I am a reasonable person but this forum provides disincentives for being reasonable. Seriously, though, these kind of topics tend to get entirely to wide ranging to efficiently discuss in a thread and I simply don't care anymore to devote any significant time to inefficient internet discussions. I really need to do more constructive and meaningful things with my time. In no way is this meant to demean those who do, I just have to refocus on other things.

Who decided that a warmer climate was bad for the earth anyway?

I think this pretty much every time I click on a political thread here, but sometimes blowing off steam can be cathartic.

I say let the planet heat up to levels that existed in the Silurian period. I love the heat.

....that's...not even close to what I said. It's not even a parody of what I said. It's a parody of something not even close to what I said. Completely irrelevant.



You should know me better than that by now, Jon. Yeah, I read your whole post, and I consider it wrong. You seem to think that you are some sort of all-knowing fortune teller, and you also have this strange "government is the only thing int he world that can do anything right" mentality because you seem to know without a doubt that if the government does nothing, then nothing will get done. Also, what level of knowledge is required to have an opinion? Is it Jon'C level knowledge? Because gee-golly, I don't think I'll EVER be that smart! Shucks, what's it like to be the only intelligent person in the world?

I think you're wrong because the IDEAL solution, whatever it may be, would require ZERO government intervention. Now, I agree with you that cap and trade is not the worst solution. It's got good things in it, sure, and things that are certainly better than any known alternatives at least. Be clear, I'm not saying that this is some horrible NWO conspiracy to rob us of our liberty. I'm just saying it might not be the best way to handle this situation.

That's like saying "The IDEAL solution is if pollution just isn't bad for the environment anymore."

Yeah, the ideal solution would be the one where we don't have to do jack ****. No kidding...

No, I'm saying the ideal solution would be action that does not involve government force. That doesn't mean no action.

...like what though?

That's so abritrary to the point of silliness.

Look, like I said, I know I don't have a better answer at the moment. I'd be a pretty big deal if I did, don't you think? I also, as I said before, am not saying this bill is the end of the world, or even that it's a bad idea. I just think that there might be a better solution that is better in principle and equally effective. Yeah, it's somewhat arbitrary, but meanwhile this is a huge bill that will have far reaching effects, so I don't think concern over it is so absurd, is it?

It's a shame that something like this would happen within the scientific community because it'll ultimately only strengthen the resolve of the god-botherers. I can't wait until the next family dinner so that I can hear my father telling everyone that "Climate Gate" proves that the scientific method has failed & that "Creationism/Intelligent Design" was correct after all. Thanks a lot you ****ing sons of *****es.

Exactly. Hey, it worked for Chamberlain.




sorry, had to

Gah, I hate the gate suffix for scandals!

Could we, um, consider adopting the best available solution instead of waiting for an ideal one?



SUFFIXGATE

GATEGATE

MBGATE

I refuse to take anything with the gate suffix seriously. It's just too retarded.

they dont have to subsidize the activities of a minority of large companies. just stop buying their products/investing in them. the business will go under and the pollution will stop.



this also opens the floodgate for massive amounts of abuse. larger companies can simply buy as many credits as they need to keep production levels where they are. lets say company A is a relatively small company that employs 80-100 people and has a slim profit margin but is still doing alright.
company B comes along and is a huge corporate machine that pollutes like the devil himself. they offer to buy ALL of company A's pollution credits(or whatever...) thereby putting company A out of business and polluting just as much as before.



so why not offer intensives instead of forcing punitive action. if the government is going to waste my money anyways why dont they spend it on MASSIVE grants to develop a realistically applicable form of alternative energy. let companies bid on the technology then help said companies market and sell these "alternative" products?

and i am being serious about this, i am not going to say there's nothing wrong here as i look out at the thick brown cloud over L.A.

Here's an interesting article regarding the subject via "The Huffington Post".

Right. Can you possibly imagine all 7 billion people all spontaneously turning green? How is your plan going to manifest? And if it does, what possible benefit will it have not being government-involved?

As good-natured as people may be and as well-meaning with regards to climate change, left to your own devices the day-to-day problems of living your life are always going to win out over long-term problems. I'm pretty sure people weren't going to all collectively and spontaneously bail out the financial sector. Addressing long-term problems and planning for the future is precisely what government does, and this will involve a reduction in CO2 and also an investment in new technology.

With this in mind, I think a carbon tax makes more sense than cap and trade. Simply set a tax of $x per kilogram of CO2, and then increase x every year. This directly and simply creates a disincentive to pollute, and businesses know straight up what they owe and exactly how much they'll make purely by cutting emissions, rather than engaging in complex emissions trading.
The money from this tax can be used directly to invest in renewable technologies.

Morty is right on this one. While I like the idea of the cap and trade system, and the auctioning off of polluting credits, the problem is really just regulating it. If it were to ever pass, I fear the bill would be 3,000 pages of where the credits apply, to what business that you own, different types of businesses, etc. It would get too complex, too quickly, WAY too easily

At least with the set tax, information is quite clear, which is probably the most important thing when it comes to stuff as asymmetric as pollution and effects on the environment. Plus it still gives the companies the choice to pollute (there is some socially acceptable level of pollution out there somewhere), rather than having a scenario where one cannot produce merely because he doesn't have credits that may no longer be available. In the end I'd probably see way more revenue from the straight Pigovian tax system.

I have to say though I'd be quite interested if a cap and trade did come to fruition if somehow you could transfer a credit you bought to other people (eBay for pollution credits!). That would be cool to observe. It'd be interesting to observe the "price" of pollution market based, rather than government prices.

Wait... What? If company A sells themselves out of business, then company A deserves to go out of business -- because cap and trade does not mean that the smaller companies have to sell to the larger. That would be ridiculous...

Not to change the subject back to the original subject, but it appears to me that this "ClimateGate" stuff is bogus. Most of the quotes given by Fox News & like-sources appear to be taken out of context. I think that this has more to do with why it wasn't more widely covered than some vast left-wing media conspiracy.

As interesting as that experiment might be to an economic theorist, I'm not so enthusiastic about some emerging emissions stock market with the price of CO2 fluctuating chaotically. Remember, the end goal here is an overall reduction in CO2 emissions, with quantifiable reductions by a set timetable. That is the advantage a carbon tax has, in controlling reduction at a set pace.

The disadvantage, from a class conscious perspective, is that it would hit smaller companies hardest in the short-term. There are companies that probably can afford to pay a pretty high carbon tax, without reducing emissions, and there is less of a disincentive for them. A possible solution is to make the carbon tax means tested as well, but this would probably be very unpopular to conservatives that would prefer a flat tax.

It's also necessary to get solid international agreement and to fix the carbon tax internationally, so we don't get 'carbon tax havens' where an entire company's emissions come out of Panama or somewhere to avoid tax. This might also be unpopular, as it might seem like a tax 'coming from' Copenhagen or the IPCC or somewhere outside of any one government (and you'd get those retards all dressing up in period clothing prancing 'no taxation without representation!' and all that).

So while the carbon tax is probably the best at combating anthropogenic climate change, it's also the hardest to sell to the general public.

There's a man rotting in hell that you just made a little happier.

No. its not rediculous. everyone here is spouting off about how in the end people will look out for themselves first. and you know what its true. buyouts happend every day. saying that selling your company out is "dasterdly" and "unethical" does not mean it wont happen. in fact a smart person would create a number of small startups with the intent of selling out the business as a "carbon credit farm" seriously. it only costs... several hundred dollars to start a small business from home. what are you going to do? say that any small businesses are allowed absolutely zero emmissions output?

Who's calling it Climategate anyway? Even Sky News isn't calling it that.

See, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about. I might be a little bit more behind a simple solution such as this (pending a little research into how effective it might be). I can see a flat tax on any emissions OVER a certain amount, the amount to be determined by either a set level, or perhaps to more fairly treat both large and small companies, a level based on the amount of production (sort of like a per-factory level, or per unit of production...you get the idea). All of the money that is recieved by taxing would go directly (do not pass go, government does not skim $200) to funding clean alternative energy/production research, or subsidizing current clean alternative energy/production implementation.

It's not drastically different, and the government is still involved, but I see somewhat LESS opportunity for corruption and abuse due to its simplicity. Again, not perfect, but maybe better?

Edit: And to Mort-Hog: I don't have a plan, so I can't possibly predict how it would manifest, I just have a wish for a better plan than the one we've t now. I agree that the entire country suddenly turning green spontaneously is unlikely, that's why I admit that some action is necessary. I do wonder why it seems like everyone has this mentality that the government is the only entity which is capable of accomplishing anything, and that this small group of people knows best. I wonder what would happen if people put their money where there mouth is and worked from the ground up to make being green profitable for corporations, by only purchasing (more expensive) green products and encouraging others to do the same. The citizens will have to pay for it one way or another, but they seem to want to force others to pay for it instead of (or in addition to) them....which isn't so bad for such a universal issue, except that in doing so, you involve a hugely risky and problematic middleman (maybe unnecessarily, maybe not).

A lot of industrial greenhouse gas emissions are already taxed pretty heavily.

That's where the "cap" part comes in. There will only be a certain number of credits available for trade (otherwise there would be no guarantee of an overall reduction). If a small company gets its credits bought out, they will not be able to pollute at all, while the larger company would be able to pollute an equal amount more. There is no net increase in pollution.

Pretty snarky for a guy who believes a publicly traded corporation will stop polluting out of the "goodness" of their hearts. You're insane. Most people won't even walk an extra foot to pour the oil from their frying pan into a can instead of dumping it down the sink.

Hey now, I never said they'd definitely stop polluting out of the goodness of their hearts. I'm not insane (nor am I stupid). I was only suggesting that if the issue is so important to Americans that they would force the rest of the country to take action, then maybe there is another way that all those Americans could take action themselves that wouldn't require as much (or with an ideal plan, any) extra government intervention. As I have admitted several times, I am aware that I do not have such a plan up my sleeve, and that it's not exactly easy to do.

Also, Snarky is a valid response. You should know this, you're snarky plenty.

People are putting their money where their mouth is, by trying to get the government to take action. It isn't some blind faith in the government knowing best. It's the knowledge that this is exactly the sort of thing governments are made for. Boycotts are more of a political statement than a sustainable policy. The ultimate expression of the people's power is for the representatives of the people (the government) to translate the people's goal into law.

Absolutely nothing. The amount of difference you as an individual can make by choosing 'eco-friendly' products is minute, negligible in comparison to the emissions of industry.

Even just the ability to inform yourself which products are produced with limited CO2 emissions is difficult. You'll look for some particular label on the product showing some independent approval of its 'green status', and the conditions required for this approval is very lax and encompasses all sorts of issues as well as CO2 emissions. For example, free range eggs have a much bigger carbon footprint than battery farmed eggs (2007, Cranfield University)), but the free range eggs will get the 'organic' stamp of approval. This may represent a moral dilemma within the green movement, as 'ethical' farming practises are not necessarily sustainable and some of the dogma surrounding the green movement and 'organic' foods is incompatible with solutions to anthropogenic climate change (as certain decidedly 'non-green' topics, such as nuclear power, genetically modified crops, and nanoscience may play an important part).

And locally sourced produce is not necessarily good either, if it's grown in a climate it isn't used to. Many products now display the 'food miles' to give an indication of how far the product has flown from its origin. But the actual contribution to CO2 emissions from transportation can be very low (2008, New Scientist)), and some foods grown locally can have much bigger carbon footprints than those overseas (and bigger than that of the transportation as well).

So actually working out which product has less CO2 emissions is very difficult, very expensive, the contribution made is tiny, the underlying problem of electricity generation by burning fossil fuels still remains, and most importantly there's no actual incentive for you to do anything.

In the US and western Europe, climate change probably isn't going to affect us until later this century, after our lifetimes. It's certainly affecting some people right now, but these are poor people in poor countries that we never cared about before and we're probably not going to start caring now. Relying on the charity of the masses is an unreasonable expectation of a capitalist society.

The only fundamental long-term solution to a global problem is some sort of economic sanction based on an international political treaty between governments.

The most important thing you can do is vote. Not change what coffee you drink, or what car you drive, but simply to vote on matters that affect climate change and inform your friends and get them to vote on those matters too. The climate change deniers currently have some footing in public opinion, but no real political influence. If left unchallenged, they may well find some political footing and cause a great step backwards for science and disrupt any reasonable agreement on a very real global challenge.

The problem with that statement is that by the time the average American wises up it's probably too late. Let's face it, how many people do all of you know that have absolutely no clue when it comes to issues such as global warming? I can't name a single friend or family member that gives a rats ***. They're all hoping that the end of the world comes sooner than later so that they can enjoy the afterlife. The vast majority of Americans don't actually give a **** about anything enough to do anything about it until you crash jets in to their buildings or turn off the electricity so that they can't watch television with air-conditioning. Some of the people that actually do care only do so because the television tells them to.

Thank you for that. Well, I can't disagree with you really at all, and of course I understand that this is the kind of thing that governments are for. I just (as you may have noticed ) have an inherent and I believe well-earned distrust of large government projects of really any kind. The larger the project (and the larger the government) the more wary I am, and therefore I am especially wary of the federal government (vs state and local governments). You know...larger government, larger scale corruption and more opportunities for abuse. For that reason I view government force as a last resort. I guess it comes down to the fact that I don't feel like we are quite in "last resort" territory yet, and (to return to the original original topic) the current politicization of the global warming issue to the point that I even have to BE suspicious of peoples' motives does not help that feeling.

Dude, there are far more corruption scandals on local and state level governments than on a federal scale. Those at a local level have less checks and balances and can get away with a lot more, and have a lot less to lose. Those working for the federal government have career aspirations, and have a lot more to lose on a personal level if convicted of corruption charges.

And anyway, on the Berlusconi scale of corruption, the US barely registers on the microBerlusconi scale (in units where 1 Berlusconi is the theoretical maximum level of corruption). Of course corruption occurs on a federal level, but for a US citizen to have that fear as a number one priority is simply absurd. This irrational fear of government as a concept is utterly unfounded and counterproductive to real issues.

Really? Maybe an inherent reluctance to trust government is "utterly unfounded" for you, but it's the entire foundation of my country. I should also specify that by "corruption" I don't just mean things like embezzling and fraud and things like that. I also refer to increasing government power unnecessarily. Again, I note that this is not a MAJOR concern regarding this particular issue, but it is still there to some small degree, as it is with ANY government action. And it is prudent to be careful of this even in small scales, because we as a country are losing this inherent distrust, and that's a good way to EVENTUALLY end up with an overpowerful, oppressive government. Like boiling a frog by slowly increasing the heat.

Regarding local governments being more susceptible to corruption, this may be true, but it is inherently much more localized, affects fewer people (think about the stimulus and bailout bills here), and is easier to reverse because there are (hopefully) uncorrupted powers that are over them to keep them in check. There is really no one that has the authority to keep the feds in check except the people, and if the people give the feds too much power, then they're screwed in a sort of catch-22.

Anyway, you got me off on a tangent, haha. The point is, I think it's smart to be vigilant for the small stuff, because that's how you keep it from turning to big stuff. That doesn't mean that I am automatically opposed to everything the government does, only that I am automatically cautious, and the bigger the government and issue, the more cautious I am. This is the biggest government, and a very large and important issue, so I am very cautious. And therefore I think the smallest, simplest solution that still works may be better than the most immediately available and supposedly effective solution IF the cost of that solution in money, power, abuse, etc. is too high.

Hence the discussion and doubt rather than the blind acceptance based on people who don't have the same concerns I do.

If your country is losing this inherent distrust of government, it's because the Cold War propaganda of 'big government = socialism = EVIL' has no relevance and the younger generation have a more rational view of the world today. Yes, there are very real concerns about government curtailing civil liberties in response to national security, it dominated most of the 20th century and is still relevant today, but that is far more concrete and specific than any phobia of the metaphorical 'size' of government.

What the **** does 'big government' even mean? On an actual real, tangible scale, what are you actually opposed to? If the government didn't bail out the banking sector, the banks would collapse and we'd experience another depression. We've already done that once, we've already experimented with 'small government' and that resulted in massive unemployment. What do you actually want government to do? Nothing? You want an ineffectual, useless government? Government represents you. The power the government has is power you have.

My problem with this pseduo-Libertarian nonsense is that it entirely derails discussion away from a reasonable discussion on what government should actually do, and onto some abstract idea of how 'big' government is.

You know what prevents you from ending up with an overpowerful, oppressive government? Democracy. If you think you currently have an overpowerful, oppressive government you really don't know **** about overpowerful, oppressive governments.

except that some companies will polute almost nothing at all and still have emmissions allowance they can sell. are you saying that with cap and trade once the emmissions cap has been reached no more companies can be created? unless you want to institute a HUGE burocricy(sp?) you wont be able to controll much of anything. with cap and trade you either get excessive government involvement or a dead in the water system.