Californica cap-and-trade a big success...

Californica cap-and-trade a big success...

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...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      | 
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Jim Thompson
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In a website appropriately named "Hot Air Express". If cap and trade applied to all states, or by federal mandate, it would work much better. But polluters still have buddies in states where legislators, with their drooling tongues in the wallets of Big Energy, don't care about cooking,

choking, poisoning and smoking their populace. They welcome the polluters and contributors to environmental disaster as they pursue "business as usual" tactics that try to preserve dangerous and unhealthy jobs for just a few more years until the old coots die with the most toys and material wealth, while sickening the workforce and leaving them with no health care or as a burden to the rest of us when the greedy companies shut down and the executives bail out on their golden parachutes.

This site also is pushing a subscription to the "Town Hall", which I already have thanks to (probably) one of the right-leaning regulars here. It's also allied to the Wall Street Journal, which is also hopelessly biased. Always good to see what the opposition is brewing, but nothing much other than reactionary rhetoric and sore loser whining. There are better sources of

information, such as:

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Not that I agree with all of their content, but it seems much more reasonable than that presented by the right-whiners.

Paul

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Reply to
P E Schoen

Yes, I can see from your hysterical rhetoric what you would consider 'reasonable'.

Reply to
flipper

Why is it that so many people with scientific, engineering, and technical skills, are so dogmatically "religious" about their denialist and obstructionist views when it comes to protecting the environment we all share? We are all in this together, although many of the older regulars here may not live long enough to be affected by the catastrophic results of ignoring and belittling the evidence and those who try to present reasonable actions to be taken.

Perhaps you consider yourselves to be like the lucky pilot and die in your sleep, and not screaming in terror like his passengers.

Paul

Reply to
P E Schoen

You repeating hysterics about 'Armageddon' on the way isn't evidence and no one is more dogmatically 'religious' than environmental zealots who's first, middle, and last instinct is to burn at the stake anyone who speaketh heresy against the holy writ, the only 'evidence' involved, while chanting the 'save earth' sacrament.

The biggest difference between an environmental zealot and a "sinner repent, the end is near" flagellant is the latter only beats himself.

As for me, I'm patiently waiting for the 'global warming' priesthood to present their falsifiable predictions and the repeatable experimental results testing them because some of us still adhere to what's called 'science'.

Reply to
flipper

Paul Schoen gets his "science" from Popular Science magazine and knows absolutely NO history.

And he judges the world based on his Baltimore slum. Think I exaggerate? Go there some time and look around. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      | 
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

Cap-and-trade is just another messy complication, prone to influence and abuse.

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Politicians don't have the guts to simply create or increase carbon tax.

Some people never learn:

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Some "free market"!

It's amusing that lefties and the press (same thing, mostly) have started referring to CO2 as "pollution", to imply that CO2 is hazardous, like ozone or particulates or something. People breath in

400 PPM and exhale about 4%, averaging about a kilogram of CO2 produced per day.
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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

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John Larkin

Because people make Doom prophesies out of a lot of it that doesn't always come to pass. Because the CO levels of the exhaust of a well-tuned Beetle would pass a tailpipe test but the regs still said you hadda have a catalytic converter. We've been burned before.

And because our carbon use is what's different about how we live now and how people lived - as serfs, basically - two-three hundred years ago. It's also a thing that shines a painfully strong light on the limits of the nation-state.

To an extent, but we all check out of the planet on our own time, so there's a limit...

Most of the models predict nobody alive will see it.

*My* main grump about it is that I've never, ever had a projection that I made work out. This is one whale of a projection. I lean towards "it's true", but I don't see a lot we can do about it other than a few cargo cult measures.

If I thought we really could add Pigovian taxes to the mix and fix it, we should. I doubt they'll work. The rewards for defectors is too high. For some cultures, you cannot even explain them to them.

I have no problem with the science. It's the narratives that people build on the science that worry me. This means that people now want to signal eco-conciousness, and that may or many not do any good. Meanwhile, you can't even keep hackers outta corporate networks.

I think that attributing that much power to our puny species is hubristic. We came into prominence by accident, and I expect we'll go out the same way.

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Les Cargill
Reply to
Les Cargill

Yes, the EPA has designated CO2 as a pollutant.

Yes, they are crazy.

Yes, that's why we need to cut govt funding

Mark

Reply to
makolber

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Set up by right-wing loonies who'd never heard of "natural monopolies". Odd that the report doesn't mention Enron once.

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CO2 is hazardous. It doesn't damage you in the same way that ozone or particulates do, but if you put enough into the atmosphere enough of us will end up dead to create a public health disaster.

Not that John Larkin knows enough science to understand the chain of cause and effect.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
Bill Sloman

It may look crazy to the ignorant, but the logic actually is sound.

In fact you need to spend more on public education, and even more on stopping people lying to the public to maximise their own short terms profits. The board of Exxon-Mobil should be put away for fraud, and Jim Inhofe with them as an accomplice.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
Bill Sloman

And how long did it stay well-tuned?

Collecting solar energy is going to be cheaper than burning fossil carbon in a few decades anyway. Subsidising renewable energy just gets us to this point a decade or so earlier - on the usual rule of thumb that increasing the scale of manufacture by a factor of ten halves the cost of each individual unit. There's nothing of the cargo cult in working to get there sooner.

But when solar power really is cheaper, you don't have to explain it to them.

Sadly, it's realistic. The extra CO2 in the atmosphere is all ours, and we seem hell-bent on adding more.

ay.

We didn't intend to warm up the whole planet when we started digging up fossil carbon and burning it as fuel, so the current - limited - disaster probably counts as an accident .We now know more than enough to know that we ought to stop, so the fact that we are persisting in activity that will render the planet a lot less suitable for us to live on probably counts as suicidally irresponsible.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
Bill Sloman

I don't find it amusing at all and it's a standard left wing tactic to simply redefine the language so it's impossible to rationally discuss anything. The very name of modern, so called, 'liberalism' is language theft because the word comes from the Latin liber, or to put it in plain English "free," as in liberty. But the left are statists, suborning the individual to the 'collective' (meaning them), the antithesis of liberty.

'Liberals' love democracy when they 'win' but when they don't they simply usurp power by other means since the only 'legitimate' purpose of a vote is to give them power to 'rule'. You see this being acted out right now in the 'fiscal cliff' battle. President Obama 'won' so, as far as he is concerned, he's been given the power to 'rule' and never mind that every single member of Congress also won their election and are the duly designated representative of their respective constituents. That vote doesn't 'count' because it produced the 'wrong' results and they're 'in the way' of our dear 'ruler'.

Of course, you saw exactly the same thing after his first election when, for the 'bipartisan' meeting to allegedly 'discuss' healthcare, the first words out of his mouth to Sen. McCain were "I won." (I.E. Don't bother bringing up things other than what I want because "I won" and get to 'rule'.)

They do not mean to 'imply' it at all. That's the 'new definition' intended to shut down any and all debate because you are certainly not for 'pollution' are you? And now that we all 'agree' we can get on with persecuting 'polluters'.

The purpose was to further corrupt the EPA and usurp power that pesky 'peoples body' called Congress wouldn't grant. President Obama said it flat out when he warned if they didn't pass what he wanted he'd do it anyway... and it would be worse. And he did, since how dare they not obey their 'ruler'?

Didn't you ask for a carbon tax?

One might also add that every breathing lifeform on the planet emits CO2, which is arguably a good thing because without this 'pollutant' all plant life would die.

Reply to
flipper

The right wing idea of "rational discussion" involves asserting what they - irrationally - believe to be true,

People in general - not just leftists - have a habit of redefining words for their own convenience. It's how language evolves.

In Europe and Australia, a political liberal is right-of-centre, and endorses free trade as opposed to protectionism. What "liber" might have meant in Roman Latin. or now means in Church Latin, doesn't come into it.

Actually, their votes do count, but the executive is stuck with coming up with a policy that might work, and the Tea Party nitwits haven't yet suggested a practical solution.

Probably not what he was saying - more likely what he had in mind was something about not being pointlessly obstructive when you don't have the numbers to make it stick.

Congress can always over-ride the EPA - it just takes time.

What on earth do you think you are talking about?

But if we burn enough fossil carbon to raise the average surface temperature of the planet by 4C, a whole lot of that planet life will die. It will be replaced by different plants that do well in the new environment. Not all that many of them will be the plants that we have bred and cultivated as agricultural plants over the last ten-thousand- odd years that we have been practicing agriculture, so our food supplies are going to crash, and our population with it, but since CO2 doesn't correspond to your idea of a pollutant, we shouldn't be bothered about Exxon-Mobil's plan to extract every possible trace of fossil carbon that they can get their hands on and sell every last bit of it to be burnt as fuel.

If we were silly enough to let them, we wouldn't deserve to survive as a species.

The right-wing nitwits who can't see what's at issue certainly don't deserve to survive, but they probably aren't sapient enough to count as h*mo sapiens in the first place.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
Bill Sloman

OK Bill, 1) just because someone disagrees with you is no reason to call them ignorant. Surely you can go better than that.

2) Please provide a scientific logical definition of a "pollutant" making it worthy of government regulation that would include sulfur-dioxide which rightly IS a pollutant and would also include CO2 but would EXCLUDE nitrogen or oxygen.

Or do you consider oxygen a pollutant as well? In that case what is NOT a pollutant?

Or does the EPA just "decide" something is a pollutant because it fits their agenda?

Mark

Reply to
Mark

I can, and frequently do, so often that it isn't really necessary to be more verbose here.

Why should I? I'm not objecting to the EPA calling it a pollutant. None of the people who do object have gone to the trouble of digging out a definition to justify their aversion to the usage, and in practice a word means what we collectively understand it to mean rather than what it meant a few decades ago when the relevant dictionary was last revised.

It certainly was a few billion years ago, and killed off a lot of blameless, if primitive organisms back then.

Anything that doesn't create a problem.

Or because it has been revealed to be damaging the environment ...

A hundred years ago, ozone was thought to be good for you, rather than a pollutant. It's now known to be good for you (by absorbing hard UV) when confined to the stratosphere, but lung-rottingly dangerous if it shows up in the air we breath.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
Bill Sloman

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He didn't make any reference to Armegeddon.

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Actually, we refer them to the peer reviewed scientific evidence, which is not remotely like holy writ. You've got to remember that scientists are sceptics, and the way to win fame and fortune as a scientist is to prove some other scientist wrong. The evidence for anthropogenic global warming has survived a lot of scepticism so far, so the scientific community is now willing to act as if it is very likely to be right.

Environmental zealots may exist, but none of them post here. John Larkin likes to think that taking global warming seriously means drastically reducing our energy consumption effectively inventing his straw man environmental zealot. but this doesn't happen to be true.

We should be getting more of our energy from renewable sources - which are more expensive at the moment - and retooling society so that we'll end up getting most of our energy from renewable sources, which is going to take a while, but should have the effect of providing energy for less than we now pay for burning the fossil carbon we are currently importing from countries all around the world.

You shouldn't be - the IPCC does it every few years.

We've only got one planet. It would be a bit extravagant to trash it in order to prove that what we are doing at the moment is damaging our environment.

Not you, obviously.

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Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
Bill Sloman

Liberal in the context of philosophy means free-thinker. Their opionons are defined by thinking, because those opinions are the inevitable result of thinking, because they are "correct." Thinking cannot lead to a different point of view.

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Reply to
Tom Del Rosso

to

language

opionons

result

Veritas vos liberabit. And the truth, veritas, is obtained by free thinking, not by chanting dogmatic mantras. One of the only sure bets is that things will change, and "liberals" are champions of change. True, beneficial, conservatism should just act as a cautionary force to guard against reckless abandon, and not as a stone wall intent on blocking progress and ignoring (or actively denying) new evidence and ideas. Liberty can only survive on a foundation of truth and reason, and not on blind faith or trust in leadership, especially when the motives of those in power, or seeking it, are personal (or corporate) greed and selfishness.

The freedom of individuals in a connected society is necessarily limited to that which does not harm the "collective" or its members. The present libertarian and conservative Republican factions seek to ignore or deny the deleterious effect of their selfishly motivated programs where the rights of the (elite and privileged) individual are imagined to trump the welfare and very survival of the civilization which provides the framework for their

ability to exist and benefit from that which is provided by others. Free

thinkers recognize and respect this, and work in cooperation with others to achieve a common goal.

Paul

Reply to
P E Schoen

Just exactly which "philosophical context" is that? Since you apparently don't mean the kind of 'context' like political philosophy.

Oh really? It must be a 'philosophy' involving less than 3 people because more 'thinking' than that inevitably leads to multiple, contradictory, 'correct thinking'.

If you are meaning to refer to the "liberal arts," as in education, that comes from the Latin "artes liberales" and refers to those subjects essential for "free" (as in liber) persons, I.E. citizens, to know in order to take an active part in civic life.

If you are referring to what is called "Liberal Studies" the Association of American Colleges & Universities says "Liberal Education is an approach to learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity, and change. It provides students with broad knowledge of the wider world (e.g. science, culture, and society) as well as in-depth study in a specific area of interest. A liberal education helps students develop a sense of social responsibility, as well as strong and transferable intellectual and practical skills such as communication, analytical and problem-solving skills, and a demonstrated ability to apply knowledge and skills in real-world settings."

There is nothing about inevitable 'correctness' hegemony although one can hope that if there is such a thing as truth that good reasoning skills might eventually lead to it's illumination.

Back to politics, Liberalism was founded on the principles of individual liberty and equality, hence taking it's name from the Latin "liber" for free, as in liberty, and so eloquently expressed by Jefferson who, in turn, was taking from John Locke.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

The purpose of the government is to SECURE these individual rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness and not, as one Democrat representative told his constituents during the 'healthcare' debate, do "just about anything" it damn well pleases.

The, so called, 'collective' has no more moral authority to usurp individual liberty than King George did and suborning liberty to a mythical 'collective', or claiming a 'majority' has power to dictate, is antithetical to every principle of REAL 'liberalism'.

Reply to
flipper

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