You're not ever going to believe in humanity's role in climate change. You have stated your final word on that, which hasn't budged in 40 years and, quite literally come hell and high water, isn't going to budge in 40 more years. But. Can you deal with that you live in a world of people who see it differently? Can you acknowledge that, increasingly, you're likely going to have to get along with these people? And we're going to have to get along with you.
As such, can we make a deal?
We give you the Keystone Pipeline.
You give us a carbon tax.
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Comments: 147
So, go ahead and have your oil pipeline. What I want is for you to pay the actual cost of the product. Then, how you deliver it is up to you.
'Cause, me, I'm a capitalist. I believe in markets. Let the market place decide.
You know nothing about Conservatism, nor Capitalism...as they apply to reality. Only as you would have them apply to you.
But keep going...many are getting a kick out of you.
I think it was Chris Mathews who said words to the effect "They make one thing in Washington - deals."
That's what our right wing seems to lost sight of these days. They go to Washington with a righteous purpose to never ever deal. Deals are of the Devil in their eyes.
If Congress can't make deals anymore, then we'll just have to come up with some other way to get it done.
I'm trying to thing of an example. Say there's a public well. Say a local business is able to cut its cost and gain an advantage over competitors by dumping some industrial waste into the public well. It amounts to a kind of tax on the public, a tax that subsidises the polluter.
Why does the polluter deserve a public subsidy?
Same deal with carbon emissions. Why does every emitter of carbon deserve a public subsidy to put the grandkids worlds into peril.
All I'm saying is end the public subsidy for polluters. A tax is one way to do that. If there's a way to do it that's more painless to everyone, I'd like to know about it. But let's face it. Any solution to any problem in this world is going to involve a bit of pain for somebody. Would you rather put the entire burden onto the grandkids? Or should you and I pick up a bit of the tab?
Thank God for China. Without whom we'd have to take some responsibility for our actions.
China also provides us with affordable products otherwise we would have to buy the high priced "made in America" products. China is the number one manufacturing country in the world a position once held by America. We became greedy and our manufacturers moved to countries where tiny salaries still feed their population while our population goes hungry and wants free medical and free food and free housing from our government. Do you suppose we cut our own throats?
is why our middle class has been in decline.
Or. "The greedy capitalists in pursuit of cheap labor and low to non-existent environmental standards" is why our middle class has been in decline.
Or. It might just be that the post WWII tsnuemi of wealth is finally petering out. And maybe instead of saying "Whah whah they did this to us," maybe it should be more along the lines of "Hey, we got a good long run off that, and now it's over."
Fossil carbon energy was this luxurious warm bath, and now we're getting all withered up from it. It was a mighty fine bath and now it's time to get out of the bath tub.
But we don't want to get out of the bath tub. Why? Because, it's still comfortable in the bathtub and besides, if we get out of the bathtub, we'll be cold for a minute or two.
Well, yes. We will be cold for a minute or two, but then we'll dry ourselves off and go do something else that's fun.
Like renewable energy for example.
Is kind of how I look at it.
Such as.
I'm trying to not be persnickety here. Now and then I do run acroos somebody who's let's say conservative in their outlook and who actually does see a problem with greenhouse gases. But that's as far as I've ever seen them go.
I've yet to pin a conservative thinker - other than myself because I consider myself to be conservative - down on specific ways to come to terms with the problem. The vast majority of your conservative types just completely deny the problem. The few who don't deny it take it seriously right up to but excluding any sort of departure from business as usual.
I ran across a libertarian who takes it seriously and his remedy is "Those who value property rights don't pollute."
I have to say I like the sound of that. But how do we put this principle into practice so that actual real world carbon emissions go from accelerating to decreasing? And so I asked him to explain to me step by step how we apply that. He wouldn't be pinned down to anything speciffic except for one thing on which he was very speciffic: No carbon tax. No way. No how.
At some point in this world, something has got to change if something is going to change. There's just no way around it. Or, if there is a way to do something without ever doing anything, I'd sure like to know about it.
Show me the results. Your good intentions are beautiful and wonderful and admirable, but show me the results.
I say lets build the keystone pipeline, it will bring thousands of good paying jobs and in the mean time lets embark on a real solution making out existing buildings more energy efficient....That will also bring more jobs It will go farther to reduce our C02 output and it won't screw up the economy like your carbon tax will.
Thing is, Dan E. lives in a world of people not all of who are as enlightened as Dan E., and Dan E. occasionally is obliged to make some concessions to these less enlightened beings.
Thing is. We tried that already. There was just one little hitch. Namely, the infalible ones turned out not to be quite so infalible as they thought they were.
Hence, we came up with this other system, this admittedly horrible system where we spend a good deal of our existence being ruled by horribly wrong ideas competing with other horribly wrong ideas along with a few enlightened ideas. The idea being that in this system, there's at least some possibility that the enlightened ideas over time will stand the test of time and become accepted practice.
Me, I have this what might be a horribly wrong idea that just might be an enlightened idea, that renewable energy could be a way forward for this country and for this world to be healthy and prosperous going forward.
In our system we don't just summarly dismiss these people with their horribly wrong ideas. We have to make a few concessions to them.
Thank God for the renewable energy sector. It's been the one bright spot on our horizon, the one sector in economy where growth has been positively robust.
You know what? We need to get out of this fixation on fossil carbon as the end all be all of energy. Yes, it was that during the 20th century. But this is the 21st century.
It is a sweet ride.
True. A carbon tax in and of itself won't save the planet. Solar panels in and of themselves won't save the planet. Wind energy in and of itself won't save the planet. Geothermal energy in and of itself won't save the planet.
Put them all together, and a planet with people living on it just might have a shot at it.
He wrote: "A carbon tax won't save the planet Charles. I say lets build the keystone pipeline, it will bring thousands of good paying jobs and in the mean time lets embark on a real solution making out existing buildings more energy efficient....That will also bring more jobs It will go farther to reduce our C02 output and it won't screw up the economy like your carbon tax will."
This makes perfect sense to me and a carbon tax won't change a thing ... it'll just make a bad situation worse, in my opinion.
In a world of people behaving badly, why behave well? Sure, go ahead and be a saint. What do you get for your troubles? The greedy snatch up any benefit you've contributed and don't even bother to say "thank you very much, fool." You are worse off. The world isn't any better off. It's lose lose for everyone.
But. Say you convince your neighbor to behave well too. The picture is still bleak but its slightly improved. Then say you the guy down the street up and decides to behave well too. Now things are looking up.
Gradually, as morality catches on, you become surrouned within a circle of its benefits.
Kind of the same deal with solar panels. I put up solar panels. How stupid was that? Think of all the good I could have done with that money.
But then what do you know that down the street somebody else put up some solar panels. And over there. And then the city put up some people can buy shares of solar energy at a lower cost.
Gradually, the benefits of solar energy begin to surround me and transform my world into a healthier more prosperous more secure place. In short, a place more fit for my grandkids to inhabit.
And Alberta is still mining the oil sands and shipping it to China and India. So you've now been a success sending jobs elsewhere and to a place that has no regard for the environment or it's carbon footprint.
So you've stopped a pipeline but increased the carbon footprint...Well done!!!
Let's say the goal is to make a transition from fossil carbon energy over to renewable energy. Ok, so in the beginning of going about that goal, you have to rely on the fossil carbon energy to get started. That's what you have.
But don't you at some point in this world have to stop expanding the thing you want to depart from?
And don't you at some point in this world have to start going in the direction you want to go in?
We're never going to see eye to eye on greenhouse gase, but can we agree on this:
At some point, even a deal with the Devil is preferrable to paralysis.
Don't I know it.
But like I said. Let's do some horse trading. Give me a carbon tax, and I'll give you something. Such as a lower capital gains tax for example. Or, a lower tax in general.
Let's say our goal is low cost energy. How do we get low cost energy by phony accounting? Answer: we don't get low cost energy through phony accounting. What we through phony accounting is expensive energy while we get to delude ourselves for a little while that we're getting low cost energy. You call that a bargain?
Or, alternatively, you went on emitting carbon and one day you woke up to find that it was worse than you were being told.
How on Earth did our deniers get to be such optimists about the world? Based on what, I ask.
Based on the fact that the planet and the human race have survived far worse calamities than a fraction of a degree warming over a huindred years. Better get some Marxist academic to rewrite history, erasing the medieval warm period. Oops, one of them already did, didn't he. And now everybody who has any kind of grip on reality knows he's a liar and a fraud.
"To those who live in fear, everything is a threat."
Well thats what has happened Charles even the high priest of warmegedinists IPCC Head Pachauri has now come out and told the world that this is so when he said in Melbourne that he Acknowledges Global Warming Standstill after all everyone over the past few years has been saying that it was all down to CO2 and as we have seen a record amount has been pumped into our atmosphere.
Oh geez. Here comes Mr. Clockwork Orange.
Then be very afraid that the truth is at last coming out run for them hills and dig even more holes..
Seriously though, all the country's that have been using alternative energy are seeing their country going down the pan pretty dammed quick. Stick to oil, I know for some its a big taboo however thats just because you have been lied to time and time again. One of the greatest lies is CO2 and now we have even seen that big fat lie exposed for what it is.
And if anyone cares to sit back for a few moments and look to see if any of the predictions that these warmegedinists have said some on Gather have come true then you will see those predictions for what they are something not even worth the paper they were written on because not one has come true and that above anything else should set alarm bells ringing. But it wont will it Charles because like all the rest you seem to have been programed to believe all the B/S.
I'm not arguing with that. My point here is there's a world of people who see things differently from Graham. That just is.
Can we find ways to live with one another as opposed to being ensconsed into our respective castles of self-righteousness as our world falls apart?
So many people have been absolutely right as their world went into a tailspin of ruin.
You know. At some point even a deal with the Devil is preferable to paralysis.
When will have we reached that point? Well, when the sequester hammer puts the world economy into a tail spin and into another Great Depression, I'd say we will have reached that point.
To understand that the "global warming" is a manufactured concept, you only need to look at what the government wishes to do to combat the issue. There is no concrete evidence, only speculation, guesswork, and prediction.
What will the government do to combat global warming if new legislation is passed?
People will be required to purchase light bulbs and appliances that are approved that are said to be more environmentally friendly. In addition to having the government telling you what you can or cannot buy, they will also control who will be allowed to sell these items. To understand that, you need only to look to Al Gore and Generation Investment Management to see the true direction that is being taken. General Electric produces the light bulbs and appliances that will be required to be purchased as part of global warming legislation. General Electric, along with many other companies who are somehow connected to energy or environmental concerns are funneling millions of dollars through the hands of Al Gore and Generation Investment Management, and are in position to make tons of money from the junk science, once global warming legislation is passed. The legislation for global warming will be much as is the healthcare plan in that it will tax everything that is related to energy, environmental, or measuring or evaluating of fuel or energy usage, which will be related to taxation of mass proportions. Those who believe the healthcare plan is about actual healthcare also believe that global warming legislation will be about global warming of the Earth. Both are business ventures and we, the people will finance the ventures.
One of the most used props in promoting the melting of the ice is the constant showing of large pieces of ice breaking off and falling into the ocean. It is a play on emotions and then it usually always shows the same picture of the same polar bear standing on the same piece of ice. Why does this ice break off and plunge into the ocean? Simple physics...Let's use Greenland for an example. There are massive cracks in the ice, and not like a crack in the windshield of a car, but cracks that may be miles long. As ice melts (naturally) from the variations of temperatures, the water flows into and fills these cracks. Now, here is where simple physics comes into play. When water freezes, the volume will increase by as much as 9% above its volume as water. This increased volume serves as a wedge and with the increased volume, the two pieces of ice are pushed apart and can result in actually pushing the smaller piece of ice into the ocean. This has always happened and it will continue to happen. If you doubt my claim about water increasing its volume by freezing, it can easily be proved in your own home. Take a plastic bottle of water and place it in the freezer before you go to bed. When you wake in the morning, you will have your proof as you open the freezer door.
These scientists speak of ice ages that existed millions of years ago. Why did that ice melt without the presence of what they say is causing it in current time? The temperatures throughout the world are changing but it is changes that relate to increases and decreases in temperature, not just increases. That is precisely why the term “climate change” took the place of “global warming.” There is no true evidence that we are causing the changes, nor is there in true evidence that we could change it if we wanted to do so. Follow the money trail, and you will see the true components of global warming, climate change, or whatever they are calling it this week...Global warming legislation would change much, but it will change what is and is not allowed to be purchased, and who will be allowed to produce the products, it will change where you get your energy, how much you will be allowed, and how much you will pay for that energy, and you will see taxes that you never imagined. That is what global warming is really about, but some simply listen to the government tell them what they are to think, and they not only allow that control, they seem to welcome it.
Or, would you prefer a civil war?
Another way to look at it is these kooks want something badly and they're willing to give you something you've been wanting.
Hence, the trade.
Let's say our goal is low cost energy. How do we get low cost energy by phony accounting? Answer: we don't get low cost energy through phony accounting. What we through phony accounting is expensive energy while we get to delude ourselves for a little while that we're getting low cost energy. You call that a bargain?
Show one physics textbook on this planet that does not predict that increased levels of greenhouse gases in an atmosphere in the presence of a nearby sun doesn't result in warming.
But. We've been around and around and around for decades on this and we're just plain not going to see eye to eye on it. Ever. Go in peace. Believe what you believe.
Hence, the deal.
What is my goal?
Say there's a public well. Say a local business is able to cut its cost and gain an advantage over competitors by dumping some industrial waste into the public well. It amounts to a kind of tax on the public, a tax that subsidises the polluter.
One rememedy is to tax the polluter. This accomplishes two things:
One, it's a counter-incentive on the polluter to pollute.
Two, it gives businesses that don't pollute a fair chance in the market place.
Because pollution has costs.
You make deals with the brilliance challenged ones.
Hasn't that seen us through reasonably well over several centuries of our history?
I never claimed to be brilliant, and I do not appreciate your sarcasm. I was not disrespectful to you.
You are positive you are right and maybe you are. But you live in this world where others see it differently. That just is.
Can you deal with this world of other people in a positive way with a bit of constructive give and take is what I'm getting at as opposed to ensconsing yourself within your castle of righeousness as your world falls apart.
I totally dig that.
Thing is. Today's right wingers don't seem to know the difference between their sacred principles and their sacred assumptions.
You cannot dismiss half of the nation with a single sentence and be expected to be taken seriously. I am not trying to be disrespectful, but you cannot simply have this preconceived cognitive existence and not allow the absence of facts to be a factor in reaching logical conclusions on this or any other issue.
My point with my original comment is relatively simple. You cannot provide a single concrete fact that substantiates the reality of global warming. That is not a direct judgement of you, because the scientists have been unable to provide those facts, just the same. Until actual evidence surfaces that concludes that we are causing the climate changes or that we can do anything to actually change that process, there is no justification for a deal of any kind. You cannot clean or protect the environment or control the weather with a taxation. It is just that simple. I am not being disrespectful, nor am I arguing with you. I am presenting my personal opinion that is based upon the lack of evidence to support the global warming theory. If the emails that surfaced to show scientist suggesting doctoring the data because the existing data did not support their theories cannot create doubt with some, it is likely that facts or lack of facts are not really the basis for the views of some with this issue.
But then consider the alternative, which is war.
How do you know I wasn't talking about me, Vic? Oh, he's out a here.
Well we're off to a brilliant start at making a deal.
You don't? How can you be so sure? Where's your evidence? Show me one shred of evidence that you don't live in a dream world, Ms. Lee.
I think there must be some examples of where a tax was just the ticket to a problem.
I'm thinking.
Jeez Louise. How many worlds of evidence does one need?
But yes. Pigheaded was harsh. Shame on me for that.
Hey don't knock war, war has been my business since I was 18. And war is good for humanity just think of good things that comes out of war air travel atomic research that gives us all cheap energy, GPS systems that make sure we never get lost again, computers, these are just a few items that have been good for humanity brought about by war.
1.) Climate science is a scam and a fraud.
2.) Climate science proves that the risk to humanity from greenhouse gases is absolute zero. Even a nanosmidgen of risk, you ask? Nope. Zero risk.
Isn't it amazing what certainty science provides us while at the same time being a being a fraud and a scam?
Einstein said, "why 100? if one had evidence, that is all that would be needed"
As for the bastardization of Einstein's quote, the operative concept is "if one had evidence." The denialist industry offers no valid evidence. None. There is no evidence disputing the 100+ years of science that unequivocally demonstrates that we are warming the planet.
So what is all the folderol denialists spew? Well, it's the same talking points created by the fossil fuel lobbyists that have been many many many times debunked as hogwash. The professional denialists then feed these lies, no matter how obviously ridiculous, to their networks of ideologues who don't stop for a second to question why some non-scientist who can't get the basic facts right should be considered "science" while actual scientists doing actual research and publishing in actual scientific journals for all to peer-review get called political.
This kind of intellectual dishonesty by the denialist lobbyists and their ideological followers is intentionally spewed to protect their corporate sponsors from honest discussion of policy options.
Meanwhile, the planet is warming, we are the reason, and the time to take responsibility and act is now.
IE: No such thing as scientific consensus. It's all a matter of opinion. Nobody really knows anything for sure. Nobody can be held responsible for anything. If it feels good, do it.
Same ole Charles.....Same ole non argument.
I wake up everyday and I say to myself stop being so intractible, Charlie. Mr., you better evolve. Look at Dan. Follow his example.
So the Koch-owned tea party and the denialist industry lobbyists have successfully held back American innovation and turned the future world over to the communist Chinese.
The irony in that is palpable.
Hopefully, as the well of excuses dries up faster than an aquifer in Utah, our excuse makers will grasp that all the eneryg and resourcefullness of excuse making could just as well go into facing facts.
Sweet! There you have it...all the proof we need that a "carbon tax" is for MORONS!!!
Next!!!...
And ayway, I've known since grade school how to cope with types like you.
"Companies can evade China's current "pollutant discharge fees" by building close relationships with local governments, according to Ella Chou, a China expert at the Brookings Institution."
Yes, they are.
Meanwhile, the denialist industry lobbyists in the United States dishonestly deny the science so that we don't have to take any responsibility for the ramifications of that science.
Have to laugh at the irony in how the most vocally fake-patriotic in the US, who are funded by the same Koch brothers who fund climate denial, are ceding our future "leader-of-the-world" status to the communist Chinese.
Good one.
An engineer basically makes choices among tradeoffs. Most of the tradeoffs have to do with risk versus cost. Lower risk, higher cost. Lower cost, higher risk. An engineer can't be an extremist in these choices. The budget isn't infinite but neither can one ignore risks.
Unless, that is, you are one of our climate change deniers in which case you can be an extremist. You minimize your cost by assuming zero risk.
Another way to achieve the same result as being an extremist in cost vs. risk tradeoffs is to tape a sign to your butt that says "please kick my ass."
Tell that to those who have worked - and succeeded - in destroying their future, by stealing and spending their Treasure...your Leftist "tribe." (he-he..)
What if.
The climate change crowd - the warmageddonists, as one denier put it - is just one big tribe. And what we warmegeddonists swear is rational thinking, based upon findings from people we admire, respect, and trust, is really more about tribal loyalty. And those people we admire, respect, and trust are also members of this tribe whose thinking has more to do with their tribal affiliation than rational thought.
What if there's no there there to our sacred self-serving assumptions?
And what it really is is that all the members of this tribe subconsciously align themselves to it while convincing themselves they are being souls of calm rational thought, as opposed to those other people, those members of the rival tribe, referred to as the "deniers".
We have to consider this posibility.
Because human beings are NOT rational animals. We can be rational. But we are hard wired for tribal affiliation. And this is not out of place. Think of how important it is for the instincts of a social animal to be finely tuned to tribal affiliation. It's not that we necessarily consciously put tribal affiliation above rational thought. It's merely that our instincts for tribal affilation is much more deeply rooted within us than our capacity for rational thought.
And.
This being the case.
This also applies to the denier tribe. They too, being human, have this hard wired propensity for tribal affiliation to trump rational thought.
If we are to overcome this tendency, as we must in order to get to public policies that are in sync with physical realities that will make or break our continued existence on this planet, one, we must recognize this human trait within ourselves and others.
Two, we must continuously and rigorously challenge our own sacred self-serving assumptions and recognize that sacred self-serving assumptions are not the same thing as one's core values.
We give you a carbon tax.
Once the American Debt is Paid.
Increasingly, we're all world citizens anyway.
Pretty much one small life boat in space we're riding here, people.
Funny comment that, your country have been trying to tell the rest of us for years how to run our own country's and now you have the audacity to say to someone that they have no right to comment on how to run your country a country that all the world now see's as a broken machine that is running out of ideas fast.
And very good point, Mr. Graham ;-)
Its OK Charles the rest f us are well used to it in fact we are so used to it we don't bother anymore unless someone brings up the subject.
www.TwitterBackgrounds.org
And you constantly bitch about it
We give you a carbon tax.
Once the American Debt is Paid."
What's this "we" business, Renee? Have you finally decided to become a U.S. citizen?
That's at my invitation. This topic is "Can we make a deal?"
Well, no, we per se, can't. But we can discuss it.
And yes, Renee, along with anyone else on the planet, or throughout the cosmos for that matter, is welcome to join the discussion.
Well, no, we per se, can't. But we can discuss it."
Republicans want the pipeline, Democrats want a carbon tax. So in order for a deal to be done, those are the two parties that would have to come to an agreement. Last I checked, Renee is a citizen of New Zealand, so it didn't make sense for her to use the word "we" when offering a hypothetical deal. I wasn't suggesting she didn't have the right to speak on the subject, just wondering if she had switched countries, based on the words she used.
Thank you for your invitation, Charles.
Do you have anything to offer to the discussion?
I already have.
And I am so out of here. Have a nice Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Good Bye!!!!!!!!! Fare thee Well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Audios!!!!!! A reve a dare chee!!!!!!!!!
Indeed....
"Manmillian lunk head."
You know, Renee, it might actually have more traction coming from you.
Here's a suggestion:
Yes, Al Gore is a mamillian lunk head. We know that.
But.
One, let us acknowledge that there is some non-zero level of risk associated with humanity's pumping out greenhouse gases.
Two, we live in a world full of mamillian lunk heads. Nothing one can do about that. You know, though, sometimes that can work to our advantage. These lunk heads want something. And they might actaully be willing to give us right thinking people something we want for it.
That being the case, let's make a deal.
Well look here (from Charles McElwee, International Environmental Lawyer):
I can see how this one’s shaping up. Paired with the breathless (and preposterous) statement that China is spending 40% of its stimulus plan on green projects (often phrased as “China’s leaders are investing $12.6 million every hour to green their economy”) will be the confident assertion that China is imposing a tax on carbon.
Reuters broke the news in English that
Chinese state think tank researchers will soon issue preliminary proposals for a carbon tax that may one day become part of the government’s efforts to tame growing greenhouse gas emissions, experts told local media.
Su Ming, deputy director of an institute under China’s Ministry of Finance, said the research on a carbon tax had been requested by that ministry and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the proposal may be published “within a month,” the National Business Daily reported on Thursday.
Su told the paper the proposal was part of a package of possible taxes on environmental damage under study. The others are taxes on sulphur dioxide and ammonia pollutants, as well as on waste water.
Reuters also sensibly noted that
The carbon tax proposal, however, appears a long way from the prospect of implementation.
Nevertheless fanciful speculations have begun. Read more of Charles McElwee's article.
So have we a failure of spin or a failure of literacy from the left?
Thanks for the article.
Look to China for a fine example of good old fashioned wide open unencumbered by child labor laws or environmental regulations free market capitalism.
Caution: no smoking near their rivers. You might start a fire.
This should come as no surprise:
"Companies can evade China's current "pollutant discharge fees" by building close relationships with local governments, according to Ella Chou, a China expert at the Brookings Institution."
Kind of defeats the purpose, huh?
China moving into mature advanced economy most certainly will have to become something other than maximum growth through cheap labor and non-existant environmental standards.
But what?
Something like us?
Or perhaps a more efficient model: Totalitarian capitalism?
Me, I'm rooting for the former over the latter.
What I'm yearning for is for our model of liberal kind of democratic capitalism to succeed.
Step one: make it through this century without imploding and/or crapping in our own nest.
Come on get real. Your average citizen can't deal with the risks associated with greenhouse gases. Your average citizen is hard wired for dealing with things that have immediate rewards and immediate negative consequences. But greenhouse gases, where the benefit is immediate and powerful and the downside comes fifty years later and distributed over the entire planet, forget about it. Given a choice between dealing with that reality and denying that reality of it, it's just no contest whatsoever. The short term is going to win over the long term every time.
Let's just face the fact that a democracy is going to favor self-indulgence over discipline. Heck, these people don't even have the discipline to avoid bankrupting themselves, let alone avoid trashing their environment. There's just one thing for it. Impose the will of the state on people.
Rebuttal anyone?
The successful rules and regs will be placed strategically to have maximum benefit for the costs imposed.
The successful democratic society necessitates that most people understand the motivation of the rules and regs, but that rules and regs are still at times needed to get traffic going in a certain direction.
A carbon tax, for example, is not a thing to impose upon people who are dead set against it. But, if you can persuade enough people within a democracy the motivation and purpose of it and value of it, then it has a place within a democratic society to re-direct traffic away from greenhouse gas emitting energy and toward renewable energy.
Here is my radical proposal:
Your average human being does have the capacity to cope with a problem such as greenhouse gases. I'll go further. Your citizenry can do it better and cheaper and more successfully than an authoritarian state.
It was no accident. It cost a lot of money. It was an investment by people who were willing to invest in a well educated, well enabled populace.
The best money they ever spent.
We give you the Keystone Pipeline, and drill baby drill anywhere your heart desires, your grandmother's back yard if you like.
You give us a carbon tax.
Regarding a carbon tax - this is my concern. Charles, if you could, lay it out for me - who would pay, where would the $$ go, how would it be monitored....etc....
That seems to be the reasoning that reigns on the right these days.
Meanwhile, the grandkids' world turns to crap.
" it reminds me of the lawsuits against tobacco companies - cigarettes are not healthy - but they are legal."
You know. While far from perfect a model, the tobacco model is not such a bad model for how to deal with sin. Tax sin.
You outlaw sin, what you get is a thriving black market of sin. You completely leave sin alone, you have tobaco companies targeting children with their ads.
Ideally, we wouldn't sin. But, if we must sin, sin a little. And tax sin to pay off some of the societal costs of sinning.
That's where good old fashioned horse trading politics could be applied. You want a carbon tax, cut me some slack on this other tax.
Also, part of a carbon tax could be applied to research on bio fuels and on improving solar panels etc.
From my perspective, I'm not so concerned about where the tax revenues go, provided, of course, they are used sensibly within a lean minimalist government. What I want to see is an end to what I have watched happen time and again since the 1970s in which, just as renewables seemed about to go some where, fossil carbon intersts simply opened up the oil spigot a notch and cut the legs off renewable energy.
In today's energy market, we have a Chalk Creek, Utah, sized flow of capital into renewables. That might be enough to make renewables viable in oh a hundred years or so.
If want renewables to really get anywhere like now, we need an Amazon River sized flow of capital into their development.
If you prefer a government in which positive things happen with the least ineffective meddling around the around the edges, as in the Solyndra debacle, a carbon tax gives the most bang for the buck.
Through a better song than "the precious jewel"?
Mr Pinocchio Gore could start the ball rolling by donating every cent that he has made on Carbon credits with interest of course to this idea and we the people could actually make him chief salesman to sell it to all the other snake oil sale persons.
Sir, mind if we put YOU in Charge?
Good point. Enough of this intrusive and often corrupt wasteful government meddling around the edges of what needs to be done.
Put a price on a carbon, which is nothing but accounting for the value of a people friendly atmosphere, and then get government OUT of the energy micromanagement business.
When people make very big very expensive messes through their idiotic behaviors, guess what. It then requires very big and very expensive and often very corrupt and always very wasteful government to clean up it.
Hence, if minimal government is your goal, don't make a mess in the first place.
Our denialists understand but one thing.
Music.