In recent news, many states plan to continue to adhere to the Paris Agreement. California plans to reduce carbon emissions by some percentage by 2050, 50% or 90%, somewhere between those two numbers. It doesn’t really matter what the number is, because there is no actual plan to reach those numbers. It’s pretty much a certainty that California will emit more per capita in 2050 than Alabama.
In other news, Florida will be decreasing its murder rate by 90% by 2030.
Alabama will be decreasing its poverty rate by 75% by 2025.
Kentucky will be decreasing its meth addicts by 80% by 2020.
Not only is there no plan to get to net zero emissions, there can be no plan to get there because it would require technological changes we can’t even foresee right now.
Rather than setting goals that cannot be met, how about just implement sound policies(some of which California has done) and see how things go?
And why is no one talking about the soundest policy of all, ending payroll and corporate taxes and taxing carbon instead? Democrats like a carbon tax as a way to get the government even more revenue, which is a non-starter because Americans won’t pay more taxes and by the time it got through the legislative meatgrinder it wouldn’t apply to anyone anyway except some unlucky, politically unconnected industries. And Republicans don’t have any ideas at all on the subject other than denial or “we’ll adjust as it happens.”
The issue is actually as simple as it gets. We either get emissions down to zero or close to it by 2050 or we don’t. And it’s not like we have a basket of options. As of 2017, there are zero options.
Maybe I’m just not nuanced enough to see the value in targets that exist with no plan to actually reach them?
I think many people are confusing political messaging with real action. These targets are for political reasons, to give people a number to wrap their heads around. There’s nothing scientific about them.
Listen, the president came right out and said that the Paris Climate Agreement was unfair to the U.S. at the highest levels. THE HIGHEST LEVELS! Can you imagine? How much more nuance is required?
He’s an idiot and shouldn’t have withdrawn from the agreement. But the AGW folks aren’t showing much more intelligence. 99% of politicians and activists have no idea what they are talking about on this issue. The scientists do, and I understand why they are throwing their weight behind one group of morons instead of the other, but they are going to find that it’s doing as much harm as good.
The correct approach, IMO, is to sound the warnings and then get back to us when there’s an actual plan.
I’ll give them some time. For now those numbers might just be goals, but there might very well be plans being put together. Even if they don’t meet the targets, if they get a significant of the way there in lowering emissions and such, then that’s a great thing.
All these states are doing actual things, but they have no way of knowing how well they will work. Not even an inkling. And that’s only over the next few years. Further out goals are completely meaningless.
True. But not very in this case. I just don’t think governments are equipped to deal with climate change. They can play a supporting role, changing incentives and encouraging the adoption of greener energy, but the heavy lifting is going to be done by just a few whiz kids in the private sector.
Another thing you have to be careful of with symbolism is to lull the people into thinking something is being done when it isn’t. Since climate change activists have chosen politics as their primary means of fighting climate change, the limitations of politics apply: no average citizen must pay more for energy. That means that somehow business is going to have to reduce emissions for us, even though it’s the end users who demand more and more energy and reject cleaner tech when it’s more expensive or slightly less convenient. Right now activists seem focused on getting regular people to fight for change, but fight to change OTHER people’s behavior, not their own. That’s just not going to get us anywhere and I don’t think the public has even begun to prepare for the reality of what it will take to stop temperature rises of 5 degrees or more absent some major tech innovations that we can’t even foresee yet. Because what’s on the horizon now doesn’t even get us halfway there.
Ah yes, Adaher, since this is the pit I will have to start by congratulating you for doing your demonstrated powers of ignorance that are so huge that even the universe goes to the past to give you the reverse of what you claim.
With Florida not doing much one then can expect that murder rate to be reduced since the state will be going under water.
Since many of the rulers in Alabama dislike the poor and minorities that is to be expected.
The point here is that not making a concerted effort or to deny that there is a problem is the reason why we get into trouble and are inactions that do cause harm quickly and in the long run.
Waitaminnit … wasn’t the carbon tax originally a Republican idea? Or is that supposed to go down the memory hole, just like the ACA was never based on a Republican’s health care plan in the first place.
Any ideas embraced by Democrats/liberals must be shunned as evil socialistic claptrap, regardless of the ideas’ origins. And this is why bipartisanship and trying to find common ground is a useless endeavor.
And I did mention your obtuse powers of actually pointing at the reverse of what you claim after seeing this post:
One conservative poster in GD actually pointed to a very good example of why you are ignorantly incomplete.
When the Human genome was being decoded the effort was looking to take some time but there was confidence that the government funded research was going to succeed, one guy working for the government thought that the effort was slow, but he also had the idea that sharing the result with the world was a bad one because there could be profit on patenting the genes being discovered (just imagine the patent trolling now stopping many others from developing cures)
At first glance it looked like Celera did good by accelerating the pace but it was not only related to innovation, Celera actually started and based a lot of their research with the information already found by the public effort. The risk of patent trolling was such that many other groups funded the government effort more and the moves of government to control most of the patent trolling in that area compelled Celera to make a joint statement when both completed the human genome ahead of schedule.
The point here is that there is a lot of truth on what Obama said to business owners that a lot of what they have crowing about was not really made by them. Both private industry and government are crucial so as to have progress can be done to benefit all.
In the case at hand the lack of regulations from the federal government or the lack of taxation from the federal government are a big monkey wrench tossed by Trump and the Republicans to push along change to control our compulsion to treat our atmosphere like a sewer.
:rolleyes:
Really, you need to do a lot of catching up on this issue, this nice lesson from PBS/Frontline demonstrates that in reality the reason why activists are looking at politics now with more urgency is because they were naive to think that politicians and the people would not fall for the deception coming from climate change deniers and funded by fossil fuel companies.
FRONTLINE: Climate of Doubt
In essence, you have it backwards, anti science activists and people with deep pockets that knew that stuffing the government with those activists lead to government inaction and therefore to more profits for them are the reason why we are here now.
And if you had bother to learn form many past discussions that is one big point me and others made many times before. You might as well be like the deniers in old Britain that claimed that setting a system to deliver clean water and to deal with human refuse with a sewer system was going to be impractical or cause the economical destruction of the city. (That did not happen, in reality controlling disease and allowing many to survive to adulthood was a benefit that is incalculable)
(short video this time, How to Talk to an Ostrich: "We can't Afford Clean Energy" Richard Alley [Republican scientist BTW] explains that if we start soon the cost of the transformation could be similar to that which was paid for something none of us would want to do without - clean water and the modern sanitation system.)
The point here is that it is stupid indeed to demand all to change before a big project by government and industry figure the best paths forward. I mean, would you stupidly demand all the poor people to set their own non standard water and sewage system to their homes? - well, for you it is too late, you already demanded the dumb thing- it is clear that all citizens have to pay, but less well to do have to pay less)
This does not deny that innovation does happen where rich people actually did set their own toilets even thought there was no big sewage system first. Those “Ellon Musks” of the first city sewage systems days were later ready to get into business to support the big project.
All the planning to date has been based on the premise that the US has signed up to the Paris Agreement.
The unplanned route is actually a sudden withdrawal.
Yes, probably. What on earth is your point? California’s economy and population is vastly bigger than Alabama’s. We focus on per capita emissions because what else makes sense?
The point of California’s “grand plans” as you put it, is to find alternative methods since being poor or dead are not considered good options.
And of course there are alternatives. The US emits huge amounts of CO2 per capita even considering it’s a wealthy, industrialized nation. Most European countries only emit around a third as much per capita. Yes, their countries are more compact, but that alone cannot excuse such a vast difference in carbon footprint.
So yes, it turns out there is huge scope for the US to reduce CO2 emissions with clean energy initiatives. Who knew?
If you’re trying to save the planet, emitting slightly less so that you’re still emitting more than deep red states that supposedly don’t give a shit about climate change isn’t very meaningful.