You seem to be under the very odd impression that your defense renders the issue moot. That’s pretty funny. And the fact is that he does view guys like you as religionists. I can’t tell you how shocked I am that you and your brethren would seek to disparage him in order to more easily ignore his criticism. Not only must one believe, but one must accept the religion in total. Can I get that AMEN now, brother?
Oh, is this the part where you attempt to dismiss concerns over whether we’re affecting the climate as “religion”? 'Cause I love that part.
Gb, with all due respect, you are completely missing the point.
You seem to be automatically assuming that anyone skeptical of the climate change movement (so to speak), is a Denier of the Science.
Get past that, would you, at least in replying to me?
The point I am making is that we will not change, whether or not we elect to take a position on the sciences.
We are not going to sacrifice our personal lifestyle for the common good. Period.
We aren’t going to pay carbon taxes (even if they would help). We don’t care if it will be more expensive later.
The Thames is in my backyard today, as is the Cuyahoga. The putative consequence of AGW is tomorrow. Moreover, there is a sense that the Thames is a narrow-enough focus to be fixable, with very specific budget and plan. Get hold of this difference, and you’ll understand why I am skeptical that enough–or even, very many–of us will sacrifice anything at all of significance for the common good. The sacrifices are too large for a disaster too removed.
We do not act rationally. We act selfishly. Al Gore does; I do; I bet you do.
AGW is lots and lots of fun to get on a soap box about. We love that feeling of preaching against the sins of humanity. It generates in us a sense of significance, and aggrandizes us as proponents of a Great Cause. Then we hop on our private jets and go buy new golf clubs to be used at the Pudong Ritz. If we don’t have that kind of money, we at least go looking for a used car to replace our bicycles.
Then the next day we send a letter to the government to Do Something. Just not anything that will genuinely inconvenience us personally.
Here’s my choice: This, or doing something about AGW. Which do you think I will choose?
What you only show is denial of what the economist reported, not paying for things that will be needed like a carbon tax is also denying that I posted a report that even China s considering it, also that Australia and other nations are doing it.
And already in a previous thread I described how in the USA rivers were being swallowed by detergent pollution, our “Thames” cleanup was a combination of government regulations and industry reforms that took care of the issue, once again a clear example that your talk of inaction based on convenience and ineffective government is just defeatist by assuming nothing similar was done before when history has many examples.
The reason for the inaction in a front like a carbon tax in places like the USA remains political in nature (and there is a demonstrated religious angle on that opposition to change) and still pushing for Gore just shows all that that is the intention, it is just recommending all to do noting just because it is convenient, missing the point that inconveniences are part of the price to pay for continuing with civilization.
The other day I went to the doctor and he said “Larry, your cholesterol is nearing 300! You need to cut down on pizza and nachos, and get some more exercise.” This upset me because I love pizza and nachos and hate exercise. But then I spotted him at Angelico’s pizzeria, and I suddenly noticed he had a bit of a paunch himself. So that means I can eat all the pizza and nachos I want and it won’t do me any harm at all. Logic!
I can also quote you a study that there is no scientific consensus that cholesterol exists. It is published by the Pizza and Nachos Enterprise Institute.
Your analogy is a bit confused. You’ve made one with a one to one relationship between your behaviour and what happens to you.
Read a little about what the concept of the tragedy of the commons is, and try again.
Worse, the effects of AGW will not even accrue at all to most of us living now–particularly guys like Al and me who only have a few years left (especially Al, who seems to be overindulging in pizza as heartily as he overindulges in energy consumption).
You can, in fact, produce all the CO2 you want, and no more harm will come to you personally than if you lived in a Tanzanian tent. While you are out suffering in your tent, it’s gonna start eating at you a little that me and Al Gore are living quite well, thank you very much. Unless you are extraordinarily altruistic and idealistic, you’ll come on out of the tent figuring you might as well get yours while it’s gettable, and act in your own self-interest. That becomes the rational decision for you, because not enough people are going to join you in the Tanzanian tent life to prevent the ultimate negative consequence from happening.
Well, you’re right that the reason we don’t have a tax is political. I mean, the effective and intelligent governments mentioned above should have put an international one in place by now, right?
This is where we need a SDMB for Great Bets. My bet is that carbon taxes will be given little more than lip service, especially once any actually get implemented. They will be a worse farce than carbon offsets.
When I see Al Gore inconveniencing himself, I’ll start to have some hope for civilization in general. On the other hand, it’s not the end of the world if we are the last humans to walk the earth. It’s just the end of another species, and perhaps even a species that has reigned a bit too supreme. My personal bet is we’ll figger out how to live with a scorched earth as our burgeoning population continues to consume it other ways.
Moving the goal posts, lets remember that you claimed just a few post before that it was impossible for governments to do that, it was so inconvenient.
And moving the goal posts along…
.. With once again a dig at Gore, a now useless but just revealing to all maneuver on how you have nothing else to go on than a strawman.
Not realistic as the costs are adding up, at least for the ones that check the data and not just the sand some want to stick their heads into.
You’re gonna make stuff come out my nose snorting over the idea that a carbon tax will reduce a projected ten year US budget deficit by 50%.
And we’re dropping at the added rate of 400,000 people per year right now b/c of AGW?
Let’s just take a closer look at the insane “budget deficit” statement, shall we?
The article you cite is in turn citing this paragraph from the Congressional Research Service.
“Carbon tax revenues would vary greatly depending on the design features of the tax, as well as market factors that are difficult to predict. One study estimated that a tax rate of $20 per metric ton of CO2 would generate approximately $88 billion in 2012, rising to $144 billion by 2020. The impact such an amount would have on budget deficits depends on which budget deficit projection is used. For example, this estimated revenue source would reduce the 10-year budget deficit by 50%, using the 2012 baseline projection of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). However, under CBO’s alternative fiscal scenario, the same carbon tax would reduce the 10-year budget deficit by about 12%.”
So just a few clarifications, Gb:
First, the point they are making is that a carbon tax could reduce the budget deficit to the extent the entire tax revenue was applied toward the budget deficit. In other words, they are trying to sell the economic advantage of a carbon tax by pretending that it will reduce the deficit, but it turns out the only way it reduces the deficit is because it is…a new tax. A new tax of 1.2 trillion dollars over ten years. By that logic of benefit, why not make it $40/ton and get rid of the deficit? Hooray! Deficit problem solved!
Second, the projected budget deficit numbers they use are insanely optimistic. They are using 2012 Congressional Budget Office projections, and they are using the “baseline” projection, which is by far the most optimistic. This way, they can glibly state that a carbon tax of $20/ton could reduce the budget deficit by 50% in ten years. How insanely optimistic? Well, Gb, you’ll be sad to hear that last month, the CBO raised their projected ten year budget deficit to 4.6 trillion from the 2.3 trillion number of August, 2012. In other words,** in only 6 months they decided they were off by a factor of 100%!** Does this strike you as idiotic? Because it is. The idea that you can use “future budget projections” as if they are some sort of actual reasonable guesstimate is risible. See page 25 of that CRS to see the CBO’s “alternative fiscal scenario” for the budget deficit and ask yourself how likely it is the baseline projected deficit will be only $200B in 2022. That’s just crazy talk. The “alternative” projection of 1.3 Trillion is more like it, and in that scenario, raising $160B from a carbon tax in 2022 reduces the deficit something closer to 12%–not 50%.
The idea that revenue raised with a carbon tax is going to go directly toward reducing the deficit and nothing else is…stupid. We are in the habit of taxing whatever we can, using the money to create more government, and in general spending even more than we take in. If we raise revenue by a dollar, you can safely bet we will raise spending by more than a dollar. Here’s what will happen: a huge fight over what to do with all that new revenue. From the CRS discussion I cited:
*"Carbon tax revenues may be used to achieve a variety of policy goals. However, one revenue use necessarily forgoes the opportunity to apply that level of revenue to support other objectives, like deficit reduction. Therefore, in deciding how to allocate carbon tax revenues, policymakers would encounter trade-offs among objectives. Such trade-offs include
- minimizing economy-wide costs resulting from a carbon tax;
- alleviating the costs borne by subgroups in the U.S. population, regions, economic sectors, and generations; and
- supporting specific policy objectives, such as deficit reduction, climate change mitigation, energy efficiency, technological advances, domestic employment, or energy diversity."*
The craziest notion (read the article) is finding ways to return the carbon tax to the people who paid it. Lessee here…tax the guy to provide a negative consumption incentive, then return the money so the tax doesn’t hurt him. More stuff is coming out my nose. You tax me an extra dollar on gasoline so I don’t use as much, then give me the dollar back (less your big government cut) so the tax doesn’t hurt me. Guess what I’m going to do with that returned dollar? (Hint: Use it to help me buy something that just got more expensive at a place whose initials are BP.)
Let me just summarize for you, GIGObuster: We need to stop the bullshit.
I’ve actually taken Chief Pedant’s side, to some degree, in this and related threads but he’s such a write-only blusterer he’s hardly noticed I was on his side. (For example, when I accused those who condemn Al Gore – and thus by extension Chief Pedant – of hypocrisy, he misread it as my accusing Al Gore of hypocrisy. This is a misconstruction which would be impossible if he had spent as much as two seconds reading my paragraph. But he’d begrudge the two seconds as wasted, since he could be spending them posting more gibberish.)
And gibberish his latest post is indeed:
So the meme that a government which placed a man on the Moon, won World Wars, eradicated smallpox, etc. can “never be intelligent and effective” has degenerated into the meme that no taxes are wise, dem styuupid liburuls will jus find new ways to waste our money."
I’d had respect for you before, Chief Pedant, but am afraid you’re soon to join the group of Dopers who deserve only derision.
Wow. Did you also join in the $99/hour minimum wage sarcasm? The “raising taxes to 38% is the moral equivalent of raising them to 99%” camp? You’ll need to recant this statement, or, in future, get only derision from me.
Which is it? The liberuls want to steal your money and spend it stupidly, or they want to steal your money and give it back to you? The fact that you hold both thoughts simultaneously suggests to me that you know your “arguments” are just fantasy.
The purpose of revenue-neutral taxes is to change incentives. You’re smart enough to know this. I suggest you take a deep breath in future before posting and demonstrate intelligence, not just raw misdirected anger.
Yeah, the Chief’s arguments are ridiculous and I am unable to decide if he is just arguing to be obtuse and contraian, or if he truly is that pessimistic and defeatist.
Thing thing that really gets me about the denialists and do nothing folks (regardless of the reason they say we should do nothing), is that it is a short sighted policy. Regardless of why the climate is changing or whether we are successful in stopping it or even whether India or china burns 10x the coal they are burning now; the world is going to spend billions if not trillions on climate change mitigation technologies in the next century. Regardless of what we do policy wise here in the states, this is going to be a huge driver of the world economy over the next hundred years. Clean energy, carbon sequestration, bio fuels, conservation strategies; these will be to the 21st century what the automobile and airplane were to the 20th. It seems silly not to try to cash in on it.
I know what the tragedy of the commons is and I share your pessimism that anything will get done, though I think you present a false dichotomy between living as a modern American and living in a tent. My post was merely in response to those who seem to think that because Al Gore is a hypocrite, Global warming doesn’t exist. You don’t seem to be in that camp.
Thanks for that guys, indeed one of the main meta points was to show who is really piling up the bullshit.
And besides that, the latest post from the Chief was only to deal with the gravy point that the tax of carbon could reduce the deficit by a lot, pointing out more recent developments on what the deficit is going does **nothing **to deal with the point that many nations already do that or are going to implement similar ideas to control emissions by putting a real cost to the use of fossil fuels. A carbon tax is only part of the solution regarding the deficit, not the only one; however, on the subject at hand the point stands. Carbon taxes or other ways to assign real costs to our emissions are coming, specially after many even here can see how silly or non existent the counter arguments are.
I pointed before (in an unrelated thread) that followers of conspiracy theories are very susceptible for falling for many others, even unrelated ones to what we are discussing. In this case I still have doubts the Chief is really so pure on not denying climate change, but what it comes out from him that a carbon tax should amount to a conspiracy from government if it is implemented. That only works by ignoring once again the scientists and even economists that report on the costs we will have to deal if we continue to ignore the issue.
Sorry to disappoint you, chum, but I do believe we are indeed affecting the planet’s climate.
But maybe it will turn out to be short-sighted to think that burning all fairly easily recoverable fossil fuels is preventable.
In as much as anti-carbon fuel efforts are successful, most of what they do is take some carbon we would have burned his year and instead burn it next year. But since CO2 remains in the air for decades at a minimum, and maybe millennia, pushing the burning down the road a few months, or, at most, years, will do little to mitigate global warming.
Therefore, efforts should focus on climate engineering research and, if that doesn’t work out, mitigation efforts such as seawalls.
The situation is indeed analogous to cholesterol and diet, as mentioned by several posters, but not in the way meant. A massive effort to change diet might reduce your cholesterol by ten percent. Generally speaking, that natural way isn’t sufficient, which is why half of elderly Americans are taking statins. The natural route for global warming is, like dietary change, generally insufficient. So I see a combination of civil and climate engineering in our future.
P.S. If this sounds like a GOP post, I instead suggest that Democrats are more likely to fund both scientific research and big civil engineering projects.
P.P.S. In case I’m wrong, I try keeping a low carbon footprint anyway. Al Gore and I are both hypocrites, just in the opposite direction 
Carbon has non-fuel uses, e.g. manufacture of plastics. With the right incentives, and assuming discarded plastic is sequestered rather than incinerated, might not CO2 be reduced?
Anyway, due to unknown non-linearities, even a modest delay in CO2 emissions might be very beneficial.
A key point where Chief Pedant is correct (and other Dopers wrong, IMHO) is that reducing the human population is very desirable for CO2 and for several other reasons. With the exception of China’s One-Child program, I’ve no suggestion for achieving this, however.
I am convinced that everyone who reads this post has already been directly and substantially harmed by the increased competition for resources that must inevitably follow from 7 billion persons having to eke out their existence upon a planet that only 3 billion were fighting over just 50 years ago.
So yeah, I agree with Pedant on this one.
Why thank you for these assorted words of wisdom. I have been worried that you might put me on your “Derided” list, and now you’ve got me terrified.
A brief note on the Al Gore “hypocrisy” exchange.
Your original comment was:
By septimus:
“Did you manage to misread my post badly enough to think the hypocrisy charge was directed against Buffett?? This confirms what I’d already suspected: Your writing skills are better than your reading skills.”
I replied “not at all,” and wondered “who you think is natteringly hypocritical toward Al Gore in your above post, and how it is they are being hypocritical?”
You replied thusly:
By septimus:
*"I was describing as “hypocritical” the people who stupidly condemn Buffett for not increasing his taxes voluntarily. **‘Hypocritical’ may not seem like the best adjective to use, but I lacked the motivation to defend the hypocrisy charge *elaborately or to consult a thesaurus for a weaker adjective.
To explain why I charge the natterers with hypocrisy would be a diversion."
In short, you misread my original post, and then you backed away from defending your term “hypocritical” to describe people who condemn Buffet.
I recommend more practice with your reading skills.
Back to intelligent government and taxes.
I made a point about the carbon tax in response to an assertion in a quote by GIGObuster that a carbon tax could reduce the deficit by 50%.
I basically argued that it won’t reduce the deficit 50% as suggested in GIGObuster’s quote because his deficit number is insanely wrong and because the revenue is more likely to be used for purposes other than reducing the deficit. It’s completely bogus marketing to pretend a side benefit of a carbon tax is any substantial deficit reduction.
Now you’ve unilaterally decided I belong in some sort of liberal camp. Read your gibberish above. It’s not even good rhetoric. It’s just flinging mud–or bullshit.
Do you have any actual counterpoint to make on the argument I was posting that GIGObuster’s 50% deficit-reduction dream for a carbon tax has any chance at all of becoming a reality?
Or do you just like to pretend that your’re in charge of who gets derided, and that posting silly distortions of a contrary view and amounts to a great debate?
Finally, on the “revenue neutral” front:
A carbon tax cannot simultaneously reduce the deficit (Gb’s marketing ploy for it) and be revenue neutral. One needs to pick one or the other to market it. If it is truly revenue neutral, it ceases to become an incentive for change since the revenue returned to the taxpayer can be used to pay the increased price of the product which has been negatively incentivized by the tax. However, my personal skepticisim of our effective and intelligent government is that the revenue will be used to neither reduce the deficit nor create a refund for other taxes, even if we put a man on the moon and stopped polio.
It is a fallacy to think that simply because some government initiatives have been successful, government can accomplish anything. I am particularly skeptical of government’s ability to effectively curb worldwide consumption through carbon taxes.
I wrote
To which you responded
Your repetition of “nattering hypocrisy” strongly suggests that you had misplaced my antecedent. Your subsequent correction occurred only after my later reply.
I don’t have time to reply to the rest of your post now, except to recommend this:
If GIGObuster accidentally conflated two different versions of a carbon tax, it was your duty, as an honest seeker of truth, to deal with the stronger version, not to nitpick GIGO’s slip.