Be fair, though. It doesn't cost that scientist a damn dime to say "we need to act now on global warming, even though we don't really have a good idea on how much we need to do or even if it will do any good at all." In fact, he's on the receiving end of grant money. But GM has to fork up the design money even if meeting the regulation is completely impossible, or else just close up operations in those states. They don't have a responsibility to be objective - it's directly affecting their interests, they're representing those interests.
If that scientist is wrong, he shrugs, says "okay, guess I was wrong," and goes on to another area of research. But nobody's proposing to pay GM back (if they're even still around - we're not talking about a healthy company.)
The idea of local regulation for contributions to global warming is, if I can put it bluntly, somewhat silly. Unlike other areas of pollution, where local pollutants affect the local population, CO2 emissions have more or less an equal effect everywhere, no matter where they're sourced.
Local activism also gave us the Salem Witch trials.
Avatar ADV wrote:An invitation to fairness...how could I refuse. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Your presentation above is sophisticated but leaking at just about every seam. You work in business or investment or in marketing, yes?
Cute, yet wrong. (Don't feel bad, you'd have never guessed.)
You're missing something of the larger point, so I'll guess you haven't been keeping up with the thread. I'm not trying to impugn the motives of the scientists per se (and in fact, if you read the actual scientific reports as opposed to things like "executive summaries", most of the scientists involved are considerably less certain than most of the activists!)
However, from the view of the scientist, the question is one of theoretical risks versus theoretical costs. Surely you've heard the argument that, since damages due to global warming may be very large, we should act now even though we can't accurately estimate the effects? If you're attacking global warming as an intellectual exercise, that sort of statement is reasonable - spending a little money now to avoid a tremendous expense later is a reasonable exercise.
However, for GM (or any other auto company, or in fact practically all of our heavy industry), the question is not an academic one. The money they have to spend in order to attempt to meet these targets is actual money, not a discounted estimate of future disaster - it has to come out of their budget somewhere. So who's going to get paid less? Which parts supplier is going to have to close a plant? How many people are put out of work when people spend their money on other cars, made by manufacturers who didn't have to tilt at this particular windmill? (Yes, yes, "it could come out of profits." Have you looked at GM's finances lately?)
I'm certain that you'd agree that, at some level, GM has a responsibility to remain a going concern, keeping its workers employed and that pension fund funded, right? Or are you incapable of making the mental transition between "oh, it's a big company, screw it!" and the human misery that lies behind a statement like that?
As for the rest of it, if we're talking about the value of activism, in this case, precisely what -is- that value? How much are your efforts actually worth? The fact is, you don't know whether this sort of thing will actually be any good or not; from here, it looks like someone shouting, "Hey, if we all piss into the wind at the same time, it will stop blowing!"
That's not to say that it's inevitable, but there are actual figures involved here. You don't know them, though. In fact, I'll ask, are you even interested in those figures? Specifically, I'll re-iterate the list of questions I put up a few posts back. What temperature are we shooting for? How much of a cut in CO2 emissions would be necessary to achieve that temperature? (I'll omit the problem of exporting industry to third-world nations with poor pollution controls, for the moment...) If you can't answer either question, why do you care about the topic?
Japan opens more auto plants in Japan as 'Big Three' slash U.S. jobs
Nation's car builders open new plants for the first time in many years.
By Yuri Kageyama
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOKYO -- At a time when Detroit's "Big Three" are closing plants and slashing jobs to revive their ailing business, their Japanese counterparts are opening plants in Japan for the first time in decades.
That's because there's strong demand for fuel-efficient small cars such as the Toyota Yaris and Honda Fit -- all of which are made in Japan -- and luxury models and hybrids, most of which are made here.
But there's also a shift away from the conventional wisdom that automakers are best off making cars in the same region where they sell.
Toyota, Nissan and Honda realize that the roots of their success lie in the management and production strategies developed and honed at home -- from outstanding quality control to their extensive supplier networks -- and that expanding in Japan may be the smartest way to meet demand for certain types of vehicles.
"It doesn't make sense to produce everything abroad," said Tsuyoshi Mochimaru, auto analyst with Deutsche Securities in Tokyo. "The idea is that rethinking quality begins in Japan."
Among the recent boosts in production here:
Honda Motor Co. is planning its first plant opening in Japan in 30 years. The new car-assembly and engine plants will be running by 2010, creating 2,200 jobs.
Toyota Motor Corp. is adding a new line at a plant in southwestern Japan to double production of engines for luxury models. The engine plant, which opened in 2005, marked Toyota's first plant opening in Japan in about 20 years; the new line, starting in 2008, will add 500 jobs.
Nissan Motor Co. completed a second engine facility last year to make engines for luxury cars and other models. It's expanding another engine plant in Yokohama, southwest of Tokyo.
Honda and Toyota have key North American operations based in Torrance.
Thierry Viadieu, a Nissan executive who has overseen alliances, said the plant openings in Japan mark a new stage of growth from earlier decades when the main goal was simpler: Get out of Japan to produce cars where they're being sold.
Multinational manufacturers need to be sophisticated in their production strategies, coordinating output among their far-flung plants, amid increasingly intense competition, he said.
Nissan, for example, imports all of its Infiniti luxury models sold in North America from Japan -- and for now, that makes sense, said Nissan Chief Operating Officer Toshiyuki Shiga.
"We don't start out with the idea that we need plants in Japan," Shiga said. "Each plant taking up the challenge leads to Nissan's overall competitiveness."
Kazuo Aoki, general manager at the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers, an organization that promotes technology, said the fundamentals of ensuring quality are based in Japan, which boasts top parts suppliers and steelmakers.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Japanese automakers busily set up plants abroad, including North America, to cut costs and blunt the "Japan-bashing" among some Americans who blamed them for the loss of U.S. jobs.
Some U.S. legislators have revived complaints about Japan's success at the expense of American manufacturers. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who represents thousands of Detroit-based auto workers, has said that the Japanese have an unfair edge from a weak yen, which makes it easier to underprice American rivals.
Such complaints have struck a sensitive nerve for some Americans worried about the fates of U.S. auto companies, which are slashing jobs and closing plants.
General Motors Corp. lost $10.4 billion in 2005 but underwent massive restructuring and trimmed its losses to $2 billion in 2006. Ford Motor Co. lost $12.7 billion last year, while DaimlerChrysler has decided to put up money-losing Chrysler for sale.
Toyota is steadily encroaching on their home turf. Autodata Corp.'s figures for March gave Toyota a 16 percent of the U.S. market, behind GM, with 22 percent, and Ford, with 17 percent.
Toyota is exporting nearly half the vehicles it sells from Japan. Last year, the figure was 46 percent, up from about 38 percent in 2005 because of a surge in U.S. demand and the inability of U.S. factories to keep up with demand.
One of Toyota's hot cars, the Prius hybrid, is made only in Japan.
Analysts say the recent production boom in Japan also reflects how Japanese automakers have dispersed production -- small cars and high-end models in Japan, pickup trucks in Thailand, and bigger trucks in the U.S. -- so strong local demand, labor costs, tax laws and other factors make that place the best choice.
The Japanese have much at stake in maintaining the legacy of quality production methods and management philosophies in Japan, said Anand Sharma, co-founder of TBM Consulting Group.
"They have to keep that spirit alive, and they have to have some of that production there so that spirit doesn't fade away," Sharma said.
Cute, yet wrong. (Don't feel bad, you'd have never guessed.)
You're missing something of the larger point, so I'll guess you haven't been keeping up with the thread.
I'm not trying to impugn the motives of the scientists per se (and in fact, if you read the actual scientific reports as opposed to things like "executive summaries", most of the scientists involved are considerably less certain than most of the activists!)
However, from the view of the scientist, the question is one of theoretical risks versus theoretical costs. Surely you've heard the argument that, since damages due to global warming may be very large, we should act now even though we can't accurately estimate the effects? If you're attacking global warming as an intellectual exercise, that sort of statement is reasonable - spending a little money now to avoid a tremendous expense later is a reasonable exercise.
However, for GM (or any other auto company, or in fact practically all of our heavy industry), the question is not an academic one. The money they have to spend in order to attempt to meet these targets is actual money, not a discounted estimate of future disaster - it has to come out of their budget somewhere.
So who's going to get paid less? Which parts supplier is going to have to close a plant? How many people are put out of work when people spend their money on other cars, made by manufacturers who didn't have to tilt at this particular windmill? (Yes, yes, "it could come out of profits." Have you looked at GM's finances lately?)
I'm certain that you'd agree that, at some level, GM has a responsibility to remain a going concern, keeping its workers employed and that pension fund funded, right? Or are you incapable of making the mental transition between "oh, it's a big company, screw it!" and the human misery that lies behind a statement like that?
As for the rest of it, if we're talking about the value of activism, in this case, precisely what -is- that value? How much are your efforts actually worth? The fact is, you don't know whether this sort of thing will actually be any good or not; from here, it looks like someone shouting, "Hey, if we all piss into the wind at the same time, it will stop blowing!"
That's not to say that it's inevitable, but there are actual figures involved here. You don't know them, though. In fact, I'll ask, are you even interested in those figures? Specifically, I'll re-iterate the list of questions I put up a few posts back. What temperature are we shooting for? How much of a cut in CO2 emissions would be necessary to achieve that temperature? (I'll omit the problem of exporting industry to third-world nations with poor pollution controls, for the moment...) If you can't answer either question, why do you care about the topic?
Well, that's interesting. You frame these issues in much the same manner as our site economist (thomas).
Guilty as charged - economics minor. ;p
You raise an excellent point that the "global warming issue", if you will, has several aspects across different disciplines.
The first is scientific. Is the world actually heating up? Safe to say yes at this point, isn't it?
The next is also scientific. Is global warming affected by human-produced greenhouse gases? Not quite as safe to say - the best models that we have only give us an imperfect understanding of climate, because climate is dependent not only on a lot of long-term, easy to measure variables, but also on ones that are short-term, chaotic as hell, and simply do not function in the model. Think about the effects of albedo on heat absorption, of cloud coverage on albedo, of climate patterns on cloud coverage. That's not -in- the model. It's not because the modelers don't realize that it's important - it's simply that it's impossible for us to simulate, so what we do is simulate that which we do understand, and then plug in various fudge factors for the stuff we can't model until we get something that looks like it can produce today from yesterday's data. There's quite a bit of uncertainty even now, but for the sake of argument, I won't contest the point here.
The next question is, how MUCH warming? Related, what would be the effects of this warming? We don't really have a good answer for either of these, just some estimates, and these are really susceptible to the particular assumptions and fudges in the model. We can safely say that we're not staring at an extinction-of-humanity problem - we're not as hot as it's been in recorded history. Short of that, there's a lot of wild-assed guesses flying around.
Having gotten this far should give us a notion of how much CO2 equals how much warming. Certain, no, but at least we have numbers to look at.
At this point it becomes an economic issue. What are the costs and benefits observed at any given temperature? What emission level corresponds to that temperature? How much does that level of emissions restrict other economic activity? What methods of amelioration are available to us? Basically, what are our real alternatives?
Once we reach that far, it becomes a political question. CAN we do it? How do the costs compare with all the other calls on the public purse? This is pretty dependent on the economic aspects - or rather, making a political judgment in the absence of the economic aspects is just rash.
If you're questioning what the value of non-economic activities are, well... I could go into the classic discussion of utility, but I'd just sound even more like an economist, heh. However, I'll point out that none of the things you listed were compulsory. To make an analogy closer to the current discussion, there's no reason why Toyota or Honda (or even GM) can't produced a reduced-emissions car and sell as many of 'em as they can get people to buy. However, when you're talking about setting a government regulation to mandate that auto manufacturers produce those models (or worse, not produce any models but those), "will this make GM happy" isn't a consideration. It's not so much to ask, "will making them do it actually do any good?"
Actually, were I in need of heart surgery, I'd read up on the various options. Expert advice is valuable, but it's not the only thing. On the other hand, while your heart surgeon had doubtless implanted several stents before, your climatologist has never before successfully predicted changes in the climate! ;p
Actually, were I in need of heart surgery, I'd read up on the various options. Expert advice is valuable, but it's not the only thing. On the other hand, while your heart surgeon had doubtless implanted several stents before, your climatologist has never before successfully predicted changes in the climate! ;p
blatham wrote:Well, that's interesting. You frame these issues in much the same manner as our site economist (thomas).
Guilty as charged - economics minor.
And that wouldn't be a problem except for the phenomenon as Milton Friedman was fond of saying: "The one thing you can be most sure of in this life is that everyone will spend someone else's money more liberally than they will spend their own."
Foxfyre wrote:And that wouldn't be a problem except for the phenomenon as Milton Friedman was fond of saying: "The one thing you can be most sure of in this life is that everyone will spend someone else's money more liberally than they will spend their own."
I think this "phenomenon" is evaluated from the wrong side fo the mirror. I say that people with money are are more comfortable with the people without money spending. Case and point, taxes. The rich fight for tax cuts which in no way affect their sustainablility while lower income families pay taxes which can actually have a detrimental effect on their life.
Either way the government needs money to execute plans etc, but the rich think that the less fortunate need to through in their nickel first.
Being so critical of what finances are needed to address such a global issue is ultimately fopolish on your own behalf. The rain falls on us all, and we all get wet.
The rich fight for tax cuts which in no way affect their sustainablility while lower income families pay taxes which can actually have a detrimental effect on their life.
