> They often get it wrong, thanks to their inherently irrational brains that -- through overconfidence, bubbles of like-minded thinkers, or just wanting to believe their vision of the world can be true -- mislead us and misinterpret information
Yes, but
1) Most are willing to admit they are wrong when an experiment result contradicts their theories.
2) Most are looking for the right answer, not the most profitable one.
I'd take that over our current Golden Rule model every time. Just look at leaded gasoline, waste disposal, or climate change to see examples of the golden rule hurting the average person. We have gotten rid of leaded gasoline, but it took one scientist nine years to convince the government that big business was lying. We're still fighting big business for good, long-term waste disposal and to minimize climate change
The only challenge I see is that, if we ever did switch to the Science Rule model, greedy idiots will claim to be scientists and put the true scientists in the minority, which would bring us back to the Golden Rule model anyway.
(I say Most in the bullets above because I'm pretty sure folks in it for the money these days wouldn't be scientists. But I also know there are a few bad scientists, so I sure as heck won't say 100%. I have no idea of how to test a scientist to see if they are good or not, other than to have well educated folks review a scientist's previous work.)
> He also wants the fossil fuel industry to pay for the damage it has done to the environment.
Wrong words on my part. I should've said he wants the cost of fossil fuel products to reflect the cost they do to the environment. My previous statement makes it sound like Musk wants to get the fossil industry to pay for all past damage. While that would be nice, I think there's a larger chance of a Falcon 9 flying out of my butt.
I'm serious. I want to like Elon Musk, but seriously his entire business model is based on getting the government (at all levels) to help him. His cars are subsidized heavily by the government, meaning that poor people in California are helping to pay for rich people buying expensive cars. That's not right. Now he wants more governmental help to hurt his competition. He needs to simply do the right thing, and that means competing fair and square.
And don't bother telling me about the massive "subsidies" available to the fossil fuel industry. Those subsidies are tax breaks for industry in the US that are available to Tesla, also, and I guarantee that they take advantage of it all.
I don't even want to go into the fact that his cars are, for the most part, coal powered.
So, you don't care that each of us already pays to subsidize the fossil fuel industry? The waste from that industry costs us $300-$800 billion in increased health care costs per year. Poor people are being forced to pay for everyone's unneeded health care expense, and the folks who develop issues from the fossil fuel waste get the added burden of living with those ailments.
Musk is simply saying he wants to get rid of all subsidies: direct tax benefits for both Fossils and Clean energy. He also wants the fossil fuel industry to pay for the damage it has done to the environment. Yes, that increases the cost of gas and electricity for all.
Imagine if those increased health care costs were rolled into the cost of electricity via a carbon tax. A coal plant would increase the cost of the electricity they generate to cover the carbon tax. The money they receive goes to health care. Our health care costs go down, to be replaced by the increased cost of electricity.
Now that we can see the true cost of the electricity, you and I can make an informed decision about which fuel type is better. If you suddenly see your electric bill double because you get your electricity from a coal plant, wouldn't you be banging down the door of your local/state government to push for a solar or wind farm? After all, they only lost the direct tax credit subsidy, and may have raised their rate only 20%
This scenario should also be repeated for the costs of increased property damage from climate change.
Do you still think he's talking BS?
Further, it's the middle class folks who pay these taxes anyway. Over 40% of the US doesn't pay federal taxes because they don't make enough money. It's more along the lines of going from "everyone pays 28% on whatever they earned over $40K" to "everyone pays 29% on whatever they earned over $40K, but folks doing things to help the environment and reduce health care costs get to pay 26%." The rich folks still have their tax havens, so they pay 0%.
Should've included this in the above: folks buying an EV for environmental reasons shouldn't buy one if their power is generated by a coal plant, for exactly the reason you mentioned. The money would be better spent on solar panels. If that's not an option, find some other way to reduce our negative impact on the environment.
No, he's trying to make incentives to have people replace coal or natural gas power plants with solar, wind, and maybe even nuclear. People say switching to renewable is too expensive. One of the reasons for that is the fossil fuel industry's freedom to pollute. IF the cost of that pollution were included in the sale price of the electricity or gasoline, people would have more accurate data when making the decision of renewable vs. fossil fuel. As an example, if we switched entirely to renewables, we'd save $300-800 billion a year on reduced health costs:
Still better then fossil fuels, which have done a great job of poisoning the environment.
"Although natural gas burning emits less fatal pollution and GHGs than coal burning, it is far deadlier than nuclear power, causing about 40 times more deaths per unit electric energy produced." http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2...
Or just search for "deaths from nuclear or fossil fuel waste".
Heck, it's bad enough that people are getting heavy metal poisoning just from eating too much fish. http://www.consumerreports.org...
"eat fish heavy metal poisoning"
Or we could spend "$trillions" on renewable (your wild-assed guess) and save $600 Billion per year on health care costs alone (an actual estimate from experts). Spend $3 Trillion once to save $600 Billion a year for say 20 years? You should be able to do that math.
I'll also back my numbers up with a citation:
"The aggregate national economic impact associated with these health impacts of fossil fuels is between $361.7 and $886.5 billion, or between 2.5 percent and 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)."
To be responsible for your actions and for the condition in which you leave the world. To me, letting CO2 (and other pollutants) out unnecessarily is similar to raking your leaves onto your neighbor's yard. It's solving your problem by making it someone else's, someone who might not actually be able to overcome the problem, such as residents of a disappearing small island or sealife being poisoned.
I'm looking at switching to a heat pump. An air source heat pump might be $13K. A ground source heat pump is $40K before subsidies/grants. The ASHP uses more electricity, but saves almost the same amount of CO2 as the GSHP. (Yes, both would be powered from green electricity.) Since society could buy 3 ASHPs for the cost of 1 GSHP, the ASHP is more effective with respect to pollution savings.
If you buy an EV for the renewable aspect, commit to switching your electrical supplier to one that produces all electricity from green sources. For me, that's a $0.024/kwh increase.
The battery is a part of the car, not the power source. It's much easier to capture the CO2 released during manufacturing of any type of vehicle, than putting an exhaust capture device on a mobile Internal Combustion Engine.
Yes, other folks that look into this might find their winter heating costs stay the same or decrease. I've run the numbers for my house and utility costs ($0.265/kwh last winter). Unless something has changed in the past 8 months, I'm looking at 100% increase.
A link regarding that 1% number. Yes, in a year, humans emit about 0.5% of the CO2 compared to the CO2 emitted by non-human processes. The problem is we've been doing that for over 100 years, with nothing absorbing that extra CO2. Assuming that was a linear increase from 0%, you end up with humans contributing 25%.
I'll let you provide citations for the rest of your numbers.
For clarity, the numbers in my original post were from the EPA's Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies calculator. I am not a climatologist. My "otherwise, we're hosed" comment is personal opinion, based on
A) articles I've read on climate change and
B) the number of people like the AC above who won't trust climatologists until the planet is beyond hope.
Basically, if you don't trust climatologists, you shouldn't trust doctors, engineers,... well pretty much any expert. After all, they're just in it for the money, right?
Until gasoline includes a fee to cleanup the CO2 released, EVs will be more expensive. But then, any environmental cleanup effort is going to cost money. I don't expect everyone to be able to afford this. I *hope* that anyone with extra cash does something to fight climate change, especially the fossil fuel industry since they've made billions (trillions?) putting us in our current situation. Otherwise, we're hosed.
That being said, I'm not sure the battery technology is good enough. It sounds as if in 3-5 years we would see significantly better batteries. Outside of that, an EV would fit my life (and 10 mile commute) fairly well.
I'm currently looking into replacing my gas furnace with a heat pump, powered by a combination of solar-, wind-, and hydro-generated electricity. This will cost less than half the price of a Volt/Prius/etc and will probably reduce my CO2 emissions by 3 tons, as opposed to the 2 tons I would save if I bought an EV. Other benefits: no battery and less CO2 released during manufacturing. The negative is that my winter heating costs will double.
I'd pay money for a Facebook or GMail that didn't sell/give my info to others. I can probably solve the second by running my own mail server, but I don't have the knowledge yet.
But, of course, if someone were to try to make Cashbook, they'd end up having the community split between themselves and Facebook. And who knows, Facebook might sue over a patent.
The pitcher is 100ft away from you. The ball is travelling 100mph (160km/h) and appears to be heading for your head. You have a split second to make a decision. What do you do?
Are you going to wait until you know your model is 100% accurate? After all, a gust of wind can blow the ball off course. A bird could swoop or a meteorite could fall and deflect the ball. Those possibilities wouldn't be realized (or not) until they happen or the ball hits your head. What do you do?
Me? I'd dodge. The risk isn't worth the cost of dodging.
And yes, I am dodging. I've done the stuff that saves me money: efficient appliances and solar panels. I *hope* that everyone tries to do at least that.
I have starting doing stuff that doesn't save me money: planting trees, conserving forests, changing home heating systems, etc. These help the climate change and health problems, but result in a net loss in my financial account. I *don't* expect everyone to do this, just those that can do it, especially those who have made millions or billions from burning fossil fuels. You would expect people around you to clean up after themselves, right? Not solve their problems by dumping them on your yard?
I wouldn't mind paying the net metering fee, IF the subsidies for fossil fuels were removed as well.
An article at Forbes reports that coal increases health care costs by 19 to 45 cents a kwh. Oil increases the costs by 8 to 19 c/kwh, and natural gas by 1 to 2 c/kwh. Then there's the estimated cost of climate change, assuming we beat it. (Yes, I trust a near-unanimous group of subject matter experts. Heck, I bet those 97% would really like to be wrong, so we wouldn't need to do something about the issue.)
Summing up, I'd rather pay $168 a year for a connection, as opposed to paying an extra $1000/year for fossil fuel electricity. (5000 kwh * 20 cents/kwh). Actually, aren't we already paying that extra $1000/year in extra health care costs, property insurance, and natural disaster relief?
I agree with using renewables first. It bypasses the "subsidies" that the fossil fuel industry receive.
An article at Forbes reports that coal increases health care costs by 19 to 45 cents a kwh. Oil increases the costs by 8 to 19 c/kwh, and natural gas by 1 to 2 c/kwh. Mercury in fish is getting bad enough that Consumer Reportshad an article on it last month. I'm pretty sure fish aren't mining mercury. Then there's the climate change issue.
Any one of those reasons, from three different sources, is good enough for me to prefer renewables over fossil fuels. For nuclear, I haven't decided yet, but I'm leaning in the direction of it being sold at the same time as renewable, not after all renewable supply is consumed.
Does that cover speed as well? 23 Billion Light Year radius and 14 Billion years old implies stuff is/was travelling at 1.6c. And if 46Billion LY was the radius, average speed becomes 3.2c.
Slashdot Mirror
> They often get it wrong, thanks to their inherently irrational brains that -- through overconfidence, bubbles of like-minded thinkers, or just wanting to believe their vision of the world can be true -- mislead us and misinterpret information
Yes, but
1) Most are willing to admit they are wrong when an experiment result contradicts their theories.
2) Most are looking for the right answer, not the most profitable one.
I'd take that over our current Golden Rule model every time. Just look at leaded gasoline, waste disposal, or climate change to see examples of the golden rule hurting the average person. We have gotten rid of leaded gasoline, but it took one scientist nine years to convince the government that big business was lying. We're still fighting big business for good, long-term waste disposal and to minimize climate change
The only challenge I see is that, if we ever did switch to the Science Rule model, greedy idiots will claim to be scientists and put the true scientists in the minority, which would bring us back to the Golden Rule model anyway.
(I say Most in the bullets above because I'm pretty sure folks in it for the money these days wouldn't be scientists. But I also know there are a few bad scientists, so I sure as heck won't say 100%. I have no idea of how to test a scientist to see if they are good or not, other than to have well educated folks review a scientist's previous work.)
or wannabe "hoverboards".
I use "shred", part of coreutils on Fedora. I wouldn't be surprised if it was common on other distros.
"I think your post is incorrect, as criticism is not the same thing as abuse." - criticism
"$SOMEBODY is an effing moron." - abuse
Something like Wikipedia should ban anyone who resorts to name calling or worse. It exacerbates a conflict as opposed to helping resolve one.
> He also wants the fossil fuel industry to pay for the damage it has done to the environment.
Wrong words on my part. I should've said he wants the cost of fossil fuel products to reflect the cost they do to the environment. My previous statement makes it sound like Musk wants to get the fossil industry to pay for all past damage. While that would be nice, I think there's a larger chance of a Falcon 9 flying out of my butt.
I'm serious. I want to like Elon Musk, but seriously his entire business model is based on getting the government (at all levels) to help him. His cars are subsidized heavily by the government, meaning that poor people in California are helping to pay for rich people buying expensive cars. That's not right. Now he wants more governmental help to hurt his competition. He needs to simply do the right thing, and that means competing fair and square.
And don't bother telling me about the massive "subsidies" available to the fossil fuel industry. Those subsidies are tax breaks for industry in the US that are available to Tesla, also, and I guarantee that they take advantage of it all.
I don't even want to go into the fact that his cars are, for the most part, coal powered.
So, you don't care that each of us already pays to subsidize the fossil fuel industry? The waste from that industry costs us $300-$800 billion in increased health care costs per year. Poor people are being forced to pay for everyone's unneeded health care expense, and the folks who develop issues from the fossil fuel waste get the added burden of living with those ailments.
Musk is simply saying he wants to get rid of all subsidies: direct tax benefits for both Fossils and Clean energy. He also wants the fossil fuel industry to pay for the damage it has done to the environment. Yes, that increases the cost of gas and electricity for all.
Imagine if those increased health care costs were rolled into the cost of electricity via a carbon tax. A coal plant would increase the cost of the electricity they generate to cover the carbon tax. The money they receive goes to health care. Our health care costs go down, to be replaced by the increased cost of electricity.
Now that we can see the true cost of the electricity, you and I can make an informed decision about which fuel type is better. If you suddenly see your electric bill double because you get your electricity from a coal plant, wouldn't you be banging down the door of your local/state government to push for a solar or wind farm? After all, they only lost the direct tax credit subsidy, and may have raised their rate only 20%
This scenario should also be repeated for the costs of increased property damage from climate change.
Do you still think he's talking BS?
Further, it's the middle class folks who pay these taxes anyway. Over 40% of the US doesn't pay federal taxes because they don't make enough money. It's more along the lines of going from "everyone pays 28% on whatever they earned over $40K" to "everyone pays 29% on whatever they earned over $40K, but folks doing things to help the environment and reduce health care costs get to pay 26%." The rich folks still have their tax havens, so they pay 0%.
Should've included this in the above: folks buying an EV for environmental reasons shouldn't buy one if their power is generated by a coal plant, for exactly the reason you mentioned. The money would be better spent on solar panels. If that's not an option, find some other way to reduce our negative impact on the environment.
No, he's trying to make incentives to have people replace coal or natural gas power plants with solar, wind, and maybe even nuclear. People say switching to renewable is too expensive. One of the reasons for that is the fossil fuel industry's freedom to pollute. IF the cost of that pollution were included in the sale price of the electricity or gasoline, people would have more accurate data when making the decision of renewable vs. fossil fuel. As an example, if we switched entirely to renewables, we'd save $300-800 billion a year on reduced health costs:
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_en...
And that doesn't include property damage from harsher storms or rising sea levels.
Still better then fossil fuels, which have done a great job of poisoning the environment.
"Although natural gas burning emits less fatal pollution and GHGs than coal burning, it is far deadlier than nuclear power, causing about 40 times more deaths per unit electric energy produced."
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2...
Or just search for "deaths from nuclear or fossil fuel waste".
Heck, it's bad enough that people are getting heavy metal poisoning just from eating too much fish.
http://www.consumerreports.org...
"eat fish heavy metal poisoning"
Monoprice's "Premium Hi-Fi DJ Style Over-the-Ear Pro Headphones". $16 before shipping. I've bought 3 so far.
I've tried USB 'phones before. I kept having to tell my computer where to send the data. No thanks.
So, we'll each need to make a 3 hour phone call to leave the theater after the movie's over?
So, getting the lead out of gasoline, requiring seat belt usage, and putting health warnings on cigarette packages were also blows to capitalism?
If so, we should pick option 5: Humanity is too stupid to live. Nuke Us Now.
Or we could spend "$trillions" on renewable (your wild-assed guess) and save $600 Billion per year on health care costs alone (an actual estimate from experts). Spend $3 Trillion once to save $600 Billion a year for say 20 years? You should be able to do that math.
I'll also back my numbers up with a citation:
"The aggregate national economic impact associated with these health impacts of fossil fuels is between $361.7 and $886.5 billion, or between 2.5 percent and 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)."
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_en...
To be responsible for your actions and for the condition in which you leave the world. To me, letting CO2 (and other pollutants) out unnecessarily is similar to raking your leaves onto your neighbor's yard. It's solving your problem by making it someone else's, someone who might not actually be able to overcome the problem, such as residents of a disappearing small island or sealife being poisoned.
I'm looking at switching to a heat pump. An air source heat pump might be $13K. A ground source heat pump is $40K before subsidies/grants. The ASHP uses more electricity, but saves almost the same amount of CO2 as the GSHP. (Yes, both would be powered from green electricity.) Since society could buy 3 ASHPs for the cost of 1 GSHP, the ASHP is more effective with respect to pollution savings.
If you buy an EV for the renewable aspect, commit to switching your electrical supplier to one that produces all electricity from green sources. For me, that's a $0.024/kwh increase.
The battery is a part of the car, not the power source. It's much easier to capture the CO2 released during manufacturing of any type of vehicle, than putting an exhaust capture device on a mobile Internal Combustion Engine.
Yes, other folks that look into this might find their winter heating costs stay the same or decrease. I've run the numbers for my house and utility costs ($0.265/kwh last winter). Unless something has changed in the past 8 months, I'm looking at 100% increase.
A link regarding that 1% number. Yes, in a year, humans emit about 0.5% of the CO2 compared to the CO2 emitted by non-human processes. The problem is we've been doing that for over 100 years, with nothing absorbing that extra CO2. Assuming that was a linear increase from 0%, you end up with humans contributing 25%.
... well pretty much any expert. After all, they're just in it for the money, right?
I'll let you provide citations for the rest of your numbers.
For clarity, the numbers in my original post were from the EPA's Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies calculator. I am not a climatologist. My "otherwise, we're hosed" comment is personal opinion, based on
A) articles I've read on climate change and
B) the number of people like the AC above who won't trust climatologists until the planet is beyond hope.
Basically, if you don't trust climatologists, you shouldn't trust doctors, engineers,
Until gasoline includes a fee to cleanup the CO2 released, EVs will be more expensive. But then, any environmental cleanup effort is going to cost money. I don't expect everyone to be able to afford this. I *hope* that anyone with extra cash does something to fight climate change, especially the fossil fuel industry since they've made billions (trillions?) putting us in our current situation. Otherwise, we're hosed.
That being said, I'm not sure the battery technology is good enough. It sounds as if in 3-5 years we would see significantly better batteries. Outside of that, an EV would fit my life (and 10 mile commute) fairly well.
I'm currently looking into replacing my gas furnace with a heat pump, powered by a combination of solar-, wind-, and hydro-generated electricity. This will cost less than half the price of a Volt/Prius/etc and will probably reduce my CO2 emissions by 3 tons, as opposed to the 2 tons I would save if I bought an EV. Other benefits: no battery and less CO2 released during manufacturing. The negative is that my winter heating costs will double.
I'd pay money for a Facebook or GMail that didn't sell/give my info to others. I can probably solve the second by running my own mail server, but I don't have the knowledge yet.
But, of course, if someone were to try to make Cashbook, they'd end up having the community split between themselves and Facebook. And who knows, Facebook might sue over a patent.
The pitcher is 100ft away from you. The ball is travelling 100mph (160km/h) and appears to be heading for your head. You have a split second to make a decision. What do you do?
Are you going to wait until you know your model is 100% accurate? After all, a gust of wind can blow the ball off course. A bird could swoop or a meteorite could fall and deflect the ball. Those possibilities wouldn't be realized (or not) until they happen or the ball hits your head. What do you do?
Me? I'd dodge. The risk isn't worth the cost of dodging.
And yes, I am dodging. I've done the stuff that saves me money: efficient appliances and solar panels. I *hope* that everyone tries to do at least that.
I have starting doing stuff that doesn't save me money: planting trees, conserving forests, changing home heating systems, etc. These help the climate change and health problems, but result in a net loss in my financial account. I *don't* expect everyone to do this, just those that can do it, especially those who have made millions or billions from burning fossil fuels. You would expect people around you to clean up after themselves, right? Not solve their problems by dumping them on your yard?
I wouldn't mind paying the net metering fee, IF the subsidies for fossil fuels were removed as well.
An article at Forbes reports that coal increases health care costs by 19 to 45 cents a kwh. Oil increases the costs by 8 to 19 c/kwh, and natural gas by 1 to 2 c/kwh. Then there's the estimated cost of climate change, assuming we beat it. (Yes, I trust a near-unanimous group of subject matter experts. Heck, I bet those 97% would really like to be wrong, so we wouldn't need to do something about the issue.)
Summing up, I'd rather pay $168 a year for a connection, as opposed to paying an extra $1000/year for fossil fuel electricity. (5000 kwh * 20 cents/kwh). Actually, aren't we already paying that extra $1000/year in extra health care costs, property insurance, and natural disaster relief?
I agree with using renewables first. It bypasses the "subsidies" that the fossil fuel industry receive.
An article at Forbes reports that coal increases health care costs by 19 to 45 cents a kwh. Oil increases the costs by 8 to 19 c/kwh, and natural gas by 1 to 2 c/kwh. Mercury in fish is getting bad enough that Consumer Reports had an article on it last month. I'm pretty sure fish aren't mining mercury. Then there's the climate change issue.
Any one of those reasons, from three different sources, is good enough for me to prefer renewables over fossil fuels. For nuclear, I haven't decided yet, but I'm leaning in the direction of it being sold at the same time as renewable, not after all renewable supply is consumed.
or 6.6 cents per kwh, from my utility's suppliers. I'm hoping this will encourage more rooftop and community solar.
Does that cover speed as well? 23 Billion Light Year radius and 14 Billion years old implies stuff is/was travelling at 1.6c. And if 46Billion LY was the radius, average speed becomes 3.2c.