And of course they never, ever try to influence what we want through advertising.
There have been plenty of examples where purely reactive companies lose out to companies who create something everyone needs but never knew they needed. Did anyone really think they needed a Prius? Or a Hummer?
I’d prefer the government to set goals based on the best science and global needs over industry, who will be short sighted, but I’d much prefer hundreds of companies competing to best meet those goals over a few government employees trying to figure it out.
There is a simple enough fix for this. Stick to peer reviewed scientific journals and articles. Science and Nature are two of the bigger pubs, but there are hundreds of them. And as an added benefit[sup]1[/sup], your local University or College will either have hard copies or online subscriptions to most of them.
These journals are renown for double checking facts before anything is published. And if they do get anything wrong (See cloning, Korea) there is a steady stream of scientists eager to gain a little fame in their bubble of influence by proving an error.
You strike me as intelligent, but I will admit the more niche the journal, the more technical it is. That is why I find the bigger pubs a better read[sup]2[/sup]. The editors of those tend to live by the adage that if a person can’t explain a concept to a barmaid, they don’t truly understand it themselves. Also, since a majority of the articles in the large and prestigious rags tend to be elevated from the smaller niche rags, a lot of vetting has already taken place. So omission by obfuscation doesn’t seem to be as big of a problem once they have reached that level.
It seems to me that it’s when these stories get picked up by the MSM and the talking heads is when they get twisted beyond all recognition. It is pretty rare that there is any ‘stunning new news’, or ‘amazing breakthroughs’. Everything pretty much happens in baby steps. But that ain’t sexy[sup]3[/sup], so it gets spun or pimped up so it sells. So I can understand why you would hold the opinion you have. But I encourage you to read more from the source than from the consumer outlet.
[sup]1[/sup]Sadly, there isn’t much advertising money to be made by the makers of 30 second mouse homoginizers, so the subscription rates on these are often sky high.
[sup]2[/sup]I am but a mere computer geek at a supercomputer institute. I did not stay at a Holiday Inn last night, but I have spend a lot of time during my morning, ahem constitutional, reading these.
[sup]3[/sup]If you want sexy, the climate change stuff is not what you want to read. That stuff is boring after a while. The cool and exciting stuff is the nearly daily advances in nanotubes. Don’t be surprised if in 16 years you don’t want to throw away your Lays bag because you can add it to your solar array, or add another blade to your garbage supercomputer. If Mr. McGuire of The Graduate were to say it today, his one word wouldn’t be ‘Plastics’
Most Democrats are Christian too…it stands to reason since most Americans are some kind of Christian or another.
So…how does this effect your, um, theory?
-XT
That’s right…they have the same motivation I do…that it costs me less in the long run to be more energy-efficient.
Not to mention that I’ve never heard anyone claim that the existance of God makes it impossible for humans to destroy the earth. What would happen if there were a nuclear war? I would imagine, great destruction to the earth, and I doubt there are too many Christians who would dispute that.
Well, I thought of that and was even going to mention it in my post. But the thing is… how much of what we buy is because we “need” it vs we were “programmed” to need it by corporations? Until you can answer that, then it’s kinda irrelevant. Fact is, people buy stuff, and companies spend lots of time figuring out what people want.
I’m not following you here. Do you actually think that most corporations just make random stuff and then figure out ways to convince people they want it? That’s not usually the way it works, except maybe in Dilbert cartoons.
But my point was that if most Americans really think we should do something about GW, they don’t act that way. They wouldn’t need to have the government force them to buy higher mileage cares, for example. That’s not to say that the government shouldn’t set goals. Just that let’s not kid ourselves about how “liberals” want to do something about GW and “conservatives” don’t.
As an aside here…making something and then trying to figure out how to sell it is called the “push” method of marketing, and one of the first things you learn as a new marketer is NOT to do that. I work in the focus group (qualitative) side of market research, and a major thrust of what we do is show people new product ideas, and then deciding if they are worth pursuing into R&D & manufacturing, based on consumer reaction to the idea. So, John Mace is right here…corporations who know what they are doing base their decisions more on what the customer wants, not on what the corporation wants to sell them.
Of course, there are general trends in terms of what customers want, and corporations do ride those waves and use advertising to push the waves along. But those trends are driven by much more than just corporations magically using advertising to control the populace.
I think you just pulled that out of your ass.
And you do realize, don’t you, that most “liberals” in the US are Christian, too.
The point was not to highlight “Bush’s incompetence” (although I wouldn’t begrudge Shodan an opportunity to jerk his knee at something he obviously didn’t bother reading) but to note that the continued attempts to discredit Gore for not living in a mud hut and traveling around the country on a recumbent bike are roughly as nonsensical as a suggestion that Bush can’t be serious about wanting success in Iraq because he, Laura, and the twins haven’t personally set up camp outside the Green Zone.
No, it isn’t. The only way to solve GW is to change our lifestyles. It is not true that the only way to achieve success in Iraq is for Bush and his wife to set up camp with the twins outside the Green Zone.
Bush isn’t saying to us: Every one of you must get your kids to sign up for the military.
Gore is saying to us: Every one of you must make changes in your lifestyle.
What I’d like to know is how folks are going to convince China (which, IIRC, has surpassed the US in carbon emissions) to cut their own throats economically. That will really be a good trick.
There is a lot of stuff tied up in this debate…some of it, like GW itself, is pretty much reality. Some of it however, like what we can DO about it, is pretty much faith based from what I can tell. Gore et al wants us to radically change our lifestyles, to radically alter our economy…but I’ve never seen any hard and fast metrics on what all this sacrifice will buy us. If the US cuts it’s emissions in half this will…what? Cutting our total emissions to half of our current levels will certainly have a rather profound effect on our economy, at least in the short term. It will incur some level of hardship on the majority of our citizens as well. What will it buy us? What if we cut our emissions by 2/3rd? What would this buy the climate? 4/5th? We’d certainly be feeling the pain at that point…but what would it buy us? How would we make China and India follow suit when their economy’s are just taking off? And if we don’t make them…what have we bought with our sacrifice? I’m sure the green types would FEEL good about it, and probably be smugly satisfied that we have finally changes our evil consumerist ways (while probably complaining that we need to change MORE)…but I’ve never seen hard and fast metrics for measuring what we are buying for the price. Can we expect to reverse GW? Halt it? Slow it? In 5 years? 10? 100? 1000? If we DO halt GW, what will that MEAN exactly? And what would we have to put up with in the mean time? If we are going to basically get global climate change anyway, doesn’t it make better sense to use our money for that?
We are already cutting emissions in the US. The market itself is going in that direction. Attempting to push things harder will have a greater impact on our economy…and on our citizens. Fine you say. Fine…but lets see some hard metrics on what we are buying for that sacrifice I say. BEFORE we are asked to make it…
-XT
Indeed. And whether global warming is a “crock,” and whether efforts to reduce overall energy consumption are worthwhile, are not issues that stand or fall based on Al Gore’s personal electric bill or use of a jet to get to his speaking engagements on global warming, regardless of how many AGW “debunkers” wish it were so.
We are? I don’t think so, but if you’ve got a cite…
Yep. I’m all for going green. In fact, I’m in the process of converting my home to a “green home” right now. My main motivation is to save money, although I’m largely against what seems like “waste” to me. Save money, save the world. What could be better? I suppose I could save the cheerleader to save the world, but I’m just not a “Hero” (or a Hiro).
To clarify my statement a bit: More Republicans than Democrats come off as those who think Armageddon is logical and will be forthcoming, and believe the Bible is a fact not to be questioned, etc. Many Democrats are Christian, true, but in my experience less hardcore- they can believe in God but agree that man can screw up the planet.
And John Mace, you are correct, I only came up with that idea after reading the OP, I hadn’t really thought of it beforehand.
Certainly John, anything for you.
Mind, it’s not a big drop…but then I think this train is just leaving the station here in the US. Market forces are just starting to have a real effect on peoples perception of carbon emissions, GH gases and GW.
-XT
Please, have you spent any time up there? North of 54? I have. Its fucking freezing in the winter and fucking hot in the summer, What you won’t hear about are the native Canadians up there who die from the cold, most often associated with alcohol abuse. Adapted? Yes a lot of them have. They burn fossil fuels for heat and run their skidoos on…
Let’s say diesel fuel costs $3.00/gallon, but in the long run, it would cost $0.20 to clean up the pollution (CO2) from that fuel, or deal with its effects. And say the same amount of biofuel costs $3.10. From the society’s point of view, the latter is clearly preferable. But what incentive does a business have to choose it?
If it really costs .20 to clean up the pollution, then a "free market" response would be to slap a .20 tax on it. The government isn’t supposed to subsidize pollution clean-up in a free market economy.
Of course everyone does market research. But there is a difference between surveying a market, and creating a product based on that, and creating a product, and then tuning it (or maybe killing it) based on the survey. And then there is the creation of the market. Look at all the “organic” stuff that Safeway sells. I assume it makes money for them - they seem to be expanding the line. Do you think there was some massive demand for that, even where we live? I think they created it and then pushed the demand, since organic stuff has good vibes. As an evil example, there is the great demand to pay $1.00 for tap water in a cheap plastic bottle.
Well I agree that most Americans no doubt fall into the don’t give a crap category on this. Setting mileage goals is different from forcing people to buy any particular car. Look how Detroit screwed up on hybrids. A choice of higher mileage car from goals, and increasing prices on gas guzzlers to push fleet averages up would do it well. I have this bad feeling that all of a sudden people will want hybrids all over the country, and Toyota will whup GM’s butt again, just like in 1973. There weren’t nearly as many Priuses in Maryland and PA when I was there in September as there are in the Valley. If those people get as into them as Bay Area people are, think of what that will do to Detroit’s market share.
Well, scr4, then that’s a perfect example of a problem calling out for a “market based solution”. Put a $0.20/gallon tax on fossil fuels but not biofuels and suddenly everyone wants to use biofuels.
Of course, biofuels aren’t exactly a panacea, since lots of energy is expended harvesting that biofuel.
A carbon tax makes perfect sense. This is what we should enact. Except we will never do so, because what people want is for the government to force OTHER people to stop doing things. Everyone wants the US to consume less gasoline, but what they want is for everyone else to stop using so much. And so this is why we have bone-stupid legislation like CAFE standards instead of gasoline taxes.
Tax gasoline and people will use less of it. If there is an externality associated with burning gasoline, tax gasoline enough that consumers of gasoline pay the full cost for buring that gasoline. If we fight wars in the Middle East to keep the oil flowing, then a tax on gasoline to fund the wars is the answer. If kids die from asthma due to pollution, then a tax on gasoline to fund medical care for kids with asthma is the answer. If burning gasoline increases CO2 which causes more intense hurricanes, then a tax on gasoline to pay to relocate those affected is the answer.
If you’re a conservative who hates the idea of taxes, make the carbon tax revenue-neutral. Increase EIC by the amount of the increase in carbon tax revenue. Simple.
Another answer is to stop subsidizing things that don’t make sense. Gee, we’re using fresh water faster than it’s being replenished? Stop subisidizing the farming of rice in drought-ridden California. Hurricanes destroying homes? Stop subsidizing hurricane insurance. CO2 emissions warming the globe? Stop subsidizing carbon emissions!
The trouble is that many people see the global climate change issue as a way to peddle their personal political hobby horses. I can solve the CO2 emission problem with the bone-simple easy to implement carbon tax system. Except this will never happen, because politicians don’t want to make voters pay higher prices at the gas pump, they don’t want to make voters pay higher prices for their winter fuel bills, they don’t want to make voters pay higher prices to truck goods across the country. Instead politicians tend to like the idea of “regulation”, because regulation means power for the regulators.
And heck, big business prefers regulation, because complex regulation is a way for big business to impose barriers to entry against potential competitors. Business isn’t in favor of the free market, they’re in favor of making money, and are more than happy to lobby for increased government meddling if that government meddling means lower competition and a more predictable business climate (see Rent-seeking - Wikipedia for more explanation of this phenomenon).
So since people don’t want to pay higher prices for gasoline but would rather try to force everyone else to use less gasoline but keep the price low, we’re going to get the worst of both worlds…action against global climate change that doesn’t actually do much of anything to mitigate global climate change, but will impose huge hidden regulatory burdens and costs that will inderectly cost much more than simply raising the price of carbon to include the externalities that carbon emissions cause.
OK, I agree with that. Now how do we convince conservatives that a carbon tax is a “free market” solution??