Is it right to deny the American people jobs because of your religion?

[Falvlun]

The problem is lack of motivation. Government assistance has been following oil and coal for over a hundred years. It needs to shift. Nuclear, solar, and where applicable geothermal are already profitable enterprises. Recycling certain materials is as well. As these technologies become more profitable than their competitors, we don't want to be left in the wake.

I think this is a very important point, Reverend Rick; I had mentioned it before as well. How does the fact that the government has been coddling the oil and coal industry for years mesh with your stance that government shouldn't be picking winners and losers?

 

[Reverend Rick]

I think this is a very important point, Reverend Rick; I had mentioned it before as well. How does the fact that the government has been coddling the oil and coal industry for years mesh with your stance that government shouldn't be picking winners and losers?

It is a valid point. I want the government out of the way and let the chips fall where they may.

I am not against green technology, it just has to be cost effective.

 

[Panda]

Global warming? Maybe not.

Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade ? The Register

This still doesn't have any bearing on if our actions are causing warming however.

 

[Panda]

I am not against green technology, it just has to be cost effective.

And it takes investment to get cost effective technology.

 

[Reverend Rick]

And it takes investment to get cost effective technology.

Yes it does. I believe it should be private investment however.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

Global warming? Maybe not.

Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade ? The Register

And it takes investment to get cost effective technology.

Gas and oil have been cost effective (and then some) for decades. Yet we still hand their CEOs tens of billions of tax dollars per year. What's up with that?

As for the sunspots. Here's a more thoughtful discussion.

RealClimate: What if the Sun went into a new Grand Minimum?

See Fig. 4 in particular. :sorry1:

 

[Falvlun]

It is a valid point. I want the government out of the way and let the chips fall where they may.

I am not against green technology, it just has to be cost effective.

Even if the chips fall to "Everyone buys all their green tech from China instead of the US because they invested in it and we didn't"?

I mean, would you have preferred that the government didn't invest in space technology, in order to put the first man on the moon?

Perhaps we shouldn't be investing in military technology either-- talk about pork pork pork. It should all be private industry.

Energy independence should be just as much a priority as national defense, because ultimately, it is.

 

[work in progress]

It is a valid point. I want the government out of the way and let the chips fall where they may.

I am not against green technology, it just has to be cost effective.

What about direct carbon taxation? If you dump your garbage on my lawn, I'm going to make you clean up your mess or pay to have it cleaned up. Why should air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions be a cost for everyone to bear?

As for "let the chips fall where they may" they are already falling....as modern civilization spirals downward from converging problems of resource depletion, overpopulation and global warming. Let the chips fall is a bizarre and selfish attitude, unless you have no children and don't care what happens to future generations.

 

[Reverend Rick]

What about direct carbon taxation? If you dump your garbage on my lawn, I'm going to make you clean up your mess or pay to have it cleaned up. Why should air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions be a cost for everyone to bear?

As for "let the chips fall where they may" they are already falling....as modern civilization spirals downward from converging problems of resource depletion, overpopulation and global warming. Let the chips fall is a bizarre and selfish attitude, unless you have no children and don't care what happens to future generations.

When you get China and India on board and my grand children actually have an opportunity to breath cleaner planetary air, I will get on board with you hand in hand.

What I will not do is borrow money from China for a symbolic gesture.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

When you get China and India on board and my grand children actually have an opportunity to breath cleaner planetary air, I will get on board with you hand in hand.

What I will not do is borrow money from China for a symbolic gesture.

Why do we need to have them on board? They aren't on board for American approaches to sales tax, income tax, or property tax; why is a carbon tax the only tax that has to be implemented universally?

 

[Reverend Rick]

Why do we need to have them on board? They aren't on board for American approaches to sales tax, income tax, or property tax; why is a carbon tax the only tax that has to be implemented universally?

Because it is a world problem and not just a national one.

We have so much leverage here. I would say, if China and India do not get on board with clean technology in their production methods, we will not allow those products to enter our country.

Silly me, I thought carbon tax credits where about saving the planet.

 

[Magic Man]

No replies?

Sorry, it was hard to get past this laugher:

"Yes, being a green President is a religion."

Do you expect people to take the rest of the post seriously when you start with that?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Because it is a world problem and not just a national one.

It's also a cumulative problem. One country's actions will have an effect all of their own.

We have so much leverage here. I would say, if China and India do not get on board with clean technology in their production methods, we will not allow those products to enter our country.

Sure. But that doesn't preclude putting a carbon tax in place right now.

Silly me, I thought carbon tax credits where about saving the planet.

They're about environmental benefit.

But seriously: why is it that a tax proportional to the final price of a product (i.e. a sales tax) is viable but a tax proportional to the product's carbon input is not? How do the actions of China prevent, say, a US state deciding to make a revenue-neutral switch from a price-based tax to a carbon-based tax?

 

[Reverend Rick]

Sorry, it was hard to get past this laugher:

"Yes, being a green President is a religion."

Do you expect people to take the rest of the post seriously when you start with that?

What I expected was to start a thread with a catchy title that would get past one or two pages.

It worked.

 

[Reverend Rick]

But seriously: why is it that a tax proportional to the final price of a product (i.e. a sales tax) is viable but a tax proportional to the product's carbon input is not? How do the actions of China prevent, say, a US state deciding to make a revenue-neutral switch from a price-based tax to a carbon-based tax?

I like states that have no state tax or low sales tax myself.

Seriously? States that have lower taxes are doing better than high tax states.

A Federal carbon tax would have the same effect on the global level.

We simply would be less competitive.

The carbon tax is a feel good tax, nothing more.

It is kinda like an offering given up to the green god. :yes:

 

[Revoltingest]

What I expected was to start a thread with a catchy title that would get past one or two pages.
It worked.

Your tongue in cheek baiting did not go unnoticed by me!
But there is truth in your waggish title too.
Behold!
Obama: I Pushed Dodd-Frank And Health Care Reform Because Of Christ

Lefties often blame the right for the threat of theocracy, but I also see a related threat from the left.
I must also pay to support their religion based agendas.

 

[work in progress]

When you get China and India on board and my grand children actually have an opportunity to breath cleaner planetary air, I will get on board with you hand in hand.

What I will not do is borrow money from China for a symbolic gesture.

It's already been covered, but where is the logic behind a position of doing nothing for your grandchildren unless China also reduces carbon emissions? For what it's worth, the bulk of China's growing carbon emissions are being created from rapid industrialization...which is still mostly devoted to production of products that go to American and other Western markets because of the brilliant idea of outsourcing production to nations with cheap labour and no health or environmental regulations....thank you right wing Neoliberal economic theory! And historically, China is just catching up to present levels of emissions; the U.S., England and other Western nations have produced the bulk of the extra CO2 that's in the atmosphere now, so there is an argument that payment of the damage should be adjusted to deal with these past emissions.

Sometimes solutions are arrived at at the last minute...actually that seems to be the usual pattern....but, if we assume present trends into the future, we experience more of the extreme weather which is already costing us in storm and drought damages; increasing crop failures leading to declining yields and higher food prices; higher energy costs (as well as other crucial raw materials in decline as demand increases)....and further along in the future (according to the CIA) we can expect a dramatic increase in failed states, resource-driven wars and conflicts, leading to millions of refugees and mass migrations from the increasingly drought-stricken global south.

And all of the natural factors that have precipitated these problems will keep getting worse as the years and decades go on, because even if civilization was ground to a halt tomorrow, there is a lag of several decades between the time greenhouse gases are dumped into the atmosphere, and the full effects become apparent. There has been enough warming to continue the positive feedbacks of a melting Arctic to dump more of its sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. At what point does living go from being a struggle to impossible? Well, that may be further along in the future, but who knows -- the point, as a recent study of carbon sequestration indicated, it will take up to 100,000 years for natural negative feedback responses to remove all that carbon and bring the atmosphere back to normal levels.

This is ultimately a moral question, and not one just about environment policy, economic theory and politics. At some point we have to ask: what are the lives of future generations worth? So far, they are out of sight and out of mind...just like refugees somewhere in Africa, except that they might barge in on our senses whenever one of those Worldvision commercials pops up on the TV. A better perspective is to ask: how would we be feeling about past generations 200 years ago if the modernization and industrialization had occurred at a quicker pace, and we were the ones left dealing with a declining, hot and polluted world where even the oceans were turning anoxic, and oxygen levels were declining as CO2 levels were increasing? Such a scenario happened about 250 million years ago, and led to the greatest extinction in Earth's history.

It takes a lot of hubris to just assume that future generations will somehow deal with it, but that's exactly what is being expected by the majority of people living in the West, who have become accustomed to the status quo, and don't want to make whatever necessary changes would be needed to prevent a nightmare future for our grandchildren and future generations.

 

[Falvlun]

The US government has historically subsidized things that are (or are thought to be) important to the economic health of the US, most notably, the financial sector, tele-communications, agriculture, and oil and gas. It seems strange that foul is only called when subsidies are being spent on renewable energy. How is clean, renewable, domestic energy not important for the health of our country?

 

[Revoltingest]

The US government has historically subsidized things that are (or are thought to be) important to the economic health of the US, most notably, the financial sector, tele-communications, agriculture, and oil and gas. It seems strange that foul is only called when subsidies are being spent on renewable energy. How is clean, renewable, domestic energy not important for the health of our country?

"Foul" is regularly called regarding various subsidies. But we have different callers & different industries. A particular problem with energy
is that it's driven by fervor & fashion perhaps more than others. Solyndra is the poster bad boy for bone-headed squandering of resources.
Theoretically, I can support subsidizing strategic industries, but when practiced by politicians, things go awry most of the time. Put me in
charge of targeted subsidies, & America will become a paradise on Earth. Give it a try, eh? Nuthin to lose.

 

[Reverend Rick]

The US government has historically subsidized things that are (or are thought to be) important to the economic health of the US, most notably, the financial sector, tele-communications, agriculture, and oil and gas. It seems strange that foul is only called when subsidies are being spent on renewable energy. How is clean, renewable, domestic energy not important for the health of our country?

Our country is broke. If and when we have a balanced budget that wants to subsidize green energy, I will be the first to get on board.

We have to quit spending money we don't have. Obama has spent twice as much as Bush each of the last 3 years and we keep borrowing a trillion a year from the Chinese.

This has to stop.

People who want to leave the next generation a better future had better think about this debt problem.

Lets use private investment money for a change.