcome.
So, not a mass extinction.
If it continues for a thousand years, then it obviously cannot be due to carbon emissions because those will come to an end within a few decades and at around 1000 ppm CO2 no matter what.
Well, some asteroid strikes and volcanic eruptions may cause mass extinctions and do cannot. We can figure which do and which don't by looking at Earth's history. And we can do the same for the climate. When we do, we find that a warming of 4-5C over current conditions does not cause a mass extinction.
It is. But consumer goods are a smaller part of our economy than of many other Western economies, while agriculture and services are relatively bigger.
A bamboo chair is a low-carbon product compared to a Macbook Pro. If you slap a 30% carbon tax on the Macbook Pro, I can certainly substitute the bamboo chair, but that doesn't help me if I actually need a Macbook Pro. Within each category of products that can be substituted for each other, products generally already emit the minimum amount of carbon needed to produce a product in that category.
Correct. Which is why the article's statement that "what we do in the next 10-20 years will determine whether our planet remains hospitable to human life or slides down an irreversible path" is such bullshit.
A significant percentage of carbon emissions come from sources other than energy generation, like agriculture and construction. Switching to renewables doesn't reduce those.
Yes, it is an entirely valid line of reasoning because the amount of money we make from producing something tells us how valuable it is to society. If you burn a barrel of oil for heating your private swimming pool (zero revenue) and I burn a barrel of oil to make some life saving medicine (expensive), then the use I put the oil to is much more valuable to society than the use you put it to.
Your assumption is that the world owes you crap simply for existing; it does not.
That's absolutely not true. US manufacturing is bigger than ever before. What we import from China is consumer goods.
No, you don't understand. I'm not talking about the absurd amount of $11000/enrollee that Medicare/Medicaid spends. I'm saying that Medicare/Medicaid costs about $1.1 trillion per year, or about $3000 per American per year. That is, the US could cover every American in a single payer health system to the same level as the UK or Japan with just the existing Medicare/Medicaid budget. And we can do that with half the population effectively paying no income taxes at all. That's how rich the US is.
You're making a bunch of assumptions there: (1) there is a large number of people who can't get healthcare, (2) that spending more on healthcare makes people healthier, and that (3) making people healthier is good for the economy. None of those assumptions are true.