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.
Analogy. The wrong-headed charge against Gore has essentially the same flaws as the charge against Buffett. To explain why I charge the natterers with hypocrisy would be a diversion.
“Draconian reductions” will seem hyperbolic to Europeans, largely more content than Americans with far less carbon use.
I agree that directing public policy intelligently on the issue is difficult. That’s a reason to try harder, not give up.
If you’ve understood my comments about Gore and Buffett, you know you have my blessing to selfishly fly private jet. Change will come, if at all, from intelligent governance, not personal sacrifice.
When you are assigning a CO2 footprint, the only way to do it fairly is to assign to the end consumer (on a per capita basis, for a whole country) the total CO2 required to sustain their lifestyle. If I make a lot of money because I have a banking-based economy, but I import my food, cars, carpets and golf clubs, I don’t get to boast about my low footprint until I calculate into the equation the CO2 production cost of all I consume. While carbon footprint calculators like to focus on easy stuff like what kind of car you drive or where you like to fly, it’s also things like whether or not you want to fly first class (much less efficient), or change out your carpets, or stay in high end hotels, or…well; you get the idea.
It would, in fact, require a severe reduction in consumption from the developed world to literally reduce world emissions because much of the world is still developing, and on their way up they are increasing their consumption rapidly. All of that consumption has a very large energy requirement and a rapidly expanding carbon footprint. In addition, it’s unfair to assign to a developing country the carbon output required for them to manufacture goods purchased elsewhere. I don’t get to purchase my new golf clubs every year and assign the CO2 cost of producing them to China. I’m the one whose profligacy generated that carbon, and whose personal behaviour change can stop it from being generated while I wait for them to swap out their energy grid for renewables.
I do not share your faith in intelligent governance. Beyond that, I see no mechanism by which government could successfully reduce consumption. We all want to be Al Gore (and thank you for your blessing there).
Given that we all want to live as high off the hog as possible, no government intervention is going to be successful at lowering our standard. Government does not have the remotest hope of getting me and Al to stop flying first class. What is left, then, is cleaner energy. That’s pretty much it. Clean energy lets us consume like crazy. Cheap clean energy will let us consume the entire earth (another issue).
I haven’t seen any numbers for a swap to clean energy add up. By 2050 or so, 9 billion people will be clamoring to be like me. We’ll need every Kw of energy from every possible source to get them all their stuff.
It’s fun to preach doom, and fun to demand change. Doom may happen, but change won’t, I’m afraid.
Carbon tax. You could even graduate it so the first x tons are taxed at a lower rate. I can see how this might not reduce consumption, but it it would push people toward smarter consumption. Why do you think this would be unsuccessful? Economic incentives almost always work, invisible hand and all that.
Yes, this is probably true. I have a lot of hopes for greater efficiency (which we have been doing a decent job of obtaining, not enough but we have not been trying that hard) and new technologies like algae based Bio fuels.
And all that rethoric only to fall for more straw men.
Al Gore’s point is to take that use of planes into account, he does not ignore it. Nor there is a demand from the ones reporting this problem that we should take measures that will stop civilization, civilization did not end when we finally made the effort to control an issue brought forth thanks to our civilization.
Finally, continuing to rely on straw men of what Gore said just shows where your sources of information are coming from.
The straw men used are just political points disguised as rhetorical ones.
The point was simply that you can have a good standard of living and yet low CO2 emissions. I don’t think that can really be disputed as there are obviously ways of generating power that emit little or no CO2.
For your point that wealthy countries with low CO2 are only that way because they import their goods, that can be refuted by pointing to examples of countries with export surpluses, high GDP and low CO2 per capita e.g. Singapore.
Well, as long as we’re calling it a shared responsibility, and not saying it’s all the US fault for the emissions of the countries they export from.
A model where everyone’s allowed to emit whatever CO2 they like making something, as long as they export it, and the totals are on the head of the buyers, is unworkable.
I can explain why I think this is the case, but first I’ll let you say whether this is a fair paraphrase of what you’re saying.
Singapore’s energy source is 100% fossil fuel. Therefore if they have a high standard of living, they are not achieving it by using clean energy. I seriously doubt they have a standard of stuff (house; car, goods) anything close to a US standard. Am I incorrect about this?
If you think Mr Gore’s purchase of carbon offsets means he takes his planes into effect, well…I’m unpersuaded.
You see, we all want to be Al Gore. And paying an indulgence to permit a sin is not a very good way of eliminating sin. Look at this way: Imagine that we are all rich (as in fact, we are all trying to get there). Do we all get to pay a carbon offset indulgence and then live profligately? Because aside from the fact that carbon offsets are mostly bogus, there aren’t enough to go around for us all to offset our carbon footprints even if they did work. There isn’t enough clean energy to go around either.
What we are in is a race to get it while we can. Al Gore (and I) are winning, and the fact that we find ways to pay an indulgence does not mean that is a workable solution if everyone could afford to do it. If I buy up all the available clean energy and live high off the hog, that’s hardly the solution for the world. By using way more than my share of clean energy, I’ve forced everyone else to use dirty energy. That’s not a solution to the problem of dirty energy.
You are incorrect about the last point: singapore is very wealthy country with a significantly higher GDP PPP than the US.
On your first point though, yes, it would seem it is incorrect to say Singapore is a low carbon emitter. Or rather, it depends whose figures you use: the IEA’s figures are one third of what the EIA reckon (cite).
Obviously this discussion of individual countries could go on for some time, so let’s just cut to it: are you suggesting that a western standard of living, and low CO2 emission are mutually exclusive?
Missing the point again, once again, Gore is not proposing an end to our way of living, and you need a fat cite for claiming that the point is to just force others to use dirty energy.
And once again, you seem to ignore the other point made:
"Note: the vilification of Al Gore is best understood in the context of personalisation. When opponents attack something abstract - like science - the public may not associate with the argument. By giving a name and a face and a set of behavioural characteristics - being a rich politician, for example - it is easy to create a fictional enemy through inference and association. Al Gore is a successful politician who presented a film, his training and experience suitable to the task. To invoke Gore is a way to obfuscate about climate science, for which Gore has neither responsibility, claim nor blame. "
Well said. Reminds me of Don Corleone. He was extremely generous when giving to the church, but to say that munificence erased his sins would be a bit of a stretch.
Now, if your religion is global warming, well, whatever is in latest epistle is gospel and adherents will sing in unison!
Piffle, the record shows who is using religion to dismiss what science is reporting.
Again, just prop up Gore as the one to beat, when the only reason for that is that then what the science says can be avoided. And it is clear who are the ones that are using religion to avoid the science.
I just can’t get excited about the whole AGW hoopla, period. I’m not particularly passionate about any of the arguments.
But I do think human nature is to want stuff. To consume. To live like me and Al Gore. Rich, basically. While I understand that, in theory, someday we might get to enough clean energy to get me and my 7 billion pards (9 billion by then?) all the stuff we want in the lifestyle we want, in practice I don’t think it’s possible. Sure; we need green energy. We also need fossil fuels. And both of those put together won’t be enough to sustain the default lifestyle everyone wants.
If you are talking about the next ten or twenty years, absolutely the western standard of living is mutually exclusive with lowering total CO2 emissions. It cannot, and will not, be done. Lip service; yeah. Getting me and Al to consume less; nope. Replacing the energy grid in time; nope. International agreement on carbon tax; nope. And without international cooperation among all major nations, anything short of a universal agreement on how to execute such a tax or similar strategy amounts to a unilateral trade advantage. That never ends well. Neither, for that matter, does propping up otherwise market-failing energy sources by taxing the less costly ones.
We can’t get windmills and sunfarms in our backyards, except for the ones sold for corporate feelgood decos. We can’t get nuclear anywhere. We can’t dam the rivers anymore. Everyone is opposed to something, unless it costs the other guy. And no one I’ve met–literally no one–plans to live lighter, unless your’re talking about stuff like those reusable grocery bags. But real sacrifice: nope.
Please note, before you bother pulling up any more quotes, that I am NOT villifying Al Gore.
I am claiming that I am Al Gore, for goodness’ sakes (figuratively; not literally).
Nor am I making the point that Al wants to force anyone to use dirty energy. Rather, I am making the point that the green energy available is a finite resource. If I swipe all of it for myself so I can live large, I have no moral high ground whatsoever, nor have I helped out the environment by that action. If I cut my consumption to the bone, and leave everyone else their share of green energy, then I’ve done something for my cause.
The aspect of AGW that strikes me as parallel to religion is the fervor with which its proponents promote it while living out their daily lives as they damn well please.
We are drawn to Great Causes, and take joy in promoting inconvenient truths to the masses. We are not inclined to let our daily lives actually be constrained by inconvenience behavioural consequences which follow from our Great Cause.
And it remains just a condescending point to just deny that it is normal for groups of people to not do much before the change takes place, everyone around the Thames in England was also not willing to change, but the smell and cholera told them otherwise, the good that came from that change remains priceless to this day, and the costs to control the sewage problem, worthy indeed.
Sorry, but history shows that the real inconvenient truth is directed at sorry ideas like that one that once again is posted mostly with the intention to even deny that very similar changes were done before to control bad results coming from our technology, it will happen here also, and there will be no end to our civilization.
That is only the result of demanding that we all will remain ignorant of the fact that the sacrifices that we will have to make to deal with the results of doing nothing will be more expensive than if we did something now.
You know, the incidence of you using phrases like “Piffle” and “silly” in these threads is pifflingly silly. But the gospel says to disparage, that no man shall stand against The True Religion without believers making them seem like mice among men. Would be more effective it it weren’t so transparent. Hell, even the father of the whole global warming movement called you guys religionists. Now, if you don’t counter this with at least six paragraphs of approved cites you will be banished for not being a good enough religionist. So, get to work, brother. Can I get an AMEN?!
Nope, as I already replied to what you say here in other threads, (there was even a long explanation why your tale of the “father” you are referring here was a complete misrepresentation, virtually all scientists do not take him seriously as the post showed) so the only thing you demonstrate to all is just that you did not paid any attention and so your personal attack is easy to dismiss.