Bookmark the Hoax
Danny Lemieux on Jun 08 2011 at 5:30 am | Filed under: Environmentalism, Uncategorized
The last thing I want to do is to revisit the tedious back and forth discussions on global climate change, as each side, pressed for time, simply throws their favorite source links on the table. Unfortunately, because most of us have real lives, we lack the time to undertake the research we would wish to pursue in support of positions that we have learned over time.
However, for future reference, I can very highly recommend this link (below), published by credentialed scientists, as a very readable (to laypersons) take-down of the AGW dilemma faced by many scientists who were too quick to jump on the AGW bandwagon and must now confront the consequences to their credibilities. It’s a long article, but can be cherry-picked to address specific issues that (I’m proud to say) many of the commentators on this blog very accurately addressed over the preceding years. It is also full of new information (and links) of which I was not aware.
Here’s an example:
A recent U.S. Senate report quotes 400+ scientists who originally bought the global warming hoax, and are now confessing that they don’t believe in it any more.” [link is provided]
The article is particularly good at explaining very clearly how data was either misinterpreted or manipulated to support the AGW position. The famous Mann “hockey stick”, for example.
So, here’s my advice: bookmark this article and use it as a reference the next time you find yourself in a rhetorical exchange on AGW.
Here’s the link:
http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html
If you really feel compelled to argue this issue into oblivion, then I recommend using this as a starting point: argue cogently why it is wrong, using facts …not links.
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158 Responses to “Bookmark the Hoax”
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Thanks for the link, Danny. I don’t bother getting into the AGW arguments et al here. Reasoning utilizing my STEM background is a waste of time in dealing with those whose reply is on the line of of “nine doctors out of ten prefer anacin.”
At the same time, I don’t quite agree with some of your stances, either. ( the above statements obviously do not apply to you)
1) Wind Energy.
Wind is fine in TX: my household has been powered by wind-generated electricity for many years. While the wind may not blow in some areas, it blows in others, and averages out. TX and the Great Plains are much bigger than the UK. ¿Me entendés?
The amount of bird kills from wind energy is trivial compared to other man-made intrusions into nature. I have already posted on that, with a link to a very complete study, and was disappointed in you that your recent posting on bird kills from wind ignored the link I had previously provided.
Yes, wind energy should be done where the wind blows and is thus economically feasible: Great Plains Sí, Georgia No.
2) Oil Reserves etc
From my perspective in the ol’ biznes and ol’-related biznes, drill for conventional oil and gas onshore and offshore: hell, yes. That includes the G’uf. What Interior Secretary Salazar did was mendacious and IMHO, criminal. BP was a rogue operation- I have posted on that- do not punish a whole industry for BP’s rogue behavior. More drilling will NOT stop the need for imports- the US is too much of a mature oil province for that- but every little bit helps.
Shale gas: going big in TX. Eagle Ford: I know of it from my current work. While I haven’t read extensively, my take is that fraccing will not harm. It has been used for decades. I doubt shale gas reserves will be as long lasting as conventional sources. Yates field is 80 years old, and still producing, albeit not as well as much as previously. I doubt a shale gas reserve will last as long.
Shale oil: hold your horses. This will entail grinding up a lot of land. Needs to be carefully investigated. We do the same with coal, so it would be more of the same, which is OK, but it should be carefully investigated.
Overall I think you are a little overly optimistic re nonconventional oil reserves. Regarding conventional oil reserves, the conventional wisdom of “not a lot compared with Middle East..Ven” is correct- and this is my professional opinion based on extensive experience in evaluating oil and gas reserves in TX. See my above comment on shale oil. I find it rather ironic that you get all bent out of shape regarding noise from wind turbines, but are sanguine about shale oil, which will have a helluva bigger environmental impact.
I don’t have the time to get into an extended on this, and having already posted a fair amount on this, I am not going to repeat myself.
Danny Lemieux: If you really feel compelled to argue this issue into oblivion, then I recommend using this as a starting point: argue cogently why it is wrong, using facts …not links.
Statements of facts are supported by cites (not links), otherwise, people confuse what they think is true with what they can show is true. So, you provide a link.
Let’s look at the major points:
1. The “Greenhouse Effect” is a natural and valuable phenomenon, without which, the planet would be uninhabitable.
That’s right. Try to remind the “AGW Skeptics” who discount the Greenhouse Effect entirely.
2. Modest Global Warming, at least up until 1998 when a cooling trend began, has been real.
That’s inaccurate and misleading. By choosing 1998, a peak year, they ignore the overall trend. Indeed, 2005 and 2010 were warmer, the warmest years on record, and the 00′s are the warmest decade on record.
3. CO2 is not a significant greenhouse gas; 95% of the contribution is due to Water Vapor.
Again, misleading. Yes, most of the Greenhouse Effect is due to water vapor, but we’re concerned with the *change* in the Effect. As the increase in CO2 is resulting in a warmer planetary surface, it is ”significant”.
4. Man’s contribution to Greenhouse Gasses is relatively insignificant. We didn’t cause the recent Global Warming and we cannot stop it.
That’s certainly not the case. Forty percent of atmospheric carbon is due to human activity, as well as an equivalent amount leading to ocean acidification.
5. Solar Activity appears to be the principal driver for Climate Change, accompanied by complex ocean currents which distribute the heat and control local weather systems.
Climatologists and solar physicists have considered and rejected solar activity as too small to account for the current warming trend.
6. CO2 is a useful trace gas in the atmosphere, and the planet would actually benefit by having more, not less of it, because it is not a driver for Global Warming and would enrich our vegetation, yielding better crops to feed the expanding population.
Yes, CO2 is not only useful, but essential to life on Earth. Some organisms will benefit from increased CO2. For instance, malarial parasites will increase their range. However, human civilization depends on some measure of stability. Stability is essential to agriculture, and human habitation.
7. CO2 is not causing global warming, in fact, CO2 is lagging temperature change in all reliable datasets. The cart is not pulling the donkey, and the future cannot influence the past.
The initiation of broad natural climate cycles are usually due to changes in Earth’s orbit (other mechanisms include volcanic activity and continental drift). When the Earth begins to warm after a period of cooling, the oceans begin to release their store of CO2. This causes increased warming, and more CO2. This continues until equilibrium is reached. CO2 is thus both cause and effect.
8. Nothing happening in the climate today is particularly unusual, and in fact has happened many times in the past and will likely happen again in the future.
Again, inaccurate and misleading. The current warming trend is highly anomalous.
9. The UN IPCC has corrupted the “reporting process” so badly, it makes the oil-for-food scandal look like someone stole some kid’s lunch money.
Irrelevant. Independent scientific organizations from different countries and using differing methodologies have all confirmed the basic hypothesis, that humans are changing the climate.
10. Polar Bear populations are not endangered, in fact current populations are healthy and at almost historic highs.
Irrelevant. However, some polar bear populations are under stress as the northern ice cap melts. More importantly, from a conservation standpoint, the problem for polar bears is expected to get worse.
11. There is no demonstrated causal relationship between hurricanes and/or tornadoes and global warming.
More energy in the atmosphere means more turbulence. Regional climate will vary.
12. Observed glacial retreats in certain select areas have been going on for hundreds of years, and show no serious correlation to short-term swings in global temperatures.
Again, inaccurate and misleading. Current and anomalous glacial retreats are due to global warming caused by human industrial activity.
13. Greenland is shown to be an island completely surrounded by water, not ice, in maps dating to the 14th century. There is active geothermal activity in the currently “melting” sections of Greenland.
Irrelevant. Scientists are aware of and have accounted for geothermal activity and of the Medieval Warming Period.
14. The Antarctic Ice cover is currently the largest ever observed by satellite, and periodic ice shelf breakups are normal and correlate well with localized tectonic and geothermal activity along the Antarctic Peninsula.
Antarctica has experienced increased snowfall due to climate change. Temperatures have decreased somewhat due to ozone depletion, but is expected to warm somewhat going forward. Antarctica is not a primary concern of climatologists at this point, though over the long term, the West Antarctic ice sheet may be impacted.
15. The Global Warming Panic was triggered by an artifact of poor mathematics which has been thoroughly disproved.
Um, no. Climate is a complex system. Simple equations can’t encapsulate the multitude of relationships involved in such a system. It’s like pointing to an equation and thinking you can predict the weather. It doesn’t work that way.
15. The panic is being deliberately nurtured by those who stand to gain both financially and politically from perpetuation of the hoax.
The appropriate response to climate change should be measured and based on sound science and economics.
16. Scientists who “deny” the hoax are often threatened with loss of funding or even their jobs.
If they are doing relevant science, they shouldn’t lose their jobs. If they can’t get funding for flat earth science, that’s rather expected. There are many climate skeptics who find gainful employment in science.
17. The correlation between solar activity and climate is now so strong that solar physicists are now seriously discussing the much greater danger of pending global cooling.
Solar physicists have been working on the problem for a generation, and have determined that solar variabililty is not sufficient to explain the current warming trend. Here’s a comprehensive review. Gray et al., Solar Influences on Climate, Reviews of Geophysics 2010
18. Biofuel hysteria is already having a disastrous effect on world food supplies and prices, and current technologies for biofuel production consume more energy than the fuels produce.
Subsidies should be removed for biofuels that compete with food.
19. Global Warming Hysteria is potentially linked to a stress-induced mental disorder.
Heh. Really stretching. Irrelevant to the climate science, in any case.
20. In short, there is no “climate crisis” of any kind at work on our planet.
Inaccurate and misleading. The problem is not the amount of warming to present, but the continued warming due to human activity if they don’t change their behavior. There’s plenty of time to respond, but arguing about well-established science won’t lead to any plausible solutions.
I don’t want to get into the debate. I don’t pretend to be an expert and my gut feel (that man-made Global Warming is a reality) doesn’t count for much. But please help me out with a fact check. Zach says, “Indeed, 2005 and 2010 were warmer, the warmest years on record, and the 00′s are the warmest decade on record.” Is this factually correct?
Don’t know if it is true, but considering we have only been tracking temperatures “accurately” for about 100-years it may very well be. The sample size is small compared to how long the earth has been around – so take that for what it is worth.
Considering the earth’s climate is a dynamic system… “climate change” is the normal state of affairs.
Gringo, if I did not respond directly to one of your posts on wind energy, then it is likely because I let your comment stand on its own merits. However, if I could propose, there is a big difference between your home being powered by wind energy from your own windmill and massive wind farms designed to power cities far away.
Also, with regard to deaths of birds and bats, you can’t deny that this is a factor, especially when wind farms are located right in bird migration routes. Birds ride the winds when they migrate in order to conserve energy. Raptors (hawks, eagles, owls) also ride the air. Here is an example of one specific case in California that describes the impact that wind farms have had on one specific species, the golden eagle.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1394945/The-green-killer-Scores-protected-golden-eagles-dying-colliding-wind-turbines.html
Zach, just some quick responses:
Zach: “try to remind the “AGW Skeptics” who discount the Greenhouse Effect entirely”
I don’t know of any scientist or group that has claimed that there is no greenhouse effect.
Zach: Forty percent of atmospheric carbon is due to human activity, as well as an equivalent amount leading to ocean acidification.
That’s not even remotely close to being accurate. Atmospheric carbon concentration is 390 ppm by volume, or 0.04%. CO2 represents only about 3.5% of total greenhouse gases. Estimated contribution of atmospheric CO2 to total C02 by human activity is only about 10%, but this does not take into account the capacity of the earth (land and ocean) to reabsorb CO2 as part of the natural carbon cycle.
Greenland is shown to be an island completely surrounded by water, not ice, in maps dating to the 14th century. There is active geothermal activity in the currently “melting” sections of Greenland.
Zach: Irrelevant. Scientists are aware of and have accounted for geothermal activity and of the Medieval Warming Period.
No they didn’t. See “Mann’s Hockey Stick”, also papers written based on tree rings in Siberia.
The UN IPCC has corrupted the “reporting process” so badly, it makes the oil-for-food scandal look like someone stole some kid’s lunch money.
Irrelevant. Independent scientific organizations from different countries and using differing methodologies have all confirmed the basic hypothesis, that humans are changing the climate.
Well, that’s progress. Before, you and ABC were defending and promoting the IPCC.
If they are doing relevant science, they shouldn’t lose their jobs.
So pronounceth the Commissar.
Spiff opens the door to my skepticism of this “science.” The data set that has been used is based on a small subset of “accurate” temperature readings. And, within that subset of “accurate” readings there is varying levels of accuracy from today’s readings to readings in 1909 (methodology, technology, etc.). There is no absolute consistency of readings.
Now, we have been told that there has been a 0.7C rise in temperature, but given all of the margin of error we’re dealing with to reach that result (through each calculation of each subset of data), I don’t have the confidence that this 0.7C is within one standard deviation.
I’m sorry: I don’t have the confidence that 0.7C is NOT within one standard deviation
And they’re off and running…
Somehow that old story of the seven blind men describing an elephant comes to mind…
Don Quixote: But please help me out with a fact check. Zach says, “Indeed, 2005 and 2010 were warmer, the warmest years on record, and the 00′s are the warmest decade on record.” Is this factually correct?
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110112_globalstats.html
Danny Lemieux: I don’t know of any scientist or group that has claimed that there is no greenhouse effect.
No. That’s why we used scare-quotes. They’re usually the outliers on blogs (e.g. JKB), but they rarely get refuted by other skeptics. That’s typical of pseudoscientific endeavors; they make common cause.
Zachriel: Forty percent of atmospheric carbon is due to human activity, as well as an equivalent amount leading to ocean acidification.
Danny Lemieux: That’s not even remotely close to being accurate.
Preindustrial levels were 278 ppm. Today, it’s about 390 ppm and rising.
Danny Lemieux: Estimated contribution of atmospheric CO2 to total C02 by human activity is only about 10%, but this does not take into account the capacity of the earth (land and ocean) to reabsorb CO2 as part of the natural carbon cycle.
That’s actual CO2 in the atmosphere, but more industrial CO2 has been absorbed by the oceans increasing its acidity.
Danny Lemieux: See “Mann’s Hockey Stick”, also papers written based on tree rings in Siberia.
Many other scientists using differing methods have confirmed Mann’s basic conclusion, e.g. Osborn & Briffa, The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years, Science 2006 or Wahl & Ammann, Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures: Examination of criticisms based on the nature and processing of proxy climate evidence, Climatic Change 2007.
Danny Lemieux: Before, you and ABC were defending and promoting the IPCC.
Sigh.
Don Q asks:
> “Indeed, 2005 and 2010 were warmer, the warmest years on record, and the 00′s are the warmest decade on record.”
By at least one type of measure, and only since 1970 by that measure, yes, it’s a true statement.
The 00′s being the warmest is by average/mean compared to the average/mean for the prior decades.
Within the 00′s, 2005 and 2010 were extreme spikes upward, followed the following year by drastic plunges back down even below the trend line (at least for 2005, we’ll see about 2010. The Oct/Nov/Dec readings for 2010 were showing the same evidence of a plunge back down).
Some on the skeptical side are predicting a cooling over the next twenty years. If so, we’ll see CO2 continue to rise while temperatures actually baseline or even drop. If that drop does happen, AGW orthodoxy will then be conclusively disproved – and completely discredited. So let’s give it ten years, fifteen years to see.
SueK ”
And they’re off and running…
Somehow that old story of the seven blind men describing an elephant comes to mind…”
And they never will get the color right…
Zach: That’s actual CO2 in the atmosphere, but more industrial CO2 has been absorbed by the oceans increasing its acidity.
CO2 in the air would be in equilibrium with CO2 in the oceans. Plus, claims of increased ocean acidity have been pretty thoroughly debunked. I could get into discussions of volume dilutions (there’s an awful lot of water there), buffering systems and the problems of pH titrimetry in natural systems, but…I will spare everyone the pain.
DQ – re. your question about whether there has been net global cooling or warming over the past two decades, let’s just say its debatable – each side has its data sets to support their point.
Book Commentary Statistician Devx here with a (silly) public service announcement.
The last two AGW-related commentary threads now run 280 comments and 231 comments respectively.
(wind energy model blows cold, and, the inconveniences big and small of environmentalism)
In the last 100 pages of Book archives, that puts these two AGW comment pages at #1 and #4 on the all-time list for number of comments. Going back about two years worth of Book’s post in those 100 archived pages, estimated.
The other two top-commented Book posts were also on economics, so I expect those two had the furious back and forth debate on points too. It’s like a bad sequel to a movie. Around and around we goes.
So if you’re interested in AGW… here we go again! As for me, I participated already, ain’t gonna fight that war no more. I’m bookmarking Danny L’s link (as I have abc’s contrarian summary link) and from time to time, as I have time, I’ll check things out.
Devx, obviously the wind energy blows cold blew something into fierce hotness, right.
Arguments are made using reason and logic, not so much facts. People can just list all the facts they can in 100 years. An argument it does not make.
Danny Lemieux: CO2 in the air would be in equilibrium with CO2 in the oceans.
Consequently, as CO2 concentration increases in the atmosphere, the ocean absorbs more.
Zachriel: Statements of facts are supported by cites (not links), otherwise, people confuse what they think is true with what they can show is true…
Danny Lemieux: Plus, claims of increased ocean acidity have been pretty thoroughly debunked.
“Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the pH of surface ocean waters has fallen by 0.1 pH units. Since the pH scale, like the Richter scale, is logarithmic, this change represents approximately a 30 percent increase in acidity.”
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F
Danny Lemieux: … about whether there has been net global cooling or warming over the past two decades, let’s just say its debatable – each side has its data sets to support their point.
Here’s the temperature data 1880-2009, from NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/418334main_hemi-temp-full.jpg
In particular, note the 5-year average, which helps even out the peaks due to El Niño. The slight cooling from 1940-1970 was due to sulphate aerosols. Climate models that do not include anthropogenic forcing cannot account for the tempearture record; however, models that do include anthropogenic forcing account for both the cooling and warming trends.
I find it very interesting to note the following;
When it comes to the exceedingly complex and arcane issues of global climate science, most commentators on this blog take the position of “show me” skepticism toward AGW, whereas two commentators accept all the data on AGW without question. The first group expresses little alarm about real or perceived AGW, the second group extreme alarm.
By contrast, when it comes to the very immediate issues of the national debt and the economy, most of commentators on this blog view our current situation with extreme alarm.The second group – i.e. those same two commentators promoting AGW, pretty much view the situation with very little alarm.
Both of the worst case scenarios (AGW and the economy) involve potentially great devastation. If the proponents of looming economic crisis are correct, the impact of an economic and debt-fueled economic collapse will be very devastating and relatively immediate and personal. It is also true that humans have a great deal of control in affecting economic outcomes through policy and personal, state and national spending habits.
By contrast, while even the most hyper AGW proponents concede that the effects of AGW (if true) are decades away and even many AGW proponents recognize that humans have little ability to affect the outcome.
Two groups, two completely different sets of priorities and mindsets.
Interesting.
I really don’t care about what the global average temperature is. I care about the temperature in my neighborhood and whether it is “high” or “low”.
That’s why I don’t pay for electricity in Manila, Florida, or the Bahamas, for one thing. And the Left better not try to make it otherwise.
Two groups, to completely different sets of priorities and mindsets.
Interesting.
is Danny in Scientist Mode? (The Japanese pronounce it Mod-Oo)
What about a Mad Scientist Modo? The Japanese have made some great mad scientist characters from what I have read.
Ymarsakar: Arguments are made using reason and logic, not so much facts. People can just list all the facts they can in 100 years. An argument it does not make.
That’s right! Similarly, no amount of arguing will change the facts, and no argument is worth more than the accuracy of its facts.
Danny Lemieux: When it comes to the exceedingly complex and arcane issues of global climate science, most commentators on this blog take the position of “show me” skepticism toward AGW, whereas two commentators accept all the data on AGW without question.
The problem occurs when the scientific evidence is complex and not easily replicable on a kitchen table experiment.
Danny Lemieux: If the proponents of looming economic crisis are correct, the impact of an economic and debt-fueled economic collapse will be very devastating and relatively immediate and personal.
Absolutely. Short term, it’s jobs and recover. Medium term, it’s debt. Long term it’s restructuring for a modern, green economy that accounts for the emerging world.
Danny Lemieux: By contrast, while even the most hyper AGW proponents concede that the effects of AGW (if true) are decades away and even many AGW proponents recognize that humans have little ability to affect the outcome.
The effects are cumulative, but sustainable so far. Humans can obviously affect the outcome as they are the cause. The problem is how to sustain growth as billions enter the modern economy.
Strangely enough, I just remembered that Japanese portrayal of mega corporations share the same thing with their portray of mad scientists. If given a preference, they will portray mega corporations and mad scientists as allies more often than as antagonists. Whereas in the US you would be hard fought to find a mega corporation portrayed as the savior of a planet in Hollywood.
Yeah, yeah, yeah…Zach:
And here is a counter-point to your link on ocean acidification.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/10/ocean-acidification-chicken-of-the-sea-little-strikes-again/
You would expect to see a decrease in surface pH (i.e., more acidity) as CO2 concentrations increase and CO2 is converted to Carbonic acid (as it is in our bloodstream). The issue is..what then? How does it affect the rest of the ocean ecosystem before that affect is either diluted or buffered out? I would love to see the standard deviations for the NOAA data. But, the point is, pH in oceans fluctuates normally and the ocean accommodates those changes.
For example, as acidity increases, more coral reefs are formed, taking CO2 out of the water. This is part of what is known as the “carbon cycle”. This is one way that “Mother Earth” rectifies things. All the limestone (calcium carbonate) on earth represents deposits of carbon taken out of the the atmosphere.
Ah Danny, don’t worry. When they setup a global government to enforce “laws” and “treaties”, Z will make centralized government as powerful and efficient as mother nature’s cycles.
Danny:
However, if I could propose, there is a big difference between your home being powered by wind energy from your own windmill and massive wind farms designed to power cities far away.
I am still plugged into the big grid. The local utility purchases the wind energy from hundreds of miles away. My comments on wind energy are thus made from that perspective.
Regarding the link on eagle deaths in Cal [most likely Altamont Pass] from wind turbines: it is a good idea to point out to people that there are tradeoffs in ALL ENERGY CHOICES. Many greenies are naiive enough to believe that there are no tradeoffs, and that one can have sufficient energy for a First World lifestyle without any tradeoffs. In that sense I agree with your posting. Those who advocate for something should be aware of all sides of the issue. Those who advocate wind energy should be aware of issues like the dead eagles. Those who are concerned about the dead eagles should be aware that the overall impact is trivial.
A greenie who is made aware of the dead eagles in California has in a sense left the Garden of Eden. He is now aware that any act involves a certain amount of sin, a.k.a. in this situation as tradeoffs. Height of turbines may be an issue here.
[Re my 'greenie' remark. I speak as someone who spent a year in my youth as an eco-acvtivist- full time.]
Like Mike Devx, I ain’t gonna fight the AGW fight here no more. Those who have a STEM background approach the issue differently from those who do not have a STEM background and who use the “nine doctors out of ten prefer anacin” approach, lacking the analytical tools to approach the issues themselves. True believers are labeled as such because they cannot be convinced.
I found this interesting…I know nothing about the OPEC meeting failing. He raises some interesting issues, though. Relevant to this topic?? I have no idea, but it probably doesn’t matter. We’ll be at 100 in no time and who knows what the topic will be by then!
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=187755
This one is off-topic. Concerns “code words”.
Z-Team (Zach) says: > The problem is how to sustain growth as billions enter the modern economy.
I’ve been having a short discussion with Ymar on two code phrases whose common use in argumentation began on the left. I’ve recently been using these phrases:
- echo chamber
- confirmation bias
And I’m no longer going to use them.
Z-Team has just used another one. You should avoid these, too, as they contain a set of underlying assumptions that just aren’t true.
- sustainable development (and, unsustainable development)
- externalities
These are ways to look at the problem that don’t match the reality of human experience. Don’t let them into your mind. “Sustainable development” is a way to “put into a box” the idea that as civilization progresses, more and more people gain benefits that formerly were available only to the rich and privileged. But that attempting to do that for all these middle-class and lower-class people cannot be done. But of course it can be done.
That’s just “a box” used to express an advocacy argument. It’s not a truth.
“Externalities” is a code word meaning that the free market is a failure in dealing with one condition or another. It is used to bolster the idea that we must abandon the “failed” free market.
So when you see those words, you’re seeing a debate advocacy argument disguised as a truth. Don’t fall for it!
Danny Lemieux: And here is a counter-point to your link on ocean acidification.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/10/ocean-acidification-chicken-of-the-sea-little-strikes-again/
“What evidence do we have that the lysocline or CCD has been becoming shallower or that the oceans have been acidifying over the last 250 years? The answer is: Almost none.”
That’s the difference between most the skeptics and scientists. Scientists make predictions, then test them.
“Global ocean acidification is a prominent, inexorable change associated with rising levels of atmospheric CO2. Here we present the first basin-wide direct observations of recently declining pH, along with estimates of anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic contributions to that signal.”
Byrne et al., Direct observations of basin-wide acidification of the North Pacific Ocean, Geophysical Research Letters 2010.
One of things that cracks me up about “externalities” is that they never seem to be applied to the hidden costs of government spending.
For example, how would our resident statist contrarians handle the “externalities” associated with the racist interventions of the Democrats on black America?
Not sure where you get your definitions, but they don’t comport with what most people mean by using the terms.
Mike Devx: “Sustainable development” is a way to “put into a box” the idea that as civilization progresses, more and more people gain benefits that formerly were available only to the rich and privileged. But that attempting to do that for all these middle-class and lower-class people cannot be done. But of course it can be done.
Sustainable development refers to development to meet people’s needs, but one that can continue into future generations. And surely it can be done. But it will require new technologies, especially in terms of energy. You’re confusing people pointing to the problems of sustainability with saying that sustainability is not possible.
Mike Devx: “Externalities” is a code word meaning that the free market is a failure in dealing with one condition or another. It is used to bolster the idea that we must abandon the “failed” free market.
Quite the contrary. Externalities is a market principle where the cost or benefit doesn’t include the entire cost or benefit. So if people upstream dump their sewage in the water so that your village is left with the cleanup, the upstreamers not bearing the full cost of their activities. The cost is external to the upstreamers’ local market.
Here’s another one…long, but good. Not on AGW per se, but on the so far offered solutions:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/06/03/four-dirty-secrets-about-clean-energy/
Oh yeah…and be sure to check out #4. It kind of relates to Mike’s #25.
Charles…
Re #27…
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=187752
Here is another good write-up by a physicist The Truth About Greenhouse Gases
As he points out, there is to little research into the positive effects of increasing CO2. Plants would love it. In fact, it has not led to desertification but rather to expansion of vegetation into arid regions due to increase CO2 causing less water loss during respiration. I’ve even seen a purely anecdotal account by a forester who happened to be hired to do some selective harvesting in two tree farm areas planted at the same time, one adjacent and on 15 km away from a coal fired plant. With no apparent differences in fertility or water, the treed nearer the plant were larger and more well developed.
Regarding temperature rising, well, yes, just as it has since the little ice age. Which is why we aren’t struggling to survive the cold and ice. But only 0.5 C per year with warming and cooling periods. We just finished a warming period that started in 1975 (coincidence?) and ended in 2001. We are now getting well on to the down slope which is expected to be very cold (relatively) until 2030 when the cycle will start warming again. Global warming: a classic case of alarmism
and for amusement here is a so far fairly accurate prediction of global temperature from 1979
1979 : Before The Hockey Team Destroyed Climate Science | Real Science You’ll not it tracks well with the graph linked above.
Danny,
“I find it very interesting to note the following;
When it comes to the exceedingly complex and arcane issues of global climate science, most commentators on this blog take the position of “show me” skepticism toward AGW, whereas two commentators accept all the data on AGW without question.”
What does “show me” mean? The models are showing a great degree of accuracy, which skeptics here ignore. Two commentators accept data from relevant experts using sound scientific processes to develop. Isn’t that rational behavior?
“The first group expresses little alarm about real or perceived AGW, the second group extreme alarm.”
I’ve already given the game theory possibilities on this, with lack of action (let’s set the alarmism aside) being a rather foolish stance to take in light of great risks and diminishing uncertainties.
“By contrast, when it comes to the very immediate issues of the national debt and the economy, most of commentators on this blog view our current situation with extreme alarm.The second group – i.e. those same two commentators promoting AGW, pretty much view the situation with very little alarm.”
The second group points to the bond market and the insurance market on treasuries to show that the former group’s alarm is not born out by expert economists or the markets. Again, the former group relies on non-authoritative data (e.g., right-wing politicians) as the basis of their alarm.
Incidentally, the short-term and the medium-to-long-term are different. Debt is a problem in the latter timeframe only, while stimulus is still required in the short-term. So one shouldn’t confuse comments about the short-term timeframe as a lack of concern about long-term reforms that are needed.
“Both of the worst case scenarios (AGW and the economy) involve potentially great devastation. If the proponents of looming economic crisis are correct, the impact of an economic and debt-fueled economic collapse will be very devastating and relatively immediate and personal. It is also true that humans have a great deal of control in affecting economic outcomes through policy and personal, state and national spending habits.”
We are past the point of no impact on climate, but there is still time to maneuver on the debt. Also, stimulus in the short-term increases abiliity to service debt in the long-run, whereas inaction on climate change now doesn’t strengthen our ability to remediate it later, since delayed cuts are more painful not less. There is not predictable business cycle in the case of global warming.
“By contrast, while even the most hyper AGW proponents concede that the effects of AGW (if true) are decades away and even many AGW proponents recognize that humans have little ability to affect the outcome.”
Wrong. Cutting emissions now makes big differences in teh amount of warming later, so humans have much ability to affect the outcome. And while the impacts are decades away, those concerned about AGW do care about their kids and grandkids. Hopefully, others do as well…
“Two groups, to completely different sets of priorities and mindsets.”
Wrong. Very different problems with different dynamics. Comparing them is not really very useful.
I would extend Z’s definition of externalities. Blocking the addressing of externalities is tantamount to theft. A cost that should be borne by the purchaser of an economic commodity is borne instead by another group that doesn’t make that decision to purchase, nor necessarily benefit from the consumption of that commodity. In the case of AGW, the theft is against everyone who is hurt by global warming. If energy prices have to rise to reflect a price that doesn’t involve theft, then prices should rise to that level regardless of the impact on the economy. No economy can or should be based upon or dependent upon theft.
“In the case of AGW, the theft is against everyone who is hurt by global warming. If energy prices have to rise to reflect a price that doesn’t involve theft, then prices should rise to that level regardless of the impact on the economy. No economy can or should be based upon or dependent upon theft.”
The Comissar has spoken, the fanatic exposes himself. I knew that if we were patient, abc would strew and then walk into his own dreck.
abc @ 33:
> In the case of AGW, the theft is against everyone who is hurt by global warming. If energy prices have to rise to reflect a price that doesn’t involve theft, then prices should rise to that level regardless of the impact on the economy. No economy can or should be based upon or dependent upon theft.
And abc proves my point on the leftist use of “externalities” almost immediately! God, sometimes I love this.
Notice the weaseliness of what I put in bold. Prices “should rise”? Oh, really? But these are “externalities”, so by your argument (NOT definition), the prices won’t rise. They have to be forced. They have to be deliberately set high.
This artificial raising of the price of your energy will be done by your centralized planners. They’ll determine the “cost” of abc’s “theft”. And they will make you pay. Out of your own wallet. Dearly.
This is why I keep saying it’s all about the policy, not about the science itself. abc is proving it, once you get him out of the data and into the policy.
Obama has already stated numerous times he intends to force the price of energy higher simply because we have it too easy here. He wants our gas prices in line with Europe’s: $6-$8 per gallon. He wants to viciously slam the coal economy, driving up home energy prices. He’s stated so. (He didn’t use the word “viciously”, but that’s what’s going to happen to you.)
It’s all about “sustainable development”, you see. The middle class must abandon a lot of their comforts because the prices will hurt too much. The poor won’t have a chance. Not a shot. Dead in the water.
Don’t believe it. Don’t let them get away with it.
Z-Team @ 28:
The definitions you use don’t match *anything* I read in the environmental debates. They match what I wrote in 25. You can blame the MSM if you want to for mis-popularizing the terms, compared to your choice of definition. You can blame Prince Charles. Or any other of the thousands of advocates out there who use “sustainable development” not in the way you choose to. Yours is a unique definition, both, compared to what I heard.
(I first came across “externalities” in abc’s arguments and then at his favorite website, skepticalscience.com. Once you see it, you’ll start noticing it more and more…)
Mike,
I think your logic skipped a few steps there, in your race to prove something about me that is not true.
You write: “This artificial raising of the price of your energy will be done by your centralized planners. They’ll determine the “cost” of abc’s “theft”. And they will make you pay. Out of your own wallet. Dearly.”
First, the forced raising of price, which is what I was referring to (since, as you point out, an externality is a case in which the market doesn’t price the cost in), DOES NOT have to be done by central planners. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Anyone who has studied the economics of tort law knows that we can choose to have judges determine the cost of product liability or set a strict liability rule that incorporates such costs into the price of the product with the force fo that rule. In the former case, a central planner (in that case a judge hearing a tort case) will set the price in that case. In the latter case, the market will set the price with the inclusion of expected product liability costs. Similarly, we have seen permit trading systems that work on problems concerning externalities and tragedies of the commons (e.g, acid rain) that harness market power to price the externality and incorporate it into the commodity price. The failure of one market to price the externality doesn’t preclude the ability of another market, under a set of government enforced rules (where those rules say nothing about price), to price that externality. You assume too much, in contradiction of a multitude of examples in the real world. The temptation to rush to the “fear the central planners” meme was apparently too great to avoid this massive jump in logic and non-sequitur.
“This is why I keep saying it’s all about the policy, not about the science itself. abc is proving it, once you get him out of the data and into the policy.”
Since the logical step is wrong, the accusations concerning my motivations are also wrong. You are not a mind reader, so don’t even go there. On the basis of the facts presented, one can logically reach the conclusions i have without requiring that I am a proponent of central planning, which I am not.
For what it’s worth, Danny, I found your comparison very useful. I hadn’t thought of those issues in that way.
Don Q:
On your question on temperature rise 2000-2010 here’s one of the common graphs (satellite temperature measurement)
http://reason.com/blog/2011/04/06/global-temperature-trend-updat
I could highlight many interesting things, including anomalous spikes and plunges, the odd range behavior 2001-2007 compared to prior range cyclical behavior, the continued most recent plunge through the very latest measurements, the trend line at about 0.3C-0.4C per 30 years (1C-1.5C per 100 years = non-emergency) etc…
As either Danny L or Brian E said above, the data collection mechanisms underlying whichever graphs you’ll find are not exactly “settled science” either.
Mike Devx: The definitions you use don’t match *anything* I read in the environmental debates.
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” — World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). Our common future. Oxford University Press, 1987.
Externality, “An economic side-effect. Externalities are costs or benefits arising from an economic activity that affect somebody other than the people engaged in the economic activity and are not reflected fully in PRICES. For instance, smoke pumped out by a factory may impose clean-up costs on nearby residents; bees kept to produce honey may pollinate plants belonging to a nearby farmer, thus boosting his crop. Because these costs and benefits do not form part of the calculations of the people deciding whether to go ahead with the economic activity they are a form of MARKET FAILURE, since the amount of the activity carried out if left to the free market will be an inefficient use of resources. If the externality is beneficial, the market will provide too little; if it is a cost, the market will supply too much.” — The Economist
Mike Devx: On your question on temperature rise 2000-2010 here’s one of the common graphs (satellite temperature measurement)
The graph doesn’t show measurements of the Earth’s surface temperature directly, but radiances from the lower atmospheric column. Even in the period shown, it’s obvious the average temperatue has risen. However, correlation doesn’t equal causation. The warming could be due to any number of factors. Causation is demonstrated with predictive models based on climate mechanisms.
What you call “anomalous spikes and plunges” are mostly due to the El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation, where the Pacific Ocean gains then releases heat. Also, the eruptions of Mt. Pinatubo and El Chichon were important factors. Scientists are quite aware that short-term fluctuations swamp the long-term warming trend. But the long-term trend is there, and will continue for as long as humans continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
>>The temptation to rush to the “fear the central planners” meme was apparently too great to avoid this massive jump in logic and non-sequitur.>>
Maybe. Or maybe not.
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/gms-other-ceo-calls-for-1-gas-tax-hike
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” — World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). Our common future. Oxford University Press, 1987.
This “definition” defines nothing. Who decides what are “the needs of the present?” What will be the needs of future generations and what will compromise them? This is just gobbledygook. It may impress some people because of its origin (a world commission!) and its seemingly crisp, direct definition, but it is simply hot air.
C’mon, Zach, usually your rip-offs are more sophisticated.
Charles Martel: This is just gobbledygook.
The question was the meaning and use of the term, not whether you think it is a useful concept. But, as an example, spewing toxic waste into rivers is not sustainable development, even if it provides a short-term economic benefit.
Zach, it very well could be a useful concept. The problem is that the definition you provided says nothing useful. The example you give does nothing to explain sustainability, it simply tells me that you don’t think the action you describe is sustainable.
Perhaps you could give us a definition that answers the objections I raised?
Charles Martel: The example you give does nothing to explain sustainability, it simply tells me that you don’t think the action you describe is sustainable.
It’s not sustainable because polluting the river pollutes the water supply, destroys fisheries, degrades agricultural lands, and can lead to political conflict with people downstream. Do you really not understand that? Or do you really not know what “sustainable” and “development” mean?
Zach, this where you have a problem with language: You do not closely read what you react to. The action itself is sustainable if the people doing it continue to do it. I can sustain robbing banks as long as I can get away with it and as long as there are banks to rob (or rivers to pollute).
I think what you are trying to state here—but cannot, given your inability to put things into your own words—is something about “development” that is “sustainable” in a way that does not endanger future people’s economic well being. That’s all very nice sounding, but you don’t define your terms. What does sustainable mean? What is development? You just assume that your ripped-off definition explains all of that when it doesn’t.
In your own words, what is the definition of sustainable development? What are your criteria? Who determines them?
Charles, this is what I meant by “sustainable development” contains a whole host of assumptions that don’t reflect real world human behavior. The Z-Team *is* in fact describing ways to forcibly constrain human behavior for various “planning goals”. The details behind any particular scheme – always involving some kind of controls artificially placed on humans on a vast scale – these details almost don’t matter.
The concept itself is just plain wrong. It is an approach to solving a problem – an advocacy position. And it’s an ugly one. Controlling current activity so that future activity will be possible in the manner of blah blah blah. It’s all about CONTROL, and that means it’s all about power. And the use of force.
Anytime someone starts talking about “sustainable development” and “externalities” (and a new one from abc, above: “the tragedy of the commons!”) just ask them, “what do you mean by, sustainable development?” Then sit back and be interested and let them talk for awhile.
Interject a few other questions along the way. ”Who is going to pay for that?” ”How is that going to be paid for?” “Who gets to decide?” Etc.
Anyone else listening will soon see the point.
Letting them talk about “externalities” will probably lead to talk of CO2 as an “externality”, with solutions such as “cap and trade”.
Industries that emit CO2 – such as coal burning plants – become subject to a maximum “cap” on emissions. Beyond that, they must (usually) bid for a price to be allowed to emit more. All that money that is collected via the bids – a tax passed on to you and I – is then redistributed. Yes, it’s another redistribution scheme. Directed by the centralized planners so beloved.
Some of the money may go to “energy efficiency” programs managed by utilities. Or to fund “clean energy” industries – a subsidy. Or to “educate the people” or “indoctrinate the children in schools”. Or to “train workers”. Or this. Or that. But it’s all managed redistribution in a top-down controlled economy.
We’re told to avoid the words “free market” and “socialism” when we discuss these things. But when you examine them as concepts, which of those two does it sound more like?
Mike, abc has already made it clear that the cost of “externalities” will be a.) be decided by jurists and b.) will have to be paid no matter what the consequences to the economy. From his own mouth.
Makes me want to paraphrase Friedrich Thiemann: “When I hear the word externality, I realease the safety on my Browning!”
Charles Martel: I can sustain robbing banks as long as I can get away with it and as long as there are banks to rob (or rivers to pollute).
Good example. Robbing banks is not a sustainable profession.
Charles Martel: What does sustainable mean? What is development?
Merriam Webster
sustainable, of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged.
development, having a relatively high level of industrialization and standard of living.
Charles Martel: You just assume that your ripped-off definition explains all of that when it doesn’t.
It’s a cite to the standard definition and answers the previous comment about how the term is used.
Mike Devx: Anytime someone starts talking about “sustainable development” and “externalities” (and a new one from abc, above: “the tragedy of the commons!”) just ask them, “what do you mean by, sustainable development?” Then sit back and be interested and let them talk for awhile.
We’ve provided examples. You have decided to ignore them. A simple example is dumping toxic wastes in a river. Though there are short-term benefits in terms of cost, it is not sustainable.
Charles M – I’ve worked with companies on the issues of “sustainability”. Generally, what it means is finding ways to save money (use less packaging material, more efficient truck routes, reduce heating costs in winter) and at the same time be able to say that your doing something “positive” in regard to the environment. I can assure you that if you propose a sustainable technology that costs them money, you will be greeted with a thousand-yard stare. We used to call it “cost savings”. “Sustainability” sounds so much more…with it!
I think that “sustainability” is kind of smarmy Rorschak expression that people tag onto concepts when they want to give them a positive veneer or when the want to try to clarify what really isn’t very clear at all.
I suspect that it is a term that is in use today much like the AGW scientists of yore used terms like “humours”, “phlogiston” or “elixers” to affix certainty and clarity to the unknown. Not to be too hard on alchemists, of course…eventually they helped develop alchemy into a real science.
Do you really not understand that? Or do you really not know what “sustainable” and “development” mean?
Nobody knows what Z really means. Z confuses people with words when communication was supposed to clear up misunderstandings. Another Z effect.
But, as an example, spewing toxic waste into rivers is not sustainable development, even if it provides a short-term economic benefit.
Z thinks taxing people to death in an economic boom and then spending them into debt during a recession, is a sustainable development. Otherwise why would he continue to advocate this Keynesian robber baron styled wealth redistribution scheme.
If that is his idea of sustainable, then we have a good hint of what’s really going on here.
Danny Lemieux @ 53
I’ve worked with companies on the issues of “sustainability”. Generally, what it means is finding ways to save money (use less packaging material, more efficient truck routes, reduce heating costs in winter) and at the same time be able to say that your doing something “positive” in regard to the environment.
That kind of eco-friendliness used to be known as conservation, which has always been noble.
“Sustainable development” usually appears these days in articles such as this one by the esteemed Thomas Friedman, who loves China and all other centralized planning economies:
from this article, titled “The Earth Is Full”, by Thomas Friedman
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/opinion/08friedman.html?_r=1
You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?
“The only answer can be denial,” argues Paul Gilding
, the veteran Australian environmentalist-entrepreneur
[...]
Gilding cites the work of the Global Footprint Network, an alliance of scientists, which calculates how many “planet Earths” we need to sustain our current growth rates. G.F.N. measures how much land and water area we need to produce the resources we consume and absorb our waste, using prevailing technology. On the whole, says G.F.N., we are currently growing at a rate that is using up the Earth’s resources far faster than they can be sustainably replenished, so we are eating into the future. Right now, global growth is using about 1.5 Earths. “Having only one planet makes this a rather significant problem,” says Gilding.
—–
This is the level at which “sustainable development” is being dumped on us these days, by activist scientists and “environmentalist entrepreneurs” …
MikeD – Thomas Friedman is, who exactly? Oh, wait…just popped over to smalldeadanimals and…oh, that Thomas Friedman! In fact, here’s a picture of his very sustainable house:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/016998.html
The comments are very much on target.
I guess that Tom Friedman would be one of the deciders in this new world order, right?
Perhaps “Mr. Sustainability” Al Gore will be a decider as well?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/17/photos-al-goree-new-8875_n_579286.html#s91230
What is it about so many people that they appear to be begging to play the role of serf to these aristocrat wannabees in the name of a divine ideology?
The whole Pandora Mining complex the LEft has.
Plus the fact that their centralized coordination is inefficient by orders of magnitude, no wonder they need to loot and rape alien planets to sustain themselves. Just look at how much resources Gore and the Left uses. Take a look at the amount of trash that is “consumed” by union workers after a union paid for protest.
Ymarsakar: Nobody knows what Z really means. Z confuses people with words when communication was supposed to clear up misunderstandings. Another Z effect.
Ymarsakar: Z thinks taxing people to death in an economic boom and then spending them into debt during a recession, is a sustainable development. Otherwise why would he continue to advocate this Keynesian robber baron styled wealth redistribution scheme.
It’s so much that you are confused by the words, but that you insist upon distorting their meaning and ignore any clarifications. Countercyclical policy doesn’t require income redistribution between classes, and is not only sustainable, but increases overall sustainability of the market system. It’s called saving in the good times, so that there are resources available in the lean times. You can read about it in the Bible.
Genesis 41: And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I have dreamed a dream.
Mike Devx: This is the level at which “sustainable development” is being dumped on us these days, by activist scientists and “environmentalist entrepreneurs” …
It’s a simple fact that the human population can’t continue at its present rate of 1.1% growth as long as humans are bound to planet Earth. Do you understand why?
Z’s going to use the “it depends on what the meaning of is is” isn’t he.
> ZTeam @ 59 It’s a simple fact that the human population can’t continue at its present rate of 1.1% growth as long as humans are bound to planet Earth. Do you understand why?
Is that your reaction to the Friedman article, or to what I wrote?
I guess there was an 11th Commandment: Thou shalt procreate at precisely 1.1%, for the rest of thy days.
I’d respond further, but with food prices spiking, energy prices soaring, world population surging, tornados plowing through cities, floods and droughts setting records, populations being displaced and governments being threatened by the confluence of it all —
I’m too busy asking myself: What was I thinking? How did I not panic when the evidence was so obvious that I’ve crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?
So I’m too busy panicking to write anything further. Mommy! Daddy! Help me!
MIke,
“Letting them talk about “externalities” will probably lead to talk of CO2 as an “externality”, with solutions such as “cap and trade”.”
Correct. Carbon dioxide causes AGW, which causes harm in various measurable ways. Either you internalize the cost of that harm into the fossil burning activities or you are advocating theft. it’s that simple. We are not allowed to have a slave-based economy even if we really like the labor costs under that system.
“Industries that emit CO2 – such as coal burning plants – become subject to a maximum “cap” on emissions. Beyond that, they must (usually) bid for a price to be allowed to emit more. All that money that is collected via the bids – a tax passed on to you and I – is then redistributed. Yes, it’s another redistribution scheme. Directed by the centralized planners so beloved.”
Buying a gallon of milk is a redistribution scheme. Money is redistributed from the consumer to the producer. So what? The only centralized planning required is that which sets the enforceable rule that the costs of global warming and carbon emissions must be internalized. Beyond that, the system can be as decentralized as desired. Most commodity markets are global, however, so I would expect that a carbon market would be the same. What is good for a private oil market can be good for a private carbon market. You are paranoid about central planning.
“Some of the money may go to “energy efficiency” programs managed by utilities. Or to fund “clean energy” industries – a subsidy. Or to “educate the people” or “indoctrinate the children in schools”. Or to “train workers”. Or this. Or that. But it’s all managed redistribution in a top-down controlled economy.”
Strange that there were no problems with a top-down controlled economy developing when such a system was adopted for tradeable permits in Nox and Sox to address acid rain. By the way, the money should go primarily to address the future harm caused by global warming.
“We’re told to avoid the words “free market” and “socialism” when we discuss these things. But when you examine them as concepts, which of those two does it sound more like?”
If you know embarrassingly little about economics, then I guess it might sound like socialism. However, using the government and taxes to address externalities is capitalism 101. That you make this last point reflects badly on your level of economics literacy.
Mike Devx: Is that your reaction to the Friedman article, or to what I wrote?
To your response concerning sustainability. Population growth increases GDP, but is not sustainable indefinitely. Similarly, development that damages the environment or depletes valuable resources is not sustainable. If you believe in a future where there is a generally high standard of living for most people, then sustainability is an important consideration. This is directly contrary to your misunderstanding of the concept above.
Mike Devx: Sustainable development” is a way to “put into a box” the idea that as civilization progresses, more and more people gain benefits that formerly were available only to the rich and privileged. But that attempting to do that for all these middle-class and lower-class people cannot be done. But of course it can be done.
Yes, which is why many people discuss sustainability. They want to achieve that goal.
Man, so much of this discussion is talking at cross purposes. Take polluting the river. Such an action is “sustainable” indefinitely from the standpoint of the polluter, assuming the polluter is not dependent on the stream. Sure, it may ruin things for those downstream, but that just demonstrates that whether something is “sustainable” depends on your perspective. Are we operating in a closed system or an open one? Is an action “sustainable” only if no one at all is ever harmed by it? Who determines what is “sustainable”? Government? The marketplace? How do we resolve disagreements over what is “sustainable”?
Rather than focusing on terms, and running to the dictionary, for goodness sake, maybe we should focus on ideas and practicalities. Sure, we need to agree on terms, but that should be a relatively easy first step. It’s the ideas behind them that matter.
Don Quixote: Take polluting the river. Such an action is “sustainable” indefinitely from the standpoint of the polluter, assuming the polluter is not dependent on the stream.
It’s not sustainable politically when downstreamers come upstream with pitchforks. But even without the political conflict, it’s not sustainable because it destroys fisheries, pollutes drinking water, and degrades agriculture. Ancient pollutants led to transmissible diseases and epidemics. Modern pollutants lead to cancer, brain damage, stunted growth and chronic illness.
This is not sustainable development:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v417/n6885/images/417137a-f1.2.jpg
No, Don Q, it is not an easy first step.
Conservation is one thing, along with energy efficiency. ”Sustainable development” as it is used as code words on the left to identify the advocacy movement, is a completely different thing.
I’m not going to play their game with words. It’s propaganda. I refuse.
Most propaganda simply belong in the category of light hypnotic suggestions. People go along with them because they think it’s harmless or because they are curious or simply because they want to.
There are more complicated propaganda operations, however, which fully penetrate a person’s mental and psychic defenses, but those are expensive to make, problematic to carry out, and very hard to modify for individual variation. It’s just simply easier and frankly more effective to go with light hypnotic suggestions on the 25% of the people who are entirely too gullible for our own good.
Zach: please provide some context to the photo. Where was it taken? What type of surrounding area (actually, it really doesn’t look very developed, sustainable or otherwise)? There must be a narrative to it, right?
Danny Lemieux: please provide some context to the photo. Where was it taken? What type of surrounding area (actually, it really doesn’t look very developed, sustainable or otherwise)? There must be a narrative to it, right?
Surely you realize it’s just an example. You must be aware of the problems of unbridled river pollution. Air pollution was once so bad in London that thousands suffered lung disease, and the smog was so dense you could easily be hit by a taxi while crossing the road.
http://forums.vr-zone.com/newsroom/201933-news-pollution-turns-china-river-dark-red.html
Danny, surely you realize that it is the editor’s prerogative to illustrate a “narrative” any way he sees fit? Then, if you question it, he can jump to another topic, in this case London’s infamous killer fogs back in the 1950s, to accentuate the dangers of. . .river pollution.
Don’t you just love a good tap dancer?
Zach, I don’t know how long you’ve been around, but ever since the 1960s, I can assure you our air and water have been getting cleaner and cleaner. Most people seem to think it’s the other way around.
As far as pollution is concerned, capitalist economies have been far better than socialist economies in cleaning the environment. Why do you think that is?
I asked you about the context of that photo because just showing a picture of a polluted pond without context really doesn’t tell us anything.
Here in California, the average sedan now emits 5 percent of the pollutants into the air that its 1970 counterpart did.
F-I-V-E percent.
Do you think the statists and enviro hysterics are impressed by that?
I know, stupid question.
Danny Lemieux: I don’t know how long you’ve been around, but ever since the 1960s, I can assure you our air and water have been getting cleaner and cleaner. Most people seem to think it’s the other way around.
Yes, ever since the implementation of clear air and water laws.
Danny Lemieux: As far as pollution is concerned, capitalist economies have been far better than socialist economies in cleaning the environment. Why do you think that is?
Open, democratic societies have been more successful in controlling pollution because people can organize to make political change.
I asked you about the context of that photo because just showing a picture of a polluted pond without context really doesn’t tell us anything.
In cults, just showing an icon of the faith will make everyone bow down and kiss the prophet’s feet.
Yes, ever since the implementation of clear air and water laws.
Z believes nothing gets done until a boss tells his subordinates to do it. Very totalitarian and centralized authority based.
Z also thinks that a treaty Israel signed about national issues, somehow affects the individual Israeli citizen as if the “citizen” was the one who signed and been enslaved by the contractual enforcements.
Ymarsakar: Z believes nothing gets done until a boss tells his subordinates to do it. Very totalitarian and centralized authority based.
This may be difficult for you to understand, but waving your hands doesn’t make the facts go away. Corporations didn’t just stop polluting. There was an active environmental movement that pushed for legislation that addressed air and water pollution in the U.S.
Ymarsakar: Z also thinks that a treaty Israel signed about national issues, somehow affects the individual Israeli citizen as if the “citizen” was the one who signed and been enslaved by the contractual enforcements.
Depends on which treaties you are referring to. Many treaties have requirements for enabling legislation. Generally, Israel takes its international commitments seriously.
Why would Z, who didn’t take America’s ceasefire with Iraq seriously, want to start talking about Israeli treaties and UN resolutions?
Ymarsakar: Why would Z, who didn’t take America’s ceasefire with Iraq seriously, want to start talking about Israeli treaties and UN resolutions?
Your question is incoherent. If you are referencing our stated position, then please quote it.
Z-Team #65
It’s not sustainable politically when downstreamers come upstream with pitchforks. But even without the political conflict, it’s not sustainable because it destroys fisheries, pollutes drinking water, and degrades agriculture.
This is a US blog, and nearly all the commenters here are from the US. Discussion is overwhelmingly about US politics and US policy. Therefore one would expect that the Z-Team is primarily talking about the US, and that his comment primarily applies to the US.
This is not sustainable development: [shows photo with no attribution. Finally admits photo is of the PRC.]
1)If you are so concerned about “sustainable development” in the US, then why in the good Lord’s name are you not unable to come up with a photo of the US for your main support? Or would you rather try to deceive us by showing a photo, of a really gross situation with the implicit and untrue implication that the photo is of the US? If you were straightforward you would have shown from the beginning that the photo was from the PRC.]
2)If the members of the Z-Team were really concerned about the unsustainable development shown in the photo, the Z-Team would have bombarded the government of the Peoples’ Republic of China with multiple exhortations regarding the pollution in that photo. The government of the Peoples’ Republic of China is much more able to do something about the pollution shown in that photo than the non-citizens of the PRC who comment on this blog.
That the Z-Team has done nothing of the sort- to get the government of the PRC to do something about the pollution shown in that picture- shows that the Z-Team is unserious about “sustainable development.” It is just something to debate with the wingnuts.
Get off your adipose laden posteriors and DO something about it.
3) It is no news to me or most readers of this blog that the PRC has a big pollution problem.
4) Back in the day I spent a year as an eco-activist, and as such played a small part in the improvement in automotive emissions that Charles Martel has pointed out.
5) IMHO, the EPA has morphed into an out-of-control agency.
Gringo, I’m going to have to rate your post above as a 3 on the OZH (Over Zach’s Head) scale—about a .5 Dukakis. Not bad!
This means that Zach a.) will not get what you’re saying but b.) pretend that he does by c.) changing the subject.
However, there is a bonus OZH in the offing for you if you can get him to search madly for a photo of U.S. pollution, which he will most likely unwittingly download from a Democrat stronghold like Detroit or St. Louis.
Gringo: This is a US blog, and nearly all the commenters here are from the US. Discussion is overwhelmingly about US politics and US policy.
Blogs are not tied to one country, though apparently many of the commenters here are Americans.
Zachriel: This is not sustainable development: [shows photo with no attribution. Finally admits photo is of the PRC.]
We provided the information immediately upon request. It correctly shows an example of unsustainable development, a concept Mike Devx was having trouble understanding.
Gringo: 1)If you are so concerned about “sustainable development” in the US, then why in the good Lord’s name are you not unable to come up with a photo of the US for your main support?
Why in the good Lord’s name would you think we were speaking particularly of the U.S.? The topic is global climate change. A large part of the problem results from billions of people rapidly industrializing.
Gringo, you forgot that Zach sets policy here.
Go to your room.
Z-team, I repeat what I said
2)If the members of the Z-Team were really concerned about the unsustainable development shown in the photo, the Z-Team would have bombarded the government of the Peoples’ Republic of China with multiple exhortations regarding the pollution in that photo. The government of the Peoples’ Republic of China is much more able to do something about the pollution shown in that photo than the non-citizens of the PRC who comment on this blog.
That the Z-Team has done nothing of the sort- to get the government of the PRC to do something about the pollution shown in that picture- shows that the Z-Team is unserious about “sustainable development.” It is just something to debate with the wingnuts.
Get off your adipose laden posteriors and DO something about it.
Z-Team @ 82 :
It correctly shows an example of unsustainable development, a concept Mike Devx was having trouble understanding. [...]
Why in the good Lord’s name would you think we were speaking particularly of the U.S.? The topic is global climate change. A large part of the problem results from billions of people rapidly industrializing.
So which is it, Z-Team? ”unsustainable development” … or “climate change”?
I understand exactly what your side is up to with “sustainable development” and “global climate change”. And it’s not conservation, nor is it merely one example of poor pollution management or other environmental concerns at that level. You’ve got much *bigger* fish to fry.
It’s worth repeating the opening paragraph of Thomas Friedman’s article. He, at least, is honest about his advocacy for what the Left calls “sustainable development” :
—–
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/opinion/08friedman.html?_r=1
You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?
—–
The assumptions behind the concept itself, the pessimism concerning our ability to handle the problems, the unimaginative (and evil) anti-prosperity and anti-civilization manner in which they intend to “solve the problems”… that’s what it’s about.
The Z-Team is very careful about announcing exactly which measures the Z-Team supports to solve these problems. But when you read all of Z-Teams comments,, you’ll probably come to the same conclusions I’ve come to. For all of Z’s protestations, when Z alerts us with definitive alarmist statements such as we’re about to “cause the sixth major extinction event in the Earth’s history” (on an earlier thread), the inferences for where Z-Team is headed are clear.
I think this discussion on “sustainable development” is pointless. One side is saying that we will solve the seemingly unsustainable aspects of our development in the future with innovation, and there is much precedent for this. The other side is saying, entire populations have disappeared throughout history, when blind faith in resources and our ability to figure out how to manage them hasn’t quite worked out as planned. Both are faith-based discussions, with the side that usually condemn’s man’s pride showing a bit of it here, while the other side that generally believes more in the goodness of man being rather pessimistic about how his individual actions work out in the aggregate. The irony is perhaps lost on the participants in this debate.
My own view is that we should focus on closing the externalities and figuring out how most efficiently and accurate to price them. That way, the unsustainable aspects of our development can be turned into costs that must be borne by those who benefit from the development in question. They can then make decisions about the cost-benefit of such development on their own, on an individual basis. The invisible hand remains the best way to address issues of risk-reward and allocation of costs and benefits. So we should focus on rectifying the market failures to let that system function properly. Else, you’ll have some imperfect individual (either an ignorant environmentalist or anti-science baffoon) making bad decisions for all of us…
I maxed out on the number of times I can quote Z. You’re just going to have to wait for the quota to reset, Z, like all the others. Get back in line.
This is not sustainable development: [shows photo with no attribution. Finally admits photo is of the PRC.]
1)If you are so concerned about “sustainable development” in the US, then why in the good Lord’s name are you not unable to come up with a photo of the US for your main support? Or would you rather try to deceive us by showing a photo, of a really gross situation with the implicit and untrue implication that the photo is of the US? If you were straightforward you would have shown from the beginning that the photo was from the PRC.]
Critical hit on Z there, Gringo.
By critical hit, I mean a broken cervical spine, a crushed diaphragm, a bleeding liver, kidney, spleen, or broken ribs rupturing the lungs. A critical hit is a critical hit.
3) It is no news to me or most readers of this blog that the PRC has a big pollution problem.
I remember Z carrying China’s Communist party water when he said that China of now isn’t the China of before. So why would Z use Chinese mistakes made to criticize America when Z uses American technology and economic vitality to defend China’s human rights violations?
Btw, before Z would always try to fill in the blank on his name when we shorten it. So when Danny shortened it to Zach, Z would quote Danny by writing in his full name “Zach[riel]“. When I shortened him to Z, he, while quoting me, would fill in the blank Z[rachriel].
How long do you guys want to bet it’ll take for him to figure out how to do that with “Z-Team”?
Also, let’s not forget that Z once argued that China’s growth is far superior in economic growth rates, because China is a “mixed economy”. In order to prop up his “mixed economy” beliefs, Z went out of his way to defend and promote Chinese growth rates.
Now, guess what, he’s talking about unsustainable development. You think he mentioned that little issue when talking up his Chinese growth rates? Naw. That must have just left his mind for a moment, I’m sure.
Ymar @ 88 : How long do you guys want to bet it’ll take for him to figure out how to do that with “Z-Team”?
I think it was Gringo who coined Z-Team? I can’t quite remember who I first saw using it. But after a few exposures, I decided I liked it, and switched. After all, they are the ones who refer to themselves as “We”.
Gringo: That the Z-Team has done nothing of the sort- to get the government of the PRC to do something about the pollution shown in that picture- shows that the Z-Team is unserious about “sustainable development.” It is just something to debate with the wingnuts.
The participation of China is absolutely essential to any solution to anthropogenic global warming. Perhaps you are not aware of international concern and discussion concerning the issue. The problem is that even though China emits much less per capita than the U.S., its population is much larger, and industrializing very rapidly.
Mike Devx: So which is it, Z-Team? ”unsustainable development” … or “climate change”?
Anthropogenic global warming makes the current path to global industrialization unsustainable.
Mike Devx: The assumptions behind the concept itself, the pessimism concerning our ability to handle the problems, the unimaginative (and evil) anti-prosperity and anti-civilization manner in which they intend to “solve the problems”… that’s what it’s about.
Have no idea what you are talking about. Nearly all serious planners agree that development is desirable, inevitable, and essential. The problem is how to make it sustainable, but part of the solution will certainly be healthy economic growth.
abc: My own view is that we should focus on closing the externalities and figuring out how most efficiently and accurate to price them.
Yes. Harnessing the market is by far the best solution. Put the cost where it belongs—with those who create the pollution.
Ymarsakar: When I shortened him to Z, he, while quoting me, would fill in the blank Z[rachriel].
Did we? Where?
Ymarsakar: Also, let’s not forget that Z once argued that China’s growth is far superior in economic growth rates, because China is a “mixed economy”.
That is not our position. China is industrializing, a process where workers move from low-GDP jobs in agriculture to high-GDP jobs in industry. It’s a temporary phenomena that other countries have experienced. Please make an effort to understand our position before criticizing it.
Ymarsakar: You think he mentioned that little issue when talking up his Chinese growth rates?
Chinese growth rates are not only unsustainable, but the course they are on is severely damaging their future. The problem is they lack the political mechanisms of free speech and association that provide the counter-weight to large economic concerns.
Concerning abc @ 86 :
I think you’ve made a remarkably persuasive and honest argument for your case here in your two-themed comment.
I’ll focus on what I think are two key sentences in the second part:
My own view is that we should focus on closing the externalities and figuring out how most efficiently and accurate to price them. [...] So we should focus on rectifying the market failures to let that system function properly.
As you know by now, when I see the word “externalities”, my filter goes on high alert…
If I may be so bold as to put words in your mouth, in examining those two sentences above, you consider these things to be “market failures” and you want to put something in place *above* the market system – as a means of enforcement – to “let that system function properly”. It’s hard to see how you accomplish your “efficient and accurate pricing”… without instituting some type of authoritarian price controls.
If you saw a way of accomplishing your goals *within* the free market system, I think you’d have chosen different words.
My view, which I think is based on quite a bit of experience and reading, is that “price controls” rarely if ever work, and I’d never vote for them or for a politician who seems likely to put them in place. I trust the free market system as the best available known way for free individuals and families and communities to exercise both freedom and responsibility – while recognizing that like all systems it has its flaws. *Much more* I could say, but I’m not here to construct pages of treatise; you can likely figure out the rest of my viewpoint.
On the first theme and paragraph, I definitely see what you call the “irony”. Not sure I’d use that word, but it’s close enough to serve.
Z-Team @ #91
The participation of China is absolutely essential to any solution to anthropogenic global warming.
The participation of China can be seen by the change in its carbon emissions over the last fifteen years. How does one say “exponential” in Mandarin? Or in Cantonese, for that matter?
Z thinks since it was so long ago, everybody has forgotten about it. Including Z. But not quite.
Mike, recall that abc plainly said a few days ago that the prices for “externalities” would be set by judges, and that the consequences of those prices would have to be borne even if they wrecked the economy. His words.
You are dealing with a man who is his own god. Only somebody that presumptuous would say something that appalling and believe that it somehow makes him bold and brave.
Excellent memory, Charles! (Tip o the hat!)
And abc made that comment in this thread up at 38:
First, the forced raising of price, which is what I was referring to (since, as you point out, an externality is a case in which the market doesn’t price the cost in), DOES NOT have to be done by central planners. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Anyone who has studied the economics of tort law knows that we can choose to have judges determine the cost of product liability or set a strict liability rule that incorporates such costs into the price of the product with the force fo that rule. In the former case, a central planner (in that case a judge hearing a tort case) will set the price in that case. In the latter case, the market will set the price with the inclusion of expected product liability costs.
So, case 1: “have judges determine the cost”
Price controls. But by a judge, not a faceless bureaucrat! I’ll take Antonin Scalia for Texas, you can have Goodwin Liu for California. And no, when California goes bankrupt, we are *not* bailing you out!
Or, case 2: “A strict liability rule”, or “the inclusion of expected liability costs”
This is a tax levied on top of the “free market” price. Who defines the “expected liability costs?” One of Obama’s czars? Anyway, this would be either a direct “take the money” tax, or a more subtle tax such as “cap and trade”. But a tax nonetheless. (Or I’d love to see an example that does *not* end up being a tax…)
Zachriel: The participation of China is absolutely essential to any solution to anthropogenic global warming.
Gringo: The participation of China can be seen by the change in its carbon emissions over the last fifteen years.
China’s greenhouse gas emissions have grown very rapidly due to their drive to industrialize. Their position is that it is still much less per capita than in the U.S. or other developed economies, and for a much shorter period of time thus far, so their total emissions are much smaller than the West.
However, China’s scientific community has also reached the same conclusion concerning the dangers of anthropogenic global warming. So, that brings us back to sustainable development. Market-based solutions can be used to drive innovation and conservation, but no one has been able to come up with a plan that is agreeable to both developed and developing nations. And any such solution can only come by a hard look at the problem, and by acknowledging the concerns of the various nations.
Charles Martel: recall that abc plainly said a few days ago that the prices for “externalities” would be set by judges, and that the consequences of those prices would have to be borne even if they wrecked the economy. His words.
Might want to see the context, but the problem of sustainable development cannot be solved without healthy economic growth and technological innovation.
Mike Devx: This is a tax levied on top of the “free market” price.
It’s called accountability. If someone damages other people by their actions, they should be held responsible. And holding them responsible provides them an incentive to avoid such actions, and this leads to conservation and new technologies.
If you think we’re talking about just a few dollars out of your wallet… nothing to worry about! …
Don’t forget what Candidate Obama said in an interview on Jan 17, 2008 in San Francisco, caught live on audio. You can’t dance around his intention to “bankrupt” any attempt to build a new coal power plant. Check out the audio:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/11/02/hidden-audio-obama-tells-sf-chronicle-he-will-bankrupt-coal-industry
Trillions of dollars. Translate that thought to each taxpayer wallet…
Everything he’s done since that interview has indicated that Obama was not kidding. That he is a man totally, ideologically hostile to the oil, gas and coal industries. I’d find the other audio of him saying he wants to raise the cost of your gasoline to European levels ($6-$8) but do it slowly so it wouldn’t piss you off, but I have other things to do this evening.
Oh, I can’t resist one more.
Z-Team @ 99 : It’s called accountability. If someone damages other people by their actions, they should be held responsible. And holding them responsible provides them an incentive to avoid such actions, and this leads to conservation and new technologies.
Psst, Zach… your slip is showing. Just a bit, below the hemline.
Those greedy, evil, bad coal burning industrialists! They must pay! What are these nefarious “actions” that we’ll make so painful that they will avoid them? What is their sin!?!?
Oh… wait, all that coal they’re burning, it’s to… satisfy the demands of consumers. Who seem willing to pay the price. That’s all they’re doing, isn’t it? So it must those greedy, evil, bad consumers must be made to pay! All those millions upon millions of A/C units, generating all that cold air and high energy bills. Evil Americans! Evil! Make them pay!
And how, exactly, does making them pay – holding them “accountable” – lead to “new technologies”? What? Oh, yeah, this is where the redistribution of the taxes and penalties comes into the carefully constructed house of cards, isn’t it?
Mike, I hope you will be pleased to learn that tomorrow on this site I will be posting Chapter 14 of my “Squiffy the Mirth Slayer” series. This one is extra special: “Squiffy Meets the Zach Team,” which chronicles the first encounter between earth’s greatest human intelligence and earth’s greatest insectoid intelligence (or, as Zach would put it, “insect civilization”).
Be there or be square!
What is so appealing about Buffy the Vampire slayer, from those in the know?
www bookwormroom.com/2011/04/14/san-francisco-discovers-free-enterprise/#comment-119274
This site blocks urls to its own links in the comment sections. But not even that will prevent us from remembering the various things A through Z conveniently forget.
www bookwormroom com/2011/04/14/san-francisco-discovers-free-enterprise/#comment-119274
This site blocks urls to its own links in the comment sections. But not even that will prevent us from remembering the various things A through Z conveniently forget.
This site blocks urls to its own links in the comment sections. But not even that will prevent us from remembering the various things A through Z conveniently forget.
bookwormroom com/2011/04/14/san-francisco-discovers-free-enterprise/#comment-119274
Mike Devx: Trillions of dollars. Translate that thought to each taxpayer wallet…
Notice you didn’t actually respond to the body of the argument.
But to answer your point, it would not be effective to suddenly take all the existing infrastructure off-line. It would actually hurt efforts to modernize. Any changes have to be implemented over a period of time to avoid disruption.
Mike Devx: And how, exactly, does making them pay – holding them “accountable” – lead to “new technologies”?
Because if people are required to pay for the carbon they emit, then they will find ways to do more with lower carbon emissions. That’s what markets do best.
Z-Team @ 99 : It’s called accountability. If someone damages other people by their actions, they should be held responsible. And holding them responsible provides them an incentive to avoid such actions, and this leads to conservation and new technologies.
I”m going to add to Mike D’s excellent comment by pointing out that Z has stumbled upon an excellent idea that merits serious discussion. It begs the question: how should we hold all these enviro-AGW cult members responsible for the enormous damage they are inflicting upon society and, especially, the poorer members of society (in particular) in terms of energy costs, food costs and taxation by their utopian ideologies?
I’m thinking about all of the cult members, from Gore to Soros at one end of the spectrum to the pawns and footsoldiers from ABC to Z at the other end.
Ideas?
I am buried in work at the moment, otherwise would participate in this excellent discussion more frequently.
Z-Team @ 105 : Notice you didn’t actually respond to the body of the argument.
Respond to the body of which argument? I’m not sure which one. 99?
> Because if people are required to pay for the carbon they emit, then they will find ways to do more with lower carbon emissions. That’s what markets do best.
Which people are emitting carbon? People use the electricity generated by coal companies to power homes, businesses. Etc. They pay for that, not for “the carbon they emit”. The more they use, the more they pay. The free market allows for multiple companies to compete to supply me the energy I use. I choose one of them based on who best meets my needs. *That* is what free markets do best.
I can’t figure out what you mean by “That’s what free markets do best.” (Actually you didn’t use the word ‘free’, which is hopefully merely an oversight.) I can’t figure out how “find ways to do more with lower carbon emissions” relates to a free market at all.
Mike Devx: Which people are emitting carbon?
Primarily people in industrialized societies.
Mike Devx: People use the electricity generated by coal companies to power homes, businesses. Etc. They pay for that, not for “the carbon they emit”.
That’s right. They pay for the costs of production, but not the costs of cleaning up their pollution.
Mike Devx: The more they use, the more they pay. The free market allows for multiple companies to compete to supply me the energy I use.
Yes, but you are not paying your fair share if you emit greenhouse gases. You are damaging the environment that everyone, including future generations, share. It’s the climate equivalent of dumping chemicals into the river, because it’s cheaper. Cheaper for you, but at a cost to others.
Mike Devx: I can’t figure out what you mean by “That’s what free markets do best.”
If emitters of carbon were required to pay for the cost of carbon sequestration, for instance, then the cost would then be internalized into the market of whatever product is involved, including energy. Currently, if you rely upon coal-fired electrical production, then you are not paying for the total cost of the product.
However, and this is related to our previous comments, you can’t just abandon the existing infrastructure. It will require a healthy global economy to restructure the system. New technologies will be required. And time, while developing nations continue to enter the modern, industrialized economy.
And then there is the problem of finding a common solution. Developing nations feel it is unfair to deny them access to the common resource, when historical emissions from developed countries constitute the bulk of the problem. A climate agreement, like all voluntary agreements, has to take into account the needs of the various nations involved.
Let’s try this statement:
The free market, alone, didn’t clean up America’s air and water. It required concerted action by private citizens exerting pressure on government to enact laws against pollution.
The totalitarian wannabe shave come up with an innovative concept. Instead of taxing you for the air you breath, they will tax you for the carbon you exhale.
The little problem with that is both the controllers of carbon emission and the beneficiaries of oxygen taxation, would be a monopoly. A government monopoly at that. There goes your free market balancing act.
Ymarsakar: Instead of taxing you for the air you breath, they will tax you for the carbon you exhale.
Respiration is (generally) carbon-neutral.
>>Primarily people in industrialized societies. >>
And here you come to the nub of it. The environmentalists want a return to the pre-industrial era. That would be about the late 1800s, I think. Malthus predicted at that time that we would have mass starvation due to a greater population than the earth could support. He was right, of course, except industrialization made it possible for greater food production, which meant that the population problem evaporated.
The environmentalists know that we will not willingly go back to the pre-industrial age and are using governmental force to gradually force us to go back in time.
Squiffy the Mirth Slayer
Chapter 14: Squiffy Meets the Zach Team
(Squiffy boards an Airbus, whose designers he knew and roomed with at Harvard. The plane is flying to Washington, D.C., to celebrate Planned Parenthood’s recent delivery of its 5 millionth abortion in the black community, a landmark in the organization’s fierce decades-long dedication to fighting white racism.
As he takes an aisle seat, he notices that he is surrounded by several identical men, all of whom look at him as though he were some sort of. . . prey. Hugely uncomfortable, Squiff notes that even the large H tattooed on his forehead, a patch of skin he once considered rendered permanently dry, is sweating profusely.)
Squiffy (turning to the man to his right): “Hello. My name is Squiffy and I know the Duke of Chumley!”
Zach 7 of 9: “Is pleasure to know your appellation. Names are the human way of identifying themselves. You may address us as ‘Seven.’”
Squiffy: “A pleasure here, too, Mr., uh, Seven. Say, do you know Henry the Eight? I used to shtup his great-great-great-several-times-great granddaughter.”
Zach 8 of 9 (taps Squiffy on the shoulder from the seat behind him): “We are no Henry, but we are Eight. Eight, called octo in Latin and otto in Italian, is often used by governments to count the trillion dollar debt amount that comes after seven.”
(His statement is interrupted by a dry, insect-like cackle from Seven, who declares, “Eight, we think we may be amused!”)
Squiffy: “I am flying to Washington to honor a woman who has done much to address the black community’s externalities, namely the burdens on food supply and education brought about by the births of too many pickaninn. . .er, babies. I should tell you that I know her well and often bedded her down in my Harvard dorm.”
Zach 4 of 9 (speaking from across the aisle): “‘Bedded down’ is said by many to be a colorful descriptor of the act of intercourse, while others say it is a crude way of describing a casual and even immoral act of boink. We are on the Internet now seeking an illustration of the deed that we can attach to this statement.”
Squiffy: “Don’t get me started on the so-called morality of sex. People who have inhibitions about it are unthinking followers of the mythical Sky Fairy.”
(Squiffy’s phone announces an incoming call. He picks it up, looks at the message, which is a photograph, and lets out a sound of disgust.) “Oh, my! Look at the size of that congressman’s schmuck!”
Zach 4 of 9 (beaming): “We were able to find that example in only 0.004 seconds via the Zachodex, the most powerful Rolodex in the universe!
Zachs 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 shout in perfect unison: “Way to go, Number Four!”
(A flight attendant comes by asking for meal orders.)
Squiffy: “I’ll just have a sandwich. (Sighs.) Not that it can match the excellent repasts that were served me at the dining halls of Harvard. Ah, the saumons en papillote were divine—if I can use an Abrahamic tradition word.”
Zachs 1 through 9, all staring and pointing at Squiffy: “We’ll have the sushi.”
suek: The environmentalists want a return to the pre-industrial era.
We addressed this above. Nearly all serious planners agree that development is desirable, inevitable, and essential. The problem is how to make it sustainable, but part of the solution will certainly be healthy economic growth.
suek: He was right, of course, except industrialization made it possible for greater food production, which meant that the population problem evaporated.
The problem of exponential population growth remains, which is why family planning is so important in the modern world.
So Z thinks Gore’s breathing is carbon neutral. Have you looked at his expenditures yet in carbon credits.
>>The problem is how to make it sustainable, but part of the solution will certainly be healthy economic growth.>>
Healthy economic growth, eh.
So tell me Zach, how do you get “healthy economic growth” without increasing consumption?
suek: So tell me Zach, how do you get “healthy economic growth” without increasing consumption?
Increased consumption is desirable, inevitable, and essential. People of the developing world have as much right to a decent standard of living as people in the developed world. The problem is the inevitable stress on resources and the environment when billions of Asians suddenly acquire cars, central heat and air, and more protein in their diets. That’s the problem of sustainable development. It’s a soluble problem, but the solution will not be simple or single-faceted.
“People of the developing world have as much right to a decent standard of living as people in the developed world. The problem is the inevitable stress on resources and the environment when billions of Asians suddenly acquire cars, central heat and air, and more protein in their diets.”
—Who says people in the developing world have as much right as people in the developed world to a decent standard of living? What is the source of this “right?” What is a “decent standard?”
—How do “billions of Asians” suddenly acquire consumer goods? We here had assumed that process would take several decades. Do you know something we don’t?
Charles Martel: —Who says people in the developing world have as much right as people in the developed world to a decent standard of living?
We just did. They certainly think so. Do you disagree?
Charles Martel: —How do “billions of Asians” suddenly acquire consumer goods?
Through the process of industrialization. For instance, China is already the largest single market for automobiles, and is producing millions of cars every year. The total number of cars in China is expected to double to more than 200 million by 2020.
Zach, as usual, you have a problem with answering questions that you know you cannot answer.
Unless you are saying that a right exists simply because you say it does, it is just as easy for me to say that such a right doesn’t exist. And since you have no authority other than yourself, I guess our positions on the matter have no resolution. As for what Asians believe or don’t believe about their “right” to a Western-style standard of living, I don’t believe you speak for 3 billion people.
In your second Dukakis-style answer, you did not address my question: How do Asians “suddenly” acquire consumer goods? Throwing one of your ripped-off stats at me may make you feel like the master of your domain, but to me you just keep reinforcing the notion prevalent in this room that you are incapable of honesty or independent thought.
In any case, the thing that unnerves you the most is exposing your philosophical thought process. Hows does Zach arrive at his foundational view of the world? The fact that you can’t make a case for yourself that doesn’t depend on what others think scares the crap out of you, doesn’t it?
Do you disagree?
It makes sense now why Z would knowingly and deliberately support government taxes that depress economic growth during a boom. He said it was because of X cyclical theory or what not, but more importantly it’s because in Z’s eyes, economic growth must be moderated and limited by a ruling elite, otherwise it would run out of control in more than one way.
If this is his version of the free market, where you are only free to make as much money and produce as much product as the governing and ruling elite says you do, then it’s an interestingly bleak future. A mixed economy of this sort would be a failure before it even starts.
Z says China is not the China of 1955, even though he still thinks the US of 2003 was the same as the US of 1700 and using germ warfare on Amerindians.
No matter how you slice it, Z’s not out to generate prosperity or security. Nor does he allow such things to be generated by other people, when he supports policies that curtails such efforts.
Charles Martel: Unless you are saying that a right exists simply because you say it does, it is just as easy for me to say that such a right doesn’t exist.
That’s fine. If you don’t think people have a right to work for a better life, then nothing will probably convince you otherwise. Nevertheless, most people want a better life for themselves and their children.
Charles Martel: How do Asians “suddenly” acquire consumer goods?
By working hard at the process of industrialization. China is already the second largest economy in the world. They are already gobbling up a large share of the world’s resources. Everyone agrees, China is rapidly industrializing, with India and other countries not far behind. Rapid, of course, is a relative term, but refers to changes within the lifetime of people. We were discussing sustainable development, after all.
Zach, you are not qualified to discuss rights. You have no concept what a right is, let alone its origin.
I’ll leave you alone on this since it is plainly beyond your competence. Just be aware that when you attempt to discuss matters here at the level of rights, you do yourself no favors. Nobody is fooled by your attempts to change the topic or pretend that you are actually answering the question posed.
My tutoring bill is in the mail.
I haven’t found anything in Z-Team’s comments on the free market to actually relate to free market economic concepts either.
When Z uses “rights”, you can just take it to mean “entitlements”.
Z-Team @ 108, 109, 117, and so on:
Just a quick followup. (Busy today.) I understand what you’ve written. Especially in 108, but across the others, you’ve outlined what I would call a broad thematic solution for how to approach the problem.
But I was right: When you said, “That’s what markets do best”, I wondered if you left “free” off of “free markets” on purpose. And I would say, yes you did. What you refer to as a “market” is usually expressed as a “sector” these days, as in the “energy sector”. It’s got nothing to do with free markets. And your global (thematic) solution to the problem has nothing to do with “free markets”.
But it’s well stated, no matter whether I approve of it or not!
Two parts of what you say are certainly true no matter what: If the CO2 that is emitted during power generation must be cleaned up, then those who benefit from the emission should be responsible for the costs.
And, nations that are currently industrializing (eg China, India) will never agree to retard their civilizations progress. And they shouldn’t. Any nation (including the USA) that would deliberately harm its citizenry that way deserves to have its leaders thrown into jail or hanged for being traitors to their own people.
In 117 you state: That’s the problem of sustainable development. It’s a soluble problem, but the solution will not be simple or single-faceted.
I refuse to approach the problem as one of “sustainable development”. I reject that entire concept as unworkable, unsolvable from that perspective due to basic human nature and the inevitable human desire for progress and betterment. I would phrase it as a problem of the inexorable continued development and advancement of civilizations across the globe. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not. Yes, it will create problems, and yes, those problems will be solved one way or another – probably later than you would like to see, and probably in a way that *neither* of us would like to see.
I think if you continue to try to solve it, as a problem of “sustainable development”, you’re doomed to failure. Due to what I called the “inevitable human desire for progress and betterment” above. You will not be able to thwart or stop or retard that desire.
>>People of the developing world have as much right to a decent standard of living as people in the developed world.>>
Interesting. Sure they have a right – as long as they earn it. And who prevents them from earning it? Mostly their own corrupt dictators. Often, wars due to efforts by muslims to take over the areas for islam.
>>If you don’t think people have a right to work for a better life, then nothing will probably convince you otherwise.>>
But if they work hard and achieve a better life, but someone else has not yet achieved that level, someone has the right to take the fruits of their labors away in order that others who have _not_ yet achieved those results may also have a “decent standard of living”?
Question:
1) deserves
2) is entitled to
3) has a right to
Can anyone explain to me the differences between these?
Hi SueK!
My answer is, they’re all three the same. And they’re only true in the sense that Thomas Jefferson wrote of them in the Declaration of Independence:
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.
Anyone who says we have a “right” to a high standard of living, or a “right” to healthcare is being intolerably sloppy or just plain evil – basically because such things require prosperity, and that cannot be guaranteed.
In fact, prosperity can be deliberately destroyed, as we are seeing this current president do. With considerable enthusiasm. When he’s not playing golf.
And let me say please, please, please, Mr. Boehner, don’t you DARE ever let yourself be caught on camera playing golf with that SOB! Never! There’s a reason he invited you to a “golf summit”, and it is *not* to be friendly.
Mike, your mistake is to mention a divine source of rights. Zach and his ilk do not believe that there are inherent rights. The only rights that exist are those rights enunciated by government, which can giveth and can taketh away. I think all of us here realize it, which is why we tend to deeply discount what he and abc have been trying to peddle on this blog.
I think there’s a difference between “deserves” and the other two…
But the more I think about “deserves”, the less I think I understand what it means as it is used these days (so what else is new!)
It seems to me that it probably derives from something like de servio, of service, which would indicate that it is something that is earned by virtue of work performed. That doesn’t seem to be the use of it now – someone deserves something…why, just because somebody thinks they should “be entitled” to it – which to me means that it’s something that should be given to them de facto – by reason of their title.
Both of those seem to me to be different from “has a right” – which would be a claim to something by a means not determined by the right itself.
So….
I guess I’m saying one is by work, one is by title (by birth or conferment) and one is de facto by their existence.
They’re used so interchangeably though, that I’m not exactly sure there is a difference in common use. There needs to be, imo.
You’re right, suek. I was thinking only of the way they’re used these days. There’s definitely a difference between:
- I am entitled to a vacation
- I deserve a vacation
Definitely a difference.
Among most people, when someone says the first, it’s with indignation; a right has not been bestowed! The second, is usually said with a sigh of regret after a day’s hard work. And the best response is,
“Don’t we all, I hear ya. C’mon, sit down, have a beer.”
Speaking of beers, that leads to another comment…
I ran across an article about the Islamic “culture of shame”, and how the best strategy against it is humor; a weapon we are not deploying enough!
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/06/shame-muslim-cultures-armour-weapon-humour.html
So, I thought I’d kick it off, give it a shot. What the hell.
—–
So, Mohammed walks into a bar.
He walks up to the bartender, takes his seat at a stool at the bar and grins widely at the bartender.
Mohammed: “They told me outside I could get St. PauliGirl here. I would like St. PauliGirl!”
Bartender: “Coming right up.” He busies himself for a bit, and returns with the cold green bottle, sets it down in front of Mohammed.
Mohammed stares down at the bottle in confusion, up at the bartenders eyes. His grin fades. “I do not understand.”
The bartender frowns, points. “Here’s your bottle. St. PauliGirl.”
Mohammed looks down again, up again, incredulous. “It’s a BEER?”
Bartender: “Yep.”
Mohammed: “I was thinking I would be getting the woman.”
Bartender: “Well, you could try Minnesota.”
Mohammed: “Oh.” He looks down at his sandals for a moment, then up again. ”I guess that means… No “Sex On the Beach” either?”
Bartender: “It’s a drink.”
Mohammed: “Oh.” Waits a moment. “Buttery Nipple?”
Bartender: “Drink.”
Mohammed: “Oh.” Crushed, he gets off the stool. “I left my goat tied to the parking meter. I guess I’d best be going.” He leaves the bar.
The waitress comes over, sets down her tray. “That was an interesting one!”
Bartender grins. “For sure! Hey, it could have been worse. At least he didn’t ask for a Salty Dog.”
Mike Devx: Two parts of what you say are certainly true no matter what: If the CO2 that is emitted during power generation must be cleaned up, then those who benefit from the emission should be responsible for the costs.
Okay.
Mike Devx: And, nations that are currently industrializing (eg China, India) will never agree to retard their civilizations progress. And they shouldn’t. Any nation (including the USA) that would deliberately harm its citizenry that way deserves to have its leaders thrown into jail or hanged for being traitors to their own people.
It’s not harming their citizens to plan for the future.
Mike Devx: I refuse to approach the problem as one of “sustainable development”. I reject that entire concept as unworkable, unsolvable from that perspective due to basic human nature and the inevitable human desire for progress and betterment.
Of course it’s soluble. It’s in everyone’s best long-term interest. However, it is in everyone’s short-term interest to push the problem off onto others or into the future. It’s called the tragedy of the commons, but it doesn’t have to be tragic.
Mike Devx: I would phrase it as a problem of the inexorable continued development and advancement of civilizations across the globe. It’s going to happen whether you like it or not.
We’ll state it again. Development is desirable, inevitable, and essential. Development is the problem, but it’s also the solution.
Mike Devx: I think if you continue to try to solve it, as a problem of “sustainable development”, you’re doomed to failure.
Humans are more than capable of long-term planning. You don’t have to wait until the climate is irreparably damaged before taking concerted action.
Zachriel: People of the developing world have as much right to a decent standard of living as people in the developed world.
suek: Interesting. Sure they have a right – as long as they earn it.
There are hundreds-of-millions of people in the developing world who work hard every day, hundreds-of-millions who are becoming educated, and are willing and able to compete in the global economy.
suek: Interesting. Sure they have a right – as long as they earn it. And who prevents them from earning it? Mostly their own corrupt dictators.
Most of the developing world has been growing faster than the developed world. That’s the whole point. Vastly more people will soon have cars, central heat, air and lights, travel farther, and eat better than ever before.
suek: But if they work hard and achieve a better life, but someone else has not yet achieved that level, someone has the right to take the fruits of their labors away in order that others who have _not_ yet achieved those results may also have a “decent standard of living”?
You must be talking to someone else about something else. We’re discussing countries such as China who are building large numbers of factories and power plants and entire new cities. They’re not taking anything from you, except in the sense of adding to the environmental load.
An “irreparably damaged” climate? The amount of ignorance and hubris in that statement is staggering.
Mike, good one about Mohammed (ptui)!
To Z-Team @ 134 :
I’ve got no argument with long-term planning.
What I’m discussing here is not my problem, it’s yours. I’ll try to keep it short.
The environmental movement since the 60′s has always consisted of two basic groups. One group has focused on conservation, anti-pollution efforts, energy efficiency, etc. Laudable goals, many achieved, many ongoing that will continue to be achieved. They’re positive goals, they’re optimistic goals.
The other group is the “Mankind is the problem” group. Malthusian. Erlich’s ‘The Population Bomb’. Raping Mother Gaia. Etc, etc. Environmental Apocalypse. I read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy and we’ve got them in droves in a sub-genre of hate-mankind/enviro-doom books. And movies, tv shows, etc. Mankind is the problem, mankind is evil, mankind will ruin the planet and destroy itself.
This “hatred of mankind” group is what underlies the whole “sustainable development” movement. It has hijacked the environmental movement. The true nature of “sustainable development” is that there are countries engaged in “unsustainable development”, and these countries must be stopped. NOT about conservation. NOT about anti-pollution. NOT about energy management. They have, at its core, a hatred of progress and a hatred of civilization itself.
Thomas Friedman is your problem. (See the article linked several times above, ie #85.) Prince Charles is your problem. They’re all your problem. You can solve the CO2 problem and the global warming issue – they’ll just move on to something else and continue the same drumbeat. No matter what anyone does, they will doom and gloom you to death with apocalyptic visions. It’s a doomsday religion to them, whether it is to you or not. They control your message. They control your movement.
You’re never going to succeed with “sustainable development”, because what IT is really about is “unsustainable development” that must be halted; because progress must be halted. You’ve allied yourself to that concept, and you’re never going to achieve your goals as long as “unsustainable development” is the key underlying meme. The environmental movement needs to purge the doomsayers, and return to the other side of the environmental movement, and return to the positive messages of conservation, anti-pollution, energy management.
It’s your movement. Your problem, your fight.
Mike, a nice delineation, which I sincerely hope the Zach kids see.
You are correct in saying that it is their problem. I know it fristrates the hell out of Zach and people like abc, but they have lost the fight for their vision of doom and gloom by hooking up with such obnoxious proponents of AGW as Gore, Prince Charles and Joe Biden. Now, in the middle of a seemingly endless near-depression, most people simply shut out the ever louder, ever more shrill demands by the enviro-hysterics that we save the planet NOW!
What will happen as history consigns Gore and the rest of the AGW movement to the dustbin is a return to the kind of prudent, ratrional regard for the planet that has always marked the sane part of the environmental movement.
At the risk of stirring Zach’s relativist Dukakis wrath, the AGW movement is a prime example of what happens when little men, seeking anything to worship except God, resort to scientism and a horribly distorted version of the apocalypse to give themselves a sense of purpose—and power.
>>Most of the developing world has been growing faster than the developed world.>>
Of course. An increase of 2 to 4 is an increase of 100%. An increase of 98 to 100 is an increase of 2% (or close).
The United States wasn’t always the most developed, most prosperous in the world – it got that way through the labor of its people. It took more than 200 years to get where we are now. The only reason we arrived at this point is because of our form of government, and adherence to Judeo-Christian values.
Those values are the biggest difference between Europe, the US and the third world countries.
If the CO2 that is emitted during power generation must be cleaned up, then those who benefit from the emission should be responsible for the costs.
The costs have trickled down. All the cleaning technology the coal and what not industries bought, guess where that went? Consumer costs and company maintenance. Meaning, instead of building another plant and hiring more workers, consumers get to pay more and get less in return, solely because the pollution controls on coal is far higher in terms of percentage costs of the operation than wind or nuclear.
What Z wants to do is put another cost on top of the one that already exists, unto the backs of families.
You should also ask Z to explain how breathing is CO2 neutral but combustion isn’t. You’ll see why he has to define CO2 as a pollutant. Because if it is, you can be billed for emitting it. And maybe the rich will get exemptions by purchasing a redemption when their emissions are deemed “neutral”.
Mike Devx: This “hatred of mankind” group is what underlies the whole “sustainable development” movement.
That’s an overstatement. Though there are groups that have radical views, most planners understand the need for sustainable development, including family planning to reduce population growth. The problem of sustainable development doesn’t go away because you conflate its meaning with the most extreme views in the environmental movement.
suek: Of course. An increase of 2 to 4 is an increase of 100%. An increase of 98 to 100 is an increase of 2% (or close).
That’s right. As we explained several times, industrialization is a short-term phenomena that occurs when low-GDP agricultural workers move into high-GDP industrial jobs. Once this process is more-or-less completed, then growth returns to ‘normal’. There are many other nations that are going through a rapid period of development, as well.
This process of development will result in a huge growth in the middle class, including hundreds of millions of new cars, electric plants sufficient to provide basic amenities and power the factories, and more protein in their diet. All of these have substantial environmental impacts. Many of those impacts are local, which are bad enough, but some impacts are global.
suek: The United States wasn’t always the most developed, most prosperous in the world – it got that way through the labor of its people. It took more than 200 years to get where we are now. The only reason we arrived at this point is because of our form of government, and adherence to Judeo-Christian values.
Good for you. Meanwhile, China has grown to be the second largest economy in the world, and holds a lot of your bonds.
Ymarsakar: All the cleaning technology the coal and what not industries bought, guess where that went?
You are probably referring to sulphur pollution, which causes acid-rain. Well, it turns out that people don’t want their forests to die, and their children to have lung disease. Other countries were concerned when acid-raid crossed international borders. Yes, coal burners have to pay for the damage they do, or better yet, stop the pollution at its source.
Ymarsakar: You should also ask Z to explain how breathing is CO2 neutral but combustion isn’t.
Good question, Ymarsakar. Animal respiration is (generally) carbon-neutral. Plants fix carbon from the atmosphere. Animals eat plants, or eat other animals that eat plants, and metabolize this carbon for energy, releasing the carbon back into the atmosphere.
This is the basic reaction:
Plants
6CO2 + 6H2O + sunlight -> C6H12O6 + 6O2
Plants & Animals
C6H12O6 + 6O2 -> 6CO2 + 6H2O + energy
(C6H12O6 is glucose, a simple sugar.)
On the other hand, burning coal and oil releases carbon that has been sequestered in the ground for millions of years. This increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
>>and holds a lot of your bonds.>>
Hah.
“our” bonds, eh?
>>Plants fix carbon from the atmosphere.>>
Which came first? chicken or the egg??
Z-Team @ 143 says of me:
The problem of sustainable development doesn’t go away because you conflate its meaning with the most extreme views in the environmental movement.
Well, at this point we are now just talking past each other, and it’s probably time to wrap it up (agree to disagree and move on.)
I’ll just offer my concluding statement on this particular debate of ours: I will agree that I am conflating “un-sustainable development” with what you call “the most extreme views”.
I will not agree that I am conflating “sustainable development”. It’s a critical difference. I think “sustainable development” is the weak sister of the *real* belief meme underlying the current environment movement: that of “un-sustainable development”. And I’m not just playing word games here. One is the nice pretty box that is presented to the gullible. The other is the vicious nasty truth hiding within the box – the pessimism, the hatred, the disgust. It’s why you speak of “sustainable development” when you present an image of a polluted river, rather than simply calling it pollution, and the need for us to keep this earth as free of pollution as possible. Why did the words change? Why did it all change from “anti-pollution” to “sustainable development”? Why not speak only of “conservation”, but instead now it must also be wrapped up in “sustainable development”? Why? Because the underlying key concept now is the global problem of “UN-sustainable development” that must be addressed. ”Conservation” and “anti-pollution” are inadequate to the purpose, and have become lesser, almost meaningless terms.
And I think you have contained this within your belief system, and your policies, those “most extreme views”. They’re in there; perhaps you simply can’t see them.
suek: “our” bonds, eh?
Sorry. If you are not a citizen of a country that uses U.S. dollars, euros or yens, then perhaps not.
Zachriel: Plants fix carbon from the atmosphere.
suek: Which came first? chicken or the egg??
It’s a cyclical. Some carbon is fixed in the structure of plants, so tropical forests are large reservoirs of fixed carbon. And some carbon is fixed more-or-less permanently, such as in peats, but this only occurs over geological time scales.
Mike Devx: I will not agree that I am conflating “sustainable development”. It’s a critical difference. I think “sustainable development” is the weak sister of the *real* belief meme underlying the current environment movement: that of “un-sustainable development”.
Current development schemes are non-sustainable, not only in regards to the pollution of air and water in developing countries, but in terms of anthropocentric global warming. All of these are amenable to solutions, though, while still maintaining healthy growth.
Mike Devx: And I’m not just playing word games here… It’s why you speak of “sustainable development” when you present an image of a polluted river, rather than simply calling it pollution, and the need for us to keep this earth as free of pollution as possible.
Of course you’re playing word games.
Zachriel: This is not sustainable development:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v417/n6885/images/417137a-f1.2.jpg
That was an example of non-sustainable development, as it said in the original comment. Sustainable development means limiting pollution, protecting natural biology, reducing population growth, and controlling greenhouse gases.
Mike Devx: Why did the words change? Why did it all change from “anti-pollution” to “sustainable development”? Why not speak only of “conservation”, but instead now it must also be wrapped up in “sustainable development”?
Because the problem is wrapped up in the drive to industrialization in the developing world. It’s important that poor countries develop their industrial capacity in order to provide a better life for their people. However, development at the expense of the future is not sustainable. Hence, planners are trying to find a path to sustainable development.
Mike Devx: ”Conservation” and “anti-pollution” are inadequate to the purpose, and have become lesser, almost meaningless terms.
Those are aspects of sustainable development, and are certainly not meaningless. People who care about people (not just care about Americans per the comment above), are working very hard to find solutions to the problems of poverty, overpopulation and environmental degradation. Nearly all serious planners agree that development is desirable, inevitable, and essential. The problem is how to make it sustainable, but part of the solution will certainly be healthy economic growth.
>>Some carbon is fixed in the structure of plants, so tropical forests are large reservoirs of fixed carbon.>>
Where did the carbon come from for them to “fix”?
Mike, you’re right. It’s time to wrap this up. Zach is doing boilerplate again—endlessly repeating his memes—and nobody here is convinced a whit by his pretense at either knowledge or concern.
On the other hand, burning coal and oil releases carbon that has been sequestered in the ground for millions of years. This increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. ‘
Sorta like forest fires and volcanoes. I don’t notice the LEft trying to make them pay for their CO2 cost, however.
Zachriel: Some carbon is fixed in the structure of plants, so tropical forests are large reservoirs of fixed carbon.
suek: Where did the carbon come from for them to “fix”?
Plants absorb carbon from the atmosphere in the form of CO2. CO2 and water formed the Earth’s primordial atmosphere.
Zachriel: On the other hand, burning coal and oil releases carbon that has been sequestered in the ground for millions of years. This increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
Ymarsakar: Sorta like forest fires and volcanoes. I don’t notice the LEft trying to make them pay for their CO2 cost, however.
Natural forest fires do return carbon to the atmosphere, but typically the forests regrow over time, so the net atmospheric carbon remains the same. On the other hand, volcanoes are an important source of new atmospheric carbon, but this is usually only important over long time spans. Over short time spans, volcanic aerosols are more important in terms of global cooling. Scientists have to account for all this in order to test their models.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_02/
Zachriel: Some carbon is fixed in the structure of plants, so tropical forests are large reservoirs of fixed carbon.
suek: Where did the carbon come from for them to “fix”?
Plants absorb carbon from the atmosphere in the form of CO2. CO2 and water formed the Earth’s primordial atmosphere.
Zachriel: On the other hand, burning coal and oil releases carbon that has been sequestered in the ground for millions of years. This increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
Ymarsakar: Sorta like forest fires and volcanoes. I don’t notice the LEft trying to make them pay for their CO2 cost, however.
Natural forest fires do return carbon to the atmosphere, but typically the forests regrow over time, so the net atmospheric carbon remains the same. On the other hand, volcanoes are an important source of new atmospheric carbon, but this is usually only important over long time spans. Over short time spans, volcanic aerosols are more important in terms of global cooling. Scientists have to account for all this in order to test their models.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_02/
AGW is Anthropogenic Global Warming: caused by humans or GW relating to humans.
There is no such thing as Anthropocenic Global Warming. Why does an AGW proponent often forget the distinction. You’ve mispelled anthropogenic more than once over the last few months. Now a completely new iteration of the conjugation behind anthro-. If the only global warming happened to be centered on human bodies, AGW wouldn’t have enough flex to go with their hoax.
I’m not convinced Z has anything that can be seen as a solution to pollution. And not just because he labels CO2 a pollutant or ignores the impact of carbon credits sold by the Gores of the world on sustainability.
Charles Martel @ 149 : Mike, you’re right. It’s time to wrap this up.
Yes, I should have wrapped up earlier actually. I’d begun repeating myself, which is insulting to others here. I’d done my best to make my point already! Lesson re-learned!
>>CO2 and water formed the Earth’s primordial atmosphere. >>
Without any anthopic input? what percentage of the “greenhouse”, then is due to human causes?
suek: Without any anthopic input? what percentage of the “greenhouse”, then is due to human causes?
The atmosphere has changed a great deal since those days. For instance, there was no free oxygen, which is a product of photosynthesis. (See equation above.) The world has been far hotter and far colder than today, sea levels have been much higher and at other times much lower, all due to natural causes; but you wouldn’t want to live then.
Today, most of the greenhouse effect is due to naturally occurring water vapor and CO2. That’s not the problem. It’s the *change* that matters to humans, whether your crops will grow, whether you will have drinking water, whether your coastlines will be inundated. The scientific evidence indicates that the anomalous change in climate occurring today is most certainly due to human activity.