I don’t know. Do you have a study giving how much benefit this would provide and, ideally, at what cost?
Might be? Then it might also be near zero.
Your comment is another reason why the number one priority to address global warming should be climate engineering research.
Your “key point,” also believed by millions of others, could be just as effective as Maoism. People in almost all countries, except China, are freely deciding they won’t have as many children as their parents did. Half the world’s population is at sub-replacement fertility, with the US recently added to their ranks.
As for declining population, the effects of this on the environmentalist movement seem to me much more predictable than the effects of pushing a given unit of CO2 emission from this year to next. Society will spend more and more, proportionately, on taking care of the elderly, leaving less for environmentalist intiatives. This from my last link suggests the predictable US political effect of the voluntary family size limitation already underway:
I’m in the camp that says that the ultimate effects of global warming are unknown. I have the sense that focusing on negative effects makes it a little easier to proselytize for a Great Cause. We love Great Causes, psychologically. I’m fine with making a suppositon that global warming is mostly bad (although I am not currently personally shorting coastal properties).
I’m in the camp that says the degree to which it’s anthropogenic is unknown, although I’m fine with assigning the problem 100% to humans, and fine with assigning to humans the responsibility to ameliorate it.
If we agree (because of the potentially disastrous consequences of taking an incorrect position that humans are not the cause) that global warming is 100% anthropogenic, then the camp I’m in says “The root problem is too many people.” If we can’t or won’t solve that, everything else is spitting in the wind.
We’ve overrun the earth. Our species is consuming the earth’s resources at a staggering rate, and we’re making more of us at an equally alarming rate. Imagine that, tomorrow, an effective and intelligent government created an unlimited supply of free, green energy. What would happen? Well, the species would expand even more rapidly, and what little is left of the earth’s undisturbed ecosystem would be corralled to support us.
The thing is, free green energy won’t come about tomorrow, and it won’t come about in time to swap out the current carbon grid. We can probably do things that will help it come about faster, but right now the demands of the developing world to catch up in consumption will outpace the ability to create enough energy from all sources–green and carbon.
Our problem is too many people wanting to consume too much.
On the consumption front, I have not seen any convincing evidence that either Mr Gore or I will be inclined to consume less. We are equal participants in the tragedy of the commons.
As to the “too many people” front, overpopulation does not have the panache to become a Great Cause. Most of our population explosion is in the developing world, and there just isn’t much enthusiasm on the part of the West to sterilize developing nation mothers so we can continue to fly our private jets in peace.
We are tackling AGW with great enthusiasm because it’s a fabulous Great Cause. It binds us together in a march for Significance the way good religions do. Like other religions, it’s prone to ignoring the most painful realities (in this case, an oversuccessful species) and so it’s just not going to do much to actually save the earth.
It is for these reasons that most people will choose to live their personal lives as richly as possible, global consequences notwithstanding. At the individual level, participation in the tragedy of the commons is a rational choice, even if you understand the result in toto is tragedy. In that sense, much of the current AGW enthusiasm is quixotic.
But hey; if it makes you feel good, have at it. I just need to stick my finger up in the wind to decide where my financial investments need to be. If that the Cape Wind farm comes over Robert Kennedy Jr’s* dead body to Nantucket, I’m all over the IPO if the numbers are good (turns out they are probably horrible numbers, but that’s not the point). My own Great Cause is to not retire on the public dole.
And there is something missing here, as pointed before the vast majority of environmentalists also mention the population issue, just like his misguided economical points now he is just repeating another strawman.
In essence the Chief uses the population issue as yet another reason why not to do anything, forgetting once again that this is a problem that can be decoupled from our population growth as humanity has done with many other problems in the past.
The point on that stands, for many other reasons we all also have a responsibility to reduce our population, and education and economics are also the key here, the problem has been that people like the Chief are telling us that we can not walk and chew gum at the same time.
(Plan B, Lester Brown. PDF file)
The truth is that serious environmentalists do not shy away from the population issue but that is not the only thing they recommend us to do. And there are many, many climate change deniers that actually use the say so’s of environmentalists or popularizers of the issue and use scare tactics on anyone that mentions solutions for the population issue as proponents of China’s one-child-only or of other draconian ideas so as to discredit the proponents of AGW.
You can not win with the proponents of nonsense crowd.
In this case the Chief is better, but he relies on omission and accusations of religion to convince others that environmentalists are not talking about the population issue also.
When you first challenged my reading skills, it was with this:
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.”
Nowhere did I suggest that you had directed a hypocrisy charge against Mr Buffet.
It appears to me you’d rather attack reading and writing skills (GIGObuster excepted), or threaten Derision, than actually make a substantive point.
What substantive point would you like to make about whether or not a carbon tax will reduce the deficit by 50% in 2022? Gb did not “make a slip.” He advanced a typically overenthusiastic position about an unsubstantiated benefit of a carbon tax. I do not believe he has returned yet to defend that nonsense, but I’ll be interested in his reply.
And I will try to actually understand it…not simply accuse him of illiteracy.
You got a fat guy. He needs to get thinner. He eats 5 roast chickens a day and he has one Heath bar at night.
Your first five recommendations need to be about those chickens.
AGW enthusiasts are all over ways to approach his Heath bar addiction, and mention the chickens in the footnotes.
Will you be returning to retract your cite about the carbon tax’s 50% redution of the 2022 budget deficit? I spent hours pouring over the US budget to create a nice rebuttal, and now it’s drifted away on the warming ocean currents.
Why thank you for the passive aggression, but in reality you are not paying attention, as pointed many times before in other subjects.
I already replied to that:
You are only touching on a side issue to avoid the fact that you can not defend the original idea that governments are incapable of doing intelligent things. But even there the point you are making is misguided.
It is like the fact checkers that attempted to discredit people that mentioned in the health care issue that thousands of Americans were going bankrupt every day due to health care costs, and so reform is needed; the point they used against that was that it was not correct, data showed actually that someone filed for bankruptcy roughly every 30 seconds when reform was being discussed in congress. But even a very high estimate would only attribute half of those personal bankruptcies to medical expenses. So that’s one health-related bankruptcy every minute at most.
So, we should forget about the issue. Never mind that there are still thousands of people in the USA going bankrupt. :rolleyes:
One more thing, this post was made humoring your sorry point, once again, the issue is to give incentives to people so they control carbon emissions, your side beef is only with how much the deficit will be reduced, as it turns out, even if one grants what you are trying to do here the point stands, one big chunk of the deficits is coming or will come from the expenses on dealing with our adaptations to the changes brought by AGW, it may be necessary to eventually increase that tax or regulations to cover the difference.
Why thank you for allowing me to be more emphatic, you are only showing all that you are not paying attention. So, emphasis once again that the point stands, as the Grist cite and many other before showed, the advice on population control is there on the record, your emphasis on minimizing what environmentalists, scientists and popularizers of the issue are actually saying is only possible by your constant omission.
And once again for emphasis, let there be noticed that you are basing this request on an alternative numbers proposed also by the same group that supports the 50% number. Sad really, the only thing you can get is then an alternative take that then if the numbers are low the tax will have to be increased, but once again not at levels that will end civilization.
What I have seen from other economists that deal with the issue is that the points here against the taxation are still nonsensical.
BTW Nordhouse and others reported that 20 years ago, even then the science was clear, nowadays Nordhouse is even more emphatic as the science is even more clear and there is more evidence that the costs of adaptation will be even more than the early estimates.
Gb, I’m trying…I’m really trying…to figure out what you are saying.
Let me attempt a reply after I’ve had a nap.
I looked through that Plan B cite (thank you; I enjoyed it), and although the population problem is “mentioned,” I can’t figure out what the exact proposal is to manage it beyond family planning clinics and marketing the notion to the masses. Can you help?
It seems like his point is that the population will stabilize at 8B, because either family planning will work (even thought the UN forgot to include it in their Millenial Development Goals), or that developing nation populations will croak off naturally because they outstrip their resources. “The question is not whether population growth will come to a halt before reaching 9.2 billion but whether it will do so because the world shifts quickly to smaller families or because it fails to do so—and population growth is checked by rising mortality” Sounds like the guy has me and Bob Malthus both beat for pessimism.
In the chapter on stabilizing population (he combines this w/ eradicating hunger, disease and poverty), Mr Brown does focus on the general idea that better family planning is the way to go to actually reduce population (since improving living conditions would only increase population by reducing natural mortality). He cites Iran as a success story. He concludes (p 185), “Put simply, filling the family planning gap may be the
most urgent item on the global agenda.”
But, aside from my skepticism that family planning will work in time to stave off population growth, I just don’t see the average AGW enthusiast giving population control much more than “a mention.”
It doesn’t seem like the AGW world beyond Mr Brown has near as much fun talking about how to control population as they do how to tax carbon or switch to hybrids.
Missing the point again, the reality is that they do mention family planning and population control, you are reduced to claim that in your opinion the solutions there are not good enough, fair enough, but unrelated to the point. One should not go for rhetoric that ignores what the environmentalists, scientists and popularizers of science are actually saying.
And as Grist mentions it, population control is a good idea, but they also report that most of the action in the population issue is to deal with skeptics that claim that environmentalists are talking too much about population control and only proposing draconian actions. Most of those skeptics are the same that mislead people with FUD regarding all other issues related to climate science.
The point here is that while you are wrong for omitting what others are saying, other more important skeptics continue to poison the issue going in another direction. This shows that the proponents of AGW and the solutions they recommend are more in tune with reality as the only thing I see coming from the other side is more typical inconsistency, a trait of false skepticism.
Where I part ways with you, Chief Pedant, is in your wholly defeatist attitude. A carbon tax would raise $X ? Well then, let’s replace one future deficit estimate with one that’s $X larger (neverminding that it wouldn’t be $X larger with the carbon tax factored in).
I’d seen you as a kindred spirit – motivated by rational thought whether it aligned with the “left” or the “right.” But recently,
If there’s political will, jet fuel prices can be raised enough to reduce travel.
:smack: I wrote earlier that change will come, if at all, from intelligent and effective government, not from personal sacrifices. I think most would agree with that, yet your entire case seems to rest on the notion that government can never be effective. Do you have a cite that the U.S. never landed on the Moon? A cite that smallpox wasn’t eradicated? A cite that you’ve not recently converted to become a silly right-winger of the Limbaugh-Ryan ilk?
Whenever the evil government taxes an extra $1, it’ll find a way to spend more than $1? Please tell me I’m misreading you here.
Sure; some of what I’ve written is just hyperbole. Plain old rhetoric. Plain old fun pulling GIGObuster’s oversincere chain and seeing what pops out of him. I’m kind of addicted to seeing if I can unravel the prose and get to his point. It beats Sudoku for mental exercise. But I don’t really think I should be a jerk consuming mine before anyone else gets their’s. I actually live very simply considering the fact that I’m not poor. My car’s 10 years old b/c I don’t need a new one. etc. (Full disclosure; the wife has a brand new Mercedes SUV. So I’m not exactly innocent of a CO2 footprint, either.)
Rush Limbaugh? I have never listened. I’m a big NPR fan, which is not to pretend I don’t think they are pansy-assed liberals. They are. But I love 'em. Call me fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I don’t care who you sleep with or what recreational drugs you use. I think you should be responsible for drinking yourself into the grave, and I don’t think my tax money should be wasted on you if you are not personally responsible. I don’t think government is either intelligent or efficient or particularly effective, especially at a federal level. That doesn’t mean they don’t do anything productive.
I think I am a defeatist when it comes to the AGW crisis, for all of the reasons I’ve mentioned above. At the same time I do think I have a responsibility to lobyy for change, and to pay carbon taxes, if they come my way, even though I don’t think they will work.
I’m also a straight dope kind of guy. I believe in bluntly stating what I see as truth, even if it’s not popular. I truly don’t see any realistic chance of ameliorating AGW, again for the reasons I’ve mentioned. I’m not inclined to become Don Quixote.
On the tax front: Here is a chart for historical US government revenue. Here’s one for our gross public debt.
Lots of ways to spin these numbers, but yeah; I think for every dollar we raise in revenue we simply find ways to spend more than a dollar.
We won’t make carbon taxes revenue neutral. They will be one more income source, and they’ll allow us to put in place programs that cost even more than the tax raises.
And for super sure, they won’t reduce the deficit. Period.
They will open up a floodgate of inter-nation harping. That’s gonna be interesting. They are functionally a production tax for high-manufacturing nations, and as such will start a trade fight.
Even on this you are wrong, I’m already on the record mentioning that my main reason for posting is for the information of others on what experts do actually report, I also post because I truly wonder where the misguided information is coming from, what I have seen so far points to places as un-NPR as anyone can imagine.
BTW while I do post to figure out where the information is coming from and show how faulty the meta-cognition is of an opponent it seems to me that your described methods of pulling the chains of others are not kosher for this message board.
This sounds very much like an admission of trolling, and it looks like you did plenty of it in this thread. This is a formal warning: don’t do it again.
Thanks for the reminder, although I think you are being more than a bit oversensitive.
In every vigorous debate on this board, there’s plenty of rhetorical hyperbole, and the fact that I openly admit to indulging in occasional hyperbole hardly seems worthy of a warning. Are you able to cite a single example from the “plenty” of trolling that I have done? I find that charge ridiculously overstated. Perhaps you have not had a chance to read over GIGObuster’s comments about me (as for example, his ridiculous nonsense about me indulging in conspiracies).
It’s my observation that it’s a little easier to define “trolling” as the guy with whom you disagree baiting the guy with whom you agree, and not the other way around.
I am essentially unconcerned with SDMB moderator sanctions. I’ve said it before: You guys have the right to run a message board the way you see fit. You’ve given me the option of posting here. If we are incompatible, I sort of doubt either one of us will suffer a life crisis. Here’s the basic deal, right? : I post whatever I want, and you decide if the SDMB will let me post at all. I think that’s a fair deal, and I want to encourage you not to worry too much about creating formal warnings or anything as far as I’m concerned.
I think I take the time to create researched positions that are carefully worded. I don’t think I offend. The idea I “troll” for a response is just plain unsupported. But hey; you’re the mod; take whatever action you want, protecting any policy you think needs protection, based on any violation of board rules that you perceive. In the long run, the SDMB will thrive or wither based on the market, and the quality of debate in this particular section will reflect moderator decisions about who is worthy of posting.
*In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. "
FWIW, I don’t think Chief Pedant was trolling. He may have used strong rhetoric, or even exaggeration, but that’s a useful way to make a point.
My quarrel with the Chief is not his rhetoric or exaggerations but that some of his points are simply wrong.
The links are to the same page, but it doesn’t matter – I clicked only out of politeness. Correlations do not prove causality. Moreover I doubt the correlation: GWB’s tax cut were accompanied by a huge spending binge; Clinton’s tax hikes were accompanied by spending cuts that led to the biggest deficit reductions in history.
I’ve summarized the amazing story of the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act – which passed Congress with ZERO Republican votes – before at SDMB. That most right-wing Dopers (and it might appear Chief Pedant) overlook this story is a tribute to pernicious and pervasive right-wing propaganda. In any event the 1993 Budget consigns Chief Pedant’s claim about tax-spending causality to the scrap heap of failed arguments.
I’m not warning you for hyperbole. The issue is this:
This implied that a significant chunk of your participation in this thread was posted just to annoy GIGObuster. If you have other questions, please ask them by private message or an ATMB thread.
Not to distract the thread, but to finish the point…
Clinton is my hero for being fiscally responsible.
Bush2 and Obama are my goats for squandering money (Bush on unintelligent and ineffective warring against nations; Obama on unintelligent and ineffective social spending).
As to causation: in the current political climate, what happens is that we use increased revenue to increase borrowing power. And we are borrowing insane amounts.
I think it’s pollyannish to propose that a carbon tax would be revenue neutral, even though I agree that if it were revenue neutral, that would be a good thing.
My view of the current political climate is that both parties in power have become fiscally irresponsible, and we have passed the tipping point for being able to fix it. Along with my defeatist attitude toward AGW, I am confident we will fail economically. Consider that in only 6 months (see my reply to GIGObuster, above), the CBO doubled its deficit estimate.
The same tragedy of the commons which drives personal consumptive behaviour ahead of the common good, drives personal fiscally irresponsible behaviour ahead of the common fiscal stability. We are all going to try and get ours (including controlling our own money instead of letting the government control it, ala Buffet and me), even if we all make the assumption we contribute to a fiscally unsustainable outcome.
He is clearly still acting like if I had not replied to his **alternate **numbers from the same outfit that supported the 50% number.
I do not think he is exaggerating, he is evading.
Of curse, the Chief continues to be wrong and only jumps to continue with points that only shows complete ignorance or avoidance of what one has replied even in the thread, in this case, never mind that it was shown with examples that governments can do the job, but then again there are voters that forget we have to tell the ones using religion on this subject to take a hike.
(Congressman John Shimkus (R) that invited Lord Monkton to testify in congress supporting him and using the bible to claim god will not allow man to change the climate around 6:23)
And the Chief is also wrong on the “passing a tipping point and unable to fix it”, what the science says is that while we are committed to more climate disruptions and change in the future, by not doing anything to control emissions the situation will get worse if the choice is to indeed avoid implementing regulations and a tax to carbon emissions.
Once again, the point of the Chief is to ignore the already mentioned item that any deficit that will be found in a carbon tax is just gravy and changing conditions just means that then other regulations and increases are recommended. The main reason why a carbon tax has to be implemented is that at least the revenue will have to be used to deal with the change that is coming, and to help prevent even more harmful changes in the climate and to encourage change in what we consume, and it does not lead to the end of progress.
:smack: I wrote earlier that change will come, if at all, from intelligent and effective government, not from personal sacrifices. I think most would agree with that, yet your entire case seems to rest on the notion that government can never be effective. Do you have a cite that the U.S. never landed on the Moon? A cite that smallpox wasn’t eradicated? A cite that you’ve not recently converted to become a silly right-winger of the Limbaugh-Ryan ilk?