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Did you know that Canada was once a tropical climate? I'm just saying it's possible that the earth's climate has been changing for billions of years and will co

Did you know that Canada was once a tropical climate? I'm just saying it's possible that the earth's climate has been changing for billions of years and will continue to change after they take away our freedom by placing a tax on energy.

ZeroFries 7y ago
Oil is way, way cheaper than its real value. If you had to produce oil from scratch, it would cost far more. If we use it willy-nilly, we're impinging on the freedom of future people. There has to be a balance, here.
- mbrumlow 7y ago
  Your wording makes me cringe. People don't have "freedom" to use or have access to things in the sense you are suggesting. Its not a fundamental right to have and use Oil. In its extreme you are basically asking people to suffer today so that maybe some future people might not suffer. It is completely unattainable because the future is always in the future -- and largely unknown. So people will have to continue to suffer and make sacrifices because of the near unlimited "future people". I can't remember the source, but I think it was a fairly well known economist. He has the position that prices for things always go up, so in effect using Oil now will always be cheaper than using oil in the future.
  - ZeroFries 7y ago
    > People don't have "freedom" to use or have access to things in the sense you are suggesting. Resources can unconstrain a person in the same way freedom can. They can enable one to do things not possible without them. > In its extreme you are basically asking people to suffer today so that maybe some future people might not suffer. It's called using the resources you have access to in a sensible way. Yes, you may have to sacrifice some short-term gain in order to unlock greater long-term gain. > It is completely unattainable because the future is always in the future -- and largely unknown. Do you save money? Do you ration your groceries or consume them all the first day you buy them then starve the rest of the week? > He has the position that prices for things always go up, so in effect using Oil now will always be cheaper than using oil in the future. The price of writing this post itself and delivering it over a network would have cost orders of magnitudes more just a couple decades ago.
    - mbrumlow 7y ago
      Oil is not globally owned, it is owned by individuals who mine it, and the land owners who allowed it to be taken from the ground. The way this is being worded and the only foundation for such arguments is if it is assumed oil is a right for everybody to have access, or is group owned by humanity. I use my groceries as needed, but if I wanted to buy a cart full of apples and flush them down the toilet it is none of your business -- as after I have bought them you have no right. Unless you own the apples and are the one selling them, you have not business in telling me how to use them either. So the only take away I have is you think all humans own oil and have a right to it, and that if some humans are using it in a way that would make less for further humans, then you some how think you have a say in telling me how much I can use. The suggestion that you or anybody else has a say on how much of a product one can buy or how quickly they use the product is ludicrous.
      - ZeroFries 7y ago
        No one owned the process by which the oil was produced. We don't need to bring in leaky concepts of rights here. It is a plain fact that the Earth has a resource which was formed before humanity even existed, is limited, and the price of which is not reflective of the process required to create it. It is also a plain fact that using said resource unwisely hampers fellow and future citizens. Buying a cart full of apples and flushing them is also unwise, but at least the price of an apple is somewhat reflective of the cost of producing one. A carbon tax helps bring the price of oil up to at least be closer to its real value, and help prevent unwise ways of utilizing it.
        mbrumlow 7y ago
        > using said resource unwisely > prevent unwise ways of utilizing Who are you to decide what is wise or unwisely use of oil? How do you know the carbon tax does not unjustly affect the ability for those with lesser means to use it today and as a result kill off entire peoples who would have existed otherwise -- talking about hampering future citizens. The entire notion of limiting use of it because it is going to run out is silly because it will still run out. It does not matter if it runs out 100 years from now, or 200 years from now or 1000 years from now. It is still going to run out. You want to trade the freedoms of today for the idea of "freedom" tomorrow. You have no data or proof to suggest that how it is being used today vs how it will be used by future peoples will be better or worse. All you are doing now is raising the price artificially and hampering current citizens -- which I argue are more important than any future ones you can image. > A carbon tax helps bring the price of oil up to at least be closer to its real value. Value is subjective. 1000 years ago oil was worthless, and when found was often considered unwanted. The price of oil will change as its value changes over time. We could have had different events that caused us to never discover the use of oil and thus it would be valueless to us today.
  - hobs 7y ago
    Your comment makes me cringe. Why not use all the world's resources immediately in the most flagrant way possible "if the future's always uncertain." Being good stewards of shared resources is not "asking people to suffer today." You are right that it is not a fundamental right to have oil - so why do you get it all?
    - mbrumlow 7y ago
      > so why do you get it all Because it is available, and I paid for it...
      - ZeroFries 7y ago
        The point of the parent post is that the price you pay for it is not reflective of its true value.
        mbrumlow 7y ago
        And my point is oil is not a shared resource, it is a product, that people buy and sell.
ChrisClark 7y ago
Yes, the Earth changes slowly, and has been changing slowly for millions of years. Until it stopped changing slowly, and started changing 100x faster, in the past 50ish years.
- dispat0r 7y ago
  Please proof that claim. 100x faster never. And faster warming compared to which period. We are still in at the tail end of an ice age so warming is expected.
  - ip26 7y ago
    I'm sure you've seen this before and promptly ignored it, but still a nice visualization: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      xkcd is always fun and supported by facts, but that chart only goes as far back as 20000 years ago. No chart-based argument is ever fair if it does not show all available data and includes zero. Which is to say that it needs to cover about 4.5 billion years and show temperature in degrees Kelvin. Not that it isn't rhetorically effective; it's just not fair. To restore the effectiveness, you'd probably have to put everything on a log scale, also chart the first derivative of the mean global temperature function, chart the partial pressure of CO2, and label all the mass extinction events. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png might be a good starting point. The facts speak for themselves; no one should need to be tricked in order to believe them. And cherry-picking is a rhetorical trick. The rate of change in mean global temperature is at a level that is a hundred times more rapid than the warming and cooling rates seen in previous geological eras. And while we are still under the Eocene maximum for absolute mean temperature, biological evolution needs time to keep up with temperature change. Species that produce new generations on the scale of decades can possibly handle a 5 degree change, when it occurs over 100000 years, but not so much when it only takes 100 years. If you swing the needle on the temperature gauge fast enough, only the species that can produce new generations in a matter of hours will survive it.
arethuza 7y ago
Where was it on the globe when the climate was like that - continents do move around rather a lot.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  Yeah, at that point Canada was seated in the Atlantic between what is now Mexico, South America, and Africa.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jonawesomegreen 7y ago
I really like this XKCD diagram to give a sense of scale of how fast things are changing: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/

ZeroFries 7y ago

Oil is way, way cheaper than its real value. If you had to produce oil from scratch, it would cost far more. If we use it willy-nilly, we're impinging on the freedom of future people. There has to be a balance, here.

mbrumlow 7y ago
Your wording makes me cringe. People don't have "freedom" to use or have access to things in the sense you are suggesting. Its not a fundamental right to have and use Oil. In its extreme you are basically asking people to suffer today so that maybe some future people might not suffer. It is completely unattainable because the future is always in the future -- and largely unknown. So people will have to continue to suffer and make sacrifices because of the near unlimited "future people". I can't remember the source, but I think it was a fairly well known economist. He has the position that prices for things always go up, so in effect using Oil now will always be cheaper than using oil in the future.
- ZeroFries 7y ago
  > People don't have "freedom" to use or have access to things in the sense you are suggesting. Resources can unconstrain a person in the same way freedom can. They can enable one to do things not possible without them. > In its extreme you are basically asking people to suffer today so that maybe some future people might not suffer. It's called using the resources you have access to in a sensible way. Yes, you may have to sacrifice some short-term gain in order to unlock greater long-term gain. > It is completely unattainable because the future is always in the future -- and largely unknown. Do you save money? Do you ration your groceries or consume them all the first day you buy them then starve the rest of the week? > He has the position that prices for things always go up, so in effect using Oil now will always be cheaper than using oil in the future. The price of writing this post itself and delivering it over a network would have cost orders of magnitudes more just a couple decades ago.
  - mbrumlow 7y ago
    Oil is not globally owned, it is owned by individuals who mine it, and the land owners who allowed it to be taken from the ground. The way this is being worded and the only foundation for such arguments is if it is assumed oil is a right for everybody to have access, or is group owned by humanity. I use my groceries as needed, but if I wanted to buy a cart full of apples and flush them down the toilet it is none of your business -- as after I have bought them you have no right. Unless you own the apples and are the one selling them, you have not business in telling me how to use them either. So the only take away I have is you think all humans own oil and have a right to it, and that if some humans are using it in a way that would make less for further humans, then you some how think you have a say in telling me how much I can use. The suggestion that you or anybody else has a say on how much of a product one can buy or how quickly they use the product is ludicrous.
    - ZeroFries 7y ago
      No one owned the process by which the oil was produced. We don't need to bring in leaky concepts of rights here. It is a plain fact that the Earth has a resource which was formed before humanity even existed, is limited, and the price of which is not reflective of the process required to create it. It is also a plain fact that using said resource unwisely hampers fellow and future citizens. Buying a cart full of apples and flushing them is also unwise, but at least the price of an apple is somewhat reflective of the cost of producing one. A carbon tax helps bring the price of oil up to at least be closer to its real value, and help prevent unwise ways of utilizing it.
      - mbrumlow 7y ago
        > using said resource unwisely > prevent unwise ways of utilizing Who are you to decide what is wise or unwisely use of oil? How do you know the carbon tax does not unjustly affect the ability for those with lesser means to use it today and as a result kill off entire peoples who would have existed otherwise -- talking about hampering future citizens. The entire notion of limiting use of it because it is going to run out is silly because it will still run out. It does not matter if it runs out 100 years from now, or 200 years from now or 1000 years from now. It is still going to run out. You want to trade the freedoms of today for the idea of "freedom" tomorrow. You have no data or proof to suggest that how it is being used today vs how it will be used by future peoples will be better or worse. All you are doing now is raising the price artificially and hampering current citizens -- which I argue are more important than any future ones you can image. > A carbon tax helps bring the price of oil up to at least be closer to its real value. Value is subjective. 1000 years ago oil was worthless, and when found was often considered unwanted. The price of oil will change as its value changes over time. We could have had different events that caused us to never discover the use of oil and thus it would be valueless to us today.
- hobs 7y ago
  Your comment makes me cringe. Why not use all the world's resources immediately in the most flagrant way possible "if the future's always uncertain." Being good stewards of shared resources is not "asking people to suffer today." You are right that it is not a fundamental right to have oil - so why do you get it all?
  - mbrumlow 7y ago
    > so why do you get it all Because it is available, and I paid for it...
    - ZeroFries 7y ago
      The point of the parent post is that the price you pay for it is not reflective of its true value.
      - mbrumlow 7y ago
        And my point is oil is not a shared resource, it is a product, that people buy and sell.

ChrisClark 7y ago

Yes, the Earth changes slowly, and has been changing slowly for millions of years. Until it stopped changing slowly, and started changing 100x faster, in the past 50ish years.

dispat0r 7y ago
Please proof that claim. 100x faster never. And faster warming compared to which period. We are still in at the tail end of an ice age so warming is expected.
- ip26 7y ago
  I'm sure you've seen this before and promptly ignored it, but still a nice visualization: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    xkcd is always fun and supported by facts, but that chart only goes as far back as 20000 years ago. No chart-based argument is ever fair if it does not show all available data and includes zero. Which is to say that it needs to cover about 4.5 billion years and show temperature in degrees Kelvin. Not that it isn't rhetorically effective; it's just not fair. To restore the effectiveness, you'd probably have to put everything on a log scale, also chart the first derivative of the mean global temperature function, chart the partial pressure of CO2, and label all the mass extinction events. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:All_palaeotemps.png might be a good starting point. The facts speak for themselves; no one should need to be tricked in order to believe them. And cherry-picking is a rhetorical trick. The rate of change in mean global temperature is at a level that is a hundred times more rapid than the warming and cooling rates seen in previous geological eras. And while we are still under the Eocene maximum for absolute mean temperature, biological evolution needs time to keep up with temperature change. Species that produce new generations on the scale of decades can possibly handle a 5 degree change, when it occurs over 100000 years, but not so much when it only takes 100 years. If you swing the needle on the temperature gauge fast enough, only the species that can produce new generations in a matter of hours will survive it.

arethuza 7y ago

Where was it on the globe when the climate was like that - continents do move around rather a lot.

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
Yeah, at that point Canada was seated in the Atlantic between what is now Mexico, South America, and Africa.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jonawesomegreen 7y ago

I really like this XKCD diagram to give a sense of scale of how fast things are changing: https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/