couldn't quite find what i was looking for , so this will have to do for now .
hbg
Thomas wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:Good points HBG; so how about we put a tariff/tax on items, not depending on their country of origin, but depending on how clean the process of their creation is?
Too complicated to implement, because you have to keep track of how every product in the world economy was created. But I'd be fine with a tax on greenhouse gas emissions matching the damage that emissions impose on the rest of the world.
Apart from that, the tarriff idea would really piss me off if America put it into law. To the extent that CO2 emissions are a problem, you Americans are the ones screwing us. For decades, your greenhouse gas emissions -- both absolutely and on a per-capita basis -- have been a multiple of ours. Given this history, I would see an American greenhouse gas tarriff as a serious show of ill will. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.
I confess that one of the problems with this topic is the CO2 vs. Pollutants angle. I'm far more interested in controlling pollutants and waste than I am CO2. Just plant more trees!!!
The 'tax on emissisions' idea isn't a bad one, it could be metered on-site.
Cycloptichorn
If Europeans resent American GHG emissions, then simply stop buying American products, stop vacationing in the United States, pull your own companies out of here, and sell off your property here. There is no greater incentive to any capitalistic enterprise other than the principle of 'the customer is always right.' You give the customer what the customer wants or somebody else will.
I think nobody is going to take GHG emissions or global warming and certainly not AGW seriously until the environmental gurus, the scientists making the grand pronouncements, the self righteous celebrity beautiful people, and the sanctimonious pronouncement armchair quarterback crowd demonstrate any sense of urgency by dramatically revising their own grandiose lifestyles. As absolutely none of them seem inclined to do that, I think Americans will continue to be as self serving as is everybody else and will do what is expedient, practical, and pleasing to do.
Freedom works wonders to increase general prosperity which naturally improves all things in the environment. Government mandates are far more likely to stifle natural improvement and can in fact be counter productive.
foxfire wrote :
Quote:Freedom works wonders to increase general prosperity which naturally improves all things in the environment. Government mandates are far more likely to stifle natural improvement and can in fact be counter productive.
since the big banks - being part of "freedom" and "free enterprise" - are one of the driving forces behind the "greening" enterprise , i'm reasonably sure it'll gain momentum and other banks and industries will be climbing aboard .
the profit motive can work wonders once some corporations see that it gives them an advantage over others .
similarly , chinese corporations will take the opportunity to make bigger profits by "grening" - and as they have shown in the past , once they get going they'll be hard to stop . all one has to do is look at american - and other - corporations that are operating many of their factories in china - because they can obviously make more money . i think that is a trend that cannot be stopped .
hbg
Quote:The financial instruments for paying for the upgrades are being designed by the Clinton Climate Initiative, set up by the foundation and Hannon Armstrong, a company specializing in arranging such investments, along with the participating banks: Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche Bank, ABN AMRO and JPMorgan Chase.
The upgrades would be done by four international energy-services companies that are already seeing strong growth in these types of conversions. They would guarantee a certain level of energy and monetary savings for particular projects under the plan.
The influx of capital from the new project could potentially double global business in such energy upgrades, which is now several billion dollars a year, bankers and business representatives said.
"I've been involved in a couple billion dollars worth of projects in the last several years," said Bob Dixon, senior vice president of Siemens Building Technologies, one of the energy-services companies.
"They've all paid for themselves in energy savings."
Foxfyre wrote:
I think nobody is going to take GHG emissions or global warming and certainly not AGW seriously until the environmental gurus, the scientists making the grand pronouncements, the self righteous celebrity beautiful people, and the sanctimonious pronouncement armchair quarterback crowd demonstrate any sense of urgency by dramatically revising their own grandiose lifestyles. As absolutely none of them seem inclined to do that, I think Americans will continue to be as self serving as is everybody else and will do what is expedient, practical, and pleasing to do.
Freedom works wonders to increase general prosperity which naturally improves all things in the environment. Government mandates are far more likely to stifle natural improvement and can in fact be counter productive.
The first paragraph testifies again that some can't look beyond their own nose (here: border).
"General prosperty improves all things in the environment" - well, let's hope so, by goodness, but history shows exactly the opposite.
Walter Hinteler wrote:Foxfyre wrote:
I think nobody is going to take GHG emissions or global warming and certainly not AGW seriously until the environmental gurus, the scientists making the grand pronouncements, the self righteous celebrity beautiful people, and the sanctimonious pronouncement armchair quarterback crowd demonstrate any sense of urgency by dramatically revising their own grandiose lifestyles. As absolutely none of them seem inclined to do that, I think Americans will continue to be as self serving as is everybody else and will do what is expedient, practical, and pleasing to do.
Freedom works wonders to increase general prosperity which naturally improves all things in the environment. Government mandates are far more likely to stifle natural improvement and can in fact be counter productive.
The first paragraph testifies again that some can't look beyond their own nose (here: border).
"General prosperty improves all things in the environment" - well, let's hope so, by goodness, but history shows exactly the opposite.
Thanks, WH, here I thought I was the only one who saw that history showed the opposite...
Cycloptichorn
Foxfyre wrote:If Europeans resent American GHG emissions, then simply stop buying American products, stop vacationing in the United States, pull your own companies out of here, and sell off your property here. There is no greater incentive to any capitalistic enterprise other than the principle of 'the customer is always right.' You give the customer what the customer wants or somebody else will.
I think nobody is going to take GHG emissions or global warming and certainly not AGW seriously until the environmental gurus, the scientists making the grand pronouncements, the self righteous celebrity beautiful people, and the sanctimonious pronouncement armchair quarterback crowd demonstrate any sense of urgency by dramatically revising their own grandiose lifestyles. As absolutely none of them seem inclined to do that, I think Americans will continue to be as self serving as is everybody else and will do what is expedient, practical, and pleasing to do.
Freedom works wonders to increase general prosperity which naturally improves all things in the environment. Government mandates are far more likely to stifle natural improvement and can in fact be counter productive.
You might enjoy reading this article:
Take the idea of "carbon offsets" made popular by Al Gore. If well-meaning environmentalist activists and celebrities either cannot or will not give up their private jets or huge energy-hungry houses, they can still find a way to excuse their illiberal consumtion.
The hypocrites here won't, though.
Walter missed the point again, and little dog apparently isn't really thinking it through. But thank you Hokiebird for understanding and realizing how hypocrisy works against reduction of GHG.
Here's another one from the world of good intentions with some unintended bad consequences and another illustration of how we need to get it right before veering off into left field with some good sounding policy that is worse than what it is supposed to cure:
Why ethanol backfiresSOURCE
Cycloptichorn wrote: I'm far more interested in controlling pollutants and waste than I am CO2.
Excise taxes work on these too. In terms of tariffs, and other than greenhouse gas emissions, I cannot think of much foreign pollution and waste that reaches the United states. If the Indians, Chinese, and Brazilians pollute their own rivers and their own air, that's up to them. America should neither encourage nor discourage it with tariffs.
Foxfyre wrote:If Europeans resent American GHG emissions, then simply stop buying American products, stop vacationing in the United States, pull your own companies out of here, and sell off your property here.
How would this make American consumers insulate their houses, pool their cars, and move to energy-efficient downtowns? American consumers are at least as guilty of America's high GHG emissions as American producers are.
Quote:If the Indians, Chinese, and Brazilians pollute their own rivers and their own air, that's up to them. America should neither encourage nor discourage it with tariffs.
Well, rivers flow to the sea, which affects all of us, not just the countries in question;
but, more important, we use economic incentives and disincentives all the time to encourage or discourage behavior in other countries. An extreme example of this is an embargo, the ultimate tarriff; so why not use these incentives on environmental issues as well?
Cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn wrote:but, more important, we use economic incentives and disincentives all the time to encourage or discourage behavior in other countries. An extreme example of this is an embargo, the ultimate tarriff; so why not use these incentives on environmental issues as well?
To put it as amicably as I can, not everything America does all the time is wise and praiseworthy. Especially where foreign policy is involved.
Thomas wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:If Europeans resent American GHG emissions, then simply stop buying American products, stop vacationing in the United States, pull your own companies out of here, and sell off your property here.
How would this make American consumers insulate their houses, pool their cars, and move to energy-efficient downtowns? American consumers are at least as guilty of America's high GHG emissions as American producers are.
Americans aren't quite so stupid as you Europeans might think. Give us a good reason to dramatically alter our lifestyles and we will do it. We have done so in the past when there was reason to do so. If the people of the world are willing to give up the perks they get from theUSA and are willing to sufficiently punish us Americans for our evil ways, the Americans will do what is best for America.
But the point I was addressing was the idea that we should force American manufacturers and producers to toe the line dicated by Europeans. Make it sufficiently attractive to do so and the American consumer won't have much to say. Until then, you need to give Americans that very good reason to dramatically alter their lifestyles if you want America to look like Europe.
Thomas wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:but, more important, we use economic incentives and disincentives all the time to encourage or discourage behavior in other countries. An extreme example of this is an embargo, the ultimate tarriff; so why not use these incentives on environmental issues as well?
To put it as amicably as I can, not everything America does all the time is wise and praiseworthy. Especially where foreign policy is involved.
And we have come to complete agreement.
But does this mean that you don't feel that using economic incentives or disincentives to encourage behaviors in other countries is inappropriate or unwise?
We can argue as to whether or not this has been done well in the past, but I'm not against the idea of doing it in the future. Are you?
Cheers!
Cycloptichorn
Cycloptichorn wrote:We can argue as to whether or not this has been done well in the past, but I'm not against the idea of doing it in the future. Are you?
Yes, for two reasons:
1) As a matter of practice, I don't think it
can realistically be done well. The political temptations of protectionism are too great.
2) As a matter of practice, I think countries, including the US, should mind their own business. They lack standing to punish pollution by others that doesn't reach their territory. And with few exceptions, such as the gases depleting the ozone layer and those warming the globe, pollution in other countries does not reach the United States. Hence, with few specific exceptions, the United States has no business policing the world's polluters.
Thomas wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:We can argue as to whether or not this has been done well in the past, but I'm not against the idea of doing it in the future. Are you?
Yes, for two reasons:
1) As a matter of practice, I don't think it
can realistically be done well. The political temptations of protectionism are too great.
2) As a matter of practice, I think countries, including the US, should mind their own business. They lack standing to punish pollution by others that doesn't reach their territory. And with few exceptions, such as the gases depleting the ozone layer and those warming the globe, pollution in other countries does not reach the United States. Hence, with few specific exceptions, the United States has no business policing the world's polluters.
Water pollution screws up the oceans for all of us, so I would say that pollution does in fact have a limited global impact.
Is it 'punishment' for us to refuse to sign a preferred trade partner agreement with a country who we find to engage in practices which we consider to be immoral? I agree that we don't need to be kicking their heads in with our army, or cutting them off from the outside world, but nothing forces us to play nice with other countries - doing so in fact is validating their wasteful behavior to a certain degree.
Cycloptichorn
The question isn't "why not impose a tariff" but "WHY impose a tariff".
Look, tariff fights are ugly for everyone. There's a lot of tit-for-tat that goes on. We can tell China and India "it's for the good of your environment!" until we're blue in the face, and they'll smile and say "and I hope your exporting companies understand that when they get socked with a 500% tariff on machine tools."
This is why the US's basic position is in favor of free trade - it's hard to keep trade wars from escalating, and when that happens, everyone ends up worse off. We occasionally step away from that, but we don't do it casually, and frankly, we don't do it to people who we were trading a whole lot with in the first place. There's all sorts of things we'd like to change about the Chinese government, but we stay the hell away from the tariff when it comes to them.
But to put it bluntly, Chinese and Indian pollution are not largely a US problem, ignoring CO2 as you'd have us do. Yes, yes, runoff to the ocean, but the ocean is, well, quite big, and those countries are actually quite far away - even if they were TRYING to screw up the oceans, it'd take more effort than they have to put out for it to affect ocean quality worldwide.
And if you want to talk about history, well, it's certainly true that a society just entering the industrialized phase is a lot more polluted than one still in the agricultural phase. There's not a lot of pollution in subsistence agriculture, after all. Of course, you also get starvation and all sorts of human deprivation, so really it's NOT a good trade. But if you compare the average US city in 1900 to the average British city in 1850, certainly the former was less polluted than the latter. And things were better yet by 1950. And it's a heck of a lot better today, no? The trend is pretty clear.
Cycloptichorn wrote:Water pollution screws up the oceans for all of us, so I would say that pollution does in fact have a limited global impact.
If it's the global impact you're worried about, take it to the UN. Otherwise, you have no standing to intervene against China, India, and Brazil until their pollutants reach the shores of California and Florida.
Cycloptichorn wrote:Is it 'punishment' for us to refuse to sign a preferred trade partner agreement with a country who we find to engage in practices which we consider to be immoral?
No, it would be more like shunning. But I think you're starting from the wrong point: The US already has trade agreements with most of the world's major polluters. To implement your policies, you would have to violate existing treaties, not refuse to sign new ones.
Thomas wrote:Cycloptichorn wrote:Water pollution screws up the oceans for all of us, so I would say that pollution does in fact have a limited global impact.
If it's the global impact you're worried about, take it to the UN. Otherwise, you have no standing to intervene against China, India, and Brazil until their pollutants reach the shores of California and Florida.
Cycloptichorn wrote:Is it 'punishment' for us to refuse to sign a preferred trade partner agreement with a country who we find to engage in practices which we consider to be immoral?
No, it would be more like shunning. But I think you're starting from the wrong point: The US already has trade agreements with most of the world's major polluters. To implement your policies, you would have to violate existing treaties, not refuse to sign new ones.
Or we could just not renew them, or yes, we could cancel them. It's just a question of what we think is more important: cheap **** from China, or a clean environment.
I find it to be hilarious, in the extreme, that the same people who will argue all day about the Global nature of the economy insist on a Local environmental model. On one hand, we must embrace free trade, but on the other, we are stuck in a nationalistic system of managing the ecosystem? Nonsensical!
Cycloptichorn
