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Then you are out of touch with the realities of what is going to happen if we pass this bill. We already pay more for labor, energy, environmental regulations
by krschultz 17y ago
Then you are out of touch with the realities of what is going to happen if we pass this bill.
We already pay more for labor, energy, environmental regulations compliance, and corporate tax in the USA than pretty much anywhere else. When you start making energy even more expensive, the economics are going to shift for the remaining factories and we're going to ship pretty much every one left in this country to somewhere they don't have cap and trade. That is going to cost a lot of blue collar jobs.
Then food will be significantly more expensive because of the increased energy costs - and not to mention they produce a lot of CO2. Who gets hit most by the cost of food? Those at the bottom or those at the top?
Everything about this is really really regressive. You are willing to "make sacrifices now", because frankly you don't have to make any sacrifices. "I'm willing to pay more tax". Wow, what a sacrifice. Might have to pass up on the next iPhone. Taxes take away discretionary income from the upper classes. Big deal. Regressionary laws that destroy blue collar jobs and make the cost of living higher for those at the bottom cause real, true, heartbreaking hardship. Get off Hacker News and go into an area like Detroit that has been hit by these problems and see what I mean. If you can't afford food and can't afford your rent and lost your job and are trying to raise kids, those are more than just little sacrifices. Honestly that is way worse than the alternative. What is going to happen if climate change comes? Sea levels will rise and some houses will be lost in most areas on the coast, and cities will have to have levies built. Is that better or worse than destroying the lives of millions of people today?
Not to mention, if you pass cap and trade you won't actually do a damn thing to help the climate. Every factory that moves offshore will be going somewhere they don't enforce these kind of laws. In fact a lot of countries you offshore to have incentives to reduce automation and increase job supply, so something that might take 1 guy here takes 4 there. Generally that is related to reduced automation and reduced technology. Which is also related to lower efficiency and higher emissions. The power plants in the US are a heck of a lot cleaner than the equivalent in a lot of the countries we are outsourcing to. And then you have the transportation emissions getting it here.
So you are talking about definitely hurting a lot of people today, and hoping that just maybe you might be able to make tomorrow better than it could turn out to be if these computer models are correct, or it might make tomorrow just as bad or worse if compliance isn't 100% globally - which it won't be.
- tome 17y agoI think you might have confused me with someone else. I'm not trying to pass a bill. I'm expressing concern about my own future, and the future of others in the possible case the climate change is catastrophic. The problems of offshoring jobs could be solved by Obama at Copenhagen if he gets China to sign up to a cap on its omissions.
- philwelch 17y agoIf we apply cap and trade regulations to imports as well, there's no escape--all goods consumed in the US would have to be accounted for against the US carbon budget. You're right that it's pointless to tie cap and trade purely against production. The rest of your argument rests on a lot of mistaken labor-leftist political ideology, but I'm not interested in arguing it right now.
- krschultz 17y agoWell considering I'm a libertarian, that is quite false. But I am an industrial engineer, so I know a thing or two about factories.
- gnaritas 17y ago> What is going to happen if climate change comes? Sea levels will rise and some houses will be lost in most areas on the coast, and cities will have to have levies built. I think you seriously underestimate the change and damage that will occur with climate change. There will be large effects on the natural world, on other species; species we may not be able to live without. To blow it off like oh it's just a few houses isn't very smart.
- forensic 17y agoIf doom and gloomers would publish their data and code maybe I would start to believe their fantastic visions of the apocalypse. The burden of proof is on you... and the only evidence we really get is a giant appeal to authority and a billion dollars spent on commercials.