Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Or we could just not renew them, or yes, we could cancel them.

Well you certainly have the right to do that. But if America only sticks to its agreements when it feels like it, why would anyone sign deals with America anymore in the future?

Cycloptichorn wrote:

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!

I would probably have more sympathy for your policy measure if it wasn't for this winy implication of blaming America's environmental problems on the rest of the world. The worst polluter of America's environment is Americans, I would guess by several orders of magnitude. Yet here you are, ready to curtail America's already-damaged reputation as a stable partner, to prevent a rounding error in the big picture of American pollution.

If you have to intervene into international trade, why don't you do it by giving credit to foreign countries whose environmental record is better than America's? How would you feel about import subsidies for fuel-efficient cars, which tend to come from Europe, Japan, and Korea, but not the US? How about an export tax on gas-guzzling American SUVs to prevent pollution in the countries you're exporting to? Why not try your own medicine before forcing it down the throat of others? That way, at least your proposal wouldn't sound like yet another excuse for one of the worst traditions in American populism.

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Quote:

I would probably have more sympathy for your policy measure if it wasn't for this winy implication of blaming America's environmental problems on the rest of the world. The worst polluter of America's environment is Americans, I would guess by several orders of magnitude. Yet here you are, ready to curtail America's already-damaged reputation as a stable partner, to prevent a rounding error in the big picture of American pollution.

Ah, but we got to this point because I had argued America should be the ones to clean ourselves up. We should mandate it. And this will mean our businesses will become less competitive on the international market; it costs more money to pay for the waste products created during your production of a product, but it is ethically better to do so. So I proposed Tarriffs on foreign goods coming into America, was yelled at as that being a bad idea, asked if other countries had tarriffs on OUR goods, you said that wasn't a good idea...

and here we are.

Damend if you do, damned if you don't when you argue for cleaner production facilities, it seems.

Cycloptichorn

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To answer your question: Europe does not impose environmental taxes on American product, and I doubt any country in the world does. So if you were elected president and implemented your trade policies, America would on net be polluting us and tariffing us at the same time.

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Thomas wrote:

To answer your question: Europe does not impose environmental taxes on American product, and I doubt any country in the world does. So if you were elected president and implemented your trade policies, America would on net be polluting us and tariffing us at the same time.

But we would be reducing our levels of pollution, which is in the end a bigger net gain to Europe. In addition, as other countries' production facilities cleaned their act up, the tariffs would cease. So they would not be without options in this matter.

How do you propose America mandate/encourage/develop cleaner production facilities without harming our businesses, which are already undercut in many ways by the lower labor costs abroad?

Cycloptichorn

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While I don't at all sympathize with Thomas' suggestions that America has been a significantly greater polluter than the rest of the world (when?; for how long?; what standard of measurement and how normalized?; what domain of investigation & measurement?; etc.), I do believe this discussion clearly indicates the futility of the imposition of specific authoritarian controls, particularly when they directly affect other countries or imply judgements about them. This point, of course cuts both ways and illustrates how unjustified and offensive is the European indignation over our honest and candid refusal to sign the Kyoto accord.

Like Thomas I would tolerate (and perhaps in some cases, favor) the imposition of selected taxes on basic commodities directly involved in serious matters of environmental pollution. However if one attempts to get too specific or precise in motivating particular behaviors desired by some, the bad (and usually unanticipated) side effects usually quickly and decisively outweigh whatever good direct effect results.

For a variety of historical reasons Europeans tend to live in more densely populated cities than do Americans. In addition they have a history of stricter control of land use in rural areas than prevails here. Both patterns emerged from historical processes that had almost nothing to do with contemporary environmental issues. However, it is a fact that the European pattern strongly favors public mass transit systems and higher density, generally multi family, residential areas, both of which tend to reduce energy consumption. There is no particular virtue in the European reality, just as there is no particular vice in the American one. Both of us will have to adapt to emerging new realities concerning energy production & distribution as well as the availability and cost of a host of commodities. How we do it is our own affair, and it is presumptuous and offensive to pass judgement on others.

The eagerness with which many people embrace the AGW matter, and the blindness with which they presume its supposed effects are so much more imminent and dangerous than many others of equal or greater effect & likelihood, arouses my very strong suspicions. When I then see them then arguing for the swift imposition of authoritarian controls (of their own favored design) on the way other people live their lives, my suspicions become much deeper. History is to a large degree the record of human folly -- particularly on matters involving how others should live. I do not believe that we have yet seen the end of either history or folly.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

How do you propose America mandate/encourage/develop cleaner production facilities without harming our businesses, which are already undercut in many ways by the lower labor costs abroad?

I don't. America already got an unfair advantage over us by letting its businesses and consumers pollute more than we do. Letting go of this unfair advantage is not something that I think America deserves any compensation for.

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How? Simple - develop the technology. When we know how to do it, we can do it.

Take CFL light bulbs. Old invention, in use practically everywhere, and people are pretty familiar with the costs and efficiencies. A new invention comes along, and early on it's pretty crappy when it comes to direct quality comparison. Lot of companies put some money into developing a better bulb, and now we have CFL bulbs that give out basically the same quality of light, last a lot longer, are far cheaper per hour of bulb life, AND save a bunch of energy too.

It will be very difficult to mandate ANY changes (or at least, any that would be sufficient to actually do any good) in CO2 output before the equivalent energy technologies are worked out. But once we've worked out those technologies, plus a few years to iron out the kinks, you won't need to worry about convincing people to use them - they'll choose to do so based solely on the advantages they can win thereby.

So yeah, a few crash government programs (to build more nuclear plants, to develop a better solar panel, to get wind power up and running everywhere it works well, and whatever else seems likely to do some good) are probably in order. ;p

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george wrote

Quote:

The eagerness with which many people embrace the AGW matter, and the blindness with which they presume its supposed effects...

You make it sound like a millennium cult. Heads of Government, Chief Scientific advisors, Presidents of scientific institutions and prestigious bodies are not to be dismissed so lightly.

Some Americans give the impression they would rather see everyone else suffer, including their fellow Americans, than adopt any inconvenient life style changes which would be for the good of all.

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I wonder how many of you are doing what you can to reduce CO2 today.

Personally every light in my house is CFL, even my flood lights. I take the train to work everyday I can (at least half the week) which cuts my driving time by 2 hours each day. I bought an old VW that gets almost 30 mpg to use as a commuter car and my truck sits at home until the weekly Home Depot trip.

I'm just curious where everyone else stands and what they've done.

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Steve 41oo wrote:

Some Americans give the impression they would rather see everyone else suffer, including their fellow Americans, than adopt any inconvenient life style changes which would be for the good of all.

Starting with the High Priest of the global warming religion, Al Gore.

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Georgeob1 writes

Quote:

For a variety of historical reasons Europeans tend to live in more densely populated cities than do Americans. In addition they have a history of stricter control of land use in rural areas than prevails here. Both patterns emerged from historical processes that had almost nothing to do with contemporary environmental issues. However, it is a fact that the European pattern strongly favors public mass transit systems and higher density, generally multi family, residential areas, both of which tend to reduce energy consumption. There is no particular virtue in the European reality, just as there is no particular vice in the American one. Both of us will have to adapt to emerging new realities concerning energy production & distribution as well as the availability and cost of a host of commodities. How we do it is our own affair, and it is presumptuous and offensive to pass judgement on others.

I don't know that I've ever seen a study on it, but while dense concentrations of population almost certainly contributes to energy efficiency, I am guessing that these also contribute to pollution as well as erosion of quality of life. When you have your own little plot of ground you can put up a wind charger if you want to, conserve rainwater that falls, compost your garbage to use later to grow your own organic fruits and vegetables etc. You have more incentive to conserve electricity and natural gas or propane and water etc. And the population is spread out so that the wind can blow through it and dissipate whatever emissions are going into the air. You don't have hundreds of thousands of vehicles, busses, cabs, etc. idling in traffic jams on the freeway.

These things probably even offset driving your car to the market rather than taking the bus or subway.

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I see Fox News has an expose on liberal colleges. It appears some of these colleges are forcing science students to learn about global warming and watch Gore's movie.

How Awful.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/steven_colbert.php

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Steve 41oo wrote:

george wrote

Quote:
The eagerness with which many people embrace the AGW matter, and the blindness with which they presume its supposed effects...

You make it sound like a millennium cult. Heads of Government, Chief Scientific advisors, Presidents of scientific institutions and prestigious bodies are not to be dismissed so lightly.

Some Americans give the impression they would rather see everyone else suffer, including their fellow Americans, than adopt any inconvenient life style changes which would be for the good of all.

Well you left out the rest of my sentence and thereby distorted its meaning.

As for the hard-to-believe association of Heads of Government, Scientific advisors, presidents of institutions and "prestigous bodies" ... one has only to consult the history of human follies briefly to find the litany of their past connections to cults and worse. Your point doesn't withstand scrutiny.

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Confident predictions of environmental have a long tradition and a bad predictive record. Descriptions of the past incarnations in this tradition do sound like a millenium cults, because they work much alike. Therefore, my reaction to Steve's reaction to George's reaction to the recent incarnation isn't "you quoted George out of context." It's "Yeah. So what else is new?"

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Here is the complete paragraph (and thought) that Steve edited. The answer to his point was contained in the phrases that followed. They are more or less what Thomas said above.

georgeob1 wrote:

The eagerness with which many people embrace the AGW matter, and the blindness with which they presume its supposed effects are so much more imminent and dangerous than many others of equal or greater effect & likelihood, arouses my very strong suspicions. When I then see them then arguing for the swift imposition of authoritarian controls (of their own favored design) on the way other people live their lives, my suspicions become much deeper. History is to a large degree the record of human folly -- particularly on matters involving how others should live. I do not believe that we have yet seen the end of either history or folly.

Steve - We disagree on several things, however - for a Brit - you are OK. Perhaps you too have noticed the nit opicking tendencies of the Germans on this thread. Thomas is getting more like Walter every day. Why can't you guys be even-tempered, wise, and reasonable like us Americans?

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I am quite often evil-tempered, un-wise, and un-reasonable like you Americans, george.

(Did you notice, btw, that you make nearly as many typos as I do?)

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

I am quite often evil-tempered, un-wise, and un-reasonable like you Americans, george.

Well don't blame the country for my failings.

Walter Hinteler wrote:

(Did you notice, btw, that you make nearly as many typos as I do?)

See what I mean !!!!! Nit pickers all.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Here is the complete paragraph (and thought) that Steve edited. The answer to his point was contained in the phrases that followed. They are more or less what Thomas said above.

Except that you wouldn't forget the noun in "environmental doom", and wouldn't write "a millenium cults". I shouldn't be on A2K after returning from the Biergarten.

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I really like this cartoon (published in today's Albuquerque Journal, page A10)

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This is getting to be a tough crowd.

I did like Walter's cartoon - a good parody of Gore with nice, Catholic overtones.

I'm feeling particualrly good this morning and want to wish my good friends Steve, Walter and Thomas all the best. Poor Thomas sounds a bit hung over.

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Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

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