5 ms·

> To me this seems to be something that will be sorted out by the market in time, rather than forced at the barrel of a government gun. The purpose of this typ

by cryptoz 16y ago

> To me this seems to be something that will be sorted out by the market in time, rather than forced at the barrel of a government gun. The purpose of this type of legislation is to save the planet Earth from our polluting ways. What if peak oil never happens for some reason? Are you just going to sit there and let rich people pump out poisonous gasses?! For hundreds of years? No! Let's say that again. NO! Even the most intense libertarians must realize that if there is zero financial incentive to help out the Earth, perhaps government intervention is a very smart way of going. If we know that we're changing our atmosphere so quickly and so negatively (for us and our fellow animals, anyway) and it's cheaper to keep doing it, you already know humans will keep doing it unless it becomes illegal. Legislation is necessary and good here.

ugh 16y ago
I think you are using the wrong vocabulary for libertarians. This legislation is more about climate change than about peak oil. It is possible that peak oil hits just when we also want to limit our CO2 emissions but the two are unrelated. (Some non-libertarians would probably add that peak oil is also a good reason for legislation, they will say that without it the transition will be very rough, too rough to be handled only by the market. But that’s only non-libertarians.) There are no incentives for individuals or companies to change their behavior because of climate change. It’s a good old tragedy of the commons. The incentives have to be created outside of the market and a typical way to do that is through legislation. Here are the three assumptions that might lead even a libertarian to support such legislation: 1. Climate change is an example of the tragedy of the commons and doesn’t create (enough) incentives for individuals or companies to change their behavior. 2. It is possible to create such incentives through legislation and the proposed legislation is a good way to do that. 3. The costs of climate change are lower than the costs of preventing or slowing down climate change. Those are also the three assumptions (and there might be more but I think the list is pretty complete) you have to argue against if you do not support this legislation.
- grn 16y ago
  Libertarianism is about liberty, not about optimising statistics like "the cost of climate change" (whatever that's supposed to mean). The climate will change. That's completely natural and I can't see a reason to stop it (honestly I think it's impossible). Humans and other animals will just adapt and the evolution will continue.
  - cryptoz 16y ago
    > The climate will change. That's completely natural and I can't see a reason to stop it (honestly I think it's impossible). Humans and other animals will just adapt and the evolution will continue. This is a very weird paragraph. Forgive me if I don't understand properly, but let's look at this carefully: > The climate will change. That's completely natural The climate does change naturally. It also changes due to artificial reasons (unless you consider human pollution to be natural, but that's just word semantics. For now, lets call human-caused climate change "artificial"). So no this is not completely natural. Our activities have had intense repercussions on our planet's climate in a very artificial way. > and I can't see a reason to stop it Really? You can't see any reason at all? If we don't stop polluting and heating up the planet, it's possible that hundreds of millions of people will suffer and perhaps die. Worst case scenarios have terrible food shortages and awful fresh water problems as rain patterns shift and change. Even if none of this happens there is absolutely that risk. How can you say that you see no reason to stop the human-caused climate change? > (honestly I think it's impossible). This makes zero sense to me. We started changing our climate a long time ago and didn't even notice. We're still changing it now. What makes you think it's "impossible" to start going the other way? Dude, we can drive electric cars on the moon. We can develop technologies to help regulate our climate here on Earth just fine. > Humans and other animals will just adapt and the evolution will continue. Not so fast. While evolution will definitely continue, there already are mass extinctions happening due to climate change. We're changing things far faster than most species can react to, far faster than evolution can handle. Life on Earth will most certainly continue and evolve for many millions of years into the future. But at what cost? We don't need to kill off millions of species just 'cause it's cheaper to burn fuel than use other methods. Let's try to keep as many currently-alive species going as long as we can, yeah? What's the harm in that?
thecoffman 16y ago
I do see where you're coming from - and I tentatively agree except on two points if there is zero financial incentive to help out the Earth I would argue that there's a HUGE financial incentive. The company/person that comes up with the "next big thing" in fuel sources is going to be incomprehensibly wealthy - I think that much is clear. and it's cheaper to keep doing it I think supply and demand almost guarantees that it will not always been cheaper. Maybe not on an acceptable timeline, but, its obvious that at some point it will become prohibitively expensive to continue to use fossil fuels. I also feel like your rich people reference is sort of a catch-all FUD argument. Oh no, those terrible rich people are causing all the problems. There are plenty of people on this very forum that are probably rich by most standards. Surprisingly, that doesn't make them faceless evil monsters.
- VladRussian 16y ago
  >I would argue that there's a HUGE financial incentive. The company/person that comes up with the "next big thing" in fuel sources is going to be incomprehensibly wealthy - I think that much is clear. the economical analysis shows that nuclear fusion energy wouldn't be cheaper than the price of coal's energy [4c/kwt], thus without government intervention like carbon emissions pricing and explicit forcing of phasing out of fossil fuels this type of energy is out of question. The arithmetic is similar for other alternative sources as well.
  - thecoffman 16y ago
    As supply of carbon based fuels dwindles, their price will go up. The fact that carbon based fuels are currently cheaper than any alternative backs my argument. As soon as they aren't cheaper - the market will shift.
    - VladRussian 16y ago
      >As soon as they aren't cheaper - the market will shift. or there wouldn't be any market anymore. It is also possible that they will be cheaper for centuries to come - the amount of coal and oil reachable in the next 50-100 years just isn't known. And the higher the price, the less demand, thus the less the price - the free-market behavior which has kept the price of oil pretty stable since WWII. Instead of flying cars [more fuel consumption] people of San Francisco are biking. As a result we have civilization developed into Facebook instead of homes on Mars [the last statement is (C) of another HN commenter] It is plain stupid for the human race to sit and wait until the price of oil will go up instead of stimulating development of new technologies [some of which can carry us at least to closest planets].

by cryptoz 16y ago

ugh 16y ago

I think you are using the wrong vocabulary for libertarians. This legislation is more about climate change than about peak oil. It is possible that peak oil hits just when we also want to limit our CO2 emissions but the two are unrelated. (Some non-libertarians would probably add that peak oil is also a good reason for legislation, they will say that without it the transition will be very rough, too rough to be handled only by the market. But that’s only non-libertarians.) There are no incentives for individuals or companies to change their behavior because of climate change. It’s a good old tragedy of the commons. The incentives have to be created outside of the market and a typical way to do that is through legislation. Here are the three assumptions that might lead even a libertarian to support such legislation: 1. Climate change is an example of the tragedy of the commons and doesn’t create (enough) incentives for individuals or companies to change their behavior. 2. It is possible to create such incentives through legislation and the proposed legislation is a good way to do that. 3. The costs of climate change are lower than the costs of preventing or slowing down climate change. Those are also the three assumptions (and there might be more but I think the list is pretty complete) you have to argue against if you do not support this legislation.

grn 16y ago
Libertarianism is about liberty, not about optimising statistics like "the cost of climate change" (whatever that's supposed to mean). The climate will change. That's completely natural and I can't see a reason to stop it (honestly I think it's impossible). Humans and other animals will just adapt and the evolution will continue.
- cryptoz 16y ago
  > The climate will change. That's completely natural and I can't see a reason to stop it (honestly I think it's impossible). Humans and other animals will just adapt and the evolution will continue. This is a very weird paragraph. Forgive me if I don't understand properly, but let's look at this carefully: > The climate will change. That's completely natural The climate does change naturally. It also changes due to artificial reasons (unless you consider human pollution to be natural, but that's just word semantics. For now, lets call human-caused climate change "artificial"). So no this is not completely natural. Our activities have had intense repercussions on our planet's climate in a very artificial way. > and I can't see a reason to stop it Really? You can't see any reason at all? If we don't stop polluting and heating up the planet, it's possible that hundreds of millions of people will suffer and perhaps die. Worst case scenarios have terrible food shortages and awful fresh water problems as rain patterns shift and change. Even if none of this happens there is absolutely that risk. How can you say that you see no reason to stop the human-caused climate change? > (honestly I think it's impossible). This makes zero sense to me. We started changing our climate a long time ago and didn't even notice. We're still changing it now. What makes you think it's "impossible" to start going the other way? Dude, we can drive electric cars on the moon. We can develop technologies to help regulate our climate here on Earth just fine. > Humans and other animals will just adapt and the evolution will continue. Not so fast. While evolution will definitely continue, there already are mass extinctions happening due to climate change. We're changing things far faster than most species can react to, far faster than evolution can handle. Life on Earth will most certainly continue and evolve for many millions of years into the future. But at what cost? We don't need to kill off millions of species just 'cause it's cheaper to burn fuel than use other methods. Let's try to keep as many currently-alive species going as long as we can, yeah? What's the harm in that?

thecoffman 16y ago

I do see where you're coming from - and I tentatively agree except on two points if there is zero financial incentive to help out the Earth I would argue that there's a HUGE financial incentive. The company/person that comes up with the "next big thing" in fuel sources is going to be incomprehensibly wealthy - I think that much is clear. and it's cheaper to keep doing it I think supply and demand almost guarantees that it will not always been cheaper. Maybe not on an acceptable timeline, but, its obvious that at some point it will become prohibitively expensive to continue to use fossil fuels. I also feel like your rich people reference is sort of a catch-all FUD argument. Oh no, those terrible rich people are causing all the problems. There are plenty of people on this very forum that are probably rich by most standards. Surprisingly, that doesn't make them faceless evil monsters.

VladRussian 16y ago
>I would argue that there's a HUGE financial incentive. The company/person that comes up with the "next big thing" in fuel sources is going to be incomprehensibly wealthy - I think that much is clear. the economical analysis shows that nuclear fusion energy wouldn't be cheaper than the price of coal's energy [4c/kwt], thus without government intervention like carbon emissions pricing and explicit forcing of phasing out of fossil fuels this type of energy is out of question. The arithmetic is similar for other alternative sources as well.
- thecoffman 16y ago
  As supply of carbon based fuels dwindles, their price will go up. The fact that carbon based fuels are currently cheaper than any alternative backs my argument. As soon as they aren't cheaper - the market will shift.
  - VladRussian 16y ago
    >As soon as they aren't cheaper - the market will shift. or there wouldn't be any market anymore. It is also possible that they will be cheaper for centuries to come - the amount of coal and oil reachable in the next 50-100 years just isn't known. And the higher the price, the less demand, thus the less the price - the free-market behavior which has kept the price of oil pretty stable since WWII. Instead of flying cars [more fuel consumption] people of San Francisco are biking. As a result we have civilization developed into Facebook instead of homes on Mars [the last statement is (C) of another HN commenter] It is plain stupid for the human race to sit and wait until the price of oil will go up instead of stimulating development of new technologies [some of which can carry us at least to closest planets].