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This is why I don't buy into cap and trade and other expensive systems for the US to reduce its emissions. Compared to emerging economies, our emissions are al
by gsibble 11y ago
This is why I don't buy into cap and trade and other expensive systems for the US to reduce its emissions. Compared to emerging economies, our emissions are already dramatically lower. It's the 2nd and 3rd world that needs to get in line (China most of all).
- Afforess 11y agoYes, it would be terrible if we did all that work to improve the atmosphere for nothing. http://i.imgur.com/kUCPeBo.jpg http://i.imgur.com/kUCPeBo.jpg
- deepvibrations 11y agoAmazing- I've been looking for this image for years, sums it up perfectly!
- unethical_ban 11y ago"for nothing" At huge cost to the economy and freedom from government regulations and bureaucracy. Plus, a lot of "green" solutions aren't utopic or practical. It's not all or nothing, and I support being ecologically conscious. But I don't think it's wise to dismiss all criticism of the climate change cult.
- mikeash 11y agoI'm sure there are reasonable criticisms to be had, but until people actually start making them, it's hard not to dismiss all criticism when it's all so terrible. For example, people who refer to it as a "cult."
- unethical_ban 11y agoWell, CAFE standards are a twisted joke, and we're still promoting wind and solar above nuclear. Existing federal regulations for inspection of safety and environmental conditions at oil wells is nonexistent. The DoE can't get their crap together regarding the care of superfund sites. So color me jaded about Dems shouting about tax credits for GM Volts or implementing cap and trade.
- planfaster 11y agoHere's some criticism for you: if this is not a cult, why did they lie about the "97% of scientists" consensus? http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023034803045795784... "Yet the assertion that 97% of scientists believe that climate change is a man-made, urgent problem is a fiction. The so-called consensus comes from a handful of surveys and abstract-counting exercises that have been contradicted by more reliable research." If it's Science, why the lies? And why the push for government intervention? I thought Science was about reality, not policy.
- mikeash 11y agoHow am I supposed to take seriously an article which believes a survey of meteorologists is in any way relevant to a claim about the opinions of climate scientists? If climate "skeptics" aren't completely full of it, why do they constantly mix up climate and weather and otherwise constantly demonstrate fundamental misunderstandings of the topic?
- dang 11y agoPlease stop taking HN threads on generic ideological tangents. You've been doing this a ton, and it's not what this site is for. In fact, there's little that's worse for HN. Such tangents are predictable, which makes them tedious, and tendentious, which makes them prolific. Tedious plus prolific equals sludge. Moreover, such discussions only get worse as they proceed, never better.
- claar 11y agoThis is a weak argument. No one is saying that smog in cities is desirable. But rather that there is insufficient evidence to show certain interventions are necessary/economical/effective.
- karl_gluck 11y agoCome on, that's incredibly disingenuous. Of course it's not terrible to improve the atmosphere. But you're making it sound like all methods are equivalent; when there are limited resources to address the problem, they need to be allocated accordingly. It's a similar situation to water in California -- yes, everyone should cut down on consumption. But the single-family mega-mansions using as much as 90 normal residences [1] cutting 10% of their water usage has a much bigger impact than an average residence cutting 10%. Edited: If a billion dollars spent in the US reduces US emissions by 5%, and US emissions and emissions from these fires are equivalent, and it costs less to incentivize Indonesian / Malaysian palm oil producers to stop burning peat forest and reduce emissions by 5%, we should be doing that instead. [1] https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-wet-prince-of-bel-air-who-is-californias-biggest-water-guzzler/ https://www.revealnews.org/article/the-wet-prince-of-bel-air... Original before edit: If the US could spend a billion dollars to reduce our carbon emissions by 5%, or could spend a billion dollars paying Indonesia & Malaysia to stop setting palm oil on fire and reduce THEIR emissions, the results are not equivalent. The latter is 200x more effective. [the 200x was from a misreading of the article]
- mikeash 11y agoHow is it 200x more effective to reduce the emissions of Indonesia and Malaysia by 5%? These fires exceeded the emissions of the US for 26 days and otherwise the US far outweighs these countries when it comes to emissions. If the choice is 5% of ours or 5% of theirs, surely 5% of ours produces a far greater effect.
- karl_gluck 11y agoYou're right, I must have misread the original article while composing my response. This is what I was remembering: "Taken together, the impact of peat fires on global warming can be more than 200 times greater than fires on other lands."
- mikeash 11y agoIt sounds like the original article may have greatly overstated the emissions from these fires. I came in after it got fixed so I don't know.
- oberstein 11y agoCrocodile humor.
- planfaster 11y agoCartoons use a myriad of figures of speech in order to build a setup-punchline structure that is actually funny. One of the tricks of the trade is to use logical fallacies, as they are mechanisms for hiding premises or faulty logic, which is ideal to build assumptions in the viewer's mind that are then shattered by the punchline. The figure of speech employed here is a fallacy called Begging the Question. When the character says "what if we create a better world for nothing" he is implicitly accepting the premise that the changes proposed by the presenter would create a better world even though he might not agree with the presenter's conclusions. So the "funny" comes from pretending that we all agree that the list of things the presenter is talking about actually describe "a better world". As for real life, I would say the cartoon, while funny, does not "sum up perfectly" the issue in real life, because in real life what is under dispute is whether governments taking more control for themselves, in order to carry out those things in the presenter's slide, is actually a better world than all of the alternatives, including taking care of the planet without giving more power to government institutions which have proven themselves incapable of seeing to completion endeavors several orders of magnitude simpler than "saving the world".
- mikeash 11y agoWe already saw what happens when the government doesn't take control and lets industry do what they will. The result is massive pollution, widespread health problems, and global climate change. And in fact we already saw what happens when government does take control. The result is vastly improved pollution, and without wrecking the economy.
- planfaster 11y ago> We already saw what happens when the government doesn't take control and lets industry do what they will. Where? What's that place where the industry (short for "all private companies") can do what they will (your words), meaning, government cannot curb their will? I've never heard of such place in all my readings of History and Economics. I'm ready for you to blow my mind!
- 11y ago
- gambiting 11y agoWell, US just burns off some crazy amount of natural gas that is released as the byproduct of oil drilling/fracking. It's not captured because it's too cheap to be worth it. 10 billion cubic feet in a month[1], just because it's "not worth it". So maybe,actually, US needs more caps and expensive systems to curb such behaviour? [1]http://www.wsj.com/articles/north-dakotas-latest-fracking-problem-1404170442 http://www.wsj.com/articles/north-dakotas-latest-fracking-pr...
- codecamper 11y agoAgreed. Methane is way worse than CO2 as well. It is really shocking that companies inside the US borders are allowed to do this.
- mschuster91 11y agoThe methane burns off so it's "just" CO2.
- TheSpiceIsLife 11y agoIt's worth noting the natural gas (mostly methane) is burned as it's vented to atmosphere, so it's mostly CO2 and water.
- Avalaxy 11y agoThe fact that other people are messing up doesn't mean that you should as well. Everyone should take responsibility for their own actions.
- planfaster 11y agoThe Tragedy of the Commons illustrates precisely the opposite: that if other people are messing up a common good (the world, or the atmosphere, in this case), that means you should mess up as well, or you lose (in every sense: productivity, sustainability, etc).
- _nedR 11y agoYep. Like the WWII Japanese General said : "Just went we learn to play poker they change the game to bridge."
- codecamper 11y agoWouldn't raising the cost of energy around the world mean that goods made in China become more expensive. Meaning... we'd maybe move some jobs back to the US. Maybe a carbon tax would actually boost the US economy?
- thrownaway2424 11y agoYour statement does not square with reality, or the facts as stated in this article. Indonesia is a country close in population to the US, but the US releases dramatically more carbon, both in aggregate and per capita. For the Indonesians to even draw even with the US, they have to literally set their entire nation on fire.
- mikeash 11y agoI don't follow. This is an unusually bad year for these fires and they surpassed US emissions for 26 days. US emissions are cranking year-round, year after year. The US is the second largest emitter of CO2 in the world, and emits one seventh of the world total. China emits twice as much but has four times as many people. If you brought China into line with the US on a per-capita basis, you'd increase their total emissions by a factor of two!
- masklinn 11y agoAs the article notes Indonesia exceeded US greenhouse productions for 26 days. Out of 300. Don't worry love, the US are still solid #2 emitters of grenhouse gases (China being #1)