Like when the Republicans impeached Clinton over a blowjob, just to interfere with his control of the country, and the economy started folding.
If you'd read the Articles of Impeachment, Clinton was impeached for Lying to a Grand Jury (if I had lied to a Grand Jury at the same time as he did, I'd still be in jail, fwiw).
Also, the President has much LESS "control of the country" than you seem to believe - the economy folding had little, if anything, to do with the impeachment, and much more to do with the fact that people suddenly realized that they had invested a great deal of money in companies with no profits, and no prospect of making a profit in the near future (I wish I were unscrupulous enough to have taken advantage of the dotCom boom - I'd be retired now, and all I'd have had to do is come up with something to sell on the Net, below cost, but made up for with high volume)
The dotCom boom/bust was fascinating to watch - so much like 1929. But it wasn't Clinton who caused the boom, nor was it Clinton's fault it went bust.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding about taxation - you believe that taxation and services are related in some way.
They're not. Taxes are all about revenue. Where the revenue goes is a completely separate issue. Tax revenues and expenditures are often tied together to make the taxes more palatable (i.e. Casino taxes in LA are to be spent on the education system), but money is fungible - it all looks the same in the end (LA's casino taxes do, indeed, go to fund the schools. And yet, the schools have no more money than before the casinos - the amount of the casino revenues was removed from the general funding for the schools to fund some other part of the government).
It is irrelevant to tie the tax base to the government expenditure in any way other than to make the new tax acceptable to the voters. So, you can, indeed, tax a computer based on what it "could do" - as long as the taxpayers don't defeat the purpose of the tax by buying fewer computers.
At any rate, I envision small independent balloon-like collectors floating in the water that wouldn't be effected much by wind or waves
So, a not-so-little chemical factory in each one of these things, to make your hydrocarbons. Assuming that by "small" you mean one square Km each, then you need a couple million of these things. Each of which must be visited periodically to harvest the results, perform routine maintenance, that sort of thing. Presumably raw materials are water and air, so you shouldn't need much in that vein.
A million object larger than the largest ship/platform built to date, and a million new chemical factories will run the costs rather higher than my original guesstimate of $20 trillion, I imagine.
I expect that finding a few million people willing to spend their time alone on one of these things performing maintenance will be tricky. And the transport required to give them time off is non-trivial as well. Add that to the cost.
Or when you said "small", did you mean "larger than 1 square Km? That's not exactly small (1 Km^2 isn't small either - the farm my father grew up on was smaller than that). I expect that maintenance of your balloons would scale more or less with surface area, so there's not much to save there, really.
You are also assuming that hurricanes are the only big storms out there - they're not - just the most visible to the layman.
That said, it's an interesting idea. MUCH bigger than you think it is, I think, and much more difficult to make practical. But interesting, nonetheless.
*Sigh* You're about the third person who didn't read closely enough to see that I was talking about putting the collectors ON THE OCEANS.
I saw your intended location. Remember Hurricane Ivan? I have a hard time forgetting, as some of the buildings I can see from here still don't have their roofs repaired. Hint: tropical waters have hurricanes running over them pretty regularly. And the hurricanes destroy things.
Of course, we could put them on northern or southern oceans, out of the paths of hurricanes (I recall being in a hurricane once in Connecticut many years back, so that pretty much means arctic waters - not an ideal choice, if you've never lived through a north Atlantic (or Pacific) winter storm. Course the efficiency goes down there a mite...
But you're only the first person to not understand why I included a 1% overall system efficiency ratio which accounts for all of those losses.
Interestingly, your 1% overall efficiency was very similar to their panel efficiency for small solar panels - 120W per 14'x10' is about 0.7% efficient conversion of 1400W/m^2. So it is unlikely that you're going to get ALL losses covered by making such an assumption. Unless you also assume that they increase the performance of the cells by a factor or 20 or so.
It doesn't need to be a single large project, but a bunch of smaller scale individual operations. Current agricultural activities add up to a much larger overall area, and in the US, all of this is managed by ~1% of the population.
Of course, the agricultural community didn't have to build the land they work. This is a lot more comparable to the highway system than the agricultural system - and the Interstate system is on the order of 1000 square miles - 0.1% or less of the operation you want to undertake on water.
It's not necessarily an insurmountable challenge.
Of course it's not insurmountable. It is, however, not a trivial task to be undertaken as a matter of routine. If this could be built for $1000 per KW, a rough guesstimate of cost is $20 trillion. Not counting the support infrastructure, like wires to carry it to where it is being used, and the machinery to replace the swath cut by a major hurricane quickly.
Sure, we can make one just for the USA - just pick out some piece of ocean noone is using (ever looked at a chart of the shipping lanes, to find out just where you find such a place?) and set up a system about 1/4 that size. Of course, unpleasant strangers might look at those trillions of dollars worth of unprotected panels, and decide to help themselves....
you end up needing a total collector area about the size of Alaska
Let's see, the land area of Alaska is over twice that of France. Actually, Alaska is a bit larger than France, Spain, and the UK combined.
So, we're talking about covering western Europe with solar cells. Or taking the land away from someone else - that's always a good choice, right?
Now, this ignores the fact that the specified land area requires sunlight 24-7. Which it won't get. As a minimum, you have to double that.
It also ignores conversion losses (DC-AC, for long-range transmission), and transmission losses (which would be significant). So double it again.
By now, we're paving most of Europe, or say, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada...basically the southern half of CONUS.
In other words, it's not going to be a small area.
Not big compared to the size of the Earth is all well and good, but you're talking about four orders of magnitude bigger than any other engineering project in history....
And of course that was written back when you had a war your soldiers brought their own guns.
Umm, no.
While it is true that the Militia Act (the one that defines the Militia as every white male from 18-45 as a member of the Militia (except certain government officials) required Militia members as required to own their own firearms, during the period in question, few personal firearms were considered adequate for military use.
For instance, most rifles were considered too flimsy for military use, and too slow to load, thus the near universal use of smoothbore muskets in Armies of the day. Real Armies provided guns for the soldiers in much the way they do now. Even our Continental Army....
Fact is, the Continental Army used muskets bought from the French mostly. The militias used whatever hodge-podge they happened to own, of course.
But the Revolution wasn't won by the militias, in spite of their accomplishments (Fort Ticonderoga was taken by a militia, the Green Mountain Boys, and the Battle of King's Mountain was fought entirely by American militias against Colonel Ferguson's riflemen) - it was won by the Continental Army and the French Army and Navy.
"Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Unequivocal. You have the right to keep and bear arms and that right shall not be infringed upon."
---
Unequivocal, huh? Except you LEFT OUT part of the amendment: "the right of the people to keep and bear arm in an organized militia being..."
Hmmm, maybe not so unequivocal after all.
Umm, no. Actually, he quoted the Second Amendment exactly, including the (to modern eyes) rather odd use of commas within the Amendment.
The clause you insist is part of the Amendment is, alas, no such thing - it's wishful thinking on your part.
20,000 tons heavier than the 747 probably meant 20,000 tons, heavier than the 747 rather than the implied weight of a 747 + 20,000 tons.
Unlikely. 20,000 tons is considerably larger than any flying vehicle ever made. Prolly meant 20,000 Kg heavier. Note that the wonders of the Metric System didn't prevent this particular idiot from making himself look like a fool, in spite of being able to just move the decimal point to convert from Kg to tons.
So what is more damning, that the Toranto Star 1 botched the math, 2 don't know the differences between a short ton, a metric ton or a long ton, or 3 that they butchered the English?
The didn't butcher the English, they butchered the math - innumeracy is a plague upon humanity, and doesn't look to be cured anytime soon ("soon" was meant in geological terms, fyi).
I am. It was the parent poster who liked to compare the side effects of a dirty bomb with a sunny day in Denver, not me.
And yet, you attribute the German mushroom/venison problems after Chernobyl to "radiation", and not to "contamination"....
I can't remember any expected death rates, but I recall that there was big fuzz about not letting your kids play outside for a longer time, and if they come back in, clean them thoroughly -- almost a Dr. No kind of scenario.
Hysteria? Maybe. But I still object the comparison of a radioactive cloud with a sunny day in Denver.
It was hysteria. Numbers I can find indicate that if the kiddies had rolled around on the ground with glue all over their bodies sufficient to get ALL the contamination on their clothes, they might get a dose almost as high as they'd get from a day on the beaches in Southern France. If you drank a liter of the contaminated milk per day for a year, your dose would be about the same as a two week vacation on said beaches.
Note, by the way, that there are two elements to the damage of radioactive contamination. And one of those elements (the radiation produced by same) is EXACTLY the same as the radiation you get on a sunny day in Denver. Did you know, by the way, that someone who lives in Denver gets a higher radiation dosage per year than is legal for a nuclear plant worker in the USA?
The other element is where the notion of "biological half-life" comes in - that's the time it takes your body to reduce the radiation dosage from radioactive contamination by half. Basically, if the contamination goes to building healthy (unhealthy?) bones, it has a longer biological half-life than a small chunk of heavy metal eaten in your stew (which will leave your body the next day by the usual path).
Note that cesium-137 is dangerous entirely because your body concentrates it, rather than passing it through. But the required levels of contamination to achieve a dangerous dosage are orders of magnitude higher than experienced after Chernobyl in western Europe.
You, of course, are aware that there's a difference between radiation and radioactive contamination.
there were areas in Germany (esp. Bavaria) where you shouldn't eat (wild) mushrooms and venison anymore because of the radiation
That would be caused by the contamination, not the radiation.
As to these places in Germany, what was the conamination level? And what was the expected death rate if you ate venison in that period? Zero, I would assume, since legal limits on exposure are generally FAR below the level of somatic effects (in other words, you'd have to exceed the legal limits by quite a lot to even get a little bit sick, much less die)
Second point: A treaty demanding zero emissions isn't possible until zero-emission technologies are feasible. There is no zero-emissions option available to us besides dismantling society, going back to a basic agrarian society, and let famine, war, and plague reduce our numbers by 95% or so. This is what I mean by "not desirable"; I'm not saying, "Wouldn't it be horrible if we could reduce emissions to zero without serious sacrifice?" I'm looking at the costs of turning off the economy entirely, and deeming them too high.
Of course there is a zero-emmissions option - nuclear power for all electrical generation, replace all fossil-fuel burning technologies with electrical equivalents. Personal autos go the way of the dodo-bird - use nice clean electric trains for mass transit. Nuclear powered ships. Aircraft? Sorry, that option isn't possible right now, but aircraft are a luxury we can't afford if we're to stop all anthropogenic climate change.
You're arguing that YOUR definition of the limits of change are the only valid ones. Sorry, I happen to think we can continue as we are, or we can take the middle road (which leads to the same place a few years later), or we can stop right now. Yes, it would be possible to mandate such a change - not overnight, but it's doable - a simple Treaty prohibiting the building of any new fossil-fuel burning devices (and associated spare parts, if we want to be thorough) would be the place to start. That would give us the effective lifetime of the existing equipment (my car is 12 years old - it won't be around too much longer, even WITH a continuing supply of spare parts, much less without) to build the alternatives.
Couple that with your "we have literally decades, so we don't need to bother" crack, and I begin to suspect you're demanding such a treaty in order to be an ass, not out of concern for the environment or a desire to expose a real problem with my views.
If it makes you feel better to think so, by all means do so. If a few extra years (what we MIGHT get from Kyoto) is enough, then the decades we have till disaster strikes most likely will be enough as well. I don't think the few extra years from Kyoto is meaningful - I think it will take drastic measures now to accomplish anything worthwhile (now, whether I think the problem is one to be concerned with much is a whole other question) in regards to antropogenic climate change.
Third point: No, there is no single, safe level of CO2 production that we can call "safe". You're asking us to believe the impossible: That there is some level of CO2 production beneath which "global warming" will not "occur", but if someone eats a bad batch of beans, his emissions will push us over the tipping point, and global warming will happen.
Rather, it's an incremental process: Plug in X units of CO2, and get Y increase in global temperature. So at best, any recommendation of appropriate levels of CO2 emissions are prescriptive, not absolute. That is to say, we might be able to say, "Reducing emissions by X billions of tons a year will eliminate effects Y1 and Y2, and substantially mitigate Z1, Z2, and Z3", but there's no absolute way to say whether the former situation is "unsafe" while the latter is "safe".
Alright, I can buy that. Except for the qualifier that any level greater than zero will only DELAY effects Y1 and Y2. If Y1 and Y2 are worth stopping, let's stop them - not put them off far enough in the future that it's someone else's problem. Don't restrict yourself to the next 50 years.
It's the same as when you take a medication. Not taking the medication will lead to sickness or death, and an overdose may lead to sickness or death. But in between is the "prescribed dosage," which doesn't indicate that taking the drug at that rate will have no side effects. It just means that the people chosing the dosage did so in such a way as to maximize the benefit while minimizing the risk.
Good analogy - not great, since it assumes that some l
First point: The treaty does not need to bind everyone in order to be effective. If it were Monaco that were holding out rather than the United States, it would be irrelevant, because its fraction of the world CO2 output is irrelevant. As it stands, the only two major holdouts are Australia and the U.S., and if they signed, there wouldn't be any non-Kyoto countries that polluting industries could reasonably relocate to.
This means that, had the U.S. and Aussieland signed, the Kyoto Protocol would apply to the emitters of 99% of greenhouse gases worldwide. The only way this could NOT have an effect on global climate is if polluters moved all their manufacturing to non-Kyoto countries, or they moved all their manufacturing out of Annex 1 countries to non-Annex 1 countries.
The first option is obviously impossible. There just aren't that many non-signers out there, and the costs of moving production would be bigger than simply reducing emissions. Finally, if any country got enough business into the country to make a significant impact in total pollutants, they'd come under pressure to sign as well.
The second option has been argued with some plausibility. But moving to China will only hasten the day when it becomes an Annex 1 country as well. Same goes for every other country where polluters might try to seek refuge. Business moves in, quality of life goes up, and suddenly the terms of the protocol kick in.
Haven't actually read the Treaty, have you? Changes to the Treaty, including changes to the Annex 1 list, require ratification by all signatories to be effective. Read Articles 20 and 21 of the Kyoto Protocol for the relevant details.
So if, for instance, China is pretty happy with the Treaty as written, but doesn't want to be in Annex 1, all they have to do is not ratify that particular amendment to the Treaty. And like a miracle, that Amendment wouldn't be binding on them. Article 20, Paragraph 5, if you're curious....
As to the the theory that there would be no non-Kyoto countries that could be relocated to, I suggest you re-read the Kyoto Protocol - it requires no emmission controls by any non-Annex 1 signatory, and no non-Annex 1 signatory can be made into an Annex 1 signatory without ratification of the Amendment (which amounts to re-ratification of the Protocol). Want to bet that EVERY non-Annex 1 member will ratify the Amendment that turns them into an Annex 1 nation?
Personally, I wouldn't give long odds that China (for instance) will agree to such a restriction on themselves.
Your mistaken assumption is that the Treaty members not on Annex 1 will automatically be moved to Annex 1 with no further input, just as soon as their economies mature. Alas, reading the text shows that this is not so. Each country must approve its own status as an Annex 1 member. And I have the sneaking suspicion that some of the non-Annex 1 members won't be quite so willing to do so as you believe.
You also assume that noone will withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. Check Article 27. Three years from Tuesday, nations can begin withdrawing if they don't like the results. Personally, I don't think any non-Annex 1 member will withdraw, since signing the Treaty imposes no limitations or requirements of any kind upon them. But I wouldn't be surprised if at least one Annex 1 member withdraws.
-Make Gas with Methanol for Cars madatory (cost $0)
Cost is zero to the government. It is non-trivial to the people of Canada, who get essentially what they had before for slightly higher cost.
-Or tax Gas with Methanol less than gas without (Cost 0$)
This would indeed cost nothing. It might do nothing. It might make people start using gasohol more - which would cost the government income, requiring them to raise taxes. Again, that increase represents a cost to the Canadians, who get the same thing for more money.
-Make license plates for SUVs and Trucks cost more according to their age. (Cost: Profit center!)
Again, the Candadians pay more for the same thing. This is a cost.
-Make cheap wasteful appliances illigal (Cost $0)
Let's see, add the cost of a new water heater, refrigerator, stove, air-conditioner (assuming Canadians use the latter), heater up for every Canadian house. There's the cost.
-Mandate that all new Gov. fleet cars be hybrids of better (Cost: $0)
Require the government to pay more for its vehicles, which requires them to raise your taxes. Sounds like the extra taxes to cover that would count as a cost...
-Allow farmers to collect Methane gas from animal waste so that then can burn it and make electricity.(Cost 0$)
If it costs less to do this than to not, then this is a benefit. If it costs more to do this than not, it won't happen, whether you allow it or not. Keeping in mind that burning methane releases CO2, which is regulated under Kyoto.
-Allow Pig farmers to put animal waste in this machine http://www.changingworldtech.com./what/index.asp [www.changi...ldtech.com] to make oil and electricity.(Cost 0$)
If this costs less than the value of the product, it's indeed a zero cost. If it costs more, it does nothing, since people won't buy it - unless you require it, in which case the cost of the machine less the income from the machine represents the cost...
You seem to have this notion that the issue in question is "How much does it cost Government to do this?", when the issue is "How much does this cost the Canadian economy to do this?". After all, by your logic, we could solve the problem by making all non-nuclear power production (including engines in autos and farm machinery) illegal. Cost = $0!
Of course, the people who have to pay for nuclear tractors might disagree....
First, a treaty binding on everyone is impossible. You know this.
A Treaty purporting to affect Global Climate Change doesn't work unless it binds everyone. So if it isn't going to work (because, as you say, it's impossible for it to work), then why bother?
Second, a treaty requiring zero emissions is impossible. You know this, as well.
Then what's the point? If (and I mean IF) anthropogenic CLimate Change is happening, it will continue until we stop doing whatever we are doing - and that means NO CO2 emmissions beyond "natural" ones.
Thirdly, reducing emissions to zero isn't necessary, and probably isn't desirable.
Alright, I'll bite. What level IS necessary? And why is that particular level "safe", when 1.01x that level is "unsafe"? And if there is a "safe" level, I'll modify my requirement to specify a Treaty mandating a "safe" level that applies to everyone. Still has to apply to everyone, or it's meaningless blather.
More importantly, why isn't it desirable? Personally, and human footprint on this (or any other) planet is less than desirable. It is, of course, impossible to achieve a civilization (and I like my air-conditioned house, cars, computers, movies, that sort of thing) without some sort of footprint wherever we live.
However, for long term (my idea of long term is millions of years - a few decades is meaningless) sustainable civilization, our footprint must be as small as is possible to achieve - because any positive number compounded for a million years will get to be pretty large.
A few years would give us the time we need to develop cleaner technologies, get the whole space exploration thing off the ground, maybe give us time to make a smooth transition to clean energy. All of that sounds worth doing to me
No problem then! Since we have literally decades, if not centuries left, even without Kyoto. So we don't need to bother with Kyoto - glad you agree....
So now you've got this tracking system, which is tracking the handful of convicts who are participating in the program. Well, obviously the system is going to have to have excess capacity. So some inventive official is going to come up with the idea of using the system to track other things, too. City buses -- being able to tell if a city bus isn't moving or has left its route would be useful, as would tracking other city vehicles (like police cars)
Umm, this is already being done. I worked for a company a few years ago that was in the business of building systems allowing organizations (like Public Tranist Authorities and Police Departments) to track their vehicles.
Company I worked for had been doing it since the '80s....
US should not under any circumstances be allowed to ignore this protocol
I suggest invasion, then. Obviously just nuking us into the stone age would work, but the environmental impact of that many nuclear weapons (it's not clear Europe has enough, but might as well use them) might preclude that as a viable option.
Given that Canada will likely go along with the invasion, use it as a staging area. You'll need a military about five times the size of the US military, plus a naval force about three times as big as our Navy. Both can be assembled over a period of five to ten years, with suitable incentives (universal conscription, total control of undustry by governments, that sort of thing). It might cost you a few dozen trillion dollars, but it's a small price to pay...
Of course, we might decide to seriously fight back, so you might want to plan on evacuating your cities (if we're being annihilated anyway, why not nuke you into oblivion?) in anticipation of your invasion's success.
Then you'll want to plan on maintaining a military at about 60% of that level for the indefinite future so you'll have an occupying army in America for the next 50 years or so.
Good luck on your invasion, lads! I assure you that I'll be out there taking potshots at your lads, along with many of my neighbors, but you won't mind the body-count, will you? It's for the good of the world....
The Kyoto treaty isn't just a first step in the right direction. It is, at the moment, the only step on the table. It has to be taken. It is do that or do nothing. By itself it is a joke, of course, if you're shortsighted enough to think that it by itself is the solution to the problem. It's not: the USA weakened it so much during it's formation (before pulling out entirely) that it's not even a very definitive first step anymore. Even so...it's all there is at the moment, and we just don't have the time to wait another ten years to draft a better treaty and get the support. We need that time to draft the successor to it.
So, what you're saying is that if the Kyoto Protocol had required that we INCREASE CO2 emmissions by 50% by 2012, we would be REQUIRED to do it, just because it's that or nothing?
I am seldom amazed at the power of human stupidity, but this time I'm close.
Just because the choice is (A) or (Nothing), doesn't mean that (A) is the right choice - sometimes (Nothing) is the right choice. A Treaty which accomplishes nothing meaningful (as the Kyoto Treaty does) is not NECESSARY.
Let me see a Treaty, binding on EVERYONE, that reduces CO2 emmissions to ZERO in some reasonable timeframe, and I'll go along with it. A Treaty which reduces emmissions to some definable non-zero point, then requires NOTHING else, and doesn't even apply to half the people in the world, is not worth the paper it's printed on....
Note that many people think that a "good first step" is important. In some situations, it is. If the "first step" toward elminating rape were to make it a crime, then that would be a "good first step".
Unfortunately, some things are all-or-nothing affairs - if anthropogenic CO2 emmissions are destroying our civilizations, slowing them just adds a few years to the deathmarch. Which is not worth doing, unless you plan on dying in that period....
India, China and Brazil are involved in Kyoto. They have an exemption until 2012, after that they are required to begin cutting emmisions.
Umm, no. Read the Treaty again. it EXPIRES in 2012, so NOONE is obligated by it to do anything after 2012.
It is understood that there will be a follow-on Treaty, that will require China and India to cut emmissions in some fashion. Anyone want to bet whether China or India sign that follow-on Treaty?
Yes. You're missing the fine print that says that China, India, and Brazil don't actually have to DO anything under the Treaty - no CO2 reductions required, no limits on further CO2 emmissions, nothing.
In fact, most of the countries that have ratified the Treaty have NO obilgations under the Treaty.
By the way, on behalf of the USA, I'm willing to work for the ratification of ANY Treaty, on ANY subject, as long as it does not obligate myself (personally) or the USA to do or refrain from doing anything.
You're assuming that European industry won't solve its pollution problems by relocating to India and China, I take it?
Because that may be quite a bit cheaper than actually complying with the Treaty. May not, but we won't know for a couple years.
And the relocation solution for polluting industries pretty much means Kyoto does nothing but enrich China and India at Europe's expense. If that's the way it works out.
Of course they're trying to tax you for driving on your own road! They'll tax you for breathing if they can figure out a way to justify it to you.
Have you people never figured out that taxes exist for one purpose only? To raise money. If there is not enough coming in, they'll raise taxes.
Frequently, raised taxes are in the form of "sin" taxes - it's easier to get people to re-elect you if you're raising someone else's taxes. But with the current shortfalls in revenues here (and most everywhere else, really), they're having to raise taxes in ways that sounds like "sin" taxes, but aren't - mostly because there really aren't all that many "sinners" left to tax (sinner being defined as someone who does something that is popularly perceived as bad - like drinking or smoking).
And the current "sin" taxes are high enough they've reached their inflection point - when taxes are raised, people are actually stopping their "sinning". Which was never the aim of "sin" taxes, even though that was the ostensible reason for them.
Or did you really believe that cigarette taxes were meant to discourage smoking?
But, all that said, if there is no other justifiaction for extracting money from you, they'll raise taxes anyway - and hope to God that you actually believe their line this time, and not chuck them out of office.
Note that there is no talk of lowering gasoline taxes (even though this new tax theoretically replaces the gas tax as a source of funding for the roads). Most likely this is just a stalking horse to convince the people that a higher gas tax is the way to go.
But, if this gets into place, they'll raise gas taxes anyway. And if they raise gas taxes, they'll likely still add a road-use tax to fuel-efficient vehicles.
Because they don't care where they money comes from, they just want as much as they can get - and they'll tell you anything as justification for them taking more money.
You should ask yourself why the EU is the main driving force behind Kyoto. Maybe because they found out Kyoto would actually be a boon to their economy?
Then why should they care whether we go along with it, if it will be good for their economy without us being involved.
Or is it only "good for their economy" if we shackle ourselves the same way?
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If you'd read the Articles of Impeachment, Clinton was impeached for Lying to a Grand Jury (if I had lied to a Grand Jury at the same time as he did, I'd still be in jail, fwiw).
Also, the President has much LESS "control of the country" than you seem to believe - the economy folding had little, if anything, to do with the impeachment, and much more to do with the fact that people suddenly realized that they had invested a great deal of money in companies with no profits, and no prospect of making a profit in the near future (I wish I were unscrupulous enough to have taken advantage of the dotCom boom - I'd be retired now, and all I'd have had to do is come up with something to sell on the Net, below cost, but made up for with high volume)
The dotCom boom/bust was fascinating to watch - so much like 1929. But it wasn't Clinton who caused the boom, nor was it Clinton's fault it went bust.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding about taxation - you believe that taxation and services are related in some way.
They're not. Taxes are all about revenue. Where the revenue goes is a completely separate issue. Tax revenues and expenditures are often tied together to make the taxes more palatable (i.e. Casino taxes in LA are to be spent on the education system), but money is fungible - it all looks the same in the end (LA's casino taxes do, indeed, go to fund the schools. And yet, the schools have no more money than before the casinos - the amount of the casino revenues was removed from the general funding for the schools to fund some other part of the government).
It is irrelevant to tie the tax base to the government expenditure in any way other than to make the new tax acceptable to the voters. So, you can, indeed, tax a computer based on what it "could do" - as long as the taxpayers don't defeat the purpose of the tax by buying fewer computers.
Seems to me that I read that this was exactly the reasoning in Europe in 1913.
So, a not-so-little chemical factory in each one of these things, to make your hydrocarbons. Assuming that by "small" you mean one square Km each, then you need a couple million of these things. Each of which must be visited periodically to harvest the results, perform routine maintenance, that sort of thing. Presumably raw materials are water and air, so you shouldn't need much in that vein.
A million object larger than the largest ship/platform built to date, and a million new chemical factories will run the costs rather higher than my original guesstimate of $20 trillion, I imagine.
I expect that finding a few million people willing to spend their time alone on one of these things performing maintenance will be tricky. And the transport required to give them time off is non-trivial as well. Add that to the cost.
Or when you said "small", did you mean "larger than 1 square Km? That's not exactly small (1 Km^2 isn't small either - the farm my father grew up on was smaller than that). I expect that maintenance of your balloons would scale more or less with surface area, so there's not much to save there, really.
You are also assuming that hurricanes are the only big storms out there - they're not - just the most visible to the layman.
That said, it's an interesting idea. MUCH bigger than you think it is, I think, and much more difficult to make practical. But interesting, nonetheless.
I saw your intended location. Remember Hurricane Ivan? I have a hard time forgetting, as some of the buildings I can see from here still don't have their roofs repaired. Hint: tropical waters have hurricanes running over them pretty regularly. And the hurricanes destroy things.
Of course, we could put them on northern or southern oceans, out of the paths of hurricanes (I recall being in a hurricane once in Connecticut many years back, so that pretty much means arctic waters - not an ideal choice, if you've never lived through a north Atlantic (or Pacific) winter storm. Course the efficiency goes down there a mite...
But you're only the first person to not understand why I included a 1% overall system efficiency ratio which accounts for all of those losses.
Interestingly, your 1% overall efficiency was very similar to their panel efficiency for small solar panels - 120W per 14'x10' is about 0.7% efficient conversion of 1400W/m^2. So it is unlikely that you're going to get ALL losses covered by making such an assumption. Unless you also assume that they increase the performance of the cells by a factor or 20 or so.
It doesn't need to be a single large project, but a bunch of smaller scale individual operations. Current agricultural activities add up to a much larger overall area, and in the US, all of this is managed by ~1% of the population.
Of course, the agricultural community didn't have to build the land they work. This is a lot more comparable to the highway system than the agricultural system - and the Interstate system is on the order of 1000 square miles - 0.1% or less of the operation you want to undertake on water.
It's not necessarily an insurmountable challenge.
Of course it's not insurmountable. It is, however, not a trivial task to be undertaken as a matter of routine. If this could be built for $1000 per KW, a rough guesstimate of cost is $20 trillion. Not counting the support infrastructure, like wires to carry it to where it is being used, and the machinery to replace the swath cut by a major hurricane quickly.
Sure, we can make one just for the USA - just pick out some piece of ocean noone is using (ever looked at a chart of the shipping lanes, to find out just where you find such a place?) and set up a system about 1/4 that size. Of course, unpleasant strangers might look at those trillions of dollars worth of unprotected panels, and decide to help themselves....
Let's see, the land area of Alaska is over twice that of France. Actually, Alaska is a bit larger than France, Spain, and the UK combined.
So, we're talking about covering western Europe with solar cells. Or taking the land away from someone else - that's always a good choice, right?
Now, this ignores the fact that the specified land area requires sunlight 24-7. Which it won't get. As a minimum, you have to double that.
It also ignores conversion losses (DC-AC, for long-range transmission), and transmission losses (which would be significant). So double it again.
By now, we're paving most of Europe, or say, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada...basically the southern half of CONUS.
In other words, it's not going to be a small area.
Not big compared to the size of the Earth is all well and good, but you're talking about four orders of magnitude bigger than any other engineering project in history....
Umm, no.
While it is true that the Militia Act (the one that defines the Militia as every white male from 18-45 as a member of the Militia (except certain government officials) required Militia members as required to own their own firearms, during the period in question, few personal firearms were considered adequate for military use.
For instance, most rifles were considered too flimsy for military use, and too slow to load, thus the near universal use of smoothbore muskets in Armies of the day. Real Armies provided guns for the soldiers in much the way they do now. Even our Continental Army.... Fact is, the Continental Army used muskets bought from the French mostly. The militias used whatever hodge-podge they happened to own, of course.
But the Revolution wasn't won by the militias, in spite of their accomplishments (Fort Ticonderoga was taken by a militia, the Green Mountain Boys, and the Battle of King's Mountain was fought entirely by American militias against Colonel Ferguson's riflemen) - it was won by the Continental Army and the French Army and Navy.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Unequivocal. You have the right to keep and bear arms and that right shall not be infringed upon."
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Unequivocal, huh? Except you LEFT OUT part of the amendment: "the right of the people to keep and bear arm in an organized militia being..."
Hmmm, maybe not so unequivocal after all.
Umm, no. Actually, he quoted the Second Amendment exactly, including the (to modern eyes) rather odd use of commas within the Amendment.
The clause you insist is part of the Amendment is, alas, no such thing - it's wishful thinking on your part.
Unlikely. 20,000 tons is considerably larger than any flying vehicle ever made. Prolly meant 20,000 Kg heavier. Note that the wonders of the Metric System didn't prevent this particular idiot from making himself look like a fool, in spite of being able to just move the decimal point to convert from Kg to tons. So what is more damning, that the Toranto Star 1 botched the math, 2 don't know the differences between a short ton, a metric ton or a long ton, or 3 that they butchered the English?
The didn't butcher the English, they butchered the math - innumeracy is a plague upon humanity, and doesn't look to be cured anytime soon ("soon" was meant in geological terms, fyi).
And yet, you attribute the German mushroom/venison problems after Chernobyl to "radiation", and not to "contamination"....
I can't remember any expected death rates, but I recall that there was big fuzz about not letting your kids play outside for a longer time, and if they come back in, clean them thoroughly -- almost a Dr. No kind of scenario.
Hysteria? Maybe. But I still object the comparison of a radioactive cloud with a sunny day in Denver.
It was hysteria. Numbers I can find indicate that if the kiddies had rolled around on the ground with glue all over their bodies sufficient to get ALL the contamination on their clothes, they might get a dose almost as high as they'd get from a day on the beaches in Southern France. If you drank a liter of the contaminated milk per day for a year, your dose would be about the same as a two week vacation on said beaches.
Note, by the way, that there are two elements to the damage of radioactive contamination. And one of those elements (the radiation produced by same) is EXACTLY the same as the radiation you get on a sunny day in Denver. Did you know, by the way, that someone who lives in Denver gets a higher radiation dosage per year than is legal for a nuclear plant worker in the USA?
The other element is where the notion of "biological half-life" comes in - that's the time it takes your body to reduce the radiation dosage from radioactive contamination by half. Basically, if the contamination goes to building healthy (unhealthy?) bones, it has a longer biological half-life than a small chunk of heavy metal eaten in your stew (which will leave your body the next day by the usual path).
Note that cesium-137 is dangerous entirely because your body concentrates it, rather than passing it through. But the required levels of contamination to achieve a dangerous dosage are orders of magnitude higher than experienced after Chernobyl in western Europe.
there were areas in Germany (esp. Bavaria) where you shouldn't eat (wild) mushrooms and venison anymore because of the radiation
That would be caused by the contamination, not the radiation.
As to these places in Germany, what was the conamination level? And what was the expected death rate if you ate venison in that period? Zero, I would assume, since legal limits on exposure are generally FAR below the level of somatic effects (in other words, you'd have to exceed the legal limits by quite a lot to even get a little bit sick, much less die)
And Boston is about 220 miles from New York - basically right next door.
Of course there is a zero-emmissions option - nuclear power for all electrical generation, replace all fossil-fuel burning technologies with electrical equivalents. Personal autos go the way of the dodo-bird - use nice clean electric trains for mass transit. Nuclear powered ships. Aircraft? Sorry, that option isn't possible right now, but aircraft are a luxury we can't afford if we're to stop all anthropogenic climate change.
You're arguing that YOUR definition of the limits of change are the only valid ones. Sorry, I happen to think we can continue as we are, or we can take the middle road (which leads to the same place a few years later), or we can stop right now. Yes, it would be possible to mandate such a change - not overnight, but it's doable - a simple Treaty prohibiting the building of any new fossil-fuel burning devices (and associated spare parts, if we want to be thorough) would be the place to start. That would give us the effective lifetime of the existing equipment (my car is 12 years old - it won't be around too much longer, even WITH a continuing supply of spare parts, much less without) to build the alternatives.
Couple that with your "we have literally decades, so we don't need to bother" crack, and I begin to suspect you're demanding such a treaty in order to be an ass, not out of concern for the environment or a desire to expose a real problem with my views.
If it makes you feel better to think so, by all means do so. If a few extra years (what we MIGHT get from Kyoto) is enough, then the decades we have till disaster strikes most likely will be enough as well. I don't think the few extra years from Kyoto is meaningful - I think it will take drastic measures now to accomplish anything worthwhile (now, whether I think the problem is one to be concerned with much is a whole other question) in regards to antropogenic climate change.
Third point: No, there is no single, safe level of CO2 production that we can call "safe". You're asking us to believe the impossible: That there is some level of CO2 production beneath which "global warming" will not "occur", but if someone eats a bad batch of beans, his emissions will push us over the tipping point, and global warming will happen.
Rather, it's an incremental process: Plug in X units of CO2, and get Y increase in global temperature. So at best, any recommendation of appropriate levels of CO2 emissions are prescriptive, not absolute. That is to say, we might be able to say, "Reducing emissions by X billions of tons a year will eliminate effects Y1 and Y2, and substantially mitigate Z1, Z2, and Z3", but there's no absolute way to say whether the former situation is "unsafe" while the latter is "safe".
Alright, I can buy that. Except for the qualifier that any level greater than zero will only DELAY effects Y1 and Y2. If Y1 and Y2 are worth stopping, let's stop them - not put them off far enough in the future that it's someone else's problem. Don't restrict yourself to the next 50 years.
It's the same as when you take a medication. Not taking the medication will lead to sickness or death, and an overdose may lead to sickness or death. But in between is the "prescribed dosage," which doesn't indicate that taking the drug at that rate will have no side effects. It just means that the people chosing the dosage did so in such a way as to maximize the benefit while minimizing the risk.
Good analogy - not great, since it assumes that some l
This means that, had the U.S. and Aussieland signed, the Kyoto Protocol would apply to the emitters of 99% of greenhouse gases worldwide. The only way this could NOT have an effect on global climate is if polluters moved all their manufacturing to non-Kyoto countries, or they moved all their manufacturing out of Annex 1 countries to non-Annex 1 countries.
The first option is obviously impossible. There just aren't that many non-signers out there, and the costs of moving production would be bigger than simply reducing emissions. Finally, if any country got enough business into the country to make a significant impact in total pollutants, they'd come under pressure to sign as well.
The second option has been argued with some plausibility. But moving to China will only hasten the day when it becomes an Annex 1 country as well. Same goes for every other country where polluters might try to seek refuge. Business moves in, quality of life goes up, and suddenly the terms of the protocol kick in.
Haven't actually read the Treaty, have you? Changes to the Treaty, including changes to the Annex 1 list, require ratification by all signatories to be effective. Read Articles 20 and 21 of the Kyoto Protocol for the relevant details.
So if, for instance, China is pretty happy with the Treaty as written, but doesn't want to be in Annex 1, all they have to do is not ratify that particular amendment to the Treaty. And like a miracle, that Amendment wouldn't be binding on them. Article 20, Paragraph 5, if you're curious....
As to the the theory that there would be no non-Kyoto countries that could be relocated to, I suggest you re-read the Kyoto Protocol - it requires no emmission controls by any non-Annex 1 signatory, and no non-Annex 1 signatory can be made into an Annex 1 signatory without ratification of the Amendment (which amounts to re-ratification of the Protocol). Want to bet that EVERY non-Annex 1 member will ratify the Amendment that turns them into an Annex 1 nation?
Personally, I wouldn't give long odds that China (for instance) will agree to such a restriction on themselves.
Your mistaken assumption is that the Treaty members not on Annex 1 will automatically be moved to Annex 1 with no further input, just as soon as their economies mature. Alas, reading the text shows that this is not so. Each country must approve its own status as an Annex 1 member. And I have the sneaking suspicion that some of the non-Annex 1 members won't be quite so willing to do so as you believe.
You also assume that noone will withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. Check Article 27. Three years from Tuesday, nations can begin withdrawing if they don't like the results. Personally, I don't think any non-Annex 1 member will withdraw, since signing the Treaty imposes no limitations or requirements of any kind upon them. But I wouldn't be surprised if at least one Annex 1 member withdraws.
Cost is zero to the government. It is non-trivial to the people of Canada, who get essentially what they had before for slightly higher cost.
-Or tax Gas with Methanol less than gas without (Cost 0$)
This would indeed cost nothing. It might do nothing. It might make people start using gasohol more - which would cost the government income, requiring them to raise taxes. Again, that increase represents a cost to the Canadians, who get the same thing for more money.
-Make license plates for SUVs and Trucks cost more according to their age. (Cost: Profit center!)
Again, the Candadians pay more for the same thing. This is a cost.
-Make cheap wasteful appliances illigal (Cost $0)
Let's see, add the cost of a new water heater, refrigerator, stove, air-conditioner (assuming Canadians use the latter), heater up for every Canadian house. There's the cost.
-Mandate that all new Gov. fleet cars be hybrids of better (Cost: $0)
Require the government to pay more for its vehicles, which requires them to raise your taxes. Sounds like the extra taxes to cover that would count as a cost...
-Allow farmers to collect Methane gas from animal waste so that then can burn it and make electricity.(Cost 0$)
If it costs less to do this than to not, then this is a benefit. If it costs more to do this than not, it won't happen, whether you allow it or not. Keeping in mind that burning methane releases CO2, which is regulated under Kyoto.
-Allow Pig farmers to put animal waste in this machine http://www.changingworldtech.com./what/index.asp [www.changi...ldtech.com] to make oil and electricity.(Cost 0$)
If this costs less than the value of the product, it's indeed a zero cost. If it costs more, it does nothing, since people won't buy it - unless you require it, in which case the cost of the machine less the income from the machine represents the cost...
You seem to have this notion that the issue in question is "How much does it cost Government to do this?", when the issue is "How much does this cost the Canadian economy to do this?". After all, by your logic, we could solve the problem by making all non-nuclear power production (including engines in autos and farm machinery) illegal. Cost = $0!
Of course, the people who have to pay for nuclear tractors might disagree....
A Treaty purporting to affect Global Climate Change doesn't work unless it binds everyone. So if it isn't going to work (because, as you say, it's impossible for it to work), then why bother?
Second, a treaty requiring zero emissions is impossible. You know this, as well.
Then what's the point? If (and I mean IF) anthropogenic CLimate Change is happening, it will continue until we stop doing whatever we are doing - and that means NO CO2 emmissions beyond "natural" ones.
Thirdly, reducing emissions to zero isn't necessary, and probably isn't desirable.
Alright, I'll bite. What level IS necessary? And why is that particular level "safe", when 1.01x that level is "unsafe"? And if there is a "safe" level, I'll modify my requirement to specify a Treaty mandating a "safe" level that applies to everyone. Still has to apply to everyone, or it's meaningless blather.
More importantly, why isn't it desirable? Personally, and human footprint on this (or any other) planet is less than desirable. It is, of course, impossible to achieve a civilization (and I like my air-conditioned house, cars, computers, movies, that sort of thing) without some sort of footprint wherever we live.
However, for long term (my idea of long term is millions of years - a few decades is meaningless) sustainable civilization, our footprint must be as small as is possible to achieve - because any positive number compounded for a million years will get to be pretty large.
A few years would give us the time we need to develop cleaner technologies, get the whole space exploration thing off the ground, maybe give us time to make a smooth transition to clean energy. All of that sounds worth doing to me
No problem then! Since we have literally decades, if not centuries left, even without Kyoto. So we don't need to bother with Kyoto - glad you agree....
And what will you do with your so-called format in 9999AD? Hmm?
Y10K problems will destroy civilization! Destroy it, I say!!
Umm, this is already being done. I worked for a company a few years ago that was in the business of building systems allowing organizations (like Public Tranist Authorities and Police Departments) to track their vehicles.
Company I worked for had been doing it since the '80s....
I suggest invasion, then. Obviously just nuking us into the stone age would work, but the environmental impact of that many nuclear weapons (it's not clear Europe has enough, but might as well use them) might preclude that as a viable option.
Given that Canada will likely go along with the invasion, use it as a staging area. You'll need a military about five times the size of the US military, plus a naval force about three times as big as our Navy. Both can be assembled over a period of five to ten years, with suitable incentives (universal conscription, total control of undustry by governments, that sort of thing). It might cost you a few dozen trillion dollars, but it's a small price to pay...
Of course, we might decide to seriously fight back, so you might want to plan on evacuating your cities (if we're being annihilated anyway, why not nuke you into oblivion?) in anticipation of your invasion's success.
Then you'll want to plan on maintaining a military at about 60% of that level for the indefinite future so you'll have an occupying army in America for the next 50 years or so.
Good luck on your invasion, lads! I assure you that I'll be out there taking potshots at your lads, along with many of my neighbors, but you won't mind the body-count, will you? It's for the good of the world....
So, what you're saying is that if the Kyoto Protocol had required that we INCREASE CO2 emmissions by 50% by 2012, we would be REQUIRED to do it, just because it's that or nothing?
I am seldom amazed at the power of human stupidity, but this time I'm close.
Just because the choice is (A) or (Nothing), doesn't mean that (A) is the right choice - sometimes (Nothing) is the right choice. A Treaty which accomplishes nothing meaningful (as the Kyoto Treaty does) is not NECESSARY.
Let me see a Treaty, binding on EVERYONE, that reduces CO2 emmissions to ZERO in some reasonable timeframe, and I'll go along with it. A Treaty which reduces emmissions to some definable non-zero point, then requires NOTHING else, and doesn't even apply to half the people in the world, is not worth the paper it's printed on....
Note that many people think that a "good first step" is important. In some situations, it is. If the "first step" toward elminating rape were to make it a crime, then that would be a "good first step".
Unfortunately, some things are all-or-nothing affairs - if anthropogenic CO2 emmissions are destroying our civilizations, slowing them just adds a few years to the deathmarch. Which is not worth doing, unless you plan on dying in that period....
Umm, no. Read the Treaty again. it EXPIRES in 2012, so NOONE is obligated by it to do anything after 2012.
It is understood that there will be a follow-on Treaty, that will require China and India to cut emmissions in some fashion. Anyone want to bet whether China or India sign that follow-on Treaty?
In fact, most of the countries that have ratified the Treaty have NO obilgations under the Treaty.
By the way, on behalf of the USA, I'm willing to work for the ratification of ANY Treaty, on ANY subject, as long as it does not obligate myself (personally) or the USA to do or refrain from doing anything.
Because that may be quite a bit cheaper than actually complying with the Treaty. May not, but we won't know for a couple years.
And the relocation solution for polluting industries pretty much means Kyoto does nothing but enrich China and India at Europe's expense. If that's the way it works out.
Have you people never figured out that taxes exist for one purpose only? To raise money. If there is not enough coming in, they'll raise taxes.
Frequently, raised taxes are in the form of "sin" taxes - it's easier to get people to re-elect you if you're raising someone else's taxes. But with the current shortfalls in revenues here (and most everywhere else, really), they're having to raise taxes in ways that sounds like "sin" taxes, but aren't - mostly because there really aren't all that many "sinners" left to tax (sinner being defined as someone who does something that is popularly perceived as bad - like drinking or smoking).
And the current "sin" taxes are high enough they've reached their inflection point - when taxes are raised, people are actually stopping their "sinning". Which was never the aim of "sin" taxes, even though that was the ostensible reason for them.
Or did you really believe that cigarette taxes were meant to discourage smoking?
But, all that said, if there is no other justifiaction for extracting money from you, they'll raise taxes anyway - and hope to God that you actually believe their line this time, and not chuck them out of office.
Note that there is no talk of lowering gasoline taxes (even though this new tax theoretically replaces the gas tax as a source of funding for the roads). Most likely this is just a stalking horse to convince the people that a higher gas tax is the way to go.
But, if this gets into place, they'll raise gas taxes anyway. And if they raise gas taxes, they'll likely still add a road-use tax to fuel-efficient vehicles.
Because they don't care where they money comes from, they just want as much as they can get - and they'll tell you anything as justification for them taking more money.
Then why should they care whether we go along with it, if it will be good for their economy without us being involved.
Or is it only "good for their economy" if we shackle ourselves the same way?