Climate Change: Why aren't more people concerned about it?

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 381 - 400 of total 2200 in this topic

<< First | < Previous | Show All | Next > | Last >>

wilbeer

Mountain climber

Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,

Nov 27, 2016 - 07:07pm PT

Yes indeed.

Look ,an attempt by the Free Market.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/big-business-donald-trump-paris-climate-deal_us_582d0818e4b030997bbd7d11

pud

climber

Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia

Nov 27, 2016 - 08:14pm PT

Failure to do so “puts American prosperity at risk,” Nike, eBay, The North Face and hundreds of other U.S. companies wrote in an open letter Wednesday addressed to Trump, President Barack Obama, members of Congress and global leaders.

Haha !
Blackmail attempt by Chinese product brokers.
This will work.

Let the free market decide what is best for the planet.
What possible conflicts of interest could there be?

The proposed carbon tax is like giving money to an alcoholic thinking he will spend it on rehab.
Fools get what they deserve. Too bad the rest of us are along for the ride.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Nov 27, 2016 - 08:39pm PT

Let the free market decide what is best for the planet.
What possible conflicts of interest could there be?

The proposed carbon tax is like giving money to an alcoholic thinking he will spend it on rehab.
Fools get what they deserve. Too bad the rest of us are along for the ride.

the "free market" approach to North Atlantic Cod completely decimated the species population, the result of which collapsed the Northeastern American fishing industry. The argument was made that people with a vested interest (the fishermen) knew better than the scientists studying the various fish species... that the "market" should decide, and what it decided, essentially, was to continue to over fish, and basically killed that industry.

The "tragedy of the commons" plays out in a number of ways, and it is well known that the "free market" approach does not result in the preservation of common resources.

The atmosphere is a common resource, shared by everyone, but we do not "pay" for the use of it, especially true of the stuff we exhaust into it. The "free market" will not fix this problem, and the results are even more far ranging than the collapse of the various industrially fished wild species.

A carbon tax, which necessarily is a part of government management of this resource (the atmosphere), reflects the cost of one aspect of our use of the atmosphere, as a dump for carbon. By costing that use, and attaching it to the source of the carbon (the fossil fuels) the cost of that energy source goes up. The "free market" gets to decide whether to use that energy source at the increased cost, or to seek alternatives.

The government uses the tax revenue to mitigate the adverse effect on the poor, and to fund R&D for alternatives, while providing a disincentive to exhausting the waste into the atmosphere.

Chaz

Trad climber

greater Boss Angeles area

Nov 27, 2016 - 08:47pm PT

In the age of Trump? That's going to be one tough sell.

Look around the rest of the country. There are only three or four other states like California who have both Democrat governors and Democrat majority legislatures.

What kind of strategy would you have for getting the Republicans to go along with tax increases to fund bigger government?

pud

climber

Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia

Nov 27, 2016 - 09:00pm PT

Let the free market decide what is best for the planet.
What possible conflicts of interest could there be?

I hope you caught the sarcasm in this statement Ed.
I'm not sure I could argue this point as eloquently as you have.

Giving millions of dollars to corrupt governments in the hope they will use it in good faith is a catastrophic fail.

Punishing nations that do not subscribe to the global warming crusader's ideas and beliefs is criminal.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Nov 27, 2016 - 09:05pm PT

if you are asking me, I take a longer view of it than just one administration, or one Congress, or one state legislature...

talking about California, it wasn't long ago that there was a Republican Governor... and the same sort of partisan chaos on budgets, taxes, etc... redistricting and electoral reform (initiative driven) have considerably changed that...

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Nov 27, 2016 - 09:18pm PT

Giving millions of dollars to corrupt governments in the hope they will use it in good faith is a catastrophic fail.

Punishing nations that do not subscribe to the global warming crusader's ideas and beliefs is criminal.

It is hard to disagree with the point that the tax revenue should be not be used for corrupt ends, and I don't think anyone has proposed that.

"Punishing nations" is not what we're talking about, paying for the use of a resource, such as exhausting CO2 into the atmosphere, is what the issue at hand is about. A nation could very well decide not to pay, but their goods might be tariffed in international trade as a consequence. They make a choice, as one of many users of the atmosphere, but the community of users have recourse to recover those unpaid costs.

The issue of climate change, and its relationship with human activity, is not just an ideology, it stands on solid scientific findings. While these findings may not be able to tell us what, exactly, is going to happen, the range of possible futures represents a risk of substantial consequence.

Because we can mitigate that risk by altering human activity, and our ability to mitigate depends on early action, it is natural to consider the most efficient mechanism for altering that activity, a carbon tax.

Al Barkamps

Social climber

Red Stick

Nov 27, 2016 - 09:37pm PT

...is not just an ideology, it stands on solid scientific findings.

Human history is replete with catastrophic events that were built on ideology, with all logic to the contrary. Our response to global warming will be no different, until it's far too late, as it is now.

None of my kids currently see the point in subjecting offspring to our stupidities; logic just continues to confirm this daily. So, in a way, we're doing our part: reducing our future footprint by keeping a new generation from adding more mouths to a mangled planet.

In the meantime, we've grabbed a few deckchairs and are enjoying the band as the Titanic lists a little more.

pud

climber

Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia

Nov 27, 2016 - 09:49pm PT

Also, I can't get behind any global agreement to limit carbon emissions that doesn't include trade sanctions or carbon-tariffs, if you prefer, for all non-compliance nations.

DMT

This type of thinking is common among the GW crowd.
It takes from those that have the least.
How arrogant the thought of starving children to save the planet.
I mean, what the f*#k?

A nation could very well decide not to pay, but their goods might be tariffed in international trade as a consequence. They make a choice, as one of many users of the atmosphere, but the community of users have recourse to recover those unpaid costs.

Putting tarriffs on traded goods of a nation because it does not or cannot participate in the GW band aid theory is punishment.
The narrow mind is a dangerous thing.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Nov 28, 2016 - 01:06am PT

Putting tarriffs on traded goods of a nation because it does not or cannot participate in the GW band aid theory is punishment.
The narrow mind is a dangerous thing.

You have setup a strawman here, assuming an implementation that is overly simplistic to make a point that is obviously extreme. The further assumption that this is the result of a "narrow mind" is similarly unwarranted.

Tariffs, in an international free trade regime, can only happen with the affirmation of the trading partners.

If a poor nation cannot afford the increased energy costs that it will take to mitigate anthropogenic climate change, resources can be made available (from the tax revenue, for example) to offset the increased energy costs, but certainly not for energy that generates CO2.

Nations that decide not to tax carbon, but otherwise could, are not being punished, they are paying their share of the use of the atmosphere for dumping their CO2. They can certainly decide to do that, they cannot get out of paying their bill.

But there are many implementation strategies that take the various factors, including the poor nations (and people) of the world.

The disparaging comment regarding "GW band aid theory" might indicate that you have questions regarding how the risk and consequences of anthropogenic climate change are established. While it may seem to you to be easier to argue that poor people will starve to death, you have little evidence that this would happen. In the worst-case scenario of anthropogenic climate change people will likely face grave shortages of food and water and other life sustaining necessities.

A case can be made that letting it happen is worse for the very people that you are concerned about than the proposed mitigations would be.

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Nov 28, 2016 - 09:15am PT

an interesting study from the American Physical Society on the cost of taking the CO2 that we are putting into the atmosphere out...

http://www.aps.org/policy/reports/assessments/upload/dac2011.pdf

from the Executive Summary:

"This report explores direct air capture (DAC) of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere with chemicals. DAC involves a system in which ambient air flows over a chemical sorbent that selectively removes the CO2. The CO2 is then released as a concentrated stream for disposal or reuse, while the sorbent is regenerated and the CO2-depleted air is returned to the atmosphere.

To guide the reader to an understanding of the factors affecting costs, a benchmark system is introduced that could be built today. With optimistic assumptions about some important technical parameters, the cost of this system is estimated to be of the order of $600 or more per metric ton of CO2. Significant uncertainties in the process parameters result in a wide, asymmetric range associated with this estimate, with higher values being more likely than lower ones. Thus, DAC is not currently an economically viable approach to mitigating climate change. Any commercially interesting DAC system would require significantly lower avoided CO2 costs, and thus would likely have a design very different from the benchmark system investigated in this report. This report identifies some of the key issues that need to be addressed in alternative designs.

The physical scale of the air contactor in any DAC system is a formidable challenge. A typical contactor will capture about 20 tons of CO2 per year for each square meter of area through which the air flows. Since a 1000-megawatt coal power plant emits about six million metric tons of CO2 per year, a DAC system consisting of structures 10-meters high that removes CO2 from the atmosphere as fast as this coal plant emits CO2 would require structures whose total length would be about 30 kilometers. Large quantities of construction materials and chemicals would be required. It is likely that the full cost of the benchmark DAC system scaled to capture six million metric tons of CO2 per year would be much higher than alternative strategies providing equivalent decarbonized electricity. As a result, even if costs fall significantly, coherent CO2 mitigation would result in the deployment of DAC only after nearly all significant point sources of fossil CO2 emissions are eliminated, either by substitution of non-fossil alternatives or by capture of nearly all of their CO2 emissions."

one of a number of studies answering the question: "what are you going to do about it?"
most of these studies conclude that we should stop exhausting CO2 into the atmosphere...

rick sumner

Trad climber

reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska

Nov 28, 2016 - 09:32am PT

You're preaching to your choir Ed. Minds on the other side (which it turns out is a great majority) are not open to the same old arguments and the global governance controlled bondage through taxation solution to a vastly conflated problem.

Perhaps you would be more effective at pushing more local solutions. To wit; by some estimates there are tens of millions of standing dead evergreens in your beautiful state. Would it not be wise to log these dead before fire releases the stored co2 in a true catastophe?

August West

Trad climber

Where the wind blows strange

Nov 28, 2016 - 10:38am PT

What kind of strategy would you have for getting the Republicans to go along with tax increases to fund bigger government?

Until they are voted out of office, I think the world is 'effed.

On a more wonkish note: since the government needs some level of tax income, we could create carbon taxes and offset it with reduced taxes somewhere else. And for gasoline taxes, I would be fine with adding up all of the gasoline taxes and then returning the money as part of tax rebates.

Chaz

Trad climber

greater Boss Angeles area

Nov 28, 2016 - 12:17pm PT

Mr West writes:

"On a more wonkish note: since the government needs some level of tax income, we could create carbon taxes and offset it with reduced taxes somewhere else."

That's exactly what was on the ballot in WA ( I-732 ) It was going to give a tax cut to every single person in Washington in exchange for enacting a carbon tax on those who spew carbon. It lost.

Not even The Sierra Club thought it was a good idea.

http://www.sierraclub.org/washington/sierra-club-position-carbon-washington-ballot-initiative-732

Washington voted Hillary in a landslide. Legalized gay marriage and marijuana by initiative. But a revenue-neutral carbon tax couldn't get any support there in the greenest of green states.

The science may be settled, but a lot of hearts and minds are still up in the air.

Splater

climber

Grey Matter

Nov 28, 2016 - 01:07pm PT

" That's exactly what was on the ballot in WA ( I-732 ) It was going to give a tax cut to every single person in Washington in exchange for enacting a carbon tax on those who spew carbon. It lost.

Not even The Sierra Club thought it was a good idea."

Actually the Sierra Club opposed it because they didn't want it to be tax neutral. They wanted a far more extreme and bureaucratic policy, where it would all be a tax increase, with all the new money to be spent on their pet projects. So they were far too eco-nutty about what voters will accept, refused to accept anything less, thereby confusing the voters and getting nothing accomplished.

I also suspect there are a number of voters who don't want Washington state to unilaterally take such action if most other states don't. But they would be in favor of a revenue neutral carbon tax if:
A. It is done on a federal level and
B. Other countries also quickly comply with reasonable decreases on their own GHG emissions, at least a majority of the major emitting countries.

The biggest impediment is actually A, not B.

Splater

climber

Grey Matter

Nov 28, 2016 - 01:12pm PT

"Minds on the other side (which it turns out is a great majority) are not open"

Wrong.
The majority of people do accept the scientific consensus of climate change. Trump, you, and Koch are in the denier minority.