Sounds like you are a moderate democrat. If you see yourself as a moderate conservative, then sure, but your congressmen represent people far to the right of you. Most democrats ignore radical liberals. (e.g., those who believe everyone should be vegetarian.)
The whole right, left perspective is an illusion. When are you people going to wake up?
That is so lazy intellectually. Some politicians are power hungry pathalogical liars (e.g., Issa). Some politicians are plain old cranks (e.g., Inhofe/Bachmann). Some politicians really believe in things and fight for them, and are often indistinguishable from cranks (e.g., Rand Paul). Some politicians really believe in things and fight for them (e.g., Paul Ryan).
The trick to understanding politics is sorting out the grand-standing from what people really believe in. The GOP is currently defined by hatred of all things Obama. They don't care about deficit/debt reduction (they could have it if they wanted it). But you gotta believe that if Obama supported traditional marriage, a ban on stem cell research, or tax cuts of the super wealthy, then the GOP would be all over it in no time.
So you see, they do believe in things, and there really are differences.
If you're pro-life, or a homophobe, tax-cuts-for-the-rich, then the GOP will represent you. If you pro-choice and pro marriage equality, and want a progressive tax system, then the Dems will support you.
If there was empirical evidence that restricting gun ownership seriously limits suicides, mass murders, and tragic domestic violence -- would that make a difference?
Conservative media consistently cover-up for the oil industry. And people like you believe that someone the oil industry is a poor-begotten pillar of US society, and not just a seminal example of crony capitalism.
I don't know anyone who thinks that the federal government should take care of everyone.
The constitution does agree with federal law, because the actions of the supreme court are part of the constitution. Like all fundies, there is always a danger of mistaking your interpretation of a document as the literal meaning of the document.
And the tea-partiers are/still/ mainly old people who receive government money for social security and medicare, who want to cut the size of government, without touching their windfalls. And the military. According to some yet-unknown math.
Actuaries don't use IPCC climate models to calculate near-term risk for insurance premiums. The "conspiracy" is all the different converging data sets.
Germany is now about 25% renewable, and their economy grew relative to the rest of the world. OBVIOUSLY their policies have no impact, and just benefit a few corrupt individuals.
Like the IPCC, the RGGI make up all of their data, for Agenda 21 purposes. OBVIOUSLY we cannot believe that this has any impact on reducing peoples energy bills whilst reducing carbon usage.
Savory's talk is great. He has a gut belief that this may be a large factor in warming. There is no statistical or scientific analysis that challenges the IPCC findings. The bit about reversing climate change has effectively nothing to do with his speech, but is great advertising to get people like you to spread it around. I hope he succeeds in his goals of fighting desertification. I hope he is right about warming. Both are speculative, the later pie in the sky.
You think a carbon tax will necessarily be onerous, but that is just wishful thinking. A carbon tax is being tried in the USA, it works, it has negligible effect on the economy, electricity bills have come down for factories and home-owners relative to the rest of the USA which *doesn't* have a carbon tax. Look up the regional greenhouse gas initiatives annual reports.
The cost of pollution is already factored in by regulations limiting particular matter, sulfides, and other harmful chemicals. Nuclear energy costs are driven more by irrational fear than thoughtful policy, based on facts.
Yes and no. The cost of sulfide pollution is *partially* factored in -- enough to ameliorate acid rain. The cost of carbon pollution is *not* factored in, and big carbon does not want it factored in, for obvious reasons. It's free money to them, since they shift the burden of their activity onto others. Like if your neighbours dumped their garbage in your bins, and you end up paying for it.
This stuff about people wanting PURE this and that is a distraction. There are earth-is-holy-capitalism-bad nutcases who know more about their tree spirit, but that's not what scientists are talking about. So lets restrict the focus of attention to what serious scientists and economists have to say on the issue.
Carbon pollution refers to soot and/or CO2. Sure CO2 is essential to life (soot isn't), but that is another distraction. What is essential to life, but that doesn't mean you can't kill yourself with it.
The science says that if you dump lots of CO2 in the atmosphere, you'll change the biosphere of the earth, and that may not be pretty. The economists say that that is going to cost a lot of money.
Action on the issue is practically free in an aggregate sense, as evidenced in the USA (regional greenhouse gas initiative), Germany, Australia, UK, China, etc. Action does reduce the amount of carbon pollution, and also creates economic activity, and *lowers* peoples electricity bills fairly quickly. (Factor, business and consumer.) This experiment has been run for many years of a large part of the US economy. No eco-fascism emerged.
If we tax carbon, and put those funds directly towards offsetting the costs on consumers, then that drives innovation, and the market will work out the rest. It's been done. It works. If the US doesn't get serious, then they will fall behind the rest of the world in the emerging technology, just as M$ failed with the internet in the 90s.
Good point. The demand curve is inelastic. Gas taxes pay for roads and bridges. But that's a sales tax, not therefore a tax on consumption. (Not production.) So we are talking apples and oranges. If you want to have an informed opinion on tax, then it is worth knowing the difference.
Some argue that the consumer can purchase warmth or work or mobility at less cost
by means of coal or oil or nuclear energy than by means of sunshine or wind or
biomass. The argument concludes that this fact, in and of itself, relegates renewable
energy resources to a small place in the national energy budget. The argument
would be valid if energy prices were set in perfectly competitive markets. They are
not. The costs of energy production have been underwritten unevenly among
energy resources by the Federal Government.
This is where I stand. We also have to factor in the cost of pollution. Can you agree to that?
Iowa and Indiana are red states and leading the way in wind energy. It is good business.
The NE of america has a revenue neutral carbon tax that is driving down energy costs. The RGGI covers 20% of the US economy, all blue states, and that portion of the economy grew relative to the rest of the US economy. The notion that a carbon tax would trash the economy is scare mongering.
I don't know anyone who assumes that the government owns us. That's just absurd. Those tax receipts buy civilization. You don't want to pay any taxes? Move to Somalia. Problem solved.
But really, this is about getting civilization and not paying for it. How about paying for the things you use?
The GOP couldn't care less about reducing the deficit, or working out how to responsibly spend money. All the brohaha about cutting government in half is just bullshit. The tea party base do want to reduce the size of government, but not the things that they use, which is almost all of government, so they'll be the first to whine if their social security or medicare is cut. But by their own lights, they never used a dime of government either.
The difference is when that 4 billion is "given" to big carbon, its not taken out of our pockets and handed over to them. it is simply letting them keep more of their own money.
From an accounting point of view, this is incoherent. A tax break costs as much as an expenditure. Why does big carbon pay less taxes than everyone else?
Explain to me how allowing "big carbon" to keep their money that they made, is the same as taking my money through taxes that I paid and giving it to another company??
All those tanks and fighter-jets that the GOP wants to spend money on... they cost money. All the social security and medicare that the tea-party collects. That costs money.
Who is going to pay? Do you think that poor people should subsidize big oil, and pay the medical bills of the GOP base? Talk about a redistribution program.
. The main industries using CFCs were for propellants and refrigeration. We already had other propellants, and for applications that they weren't suitable pump-bottles were substituted.
Wrong. I used to know someone working for a fridge company trying to figure out new safe coolents. Back then nothing came close to CFCs. They figured it out.
What's happening with global warming is that we're being asked to change our entire lifestyles, and give up our human rights.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. It will cost almost nothing to do something about climate change. Renewables as of 2013 are about price parity with carbon for electricity generation. The prices are/plummeting/. Google/walmart will be running their data-centres/stores on renewables in less than a decade -- TO SAVE MONEY -- and that is without factoring the real cost of carbon pollution.
The economic scare-mongering on AGW was done by exactly the same people as the econommic scare-mongering on the ozone whole, and acid rain. The same people also fought tooth-and-nail over protecting the tobacco industry. The same people also fought tooth-and-nail to defend the GOP's hair-brained star-wars program.
The term "alarmist" is just good marketing. It is projection. There is nothing to be alarmed about.
I'd rather spend billions learning how to terraform our deserts than have some quacks allow government to make us live in cells in fascist mega-cities.
This really goes to the heart of the "skeptic" argument. And to think "skeptics" call scientists alarmists, when the whole a-science movement is based on fear of some imaginary future.
Say, what's wrong with a carbon tax? To make it revenue neutral, you can reduce income taxes. The market can sort out how to factor in the cost of carbon pollution. Where are the fascists in that? By what right do a few well connected businesses get to use the whole earth as a big exhaust pipe without paying for it? Where is the personal responsibility?
The economic evidence shows that mitigating climate change costs almost nothing. There has been no fascist take-over. In my experience, conservatives doen't even know what fascism is.
It really is a case of science versus fear-based ignorance.
I work in science. If you can demonstrate a good counter argument to something like this, you will win a nobel prize. There will also be a tonne of (hard to obtain) research money that will be funneled straight into your university department, which will give you a lot of political clout, even if your work is poor.
This argument of "all scientists will not tell the truth" has about as much credibility as a conspiracy theory as 9/11 being an inside job.
That hasn't been demonstrated.
Riiiggghhttt. Do you even know how the carbon life cycle is studied? Have you ever read an academic article on the matter? I suppose you don't have to, since it is all lies.
And what is being protected? It is the political influence of big carbon. The actual economic impact of doing something about climate change is negligible at most. There is empirical data for that as well, but I suppose all the economists are lying to, right?
Well, you can get your information from conservative media which echoes big-carbon talking points for a price. (Nice business model, eh?) Or you could swing over the government agency that actually tracks the money, as see for yourself.
The point here is that we have hordes of immediate problems in society that no reasonable person would say he doesn't care about, but that statement of caring rings hollow when it isn't backed by money and action. Instead, we as a society seem to like to adopt elitist, knee-jerk, "favorite sports team" style positions on matters that may be fairly described as extraordinarily difficult to even get agreed quantification on. Meanwhile, kids are living under bridges in our nation's cities, and folks are dropping dead from chronic disease at relatively young ages left and right.
I've dedicated my life to understanding these issues and contributing to the discourse of science. The problem with the "what are you doing about the child under the bridge?" argument is that it ignores that mitigating climate change really isn't going to be a big deal if we actually do something sooner rather than later. The "sky will fall in on the economy" meme is part of the disinformation campaign, and there are plenty of "earth-is-holy-capitalism-is-evil" spirit people out there to poison the conversation.
Do you want to carry on with your knee-jerk reactions and stay in your comfortable little bubble, where you can safely think about things on a time scale that ranges from 50 to perhaps hundreds of years or more, or do you want to take a moment to consider that maybe your energy might be better placed somewhere else, some place that might make a different on matters that are killing millions of people right now? Should you choose the former, don't worry, you'll be the company of most of the rest of society. I suppose that's some consolation at least.
A judicious understanding of economic theory will lead you to understand that there is no reason why we cannot do both at the same time. Unfortunately, the politics in the USA (in particular) is so pre-school level that conservatives adopt a position merely because it goes against what democrats want. For example, Paul Ryan supported Obamacare as late as 2007. It is a conservative idea, generated in conservative think-tanks in the 90s, and experimented with my conservative governors.
GOP obstructionism is rather hair-raising considering that dems use universities as think-tanks. Most of the economics profession is against trickle-down economics, for example, although I am aware of good conservative economic arguments. Still, most of academia thinks it is bullshit, but the GOP is all for it, and it conveniently fits into the narrative of the plutocracy class that funds most of the GOP. Basically we have a party of crony capitalism hell bent on obstructing anything unless it is a tax break for rich people, or a ban on abortion. Of course they're against climate science. Of course they're against main-stream economics. It hurts the donar class.
There's a great book "Idiot America" which details some of the utter lunacy that has become the GOP. You want to help the child under the bridge, then vote dem until the GOP is reformed.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like you are a moderate democrat. If you see yourself as a moderate conservative, then sure, but your congressmen represent people far to the right of you. Most democrats ignore radical liberals. (e.g., those who believe everyone should be vegetarian.)
This is so true, and it is amazing that the GOP faithful rail about how he's the biggest socialist tyrant of ALL TIME!!!!!
The whole right, left perspective is an illusion. When are you people going to wake up?
That is so lazy intellectually. Some politicians are power hungry pathalogical liars (e.g., Issa). Some politicians are plain old cranks (e.g., Inhofe/Bachmann). Some politicians really believe in things and fight for them, and are often indistinguishable from cranks (e.g., Rand Paul). Some politicians really believe in things and fight for them (e.g., Paul Ryan).
The trick to understanding politics is sorting out the grand-standing from what people really believe in. The GOP is currently defined by hatred of all things Obama. They don't care about deficit/debt reduction (they could have it if they wanted it). But you gotta believe that if Obama supported traditional marriage, a ban on stem cell research, or tax cuts of the super wealthy, then the GOP would be all over it in no time.
So you see, they do believe in things, and there really are differences.
If you're pro-life, or a homophobe, tax-cuts-for-the-rich, then the GOP will represent you. If you pro-choice and pro marriage equality, and want a progressive tax system, then the Dems will support you.
So what do you support?
it's the firearms fault, ban them everywhere we can.
You see "ban them everywhere we can", we see "even violent felons should have full access to guns, otherwise teh DICTATORSHIP".
Are there public health consequences to limiting firearms? Is there empirical data? What are the CONSEQUENCES of your beliefs?
You'll never know.
If there was empirical evidence that restricting gun ownership seriously limits suicides, mass murders, and tragic domestic violence -- would that make a difference?
Here is a better overview of big-carbon tax loopholes, and what they cost. Some of these subsidies go back 100 years.
Big Oil’s Misbegotten Tax Gusher
Conservative media consistently cover-up for the oil industry. And people like you believe that someone the oil industry is a poor-begotten pillar of US society, and not just a seminal example of crony capitalism.
I don't know anyone who thinks that the federal government should take care of everyone.
/still/ mainly old people who receive government money for social security and medicare, who want to cut the size of government, without touching their windfalls. And the military. According to some yet-unknown math.
The constitution does agree with federal law, because the actions of the supreme court are part of the constitution. Like all fundies, there is always a danger of mistaking your interpretation of a document as the literal meaning of the document.
And the tea-partiers are
Exxon registered what effective tax rate in recent years? The linked article doesn't say. I wonder why.
Actuaries don't use IPCC climate models to calculate near-term risk for insurance premiums. The "conspiracy" is all the different converging data sets.
Germany is now about 25% renewable, and their economy grew relative to the rest of the world. OBVIOUSLY their policies have no impact, and just benefit a few corrupt individuals.
Like the IPCC, the RGGI make up all of their data, for Agenda 21 purposes. OBVIOUSLY we cannot believe that this has any impact on reducing peoples energy bills whilst reducing carbon usage.
You're really that guy, aren't you.
Savory's talk is great. He has a gut belief that this may be a large factor in warming. There is no statistical or scientific analysis that challenges the IPCC findings. The bit about reversing climate change has effectively nothing to do with his speech, but is great advertising to get people like you to spread it around. I hope he succeeds in his goals of fighting desertification. I hope he is right about warming. Both are speculative, the later pie in the sky.
The cost of pollution is already factored in by regulations limiting particular matter, sulfides, and other harmful chemicals. Nuclear energy costs are driven more by irrational fear than thoughtful policy, based on facts.
Yes and no. The cost of sulfide pollution is *partially* factored in -- enough to ameliorate acid rain. The cost of carbon pollution is *not* factored in, and big carbon does not want it factored in, for obvious reasons. It's free money to them, since they shift the burden of their activity onto others. Like if your neighbours dumped their garbage in your bins, and you end up paying for it.
This stuff about people wanting PURE this and that is a distraction. There are earth-is-holy-capitalism-bad nutcases who know more about their tree spirit, but that's not what scientists are talking about. So lets restrict the focus of attention to what serious scientists and economists have to say on the issue.
Carbon pollution refers to soot and/or CO2. Sure CO2 is essential to life (soot isn't), but that is another distraction. What is essential to life, but that doesn't mean you can't kill yourself with it.
The science says that if you dump lots of CO2 in the atmosphere, you'll change the biosphere of the earth, and that may not be pretty. The economists say that that is going to cost a lot of money.
Action on the issue is practically free in an aggregate sense, as evidenced in the USA (regional greenhouse gas initiative), Germany, Australia, UK, China, etc. Action does reduce the amount of carbon pollution, and also creates economic activity, and *lowers* peoples electricity bills fairly quickly. (Factor, business and consumer.) This experiment has been run for many years of a large part of the US economy. No eco-fascism emerged.
If we tax carbon, and put those funds directly towards offsetting the costs on consumers, then that drives innovation, and the market will work out the rest. It's been done. It works. If the US doesn't get serious, then they will fall behind the rest of the world in the emerging technology, just as M$ failed with the internet in the 90s.
Good point. The demand curve is inelastic. Gas taxes pay for roads and bridges. But that's a sales tax, not therefore a tax on consumption. (Not production.) So we are talking apples and oranges. If you want to have an informed opinion on tax, then it is worth knowing the difference.
Some argue that the consumer can purchase warmth or work or mobility at less cost by means of coal or oil or nuclear energy than by means of sunshine or wind or biomass. The argument concludes that this fact, in and of itself, relegates renewable energy resources to a small place in the national energy budget. The argument would be valid if energy prices were set in perfectly competitive markets. They are not. The costs of energy production have been underwritten unevenly among energy resources by the Federal Government.
This is where I stand. We also have to factor in the cost of pollution. Can you agree to that?
Iowa and Indiana are red states and leading the way in wind energy. It is good business. The NE of america has a revenue neutral carbon tax that is driving down energy costs. The RGGI covers 20% of the US economy, all blue states, and that portion of the economy grew relative to the rest of the US economy. The notion that a carbon tax would trash the economy is scare mongering.
Just because big carbon makes use of one tax break that other industries use does not mean that that is the only tax break it gets. Your argument is incoherent.. big carbon has been getting different tax breaks for over 100 years.
I don't know anyone who assumes that the government owns us. That's just absurd. Those tax receipts buy civilization. You don't want to pay any taxes? Move to Somalia. Problem solved.
But really, this is about getting civilization and not paying for it. How about paying for the things you use?
The GOP couldn't care less about reducing the deficit, or working out how to responsibly spend money. All the brohaha about cutting government in half is just bullshit. The tea party base do want to reduce the size of government, but not the things that they use, which is almost all of government, so they'll be the first to whine if their social security or medicare is cut. But by their own lights, they never used a dime of government either.
Where is the responsibility?
The tax breaks were not quantified.
The oil industry has been subsidized since its inception.
You just read as far as the one statement that you could construe to mean what your bias wants it to mean, and then stopped. That's kind of pathetic.
Direct Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy in Fiscal Year 2010
The commentary in conservative media is actually paid for by big carbon. Propaganda works.
The difference is when that 4 billion is "given" to big carbon, its not taken out of our pockets and handed over to them. it is simply letting them keep more of their own money.
From an accounting point of view, this is incoherent. A tax break costs as much as an expenditure. Why does big carbon pay less taxes than everyone else?
Explain to me how allowing "big carbon" to keep their money that they made, is the same as taking my money through taxes that I paid and giving it to another company??
All those tanks and fighter-jets that the GOP wants to spend money on... they cost money. All the social security and medicare that the tea-party collects. That costs money.
Who is going to pay? Do you think that poor people should subsidize big oil, and pay the medical bills of the GOP base? Talk about a redistribution program.
The ozone issue had actually been faced before
Wrong. It was the first time.
. The main industries using CFCs were for propellants and refrigeration. We already had other propellants, and for applications that they weren't suitable pump-bottles were substituted.
Wrong. I used to know someone working for a fridge company trying to figure out new safe coolents. Back then nothing came close to CFCs. They figured it out.
What's happening with global warming is that we're being asked to change our entire lifestyles, and give up our human rights.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. It will cost almost nothing to do something about climate change. Renewables as of 2013 are about price parity with carbon for electricity generation. The prices are /plummeting/. Google/walmart will be running their data-centres/stores on renewables in less than a decade -- TO SAVE MONEY -- and that is without factoring the real cost of carbon pollution.
The economic scare-mongering on AGW was done by exactly the same people as the econommic scare-mongering on the ozone whole, and acid rain. The same people also fought tooth-and-nail over protecting the tobacco industry. The same people also fought tooth-and-nail to defend the GOP's hair-brained star-wars program.
The term "alarmist" is just good marketing. It is projection. There is nothing to be alarmed about.
I'd rather spend billions learning how to terraform our deserts than have some quacks allow government to make us live in cells in fascist mega-cities.
This really goes to the heart of the "skeptic" argument. And to think "skeptics" call scientists alarmists, when the whole a-science movement is based on fear of some imaginary future.
Say, what's wrong with a carbon tax? To make it revenue neutral, you can reduce income taxes. The market can sort out how to factor in the cost of carbon pollution. Where are the fascists in that? By what right do a few well connected businesses get to use the whole earth as a big exhaust pipe without paying for it? Where is the personal responsibility?
The economic evidence shows that mitigating climate change costs almost nothing. There has been no fascist take-over. In my experience, conservatives doen't even know what fascism is.
It really is a case of science versus fear-based ignorance.
This argument of "all scientists will not tell the truth" has about as much credibility as a conspiracy theory as 9/11 being an inside job.
That hasn't been demonstrated.
Riiiggghhttt. Do you even know how the carbon life cycle is studied? Have you ever read an academic article on the matter? I suppose you don't have to, since it is all lies.
And what is being protected? It is the political influence of big carbon. The actual economic impact of doing something about climate change is negligible at most. There is empirical data for that as well, but I suppose all the economists are lying to, right?
Well, you can get your information from conservative media which echoes big-carbon talking points for a price. (Nice business model, eh?) Or you could swing over the government agency that actually tracks the money, as see for yourself.
What did you do?
The point here is that we have hordes of immediate problems in society that no reasonable person would say he doesn't care about, but that statement of caring rings hollow when it isn't backed by money and action. Instead, we as a society seem to like to adopt elitist, knee-jerk, "favorite sports team" style positions on matters that may be fairly described as extraordinarily difficult to even get agreed quantification on. Meanwhile, kids are living under bridges in our nation's cities, and folks are dropping dead from chronic disease at relatively young ages left and right.
I've dedicated my life to understanding these issues and contributing to the discourse of science. The problem with the "what are you doing about the child under the bridge?" argument is that it ignores that mitigating climate change really isn't going to be a big deal if we actually do something sooner rather than later. The "sky will fall in on the economy" meme is part of the disinformation campaign, and there are plenty of "earth-is-holy-capitalism-is-evil" spirit people out there to poison the conversation.
Do you want to carry on with your knee-jerk reactions and stay in your comfortable little bubble, where you can safely think about things on a time scale that ranges from 50 to perhaps hundreds of years or more, or do you want to take a moment to consider that maybe your energy might be better placed somewhere else, some place that might make a different on matters that are killing millions of people right now? Should you choose the former, don't worry, you'll be the company of most of the rest of society. I suppose that's some consolation at least.
A judicious understanding of economic theory will lead you to understand that there is no reason why we cannot do both at the same time. Unfortunately, the politics in the USA (in particular) is so pre-school level that conservatives adopt a position merely because it goes against what democrats want. For example, Paul Ryan supported Obamacare as late as 2007. It is a conservative idea, generated in conservative think-tanks in the 90s, and experimented with my conservative governors.
GOP obstructionism is rather hair-raising considering that dems use universities as think-tanks. Most of the economics profession is against trickle-down economics, for example, although I am aware of good conservative economic arguments. Still, most of academia thinks it is bullshit, but the GOP is all for it, and it conveniently fits into the narrative of the plutocracy class that funds most of the GOP. Basically we have a party of crony capitalism hell bent on obstructing anything unless it is a tax break for rich people, or a ban on abortion. Of course they're against climate science. Of course they're against main-stream economics. It hurts the donar class.
There's a great book "Idiot America" which details some of the utter lunacy that has become the GOP. You want to help the child under the bridge, then vote dem until the GOP is reformed.
I am a conservative.