However you want to try to cut it we've TRIED libertarianism before. It doesn't work. It cannot work in a modern society.
And when was this? The latest the US has come close to libertarianism was when Alexis de Tocqueville toured America in 1831. It has gone downhill since, with corporations gaining more and more power.
At the beginning of the depression government intervention did worsen it, because of wrong-headed libertarian/laissez-faire policies
Those government interventions is neither libertarian nor laissez-faire. Do you know what the difference is? Under libertarianism and laissez-faire there is no government intervention.
we've been there, done that and wound up in the great depression because of it.
No, we didn't have a libertarian government which caused the Great Depression. If we had had a libertarian government we would not have had Prohibition. The 18th Amendment, which prohibited alcohol, was ratified on 16 January 1920. The Great Depression started in October 1929. It was only during it that the 21st Admendment was ratified, on 5 December 1933.
And it was protectionist laws like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that made it worse and last longer than it would have otherwise. That most definitely in not libertarian.
I still believe we should have some sort of disability program, but people with health issues like obesity (lung cancer for smokers) should not be able to receive aid.
For smokers, which I am, and other life style choices that raise the cost of medical insurance their insurance premium can be adjusted higher. Because I smoke I am willing to pay more for insurance. However for life style choices that lower costs, premiums should be lowered as well. Even though I smoke I used to lead an active life style. Until an accident that left me with a disability I rode my bike up to 200 miles a week, I had the accident while riding. I ran a few miles or more a few days a week. I swam and dove, and I practiced martial arts.
I was trying to say that you were thinking OTHERS in this thread were arguing that torture is ok, but it is not what they were saying.
Because one other person did, I even included the relevant quote: "when we're talking about a relative handful of people, most of whom are almost certainly guilty". To me that sounds like it's okay to torture a "relative handful of people" to save many others.
Yes, and that's a popular sort of opinion on this site, that "it works" is equivalent to "there's nothing wrong with it." I'm just saying that, to me, if a program stands out as clearly not being developed for the operating system I'm working on, then I count that as a problem.
Consistency of the UI isn't particularly that important to me, I've used Linux, Macs, and Windows. I don't use menus all that much, instead I use key combinations for a lot of what I do. All those are pretty consistent across OSes.
Do you have anything in NeoOffice that you can point to as being better than the OpenOffice version?
No, but I see no reason to switch. For now NeoOffice suits me fine.
So, if C/T imposes an additional cost of, say, $500/year for someone making 110% of the poverty level, give everyone $500/year from the permit auction revenues.
About a month I read an article in a magazine that proposed something like it but on gas. They called it a net zero tax. Ah here is it, in the "Conservative" "The Weekly Standard". Instead of mandating federal fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, it proposes to raise fuel taxes instead. So that the average person does not pay more taxes it would reduce income tax instead. If because of the increase in fuel tax the person paid $100 more for gas a month they would get a $100 cut in income tax for the month. This could then encourage people to drive less and or to buy more fuel efficient vehicles.
The problem with Nuclear energy in this country is that it has been demonized - Look at the media reaction to TMI
The problem with nuclear power is that it is dirty; it takes years to build, the last power plant that went online took more than 20 years to build; and private businesses and people, Wall Street; will not pay for it without massive subsidies from the government. Not even libertarian free market institutes say that without these subsidies nuclear power plants will be built.
as long as Al Gore can make a mint with his carbon-credit trading house scheme
I've asked this before, how is Al Gore making a lot of money off of carbon? That is other than the fact he is a large stockholder of Oxy, Oxidental Petroleum? If nobody answers this then the only conclusion I can come up with is it is all FUD!
So until a year ago, they hadn't factored in something that occurred in 1997/8.
They do now, it's skeptics who use it to deny the world getting warmer. It goes like this, including 1997/8 when there was an eruption which lowered temperatures temperarily the averge is lowered. When that year isn't included though there is a demonstrable warming trend.
Of course it's all part of the Bait and Switch tactics of deniers who will use anything and everything they can to discredit climate change.
Capitalism tries to externalize (and therefore ignore) all costs.
No, that's corporatism and the Corporate Aristocracy [reddit.com] Thomas Jefferson warned of
That's why I said try.
Maybe but I wanted to make the distinguishment between capitalism and the corporate aristocracy. Too many believe they are the same.
Right now the United States is fairly corporatist
That's why Thomas Jefferson issued his warning. When he ran for president banking corporations ran a negative campaign against him. Then again so did some religious groups.
I'm not against corporations themselves, I believe though that they should be held to the original standards by which they were granted Corporate Charters. The first two corporations to be granted charters were the East India Companies, the Dutch East India Company in 1602 and the British East India Company in 1604. Both owned ships and were shipping businesses, and shipping was a risky business. Ships could be attacked by pirates, as has been in the news lately, or they could sink. One may sink because of a storm. Whenever cargo and lives were lost a ship's owner was financially responsible. If someone had invested in or bought part of a ship they could loose everything. So the Dutch crown, then the British crown, created the idea of corporate charters. Someone could buy shares in a corporation and if something happened the most a person could loose is the amount they had invested. However for a business to be granted a corporate charter the business had to service the public or common good. As now trade was then generally s public good. If at any tyme a corporation did not serve the common good it could have it's corporate charter revoked.
2. Ignoring know safe energy production of nuclear
Safe nuclear power? Maybe but it's not clean. And businesses won't spend money on it unless they receive massive subsidies. Not even France has profitable nuclear power without subsidies.
Sorry, the government does more damage
You're right here. In the US, as I'm pretty sure is the same in other nations, the government is the biggest polluter.
The preponderance of evidence against many forms of man made global warming is building faster than support for it.
Where's your source? It's not online but the American Geological Institute's "Earth" magazine published an article in it's November 2008 issue titled "Climate Skeptics in Retreat". Science is proving the skeptics wrong, but they just use the bait and switch tactic.
They are going to create a new government bureaucracy where we already have more than one which does the same job.
Unfortunately I have this fear you're right. We already have 2 bureaucracies that could do this, plus a third that does some of it too, why create another one?
Nobody in this thread has suggested torture is ok in any way for any reason.
Here you said "As opposed to the way you seem to take the argument that torture of a few is ok to save the majoritiy" in reply to my post. I have never ever said torture was okay, I have repeatedly argued torture was bad. What I replied to to begin with was this where the person wrote "when we're talking about a relative handful of people, most of whom are almost certainly guilty". My reply was to ask if all those people tortured were guilty, which I might add was never answered.
Like other's it seems you're guilty of trying to avoid the question of whether those tortured were even guilty of anything.
how come all the climatologists predicting global warming based on man's CO2 emission failed to predict that temperatures would remain steady and fall slightly after 1998
Perhaps because they hadn't included that El Nina of 1997/8 raised temperatures before declining slightly? Eleven of the warmest years recorded were in the past 13 years.
Oh yeah, what is the relationship between the temperature rise on other planets circling our sun and that of Earth?
"Recently, there have been some suggestions that "global warming" has been observed on Mars (e.g. here). These are based on observations of regional change around the South Polar Cap, but seem to have been extended into a "global" change, and used by some to infer an external common mechanism for global warming on Earth and Mars (e.g. here and here). But this is incorrect reasoning and based on faulty understanding of the data."
There simply is not enough data or the computing power to calculate what (if anything of significance) we are currently doing to the climate or what any measures we may take would or could do.
Sure there's enough data and computing power. With your garage door closed start your engine and sit there in the car in the garage. After 10 minutes let's know how things went.
like Al Gore who stands to make a LOT of money from cap-and-trade
How will Al Gore make a lot of money off of cap and trade? You do know he's a large stockholder of Oxy, Oxidental Petroleum? With cap and trade he could loose a lot.
On the other hand he shouldn't be tooling around in his private jet showing his movie.
Actually, it means congress and state legislatures can't do anything they aren't explicitly allowed to. That doesn't mean a whole lot given the commerce clause, but the the constitution is mostly default-deny regarding government authority, not default-allow as you seem to believe. As far as court decisions expanding authority beyond what is actually allowed (Wickard for instance), remember that just because the court claims something is constitutional doesn't guarantee that it actually is.
How do you figure?
It read, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. "
That is, powers not specifically enumerated are reserved to the states or to it's people. That sounds like default allow to me.
No, default allow when say something like "you can do it even if it's not listed here." Default deny is where it says "reserved to the states, or the people." The federal government is specifically barred from something if it is not enumerated.
Capitalism tries to externalize (and therefore ignore) all costs.
No, that's corporatism and the Corporate Aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of when he said "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Yes the road to hell is paved with good intentions but is self-interest a good or bad thing?
If self interest is focused on the long term it is good, but as bank officers as shown focusing on the short term can be bad, very bad. One way to correct this though is to delay bonuses and other incentives. Instead of rewarding "good performances" with bonuses this year or next, reward them say 5 or 10 years down the road.
meaning less population AND THEY ALREADY HAVE OVERPOPULATION (ie food production is insufficient to keep the population alive).
The insufficiency of food in Africa has 2 causes, climate change and politics. Ethiopia has had a food crisis because of a change in their climate. Reduced rainfall has caused "ever more frequent droughts". On the other hand Zimbabwe has turned from the bread basket of Africa into a basketcase. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe ruined Zimbabwe. He kicked all the white farmers, who produced most of the food, off the farms. He then gave those farms to his cronies, who did not know how to farm. Zimbabwe went from being a big exporter of food to needing food donations from other nations. Another cause of lack of food was the economic policies that forced or encouraged small scale farmers to leave those farms. "Africa: Civil Society Blames World Bank, IMF and WTO". However with the new Green Revolution in Africa farmers are starting to grow more food.
Actually, polluting companies will have a profit motive to move their pollution (and the associated jobs - but not employees) to a location where their profits will not be threatened by the increased costs involved in complying with local laws. If they fail to do so, they will discover they have a competitor who undercuts them by moving their production facilities to the "pollution friendly" nation.
While that may sound economically good for businesses, that's not how it works. When a business moves to a place that has low or no environmental laws or regulations or standards for workers it may improve the lives of the people living there. Once people do not have to be concerned about their next meal they then want higher pay and a cleaner environment. People, in the US and Europe, complain about China taking away jobs because of cheaper labor. But now that businesses have moved there the lives of Chinese has improved. So now people are demanding more pay and environmental movements are growing in China. And with some types of businesses it's cheaper to clean up than it is to move.
Wal-Mart very quietly dropped its "Buy American" campaign some years back.
Ah, someone who recalls those Walmart ads. I've mentioned them a few tymes myself. BTW Walmart is one of the big players in Chinese retail, it opens up a lot of stores there. It may of changed since then but last year I read a business article that said a French store chain was the biggest in China. It also said that about Brazil. What I don't get about Walmart is that by company rules Sam's Club can not sell items lower than Walmart does even though you have to pay to become a member of Sam's.
But if you seriously want to see a reduction in carbon emissions, then do not support legeslative restrictions on them in democratic countries. Instead push for ways to reduce the costs of energy sources that do not burn carbon. Do not have the government fund "studies" on how to make wind/solar/nuclear competitive and do not provide subsidies for wind and solar to make them competitve.
Why not subsidize solar and wind? While I don't like subsidies, because coal, natural gas, and nuclear power all get subsidies as well, it's only "fair" that solar, wind, and other alternative sources of energy get them as well. Personally I'd end all subsidies. Then let consumers and investors decide who they will support.
the polluting companies have a profit motive to move where greenpeace can't touch them, like China. Or Africa.
Except that as China's standards of living have improved they have become aware of, and want to do something about, pollution. The same would happen in Africa. In general populations of people are first concerned about survival, which is how China used to be. But once their lives have improved so that they no longer have to worry about where their next meal comes from they start thinking about the environment. Quite simply environmental movements in China are becoming visible.
Greenpeace opposes anything with co2 exhaust AND hates the one solution to the co2 problem that might actually work (today, not in 50 years) : nuclear power
There are at least two problems with this statement. Nuclear power is not a solution to CO2, and it will not work today. It takes years and years to build a nuclear power plant. The last one to go online in the US took more than 20 years to build. But even if you could build one in 5 years, that's still not today. However today you can erect 5 megawatt wind turbines quickly. If you erect 20 a month, in 1 year you'll add 1,200 megawatts of capacity a year and in five years you'll have added 6 gigawatts of capacity. Even if the energy captured comes to half that that's still 3 gigawatts. According to Infoplease the largest plant in the US is Palo Verde 2, Ariz. which has a capacity of 1,335 megawatts. It took more than a decade for Palo Verde 1 and 12 years for Palo Verde 3 to go online, it doesn't say how long Palo Verde 2 took.
They are also already decided : they oppose nuclear fusion, if and when it becomes available.
If true I think Greenpeace is wrong. In general I think fusion may provide much of our energy, however I'd like to see a life cycle analysis when it does become feasible.
Also greenpeace ignores massive co2 exhaust where it is politically inconvenient : ever looked at a wind turbine ? Every last square millimeter you see is reprocessed oil. On the inside, tons of components are made with oil, and the remainder, the steel supports, are made by burning coal (that's how cast iron is still made, coal is just too cheap and convenient. Everywhere you mine iron you will find coal deposits on top of it, between it,...)
The same applies to nuclear power, even more so. Nuclear power plants require massive amounts of concrete and steel, which requires massive amounts of coal to burn.
there is a whole school of thought (I don't subscribe to it, but it exists, and is valid as any other) that contends altruism leads to suffering, and only hurts in the long run.
There may be more than one school, but Ayn Rand thought that. She distinguished a difference between altruism and kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others.
Slashdot Mirror
However you want to try to cut it we've TRIED libertarianism before. It doesn't work. It cannot work in a modern society.
And when was this? The latest the US has come close to libertarianism was when Alexis de Tocqueville toured America in 1831. It has gone downhill since, with corporations gaining more and more power.
Falcon
At the beginning of the depression government intervention did worsen it, because of wrong-headed libertarian/laissez-faire policies
Those government interventions is neither libertarian nor laissez-faire. Do you know what the difference is? Under libertarianism and laissez-faire there is no government intervention.
Falcon
we've been there, done that and wound up in the great depression because of it.
No, we didn't have a libertarian government which caused the Great Depression. If we had had a libertarian government we would not have had Prohibition. The 18th Amendment, which prohibited alcohol, was ratified on 16 January 1920. The Great Depression started in October 1929. It was only during it that the 21st Admendment was ratified, on 5 December 1933.
And it was protectionist laws like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that made it worse and last longer than it would have otherwise. That most definitely in not libertarian.
Falcon
Same here.
I still believe we should have some sort of disability program, but people with health issues like obesity (lung cancer for smokers) should not be able to receive aid.
For smokers, which I am, and other life style choices that raise the cost of medical insurance their insurance premium can be adjusted higher. Because I smoke I am willing to pay more for insurance. However for life style choices that lower costs, premiums should be lowered as well. Even though I smoke I used to lead an active life style. Until an accident that left me with a disability I rode my bike up to 200 miles a week, I had the accident while riding. I ran a few miles or more a few days a week. I swam and dove, and I practiced martial arts.
Falcon
You know why I say that? your number is off by a magnitude of 10 when compared to all other numbers I've seen.
How about this one, it basically agrees.
Falcon
I was trying to say that you were thinking OTHERS in this thread were arguing that torture is ok, but it is not what they were saying.
Because one other person did, I even included the relevant quote: "when we're talking about a relative handful of people, most of whom are almost certainly guilty". To me that sounds like it's okay to torture a "relative handful of people" to save many others.
Falcon
Yes, and that's a popular sort of opinion on this site, that "it works" is equivalent to "there's nothing wrong with it." I'm just saying that, to me, if a program stands out as clearly not being developed for the operating system I'm working on, then I count that as a problem.
Consistency of the UI isn't particularly that important to me, I've used Linux, Macs, and Windows. I don't use menus all that much, instead I use key combinations for a lot of what I do. All those are pretty consistent across OSes.
Do you have anything in NeoOffice that you can point to as being better than the OpenOffice version?
No, but I see no reason to switch. For now NeoOffice suits me fine.
Falcon
So, if C/T imposes an additional cost of, say, $500/year for someone making 110% of the poverty level, give everyone $500/year from the permit auction revenues.
About a month I read an article in a magazine that proposed something like it but on gas. They called it a net zero tax. Ah here is it, in the "Conservative" "The Weekly Standard". Instead of mandating federal fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, it proposes to raise fuel taxes instead. So that the average person does not pay more taxes it would reduce income tax instead. If because of the increase in fuel tax the person paid $100 more for gas a month they would get a $100 cut in income tax for the month. This could then encourage people to drive less and or to buy more fuel efficient vehicles.
Falcon
The problem with Nuclear energy in this country is that it has been demonized - Look at the media reaction to TMI
The problem with nuclear power is that it is dirty; it takes years to build, the last power plant that went online took more than 20 years to build; and private businesses and people, Wall Street; will not pay for it without massive subsidies from the government. Not even libertarian free market institutes say that without these subsidies nuclear power plants will be built.
Falcon
as long as Al Gore can make a mint with his carbon-credit trading house scheme
I've asked this before, how is Al Gore making a lot of money off of carbon? That is other than the fact he is a large stockholder of Oxy, Oxidental Petroleum? If nobody answers this then the only conclusion I can come up with is it is all FUD!
Falcon
So until a year ago, they hadn't factored in something that occurred in 1997/8.
They do now, it's skeptics who use it to deny the world getting warmer. It goes like this, including 1997/8 when there was an eruption which lowered temperatures temperarily the averge is lowered. When that year isn't included though there is a demonstrable warming trend.
Of course it's all part of the Bait and Switch tactics of deniers who will use anything and everything they can to discredit climate change.
Falcon
Capitalism tries to externalize (and therefore ignore) all costs.
No, that's corporatism and the Corporate Aristocracy [reddit.com] Thomas Jefferson warned of
That's why I said try.
Maybe but I wanted to make the distinguishment between capitalism and the corporate aristocracy. Too many believe they are the same.
Right now the United States is fairly corporatist
That's why Thomas Jefferson issued his warning. When he ran for president banking corporations ran a negative campaign against him. Then again so did some religious groups.
I'm not against corporations themselves, I believe though that they should be held to the original standards by which they were granted Corporate Charters. The first two corporations to be granted charters were the East India Companies, the Dutch East India Company in 1602 and the British East India Company in 1604. Both owned ships and were shipping businesses, and shipping was a risky business. Ships could be attacked by pirates, as has been in the news lately, or they could sink. One may sink because of a storm. Whenever cargo and lives were lost a ship's owner was financially responsible. If someone had invested in or bought part of a ship they could loose everything. So the Dutch crown, then the British crown, created the idea of corporate charters. Someone could buy shares in a corporation and if something happened the most a person could loose is the amount they had invested. However for a business to be granted a corporate charter the business had to service the public or common good. As now trade was then generally s public good. If at any tyme a corporation did not serve the common good it could have it's corporate charter revoked.
Falcon
environment
2. Ignoring know safe energy production of nuclear
Safe nuclear power? Maybe but it's not clean. And businesses won't spend money on it unless they receive massive subsidies. Not even France has profitable nuclear power without subsidies.
Sorry, the government does more damage
You're right here. In the US, as I'm pretty sure is the same in other nations, the government is the biggest polluter.
The preponderance of evidence against many forms of man made global warming is building faster than support for it.
Where's your source? It's not online but the American Geological Institute's "Earth" magazine published an article in it's November 2008 issue titled "Climate Skeptics in Retreat". Science is proving the skeptics wrong, but they just use the bait and switch tactic.
They are going to create a new government bureaucracy where we already have more than one which does the same job.
Unfortunately I have this fear you're right. We already have 2 bureaucracies that could do this, plus a third that does some of it too, why create another one?
Falcon
Nobody in this thread has suggested torture is ok in any way for any reason.
Here you said "As opposed to the way you seem to take the argument that torture of a few is ok to save the majoritiy" in reply to my post. I have never ever said torture was okay, I have repeatedly argued torture was bad. What I replied to to begin with was this where the person wrote "when we're talking about a relative handful of people, most of whom are almost certainly guilty". My reply was to ask if all those people tortured were guilty, which I might add was never answered.
Like other's it seems you're guilty of trying to avoid the question of whether those tortured were even guilty of anything.
Falcon
how come all the climatologists predicting global warming based on man's CO2 emission failed to predict that temperatures would remain steady and fall slightly after 1998
Perhaps because they hadn't included that El Nina of 1997/8 raised temperatures before declining slightly? Eleven of the warmest years recorded were in the past 13 years.
Oh yeah, what is the relationship between the temperature rise on other planets circling our sun and that of Earth?
"Recently, there have been some suggestions that "global warming" has been observed on Mars (e.g. here). These are based on observations of regional change around the South Polar Cap, but seem to have been extended into a "global" change, and used by some to infer an external common mechanism for global warming on Earth and Mars (e.g. here and here). But this is incorrect reasoning and based on faulty understanding of the data."
Falcon
There simply is not enough data or the computing power to calculate what (if anything of significance) we are currently doing to the climate or what any measures we may take would or could do.
Sure there's enough data and computing power. With your garage door closed start your engine and sit there in the car in the garage. After 10 minutes let's know how things went.
like Al Gore who stands to make a LOT of money from cap-and-trade
How will Al Gore make a lot of money off of cap and trade? You do know he's a large stockholder of Oxy, Oxidental Petroleum? With cap and trade he could loose a lot.
On the other hand he shouldn't be tooling around in his private jet showing his movie.
Falcon
Actually, it means congress and state legislatures can't do anything they aren't explicitly allowed to. That doesn't mean a whole lot given the commerce clause, but the the constitution is mostly default-deny regarding government authority, not default-allow as you seem to believe. As far as court decisions expanding authority beyond what is actually allowed (Wickard for instance), remember that just because the court claims something is constitutional doesn't guarantee that it actually is.
How do you figure?
It read, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. " That is, powers not specifically enumerated are reserved to the states or to it's people. That sounds like default allow to me.
No, default allow when say something like "you can do it even if it's not listed here." Default deny is where it says "reserved to the states, or the people." The federal government is specifically barred from something if it is not enumerated.
Falcon
Capitalism tries to externalize (and therefore ignore) all costs.
No, that's corporatism and the Corporate Aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of when he said "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Falcon
Yes the road to hell is paved with good intentions but is self-interest a good or bad thing?
If self interest is focused on the long term it is good, but as bank officers as shown focusing on the short term can be bad, very bad. One way to correct this though is to delay bonuses and other incentives. Instead of rewarding "good performances" with bonuses this year or next, reward them say 5 or 10 years down the road.
Falcon
nature reserves mean less food production (especially, again, in Africa)
This is not only wrong, but it is way wrong. The study Economics, Objectives, and Success of Private Nature Reserves in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America shows that private nature reserves can be profitably run. With it's nature reserves Limpopo Province is South Africa's breadbasket.
meaning less population AND THEY ALREADY HAVE OVERPOPULATION (ie food production is insufficient to keep the population alive).
The insufficiency of food in Africa has 2 causes, climate change and politics. Ethiopia has had a food crisis because of a change in their climate. Reduced rainfall has caused "ever more frequent droughts". On the other hand Zimbabwe has turned from the bread basket of Africa into a basketcase. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe ruined Zimbabwe. He kicked all the white farmers, who produced most of the food, off the farms. He then gave those farms to his cronies, who did not know how to farm. Zimbabwe went from being a big exporter of food to needing food donations from other nations. Another cause of lack of food was the economic policies that forced or encouraged small scale farmers to leave those farms. "Africa: Civil Society Blames World Bank, IMF and WTO". However with the new Green Revolution in Africa farmers are starting to grow more food.
Falcon
Actually, polluting companies will have a profit motive to move their pollution (and the associated jobs - but not employees) to a location where their profits will not be threatened by the increased costs involved in complying with local laws. If they fail to do so, they will discover they have a competitor who undercuts them by moving their production facilities to the "pollution friendly" nation.
While that may sound economically good for businesses, that's not how it works. When a business moves to a place that has low or no environmental laws or regulations or standards for workers it may improve the lives of the people living there. Once people do not have to be concerned about their next meal they then want higher pay and a cleaner environment. People, in the US and Europe, complain about China taking away jobs because of cheaper labor. But now that businesses have moved there the lives of Chinese has improved. So now people are demanding more pay and environmental movements are growing in China. And with some types of businesses it's cheaper to clean up than it is to move.
Wal-Mart very quietly dropped its "Buy American" campaign some years back.
Ah, someone who recalls those Walmart ads. I've mentioned them a few tymes myself. BTW Walmart is one of the big players in Chinese retail, it opens up a lot of stores there. It may of changed since then but last year I read a business article that said a French store chain was the biggest in China. It also said that about Brazil. What I don't get about Walmart is that by company rules Sam's Club can not sell items lower than Walmart does even though you have to pay to become a member of Sam's.
But if you seriously want to see a reduction in carbon emissions, then do not support legeslative restrictions on them in democratic countries. Instead push for ways to reduce the costs of energy sources that do not burn carbon. Do not have the government fund "studies" on how to make wind/solar/nuclear competitive and do not provide subsidies for wind and solar to make them competitve.
Why not subsidize solar and wind? While I don't like subsidies, because coal, natural gas, and nuclear power all get subsidies as well, it's only "fair" that solar, wind, and other alternative sources of energy get them as well. Personally I'd end all subsidies. Then let consumers and investors decide who they will support.
Falcon
the polluting companies have a profit motive to move where greenpeace can't touch them, like China. Or Africa.
Except that as China's standards of living have improved they have become aware of, and want to do something about, pollution. The same would happen in Africa. In general populations of people are first concerned about survival, which is how China used to be. But once their lives have improved so that they no longer have to worry about where their next meal comes from they start thinking about the environment. Quite simply environmental movements in China are becoming visible.
Falcon
Greenpeace opposes anything with co2 exhaust AND hates the one solution to the co2 problem that might actually work (today, not in 50 years) : nuclear power
There are at least two problems with this statement. Nuclear power is not a solution to CO2, and it will not work today. It takes years and years to build a nuclear power plant. The last one to go online in the US took more than 20 years to build. But even if you could build one in 5 years, that's still not today. However today you can erect 5 megawatt wind turbines quickly. If you erect 20 a month, in 1 year you'll add 1,200 megawatts of capacity a year and in five years you'll have added 6 gigawatts of capacity. Even if the energy captured comes to half that that's still 3 gigawatts. According to Infoplease the largest plant in the US is Palo Verde 2, Ariz. which has a capacity of 1,335 megawatts. It took more than a decade for Palo Verde 1 and 12 years for Palo Verde 3 to go online, it doesn't say how long Palo Verde 2 took.
They are also already decided : they oppose nuclear fusion, if and when it becomes available.
If true I think Greenpeace is wrong. In general I think fusion may provide much of our energy, however I'd like to see a life cycle analysis when it does become feasible.
Also greenpeace ignores massive co2 exhaust where it is politically inconvenient : ever looked at a wind turbine ? Every last square millimeter you see is reprocessed oil. On the inside, tons of components are made with oil, and the remainder, the steel supports, are made by burning coal (that's how cast iron is still made, coal is just too cheap and convenient. Everywhere you mine iron you will find coal deposits on top of it, between it, ...)
The same applies to nuclear power, even more so. Nuclear power plants require massive amounts of concrete and steel, which requires massive amounts of coal to burn.
Falcon
there is a whole school of thought (I don't subscribe to it, but it exists, and is valid as any other) that contends altruism leads to suffering, and only hurts in the long run.
There may be more than one school, but Ayn Rand thought that. She distinguished a difference between altruism and kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others.
Falcon
Obviously it's a good thing.
At least always better than letting Halliburton, Enron and Total decide what our future looks like.
Yea, we need more government. NOT!!! However TFA says it would under the auspices of NOAA.
Falcon