As the World Burns
Posted on: October 4, 2010 - 4:31pm
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As the World Burns
As the World Burns
New Yorker -- Obama, in a February, 2009, address to Congress, said, “To truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy. So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution.”
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Market-based cap on pollution? Had Obama gone finally crazy? Market is the cause of pollution, in the first place. What about restricting the market? Apparently, the market (profit) is a holy cow of democracies, democracies must have their ever-increasing stream of useless shit produced and all ecologic precautions must somehow maintain that. This is a thinking that created the problem and will not solve it.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Thanks for not autoplaying that.
A cap would stop the pollution from increasing.
A good thing for the kids. Eh?
Raj Patel: Cap, but don't trade
I like this guy a lot, he sees things clear.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Sometimes you find a sucker for good.
Kleiner Perkins’ Doerr Gives More Cash to Defend Climate Law
Bloomberg -- John Doerr, a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in Menlo Park, California, gave $500,000 Sept. 30 to a committee that’s campaigning to defeat Proposition 23, according to state records. His wife, Ann Doerr, gave $1 million to the group the same day, Steven Maviglio, a spokesman for the committee, said in an e-mail. John Doerr had earlier given $500,000 to the committee on Aug. 6
It's more likely that Obama knows enough to see that a market based cap is the only one that has a chance of getting by the whores in the legislature.
No offense to sex workers.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
OK, here is my turn to pontificate. We do not need cap and trade at all.
As the video points out, it is way to open to shenanigans. In fact, even though there is no actual cap and trade program in place, there are already charlatans out there selling carbon credits (mostly to soccer moms who have the idea that a hummer is somehow better than a station wagon).
In fact, one of the episodes of P&T Bullshit has an interview with someone who not only sells them to the gullible but also sells them to herself. I can only assume that if/when a real program comes into existence, she is hoping that she will have a track record that will let her take some type of personal income tax advantage. Bullshit indeed.
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What we need to be doing right now is exactly the things that we have been able to do more or less for about forty years now. Alternative Energy (for brevity, AE from here on).
Through the magic of the internet, I happen to know a couple of people who have done AE projects on both the personal and the huge scales.
The large scale guy approached one of the new start up companies making solar electric panels. He got half of the first year's production for free and he used it to set up a solar farm outside of an air force base in New Mexico. The base is now like 30% off the power grid. Obviously way good for national security. Also way good for the manufacturer as they can make promotional literature based on the “as seen at [whatever] AFB” deal.
The small scale guy lives in the Marianas Islands where the power grid is only on about 20% of the time. He has set up both wind and solar power that provides enough juice that he pretty much is not really using the grid so much as feeding power into it when it is on (for a decent reduction in the cost of the bit that he may actually draw).
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Now obviously, most of us are not going to be able to do AE on such an extent either way. However, if we all did AE to whatever extent we could, that would take some strain out of the system.
How about if Obama were to take some of this stimulus money and put it toward developing AE technology with an eye towards getting some new all American manufacturing going?
Now I will not claim special information on this but if we could take say 20% off of the current demand for oil, we would still be bringing a crap load of oil into this country but we would also be taking that much off of our nation's carbon load.
Say that it takes ten years to get this set up. If that means that by 2020, we are at our carbon target for 2030, well, that is way fucking cool. There would still be much work that needs to be done. Even so, this is largely old ideas that were never properly implemented when they were new.
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Oh, I forgot to mention that this is something that can easily be a bipartisan deal.
If you are of a liberal bent, well just think of all the good that comes from this. I think that I have covered this much above.
If you are of a conservative bent, well just how many jobs will this bring the the US manufacturing sector? How well does this position the US as the global leader in technology that the rest of the world is going to need sooner or later anyway? If the US eventually becomes a net exporter of this stuff, what does that do for our trade deficits?
I just don't see how everyone in the US does not win on doing this.
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believe there's no global warming and use this GW dispute to completely ignore the wholesale destruction of Earth's habitat. I think in Oz 15 per cent of our highly endangered species went extinct last year. The culprits were cats, foxes and loss of habitat.
I agree with Gene that this clean energy stuff is a potential gold mine. It makes sense to develop this technology. It makes sense to generate power locally and it makes sense to look after our wee planet. The idea that just destroying everything to generate short term jobs and prosperity is justifiable represents some really shallow thinking.
We have some old growth forests in Tasmania that are just now - this week - in the process of being marked as never to be logged after 30-plus years of battling through the courts. Part of the reason for their protection is that wildlife tourism to the state is now worth about ten times the dollar value of selling woodchips to Japan so they can sell it back to us as paper. Deliciously, the biggest tree lovers of all seem to be the Japanese who have some sort of spiritual shit going on with forests in their own country while cheerily raping the forests of Australia, NZ and south east asia.
We have a green-controlled coalition government here now - it would be a labor government clear and free if the dumb bastards had acted on the environment while they had a chance. When 85 per cent of the population supports acting on climate and the environment and the government does not act, it can expect to be voted the fuck out. Ultimately we will act on climate because it's in our self interest to do so. The sooner our leaders see this, the better off we will all be.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I don't buy into the GW because I think it is ridiculous to believe that we can or should stop the earth's climate from changing. It has changed before and will change again no matter what we do. Sure AE is important. Cutting pollution is good. But being in a rush of "we have to switch tomorrow" is pointless. The tech is still rather raw and extremely expensive. So you want to throw solar panels on your roof great. I can see the military benefit of using them to provide backup power to a base or better yet if a solar panel could be small enough to be portable to provide an indefinite power supply to a strike team behind enemy lines. As the wealthy buy them and invest in them the tech will be perfected and maybe eventually be a reasonably priced alternative. Same thing with hybrid cars and such. I would love the gas savings but if the car costs me an extra 10k it simply doesn't make sense for me to buy it. But as the tech is improved and the wealthy buy it the price will come down and maybe in 5-10 years I will have a hybrid. The "cap and trade" programs are much more about economics than actually saving the environment.
As for what atheistextremeist is talking about I agree. I just think it is unfortunate that most prominent "environmental" groups are more interested in pursuing a socialist agenda than actually saving the environment. If they took all that money they spend on lobbying politicians and simply bought land they could set up all sorts of sanctuaries. Want to protect an old growth forest? Great, buy it. They have the money and the fundraising base. No one can log or build a house or anything on land that you own. And to make it easier maybe we could exempt them from property taxes if they allow the public to use the land for recreational purposes. You don't need the government or courts or anything. If you are willing to allow hunting on the land us hunters will sink tons of money into it. There already are hunting clubs that basically buy up large tracks of land and manage it for wildlife. A lease for hunting purposes can generate $15-$30 per acre here in Ohio which is more than enough to pay for upkeep and taxes.
Instead of using government power to try to force everything, just join us. Too many cats? Let us know, we will kill them. There was a big blow up in Iowa a few years ago because a town started offering a bounty to hunters that shot cats. But cats are EXTREMELY good predators and when they go feral they decimate the bird and small game populations. If I see a cat in the woods, it is dead. Fox? Sure thing, we can take care of that population. Especially if you can get people over the stigma of wearing fur. Fur prices are finally starting to come back and if we could get a little more demand trapping can actually be profitable again. Heck, if we could get prices up to around $150-200 per pelt I would quit my job. Same thing with coyotes here in the states. They are becoming overpopulated because no one traps them anymore.
I was watching some show on Animal Planet the other night and the guy was in Cambodia I think. He set up a camera and took pictures of all of these animals he said were endangered. Cute little rodents and such. Then at the end of the show he made a big deal about releasing two huge pythons from captivity. Well guess what the pythons are going to eat. Goodbye cute little endangered rodents. If you want to protect an endangered species you need to control its predators. Here in the states we are also developing a problem with eagles. If you kill one you go to jail but the growing eagle population has devastated the grouse and quail populations and substantially lowered the rabbit population. But the suggestion of removing certain species of eagles from the threatened list is instantly shot down by city slicking greenies. Anyway, I have gotten off topic so I will end my rant.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Stop the climate from changing? No, we probably can't do that.
Stop speeding towards an outcome we know is crappy? Don't you think we should?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
On 10/10/10, a global party against global warming
LA Times -- "Dear World," begins an open letter from environmentalist Bill McKibben that's posted on climate crisis website 350.org. In it, he proposes a response to what he calls "a tough year" marked by unprecedented rates of glacial retreat in the Arctic, devastating erosion in Latin America, record-breaking temperatures globally — and an almost complete failure to do anything about it. His suggestion? Throw a party.
But it doesn't hurt to say it again. What we need is a disaster just to wake people up. A 5-metre sea level rise might attract attention.
In Oz we have had about 15 years of severe drought and bushfires. That sort of woke people up. Now you can't build a house without solar hot water and rainwater tanks in most places here. It's illegal.
This is something I support. It makes sense to use the available energy and resources rather than carting them all around the place. It also makes sense for individuals to own their own means of producing them.
Why pay a utility for water when you can collect it on your roof? Why not combine low-power devices with solar panels and go off-grid?
If the price of power and water double this makes excellent fiscal sense. Why be financially beaten up by huge utilities? Ultimately sustainability represents a libertarian future.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
OK, the whole global warming thing is quite annoying.
A thousand years ago, lions ran wild in Europe and England was a major wine producer. Because it was warmer then than now. You can't blame humans for that.
That being said, the whole “environmental movement” was born from that fact that we managed to light a river on fire. What the fuck?
Also, I would note that there are twice as many people on the planet today as when I was a kid. If that is not a problem then I don't know what is.
Here is the deal: We are living in a world with certain properties. One of those properties is the climategate emails. That was clearly a case of scientists getting caught with their pants down. If there was evidence of a huge conspiracy to promote global warming as a fake thing, then that is where it would be. I assure you that Exxon had many people go over that material with a fine tooth comb. They came up with nothing. Because there was nothing to find.
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AGS,
My issue is not with the change so much as the rate of change.
Just because the climate may be in a warming cycle doesn't mean that we should haul ass getting it to the maximum.
"Let nature take its course" is a valid plan.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
And in my life I have seen the numbers of people on the planet double. That and a river being lit on fire. Both are fucked up. I don't see the point in dealing with which fuckup is bigger so much as asking the question “what shall we do now?”.
Apparently, we need to deal with global warming because, um, well, I am not clear on that.
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I'd like to still have some polar ice cap left?
I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers the Cuyahoga. I was young but stuff like that sticks with you.
So, should speeding toward what we know is a bad outcome because we think the planet will recover really a good thing?
I'd like to get this settled before I have to breathe undiluted acid.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
No, global warming is totally fucked. In other news, lots of stuff is totally fucked. There are about 25 gay couples who are legally married in California. Is marriage a right because of what some people thought? Or is stuff right because it is right?
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Ok but you don't seem to think that global warming is fucked enough that it needs fixing (because you believe the planet will recover at the end of the cycle?)
Things are right because they are right - stopping the pollution of the planet is a good thing. If it follows that it reduces the rate of climate change, it's still a benefit, albeit a secondary one.
I'm not sure on marriage (gay or straight) being a right anymore. I've seen too many people get married that everyone knew shouldn't have done it (so when it ended in divorce no one was surprised). I wonder sometimes if there shouldn't be a screening processor if we should keep using this brute force method.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Well sure. It probably would be a good thing to deal with. Just like lots of things should be addressed. That much having been said, I don't think that the way to deal with it is to assign it to the special “can't be questioned” status.
All that does is establish that it is up there with other weighty issues such as not saying the word nigger. You can be a total racist fuckwad and say all the other “hurtful” words you feel like. But nigger is special. It is the “N word”. Global warming is also special that way from what I gather.
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Ok. Now I understand your position more clearly. I thought you were one of those "It's not happening! It's not happening! I know the planet's temperature is rising but that doesn't mean the globe is warming!" types.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Yah, I never really understood that one. Stuff can be real and still be questioned. Questions asked and answered bring understanding and possibly solutions.
The thing that gets me going on this is that there is an idea that some things cannot be questioned. Like the whole Al Gore “the verdict of science is in” thing. Um, “verdict” is not a scientific term. Yet when it comes to global warming, there are some people who have this idea that it is the drop dead priority to divert all our resources to. All the other problems in this world can burn out of control while we deal with this one.
Um, if we do some stuff to address global warming and some stuff to address other issues, then we will make a future that is kind of unpleasant but mostly better off in general. Or we can set all other stuff aside to deal with the one thing. Then the future will be a total fucking mess. But the world will be cooler. I would rather have lees general mayhem myself.
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