Now it may turn out that coal burning becomes uneconomic in which case they can indeed stop running the plants in question. We'll just have to see what comes of it.
That is precisely the point. Even if you don't count the cost of polluting (seriously, wtf), coal power plants will soon be more expensive to run than renewables. We have almost crossed the threshold for building new power plants (which must factor in the cost of coal for ~50 years). Tata (the largest energy provider in India) has officially walked away from building new coal power plants earlier this year, citing costs. India gets 70% of its energy from coal.
Closing down existing power plants will take time, but it *will* happen if the balance sheet demands it.
Wind power continues to get exponentially better, with the amount of power produced being the square of the tower height. The future will have enormous towers, probably in the ocean and great lakes, with huge blades that poke into the more consistent and steady wind that is further off the ground. The USA is on the bleeding edge of that technology, thanks to a technology subsidy that is tiny compared to oil/coal subsidies. (Seriously wtf?)
You don't know what you're talking about. They never taxed any of those things. They were either banned outright, emissions were limited by regulations.
CFCs were phased out, by a mandate I believe. The negotiation process looked pretty convoluted, but it happened during the Carter/Reagan/Bush years, although the industry was busy constructing bullshit counter-narratives back in the 60s. All the same stuff about CO2: ozone whole is natural, volcanos are doing it, human activity is insignificant, there is no consensus, scientists have doubts but are afraid to come forward, this will bring about socialism, environmentalists are being hysterical, this will ruin the economy -- seriously, this war on AGW is nothing new. Fred Singer was behind a lot of this. Hence the similarities.
So we have examples of a mandate and an emissions trading scheme.
China is also investing hugely in renewables, including six wind-power parks that each generate 20GW. (By comparison, France uses 80GW.) That's what they are doing today. It seems strange to us that they are pursuing coal power plants at the same time; however, these/will/ be shut down as alternatives cross the line, which will happen in only 5-10 years. China is a major polluter, but they are actually make far bigger moves than the USA when it comes to doing something about it.
No one has established that AGW requires large-scale, COERCIVE solutions.
I'd agree with that. I believe we can solve the problem with subsidies on R&D, promising industries, and a revenue-neutral carbon tax that gives money back to people to make energy efficient improvements on their house. Some evidence suggests that this would have a net positive effect on the economy, since it spurs economic activity. This evidence comes from Germany which has grown ~ 3% p.a., during a global recession, and also the north-eastern USA which has been under such a carbon tax for 10 years, and has grown relative to the rest of the USA whilst net energy bills have gone down. Even for industry.
The economic and scientific evidence is against the "skeptics", but they have the cognitive bubble, so they see themselves as "right", and all the evidence against them just makes them feel "heroically right" =0.
So I can assume you give a significant portion of your income to third world countries that don't emit CO2 every year?
More pathetic alarmism. Germany is doing something about reducing its carbon footprint, and their economy has been growing ~ 3% per year whilst the rest of the world economy has tanked. Also, 20% of the USA economy is under a carbon tax -- the New York to the north east -- and they've grown relative to the rest of the country, and their power bills have gone/down/.
Gee, doing something about CO2 means giving away money too the third world, so nothing productive can be done --- NOT.
There is a reason we had little political problem reducing CFCs, and thus have a healing ozone.
The industry lobbied hard against it -- all the same arguments that are used a AGW -- including economic Armageddon. Then some analysis pointed out that California refrigeration businesses could use a new coolant and were better placed to do so relative to the world industry. Legislation was passed almost instantly.
This pattern has been going on since the 1950s. You'd think people would wise up to the manipulation. But gee... we have you talking about CO2 being exhaled by mammals -- implying that somehow CO2 concentrations cannot be too high to cause problems. This is kindergarten level ignorance. Easily disproved. For example, you drink water each day, right? Don't believe you can have too much of something natural? People have died from drinking too much water. The fact that this is a main "argument" of "skeptics" -- is proof that "skeptics" believe anything that sounds like a good story.
Bertrand Russell: “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are so confident while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
Now, you seem awfully confident that almost every climate scientist is plain wrong about something. You must be one of those economic alarmists, who believes that reducing carbon emissions will cripple the economy -- the same shrill alarmism that was used against acid rain and CFCs (the ozone hole). In all three cases, the economic alarmists were wrong. Taxes on sulphur, CFC and carbon emissions had a negligible negative effect at most on various economies -- sometimes a net positive, because it spurred new economic activity.
But continue with your shrill alarmism that addressing climate change will somehow destroy the economy and usher in world communist government. Ye all seem so very confident about it, that you don't even have to learn what scientists and economists have to say on the issue.
I agree with you regarding partisan sentiment. However, the Republicans can hardly be considered the party of science. Perhaps we need a "science" party, but then again, who would vote for them??
If conservatives talked about strengthening the regulatory process by cutting cruft, and cracking down on corruption, and minimising the interference in legitimate activity -- then democrates would be "YES LETS DO THAT!!!"
The reason why it seems nothing is done is because the political process is paralised by blank-and-white thinking.
The manufactured Climategate scandal was not an ad hominem.
You know, sometimes, in rare circumstances, an ad hominem attack is actually perfectly warranted. But "climategate" was a blatant act of academic intimidation, and personal attacks on the integrity of scientists. The science itself was left untouched.
Definition of an epistemic bubble: criminals hack a computer to troll through personal emails to find a supposed conspiracy in order to disrupt high level diplomatic dialogue on climate change. Despite widespread professional investigations showing nothing untoward in the emails, those in the epistemic bubble continue to believe that there was something nefarious going on, other then the criminal computer hacking, death threats and blatant intimidation of academics.
Meanwhile, those in the epistemic bubble continue to believe that the world is about to start cooling, and/or that there has been no warming in the last 10 years -- a claim tenuously supported by the most blatant cherry-picking of the start and end of trends, and all the while, the natural signs of climate change continue, in accordance with the scientific consensus which emerged officially in a 1979 NAS report.
At what stage to ideologues ever accept new information into their epistemic bubble?
The law needs updating to state that the cost to write and maintain should be cheaper versus the commercial alternative if you are going to do it in-house.
That's for sure. My experience of both sides of that equation lead me to believe that private industry is all about sales, but with little actual substance. The government could save hugely.
How does more regulation fix the problem of a nation of fools?
Checks and balances. Doesn't always work. But does that mean we should throw them out. (e.g., have the police and politicians ever colluded? should we therefore get rid of the separation of powers?)
But if everyone sees what happens and doesn't want to end up executed for sharing documents, they'll keep quiet
This type of naive authoritarian psychological thinking has been proved wrong time and time again. I think the phase "The more you tighten your grip, the more star-systems will slip through your fingers." Sure authoritarian bullying works sometimes. Generally it just galvonises opposition.
It's the Progressives in both political parties, the ones who believe in ever-more government size, scope,and power, and in case you thought otherwise, that increased size and power of government isn't and was never meant to be wielded strictly domestically, but globally as well.
This appeal to the middle ground is plain crap. The Republicans have deliberately taken up an extreme position, to make the middle-ground their original position, in the interest of -- power. The proof is that when Democrats advance previously Republican policies, they are now "socialist" and "big-government".
There have been hawks who are Democrats, but seriously, not in the same ball-park as the neocons, with their PNAC.
For me, lambda expressions are the saving grace for C++. You have to do a lot of functional programming to do it well, but once you know, you can never go back. Functional programs are shorter, clearer, simpler to write, and have much more sane code reuse than the almost-mis-feature of inheritance.
Slashdot Mirror
Now it may turn out that coal burning becomes uneconomic in which case they can indeed stop running the plants in question. We'll just have to see what comes of it.
That is precisely the point. Even if you don't count the cost of polluting (seriously, wtf), coal power plants will soon be more expensive to run than renewables. We have almost crossed the threshold for building new power plants (which must factor in the cost of coal for ~50 years). Tata (the largest energy provider in India) has officially walked away from building new coal power plants earlier this year, citing costs. India gets 70% of its energy from coal.
Closing down existing power plants will take time, but it *will* happen if the balance sheet demands it.
Wind power continues to get exponentially better, with the amount of power produced being the square of the tower height. The future will have enormous towers, probably in the ocean and great lakes, with huge blades that poke into the more consistent and steady wind that is further off the ground. The USA is on the bleeding edge of that technology, thanks to a technology subsidy that is tiny compared to oil/coal subsidies. (Seriously wtf?)
Reality is not a partisan issue.
You don't know what you're talking about. They never taxed any of those things. They were either banned outright, emissions were limited by regulations.
Acid rain was reduces with emissions trading
CFCs were phased out, by a mandate I believe. The negotiation process looked pretty convoluted, but it happened during the Carter/Reagan/Bush years, although the industry was busy constructing bullshit counter-narratives back in the 60s. All the same stuff about CO2: ozone whole is natural, volcanos are doing it, human activity is insignificant, there is no consensus, scientists have doubts but are afraid to come forward, this will bring about socialism, environmentalists are being hysterical, this will ruin the economy -- seriously, this war on AGW is nothing new. Fred Singer was behind a lot of this. Hence the similarities.
So we have examples of a mandate and an emissions trading scheme.
China is also investing hugely in renewables, including six wind-power parks that each generate 20GW. (By comparison, France uses 80GW.) That's what they are doing today. It seems strange to us that they are pursuing coal power plants at the same time; however, these /will/ be shut down as alternatives cross the line, which will happen in only 5-10 years. China is a major polluter, but they are actually make far bigger moves than the USA when it comes to doing something about it.
No one has established that AGW requires large-scale, COERCIVE solutions.
I'd agree with that. I believe we can solve the problem with subsidies on R&D, promising industries, and a revenue-neutral carbon tax that gives money back to people to make energy efficient improvements on their house. Some evidence suggests that this would have a net positive effect on the economy, since it spurs economic activity. This evidence comes from Germany which has grown ~ 3% p.a., during a global recession, and also the north-eastern USA which has been under such a carbon tax for 10 years, and has grown relative to the rest of the USA whilst net energy bills have gone down. Even for industry.
The economic and scientific evidence is against the "skeptics", but they have the cognitive bubble, so they see themselves as "right", and all the evidence against them just makes them feel "heroically right" =0.
So I can assume you give a significant portion of your income to third world countries that don't emit CO2 every year?
More pathetic alarmism. Germany is doing something about reducing its carbon footprint, and their economy has been growing ~ 3% per year whilst the rest of the world economy has tanked. Also, 20% of the USA economy is under a carbon tax -- the New York to the north east -- and they've grown relative to the rest of the country, and their power bills have gone /down/.
Gee, doing something about CO2 means giving away money too the third world, so nothing productive can be done --- NOT.
There is a reason we had little political problem reducing CFCs, and thus have a healing ozone.
The industry lobbied hard against it -- all the same arguments that are used a AGW -- including economic Armageddon. Then some analysis pointed out that California refrigeration businesses could use a new coolant and were better placed to do so relative to the world industry. Legislation was passed almost instantly.
This pattern has been going on since the 1950s. You'd think people would wise up to the manipulation. But gee... we have you talking about CO2 being exhaled by mammals -- implying that somehow CO2 concentrations cannot be too high to cause problems. This is kindergarten level ignorance. Easily disproved. For example, you drink water each day, right? Don't believe you can have too much of something natural? People have died from drinking too much water. The fact that this is a main "argument" of "skeptics" -- is proof that "skeptics" believe anything that sounds like a good story.
Wow. You really took that article as something to be scared to death of.
(face-palm.)
Bertrand Russell: “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are so confident while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
Now, you seem awfully confident that almost every climate scientist is plain wrong about something. You must be one of those economic alarmists, who believes that reducing carbon emissions will cripple the economy -- the same shrill alarmism that was used against acid rain and CFCs (the ozone hole). In all three cases, the economic alarmists were wrong. Taxes on sulphur, CFC and carbon emissions had a negligible negative effect at most on various economies -- sometimes a net positive, because it spurred new economic activity.
But continue with your shrill alarmism that addressing climate change will somehow destroy the economy and usher in world communist government. Ye all seem so very confident about it, that you don't even have to learn what scientists and economists have to say on the issue.
I agree with you regarding partisan sentiment. However, the Republicans can hardly be considered the party of science. Perhaps we need a "science" party, but then again, who would vote for them??
Yes, population is discrete. Yes it can be approximated as continuous. We are talking about 7 billion points. Nothing to see here.
You might find this interesting.
If conservatives talked about strengthening the regulatory process by cutting cruft, and cracking down on corruption, and minimising the interference in legitimate activity -- then democrates would be "YES LETS DO THAT!!!"
The reason why it seems nothing is done is because the political process is paralised by blank-and-white thinking.
Have you actually read the emails?
Hide the decline.
Epistemic bubble case in point. PATHETIC.
The manufactured Climategate scandal was not an ad hominem.
You know, sometimes, in rare circumstances, an ad hominem attack is actually perfectly warranted. But "climategate" was a blatant act of academic intimidation, and personal attacks on the integrity of scientists. The science itself was left untouched.
Definition of an epistemic bubble: criminals hack a computer to troll through personal emails to find a supposed conspiracy in order to disrupt high level diplomatic dialogue on climate change. Despite widespread professional investigations showing nothing untoward in the emails, those in the epistemic bubble continue to believe that there was something nefarious going on, other then the criminal computer hacking, death threats and blatant intimidation of academics.
Meanwhile, those in the epistemic bubble continue to believe that the world is about to start cooling, and/or that there has been no warming in the last 10 years -- a claim tenuously supported by the most blatant cherry-picking of the start and end of trends, and all the while, the natural signs of climate change continue, in accordance with the scientific consensus which emerged officially in a 1979 NAS report.
At what stage to ideologues ever accept new information into their epistemic bubble?
The law needs updating to state that the cost to write and maintain should be cheaper versus the commercial alternative if you are going to do it in-house.
That's for sure. My experience of both sides of that equation lead me to believe that private industry is all about sales, but with little actual substance. The government could save hugely.
You forgot one of the most important benefits. Insurance companies must give you a rebate if they spend too much of your $$$ on advertising.
How does more regulation fix the problem of a nation of fools?
Checks and balances. Doesn't always work. But does that mean we should throw them out. (e.g., have the police and politicians ever colluded? should we therefore get rid of the separation of powers?)
but attacking the man rather than the argument usually tends to lose you credibility.
In theory yes, but in practice, ad hominems are very efficacious, even with very intelligent people. It all comes down to what you want to hear.
It's not a COOL feature, but unbelievably useful. I work with a lot of documents, Spotlight is indispensable.
I hate it.
and massively better usability than the Mac I have to use at work.
Sounds to me like you were using it wrong. Windows 7 is great and all, and not *massively* better than Mac for a competent Mac user.
But if everyone sees what happens and doesn't want to end up executed for sharing documents, they'll keep quiet
This type of naive authoritarian psychological thinking has been proved wrong time and time again. I think the phase "The more you tighten your grip, the more star-systems will slip through your fingers." Sure authoritarian bullying works sometimes. Generally it just galvonises opposition.
Other governments generally start from the position that the government allows people certain amounts of freedom.
Keep drinking the kool-aid there.
/true/ liberal democracies, do not live and die by the decree of our almighty sovereign lords.
We, in
It's the Progressives in both political parties, the ones who believe in ever-more government size, scope,and power, and in case you thought otherwise, that increased size and power of government isn't and was never meant to be wielded strictly domestically, but globally as well.
This appeal to the middle ground is plain crap. The Republicans have deliberately taken up an extreme position, to make the middle-ground their original position, in the interest of -- power. The proof is that when Democrats advance previously Republican policies, they are now "socialist" and "big-government".
There have been hawks who are Democrats, but seriously, not in the same ball-park as the neocons, with their PNAC.
For me, lambda expressions are the saving grace for C++. You have to do a lot of functional programming to do it well, but once you know, you can never go back. Functional programs are shorter, clearer, simpler to write, and have much more sane code reuse than the almost-mis-feature of inheritance.