You know I kinda lost my faith in America for awhile, thinking Mccain was going to win. It was one of the fastest elections yet. Only took a night to get the required 270. Anybody who was supporting John McCain, I also respected him as a politician, I just don't think he belongs in the Oval Office.
:boogie :villagepeople :funkmario1 :funkluigi1 :megagroove :ddrabel :ipod :mowhappy :marle :catgirl :wiggle :catgirl2
Congratulations to Obama, though I present my misgivings at a majority Democrat house and senate with a democrat president. (I would give similar misgivings for a majority republican congress with republican president, mind...)
My faith can only be restored by a third party candidate from a third party that isn't bat-s*** insane getting a legitimate shot at election instead of the only threat from them being to drain critical votes from the two major parties.
oh goody, now the rest of our world can get along with out lives without being bombarded by news reports about the US Election Circus for a few years.. >:3
:U
Nah. Palin will start her campaign the day Obama is inaugurated.
Yes, congratulations to Obama.
I have to admit, I'm a little scared. Not by Obama, but by the future, which seems so uncertain right now.
We're in the middle of a huge economic crisis and I don't think we've hit bottom yet. We're going to have to switch to alternative energy sources and eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, requiring us to scrap the entire gasoline-based infrastructure. To top it off, some European nations want to renegotiate Bretton Woods, which isn't all that important except for the part about the entire freaking economic underpinning of the Western economy. To be fair, we need to renegotiate it, because of the crap that the World Bank and IMF are responsible for, but if we don't do it properly, we could really mess up the entire world economy.
I need a hug. :cry
Quote from: superluser on November 05, 2008, 01:11:40 AM
Yes, congratulations to Obama.
I have to admit, I'm a little scared. Not by Obama, but by the future, which seems so uncertain right now.
We're in the middle of a huge economic crisis and I don't think we've hit bottom yet. We're going to have to switch to alternative energy sources and eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, requiring us to scrap the entire gasoline-based infrastructure. To top it off, some European nations want to renegotiate Bretton Woods, which isn't all that important except for the part about the entire freaking economic underpinning of the Western economy. To be fair, we need to renegotiate it, because of the crap that the World Bank and IMF are responsible for, but if we don't do it properly, we could really mess up the entire world economy.
I need a hug. :cry
:hug It'll be okay.
So long as people wise up a little and we work together, we'll make it. I know we will.
Congrats to Obama. Now let's save the country.
Congratulations Obama. Really, I'm just happy this nonsense can cease for a short amount of time (until the next election), and that I won't be bombarded by it every minute of every day.
Quote from: Yugo on November 05, 2008, 01:34:56 AM
Congratulations Obama. Really, I'm just happy this nonsense can cease for a short amount of time (until the next election), and that I won't be bombarded by it every minute of every day.
Going by '06 standards, you have two days until the 2010 midterm election talk begins.
Quote from: DarkAudit on November 05, 2008, 01:41:54 AMGoing by '06 standards, you have two days until the 2010 midterm election talk begins.
Not this year. The Republicans are imploding and I don't think they'll be able to run a successful campaign for a while.
Also, thanks for the hug, Jairus. I needed it.
The only thing I can say is that I'm just glad I won't have to listen to annoying campaign ads for a while now. Hooray for not getting my ballot for my first presidential election, sure sets a nice precedent for me not voting.
:boogie :boogie :boogie :boogie :boogie :boogie
The first Election i can vote in turns out to be historical!!!
Now i only hope that things will slowly turn around for the better.
Indiana. Obama won freaking INDIANA. No Democrat has won the Presidential vote in Indiana since 1964. And the AP (and other media outlets) have called it for Obama.
That's it. It's officially an electoral college LANDSLIDE. That's right, I used the L word. LANDSLIDE.
Last election was a landslide too. Though I'm surprised my origin state went blue this year.
Quote from: Jer-oh-me on November 05, 2008, 03:17:26 AMLast election was a landslide too. Though I'm surprised my origin state went blue this year.
Last election was 286-252. That's 47% to 53%. This election is shaping up to be 338-158. If McCain gets every EV that hasn't been called, he can make it to 200 EVs. That's 63% to 37%. That's a blowout. The popular vote in 2004 was 51% to 48%. According to CNN, it's 52% to 47% this year.
So no popular vote blowout, but a definite electoral vote blowout.
Also, Sean Quinn reports something screwy going on in Georgia. According to news reports (http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=7770408&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1), 1.7 million Georgians voted early, but official results list the total for Georgia at only 3.6 million?
Y'know what, I find this depressing, I'm out of this thread. Yay Obama, great job wooing the American public.
Congratulations, guys! Hopefully you can now start to undo some of that paranoid security theater crap, so that people will enjoy visiting the US rather than hoping that the TSA guys don't take a fancy to their laptop :3
I am filled with childlike elation and joy at this news. There are no words, except I truly hope America changes for the better. I truly do. But I feel that Obama is a man that inspires hope in a lot of people. I have nothing but admiration for this, and I feel that after Bush's twenty percent approval rating and the disappointing performance of his presidency, this is something America
needs. We need confidence, we need a man we can support and count on.
However, I finally realize by now that McCain's a good man. He had the decency to step down and he praised Obama in his speeches, even chastising his voters for booing Obama's name. To an extent, I feel a little ashamed that I expected the same act from Bush in McCain.
Quoting a Farker site:
QuoteCongratulations to Barack Obama and the rest of the Democratic party.
Don't screw it up.
Dear Senator McCain,
You seem like a good guy. It's sad you didn't get to serve your country again in the capacity you wanted, but I am sure that you will continue to serve her at every opportunity going forth.
Dear Senator McCain's supporters,
Please have the same decency as the man you're supporting.
Oh, and Jer-oh-me, there's a difference between wooing the American public and inspiring them. :3 And I think Obama did just that: he inspired people. Some of the most cynical people I know are overjoyed and enthusiastic.
So no, I don't think he's some slimy dictator-in-presidential-clothing that's managed to woo the public with his fake charisma.
It's not nice to be a sore loser, Jer :<
Anyways....that Georgia thing really does sound screwy...
i just hope the 'R' word doesn't come up...
Quote from: Keaton the Black Jackal on November 05, 2008, 04:17:21 AMHowever, I finally realize by now that McCain's a good man. He had the decency to step down and he praised Obama in his speeches, even chastising his voters for booing Obama's name. To an extent, I feel a little ashamed that I expected the same act from Bush in McCain.
McCain's a riddle wrapped in a mystery. Whether that mystery is inside an enigma is something that not even I know. If I ever write a story with a politician, McCain may very well be my archetype.
McCain's a class act and he used to be a moderate. The problem was that a moderate couldn't win the Republican base, and thus couldn't win the election. In order to make the conservative base like him, he had to shore up his bona fides. So he turned hard right on abortion and started voting with George Bush, even to the extent that he voted to allow waterboarding.
Maybe he told himself that he just needed to wear the hard right mask long enough to win the election, and then he'd take it off and be his old moderate self. Maybe the mask changed him, and the moderate McCain is no more. Or maybe the McCain of 2000 is still there. I can't see into his soul, so I don't know.
Here is one theory that I had as a sort of epiphany tonight: Maybe McCain saw how far right the Republican Party was going, and knew that it would become more and more of a know-nothing party: anti-immigrant, racist, and theocratic. And maybe he decided to put a stop to it. It would destroy the Republican Party and it would destroy his career, but at least it would save America.
It would certainly explain all his bonehead moves. And it would explain why, though he went negative, he never aggressively played the race card and always chastised those who did.
OK. I'll edit this one more time:
Quote from: Xze-Xze on November 05, 2008, 04:24:39 AMIt's not nice to be a sore loser, Jer :<
I sympathize with Jer-oh-me. This is not a normal loss, and I'd like to cheer him up, but the most cheery that I can get is ``Cheer up, your candidate lost because they ran the wrong candidate, not because the American people are stupid or your ideas are bad.'' (I should hasten to add that I do not think that your ideas are bad) This is a very bad time to be a Republican, and I think I'll have more to say about that later in this thread, but I think I may have a soak in the tub and meditation first.
Quote from: Turnsky on November 05, 2008, 12:55:39 AM
oh goody, now the rest of our world can get along with out lives without being bombarded by news reports about the US Election Circus for a few years.. >:3
Like it or lump it, what happens to the US does affect the rest of us.
I was quite elated myself, in fact, my whole dorm was. People were cheering for about an hour straight, it was hard to sleep, ah well, I guess I shouldn't complain, this did turn out for the best after all.
Speaking of which, I also noticed that there are at least 60 democrats in the senate, that is enough to bring about cloture, meaning partisan legislation can't be filibustered as easily. I'm not sure about the house, though I think that has a democratic majority. Normally I get quite scared when one party controls too much of the government, but I guess this time is an exception.
And among everything else Palin gets to go back to Alaska. However they're probably going to have to heighten security of Obama. Some angry redneck is going to try and kill him.
Now I for one am definitely proud of Obama. Not only was this election historic, it was an absolute shoe-in for him. Once it was announced that he got the 55 Electoral votes of California, it was over and done with, we were all cheering. And even though I'm not one to pay attention to politics at all, I'm glad my generation's alive to see this moment (my mom even taped it).
Quote from: Rakala on November 05, 2008, 07:38:20 AM
...However they're probably going to have to heighten security of Obama. Some angry redneck is going to try and kill him.
I dunno if someone'll go that far, risking their lives or jail just to satisfy a racial ilk; but then again, I sometimes underestimate the stupidity of the human race. The rednecks'll just have to deal with it. It's the future, there's an African American president, deal with it. :rolleyes Like I heard them say on the news, today's generation is colorblind compared to those that grew up in the 50's, 60's and 70's, all the way back, and here's hoping we're better for it.
Congratulations Obama. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how things turn out for my bretheren to the south now that someone that isn't Bush is in office.
The great thing is not only do we once again have a liberal democrat in the presidential seat, but seeing as Obama is black, it's even more historical, and not just for America. Obama is the first black leader in a Western European culture ever, in fact, save Africa and the middle-east, I believe he is the first black leader of a country in History. I cannot think of any other country, save Africa and the Middle East, that has had a black leader. So today, we not only have set a new standard for the American government, but a standard for the World government as a whole.
Yay for President Obama. Let's hope he does a good job.
I heard someone state that Obama being elected makes it finally feel like the 21st century, and i agree wholeheartedly
Quote from: Tapewolf on November 05, 2008, 07:25:25 AMQuote from: Turnsky on November 05, 2008, 12:55:39 AMoh goody, now the rest of our world can get along with out lives without being bombarded by news reports about the US Election Circus for a few years.. >:3
Like it or lump it, what happens to the US does affect the rest of us.
No, no. He's right. Talk to most Americans, and they'll tell you that they are so glad that this thing is over.
I've never seen an election like this. The attack ads have been some of the most scurrilous of all time (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM-7Itc3kTo), and crazy McCain supporters (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZPQNZ_bqdI) and just plain crazy people (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li2u10aOWAA). McCain, to his credit, has tried to stop the crazies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrnRU3ocIH4&NR=1).
I don't even live in a swing state, and the political advertising has been non-stop for the past two months or so. If you try to follow politics at all, it's been exhausting. It wasn't like this in 2006 or 2004.
Quote from: The1Kobra on November 05, 2008, 07:35:04 AMSpeaking of which, I also noticed that there are at least 60 democrats in the senate, that is enough to bring about cloture, meaning partisan legislation can't be filibustered as easily.
CNN is reporting 56 to 40 with 4 undecided, so they might get that filibuster-proof majority. If they do, Lieberman will probably defect, so that would put them back at 59/41. And you can't filibuster in the House of Representatives.
Quote from: Rakala on November 05, 2008, 07:38:20 AMHowever they're probably going to have to heighten security of Obama. Some angry redneck is going to try and kill him.
Calling this plot half-baked would be generous, but yeah, it's already happened (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081027/ap_on_el_pr/skinhead_plot).
Quote from: superluser on November 05, 2008, 12:58:32 PM
crazy McCain supporters[/url] and just plain crazy people (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li2u10aOWAA). McCain, to his credit, has tried to stop the crazies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrnRU3ocIH4&NR=1).
yeah, this is plentiful
example 1- obama is a muslum! and yet he also attends the sermons and is friends with a racist preacher. both of these can happen at the same time
example 2- obama will raise taxes on middle class! (hes lowering taxes for about 95% of the actual workforce) even those poor hardworking souls making as little as three hundred thousand a year! wow, from a guy with eight houses he HAS to have a clue as to what an average worker makes (one tenth that number)
example 3- i have a stack of no fewer then fifteen little flyers claiming obama is a bad man, including that he is a friend to criminals, hates cops, isnt white (gasp), and did not shoot people in the war
sorry but this visual is all that I can express for my joy on the internet :kirby :kirby :bunny :zombiekun2 :mowcookie :mowcookie :mowhappy :mowhappy :mowmeep :boogie :boogie :boogie :boogie :boogie :boogie :mwaha :ddrabel :ddrabel :wiggle :wiggle :goodtimes :goodtimes :funkmario2 :funkmario2 :funkmario1 :funkmario1 :funkluigi2 :funkluigi2 :funkluigi1 :funkluigi1 :mikelo1 :mikelo1 :mikelo2 :mikelo2 :villagepeople :villagepeople :megagroove :megagroove
once again I am sorry.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OBAMA IS PRESIDENT OF THE USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!
</krazyness>
I see only one good thing about this.
They have the House.
They have the Senate.
They have the Presidency.
They'll have the Supreme Court soon.
And in four years, they'll have no more excuses.
Of course, we'll have the Fairness Doctrine, the cap and trade, and card check law, and numerous other things which will leave us a socialist mess. But as long as they can't touch the Constitution, it can still be fixed.
But that's just me, one of those, as Obama said, one of those "bitter people clinging to guns and religion."
That was the REAL Obama.
Quote from: Alondro on November 05, 2008, 05:42:25 PM
Of course, we'll have the Fairness Doctrine, the cap and trade, and card check law, and numerous other things which will leave us a socialist mess.
In any other country, he'd be called a right-wing candidate, not a socialist.
Quote from: Brunhidden on November 05, 2008, 01:08:51 PM
Quote from: superluser on November 05, 2008, 12:58:32 PM
crazy McCain supporters[/url] and just plain crazy people (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li2u10aOWAA). McCain, to his credit, has tried to stop the crazies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrnRU3ocIH4&NR=1).
yeah, this is plentiful
Just to add, I don't think Fox news is helping at all. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcy5XS68_Bc) They're quite active in stoking the fires of hatred, especially with comments like this.
Quote from: Alondro on November 05, 2008, 05:42:25 PM
I see only one good thing about this.
They have the House.
They have the Senate.
They have the Presidency.
They'll have the Supreme Court soon.
And in four years, they'll have no more excuses.
Right, because it's the democrats who have been responsible for the entire economic and social downtrend that has been going on for the past 4 years :rolleyes. If anything, I think people are going to blame Bush even if after the next for years things have not improved. His administration left the economy in such shambles that I don't think there is a good solution anymore. I don't even think the economy will be fixed in the next eight years, but I can sure hope that the eight years after that have a better start than now. But really, continued deregulation of the market led to this, and a further continuation would not help anything. Still, casting blame is pointless, and I doubt that McCain would do any better in this situation. All I can hope is that the more moderates that the republicans drove out when they started declining towards their dismal roots (with the unfortunate death of William Buckley) have some say in matters to keep the Democrats from becoming as radical.
QuoteOf course, we'll have the Fairness Doctrine, the cap and trade, and card check law, and numerous other things which will leave us a socialist mess.
I love it when Socialism is bashed without any real support for it. Of course, I guess that can, in part, be blamed by all the smearing of it's name that the right wing has given it. It's often associated with communism, and the government taking control over people's lives. Suffice to say, that very little of this is true. It advocates for a market economy with the worst aspects softened by the government. It, of course, is not without it's flaws, and I can think of several pieces of regulation in France that came from Socialism taken too far, but then again, any system has it's flaws, and I'm sure that a pure market economy is a good deal worse. I sure wouldn't like to go back to a system like the one the US had in the industrial era, and considering how the past 8 years have been, it looks like that is what the radicals on the right wing want to head to.
QuoteBut as long as they can't touch the Constitution, it can still be fixed.
Actually, the Bush administration has already made a fine mess of this too, Patriot act ring a bell? Here is a short compilation of controversies that his foreign policy has sparked: (Quoted from wikipedia).
QuotePolicies of the Bush administration have been criticized for allegedly subverting elements of the Constitution, violating treaty obligations, and obstructing justice. The suspension of habeas corpus for US citizens was reversed by the Supreme Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004). Domestic spying has included undercover infiltration of political organizations with no suspected terrorist affiliations, telephone surveillance without a warrant, and the Carnivore program for internet surveillance. The policy of holding enemy combatants in a legal status outside of either due process of criminal prosecution nor the Geneva conventions for prisoners of war created a legal limbo without a process for adjudication or appeal. The extraordinary rendition of an innocent citizen of Canada, to Syria, caused an international incident involving kidnapping, wrongful imprisonment and torture.[26] The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, stated in a white paper that "President Bush's constitutional vision is, in short, sharply at odds with the text, history, and structure of our Constitution, which authorizes a government of limited powers."[27]
Violating treaties, torture, extraordinary rendition, and nulling such basic rights as a fair trial. It sure smacks of the constitution itself being mocked and abused in a most horrendous manner.
QuoteBut that's just me, one of those, as Obama said, one of those "bitter people clinging to guns and religion."
And he has also been called a terrorist, unpatriotic, and other plenty less flattering things. Is that any better? Of course not. Judging a person bad based on one slip of the tongue is quite unfair. I'm sure I have said plenty of dumb things in my life, that doesn't make me any less intelligent than I am now.
All right. I think I've got enough clarity to explain. First a trip down memory lane:
Quote from: superluser in November 2006This election result is bad.
It could have been worse--Republicans could have won. Values voters are now seeing that Republicans don't share their values, don't vote for their values, and can't stay in office.
Values voters aren't going to get out of politics. They're just going to change parties. The Constitutional party already exists, so they might go to that one, or they might form a new American Party. Either way, it probably won't happen by `08. You might see a Buchanan-like candidate run in `08 to try to force the debate to the right. Both the Republicans and Democrats are going to try to kill the internet that year, but that's another story.
By 2010, there will be a real third party running on an arch-religious platform. There are enough votes out there that we'll probably see some people elected to Congress, like the Progressives in 1912. We will have a third party candidate from this party running in 2012.
We'll see this party rise in power and popularity for a decade or two, after which they will drop off the radar, like the American Party in 1968-76 or the American Party in 1845-60.
These will be dark times for the nation. But on the positive side, with this party to act as a honeypot for the real crazies, the more normal religious candidates will be more evenly distributed between the Republican and Democratic parties.
Here's the thing. The religious community in the US isn't an exclusively conservative movement. I think you'd have quite a few people who would support Christian Socialism rather than Christian conservatism. The Republican Party, due largely to the issue of abortion, has hijacked the religious voters in this country. The only problem is that the Republicans know that they have the religious conservatives in their pocket, and don't actually need to listen to what they want. They can spin their wheels and make no progress on religious issues so long as the other party doesn't make any appeals to the religious voters. I mean, no religious issues have been addressed, and they had the House, Senate and President for 6 years.
It looks like the religious conservatives started really waking up to this in October 2006. That's when I started reading quite a few columns by religious conservatives about how they were fed up with the Republicans. Further, it was pretty clear that after the Terri Schiavo affair, no one was going to trust the Religious Right to be in office, so they'd have to select a Goldwater type or an economic conservative. This would alienate the religious base that they had activated for George Bush Jr., and make it impossible for them to win. McCain wasn't even being seriously considered at that point.
Sadly for the Right, running a moral conservative would have done the same thing: lost.
But the religious voters have tasted power and they're not going to give it up. They've got their leader: Sarah Palin. She's incredibly popular with the religious people, and even if they don't nominate her, they'll be sure to get someone in her mold. The candidacies of Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan come to mind. When it becomes clear that a large part of the party does not want to run a socially conservative candidate, they'll spin off into a new third party. This party will probably attract a few of the PUMAs, as well.
Here's one thing that is true, even if the above does not come to pass. Like the UK Conservatives after the defeat by Labour, this defeat is probably going to splinter the party, and they are not going to get anyone elected President until 2020.
Nearly two dozen prominent conservatives planned to meet in Virginia on Thursday to try to chart a path going forward (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/11/05/gop_in_tatters_looks_to_regroup/). Unfortunately, they don't have any leaders left. The former leaders have all been kicked out over scandals (Tom Delay) or disastrous policies (Bill Frist and the Schiavo affair).
Looking at the future, it's not OK if you're a Republican.
Also, I was clearly wrong about trying to kill the internet. I didn't anticipate that one candidate would be so much better than the other at internet organizing. Perhaps this is a testament to how little the McCain demographic and the blogger demographic share. Of course, if anyone suggested regulating campaigning on the internet, it would be seen as a partisan idea since Obama was so much more effective at it.
Quote from: Tapewolf on November 05, 2008, 05:46:59 PMIn any other country, he'd be called a right-wing candidate, not a socialist.
Yup. I'd really like to see The Daily Show interview a socialist candidate from, say the Netherlands and compare the two platforms.
Quote from: superluser on November 05, 2008, 08:01:30 PM
Looking at the future, it's not OK if you're a Republican.
america has had many political parties, many of them died, perhaps its time for the republican party to ease into the past- the youth and lower income people of america will probably never trust republicans again, thus only the rich elite and uber-conservatives that would vote republican if the republican candidate happened to be dead will be the only ones to rely on
seriously, i loathe people who say 'i always vote republican' and make a mockery of the system by having a predetermined side instead of actually listening to the issues and what each candidate has to say
The1Kobra, I heart you for saying everything that my mind wanted to say but in a far more intelligent and a far more amazing way.
Right now I'm a little pissy so anything I say in defense of Obama will come off as a really bad flame.
Quote from: Brunhidden on November 05, 2008, 10:42:41 PMseriously, i loathe people who say 'i always vote republican' and make a mockery of the system by having a predetermined side instead of actually listening to the issues and what each candidate has to say
Someone will say that it's just as bad when someone votes straight Democratic (or any other straight ticket). Might as well be me. The little letter after the candidate's name isn't what matters.
Quote from: Brunhidden on November 05, 2008, 10:42:41 PMamerica has had many political parties, many of them died, perhaps its time for the republican party to ease into the past- the youth and lower income people of america will probably never trust republicans again, thus only the rich elite and uber-conservatives that would vote republican if the republican candidate happened to be dead will be the only ones to rely on
I mentioned above the Progressive Party and two American Parties (one of which was the Know Nothing Party). But we also had the Whigs and the National Republican Party. Yeah, the Republicans in their current form may be disappearing.
The1Kobra:
Much props for not only beating me to the punch but doing at least as good a job as I would have. Kudos.
A socialised market is like a communist market, but the socialist government has the markets/coporations as a scape goat when the shit hits the fan (pretty much most of Socialist Europe has done this at one point or another) and the Communist market only has the government or a racial group to scape goat. Usually in a communist market if they lack a racial group, they just block out any complaints as best they can.
In my opinion the government should only intervene in the market when:
1. A lack of competition develops in markets that are adversely affected by monopolies, mostly these are item/service markets. The markets that are most feasible as monopolies need to be carefully watched by the government, but only tampered with in cases of price gouging or manipulation.
2. The health and safety of Americans is in danger from the working conditions/practices.
3. The U.S. is in a war and it stands a militaristic chance of losing (We've lost wars before. Just not by military might.)
Note: I AM for many things that INDIRECTLY affect the market like welfare, unemployment, and social security. Though social security needs the minimum age to be upped since it only runs at a positive when it's several years over the average age (as it was until relatively recently). Either that or just accept that it's going to constantly run red and add that to the debt.
Oh, and taxing isn't to "spread the wealth." It's to control the inflation created by the government creating more money to pay workers/debt. Technically, the government could still spend without gathering taxes AT ALL, but the trade off is inflation that makes the Zimbabwe dollar look valuable, inactive government/anarchy, or massive debt that makes Bush's spree look like pocket change.
Quote from: Valynth on November 06, 2008, 01:18:58 AMOh, and taxing isn't to "spread the wealth." It's to control the inflation created by the government creating more money to pay workers/debt. Technically, the government could still spend without gathering taxes AT ALL, but the trade off is inflation that makes the Zimbabwe dollar look valuable, inactive government/anarchy, or massive debt that makes Bush's spree look like pocket change.
That's a new one on me.
You might have a point if the government collected taxes and stuffed them all in a giant mattress, but since the government spends that money, the money supply is unchanged.
Quote from: superluser on November 06, 2008, 01:42:10 AM
Quote from: Valynth on November 06, 2008, 01:18:58 AMOh, and taxing isn't to "spread the wealth." It's to control the inflation created by the government creating more money to pay workers/debt. Technically, the government could still spend without gathering taxes AT ALL, but the trade off is inflation that makes the Zimbabwe dollar look valuable, inactive government/anarchy, or massive debt that makes Bush's spree look like pocket change.
That's a new one on me.
You might have a point if the government collected taxes and stuffed them all in a giant mattress, but since the government spends that money, the money supply is unchanged.
That's because payments=taxes collected(taxes=money removed from system, Gov. payments=money introduced to system). The fact is, the government can only pay out what it gets in tax collections for every unit of time addressed by the particular tax. That's how inflation is prevented and why the U.S. can't just print out the 12 trill needed to clear the debt.
For example:
When taxes collected > Gov. payments, you typically get deflation, but at the same time, fewer jobs due to a lack of money to create those jobs.
When taxes collected < Gov. payments, you have lots of money for jobs, but also have inflation.
Note: This is PAYMENTS, not debt spending.
This is on the assumption that other factors in the economy remain the same. Most of the time, however, economics of the day necessitate the implementation of the unbalanced views to counterbalance something else.
Quote from: Valynth on November 06, 2008, 03:28:22 AMThat's because payments=taxes collected(taxes=money removed from system, Gov. payments=money introduced to system). The fact is, the government can only pay out what it gets in tax collections for every unit of time addressed by the particular tax. That's how inflation is prevented and why the U.S. can't just print out the 12 trill needed to clear the debt.
Umm...
What?
What you said isn't right. In fact, it's not even wrong. For it to be wrong, it would have to make a lot more sense than what you're saying.
First, the government is not limited in what it can pay out in any real sense. If it wants to spend more than it takes in, it floats bonds. These bonds do not increase the money supply because the interest is not released into general circulation until maturation (usually 30 years), and in any case, the interest can be converted into another bond.
I would have to look into it, but I believe the total federal income tax invested in bonds is $0. You can talk about intra-governmental holdings, but those are not paid by taxes, or even paid at all.
None of this money is removed from circulation.
I should point out that if we were running surpluses, you might be right. If we took in more money than we paid out, the extra money would be effectively removed from circulation, but since we're running a deficit, we are not creating more money. We are creating more debt, which, as I said, has no impact on the money supply.
Somebody back me up on this. Val can be difficult to reach sometimes.
Quote from: superluser on November 06, 2008, 04:39:40 AM
Somebody back me up on this. Val can be difficult to reach sometimes.
Sure thing, oh, and thanks for the support Keaton and Cvstos. :). Now I need to pull out my sources, numbers, broken facts picture (I haven't finished that :(, ), and steak tenderizer...
Quote from: Valynth on November 06, 2008, 01:18:58 AM
A socialised market is like a communist market, but the socialist government has the markets/coporations as a scape goat when the <CENSORED> hits the fan (pretty much most of Socialist Europe has done this at one point or another) and the Communist market only has the government or a racial group to scape goat. Usually in a communist market if they lack a racial group, they just block out any complaints as best they can.
Actually, this characterization is COMPLETELY incorrect. In fact, a socialist market has more in common with a market economy than with a command economy. To say that socialism is only communism with extra ways of casting blame is so horribly false it hurts.
Socialism, in a nutshell, realizes that a pure market economy is a complete mess, and tries to stem away it's worst aspects through regulation. And yes, pure market economies are a terrible mess, just look at the US industrial era for that one, and see what happens when the wealthy control the country. I would recommend reading "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, the content is truly gut-wrenching. Socialism attempts to stop things exactly like what the meatpacking industry was getting away with, bottom of the barrel wages, exploitation, and through control of externalities and market power.
In fact, I think our current system may benefit from some of the byproducts of socialism. Just take a look at the distribution of the GDP over the last few years. (http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm) I don't think I know anyone who can say this is actually healthy with a straight face. This is the result of continued deregulation of the markets, and it's what the right wing has been supporting all along. I have already stated that Socialism has it's issues, but so does any system.
Quote
In my opinion the government should only intervene in the market when:
1. A lack of competition develops in markets that are adversely affected by monopolies, mostly these are item/service markets. The markets that are most feasible as monopolies need to be carefully watched by the government, but only tampered with in cases of price gouging or manipulation.
2. The health and safety of Americans is in danger from the working conditions/practices.
3. The U.S. is in a war and it stands a militaristic chance of losing (We've lost wars before. Just not by military might.)
Actually, there are plenty more reasons to regulate the market. A free market is only most efficient when a lot of assumptions are made, when there are no externalities, when there is no market power, when individuals have little control over the supply and demand curves, and when there is perfect information on both sides. Suffice to say, this doesn't always happen, so there is PLENTY more to cover with regulation. How would you think the market would do if companies were allowed to advertise and were allowed to spin the facts of their product however they wanted? How about when the sale, production, or usage of a product leaves a mess somewhere else which neither the buyer or seller cares about but there are others that do? (A good example of that would be factory pollution). Suffice to say, in a stable market, the government has a lot to do, in addition to keeping a firm rule of law. It is in fact, through persistent deregulation of the market that this current mess has been applied, and through banks failing investment 101 and now requiring government aid to prevent the whole economy from going straight down the toilet.
QuoteOh, and taxing isn't to "spread the wealth." It's to control the inflation created by the government creating more money to pay workers/debt. Technically, the government could still spend without gathering taxes AT ALL, but the trade off is inflation that makes the Zimbabwe dollar look valuable, inactive government/anarchy, or massive debt that makes Bush's spree look like pocket change.
This is just completely incorrect. For one, every bill that effects the economy redistributes the wealth, that's a simple economic fact. The other point, is that taxation has the important effect of giving the government revenue, which I assume many have glossed over ever since our debt/GDP ratio got into the 75%+ range, and I think it's now currently 80%. Taxes often do have the side effect of affecting Inflation and Unemployment, but that isn't the primary goal. In fact, if you've seen the bell curve of taxation income curve, the motive there is for the government to raise revenue, other factors come in later, most of the time anyways.
This discussion suffers from two things, I think.
1: Inadequate definition of Socialism. What, exactly, is meant by a socialist economy rather than a free market economy? I have been taught that socialist economies entail government control of the supply of goods and services, but again, this may not be what you mean.
2: Generalizations are bad. "Deregulation of the Market" (capitals intentional) did not cause the economy to get in the straights that it's in. Deregulation of a very specific sector of the economy (in a form), namely that of the financial institutions that deal in mortgage lending, was rather the cause. These so-called subprime mortgages were banks and institutions on a national scale lending money to people who could not afford the things that they were buying. If what I was told is also correct, this began back in the 90's (before Bush's administration, if you'll recall), as a sort of socially progressive program on the part of the government (that is, the financial institutions were encouraged to take these loans by government incentive, and the governmentally regulated entities that rate these loans gave them such a high rating that they were considered "safe bets", which in turn caused institutions which are normally required to be extremely conservative to put their money in these places), with the intent of getting more people to own houses. An admirable goal, certainly, but...
This is what I have been told, in any case, and what I understand to have happened.
As well, this country does not operate on a Free Market system anymore anyway, but I would like to point out that becase in 2008 there was a recession is hardly justification to throw out the entire system and start over with a socialist one, if I'm understanding you correctly.
Quote from: Brunhidden on November 05, 2008, 10:42:41 PM
Quote from: superluser on November 05, 2008, 08:01:30 PM
Looking at the future, it's not OK if you're a Republican.
america has had many political parties, many of them died, perhaps its time for the republican party to ease into the past- the youth and lower income people of america will probably never trust republicans again, thus only the rich elite and uber-conservatives that would vote republican if the republican candidate happened to be dead will be the only ones to rely on
The Republican Party doesn't need to die. It needs to start acting like the Republican Party again and not a bunch of spoiled twits who try to act enough like the liberals to appear 'sensitive'. It needs real conservativism; small government that stays out of people's lives, more ability for the everyday person to get into an office to serve if he/she wishes without having to appease the elite, solidly sticking to the Constitution as an important document which must never be allowed to become a tool for the enactment of radical views (as was allowed with disasterous results in the Prohibition Era).
I would also like to point out to those who believe the rich are all evil Republicans who hoard all the money that Obama received a huge amount of his funding from Wall Street donors, and that New Yorkers and northern New Jersians, who are vastly majority Democrat, are among the highest per capita income earners in the country.
I would also like to point out that the wealthiest person in the federal government is a Democrat, and wealthy Democrats slightly outnumber wealthy Republicans in government. Also, the governor of my state is a super-rich Democrat who was CEO of Goldman-Sachs.
We should also note that Hollywood is overwhelmingly Democrat, with all its ultra-rich stars and celebrities.
The rhetoric that Republicans are the party of the rich is utterly false. Plus, it contrasts with the other stereotype of Republicans, that they are all poor, uneducated whites in the Midwest and South. So how can we be both super-intelligent masters of wealthy-run conspiracies, and stupid and poor at the same time?
By numbers, the richest people in the country voted for Obama.
Honestly, if it were just Obama and his starry-eyed promises, I wouldn't be worried.
It's the Pelosi crowd that scares me. They are unequivocably communist (no illusions of socialism there) and seek to crush anyone who opposes their will. I don't know what Obama really thinks of the Fairness Doctrine, which is a crushing attack on freedom of the press and an utter violation of First Amendment rights. I'd feel much better if I could hear him say publically that he thinks it's a violation of the Constitution and he'd veto it without question. I can only hope he will when it comes up.
No one seemed to like it when Republicans had complete control, well now the Democrats have complete control. Do you really think the power-mongers on either side are any different? There will be no checks and balances left in the system and only the vague hope that enough of those in their party will be worried about their positions with voters to prevent their radical bills from becoming law.
I notice no one has stood up to defend the Fairness Doctrine, cap and trade, the card check bill, and other ultra-liberal bills they're just waiting to reintroduce. Of the card check bill, the one that will allow unions to legally harrass non-union workers in their homes and drastically undercut the authority of the government to prosecute union bullying tactics, one Democrat even said it was a horrible bill, but he'd vote for it to keep in step with the party.
But I will also say this, Obama was not handed a mandate. He won by only about 600,000 more votes that Bush won with 4 years ago. The popular vote was much closer than the electoral college, as it almost always is, and we know how easily such a small lead can swing the other way when people find out you're not giving what you promised. And that was after the most outrageously expensive campaign in history, one that cost nearly 3/4 billion dollars, bomarding people day and night with 'hope and change' and government handouts for everyone, outspending McCain 5 to 1. That was after McCain blundered pretty much as much as was possible in every way possible. That was after all the hype and momentum. With so narrow a win after so many advantages, he and the Democrats had better be careful what they try to shove through into law.
And Glenn Beck also noted this:
"I give the same warning to the Democrats that I gave to the Republicans after George Bush in 9/11: Be careful how far you push this pendulum up because if you take this pendulum and try to swing it so far up, the pendulum always swings back. And when it does, it goes back as far, if not farther than you just swung it. That's what gave us Barack Obama. What gave us Barack Obama was the pushing of that pendulum so far, the wrapping of America in the flag and everything else and not really standing for anything. As they push this pendulum up, it's going to swing. Mark my words, Democrats, it will swing just as far the other way. And what I said was the danger after September 11th: You interject hunger and fear; that pendulum can stop and it depends on who's in power that grabs that pendulum. So while you may be happy today about Barack Obama, be careful what you do because we don't want an extremist on either end to grab the pendulum. We've got to bring the pendulum and stop it swinging so far and bring it closer to the center. We are not that different. We are not the country of Nancy Pelosi. We are not the country of Jerry Falwell. We're the country of Ronald Reagan. Remember the Ronald Reagan Democrats. That's who we are."
If things do go into the crapper, it could end up much worse by swinging to the far right. Imagine the Fairness Doctrine in the hands of an ultra-conservative religous nutcase who ends up making himself virtually a dictator. Like Iran. Or in the spirit of punishing the rich, ends up like Venezuela and Bolivia and Zimbabwe. Yes, they had better think very carefully about what they're doing, because it will come back to bite them in the rear end.
Rather than debate whether or not Obama's going to make America into a socialist state, I'll just say it's amazing that he managed to survive Richard Wright, Bittergate, and choosing Joe Biden. And not just win, but with like a landslide victory.
Quote from: Alondro on November 06, 2008, 10:39:44 AMThe Republican Party doesn't need to die. It needs to start acting like the Republican Party again and not a bunch of spoiled twits who try to act enough like the liberals to appear 'sensitive'.
Your generalizations piss me right the hell off. Have you been reading The1Kobra's post at ALL?
As far as I'm concerned, the Republicans had their chance, they had their opportunity, and then the Bush administration went and fucked it up. Now Bush is one of the most unpopular presidents in history and our country's in a number of horrid situations.
I'm gonna have to step in here, and remind people to REMAIN POLITE.
Thank you so very much for making our job easier...
Hint. Hint.
Quote from: superluser on November 06, 2008, 04:39:40 AM
Quote from: Valynth on November 06, 2008, 03:28:22 AMThat's because payments=taxes collected(taxes=money removed from system, Gov. payments=money introduced to system). The fact is, the government can only pay out what it gets in tax collections for every unit of time addressed by the particular tax. That's how inflation is prevented and why the U.S. can't just print out the 12 trill needed to clear the debt.
Umm...
What?
What you said isn't right. In fact, it's not even wrong. For it to be wrong, it would have to make a lot more sense than what you're saying.
First, the government is not limited in what it can pay out in any real sense. If it wants to spend more than it takes in, it floats bonds. These bonds do not increase the money supply because the interest is not released into general circulation until maturation (usually 30 years), and in any case, the interest can be converted into another bond.
I would have to look into it, but I believe the total federal income tax invested in bonds is $0. You can talk about intra-governmental holdings, but those are not paid by taxes, or even paid at all.
None of this money is removed from circulation.
I should point out that if we were running surpluses, you might be right. If we took in more money than we paid out, the extra money would be effectively removed from circulation, but since we're running a deficit, we are not creating more money. We are creating more debt, which, as I said, has no impact on the money supply.
Somebody back me up on this. Val can be difficult to reach sometimes.
I said
payments NOT spending. Payments is the Government actually paying off those bonds when they reach maturity. As I said before, the Gov. can deficit spend as much as it damn well wants, but it can't PAY those debts as they come in in most cases.
Quote from: The1Kobra on November 06, 2008, 07:56:15 AM
Quote from: superluser on November 06, 2008, 04:39:40 AM
Somebody back me up on this. Val can be difficult to reach sometimes.
Sure thing, oh, and thanks for the support Keaton and Cvstos. :). Now I need to pull out my sources, numbers, broken facts picture (I haven't finished that :(, ), and steak tenderizer...
Quote from: Valynth on November 06, 2008, 01:18:58 AM
A socialised market is like a communist market, but the socialist government has the markets/coporations as a scape goat when the <CENSORED> hits the fan (pretty much most of Socialist Europe has done this at one point or another) and the Communist market only has the government or a racial group to scape goat. Usually in a communist market if they lack a racial group, they just block out any complaints as best they can.
Actually, this characterization is COMPLETELY incorrect. In fact, a socialist market has more in common with a market economy than with a command economy. To say that socialism is only communism with extra ways of casting blame is so horribly false it hurts.
Socialism, in a nutshell, realizes that a pure market economy is a complete mess, and tries to stem away it's worst aspects through regulation. And yes, pure market economies are a terrible mess, just look at the US industrial era for that one, and see what happens when the wealthy control the country. I would recommend reading "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, the content is truly gut-wrenching. Socialism attempts to stop things exactly like what the meatpacking industry was getting away with, bottom of the barrel wages, exploitation, and through control of externalities and market power.
In fact, I think our current system may benefit from some of the byproducts of socialism.
The Government still controls everything. That is a command economy. The only difference between a socialist economy and a communist economy is that the socialists ascribe it to "regulations" which is essentially the Government telling corporations what they can/can not do. How is THAT not Communism with a corporate scape goat? As for your meat-packing industry, I've already said that one of the few times the government should intervene is when the health and lives of Americans is directly and adversely affected by the practices/environment of the work.
Quote from: The1Kobra on November 06, 2008, 07:56:15 AM
Quote
In my opinion the government should only intervene in the market when:
1. A lack of competition develops in markets that are adversely affected by monopolies, mostly these are item/service markets. The markets that are most feasible as monopolies need to be carefully watched by the government, but only tampered with in cases of price gouging or manipulation.
2. The health and safety of Americans is in danger from the working conditions/practices.
3. The U.S. is in a war and it stands a militaristic chance of losing (We've lost wars before. Just not by military might.)
Actually, there are plenty more reasons to regulate the market. A free market is only most efficient when a lot of assumptions are made, when there are no externalities, when there is no market power, when individuals have little control over the supply and demand curves, and when there is perfect information on both sides. Suffice to say, this doesn't always happen, so there is PLENTY more to cover with regulation. How would you think the market would do if companies were allowed to advertise and were allowed to spin the facts of their product however they wanted? How about when the sale, production, or usage of a product leaves a mess somewhere else which neither the buyer or seller cares about but there are others that do? (A good example of that would be factory pollution). Suffice to say, in a stable market, the government has a lot to do, in addition to keeping a firm rule of law. It is in fact, through persistent deregulation of the market that this current mess has been applied, and through banks failing investment 101 and now requiring government aid to prevent the whole economy from going straight down the toilet.
And socialism makes the assumption that your government can be trusted. Which is the biggest mistake? Hint: Bush should help you on this.
Secondly, individuals DO have an affect on supply and demand. It's like a democracy, when enough people start asking for an item, corporations start makng the items and create the supply in order to sell to the demanding public. If they don't demand it, the corps. don't make it 'cause "why bother?"
Thirdly, this is ONE market that's been adversely affected AND it happened durring to Clinton's
regulation practices back in the 90's, we're just NOW feeling it.
Fourthly, You think the government doesn't practice propaganda? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahaha hooo boy I needed that.
Fifthly, See my comment on worker/consumer safety for those ads. Also, fraud is illegal. Also, the freedom of speech allows them to express opinions such as "Ours is the best!"
As evidence that socialism in practice will always fail, I suggest that people look at the world today.
Show me one successful socialist government.
QuoteThe Republican Party doesn't need to die. It needs to start acting like the Republican Party again and not a bunch of spoiled twits who try to act enough like the liberals to appear 'sensitive'. It needs real conservativism; small government that stays out of people's lives, more ability for the everyday person to get into an office to serve if he/she wishes without having to appease the elite, solidly sticking to the Constitution as an important document which must never be allowed to become a tool for the enactment of radical views (as was allowed with disasterous results in the Prohibition Era).
I don't know what party you've been watching but the GOP hasn't been like that since Nixon, maybe earlier. And without completely clearing out all the leaders that are there right now you're not going to get that. The GOP is now the Party of the Neocons.
QuoteI would also like to point out to those who believe the rich are all evil Republicans who hoard all the money that Obama received a huge amount of his funding from Wall Street donors, and that New Yorkers and northern New Jersians, who are vastly majority Democrat, are among the highest per capita income earners in the country.
I would also like to point out that the wealthiest person in the federal government is a Democrat, and wealthy Democrats slightly outnumber wealthy Republicans in government. Also, the governor of my state is a super-rich Democrat who was CEO of Goldman-Sachs.
We should also note that Hollywood is overwhelmingly Democrat, with all its ultra-rich stars and celebrities.
The rhetoric that Republicans are the party of the rich is utterly false. Plus, it contrasts with the other stereotype of Republicans, that they are all poor, uneducated whites in the Midwest and South. So how can we be both super-intelligent masters of wealthy-run conspiracies, and stupid and poor at the same time?
Obama's donations came largely from small donors. Average donor size has been very small, and people all over the country have been donating in small amount. That's why Obama has been able to break the GOP fundraising edge. MILLIONS of people donated to the Obama campaign; more than any other in history.
The GOP is the party of the rich. They give tax cuts to the rich and screw the middle and lower class. John McCain never even said the words "middle class" in the debates. Not once! (Also, Hollywood ultra-rich? They're peanuts compared to the corporate elite.)
The rich who run the GOP get SOME OF the poor to vote for them by way of wedge issues. Guns, god, and gays. Look out! You'll catch the gay! They're all socialist, communist Marxists that'll take away your guns and make you have sex with men! But the idea that the poor voted for McCain is bullplonkey, which we'll see in a moment.
QuoteBy numbers, the richest people in the country voted for Obama.
Bullplonkey. Also, bullplonkey to your claim that the poor voted for McCain.
The rich, those making over $200k a year, by and large voted with the country with a 52-46 split in favor of Obama. Again that's the same as the country as a whole. That's not exactly evident of them overwhelmingly supporting Obama. (There's a healthcare link here, actually, but that's another topic.)
As for the poor? Yeah, the statement that the poor voted for McCain is 100% bullplonkey. Let's take a look at the numbers.
Under $15k: 73-25 Obama
$15k-$30k: 60-37 Obama
$30k-$50k: 55-43 Obama (Just a little stronger than the nation as a whole there but that's entering the living wage level, NOT the poor.)
Source: CNN http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1
The idea that the poor voted for McCain? Bullplonkey. The poorest segment of the nation voted Obama in with a 73-25 split. If we only counted their votes it would be a landslide that would move a whole mountain range.
QuoteHonestly, if it were just Obama and his starry-eyed promises, I wouldn't be worried.
It's the Pelosi crowd that scares me. They are unequivocably communist (no illusions of socialism there) and seek to crush anyone who opposes their will. I don't know what Obama really thinks of the Fairness Doctrine, which is a crushing attack on freedom of the press and an utter violation of First Amendment rights. I'd feel much better if I could hear him say publically that he thinks it's a violation of the Constitution and he'd veto it without question. I can only hope he will when it comes up.
You're serious, aren't you? Oh... well, I'm just going to mostly ignore this then, since if I try to take it seriously your whole argument goes right out the window. Any real socialist or communist would be offended that you would put them in the same circle as her (she's way to the right of communism and even socialism). This is hyperbole is the worst and most extreme sense.
QuoteNo one seemed to like it when Republicans had complete control, well now the Democrats have complete control. Do you really think the power-mongers on either side are any different? There will be no checks and balances left in the system and only the vague hope that enough of those in their party will be worried about their positions with voters to prevent their radical bills from becoming law.
I notice no one has stood up to defend the Fairness Doctrine, cap and trade, the card check bill, and other ultra-liberal bills they're just waiting to reintroduce. Of the card check bill, the one that will allow unions to legally harrass non-union workers in their homes and drastically undercut the authority of the government to prosecute union bullying tactics, one Democrat even said it was a horrible bill, but he'd vote for it to keep in step with the party.
So, let me see if I have this right.
Warrantless wiretapping, selling out our nation treasures and environment to the highest corporate bidders, LYING about WMD to start a war, ignoring the threat from bin Laden, torturing people, keeping them detained while not allowing them the right of habeas corpus, tax cuts for the rich, leaking CIA agents names to the press, celebrating McCain's birthday while New Orleans drowned, all that AND MORE... is perfectly mainstream stuff compared to cap and trade?
(For those who don't know, cap and trade laws would strictly limit CO2 emissions. It would set a maximum CO2 emission limit on businesses for the US. Each business would get a certain amount of credits which allow them to emit CO2, and then force them to sell all of them, and buy any credits they need to operate at their current pollution level. So if they pollute heavily they're going to pay for it by having to buy more credits. And if there's a lot of demand for them from companies that pollute, they'll have to pay more from companies that don't pollute because those companies can then sell them at higher prices. So it literally rewards low-pollution companies while punishing high-polluting companies, all the while putting a limit on nationwide emissions. Overall I'd call that a good thing.)
(As for the card check law, Alondro isn't telling the truth about people going to people's homes. I've read that bill. It's S.1041. The card check law says that if 50% of the employees of a company say they want a union, then they get a union. It also ups the punishment for companies that intimidate employees trying to unionize. Right now corporations are getting away with intimidating employees with anti-union tactics left and right. Wal-mart is the biggest example of this.)
QuoteBut I will also say this, Obama was not handed a mandate. He won by only about 600,000 more votes that Bush won with 4 years ago. The popular vote was much closer than the electoral college, as it almost always is, and we know how easily such a small lead can swing the other way when people find out you're not giving what you promised. And that was after the most outrageously expensive campaign in history, one that cost nearly 3/4 billion dollars, bomarding people day and night with 'hope and change' and government handouts for everyone, outspending McCain 5 to 1. That was after McCain blundered pretty much as much as was possible in every way possible. That was after all the hype and momentum. With so narrow a win after so many advantages, he and the Democrats had better be careful what they try to shove through into law.
Bush won in 2004 with a 2.5% spread and 286-251 in the EV, and gained a few seats in the House and Senate. The right wing was SCREAMING about the "Mandate" Bush won. "Bush has a mandate!" was the talking point of the day. The right wing and the GOP vastly outspent the left and the Democrats. Bush talked about having earned political capital and wanting to spend that.
In 2008...
Did Obama win with over 50% of the vote? YES!
With more than a 2.5% spread? YES! It was a 6% spread.
Did Obama win more than 286 EVs? YES!
Over 300? YES! He got AT LEAST 349, more if NC goes his way.
Did he significantly increase the Dem margin in the House? YES!
And the Senate? YES! At least 57 with a few more seats yet to be called!
So, naturally the thing to take away from this is that Obama has no mandate to govern whatsoever and he should act just like the political party that he just defeated at every level because they were the real winners.
Well, at least according to right-wing pundits. For those of us watching the 2008 US elections, it's pretty easy to see that if Bush had a mandate to govern, Obama has to have one in an even bigger way.
QuoteAnd Glenn Beck also noted this:
"I give the same warning to the Democrats that I gave to the Republicans after George Bush in 9/11: Be careful how far you push this pendulum up because if you take this pendulum and try to swing it so far up, the pendulum always swings back. And when it does, it goes back as far, if not farther than you just swung it. That's what gave us Barack Obama. What gave us Barack Obama was the pushing of that pendulum so far, the wrapping of America in the flag and everything else and not really standing for anything. As they push this pendulum up, it's going to swing. Mark my words, Democrats, it will swing just as far the other way. And what I said was the danger after September 11th: You interject hunger and fear; that pendulum can stop and it depends on who's in power that grabs that pendulum. So while you may be happy today about Barack Obama, be careful what you do because we don't want an extremist on either end to grab the pendulum. We've got to bring the pendulum and stop it swinging so far and bring it closer to the center. We are not that different. We are not the country of Nancy Pelosi. We are not the country of Jerry Falwell. We're the country of Ronald Reagan. Remember the Ronald Reagan Democrats. That's who we are."
Well, my response to that is first of all... wait a minute... You're quoting Glenn Beck?
The man who said of the recent So Cal forest fires:
QuoteI think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today.
Here are some other quotes from the Limbaugh knock-off that is Glen Beck:
QuoteThe anti-gay slur "(I am not smart enough to use polite words)" is nothing more than "a naughty name." [1/23/07]
"What happened to the Duke lacrosse team was practically a lynching without the rope. And for the first time in my life, Mr. Oreo Cookie without the chocolate on the outside can understand why people celebrated when O.J. Simpson was acquitted." [1/15/07, using a racial slur for African-Americans that refers to "being black on the outside and white on the inside"]
"[W]hat I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'" [11/14/06, on what he would like to say to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first elected Muslim member of Congress]
"I wonder if I'm alone in this — you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year." [9/9/05]
"And that's all we're hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones we're seeing on television are the scumbags." [9/9/05]
Beck concluded an interview with Hagee by saying: "There are people -- and they said this about Bill Clinton -- that actually believe he might be the Antichrist. Odds that Barack Obama is the Antichrist?" 03/05/08
"f you're a guy, you can get past it. I don't think you can as an ugly woman." Beck, who also hosts his own show on CNN Headline News, continued: "[Y]ou've got a double cross, because if you're an ugly woman, you're probably a progressive as well." 02/14/2008
That's the man you're quoting, Alondro! He said all those things! Are you sure you really want to quote that man in support of your arguments?
Also, I really hope that conservatives go with the right-wing pundits advice and run to the right and start embracing it. They're already saying they weren't vicious enough and went too far to the center to "appease" liberals and, as Alondro put it, "appear sensitive". To them I say: GO FOR IT. Run as far to the right as you want and be as nasty as you want. We now not only have the ability to counter it, but the American people are sick of it. You can be Sideshow Bob and step on that metaphorical rake all you want, and I don't think I'll ever stop laughing.
I'm going to say this to all would-be democratic political candidates out there: Do not listen to right wing pundits. They are either stupid, working without your best interests in mind (hint: they want you to lose), or both. To borrow a Producers joke, there are two major rules to know about running as a Democrat. One, "Never take advice from right-wing pundits." What's the second one? "NEVER TAKE ADVICE FROM RIGHT-WING PUNDITS!"
QuoteIf things do go into the crapper, it could end up much worse by swinging to the far right. Imagine the Fairness Doctrine in the hands of an ultra-conservative religous nutcase who ends up making himself virtually a dictator. Like Iran. Or in the spirit of punishing the rich, ends up like Venezuela and Bolivia and Zimbabwe. Yes, they had better think very carefully about what they're doing, because it will come back to bite them in the rear end.
"The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that required the holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced." –Wikipedia.
The idea behind the Fairness Doctrine is that the issues would get debated and presented fairly with all major sides of the debate given time to voice their opinion. It is not to, as you imply, give just one side all the airtime and turn the media into a wing of Pravda, although Fox News is certainly functioning as a GOP-equivalent. In fact the Fairness Doctrine is one of the best weapons AGAINST what you claim to be so worried about.
And as for the Democrats going hard-left to socialism or communism, I can only say this: don't worry about it. That claim in and of itself is ludicrous and is a complete fabrication of the right wing to try and scare people.
QuoteShow me one successful socialist government.
From your definitions of "socialist" (from you saying that Pelosi and the like are socialist when they are to the right of the left in most other countries), I'd have to say the
rest of the industrialized world.
Now, you show me a single country that:
Has no social safety net.
Has no social security.
Has a truly free market with no government interference or regulation.
Has no government health care system of any kind.
Has no labor laws.
Is a first-world nation.
Is in, say, the top 50 countries in GDP per capita.
...Yay Obama!
:B I don't even know what his foreign policy is like, beyond his opinion on Iraq. I mostly paid attention to the much more interesting Ms. Palin.
Quote from: Alondro on November 06, 2008, 03:25:49 PM
As evidence that socialism in practice will always fail, I suggest that people look at the world today.
Show me one successful socialist government.
people all too often confuse socialism with communism, communism with Marxism, and Marxism with dictatorship
lets define
socialism- simply put any policies that are for the selfless act of protecting the general public, free of charge. examples include unemployment benefits, public health care, food stamps, energy assistance, social security, and education grants
communism- the concept of equality which typically takes the form of common ownership of means of production, primarily by having most industry run by the state. examples include the early USSR, the quota system it imposed on its factories, and the absolute failure known as communal farms. hippie communes also count as a form of communism, with the benefit of having no government to seize control of assets
Marxism- one step beyond communism, goes so far as to believe not only are all men created equal, but they all have equal skills, and the average worker should be ruling the country. examples of this are a janitor and a psychiatrist being paid the same wage, which lead to a great number of brilliant men with little to do but dick about with pure research.
Dictatorship- both communism and Marxism set themselves up wonderfully to evolve into dictatorships in rapid speed, with all of the power centralized to the government its easy for one of the major politicians to gain control of pretty much everything while still claiming everyone is equal. examples include cuba, the USSR as run by Stalin, and the early peoples republic of china before it became a state run capitalist corporation
Okay, this thread has gotten heated, from both sides, even after an admin came in and hinted that you guys needed to calm down.
I'm warning everyone to cool it off. Additionally, I'm banning Alondro for a day. You've been warned about instigating political fights. Maybe this time you'll listen. It's one thing to calmly debate topics, but the minute you came in, you went on the attack, and the whole mood of this thread changed.
OK. Let me try to calm things down with something I think we can all agree on.
This is cute:
(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll117/sadloc/n1517010014657663106hu1.jpg)
(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll117/sadloc/n1517010014657673397cc7.jpg)
(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll117/sadloc/n1517010014657683687le7.jpg)
(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll117/sadloc/n1517010014657704287vx6.jpg)
Quote from: Cvstos on November 06, 2008, 04:22:33 PMQuoteNo one seemed to like it when Republicans had complete control, well now the Democrats have complete control. Do you really think the power-mongers on either side are any different? There will be no checks and balances left in the system and only the vague hope that enough of those in their party will be worried about their positions with voters to prevent their radical bills from becoming law.
I notice no one has stood up to defend the Fairness Doctrine, cap and trade, the card check bill, and other ultra-liberal bills they're just waiting to reintroduce. Of the card check bill, the one that will allow unions to legally harrass non-union workers in their homes and drastically undercut the authority of the government to prosecute union bullying tactics, one Democrat even said it was a horrible bill, but he'd vote for it to keep in step with the party.
(For those who don't know, cap and trade laws would strictly limit CO2 emissions. It would set a maximum CO2 emission limit on businesses for the US. Each business would get a certain amount of credits which allow them to emit CO2, and then force them to sell all of them, and buy any credits they need to operate at their current pollution level. So if they pollute heavily they're going to pay for it by having to buy more credits. And if there's a lot of demand for them from companies that pollute, they'll have to pay more from companies that don't pollute because those companies can then sell them at higher prices. So it literally rewards low-pollution companies while punishing high-polluting companies, all the while putting a limit on nationwide emissions. Overall I'd call that a good thing.)
Ok, what? I don't want to get into the whole discussion on anthropogenic global warming, but seriously, I think that that's a horrible idea.
Also, the fairness doctrin means that a show is required -REQUIRED- to bring in an opposing viewpoint. While it's a nice thing for some topics, it's stupid and wrongheaded for others. Even if the requirement was a good idea for all topics, the requirement would bog down radio shows and most likely kill talk radio. Next time your'e listening to the radio, think about what opposing viewpoint there might be to any given topic, and now consider that each show will be required to find someone espousing that viewpoint to defend it. Even if the shows can pull off that feat, what makes you think most of the listeners to radio shows are going to continue to listen when the viewopint they are listening to ehar is being diluted by what they consider to be garbage? Evangelical shows required to bring on atheists? science shows bringing on UFO 'experts' and so called psychics, history shows showcasing holocaust deniers.
Now, maybe there will be a lot of judges that will decide in favor of the broadcaster on these things, but by that point the dmage will have been done. Maybe a lot of broadcasters will even capitulate without too much of a strugle.
Quote from: Valynth on November 06, 2008, 02:44:30 PMAs I said before, the Gov. can deficit spend as much as it damn well wants, but it can't PAY those debts as they come in in most cases.
Well, it's a good thing we're not paying off the debt, then.
Quote from: superluser on November 07, 2008, 12:06:14 AM
Quote from: Valynth on November 06, 2008, 02:44:30 PMAs I said before, the Gov. can deficit spend as much as it damn well wants, but it can't PAY those debts as they come in in most cases.
Well, it's a good thing we're not paying off the debt, then.
It will get paid. It will just take a long time to pay without introducing a large amount of new currency into the system causing inflation and thereby cheating our debt holders out of the "true value" due to the decreased value of the amount they were to be paid and thus ruining our credit as a nation.
Quote from: Valynth on November 07, 2008, 12:49:35 AMIt will get paid. It will just take a long time to pay without introducing a large amount of new currency into the system causing inflation and thereby cheating our debt holders out of the "true value" due to the decreased value of the amount they were to be paid and thus ruining our credit as a nation.
Quick question.
If we increase the money supply, will that increase inflation?
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 06, 2008, 11:24:00 PM
-snip for bevity-
Ok, what? I don't want to get into the whole discussion on anthropogenic global warming, but seriously, I think that that's a horrible idea.
Also, the fairness doctrin means that a show is required -REQUIRED- to bring in an opposing viewpoint. While it's a nice thing for some topics, it's stupid and wrongheaded for others. Even if the requirement was a good idea for all topics, the requirement would bog down radio shows and most likely kill talk radio. Next time your'e listening to the radio, think about what opposing viewpoint there might be to any given topic, and now consider that each show will be required to find someone espousing that viewpoint to defend it. Even if the shows can pull off that feat, what makes you think most of the listeners to radio shows are going to continue to listen when the viewopint they are listening to ehar is being diluted by what they consider to be garbage? Evangelical shows required to bring on atheists? science shows bringing on UFO 'experts' and so called psychics, history shows showcasing holocaust deniers.
Now, maybe there will be a lot of judges that will decide in favor of the broadcaster on these things, but by that point the dmage will have been done. Maybe a lot of broadcasters will even capitulate without too much of a strugle.
You're missing a few VERY IMPORTANT things. It is very important to FULLY read the statement I quoted from wiki.
"The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that required the holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced. "
The important bit to take away from that is
"controversial issues of public importance". So the Fairness Doctrine is NOT applied to all topics. I doubt UFOs will be considered "controversial issues of public importance". Well, by the government anyway. There's a few people...
In addition, it was never codified into law, yet has existed in the past. This isn't a new concept. It was in active use until the Reagan era (around 1985). However, it has been upheld by the courts "where channels are limited". In other words this would apply to network TV channels but cable and satellite channels would be exempt.
If we go back to the way it was before the FCC would be able to judge which formats and issues this needs to apply to in order to protect the public debate. That would be the ideal scenario since it could be ignored in many cases and then enforced when something truly important comes around.
Second, in regards to the cap and trade system, I disagree. I think it's a great idea. We really need to take a harder approach to dropping our CO2 emission levels and this is a great way to keep companies from dodging the law. And this is NOT a new idea. The EU already does it, and the US
already does it, but for emissions other than CO2. (Certain industries and given extra credits in a grandfather clause but even those will diminish over time.) This is also a major part of the Kyoto Protocol, which every industrialized nation in the world (except the US under Bush) has ratified.
The great thing about this is that is uses a natural economic market in addition to a process that will both force companies to green up, and ease them into it. This has a number of side-benefits, as well.
Firstly, the cap starts out pretty high. At first there would be little issue for most companies to get the credits needed. Then, slowly, the maximum level drops. Things are still loose at first but then the worst polluters will start to feel the squeeze and be forced to do things like put scrubbers in smoke stacks, since the credits are becoming more expensive. Heavy-polluting industries may even eventually have to heavily retool to meet requirements – there are already a lot of ideas from the government to help fund those renovations in major industries, such as steel and the auto production industry. It's not as if they'll be without support. And as companies green up, they can then sell their extra credits, which helps pay for those very green renovations. It's a really elegant system, IMO.
But the benefits go beyond just reducing emissions. The renovations get done by US workers, creating GREEN jobs here in the US. Options like solar panels and wind turbines get installed by more US workers, and solar and wind are very job-intensive (with good paying jobs that are hard to export, I might add). CO2 emissions are often tied to other emissions and reducing one almost always reduces others. Fewer pollutants in the air and water mean a healthier populace. A healthier populace means lower health care costs and longer-living people. Longer-living people means that they can contribute to the economy even more, which leads it all right back into where it started.
The solar and wind options (which are already proving very popular) also lower our dependency on burning coal, oil, and other fossil fuels, improving energy independence. That means we send less money to people to want to hurt us, don't need to mine for as much coal*, and don't need as much nuclear power (which means less nuclear waste). That's also a good thing.
*Mining for coal is about as environmentally unfriendly as you get. If the mining industry was a person, and the environment a puppy, mining for coal would be like the person drop-kicking the puppy... into an active volcano.
Quote from: superluser on November 07, 2008, 01:15:07 AM
Quote from: Valynth on November 07, 2008, 12:49:35 AMIt will get paid. It will just take a long time to pay without introducing a large amount of new currency into the system causing inflation and thereby cheating our debt holders out of the "true value" due to the decreased value of the amount they were to be paid and thus ruining our credit as a nation.
Quick question.
If we increase the money supply, will that increase inflation?
Without a corresponding increase in goods obtainable with that money, yes.
And you don't think that there aren't a lot of people who would try take advantage of the fairness doctrine to push their own views?
In any case...
Capping harmful emissions I have no problem with, it's capping CO2 specifically that I think is a bad idea. Look at America as it industrialized, it was dirty, unhealthy, but we progressed and created better technology and made it cleaner and healthier. If we cap CO2 emissions (or even force industry to back down to older levels, as the Kyoto protocol dictates), we cut down on the ability of the economy to grow as more resources have to be used to to stop these emissions, and potentially even have to give up progress already made. If we don't cap CO2 emissions, we have more resources to sue developing better, more efficient, and cleaner technology... better, more efficient technology is generally cleaner.
And, since you mentioned the Kyoto protocol... the reason the US didn't agree to it is because, at the time, the US was the only country that had significantly grown since WW2. the other signing countries either didn't have nearly s far to go to reduce carbon emissions to the old levels(Germany, which had a head start from phasing out old, inefficient Soviet factories, France, the UK), or were not required to abide by the protocol at all (India, China...). even the signatories who were in a good position to hit the agreed levels are missing their marks now as everyone has been advancing since the signing.
Capping emissions that are prooven harmful to wildlife, humans, and so on is one thing, but the only reason I can think of that people want to cap CO2 is anthropogenic global warming, and you can't really make a case that the US capping their CO2 is going to make a large difference in the CO2 PPM as time goes on and third world nations begin to develop and pull themselves up towards the same levels of industry that we have.
(honestly, it's a pet peeve of mine that so many people focus on alarmist cries about global warming driven by man-made CO2 when there are much more important issues like mercury in the oceans, carcinogens from cars and factories, improperly disposed of oil and computer parts, and so on)
Quote from: Valynth on November 07, 2008, 02:28:42 AMQuote from: superluser on November 07, 2008, 01:15:07 AMIf we increase the money supply, will that increase inflation?
Without a corresponding increase in goods obtainable with that money, yes.
Oh, good. Now I don't have to make that point.
The GDP (http://www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls) (in billions of chained 2000 dollars) for 2008Q2 was 11,727. In Q3, it was 11,720. That's a decline.
It seems pretty clear that we shouldn't even be considering paying back our debt now, but rather when we have a growing economy and actually have to print money to prevent deflation. Since we're not paying back our debt, we don't have to consider printing money to do so, and we don't have to consider that element in inflation calculations.
Quote from: superluser on November 07, 2008, 01:15:07 AM
If we increase the money supply, will that increase inflation?
Germany did that after WWI to try and pay off its debt, this was a sad sad case of nobody knowing rule 1 of economics. the result was that their currency, then the mark, was worth slightly less then the paper it was printed on. people went to the store with wheelbarrows of marks in the paper bound bundles you often see in bank robbery movies as there was no point in removing individual bills. later on these bundles of marks were given to children to play with as building blocks, as this was easier then taking five or six bundles to exchange for a loaf of bread.
inflation of this magnitude can be lethal, in Germany's case it provided rich soil for hitler to sprout from, previously it had happened to Spain. Once ruler of the world, Spain's steady supply of gold from the new world ironically made Spanish gold next to worthless, Spaniards starved, and Brittan took their place making obscene amounts of money by shipping goods instead of cash, and soon the British navy was the only real power left in the world for several decades
*caughs*
Printing money and "increasing the money supply" aren't exactly the same thing. If I remember my Macro-econ lessons correctly, economists refer at times to M1 and M2. M1 is money in the form of hard currency, in bank accounts, in areas where it's liquid and can be easily spent. M2 is everything that has value, but can't be accessed at a moment's notice, houses, Certificates of Deposit, stocks tied up in funds that cannot be liquidated at a seconds notice (I don't want to get into the complicated legality of stock investment)
When the Fed "increases" or "decreases" the money supply, what they're essentialy doing is altering the core interest levels so that more or less peoplpe find it profitable to keep money in M1 rather than M2. It's not simply printing cash and putting it into the market.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 07, 2008, 03:02:03 AM
And you don't think that there aren't a lot of people who would try take advantage of the fairness doctrine to push their own views?
In any case...
Capping harmful emissions I have no problem with, it's capping CO2 specifically that I think is a bad idea. Look at America as it industrialized, it was dirty, unhealthy, but we progressed and created better technology and made it cleaner and healthier. If we cap CO2 emissions (or even force industry to back down to older levels, as the Kyoto protocol dictates), we cut down on the ability of the economy to grow as more resources have to be used to to stop these emissions, and potentially even have to give up progress already made. If we don't cap CO2 emissions, we have more resources to sue developing better, more efficient, and cleaner technology... better, more efficient technology is generally cleaner.
And, since you mentioned the Kyoto protocol... the reason the US didn't agree to it is because, at the time, the US was the only country that had significantly grown since WW2. the other signing countries either didn't have nearly s far to go to reduce carbon emissions to the old levels(Germany, which had a head start from phasing out old, inefficient Soviet factories, France, the UK), or were not required to abide by the protocol at all (India, China...). even the signatories who were in a good position to hit the agreed levels are missing their marks now as everyone has been advancing since the signing.
Capping emissions that are prooven harmful to wildlife, humans, and so on is one thing, but the only reason I can think of that people want to cap CO2 is anthropogenic global warming, and you can't really make a case that the US capping their CO2 is going to make a large difference in the CO2 PPM as time goes on and third world nations begin to develop and pull themselves up towards the same levels of industry that we have.
First off, Fairness Doctrine.
So, what you're saying is that the government making sure many sides are represented is a plan that's prone to exploitation, but a system where large corporations controlling the vast majority of media and controlling what gets said and what does not get said (while the same corporations want the government to buy weapons (GE) and increase media market control caps (Fox, Viacom, Turner, Warner) and telecommunications regulations (everyone) is a much better system?
Sorry, I don't buy it.
Now, global warming is a bit of a problem, and that is the major problem produced by excess CO2. But there are two or three things (I didn't expect a bloody Spanish Inquisition!) you're missing here.
First, we were the only one to grow since WWII? Huh? I don't know if you noticed but the EU is an economic power that rivals the United States, and most of that is new since WWII (having been basically reduced to rubble during those years). France, for example: "...France today is one of the most modern countries in the world and is a leader among European nations." That's not me, that's the CIA World Factbook. (Which, by the way, is freaking awesome.)
The simple fact that so much that was destroyed is now built refutes that statement in a big way.
Next up, we cannot continue to expand using CO2-producing fossil fuels. They WILL run out. Peak oil is, at best, 40 years away, and is likely much closer (around 20 years for many estimates). We're using it way faster than bio-matter breaks down into petroleum. And coal is nearing peak, too, so even that will get expensive around the same time. Also, as I've said before, just getting coal out of the ground is extremely unfriendly to the environment, to say nothing of the horrors of burning it.
If we hit peak oil while we're still using that as the fuel of our economy, we're toast. Seriously. We're talking an economic collapse that will make this crisis look like a speed bump. We need to shift to a better system BEFORE that happens, and doing that takes a while. That's why this system is so important. This won't happen overnight but it must and will happen. The difference between starting now and starting at or after peak is prosperity and irrelevance.
The big advantage of this system is that we can
transition to a clean economy. That's something I think you are missing here. First year out, only the worst of the worst polluters will have to cut back and make reforms,
if any at all. Then, we make a schedule as to how fast it'll go down and let everyone know where our total emissions are and where the cap is and where the cap will be from here on out, each and every year. The best part of that means we don't just stop producing things. We change the way we produce those things for the better! We find new power sources that don't pollute! We SWITCH over to them!
That gives companies time to invest NOW to reduce emissions later.
"If we stop polluting, that'll slow our economy." That's not true at all. The fact is that greening things up CREATES JOBS and improves the economy! Remember, this is a SWITCH, not a slowdown!!
The way you're talking right now, the ONLY response to a cap is to slow down production altogether. That's not true at all. Companies that this effects will see this coming. (If they don't they're so stupid they're doomed to fail anyway.) They'll see that greener companies have a huge advantage because they don't have to buy any credits, only sell theirs. Any company with any smarts at that point will start to green up so they can get in on that action later on down the road.
And that greening is a thing that will take time. That's why this happens over the course of decades, not instantly. That's the transition. We switch from an economy powered by CO2-emitted fossil fuels to clean alternatives. And you know what? THAT CREATES JOBS!! That not only makes our economy immune to peak oil and peak fossil, it improves it overall with new, great jobs and additional economic activity!
As I said, someone has to make these renovations, and those jobs are hard to export. Solar, wind, and many other green techs that we need to grow here are job-intensive. We'll wind up with a better, cleaner economy than what we had before. Need to install CO2 scrubbers? Someone has to do it. There's a job. Installing solar panels? Someone has to do the install, that's a job. Someone has to make the panel, that's a job. Putting in a wind turbine? You're talking a large construction team there. And the making of the turbine is more jobs.
There's an area of Minnesota that put in place wind turbines in farms, giving extra income to the farmers there (who LOVE that system). The plan was so successful that the company that made the turbines built an assembly plant there in Minnesota, employing hundreds with a good-paying job!
Eventually we'll have to move to a Hydrogen/Electric system. It *has* to happen. If we start now, the benefits will be HUGE. If we wait, we'll be asking Europe to rebuild us to that kind of system, because we won't be able to afford it ourselves.
A couple of other benefits: As we transition to a green economy, gas prices will see their increases slow down since we'll be using less of it.
Since we're using less gas, we'll be sending less money to Saudi Arabia and similar countries that don't have our best interests in mind. We'll be switching our energy independence from the Middle East to the Midwest.
Quote(honestly, it's a pet peeve of mine that so many people focus on alarmist cries about global warming driven by man-made CO2 when there are much more important issues like mercury in the oceans, carcinogens from cars and factories, improperly disposed of oil and computer parts, and so on)
Well, if man-made CO2 emissions aren't curbed we're all likely to wind up dead anyway, so I do think that's a very important priority. But I think those other things are important, too, and I would absolutely love to see legislations tackling those issues.
QuoteFirst off, Fairness Doctrine.
So, what you're saying is that the government making sure many sides are represented is a plan that's prone to exploitation, but a system where large corporations controlling the vast majority of media and controlling what gets said and what does not get said (while the same corporations want the government to buy weapons (GE) and increase media market control caps (Fox, Viacom, Turner, Warner) and telecommunications regulations (everyone) is a much better system?
Sorry, I don't buy it.
Sorry, but I don't buy it.
The way you are explaining it, the government will be able to dictate to anyone who is using standard television what they can and cannot say on the airwaves - for instance, that they cannot say one side of an issue without talking about another. And, the way your are explaining it, we are to depend upon the governement to decide what issues are important enough to the American people to merit enforcement of this law - not application or applicability, but enforcement.
QuoteIf we go back to the way it was before the FCC would be able to judge which formats and issues this needs to apply to in order to protect the public debate. That would be the ideal scenario since it could be ignored in many cases and then enforced when something truly important comes around.
What your saying is, in essence, that we're going to turn all the broadcasters into criminals, but we will depend on the good judgment and benevolence of the government to only enforce the laws on the 'correct' broadcasts.
To me, this is utter foolishness, as well as turning the idea of law and justice on its head. I support having both sides of a debate heard, and undoubtedly today's media is fraught with misconception and lying by omission. This is, however, nothing short of censorship - by saying that 'you can't say this without saying this also'.
Your argument that the government couldn't be any worse than the broadcasting companies who already do a poor job is also a poor argument. Just because one thing is bad doesn't mean that it's alright for another thing to be bad also. Two wrongs don't make a right, as it were.
The idea of the government making sure that both sides of an issue are heard
is prone to exploitation. Why, exactly, should we trust the government in this? Has it really shown itself to be an entity worthy of being trusted with what we can and cannot say?
Quote"If we stop polluting, that'll slow our economy." That's not true at all. The fact is that greening things up CREATES JOBS and improves the economy! Remember, this is a SWITCH, not a slowdown!!
That's a misleading statement. Pollution has nothing to do with the creation of jobs. Punishing corporations for not using more expensive means of production is a great way to slow the economy, though. As well, a switch that involves monetary penalties
and possibly forcing companies into more expensive means of production would slow the economy, if anything.
A better way than putting shackles on companies (and risking bad economic repercussions) would be to make green energy economically viable first. If it's cheaper to go green than use another source of fuel, they'll switch themselves.
This (http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm?ag) pretty much bashes "man-made" global warming in the head and steals his wallet.
Lets not forget this (http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110009693)
and this (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23584524-11949,00.html)
evidence that the environment crowd is full of crap (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b2ded566-1584-11dd-996c-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1)
and this (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/05/04/do0405.xml)
Got any other views I can bash as completely as this?
The first: you can't reasonably compare one year to a century. Fluctuations do happen, after all. They even state that it's "the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down." So I would call it abnormal, and not a reliable way of determining anything.
Also, the article itself says, that "the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it." Even if the article is absolutely correct, it does not mean that man-made global warming doesn't happen, just that solar activity has more influence than some people believe.
...Oh hey, the third article is just the same as the first, but shorter. That's a time-saver.
I'm embarrassingly uneducated about climate change, but I'm not terrible at spotting holes in arguments. Perhaps if the cooling continues for a few years, that information will be be meaningful. For now, though, we can't conclude very much from it.
Quote from: Valynth on November 07, 2008, 03:27:19 PM
Got any other views I can bash as completely as this?
If you can't debate politely, then don't debate at all.
Banned for a day. Please try to keep things civil, team.
Quote from: Cogidubnus on November 06, 2008, 10:18:41 AM
"Deregulation of the Market" (capitals intentional) did not cause the economy to get in the straights that it's in. Deregulation of a very specific sector of the economy (in a form), namely that of the financial institutions that deal in mortgage lending, was rather the cause. These so-called subprime mortgages were banks and institutions on a national scale lending money to people who could not afford the things that they were buying. If what I was told is also correct, this began back in the 90's (before Bush's administration, if you'll recall), as a sort of socially progressive program on the part of the government (that is, the financial institutions were encouraged to take these loans by government incentive, and the governmentally regulated entities that rate these loans gave them such a high rating that they were considered "safe bets", which in turn caused institutions which are normally required to be extremely conservative to put their money in these places), with the intent of getting more people to own houses. An admirable goal, certainly, but...
This is what I have been told, in any case, and what I understand to have happened.
That's not quite correct. Deregulation of the very specific sector you described happened a while ago, with the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act (under Carter in 1980), and the Alternative Mortgage Transaction Parity Act (under Reagan in 1982). Subprime mortgages weren't widely used until the Tax Reform Act (under Reagan in 1986) effectively punished people for not owning homes. Since the Department of Housing and Urban Development took over regulating Fannie and Freddie in 1992, they've had a mandate to support affordable housing for lower income families. In 1995, they allowed certain subprime mortgages to count as "affordable", which made such loans more attractive. However, Fannie and Freddie had relatively limited subprime exposure and had been steadily toughening up standards on what loans they would support for years before the bubble burst. Non-bank (read: less regulated) lenders underwrote most of the bad loans and repackaged them primarily for private sector consumption--Wall Street types who knew that they were buying high risk securities but did it anyway. There was a slight downturn in subprime lending and securitization in the last few years of the Clinton administration; actual default rates turned out to be higher than predicted, and prices of subprime-backed securities fell. Nonetheless, things really picked up under Bush, with low interest rates, soaring housing prices, and increasing market consolidation bringing the big players into the game. Big players collapsing due to stupid investment decisions make much bigger waves than the smaller firms who had been failing for the same reasons. And thus we have the snowball effect rolling over financial services sectors today.
:tmyk
Quote from: Cogidubnus on November 07, 2008, 03:14:05 PM
That's a misleading statement. Pollution has nothing to do with the creation of jobs. Punishing corporations for not using more expensive means of production is a great way to slow the economy, though. As well, a switch that involves monetary penalties and possibly forcing companies into more expensive means of production would slow the economy, if anything.
A better way than putting shackles on companies (and risking bad economic repercussions) would be to make green energy economically viable first. If it's cheaper to go green than use another source of fuel, they'll switch themselves.
We've already crossed the threshold where sustainable energy generation can compete with fossil fuels on a price per kWh basis in some places, so it's mostly a matter of deployment and infrastructure now. And reducing emissions from fossil fuels isn't
that big a challenge. Carrots help. Sticks do too.
But talking about economic repercussions...
Free market capitalism alone gives companies no incentive to address externalities. A tree, for instance, has absolutely no economic value until a company cuts it down to turn into furniture or whatever. They make money cutting down that tree. They make even more money cutting down lots of trees. But once the trees are gone, who ends up footing the bill for things like the resulting erosion damage to local infrastructure (or agriculture, or water supplies, or fish spawning grounds, or whatever)? Not the poor company! They need to remain competitive, hire more people, and not be shackled with evil regulations. Let's instead use my tax dollars and community investments as a stealth subsidy for their poor, starving CEOs and shareholders...
Yeah, right.
Pricing these factors into the market represents the ideal solution. Demand-side pressures can work for certain niche markets (e.g. eco-conscious consumers willing to pay a premium for green, organic, fair trade, etc.), but pricing things into the supply side requires a regulatory framework. Oh noes! Rules! Seriously... pay the true social costs of your economic activities or find a way to reduce them. Emission trading schemes place a price on pollution and unleash the power of the market on the problem. They've worked quite well for cost-effective reduction of pollutants with locally measurable impacts, such as sulphur emissions.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 07, 2008, 03:02:03 AM
(honestly, it's a pet peeve of mine that so many people focus on alarmist cries about global warming driven by man-made CO2 when there are much more important issues like mercury in the oceans, carcinogens from cars and factories, improperly disposed of oil and computer parts, and so on)
Yeah. One of the tragedies of global climate change is the way it's completely overshadowed all other discussions about the environment.
Quote from: Cvstos on November 07, 2008, 12:37:08 PM
First off, Fairness Doctrine.
So, what you're saying is that the government making sure many sides are represented is a plan that's prone to exploitation, but a system where large corporations controlling the vast majority of media and controlling what gets said and what does not get said (while the same corporations want the government to buy weapons (GE) and increase media market control caps (Fox, Viacom, Turner, Warner) and telecommunications regulations (everyone) is a much better system?
Sorry, I don't buy it.
Look, if media outlets want to spin something, they'll spin it. That garners viewers and sells advertising. These
are businesses we're talking about, remember. Do you think being forced to present another side of the argument will seriously alter the spin potential?
FOX News regularly parades opposing viewpoints out for Fair and Balanced reporting. How's that working for you? :3
Obama doesn't support the Fairness Doctrine, and I doubt it would pass anyway. As it happens, the media will be the ones deciding how information on the bill is presented to the public, so it's in their power to influence the opinions of the people to whom the politicians are ultimately answerable. Said representatives, worried about funding and re-election, will vote against. And that's how a bill fails to become law, Billy.
QuoteNext up, we cannot continue to expand using CO2-producing fossil fuels. They WILL run out. Peak oil is, at best, 40 years away, and is likely much closer (around 20 years for many estimates). We're using it way faster than bio-matter breaks down into petroleum. And coal is nearing peak, too, so even that will get expensive around the same time. Also, as I've said before, just getting coal out of the ground is extremely unfriendly to the environment, to say nothing of the horrors of burning it.
If we hit peak oil while we're still using that as the fuel of our economy, we're toast. Seriously. We're talking an economic collapse that will make this crisis look like a speed bump. We need to shift to a better system BEFORE that happens, and doing that takes a while. That's why this system is so important. This won't happen overnight but it must and will happen. The difference between starting now and starting at or after peak is prosperity and irrelevance.
Um... you might want to check your production statistics. We've
already hit peak oil in the countries that matter. That's not to say there aren't large untapped reserves out there, but they're increasingly expensive and inconvenient to exploit. I doubt that oil prices will remain this low for long. Peak coal is a little harder to place due to crappy data. We're also close to peak natural gas and peak uranium, by the way. But peak anything just means that it will continue increasing in price until we stop using it. Demand for energy is fairly inelastic, so we
will keep paying for it until it becomes more effective to stop growing. We'll just complain more in the meantime. :animesweat
QuoteEventually we'll have to move to a Hydrogen/Electric system. It *has* to happen. If we start now, the benefits will be HUGE. If we wait, we'll be asking Europe to rebuild us to that kind of system, because we won't be able to afford it ourselves.
Electric, sure. Hydrogen? No thanks. We're nowhere near mass production of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and retooling everything for them carries staggering infrastructure costs. It was a pretty cool idea in its time, but now all this hydrogen silliness is diverting resources away from more viable technologies.
QuoteWell, if man-made CO2 emissions aren't curbed we're all likely to wind up dead anyway, so I do think that's a very important priority.
Aren't you being a little melodramatic? We're still a ways off from making the planet uninhabitable.
Okay, so there's evidence that atmospheric CO2 levels aren't rising in a manner consistent with the usual 1500 year cycles, and increases at current rates will see end of century levels comparable to the last time Texas was an inland sea. But the continents have shifted a bit since then, so even in the worst case scenario (greenhouse warming melting significant chunks of the Greenland and/or Antarctic ice sheets), we'd really only lose Florida and have to shore up or move the coastal cities. Hey... millions of construction jobs that couldn't be outsourced! >:]
Global warming could be great for Canada, too. The arctic passages would be permanently open. Our agricultural sectors would flourish and our wines would be tastier (well, maybe not Icewine... :animesweat). We have plenty of room for northward expansion. Oh, yeah, and I could do without it hitting -40 in the wintertime. Kthxbai.
:kittydevious
Quote from: Tezkat on November 08, 2008, 01:45:25 AMObama doesn't support the Fairness Doctrine, and I doubt it would pass anyway. As it happens, the media will be the ones deciding how information on the bill is presented to the public, so it's in their power to influence the opinions of the people to whom the politicians are ultimately answerable. Said representatives, worried about funding and re-election, will vote against. And that's how a bill fails to become law, Billy.
I kept meaning to say this, but I never did.
Thanks.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 08, 2008, 01:45:25 AMElectric, sure. Hydrogen? No thanks. We're nowhere near mass production of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and retooling everything for them carries staggering infrastructure costs. It was a pretty cool idea in its time, but now all this hydrogen silliness is diverting resources away from more viable technologies.
Here's my problem with hydrogen: it seeps through metal, so good luck keeping it contained. Maybe they've come up with a cost-efficient way to transport it and which does not leave your car surrounded by explosive gas, but I haven't heard it yet.
I voted for him, he better do a good job. Not much more to say than that really.
I look forward to the coming Second American Civil War after the First and Second amendments are done away with.
If you can't buy a legal gun might as well get the completely illegal AK-74 and since you can't talk anymore say it with bullets. :censored
Quote from: Zorro on November 11, 2008, 03:36:16 AMI look forward to the coming Second American Civil War after the First and Second amendments are done away with.
Are you serious, are are you just having fun?
I find it very hard to believe that any court would overturn DC v. Heller.
Zorro, I think that's edging dangerously close to the "rants and abuse" line. Mmkay?
Not just dangerously close, but fairly well over it.
Yeah, but I'm lazy, we all know that. ;-]
Quote from: Tezkat on November 08, 2008, 01:45:25 AM
That's not quite correct. Deregulation of the very specific sector you described happened a while ago, with the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act (under Carter in 1980), and the Alternative Mortgage Transaction Parity Act (under Reagan in 1982). Subprime mortgages weren't widely used until the Tax Reform Act (under Reagan in 1986) effectively punished people for not owning homes. Since the Department of Housing and Urban Development took over regulating Fannie and Freddie in 1992, they've had a mandate to support affordable housing for lower income families. In 1995, they allowed certain subprime mortgages to count as "affordable", which made such loans more attractive. However, Fannie and Freddie had relatively limited subprime exposure and had been steadily toughening up standards on what loans they would support for years before the bubble burst. Non-bank (read: less regulated) lenders underwrote most of the bad loans and repackaged them primarily for private sector consumption--Wall Street types who knew that they were buying high risk securities but did it anyway. There was a slight downturn in subprime lending and securitization in the last few years of the Clinton administration; actual default rates turned out to be higher than predicted, and prices of subprime-backed securities fell. Nonetheless, things really picked up under Bush, with low interest rates, soaring housing prices, and increasing market consolidation bringing the big players into the game. Big players collapsing due to stupid investment decisions make much bigger waves than the smaller firms who had been failing for the same reasons. And thus we have the snowball effect rolling over financial services sectors today.
:tmyk
I can't say I knew that much about the situation, but from what I can tell it really isn't really very different from what I understood it to be before. I think my point still stands.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 08, 2008, 01:45:25 AM
We've already crossed the threshold where sustainable energy generation can compete with fossil fuels on a price per kWh basis in some places, so it's mostly a matter of deployment and infrastructure now. And reducing emissions from fossil fuels isn't that big a challenge. Carrots help. Sticks do too.
But talking about economic repercussions...
Free market capitalism alone gives companies no incentive to address externalities. A tree, for instance, has absolutely no economic value until a company cuts it down to turn into furniture or whatever. They make money cutting down that tree. They make even more money cutting down lots of trees. But once the trees are gone, who ends up footing the bill for things like the resulting erosion damage to local infrastructure (or agriculture, or water supplies, or fish spawning grounds, or whatever)? Not the poor company! They need to remain competitive, hire more people, and not be shackled with evil regulations. Let's instead use my tax dollars and community investments as a stealth subsidy for their poor, starving CEOs and shareholders...
Yeah, right.
Pricing these factors into the market represents the ideal solution. Demand-side pressures can work for certain niche markets (e.g. eco-conscious consumers willing to pay a premium for green, organic, fair trade, etc.), but pricing things into the supply side requires a regulatory framework. Oh noes! Rules! Seriously... pay the true social costs of your economic activities or find a way to reduce them. Emission trading schemes place a price on pollution and unleash the power of the market on the problem. They've worked quite well for cost-effective reduction of pollutants with locally measurable impacts, such as sulphur emissions.
I never said regulation was bad thing. Regulation is a good and necessary thing. Profit is not the highest good one can strive for.
I disagree with it in this case. Forcing businesses to use non-carbon emitting sorts of fuel, or fining them, as you say, makes no economic sense - the market does not factor in externalities. Considering this, one can only them assume that it's either more expensive to use green sorts of fuel, or that it simply isn't practical. Making renewable or greener sorts of energy economically viable before forcing the economy into using them, in my opinion, is wiser than shoving them down businesses' throats.
I know that in Maine, for example, many hydroelectric dams are being shut down because of concerns about local eels and trout. Solar would not be an option in that climate either, and I don't know what the wind is like there either. Biofuels would work, except that for the long term they aren't really a viable source of alternative energy. Tidal generators, I understand, are not fully developed yet, or at least are not widely developed. What would you recommend here?
Unless I'm misunderstanding you somewhere, this is how I see it.
... There are better solutions for eels and trout than shutting down the dam.
It's relatively trivial to build what I understand to be a perfectly acceptable way around the dam, which the eels and trout will happily divert into using...
This is all hearsay, though, so I'd be happy to learn otherwise, or be corrected, if this information is outdated...
Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on November 11, 2008, 11:26:55 AM
... There are better solutions for eels and trout than shutting down the dam.
It's relatively trivial to build what I understand to be a perfectly acceptable way around the dam, which the eels and trout will happily divert into using...
This is all hearsay, though, so I'd be happy to learn otherwise, or be corrected, if this information is outdated...
Not really, I learned in my biology classes that hydroelectric dams, despite being renewable and non-polluting, is still not good for the environment. They can be designed to allow fish to run through unhindered, but it actually damages the river, and then by extension, the life that lives within.
First, hydroelectric dams gain energy from the potential energy of the flowing water, and stopping it. This actually has the effect of swelling up the stream behind the dam and indirectly draining the piece of stream in front. This of course, is unhealthy for those living in the lower waters, since it's more shallow and possibly unsuitable for life.
There is also a temperature modification part, water exiting the dam will have it's temperature raised due to being processed by turbines. That, combined with a reduced amount of water being sent down, will lead to some rapid depth and temperature changes. I'm not a marine biologist myself, but I can say with some certainty that there are several aquatic species that are very sensitive to those things and such a dam may make their habitat unsuitable for sustaining them.
All this really means is that evil Charline is right and the only way to fix things is to exterminate humanity.
Evil wins. :<
Quote from: The1Kobra on November 11, 2008, 12:03:27 PM
Not really, I learned in my biology classes that hydroelectric dams, despite being renewable and non-polluting, is still not good for the environment. They can be designed to allow fish to run through unhindered, but it actually damages the river, and then by extension, the life that lives within.
First, hydroelectric dams gain energy from the potential energy of the flowing water, and stopping it. This actually has the effect of swelling up the stream behind the dam and indirectly draining the piece of stream in front. This of course, is unhealthy for those living in the lower waters, since it's more shallow and possibly unsuitable for life.
There is also a temperature modification part, water exiting the dam will have it's temperature raised due to being processed by turbines. That, combined with a reduced amount of water being sent down, will lead to some rapid depth and temperature changes. I'm not a marine biologist myself, but I can say with some certainty that there are several aquatic species that are very sensitive to those things and such a dam may make their habitat unsuitable for sustaining them.
... Granted, but once they're in, surely it's better to come up with solutions than to just shut them down entirely, right?
Shutting them down en masse, leaves you with all those problems,
and removes any source of funding to resolve them. Or, at least, so I would have thought...
Quote from: Alondro on November 11, 2008, 12:49:28 PM
All this really means is that evil Charline is right and the only way to fix things is to exterminate humanity.
Evil wins. :<
I think you were joking, but I've encountered this attitude in earnest and it's always puzzled me a little. *puts on coat that is impervious to thrown stones*
To me, there are two levels involved. There is environmentalism for the sake of Humanity, and enviromentalism for the sake of "The World". Disregarding specific facts here, working purely in qualitative terms, I, and I think anyone with a reasonably working brain, would agree that environmental damage done to our own species is a bad idea in the long run. Deforestation or animal destruction or Co2 emission to the point of parboiling the planet=Dumb.
Then comes the more (to me) problematic hypothetical. Is destruction of an animal species that has no real "use" (And I hesitate to use that word, because use is such a vague term) to humanity. Is it our role to preserve sections of the environment for its own sake? When the choice is between benefit for humanity and benefit for a non-human species. *I* at least think that the choice is fairly clear, we come first. I always wonder at all those people who advocate demolishing any pre-industrial use of technology, because that would necessitate the removal of several billion people for want of food or medical techniques to support them. To me, environmentalism is a form of special self help. We want to keep our house clean so we can live in it in good health and safety, not for the benefit of those other things that happen to be there.
Ok, you can all jump on me now.
I'm inclined to agree.
It's summed up in one small phrase: Don't shit where you live.
... problem is, "where you live" is a very very big place.
I would agree with you, actually. There is, of course, the law of unintended consequences - you don't always know what one very small factor could have on the environment as a whole. The line between what is harmful environmentally to humans and what is not isn't always entirely clear, or even knowable until after the fact. As well, there is something to be said for preserving the environment for the sake of preservation - the egregious abuse of resources and wanton environmental destruction is wrong, even if it's just wasteful. But in terms of a choice between human concerns and the environment, I think the choice is very clear, yes - humans come first.
Even if all the possible outcomes have been determined the residual butterfly effect can't always be determined. I've seen many instances of deterministic chaos where even if the original intention is for good the outcome can be ultimately the opposite. Things that are produced to be used for good always have a way to be used for something not good, and people have a tendency to exploit the latter. Even though bad things can have unexpected results that travel far and wide, good things can travel just as well even if they aren't noticed as easily. :januscat
Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on November 11, 2008, 01:21:03 PM
... Granted, but once they're in, surely it's better to come up with solutions than to just shut them down entirely, right?
Shutting them down en masse, leaves you with all those problems, and removes any source of funding to resolve them. Or, at least, so I would have thought...
It in part depends on how long they've been up. If they have only been up a short amount of time, and it's caused noticeable damage to the environment, then it is certainly considerable to prevent further damage or to reverse damage already done. Of course, if they've been up a while, enough so to cause a change to the habitats, then it may actually cause damage to remove it, adding depth and reducing temperature of the water in front of the dam, which may cause aquatic life that has settled in due to the changes to be forced to relocate. It will eventually revert to it's previous state, but such a transition could take a long time.
Now of course, I don't know *too* much about the specific instance in Maine. If it's the dam itself killing the eels and trout, then it would probably be best to simply refit the dams so they don't. Occasional casualties are expected but a well designed dam should be able to let them through with few issues. Another possibility is that the ones living downstream cannot live in the waters with raised temperature, which would force them to relocate, either upstream, or elsewhere. This may of course, cause crowding issues in the part behind the dam, though since that part's depth would increase, there would also be more space. The third possibility, (and I know this is true for salmon, but I'm not sure for eels or trout), is that for whatever reason, they need to be able to at some point, be able to exist up the dam and below it, and yes, a dam would cause issues here, since the downstream habitat would then be unsuitable. If the second or third case is true, then yes, it would be environmentally harmful, and may affect industries that rely on such resources (aka fishing). Whether the damage is worth it or not... is up to debate. Destroying an existing dam is an unfortunate waste of resources, but again, sometimes if it's causing too much damage, it's best to pull out before it's too late. As I said, I don't know much about this specific instance, so I don't really have an opinion as to what's the best route to take.
Quote from: Cogidubnus on November 11, 2008, 11:10:50 AM
I disagree with it in this case. Forcing businesses to use non-carbon emitting sorts of fuel, or fining them, as you say, makes no economic sense - the market does not factor in externalities.
Let's not confuse markets not considering externalities with said externalities not having an economic impact. Consider the recent success in cap and trading sulphur dioxide emissions in the USA. Prior to 1990, the "market" didn't price this industrial pollution into its products, but lots of people were paying the price of acid rain and smog anyway. Emission trading systems encouraged industry to come up with some innovative solutions for reducing pollution at well below projected costs. And what kind of numbers are we talking about? Total cost of reducing SO2 emissions: About $2 billion per year (plus another $1 billion for NOx emissions), most of which is passed on to consumers anyway. Total savings: Upwards of $122 billion per year. That's over a hundred billion dollars of your taxes, health care premiums, etc. that would have been going to subsidize pollution. Even if those estimates are off by a bit--heck, even if they're off by an order of magnitude--we're still talking about a huge net economic benefit. (For the curious, source on that is a 2005 study in the Journal of Environmental Management that the EPA likes to cite but I'm too lazy to look up.)
If anthropogenic carbon emissions are altering the climate at the rate they seem to be, the total "external" costs could easily reach
trillions per year. Even if you're willing to gamble that they're not, there's still a business case for greener energy and energy independence.
QuoteConsidering this, one can only them assume that it's either more expensive to use green sorts of fuel, or that it simply isn't practical. Making renewable or greener sorts of energy economically viable before forcing the economy into using them, in my opinion, is wiser than shoving them down businesses' throats.
Clean energy technologies that have not already achieved grid parity in pricing are expected to reach it within a matter of years. They're competitive now. They're practical now. But their deployment is dwarfed by coal, which accounts for nearly half the country's electricity generation. See... coal used to be quite cheap, and the US has the world's largest supply. However, despite being depressed due to the current financial meltdown, fossil fuel prices are likely to trend upwards over the next few decades no matter how much drilling or digging you do. More demand, less supply--you do the math. Investing in coal fired boilers or diesel generators may have made great business sense ten years ago. Today? You might get more long-term bang for your buck investing in renewable power generation.
The thing is... big businesses don't like to innovate so long as they can get away with doing what they've been doing. That's especially true for energy companies. They're very conservative when it comes to adopting new technologies. It's a cultural thing. They have large capital investments in existing toys with enough resources and bureaucracy to provide lots of inertia. And let's not underestimate their political clout. Dump a bunch of new rules on them (like emission standards), and they'll bitch and whine. Heck, they might even sue if litigation costs less than compliance. :animesweat On the other hand, business managers like to
win. Give them a new playing field (like an emissions market), and they'll find surprising new ways to beat their competition.
QuoteI know that in Maine, for example, many hydroelectric dams are being shut down because of concerns about local eels and trout.
Generating hydroelectricity is admittedly bad for the local wildlife. But it remains, on balance, a fairly clean, usually inexpensive, and renewable power source. So... um... just give all those starving fishermen jobs at the new hydro plant. >:] On the other hand, trout and salmon
are yummy... and increasingly valuable economically.
The trend we're seeing is that a lot of smaller hydroelectric generating stations, particularly the ones tacked on to existing older dams, are no longer economically viable given the cost of complying with current environmental and safety regulations.
Take the Edwards Dam in Maine that was removed in 1999. It had a generating capacity of 3 MW and annual production of about 19 GWh. That would have brought in... $1 million/year? Maybe less... hydro was cheaper back then. The price I saw quoted to build a fish ladder was $9 million. The owner chose to tear down the dam rather than fix it up for the fish. Property values went up, tourism increased, and fish stocks returned, so the removing the dam turned out to be a good deal for the community. Silly externalities...
QuoteSolar would not be an option in that climate either, and I don't know what the wind is like there either.
You can fit about 3 kW worth of photovoltaics on a typical house in Canada, for a total annual output of around 4 MWh. I'm sure you'd get similar performance in Maine. And that's just residential solar. Grid solar could be much cheaper, given new technologies. Not living in the Sahara doesn't take solar off the table.
Maine also has enough wind resources to support several GW worth of turbines. Many are already deployed or under construction. That's kinda useful, because solar and wind are complementary. Solar peaks in summer. Wind peaks in the winter.
For the record, Maine already generates more than a third of its electricity from renewables.
Quote from: Alondro on November 11, 2008, 12:49:28 PM
All this really means is that evil Charline is right and the only way to fix things is to exterminate humanity.
Evil wins. :<
Naw... you don't have to exterminate all of humanity, merely reduce it to sustainable levels. In any event, environmental destruction and climate change eventually lead people to exterminate themselves. Water's a big one, since you die without it. For instance, when desertification in Darfur reduced water supplies beyond the ability to support everyone, the locals embarked on an aggressive campaign to reduce the population. Quite successful, by all accounts--they eliminated half a million people and got millions more to move. Unfortunately, that route gets kinda messy and unpleasant. Yet nobody but China bothers to implement preventative measures against overpopulation.
We're heading towards similar water shortages in many parts of North America... :dface
Quote from: Corgatha Taldorthar on November 11, 2008, 02:16:55 PM
Then comes the more (to me) problematic hypothetical. Is destruction of an animal species that has no real "use" (And I hesitate to use that word, because use is such a vague term) to humanity. Is it our role to preserve sections of the environment for its own sake? When the choice is between benefit for humanity and benefit for a non-human species. *I* at least think that the choice is fairly clear, we come first. I always wonder at all those people who advocate demolishing any pre-industrial use of technology, because that would necessitate the removal of several billion people for want of food or medical techniques to support them. To me, environmentalism is a form of special self help. We want to keep our house clean so we can live in it in good health and safety, not for the benefit of those other things that happen to be there.
I don't particularly care for protecting
specific endangered species, if that's what you mean. The whole point of natural selection is that unfit organisms have the good sense to die off and allow their superior competitors to prevail. That's how life evolves. (Alternately, for the intelligent design crowd: God only wants the winners to live.) Plenty of plants and animals are thriving as the environment changes around them.
That said, we've displayed a propensity for decimating entire ecosystems, and serious anthropogenic damage to the planet's biodiversity is a Bad Thing. Besides, nature is pretty.
I'm perhaps not being clear. No matter how it's phrased, forcing business into using green energy cannot be a boon to the economy. At the very least, things would stay the same - anything more would be a detrimental effect to the economy.
Of course, you say that there's a billions being saved by a reduction in pollution emmissions - I would ask, saved by who? If the government spends less, I still pay the same amount in taxes. If businesses are spending more, those costs are passed along to me. The way I understand it, reducing pollution is an environmentally laudable goal, but from an economic standpoint it is not beneficial.
I generally do not pay attention to environmentalist issues, because in general I've found it alarmist, and made up of a group of very frightened, ecologically minded people making ridiculous demands, lest the sky fall on all our heads. Hence, peak oil, peak gas, peak uranium, grid parity, are not terms I'm entirely familiar with.
I can only assume by Grid Parity you mean that you can sell green energy for the same price as you can energy generated by conventional means. I do wonder if that means that it costs the same amount to produce, of if it's simply possible to sell it for the same price without going out of business.
I do know that businesses are not using what you want them to now - that means that it's either impractical because what they have now works fine, or better, and switching would be expensive from an infrastructure standpoint, or that what you want them to use is prohibitively expensive, or unfeasible in that location.
Again, even assuming that green energy is just as good as conventional fuels, it is a bad economic decision to force it down businesses' throats. I'm saying that a better course would be to make green energy practical, useful, or attractive enough that businesses would switch by themselves, rather than forcing them to use a system that is more expensive in the short or the long term, and punishing them if they do not. I feel this is the better course of action. I imagine what you're saying would work, if your main goal is to reduce carbon emissions - I do feel, however, that it would have a detrimental effect on matters not related to the environment.
The one environmental issue NOT being talked about enough is mercury contamination of pretty much everything. Mercury has proven to be very very bad for neurological development in concentrations of a few parts per million.
Then there are the hormone mimetics from certain plastics which oddly enough seem to have the most effects at low concentrations; excessive hormone levels in rivers from contrceptives (only a tiny fraction of what's in the pills is absorbed and metabolized, the rest is excreted and hormones are remarkably stable molecules) which cause fish and frogs to become deformed (and it is not known what effects constant levels of artificial hormones may have on mammalian fetal development).
But everyone's focused on poor CO2. I'd like to point out that life did really well back in the dinosaur days, when CO2 levels were quite a bit higher. Evolution spikes during warm periods. Cold periods are actually far worse for biodiversity, as many life forms don't do well in the cold.
At least CO2 isn't going to mutate, poison, or brain-damage us. Oh, I didn't even mention the chemicals now found to cause epigenetic alterations, which means that heritable gene expression patterns occur even without genomic sequence changes! Allergies and perhaps even autism may result from simply putting a few different little signal molecules on certain important regulatory sequences of genes. Especially in the brain and immune system, which are incredibly fine-tuned systems, regulation of gene expression is critical. It takes very little to screw it up.
(http://fc94.deviantart.com/fs35/f/2008/310/3/c/Sinking_In_by_mangapunksai.jpg)
Quote from: Alondro on November 12, 2008, 01:25:30 PM
The one environmental issue NOT being talked about enough is mercury contamination of pretty much everything. Mercury has proven to be very very bad for neurological development in concentrations of a few parts per million.
Then there are the hormone mimetics from certain plastics which oddly enough seem to have the most effects at low concentrations; excessive hormone levels in rivers from contrceptives (only a tiny fraction of what's in the pills is absorbed and metabolized, the rest is excreted and hormones are remarkably stable molecules) which cause fish and frogs to become deformed (and it is not known what effects constant levels of artificial hormones may have on mammalian fetal development).
But everyone's focused on poor CO2. I'd like to point out that life did really well back in the dinosaur days, when CO2 levels were quite a bit higher. Evolution spikes during warm periods. Cold periods are actually far worse for biodiversity, as many life forms don't do well in the cold.
At least CO2 isn't going to mutate, poison, or brain-damage us. Oh, I didn't even mention the chemicals now found to cause epigenetic alterations, which means that heritable gene expression patterns occur even without genomic sequence changes! Allergies and perhaps even autism may result from simply putting a few different little signal molecules on certain important regulatory sequences of genes. Especially in the brain and immune system, which are incredibly fine-tuned systems, regulation of gene expression is critical. It takes very little to screw it up.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management discusses it.
One thing to consider with green energy is that it might not be a boon to the economy if it is used in our country alone. However, if the US is the first to pioneer much of the technology that is required to make it feasible across the board, then that is technology that can be sold to other countries, either through plans or through the equipment itself. And that *would* be a boon to the economy.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 12, 2008, 05:22:38 AMThe thing is... big businesses don't like to innovate so long as they can get away with doing what they've been doing. That's especially true for energy companies. They're very conservative when it comes to adopting new technologies. It's a cultural thing. They have large capital investments in existing toys with enough resources and bureaucracy to provide lots of inertia. And let's not underestimate their political clout. Dump a bunch of new rules on them (like emission standards), and they'll bitch and whine. Heck, they might even sue if litigation costs less than compliance. :animesweat On the other hand, business managers like to win. Give them a new playing field (like an emissions market), and they'll find surprising new ways to beat their competition.
It's for reasons like this that I'm warming to the auto bailout plans. Specifically, if the Big Three automakers want to get a bailout, they should have to take measures to ensure that they will have 5% of their new car sales able to run on something other than gas within two years. And then require something like 10% within four years.
Quote from: superluser on November 12, 2008, 06:21:57 PM
Quote from: Tezkat on November 12, 2008, 05:22:38 AMThe thing is... big businesses don't like to innovate so long as they can get away with doing what they've been doing. That's especially true for energy companies. They're very conservative when it comes to adopting new technologies. It's a cultural thing. They have large capital investments in existing toys with enough resources and bureaucracy to provide lots of inertia. And let's not underestimate their political clout. Dump a bunch of new rules on them (like emission standards), and they'll bitch and whine. Heck, they might even sue if litigation costs less than compliance. :animesweat On the other hand, business managers like to win. Give them a new playing field (like an emissions market), and they'll find surprising new ways to beat their competition.
It's for reasons like this that I'm warming to the auto bailout plans. Specifically, if the Big Three automakers want to get a bailout, they should have to take measures to ensure that they will have 5% of their new car sales able to run on something other than gas within two years. And then require something like 10% within four years.
Didn't the coal powered cars fail already?
Honestly, one of the reasons the other cars aren't being built is because people are finding out that there's a lurking cost to not running on gasoline that most people don't think about. With electric cars, it's the massive custom-built batteries that don't store much juice anyway. Another problem with electric is: How do you regulate the fuel? When you can just plug into any available port, you can steal electricity from just about anywhere with an external electrical socket. Sure you don't have to pay for it, but the place you plug into DOES. The only answer then is to go through a HUGE amount of redesign for many buildings to guard electrical sockets like they were made of diamond-encrusted platinum. Hell, you could probably do it with an unfrequented internal electrical socket with an extension cord.
Hybrids are reasonable, but they're too new to be readily affordable and the new technology hasn't caught up with the average mechanic shop. And wait... THEY STILL USE GASOLINE! Albeit not as much (I heard of one girl getting 50-70MPG). I really think this is our best option for "green" cars, but the costs aren't going to be practical until we have several generations of them to scrap/salvage for cheaper repair/maintenance costs.
Hydrogen cars are not practical due to their fuel. The amount of energy that is needed to get enough hydrogen to fuel a car is the most out of all the cars available. And the fact is, this isn't going to change. Getting pure hydrogen is a pain in the ass simply because of the way it acts, which is made worse in an oxygen-ladden atmosphere. And, as others have said, the tank for a hydrogen car is a bomb or could EASILY be fashioned into one to the point of being accidental. (Hindenburg anyone?)
Quote from: Valynth on November 13, 2008, 02:03:00 AMDidn't the coal powered cars fail already?
Coal as a fuel for cars did indeed fail, but interestingly, the technology that made coal feasible to run in cars still exists. It's called diesel, and modern diesels may be able to run on coal dust (I'm not sure).
Quote from: Valynth on November 13, 2008, 02:03:00 AMHonestly, one of the reasons the other cars aren't being built is because people are finding out that there's a lurking cost to not running on gasoline that most people don't think about. With electric cars, it's the massive custom-built batteries that don't store much juice anyway.
That's actually the whole point of this. If you force Ford, GM and Chrysler to make these cars just as popular as their other cars, you are also forcing the industry to solve these other externalities and start building an infrastructure that will supply the fuel that we will need to get off of oil.
Quote from: Valynth on November 13, 2008, 02:03:00 AMAnother problem with electric is: How do you regulate the fuel? When you can just plug into any available port, you can steal electricity from just about anywhere with an external electrical socket. Sure you don't have to pay for it, but the place you plug into DOES. The only answer then is to go through a HUGE amount of redesign for many buildings to guard electrical sockets like they were made of diamond-encrusted platinum. Hell, you could probably do it with an unfrequented internal electrical socket with an extension cord.
What you're describing is a problem today, as well. I've had gas siphoned out of my tank, and there's (in theory) nothing stopping people from stealing electricity with very long extension cords for any purpose, not just electric cars. Remember the time that Master Shake stole Carl's electricity to run the Shake Signal?
On the other hand, it would be pretty simple to make a specially-designed plug for recharging your electric car. Simply do something like require the voltage in question to be something like 170 volts and the current to be something like 150 amps. If either condition is not met, the system does not recharge. You can't convert wall power to that (you'd trip a breaker), but it would be very easy to get that from the transformer outside of your house, and trivial to have your local electric company set up a new outlet to do that. That one outlet could easily be locked with a key that you'd put on your keychain right next to the one that keeps your car from being stolen.
Quote from: Cogidubnus on November 12, 2008, 12:43:22 PMI'm perhaps not being clear. No matter how it's phrased, forcing business into using green energy cannot be a boon to the economy. At the very least, things would stay the same - anything more would be a detrimental effect to the economy.
So you claim. Prove it. Historical evidence doesn't necessarily support your assertion.
Denmark, for instance, introduced a carbon tax in 1991, followed by a EU-wide a cap and trade system for carbon emissions in 2005. In those 17 years, Denmark's GDP per capita doubled--almost the same growth as the USA. They also significantly reduced unemployment. Did some industries suffer? Sure. But others flourished. Denmark now leads the world in wind power technologies, for instance. Remember those wind turbines they're putting up in Maine? Made in Denmark.
America is having to import the technologies it needs to regain energy independence because it lacked the political will to develop the stuff on its own.
QuoteOf course, you say that there's a billions being saved by a reduction in pollution emmissions - I would ask, saved by who? If the government spends less, I still pay the same amount in taxes. If businesses are spending more, those costs are passed along to me. The way I understand it, reducing pollution is an environmentally laudable goal, but from an economic standpoint it is not beneficial.
Hmm... if the government is spending less but not reducing your taxes, I'd hope that they're at least reallocating those funds to something you care about. :3
With respect to regulations on SO2 and NOx emissions as part of the Clean Air Act (specifically the Acid Rain Program enacted in 1990), we now have nearly two decades of data on the success of the program, and much of the impact is locally measurable.
The largest chunk of the billions saved represented quantifiable benefits associated with reducing respiratory ailments. It turns out that stuff like smog and ozone are bad for you. Indeed, they can kill you. So the significant improvement in air quality saved lives. The estimated 18000 premature deaths avoided in the US and southern Canada represent workers, consumers, and taxpayers who continue to contribute to the economy. Increased mortality risks aside, these medical problems cost money--billions of dollars in hospital visits, medication, and lost worker productivity. Even outside diagnosable illnesses, the productivity of workers performing strenuous outdoor labour improved--on the order of $1 billion annually.
Then we have the benefits of reducing acid rain, which generally take the form of increased revenues rather than costs avoided. Acidified soil and water is bad for... um... life. Improved yields in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries put billions of dollars into the economy. Recreation and tourism got a boost, too. People would rather spend leisure time in places that haven't been destroyed by pollution. Fancy that.
There's also a savings in acid damage to buildings, equipment, and infrastructure. Estimates just for monuments and historic sites (many if which are built from acid-sensitive limestone and marble) run into the $100 million range nationally. The total property savings is probably an order of magnitude higher, but it's hard to quantify.
In summary, national compliance with this program costs industry (or rather, their consumers) $3 billion annually. That's $10 per person to save about 18000 lives and avoid over $100 billion in health care costs, lost productivity/revenues, and property damage. Furthermore, improving the environment translated into billions of dollars in economic growth.
Would you consider this program of evil environmental regulations beneficial from an economic standpoint?
QuoteI generally do not pay attention to environmentalist issues, because in general I've found it alarmist, and made up of a group of very frightened, ecologically minded people making ridiculous demands, lest the sky fall on all our heads. Hence, peak oil, peak gas, peak uranium, grid parity, are not terms I'm entirely familiar with.
Um... that's the lingo of the energy industry, not environmentalists. It's not particularly helpful to dismiss important matters of energy policy simply because some of it coincides with environmentalist agendas.
"Peak oil" describes the point at which production of oil declines. Oil production in individual wells tends to follow these neat bell curves; it gradually ramps up as you reach the heart of the field, peaks, and finally declines until you're sucking the bottom of the well. National or global oil production, being an aggregate of thousands of wells, follows a similar pattern. "Peak coal" and such represent attempts to apply the model to other resources.
The cheap, easy to extract stuff is at the top. The deeper you drill, the more energy, equipment, and technology you need to extract each barrel until it's no longer viable to exploit the well. In a country that has yet to reach its peak, like Iraq, extracting a barrel of crude might only cost a dollar. In a country that peaked decades ago, like the USA, extracting that barrel would cost five to ten times as much. Going offshore incurs even more costs. Producing oil from unconventional sources, such as shale, can be wildly expensive. It costs upwards of $40 to synthesize a single barrel of crude from the tar sands in Alberta.
Production statistics suggest that we hit global peak oil in 2005. If that's indeed the case, there will be less and less supply to keep up with the growing demand. High school economics should tell you what to expect in situations like that. Or you could just watch the oil prices.
"Grid parity" essentially means that the wholesale production costs of a new energy source can compete with existing electricity generation. The numbers can be a little funny in some cases because of the taxes and subsidies affecting various technologies at both production and implementation stages. Lots of regional factors matter, as well. Not to mention fuel and raw material prices. The economics of electricity production are... complex. :animesweat
Quote from: superluser on November 12, 2008, 06:21:57 PM
It's for reasons like this that I'm warming to the auto bailout plans. Specifically, if the Big Three automakers want to get a bailout, they should have to take measures to ensure that they will have 5% of their new car sales able to run on something other than gas within two years. And then require something like 10% within four years.
Heh. That looks a lot like the rules that GM and friends (successfully) fought back in the 90's... right before scrapping their electric car programs and handing leadership of the auto industry over to the Japanese. Those idiots spent millions lobbying and litigating for the regulatory and market conditions that led them to fail, and now they're crying for a bailout...
I'm not sure how comfortable I am with using taxpayer-funded industry bailouts to enact energy policy, though. It amuses the ebil overlord in me, but the ebil capitalist screams that there are better ways.
Also, you can't just pull alternative energy vehicles out of your ass and drop them on the market. They take years to develop, and US automakers are already playing catchup after wasting so much R&D on gas guzzlers. The Chevy Volt won't even be out for two years, and I seriously doubt they could produce enough to make up 5% of their line.
I like the idea of electric cars. I've been sort of paying attention to an electric sports car that's available, the Tesla roadster. A number of CA metro train stations have electric car charging stations (the one near where I work has three or four charging stations, they're next closest after handicap parking)
The problem, though, is that this is about the only place you'll find these stations. outside of the Tesla, which gets 250 mi/full charge, most electric vehicles get substantially worse, meaning that they're only useful for short range driving (daily commute if you don't live to far from where you work.) Even if charging stations were common and range was good, you lose the convenience of gas because there's a charging time.
Electric cars have another drawback that may not be readily apparent: they are full of electricity. Normally, who cares, that's inside, you're outside or in an insulated cabin, but in an accident, rescuers are at risk for a deadly electric shock if they don't know your car is live and they touch the wrong thing.
For me personally, there's a problem with overnight charging: I part at the curb. ideally, you would park your car in your garage and charge it there. on the driveway, it's still doable, but you have the concern of leaving your charging hatch and charging cable exposed overnight. The problem is worse if you're on the curb, and lends itself to unscrupulous people borrowing your connection to charge their own cars. I imagine this might be a problem for a lot of other Californians, since most of us seem to think garages are for storing junk, not cars.
Electric cars could be facilitated by repaving all the roads with induction coils hidden under the surface that could be used to pass electricity to the cars while they were in motion... of course, there's a whole giant set of problems that makes that completely unusable, from destroying data stored on magnetic media and stopping pace makers to figuring out how to make each driver pay for the electricity they use.
Oh, and a side note, I rechecked my source on the Kyoto protocol, it was to set a cap on CO2 emissions equal to each country's levels as of 1980. Between 1980 and 1985(when the meeting took place) every country that would have been subject to the cap except the US had been economically stagnant (and, in Germany's case, had a head start thanks to closing town a number of old inefficient Soviet factories), and so did not have far to go to meet their goals whereas the US would have had to set itself back years to have a chance to meet them. I apologize for misremembering the time to which the cap was meant to have been set.
--edit--
or, HEY!, you could use that induction coils idea for overnight charging in cases like mine, just run the coils where the car is usually parked, and use some sort of sensor like what's used to detect the passage of cars to activate street lights and an RFID system to make sure it only runs when tehre's a car to charge... and to make sure only an authorized car gets charged.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 13, 2008, 04:32:30 AMHeh. That looks a lot like the rules that GM and friends (successfully) fought back in the 90's... right before scrapping their electric car programs and handing leadership of the auto industry over to the Japanese.
Be fair. I think they handed over leadership of the auto industry in the 80s.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 13, 2008, 04:32:30 AMI'm not sure how comfortable I am with using taxpayer-funded industry bailouts to enact energy policy, though. It amuses the ebil overlord in me, but the ebil capitalist screams that there are better ways.
I completely agree. It's just that in this case, it looks like they *are* going to get the bailout, and I think that we should try to make the best of this bad business rather than fighting it and winding up with nothing to show but a bad bailout.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 13, 2008, 04:32:30 AMAlso, you can't just pull alternative energy vehicles out of your ass and drop them on the market. They take years to develop, and US automakers are already playing catchup after wasting so much R&D on gas guzzlers. The Chevy Volt won't even be out for two years, and I seriously doubt they could produce enough to make up 5% of their line.
But Chevy already has ethanol-based cars, biodiesel-based cars and hybrid cars (yes, I know hybrids aren't gas-free). They have the designs, and they can start ramping up production and begin rolling those out in very little time. I don't know if any of those will wind up being feasible, but like I said, it will force the market to determine what will be feasible.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 13, 2008, 05:11:54 AMThe problem, though, is that this is about the only place you'll find these stations. outside of the Tesla, which gets 250 mi/full charge, most electric vehicles get substantially worse, meaning that they're only useful for short range driving (daily commute if you don't live to far from where you work.) Even if charging stations were common and range was good, you lose the convenience of gas because there's a charging time.
Like I said, that's the point of the bailout conditions. You force these companies to think about the externalities. How can you make 10% of all your new cars run on something other than gas unless you work to set up a new infrastructure, as well? And once you do get that 10%, the infrastructure will want to make itself larger and more efficient.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 13, 2008, 05:11:54 AMElectric cars have another drawback that may not be readily apparent: they are full of electricity. Normally, who cares, that's inside, you're outside or in an insulated cabin, but in an accident, rescuers are at risk for a deadly electric shock if they don't know your car is live and they touch the wrong thing.
Cars already have a lot of electricity running in them. All you'd need to change in such a situation would be routing the hot wires away from the chassis and adding a GFCI.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 13, 2008, 04:32:30 AM
So you claim. Prove it. Historical evidence doesn't necessarily support your assertion.
Denmark, for instance, introduced a carbon tax in 1991, followed by a EU-wide a cap and trade system for carbon emissions in 2005. In those 17 years, Denmark's GDP per capita doubled--almost the same growth as the USA. They also significantly reduced unemployment. Did some industries suffer? Sure. But others flourished. Denmark now leads the world in wind power technologies, for instance. Remember those wind turbines they're putting up in Maine? Made in Denmark.
America is having to import the technologies it needs to regain energy independence because it lacked the political will to develop the stuff on its own.
[quote author=http://londonchronicles.blogspot.com/2008/03/denmarks-carbon-success.html (http://londonchronicles.blogspot.com/2008/03/denmarks-carbon-success.html)]But a carbon tax isn't a new idea. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have had carbon taxes in place since the 1990s, but the tax has not led to large declines in emissions in most of these countries — in the case of Norway, emissions have actually increased by 43 percent per capita. ...[/quote]
From what I've read in this article, the Denmark system of doing things was well-designed, and the article also seems to imply that things were already set up infrastructure-wise for them to switch over to cleaner fuels. Denmark is also one country, and its success does not seem to have been shared anywhere else, previously or as of yet. I would also wonder if it's economic success is directly related to it's cap and trade system, or due to other factors.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 13, 2008, 04:32:30 AM
Hmm... if the government is spending less but not reducing your taxes, I'd hope that they're at least reallocating those funds to something you care about. :3
With respect to regulations on SO2 and NOx emissions as part of the Clean Air Act (specifically the Acid Rain Program enacted in 1990), we now have nearly two decades of data on the success of the program, and much of the impact is locally measurable.
The largest chunk of the billions saved represented quantifiable benefits associated with reducing respiratory ailments. It turns out that stuff like smog and ozone are bad for you. Indeed, they can kill you. So the significant improvement in air quality saved lives. The estimated 18000 premature deaths avoided in the US and southern Canada represent workers, consumers, and taxpayers who continue to contribute to the economy. Increased mortality risks aside, these medical problems cost money--billions of dollars in hospital visits, medication, and lost worker productivity. Even outside diagnosable illnesses, the productivity of workers performing strenuous outdoor labour improved--on the order of $1 billion annually.
Then we have the benefits of reducing acid rain, which generally take the form of increased revenues rather than costs avoided. Acidified soil and water is bad for... um... life. Improved yields in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries put billions of dollars into the economy. Recreation and tourism got a boost, too. People would rather spend leisure time in places that haven't been destroyed by pollution. Fancy that.
There's also a savings in acid damage to buildings, equipment, and infrastructure. Estimates just for monuments and historic sites (many if which are built from acid-sensitive limestone and marble) run into the $100 million range nationally. The total property savings is probably an order of magnitude higher, but it's hard to quantify.
In summary, national compliance with this program costs industry (or rather, their consumers) $3 billion annually. That's $10 per person to save about 18000 lives and avoid over $100 billion in health care costs, lost productivity/revenues, and property damage. Furthermore, improving the environment translated into billions of dollars in economic growth.
Would you consider this program of evil environmental regulations beneficial from an economic standpoint?
Firstly, regarding taxation - whether the government spends the money on things I care about or not is irrelevant in this case. I merely wish to point out that the cost to me is still the same.
Secondly, I've never said environmental regulation is evil. These are real problems that need to be dealt with - the point that I have been trying to make is that a better way than forcing things is to make renewable energy attractive enough that business switch by themselves. If it's a viable business plan, people will do it - as indeed, a few have already done, albeit on a small scale. Make it profitable without an artificial tax on other forms of production. If it's a viable business model, people will do it without being forced.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 13, 2008, 04:32:30 AM
Um... that's the lingo of the energy industry, not environmentalists. It's not particularly helpful to dismiss important matters of energy policy simply because some of it coincides with environmentalist agendas.
"Peak oil" describes the point at which production of oil declines. Oil production in individual wells tends to follow these neat bell curves; it gradually ramps up as you reach the heart of the field, peaks, and finally declines until you're sucking the bottom of the well. National or global oil production, being an aggregate of thousands of wells, follows a similar pattern. "Peak coal" and such represent attempts to apply the model to other resources.
The cheap, easy to extract stuff is at the top. The deeper you drill, the more energy, equipment, and technology you need to extract each barrel until it's no longer viable to exploit the well. In a country that has yet to reach its peak, like Iraq, extracting a barrel of crude might only cost a dollar. In a country that peaked decades ago, like the USA, extracting that barrel would cost five to ten times as much. Going offshore incurs even more costs. Producing oil from unconventional sources, such as shale, can be wildly expensive. It costs upwards of $40 to synthesize a single barrel of crude from the tar sands in Alberta.
Production statistics suggest that we hit global peak oil in 2005. If that's indeed the case, there will be less and less supply to keep up with the growing demand. High school economics should tell you what to expect in situations like that. Or you could just watch the oil prices.
"Grid parity" essentially means that the wholesale production costs of a new energy source can compete with existing electricity generation. The numbers can be a little funny in some cases because of the taxes and subsidies affecting various technologies at both production and implementation stages. Lots of regional factors matter, as well. Not to mention fuel and raw material prices. The economics of electricity production are... complex. :animesweat
Ah, I see. Thank you for explaining that, then.
Oil prices recently were due to heavy speculation over a numerically small percentage increase in global demand compared to demand as a whole.
Now demand has shrunk and the price has crashed. I'm now seeing reports that indicate it could make a run for a low of $40/barrel.
So, to keep oil prices low, we just need to keep the world in a recession permanently!
*eeks* What if that was The Plan of The Conspiracy from the start?! D:
Quote from: Alondro on November 13, 2008, 01:25:15 PMNow demand has shrunk and the price has crashed. I'm now seeing reports that indicate it could make a run for a low of $40/barrel.
Which, as you can see, would still be a very high price that we didn't see before the Yom Kippur War and haven't seen between the late 80s and 2003-ish.
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t102/superluser/oilprice1947.gif)
Where did you get this chart? And is it adjusted for inflation?
I'm, assuming no.
Quote from: Corgatha Taldorthar on November 13, 2008, 02:16:10 PMWhere did you get this chart? And is it adjusted for inflation?
It says it is, though the more I look at it, the less I trust it. It says 2007 dollars (and it also said 2006 dollars--that should have been my first clue). These data, however, do not match up to the EIA's data (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/AOMC/images/chron_2008.xls).
Here is the official government data, adjusted by CPI in 2008 dollars:
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t102/superluser/oiladjusted2.jpg)
There's another chart of GDP-adjusted data in the same spreadsheet, which is pretty much the same.
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t102/superluser/oiladjusted3.jpg)
Quote from: superluser on November 13, 2008, 03:58:13 PM
Quote from: Corgatha Taldorthar on November 13, 2008, 02:16:10 PMWhere did you get this chart? And is it adjusted for inflation?
It says it is, though the more I look at it, the less I trust it. It says 2007 dollars (and it also said 2006 dollars--that should have been my first clue). These data, however, do not match up to the EIA's data (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/AOMC/images/chron_2008.xls).
Here is the official government data, adjusted by CPI in 2008 dollars:
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t102/superluser/oiladjusted2.jpg)
There's another chart of GDP-adjusted data in the same spreadsheet, which is pretty much the same.
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t102/superluser/oiladjusted3.jpg)
I would assume that oil is a commodity that is not adjusted for inflation. There is a x barrel of oil to x dollars equation. If the dollar increases or decreases in value, it has a direct effect on the price of oil. Inflation adjustment would be unnecessary, as that price of oil would automatically adjust for it (if need be).
At least, that sounds right in my head.
Quote from: Darkmoon on November 13, 2008, 05:07:38 PM
I would assume that oil is a commodity that is not adjusted for inflation. There is a x barrel of oil to x dollars equation. If the dollar increases or decreases in value, it has a direct effect on the price of oil. Inflation adjustment would be unnecessary, as that price of oil would automatically adjust for it (if need be).
At least, that sounds right in my head.
You're thinking exchange rate. Differences in the dollar are dealt with in price, but for inflation of dollar
over time(which is what we want), you can just do inflation from the weighted average buying price to get what you want.
Quote from: Cogidubnus on November 13, 2008, 10:30:55 AM
[quote author=http://londonchronicles.blogspot.com/2008/03/denmarks-carbon-success.html (http://londonchronicles.blogspot.com/2008/03/denmarks-carbon-success.html)]But a carbon tax isn't a new idea. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have had carbon taxes in place since the 1990s, but the tax has not led to large declines in emissions in most of these countries — in the case of Norway, emissions have actually increased by 43 percent per capita. ...
From what I've read in this article, the Denmark system of doing things was well-designed, and the article also seems to imply that things were already set up infrastructure-wise for them to switch over to cleaner fuels. Denmark is also one country, and its success does not seem to have been shared anywhere else, previously or as of yet. I would also wonder if it's economic success is directly related to it's cap and trade system, or due to other factors.[/quote]
So what can we learn from their example?
Taxes on carbon emissions can't form a standalone energy policy. An effective green energy strategy involves levelling the playing field. Get dirty energy to pay for clean energy developments, and then allow the market to take over. Denmark did that in its switch to wind power, which they now export (both as technology and electricity) to other countries.
Incidentally, not all cap and trade systems are the same. Obama has expressed support for a pure auction system, for instance, which is considerably more market-focused and doesn't reward companies for historical pollution habits (as your article criticizes).
QuoteFirstly, regarding taxation - whether the government spends the money on things I care about or not is irrelevant in this case. I merely wish to point out that the cost to me is still the same.
Secondly, I've never said environmental regulation is evil. These are real problems that need to be dealt with - the point that I have been trying to make is that a better way than forcing things is to make renewable energy attractive enough that business switch by themselves. If it's a viable business plan, people will do it - as indeed, a few have already done, albeit on a small scale. Make it profitable without an artificial tax on other forms of production.
That's remarkably shortsighted. The whole point of taxation is to raise money for the government to spend on things you (hopefully) care about. If they're reallocating tax revenues from expenses that could have been avoided to programs that benefit you, the net cost to you is
not the same.
Okay... so let's give the government a mandate to make clean energy competitive. How do you suggest they pay for it? They have to either raise taxes or cut spending elsewhere. Or borrow money from China. Instituting a bunch of regulations without a plan to pay for them is not the answer. No Energy Company Left Behind? :3
Like it or not, tax policy constitutes an effective tool for influencing market behaviour. France responded to the oil crisis in the 70s by significantly raising taxes on oil. (Seriously... their gas taxes are really high. When I lived there, we used to drive to Germany to fill up.) The market there responded with tiny fuel-efficient cars that you could practically park in your closet. By contrast, big oil and automakers lobbied the US government to limit gas taxes (and fuel efficiency standards). So the country filled with gas-guzzling SUVs and became shackled to Middle Eastern oil. Increase in GDP per capita in the past decade: France +45%, USA +47%. Somehow, exorbitant taxes on oil failed to inflict long term economic damage, as you suggest. It just gave them ugly cars.
Quote from: Alondro on November 13, 2008, 01:25:15 PM
Oil prices recently were due to heavy speculation over a numerically small percentage increase in global demand compared to demand as a whole.
Now demand has shrunk and the price has crashed. I'm now seeing reports that indicate it could make a run for a low of $40/barrel.
So, to keep oil prices low, we just need to keep the world in a recession permanently!
*eeks* What if that was The Plan of The Conspiracy from the start?! D:
Heh. Recession would have an upside if can alter market and consumer behaviour in ways that would support sustainable economic growth in the future.
You couldn't keep crude prices at $40/barrel, though. At that price, it would cost more to produce oil in the Athabasca tar sands than sell it. They were already laying off workers at $60-70. Shutting down those operations would cut the production of America's largest oil supplier in half and remove one of the world's largest proven oil reserves from play. If a "numerically small change" in demand sent prices skyrocketing, that's sure to have an interesting effect on the market.
Alternately, we could keep them going with heavy government subsidies. Heh... bailing out big oil...
Quote from: Fragmaster01 on November 13, 2008, 05:18:22 PM
Quote from: Darkmoon on November 13, 2008, 05:07:38 PM
I would assume that oil is a commodity that is not adjusted for inflation. There is a x barrel of oil to x dollars equation. If the dollar increases or decreases in value, it has a direct effect on the price of oil. Inflation adjustment would be unnecessary, as that price of oil would automatically adjust for it (if need be).
At least, that sounds right in my head.
You're thinking exchange rate. Differences in the dollar are dealt with in price, but for inflation of dollar over time(which is what we want), you can just do inflation from the weighted average buying price to get what you want.
No, but I'm not thinking exchange rate. The price of oil is directly dependent on the US Dollar. Any time the dollar weakens or strengthens, it has a direct effect on the value of oil (which then means, normally, the markets take that new value into account when "establishing" a price, ie buying or selling).
Quote from: Tezkat on November 13, 2008, 07:00:41 PM
So what can we learn from their example?
Taxes on carbon emissions can't form a standalone energy policy. An effective green energy strategy involves leveling the playing field. Get dirty energy to pay for clean energy developments, and then allow the market to take over. Denmark did that in its switch to wind power, which they now export (both as technology and electricity) to other countries.
Incidentally, not all cap and trade systems are the same. Obama has expressed support for a pure auction system, for instance, which is considerably more market-focused and doesn't reward companies for historical pollution habits (as your article criticizes).
I would argue that it is more effective to level the playing field without using governmental intervention and taxes as a crutch. As I have said, green energy being competitive on it's own, without having to be subsidized and without oil being taxed, would be a better measure of its viability, and would be more beneficial than making other forms of production so onerous to pay for that, out of desperation, a switch is necessitated.
That being said, and to reference your example of the French below, I don't know enough about France's or Denmark's economies to say if Cap and Trade or exorbitantly high fuel taxes helped to stimulate their economies, or if it was other factors or other facets of their economies that stimulated growth.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 13, 2008, 07:00:41 PM
That's remarkably shortsighted. The whole point of taxation is to raise money for the government to spend on things you (hopefully) care about. If they're reallocating tax revenues from expenses that could have been avoided to programs that benefit you, the net cost to you is not the same.
I agree. And I am happier when the government is funding things that I agree with, rather than thirty-thousand dollar studies as to why prisoners want to escape prison.
However, in this case, the point is a non-issue. I'm responding to your assertion that efforts to reduce pollution, in fact, save money. If it saves the government money, that isn't the same as saving
me money, as I am taxed the same regardless. In this case, whether or not the government spends the money saved on something I like is irrelevant.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 13, 2008, 07:00:41 PM
Okay... so let's give the government a mandate to make clean energy competitive. How do you suggest they pay for it? They have to either raise taxes or cut spending elsewhere. Or borrow money from China. Instituting a bunch of regulations without a plan to pay for them is not the answer. No Energy Company Left Behind? :3
In this case, I disagree with government interference. I'd rather not give the government a mandate. And I don't suggest that they should pay for anything.
T. Boone Pickens is building the largest wind farm in Texas, and I'm not aware of any government mandate or subsidy that is making him do so. He's spending 300 million dollars, and I hope he makes a thousand times that back. I hope he succeeds wildly. That, to me - the viability of green energy itself motivating a switch to it for power concerns - is a far more beneficial route to take than to rely on governmental sticks and carrots.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 13, 2008, 07:00:41 PM
Like it or not, tax policy constitutes an effective tool for influencing market behaviour. France responded to the oil crisis in the 70s by significantly raising taxes on oil. (Seriously... their gas taxes are really high. When I lived there, we used to drive to Germany to fill up.) The market there responded with tiny fuel-efficient cars that you could practically park in your closet. By contrast, big oil and automakers lobbied the US government to limit gas taxes (and fuel efficiency standards). So the country filled with gas-guzzling SUVs and became shackled to Middle Eastern oil. Increase in GDP per capita in the past decade: France +45%, USA +47%. Somehow, exorbitant taxes on oil failed to inflict long term economic damage, as you suggest. It just gave them ugly cars.
To repeat what I said above, I do wonder if it's extremely high taxes that gave France a good economy, or if it were other factors. I don't know enough about the French economy to say for sure, but it doesn't make sense to me that exorbitant taxes would be beneficial to anything.
I feel like we're moving in circles here. To summarize - I don't doubt that what you say could work. But, I think, there are better ways to do it, that do not risk as much, that can accomplish the same thing.
Quote from: Darkmoon on November 13, 2008, 07:19:12 PM
No, but I'm not thinking exchange rate. The price of oil is directly dependent on the US Dollar. Any time the dollar weakens or strengthens, it has a direct effect on the value of oil (which then means, normally, the markets take that new value into account when "establishing" a price, ie buying or selling).
To keep it short, on one point, you're right, on the other point, you're also right, but the points don't go together. When adjusting for inflation, we want the Present Value of the commodity compared to some time in the past. Currency differences impact the price at each period, sure, but you still want to adjust for inflation to get the PV, regardless of changes in the exchange rate.
Quote from: Darkmoon on November 13, 2008, 07:19:12 PMNo, but I'm not thinking exchange rate. The price of oil is directly dependent on the US Dollar. Any time the dollar weakens or strengthens, it has a direct effect on the value of oil (which then means, normally, the markets take that new value into account when "establishing" a price, ie buying or selling).
Your reasoning is sound. We wouldn't adjust for inflation when we look at the value of the dollar in relation to gold, for example.
That being said, the charts that I posted are definitely inflation-adjusted. It says so right on them.
Plus, the EIA also has a non-inflation adjusted chart:
(http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t102/superluser/chron-2008.gif)
The first time it reached $40/bbl. in nominal dollars was in the 2000s.
Quote from: superluser on November 13, 2008, 05:32:01 AM
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 13, 2008, 05:11:54 AMElectric cars have another drawback that may not be readily apparent: they are full of electricity. Normally, who cares, that's inside, you're outside or in an insulated cabin, but in an accident, rescuers are at risk for a deadly electric shock if they don't know your car is live and they touch the wrong thing.
Cars already have a lot of electricity running in them. All you'd need to change in such a situation would be routing the hot wires away from the chassis and adding a GFCI.
You're not likely to be killed by a car battery, and you can tell if a gas powered car is running. This is only an issue when a car has crashed and half its guts are strewn accross the pavement. It's an engineering issue that can be overcome, but it's still an issue and does not have a single simple solution. I imagine that a lot of safety features fro electric cars will be developed as they become wide spread and as the dangers become apprerent through accidents or crash testing.
Understand, I'm not trying to argue agaisnt electric cars, just pointing out that there are issues that need to be worked out.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 14, 2008, 02:20:51 AMYou're not likely to be killed by a car battery, and you can tell if a gas powered car is running. This is only an issue when a car has crashed and half its guts are strewn accross the pavement. It's an engineering issue that can be overcome, but it's still an issue and does not have a single simple solution. I imagine that a lot of safety features fro electric cars will be developed as they become wide spread and as the dangers become apprerent through accidents or crash testing.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding how a GFCI works, but I thought the idea was that if ever there were a short circuit or a load across the battery that would indicate a human-type resistance, it would simply trip and shut off the current. If you installed one of those on the battery itself, the chance of electrocution should be minimal.
I am not an electrical engineer, this is stuff that smarter people than I were talking about discussing electric cars, and this a while ago.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 14, 2008, 02:57:36 AMI am not an electrical engineer
Neither am I, so if anyone out there is an electrical engineer, I'd be interested in hearing why a GFCI wouldn't work, if indeed a GFCI wouldn't work.
Quote from: Cogidubnus on November 13, 2008, 10:06:17 PM
In this case, I disagree with government interference. I'd rather not give the government a mandate. And I don't suggest that they should pay for anything.
T. Boone Pickens is building the largest wind farm in Texas, and I'm not aware of any government mandate or subsidy that is making him do so. He's spending 300 million dollars, and I hope he makes a thousand times that back. I hope he succeeds wildly. That, to me - the viability of green energy itself motivating a switch to it for power concerns - is a far more beneficial route to take than to rely on governmental sticks and carrots.
Haven't you heard? Pickens's wind farm is sorta kinda on hold due to falling fossil fuel prices. :dface
Demanding that green energy compete on its own merits is all well and good, but the simple fact is you aren't holding their competition to that standard. How could you? The energy industry is oligopolistic and anticompetitive, dominated by fossil fuel companies with
trillions in capitalization who have spent
billions of dollars lobbying Washington to give them
hundreds of billions in support over the last few decades, to say nothing of very favourable regulations. They control the infrastructure and barriers to entry. Whether or not you agree with it ideologically, if you want the energy industry to become anything even vaguely resembling a competitive free market, you need government intervention to level the playing field and allow new players into the game. This is the real world, not the ivory towers of the University of Chicago.
Mr. Pickens's business plan would not have been financially viable without government support. Texas has a Renewable Portfolio Standard that mandates the development of renewable sources of electricity (2000 MW by 2009 and 5880 MW by 2015, of which the Pickens wind farm would have been a significant chunk). Wind power received over $600 million in production tax credits last year, which translates into about a $0.02/kWh reduction in wholesale prices. Even these relatively well meaning incentives have unintentionally turned investors away from the sector, since those tax credits have to be renewed every year (and profitability frequently hinges on that small advantage).
By comparison, big oil and friends received nearly $7 billion in direct subsidies last year alone. For some reason, the world's most profitable companies require special incentives to do business in America. That doesn't even count indirect costs. You know, those dreaded externalities. For instance, the federal government has forked out $35 billion to treat respiratory ailments (i.e. "black lung disease") in coal miners. The coal industry is doing the damage, and your tax dollars are paying for it. But you're content to foot the bill so long as your personal taxes don't increase, right?
QuoteTo repeat what I said above, I do wonder if it's extremely high taxes that gave France a good economy, or if it were other factors. I don't know enough about the French economy to say for sure, but it doesn't make sense to me that exorbitant taxes would be beneficial to anything.
Oh, I have absolutely no doubt that there were other factors at play. Economies are wildly complex beasts. Besides, I never claimed that raising energy taxes caused the economic growth, merely that empirical evidence from countries who tried it refutes your claim that it would necessarily harm their economies. Taxes represent a means to an end. If you see them as anything but, you're doing it wrong.
France recognized the dangers of foreign oil dependency back the 1970's (despite being one of the only western countries
not affected by the embargo). Their high oil taxes represented a deliberate attempt to wean the country off of fossil fuels. Decades later, that strategy insulated them from the skyrocketting oil prices that crippled the US economy.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 14, 2008, 04:00:24 AM
By comparison, big oil and friends received nearly $7 billion in direct subsidies last year alone. For some reason, the world's most profitable companies require special incentives to do business in America. That doesn't even count indirect costs. You know, those dreaded externalities. For instance, the federal government has forked out $35 billion to treat respiratory ailments (i.e. "black lung disease") in coal miners. The coal industry is doing the damage, and your tax dollars are paying for it. But you're content to foot the bill so long as your personal taxes don't increase, right?
If you want to make me personally responsible for the black lung disease in coal miners, you are free to do so. My arguments are, and have been, simply trying to point out that there would be financial ramifications for governmental interference in this.
I am not trying to say that there are not problems that need solving. Several times you've tried to point out to me that there are real environmental issues, and implied that I am either not aware or do not care, which is something that I have repeatedly said that I realize there are, and am not trying to dispute. My
entire argument thus far has been there are better ways to do it than you suggest.
In direct response, my tax bill wouldn't change either way, which is somewhat the point I was trying to make earlier. I can say with full confidence that my taxes not having to pay for black lung disease (as in, if people didn't have it) would make me much happier.
I don't think there's anything more for me to say, really. You also bring up something else, though - you said green energy is competitive on a cost per kilowatt ratio. Is that still so, with falling oil prices? Not that I don't expect oil to bounce right back.
France had an advantage in that they didn't have crazies stopping the construction of nuclear plants. They get quite a bit of their electricity from nuclear power.
All we get here are protests anytime someone even hints that more nuclear power might be a good idea.
I've heard rumors that new plants might be built soon, but I'm not holding my breath. Wacko envronmental groups can stall it in the courts for decades.
Cog and Alondro, watch your tone.
Nuclear power does provide "clean" energy, so long as you don't worry about that pesky nuclear waste. If they could figure out a way to dispose of the waste that didn't eradicate life (such as the current system of burying it does -- especially if the container holding the waste leaks, which invariably they do), then nuclear power would be truly viable. As it is, right now nuclear power is really only good on a short term basis, or in limited amounts.
Fusion is supposed to be better, if they could ever get it working. But then, if they could get it working, we'd probably have it by now.
Actually, I think the French developed a method of re-refining the spent nuclear rods to extract the radioactive substances to create new fuel rods and the dust left over actually has less radioactvity than your average fist full of dirt.
And there's also research going on to make plants that use irradiated carbon as a fuel source. The only problem with that is that the irradiated carbon has fluctuating radioactivity meaning you'd constantly need to adjust the amount of fuel, often very quickly.
Quote from: superluser on November 12, 2008, 06:21:57 PMIt's for reasons like this that I'm warming to the auto bailout plans. Specifically, if the Big Three automakers want to get a bailout, they should have to take measures to ensure that they will have 5% of their new car sales able to run on something other than gas within two years. And then require something like 10% within four years.
Looks like Congress is having the same idea (http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/1108/Dems_attach_strings_to_auto_bailout.html).
The only thing I have a problem with is:
A. The bailout in general. Sure, the giants will go down, but then the little guys like you and me can step up into the resulting vaccum of power by studying how these companies went down and avoiding the causes. That's how capitalism WORKS.
B. The strings attached to the bailout would result in the Government essentially acting as a C.E.O. (determining what the company should invest in) And the government should NEVER be in direct charge of an economic force. I'm not against awarding bonuses (in form of tax breaks) to companies who RESEARCH environmental tech (with yearly review boards to determine if the progress made is worth the bonus), but I AM against directly punishing those who feel the funds could be directed to other pursuits when the lives of Americans aren't in direct harm due to said practice.
And no, losing a job is not a direct harm to your health. You can go out and MAKE your own job if you need to. How do you think all companies start out? They begin with a man/woman who's will to go out on a limb and try something. They then find that the process makes money. They then organise people around them through jobs and before you know it, they're in charge of a company. All you need to do is find the demand for what you can do and a means of satisfying that demand.
Oh, and for those of you espousing the Kyoto protocols as "good for the economy?" You could be wrong on this one. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aTYTqcXZf7fE&refer=japan)
Valynth: That's actually the countries themselves getting fined. An indirect hit to the economy, at best.. The countries are the ones that need to live up to their own promises. It's why a staged plan is best. Start where you are now, and lower things bit by bit. In addition, put in policies and funding to help companies drop carbon emissions.
A larger response from me to the whole thing is coming later. I've been very busy with computer science major stuff lately, which is why I've been quiet.
*sighs* I hate when people think "CO2 ia a pollutant." Not it isn't. In fact, if you look at the articles I linked (and was promptly banned for pointing out in the manner I did) you'd see that the global temp is, infact, dropping despite the claims that "CO2 is causing global warming!" Heck, most of the "evidence" for global warming has been discredited or out-right lying for the sake of "getting the message out." The fact that Al Gore is a galactic class hypocrit is just icing on the cake.
The graph of ice cores that Gore "revealed?" Turns out, he looked for a matching line and placed them on top of each other disregarding anything else like the fact that the CO2 line was several hundred years BEFORE the temperature fluctuations. Then there's also the fact that, with proper scaling, any set of data can be graphically matched with any other sets of data. Couple these two facts together and his little "graph" fails to impress.
And lets not forget the guiding mantra of the "CO2 is evil!" crowd:
CO2=Global Warming, "Water World!"
CO2=Gobal Cooling, "Snow Ball Earth!"
CO2=No Global Fluctuation, "it's being negated by something else, but you still need to obey our rules to live in the future!"
Quote from: Valynth on November 20, 2008, 03:19:21 AMAnd lets not forget the guiding mantra of the "CO2 is evil!" crowd:
CO2=Global Warming, "Water World!"
CO2=Gobal Cooling, "Snow Ball Earth!"
CO2=No Global Fluctuation, "it's being negated by something else, but you still need to obey our rules to live in the future!"
Okay.
Let's just try a little substitution here:
As=death (http://www.wvec.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D85CA48O0.html)
As=stops decay (http://books.google.com/books?id=P_xj3QTHHvoC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=arsenic+preservation+mummification&source=web&ots=BpCQsBuhys&sig=eBKA-JsH5LsW4x1-GRaSmrlu0ng&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result)
Which is it, science? How can it kill you and stop you from decaying? How can it do two totally contradictory things?
I'll bet you're gonna pull that old chestnut about arsenic not being good to eat in any amount, aren'tcha? Well, I'm wise to your shenanigans (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/81002451/abstract)! Now that I've disproven the media myth that Arsenic is poisonous, I think I'll go and eat some delicious and preservational rat poison.
Quote from: Valynth on November 20, 2008, 03:19:21 AMTurns out, he looked for a matching line and placed them on top of each other disregarding anything else like the fact that the CO2 line was several hundred years BEFORE the temperature fluctuations. Then there's also the fact that, with proper scaling, any set of data can be graphically matched with any other sets of data. Couple these two facts together and his little "graph" fails to impress.
I hate to disagree with ya and all, but this one's kind of major. The global temperature increase was leading CO2 concentration increase by a few hundred years(an average of 800 years, in fact), not the CO2 leading the temperature by a couple hundred, which is evidence that global climate change might drive historic CO2 levels (as opposed to historic CO2 levels driving climate change, which was the point that Gore et all were trying to make) which is why the two graphs are generally desplayed one above the other as opposed to overlaid, where the disparity would be strikingly obvious.
Which is pretty much the point you were making, except you reversed which preceded which.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 20, 2008, 04:39:15 AMI hate to disagree with ya and all, but this one's kind of major. The global temperature increase was leading CO2 concentration increase by a few hundred years(an average of 800 years, in fact), not the CO2 leading the temperature by a couple hundred, which is evidence that global climate change might drive historic CO2 levels (as opposed to historic CO2 levels driving climate change, which was the point that Gore et all were trying to make) which is why the two graphs are generally desplayed one above the other as opposed to overlaid, where the disparity would be strikingly obvious.
Which is pretty much the point you were making, except you reversed which preceded which.
This may not take into effect the feedback effect (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1551941/Oceans-losing-ability-to-soak-up-CO2.html). Increased CO2 makes the oceans less able to store CO2, which then makes the oceans less able to store the CO2 that they already store or from the atmosphere, which should result in a delayed increase in CO2 as temperatures rise.
Quote from: superluser on November 20, 2008, 04:52:19 AM
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 20, 2008, 04:39:15 AMI hate to disagree with ya and all, but this one's kind of major. The global temperature increase was leading CO2 concentration increase by a few hundred years(an average of 800 years, in fact), not the CO2 leading the temperature by a couple hundred, which is evidence that global climate change might drive historic CO2 levels (as opposed to historic CO2 levels driving climate change, which was the point that Gore et all were trying to make) which is why the two graphs are generally desplayed one above the other as opposed to overlaid, where the disparity would be strikingly obvious.
Which is pretty much the point you were making, except you reversed which preceded which.
This may not take into effect the feedback effect (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1551941/Oceans-losing-ability-to-soak-up-CO2.html). Increased CO2 makes the oceans less able to store CO2, which then makes the oceans less able to store the CO2 that they already store or from the atmosphere, which should result in a delayed increase in CO2 as temperatures rise.
While that is interesting, I'm pretty sure that the data sources used to determine global CO2 concentrations are not directly connected to oceans, and wouldn't likley be effected by oceanic CO2 absorption. It wouldn't explain the fact that CO2 levels rise as quickly as temperature (with the delay) and slowly subside(the global temperature chages pretty quickly relatively sharply where the CO2 levels tend to decease in a mreo gentle slope), such that the periods of increased atmospheric CO2 are much longer than the periods of increased global temperature.
For reference, I'm looking at the chart from page 24 of the 4th IPCC report, showing, from antarctic ice core samples, temperature(as determined via the deuterium variation), CO2, CH4, and N2O.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 20, 2008, 05:38:55 AMWhile that is interesting, I'm pretty sure that the data sources used to determine global CO2 concentrations are not directly connected to oceans, and wouldn't likley be effected by oceanic CO2 absorption.
Well, the point is that the saturation of the oceans makes atmospheric CO2 more pronounced. In fact, if I'm reading this correctly, you wouldn't expect to see this effect in the oceans, but rather only the atmosphere.
Totally irrelevant, but I just wished that I posted this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TiQCJXpbKg) in this thread when Obama won. DAMMIT I just missed an amazing joke.
As far as the energy-related debate goes, unfortunately, I know very little relating to that. :< I am ashamed. I'm just amazed at how this debate keeps changing subjects.
Also, I was such a pissant in this thread. Remind me to never read a debate thread when my blood sugar plummeted.
Quote from: superluser on November 20, 2008, 06:07:21 AM
Well, the point is that the saturation of the oceans makes atmospheric CO2 more pronounced. In fact, if I'm reading this correctly, you wouldn't expect to see this effect in the oceans, but rather only the atmosphere.
I'm... not entirely sure what the point you're trying to make is, to be quite honest.
I think we both agree that Anthropogenic global warming is based on the assumptions that atmospheric CO2 is the major driving force in climate change, and that humans are driving an increase in CO2 with current consumption that will cause a major change in temperature. The source of the CO2 is irrelevant for the question of whether or not CO2 is actually a driving force in global climate change. If the effect you are talking about is valid (and I don't know enough about it from one article to say anything about that) it still only addresses a potential source for CO2.
To put it much shorter, it doesn't matter how it got there, the question is what effect does it really have, and the article you're talking about only addresses a source of CO2.
when you say it makes the stmospheric CO2 more pronounced, I'm not sure if you are saying that the oceans are giving up CO2 which raises the atmospheric CO2 levels, in which case it is irrelevant to the question of CO2 driving climate change, or if you are saying that this should have an effect on the measurements taken from the antarctic ice cores, which should cause a spike in CO2 after the temperatures decline as the ability to absorb CO2 increases, which we don't see, and which isn't related to the article.
(BTW, fun fact: snow only forms within a certain temperature band, above which the water doesn't freeze into snow and below which the air can't carry the water to create snow, and Antarctica's temperature easily drops below that lower threshold...)
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 20, 2008, 11:19:54 PMwhen you say it makes the stmospheric CO2 more pronounced, I'm not sure if you are saying that the oceans are giving up CO2 which raises the atmospheric CO2 levels, in which case it is irrelevant to the question of CO2 driving climate change
That's what I'm saying, though I fail to see how this is irrelevant. Temperature increases atmospheric CO2 levels(*), which then increase temperature, which then increases atmospheric CO2 levels, which then increase... and so on. It doesn't matter how the feedback loop starts, just that when it does start, the only way to stop it is to reduce the global temperature or reduce the global levels of CO2.
As I understand it, the Antarctic ice cores measure the CO2 trapped in air bubbles, not in the water itself, so they're measuring the atmospheric CO2, which is where we should expect to see this effect.
(*) By increasing the amount of CO2 given off by the ocean and also by not absorbing CO2 that a less saturated ocean would have been able to absorb.
Quote from: superluser on November 21, 2008, 03:45:39 AM
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 20, 2008, 11:19:54 PMwhen you say it makes the stmospheric CO2 more pronounced, I'm not sure if you are saying that the oceans are giving up CO2 which raises the atmospheric CO2 levels, in which case it is irrelevant to the question of CO2 driving climate change
That's what I'm saying, though I fail to see how this is irrelevant. Temperature increases atmospheric CO2 levels(*), which then increase temperature, which then increases atmospheric CO2 levels, which then increase... and so on. It doesn't matter how the feedback loop starts, just that when it does start, the only way to stop it is to reduce the global temperature or reduce the global levels of CO2.
As I understand it, the Antarctic ice cores measure the CO2 trapped in air bubbles, not in the water itself, so they're measuring the atmospheric CO2, which is where we should expect to see this effect.
(*) By increasing the amount of CO2 given off by the ocean and also by not absorbing CO2 that a less saturated ocean would have been able to absorb.
If only that explained the cyclical expansion and contraction of the glaciers all over the world that's been going on for the past 100,000 years you'd be set. Then there's also the fact that the temperature doesn't just simply go on a constant increase throughout history. And lets not forget the fact that the global temperature has actually fallen despite an increase in CO2 production.
The fact is, CO2 has historically had very little influence on global temperature when compared to all the other things that could possibly go wrong. Solar activity, extra solar radiation, volcanic activity, geo-thermal activity, continental drift, ect.
Quote from: superluser on November 21, 2008, 03:45:39 AM
That's what I'm saying, though I fail to see how this is irrelevant. Temperature increases atmospheric CO2 levels(*), which then increase temperature, which then increases atmospheric CO2 levels, which then increase... and so on. It doesn't matter how the feedback loop starts, just that when it does start, the only way to stop it is to reduce the global temperature or reduce the global levels of CO2.
As I understand it, the Antarctic ice cores measure the CO2 trapped in air bubbles, not in the water itself, so they're measuring the atmospheric CO2, which is where we should expect to see this effect.
(*) By increasing the amount of CO2 given off by the ocean and also by not absorbing CO2 that a less saturated ocean would have been able to absorb.
OK, then. The question is whether or not CO2 has such a big effect on climate change, or if climate change has a big effect on CO2 levels
in the atmosphere. It doesn't matter where the CO2 comes from, it's still showing up 800 years after the heat begins to increase, it's still sticking around for a while once the heat decreases. It is irrelevant because we are discussing the fact that the temperature changes occur
before the CO2 levels increase, not how quickly we are dooming ourselves. (and, BTW, climate scientists make predictions more and more dire every year, they seem to forget that there's only so much energy to be be absorbed by CO2, and the higher the concentration, the closer to 100% of that absorbable energy you become. I suggest reading
this (http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/05/climate-sensitivity-and-editorial.html) to see why a runaway feedback effect is pretty silly)
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 21, 2008, 04:24:40 AMIt is irrelevant because we are discussing the fact that the temperature changes occur before the CO2 levels increase, not how quickly we are dooming ourselves.
No, it's not irrelevant, because it doesn't matter what started the process. Once the process gets going, however, it should propagate itself, and increases in either temperature or CO2, regardless of cause, will cause the feedback to worsen.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 21, 2008, 04:24:40 AMI suggest reading this (http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/05/climate-sensitivity-and-editorial.html) to see why a runaway feedback effect is pretty silly)
I don't believe it's a runaway feedback effect. I just think it's potentially a destabilizing feedback effect which will find an equilibrium point somewhere less healthy for humans.
I just think its funny that we had Snowball Earth at a time when CO2 levels were monsterously high compared to now.
The Sun is the major player.
I'll note again: Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn have had warming as well. Until there is proof that their warming has nothing to do with ours, the Sun is the culprit. I don't care what a consensus believes. These are measurable scientific facts. Fact trounces theory.
There was a consensus that 'cold fusion' couldn't happen. And to a degree it was semi-correct. 'Fusion' in the classical sense is not happening in the LTNR's (low-temperature nuclear reactions), but a novel type of neutron generation and absorption is. Naval science research has repeated the experiment and the results many many times now. It is fact that a nuclear reaction occurs.
A consensus can tend to become a quasi-religious statement, in that those who defend it will do everything in their power to attack detractors since they cannot bear to be wrong. In doing so, they will overlook anything that can provide an alternative explanation, sometimes to the detriment of many.
Science must be blind to politics and popular belief. It must adhere to analysis and evidence and theory must change as new facts come in. The man-made global warming consensus refuses to do so, and therefore it no longer fits the scientific creed.
Quote from: superluser on November 21, 2008, 06:08:01 AM
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 21, 2008, 04:24:40 AMIt is irrelevant because we are discussing the fact that the temperature changes occur before the CO2 levels increase, not how quickly we are dooming ourselves.
No, it's not irrelevant, because it doesn't matter what started the process. Once the process gets going, however, it should propagate itself, and increases in either temperature or CO2, regardless of cause, will cause the feedback to worsen.
Which is predicated on the flawed assumtion that CO2 is the major driving force, the original assumption which is based off less accurate measurements from the ice cores which could not detect the 800 year gap between temperature and CO2 changes.
The point is the evidence now no longer supports CO2 as a major dirving force in global cliamte change, the point is that the temperature changes before there is any significant cahnge in CO2 levels, and the increase in CO2 levels, at it's peak, does not cause an increase in temperature, because the peak temperature has already been reached without CO2. The point is that CO2 as a major cause of warming no longer has merit because it can no longer adaquately explain all evidence where other theories, such as solar activity, CAN. The rule of parsimony, which is a basic tenet of science, indicates that the best solution is taht which best explains all evidence with the fewest assumptions, and CO2 driven anthropogenic global warming no long fits that rule, if it ever did.
Quote from: Alondro on November 21, 2008, 10:46:42 AMI just think its funny that we had Snowball Earth at a time when CO2 levels were monsterously high compared to now.
A would-be disciple came to Nasrudin's hut on the mountain-side. Knowing that every action of such an enlightened one is significant, the seeker watched the teacher closely. "Why do you blow on your hands?" "To warm myself in the cold." Later, Nasrudin poured bowls of hot soup for himself and the newcomer, and blew on his own. "Why are you doing that, Master?" "To cool the soup." Unable to trust a man who uses the same process to arrive at two different results -- hot and cold -- the disciple departed.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 21, 2008, 11:55:22 AMWhich is predicated on the flawed assumtion that CO2 is the major driving force, the original assumption which is based off less accurate measurements from the ice cores which could not detect the 800 year gap between temperature and CO2 changes.
The point is the evidence now no longer supports CO2 as a major dirving force in global cliamte change, the point is that the temperature changes before there is any significant cahnge in CO2 levels, and the increase in CO2 levels, at it's peak, does not cause an increase in temperature, because the peak temperature has already been reached without CO2. The point is that CO2 as a major cause of warming no longer has merit because it can no longer adaquately explain all evidence where other theories, such as solar activity, CAN. The rule of parsimony, which is a basic tenet of science, indicates that the best solution is taht which best explains all evidence with the fewest assumptions, and CO2 driven anthropogenic global warming no long fits that rule, if it ever did.
Have a peer-reviewed article: http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/CaillonTermIII.pdf
I haven't read it yet, as I only got up because a telemarketer called me, and am going right back to sleep now. All I know is that it talks about the 800 year gap.
Quote from: superluser on November 21, 2008, 12:46:19 PM
Quote from: Alondro on November 21, 2008, 10:46:42 AMI just think its funny that we had Snowball Earth at a time when CO2 levels were monsterously high compared to now.
A would-be disciple came to Nasrudin's hut on the mountain-side. Knowing that every action of such an enlightened one is significant, the seeker watched the teacher closely. "Why do you blow on your hands?" "To warm myself in the cold." Later, Nasrudin poured bowls of hot soup for himself and the newcomer, and blew on his own. "Why are you doing that, Master?" "To cool the soup." Unable to trust a man who uses the same process to arrive at two different results -- hot and cold -- the disciple departed.
Answering scientific logic with philosophical logic/stories? I think you've pretty much discredited yourself with that.
Quote from: Valynth on November 21, 2008, 04:26:24 PMAnswering scientific logic with philosophical logic/stories? I think you've pretty much discredited yourself with that.
Please explain.
Quote from: Valynth on November 20, 2008, 03:19:21 AM
*sighs* I hate when people think "CO2 ia a pollutant." Not it isn't.
Thats just silly. Even if it isn't a major contributor to global warming, it still causes other nasty side effects. Acid Rain and reduction of air quality are two other things it contributes to, neither of which are healthy. CO2+H2O->H2CO3, aka Carbon dioxide, combined with atmospheric moisture, turns into carbonic acid, and that's scary all on it's own. For the bad air quality, one could take a look at industrial era London, where buildings were literally caked in soot, and air quality was so horrendous that it was hard to even breathe on the streets.
QuoteThe graph of ice cores that Gore "revealed?" Turns out, he looked for a matching line and placed them on top of each other disregarding anything else like the fact that the CO2 line was several hundred years BEFORE the temperature fluctuations. Then there's also the fact that, with proper scaling, any set of data can be graphically matched with any other sets of data. Couple these two facts together and his little "graph" fails to impress.
There is money to be made on both sides of the issue. Those in the oil industry for example, have plenty of incentive to try and 'prove' that CO2 is completely non-polluting, as it would increase sales. The reverse is also true, those in the green energy industry have incentive to exaggerate the role of man-made pollution on the environment, and it's important to understand that neither are correct. Ideally, one would want to be more environmentally concerned than oil companies want us to be, and less so than green energy wants us to be.
One key thing that seems to be missing here, is that global warming is not the overall raise in temperature world wide, but rather a gradual shift towards a warmer climate. It's a very important difference.
Quote from: superluser on November 21, 2008, 04:54:18 PM
Quote from: Valynth on November 21, 2008, 04:26:24 PMAnswering scientific logic with philosophical logic/stories? I think you've pretty much discredited yourself with that.
Please explain.
Philisophical logic is imaginary logic. It can draw on ideas that don't have any roots in reality, where as scientific logic must have physical data to base it's analysis on.
Your argument also compares to unlike things, the nature of CO2 and the nature of breath. In the first example, the teacher is using the warmth of his core body to warm his extremities. In the second, he is using the movement of a fluid, in this case air, to cool an object. These two things are completely different and do not reflect the NATURE of the air itself, but rather the other forces using the air as a conduit. These forces can also use other things a conduit, negating you comparison of CO2's nature to the nature of a breath.
Quote from: The1Kobra on November 21, 2008, 04:55:10 PMAcid Rain and reduction of air quality are two other things it contributes to, neither of which are healthy. CO2+H2O->H2CO3, aka Carbon dioxide, combined with atmospheric moisture, turns into hydrochloric acid, and that's scary all on it's own.
*shudder* There's so much wrong with that.
First, acid rain tends to come from Sulphur Dioxide, not Carbon Dioxide. Second, H2CO3 is not hydrochloric acid (HCl), but rather carbonic acid.
Quote from: Valynth on November 21, 2008, 05:04:05 PMPhilisophical logic is imaginary logic. It can draw on ideas that don't have any roots in reality, where as scientific logic must have physical data to base it's analysis on.
Uh huh. Like how the four-color theorem only works in theory, and not in practice.
Quote from: Valynth on November 21, 2008, 05:04:05 PMYour argument also compares to unlike things, the nature of CO2 and the nature of breath. In the first example, the teacher is using the warmth of his core body to warm his extremities. In the second, he is using the movement of a fluid, in this case air, to cool an object. These two things are completely different and do not reflect the NATURE of the air itself, but rather the other forces using the air as a conduit. These forces can also use other things a conduit, negating you comparison of CO2's nature to the nature of a breath.
In the case of global warming, CO2 absorbs the radiation that is attempting to leave the atmosphere. In the case of Snowball Earth (if I understand it correctly), the atmosphere is so reflective that insufficient energy reaches the Earth. Neither of these are the inherent NATURE (as you so put it) of CO2, but rather different actions that are enabled or coincident with the rise of CO2.
My analogy is an attempt to explain that two disparate effects can have the same proximate source, but explaining it like that is pretty dry. It's much more engaging when you explain it using Nasrudin.
Funny, when I made the exact same argument using Arsenic, you had no problem with it.
Quote from: Cogidubnus on November 14, 2008, 11:13:40 AMYou also bring up something else, though - you said green energy is competitive on a cost per kilowatt ratio. Is that still so, with falling oil prices? Not that I don't expect oil to bounce right back.
Perhaps.
Oil is used mainly for transportation, not electricity, but historically, coal and natural gas have tracked oil prices. Only in the last few years have we hit the tipping point where new renewable energy technologies were seriously viable in the American market. High oil prices pushed the price of traditional energy generation (discounting nuclear, but that can't expand much) above $0.05/kWh, while technological innovation reduced capital costs until renewable energy approached $0.10/kWh. The government started throwing tax credits at it, and the two met in the middle. It may be several more years before green energy is seriously competitive with fossil fuels without subsidies.
Even if recession in the US drops demand for energy in the short term, the rest of the world is there to pick up the slack. Resource poor developed countries (like Germany and Japan) still need energy to fuel growth, and the developing world (especially China, India, and Indonesia) are gentrifying and adopting Westernized energy foodprints at incredible rates. It doesn't take a genius to see that growth in global energy demand outstripping production will make dependence on fossil fuels increasingly dangerous. Investment in renewables represents economic security for the future. The question, from a policy standpoint, is whether you want to create a business environment suited to leading the transition or falling behind it. America has historically opted for the latter.
Fun facts and estimates about power generating costs, to give you an idea of the scale of the numbers...
Wind power is very geography dependent. Actually running a turbine is fairly cheap (under $0.02/kWh). Much of the O&M costs listed represents land and insurance.
+ $0.09 Capital Costs ($1500/kW installed, 30% availability)
+ $0.03 Operations and Maintenance
- $0.03 Tax Credits
=
$0.09 per kWhThese are wholesale costs, ignoring transmission, storage, and distribution costs or markups by the utility companies. Since wind power is intermittent and often generated far from the end users, transmission and storage can be much higher than for other forms of energy, but I've ignore that here. It's a significant barrier to greater deployment of wind power, though. The red tape involved in stringing transmission lines out to wind farms killed a number of projects.
With respect to capital costs, I'm assuming equity financing with a capital charge rate of about 15% over 20 years, which is typical of such high risk ventures. Financing a project with cheap debt could drop that by several cents per kWh. Also keep in mind that many power plants have a useful service life of 30 years or more. Maintenance costs rise sharply as a plant ages, but paying off the mortgage will let you sell power for the cost of O&M + Fuel.
Natural gas really picked up steam back in the 90's after the Clean Air Act amendments, since it burns fairly clean of nearly everything but CO2. It's been the fastest growing traditional source of electricity for two decades. Combined cycle natural gas plants are relatively cheap to build and operate ($120 million for a 200 MWe plant).
+ $0.01 Capital Costs ($600/kW, 85% availability)
+ $0.01 Operations and Maintenance
+ $0.04 Fuel (assuming $6 per million BTU)
=
$0.06 per kWhNatural gas prices peaked at about $14/MMBTU ($0.11/kWh).
Pulverized coal-fired plants have traditionally been the cheapest source of electricity. Modern plants incorporate technology to remove NOx, SO2, and Hg (about $0.01/kWh more capital and maintenance costs, already included). It's still pretty smelly and dirty, but it powers half of America's electricity. The country has the world's largest reserves, and many major coal producing states (like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia) also happen to be the battlegrounds determining who gets the Oval Office, so don't expect coal to go away anytime soon.
+ $0.03 Capital Costs ($1500/kW, 85% availability)
+ $0.01 Operations and Maintenance
+ $0.02 Fuel (assuming $50/ton of ~12000 BTU/ton coal)
=
$0.06 per kWhCoal prices peaked at about $150/ton ($0.10/kWh), though the stuff typically used for electricity in the US is a bit cheaper and less concentrated.
There's a new "clean coal" technology called IGCC, which basically turns coal into natural (well, synthetic) gas. It receives $0.03/kWh in government subsidies, but the increased costs easily cancel that out.
Several municipalities, states and countries already have caps or taxes on carbon emissions. A carbon tax of $20 per ton of CO2 would add about $0.02/kWh for a coal-fired plant and $0.01 for natural gas. Estimated costs for adding CCS (carbon capture and storage) to a plant range from about $0.03/kWh for gas or IGCC to $0.06/kWh for coal-fired plants. To be honest, I don't think people have really figured that stuff out yet--it's uncharted (and controversial) territory, but also full of opportunities for enterprising green capitalists and engineers.
Nuclear power plants are wildly expensive to build (about $6 billion for a 1600 MWe AREVA EPR). Fuel costs are mostly processing, not raw uranium, so nuclear power is not very sensitive to commodities pricing. Indeed, assuming steady loads, the cost of nuclear remains fairly constant until you pay off the mortgage. Note that America hasn't built a new reactor since Three Mile Island happened. With construction costs paid off years ago, the aging fleet supplies 20% of America's electricity for little more than their operating and fuel costs--they're laughing all the way to the bank, Mr. Burns style. They've been steadily expanding existing plants with (frequently inexpensive) uprates to improve efficiency and capacity, and most have been running at 90%+ capacity for the better part of this decade. The US government takes responsibility for radioactive waste disposal.
+ $0.08 Capital Costs ($4000/kW, 85% availability)
+ $0.01 Operations and Maintenance
+ $0.01 Fuel
- $0.02 Tax Credit (new nuclear plants only)
=
$0.08 per kWhGlobal uranium consumption currently exceeds production by a fair bit, which could be a problem. We're now decommissioning nuclear weapons for fuel...
Photovoltaic panels have seen some crazy drops in price of late. Current prices run around $5000/kW just for the hardware. Nanosolar (http://www.nanosolar.com/), which just got a huge wad of venture capital from the Google boys, claims to have already reached the magic $999/kW with flexible thin-film solar panels you can mount just about anywhere, but we'll probably need some time to see that go to scale. You can fit about 3 kW worth of panels on a typical roof. Annual performance ranges from about 1200 kWh/kW in northern climes to 2400 kWh/kW in sunny Arizona. Many states support something called "net metering", whereby your own production supplements grid power and may even provide you with a credit selling power back to the electric company on sunny days. Labour can cost even more than the panels--installation and grid connection generally run another $5000/kW. Those are the so called "green collar" service jobs that can't be outsourced.
The costs of solar energy vary widely from state to state, as each has different insolation levels, government incentives, and standard electricity costs. Many utility companies with net metering will actually subsidize a good chunk of the system themselves. Let's put together a sample residential package in, say, Long Island:
+ $30000 to install a 3 kW system ($10000/kW, 17% availability)
- $10500 in direct incentives from Long Island Power Authority
- $5000 in State Tax Credits
- $9000 in Federal Tax Credits (after January 1, 2009; it caps at $2000 for 2008)
= $5500 installed
($0.11/kWh amortized over 25 years at 7.5%)New Yorkers pay something like $0.19/kWh retail for electricity, so this is a great deal, and it gives them warm fuzzies for saving the environment. It's also a housing upgrade that you could recoup when selling your home. And let's not forget that the power companies get customers to subsidize increases in generating capacity. >:]
Solar energy is increasingly viable on the grid side, as well. Sunrgi (http://www.sunrgi.com/) claims to have achieved the magic $0.05/kWh using concentrated photovoltaics, but I've yet to see the numbers or assumptions that back that up. Solar energy has been very expensive until recently, but it's clearly the way of the future.
Quote from: superluser on November 21, 2008, 03:45:39 AM
That's what I'm saying, though I fail to see how this is irrelevant. Temperature increases atmospheric CO2 levels(*), which then increase temperature, which then increases atmospheric CO2 levels, which then increase... and so on. It doesn't matter how the feedback loop starts, just that when it does start, the only way to stop it is to reduce the global temperature or reduce the global levels of CO2.
As I understand it, the Antarctic ice cores measure the CO2 trapped in air bubbles, not in the water itself, so they're measuring the atmospheric CO2, which is where we should expect to see this effect.
(*) By increasing the amount of CO2 given off by the ocean and also by not absorbing CO2 that a less saturated ocean would have been able to absorb.
Helpful clarification, since it wasn't quite clear from your article...
Ice cores record atmospheric CO2. We use other proxies for marine paleoclimatology.
Most of the world's CO2 is underwater. CO2 dissolves into water--more easily in colder (and deeper) water, so CO2 tends to sink along the solubility gradient. Warming the oceans releases oceanic CO2, causing it to rise and bubble out into the atmosphere. (Try it for yourself: Go heat up a bottle of Coke and watch what happens to the CO2. :3)
A lot of anthropogenic CO2 is still being absorbed by the oceans, albeit not enough to compensate for our emission rates. At the moment, we're seeing a net increase in oceanic carbon--rapid increases in atmospheric CO2 are driving acidification of oceans even as they warm. I see the effects when I SCUBA dive. Every year, more of the vibrant colours bleed away as the sensitive coral reefs bleach and die. :<
The biological pump is important, so loss of marine biodiversity should cause concern. Through processes such as photosynthesis and calcification, organisms store carbon within their bodies. Dead organic matter sinks to the ocean floor. This sediment (some of which may become oil or other fossil fuels, given the right conditions) serves as long-term sequestration of atmospheric CO2 until elevated ocean temperatures and acidity dissolve it out... or some enterprising animal digs the stuff up because burning it is fun and profitable.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 21, 2008, 11:55:22 AM
Which is predicated on the flawed assumtion that CO2 is the major driving force, the original assumption which is based off less accurate measurements from the ice cores which could not detect the 800 year gap between temperature and CO2 changes.
The point is the evidence now no longer supports CO2 as a major dirving force in global cliamte change, the point is that the temperature changes before there is any significant cahnge in CO2 levels, and the increase in CO2 levels, at it's peak, does not cause an increase in temperature, because the peak temperature has already been reached without CO2. The point is that CO2 as a major cause of warming no longer has merit because it can no longer adaquately explain all evidence where other theories, such as solar activity, CAN. The rule of parsimony, which is a basic tenet of science, indicates that the best solution is taht which best explains all evidence with the fewest assumptions, and CO2 driven anthropogenic global warming no long fits that rule, if it ever did.
Discounting the very short term effects of eruption particulates inhibiting sunlight, volcanic activity affects the climate primarily through the emission of CO2--not unlike fossil fuels. Increased volcanism likely explains some prehistoric cases of rising CO2 triggering periods of global warming. (Unless you've got a good theory for global warming causing increased volcanic activity...) The Neogene has been characterized by relatively low volcanism, so a lot of the regular cycles as evidenced by Pleistocene and Holocene ice core data were probably triggered by insolation changes due to orbital variations, solar activity, and whatnot.
Triggered.Solar forcing mechanisms could conceivably explain a lot of the small climate variation over recorded history. They could be responsible for those first few centuries of significant rising (or falling) temperature trends observed in ice core data and geological/fossil records, but they cannot account for the magnitude or duration of temperature change over the subsequent millenia. That requires feedback systems powerful enough to sustain the increase or decrease in temperature, with release and sequestration of greenhouse gasses being the most obvious contenders. The Eocene hyperthermals were marked by massive spikes in atmospheric carbon--exceeding modern levels by an order of magnitude--and a planet hot enough for species we would consider to be tropical today to flourish near the poles. And yet the Earth wasn't getting much more sun than we are now. The planet didn't seriously cool off until massive blooms of polar flora sequestered enough carbon to kick off an ice age. People want to dig that up and burn it, too...
Reaching a tipping point of one kind or another can also trigger fairly rapid changes in temperature through other feedback mechanisms, which would lead the subsequent CO2 variation. Albedo changes, for instance. Cold tends to produce snow, which is shiny and reflects sunlight rather than allowing it to warm the ground, which cools off the region even more and thickens the ice cover. Melting ice reverses the process. In the Snowball Earth theory Alondro mentioned, most models suggest that the low temperatures and high global albedo would have been self-reinforcing until extremely high CO2 levels (due to volcanic emissions) warmed the atmosphere enough for tropical ice to melt and begin the reversal. The Earth is a complex system.
There's little doubt that greenhouse gasses contribute to warming the planet. That's why we call them greenhouse gasses. We're arguing about the magnitude and the timeframe of their effects, specifically as they relate to athropogenic emissions and observed climate change. Mars warmed up
more than we did during the last few decades. It gets half as much sun, but the atmosphere is almost pure CO2, rather than mostly nitrogen and oxygen like ours--greenhouse gasses significantly amplified the effect of elevated solar radiation.
Or maybe Martians just have solar powered space heaters. :mowtongue
Quote from: superluser on November 21, 2008, 05:43:48 PMSecond, H2CO3 is not hydrochloric acid (HCl), but rather carbonic acid.
Whoops, my mistake then.
Gah! Tezkat made a long post... I feel like I should read it, but it's sooooooooooooo long.
Here's some more stuff about the lag:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/
Essentially, what it seems to say is that the previous climate changes have been initiated by something other than anthropogenic CO2 (but we knew that, since y'know, we weren't around then), but that CO2 acts as an intensifier, meaning that while CO2 didn't cause climate change then, CO2 is capable of causing climate change, and indeed, CO2 does seem to be causing it now.
Quote from: Darkmoon on November 21, 2008, 10:20:58 PMGah! Tezkat made a long post... I feel like I should read it, but it's sooooooooooooo long.
I do believe the proper response is tl;dr.
I'd try to make a dramatic reading for you so that you could listen to it while doing something else, but alas, everything in my apartment (including microphones) picks up EWTN, so unless you want to listen to me *and* Mother Angelica, you'd be better off just reading it.
I read it. I have to change what I was typing because of it. That's the most detailed post on global warming I've even seen. Very well done. Tezkat deserves a cookie or something.
First of all, thankyou fro the article. I recommend you read it as soon as you have the chance. executive summary is that this is an article using/reporting the more accurate measurements that determined that CO2 was laging behind temperature increase by an average of 800 years +- 200 years. The articles says that there is no way that CO2 is driving the increase of temperature at the poles, though it does say that the CO2 measurements coincide with deglaciation elsewhere without going very far into it(I would want to see an article regarding deglaciation specifically).
Quote from: superluser on November 21, 2008, 05:43:48 PM
In the case of global warming, CO2 absorbs the radiation that is attempting to leave the atmosphere. In the case of Snowball Earth (if I understand it correctly), the atmosphere is so reflective that insufficient energy reaches the Earth. Neither of these are the inherent NATURE (as you so put it) of CO2, but rather different actions that are enabled or coincident with the rise of CO2.
My analogy is an attempt to explain that two disparate effects can have the same proximate source, but explaining it like that is pretty dry. It's much more engaging when you explain it using Nasrudin.
Funny, when I made the exact same argument using Arsenic, you had no problem with it.
Snowball earth is a case where the earth's surface became too reflective. Normally, the light from the sun passes through the atmosphere and strikes the earth, which absorbs the light and emits infrared radiation. Greenhouse gasses are misnamed in that they don't trap heat in the sense that a greenhouse's glass reflects the infrared and keeps it from escaping. Rather, greenhouse gasses absorb infrared in various wavelengths as it radiates from the earth's surface. In snowball earth, the ice covering caused by the cold temperatures acts as a mirror reflecting light back into space without converting it to the infrared wavelengths that normally would be absorbed by the greenhouse gasses.
Fun fact: It's believed that snowball earth is caused by the presence of land at both poles which messes with the circulation provided by the oceans, allowing the polar ice to expand towards the equator, which in turn reflects more energy into space, a vicious cycle that eventually coveres teh earth's oceans with ice. How lucky we are, if this is true, to live in an age where only one pole is landlocked.
Quote from: Darkmoon on November 21, 2008, 10:20:58 PM
Gah! Tezkat made a long post... I feel like I should read it, but it's sooooooooooooo long.
I read it. Don't torture yourself.
I read it, and it was a good post...
Tezkat didn't seem to take decommissioning costs into account with Nuclear, which IIRC is where it starts to look kinda not good. Otherwise, it has been one of the highlights of the thread, I think.
Nor did he take into account any repair or replacement costs for solar panels, which I seem to recall some people have calculated that they kick in about where the panel starts making money... and the recycling costs are astronomical, because they're basically a complex film spread under or over a sheet of glass (I forget which, and it varies, I think, depending on what sort of solar panel)
Despite that, it was, as D says, a good post.
Regarding Tazkat's post, tax credits is value someone ends up paying, and that someone tends to be the tax payer when other services the goernment provides are cut or taxes are raised. I don't know how that long island authority works, but I suspect it's another government entity, which means someone's tax money goes to funding it, and it's their tax money be spend as an incentive. Tax credits hide the cost and shift it to other people, but it's a cost that still has to be paid.
Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on November 22, 2008, 12:01:01 PM
Nor did he take into account any repair or replacement costs for solar panels, which I seem to recall some people have calculated that they kick in about where the panel starts making money... and the recycling costs are astronomical, because they're basically a complex film spread under or over a sheet of glass (I forget which, and it varies, I think, depending on what sort of solar panel)
Yeah, I strongly doubt that traditional solar PV is going to be a large part of the future grid. You might see the infrared PVs in some sort of corner cases, but I think solar thermal will probably be more efficient than solar PV for the foreseeable future.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 22, 2008, 04:37:15 PMTax credits hide the cost and shift it to other people, but it's a cost that still has to be paid.
One easy response to that is that the money gets paid to Americans, instead of corrupt foreign leaders.
Quote from: superluser on November 22, 2008, 04:43:05 PM
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 22, 2008, 04:37:15 PMTax credits hide the cost and shift it to other people, but it's a cost that still has to be paid.
One easy response to that is that the money gets paid to Americans, instead of corrupt foreign leaders.
uh... America has an abundant supply of coal. We also have more oil in Alaska than all of Saudi Arabia if our environmental groups would let us drill in the frigid tundra it's underneath rather than claiming it's an evergreen forest.
Quote from: Valynth on November 22, 2008, 04:54:17 PM
Quote from: superluser on November 22, 2008, 04:43:05 PM
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 22, 2008, 04:37:15 PMTax credits hide the cost and shift it to other people, but it's a cost that still has to be paid.
One easy response to that is that the money gets paid to Americans, instead of corrupt foreign leaders.
uh... America has an abundant supply of coal. We also have more oil in Alaska than all of Saudi Arabia if our environmental groups would let us drill in the frigid tundra it's underneath rather than claiming it's an evergreen forest.
That's not entirely true. There a re parts of Alaska that's already producing oil (the part that gives every citizen of Alaska a kickback). Other parts of Alaska, however, are only theorized to have plenty of oil, but there's no way to know how far or how long it lasts without testing, and drilling, et all. And that testing and drilling yada yada damages the ecosystem that lives there in ways we can't even imagine.
The reason not to drill in areas that are protected for their ecosystem is because the costs to that ecosystem is more than, possibly, could be underneath the ground.
Thanks to the West Wing for that.
Besides, if we tap that oil, we're still burning oil, and it would be better just to get away from that. It's not a renewable resource.
Quote from: superluser on November 22, 2008, 04:43:05 PM
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 22, 2008, 04:37:15 PMTax credits hide the cost and shift it to other people, but it's a cost that still has to be paid.
One easy response to that is that the money gets paid to Americans, instead of corrupt foreign leaders.
I was more refering to the power generated by wind, nuclear, and large scale solar power. (I am a proponent of building more wind, solar, and nuclear plants, but I must be realistic about the costs involved)
In these cases, the companies are being paid money by the government to have lower prices for the public, who pays the taxes that pays them to keep the prices down.
In the case of the home solar, yes, it's tax payer money being paid back to the tax payer for providing their own power(and then some, in some cases), but that's not my major concern, though it can be argued that the home energy producer is getting paid back with money from other households who do not benefit from those individuals' power production. The federal governemnt has a responsibility to legislate items that provide a common benefit, as roads and bridges taht support heavy commerce and interstate travel do, not things that provide a benifit to the few, like bridges that only serve 60 people on a remote island. It can be debated which end of the spectrum individual solar panel subsidies falls towards.
Quote from: Valynth on November 22, 2008, 04:54:17 PMWe also have more oil in Alaska than all of Saudi Arabia if our environmental groups would let us drill in the frigid tundra it's underneath rather than claiming it's an evergreen forest.
Really? I'd like to double check your figures. Where did you get them?
USGS says a max of 6 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil. The EIA says we used 20 million barrels a day in 2007. At that rate, it's a year's worth of oil, at best.
Quote from: Cvstos on November 23, 2008, 12:07:39 AMUSGS says a max of 6 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil. The EIA says we used 20 million barrels a day in 2007. At that rate, it's a year's worth of oil, at best.
Yeah, I don't trust the USGS. It's not really their job. It is, however, the EIA's job.
According to the EIA, we've got proved reserves of 4 billion bbl in Alaska (http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_pres_dcu_sak_a.htm). I don't know if that includes ANWR, but that would only add 1.4 billion (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/anwr/methodology.html). Saudi Arabia has 267 billion (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Saudi_Arabia/Oil.html), and they can produce in excess of 10 billion bbl per day.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 22, 2008, 07:13:20 PMQuote from: superluser on November 22, 2008, 04:43:05 PMOne easy response to that is that the money gets paid to Americans, instead of corrupt foreign leaders.
I was more refering to the power generated by wind, nuclear, and large scale solar power.
That's what I was talking about.
At least with the tax incentives, the money goes to American companies and stimulates the American economy instead of increasing our trade deficit with foreign nations like Saudi Arabia.
Quote from: superluser on November 23, 2008, 12:26:19 AM
Yeah, I don't trust the USGS. It's not really their job. It is, however, the EIA's job.
According to the EIA, we've got proved reserves of 4 billion bbl in Alaska (http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_pres_dcu_sak_a.htm). I don't know if that includes ANWR, but that would only add 1.4 billion (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/anwr/methodology.html). Saudi Arabia has 267 billion (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Saudi_Arabia/Oil.html), and they can produce in excess of 10 billion bbl per day.
That's actually right in line with the USGS. The 6BBO figure I used was actually me rounding up one of the better case scenarios from them.
Quote from: superluser on November 23, 2008, 12:26:19 AMQuote from: Reese Tora on November 22, 2008, 07:13:20 PMQuote from: superluser on November 22, 2008, 04:43:05 PMOne easy response to that is that the money gets paid to Americans, instead of corrupt foreign leaders.
I was more refering to the power generated by wind, nuclear, and large scale solar power.
That's what I was talking about.
At least with the tax incentives, the money goes to American companies and stimulates the American economy instead of increasing our trade deficit with foreign nations like Saudi Arabia.
If you say so... I'd want to do a little research on what countries are producing the wind turbines and solar cells that are being installed by the american power companies, though, before I made a blanket statement about it keeping the money in the US and avoiding a trade deficit.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 23, 2008, 03:03:43 AMIf you say so... I'd want to do a little research on what countries are producing the wind turbines and solar cells that are being installed by the american power companies, though, before I made a blanket statement about it keeping the money in the US and avoiding a trade deficit.
No one is producing enough wind turbines and solar cells to power the US grid yet. The point is that we invest the tax incentives to make sure that these industries are developed here instead of abroad.
It's not a great argument, and I'm not sure how much stock I put in it, but it is an argument.
Quote from: superluser on November 23, 2008, 03:28:59 AM
No one is producing enough wind turbines and solar cells to power the US grid yet. The point is that we invest the tax incentives to make sure that these industries are developed here instead of abroad.
It's not a great argument, and I'm not sure how much stock I put in it, but it is an argument.
I agree, we need to invest in it, I just think that we need to be realistic about the costs.
I did find that GM is the second largest producer of turbines, and the US has the second largest wind turbine coverage in power generated, so you've got that going for your arguiment.
Quote from: superluser on November 21, 2008, 10:48:07 PM
I do believe the proper response is tl;dr.
I'd try to make a dramatic reading for you so that you could listen to it while doing something else, but alas, everything in my apartment (including microphones) picks up EWTN, so unless you want to listen to me *and* Mother Angelica, you'd be better off just reading it.
Yeah... I do write a lot of tl;dr posts, don't I? :animesweat Maybe I should start producing podcast versions...
:mowcookie
Quote from: Tapewolf on November 22, 2008, 10:43:46 AM
Tezkat didn't seem to take decommissioning costs into account with Nuclear, which IIRC is where it starts to look kinda not good.
True, decommissioning a reactor can cost upwards of 1/4 the cost of putting it in there in the first place. However, that's indirectly considered in my numbers because I had the mortgage paid off, as it were, after only 20 years to match the other cases. A new nuclear plant has an operating life of 40+. For the most part, the problem people have been having with decommissioining reactors is that the owners have been pocketing the difference rather than saving it for the end. :animesweat
Most of America's current reactor fleet have already passed their expected life spans. In many cases, it's been cheaper to repair and upgrade ("uprate") them to squeeze out a few more decades of use than tear them down.
By trotting out actual numbers, I was trying to portray how things would look to business planners. The cost of fossil fuel electricity is mostly fuel, whereas cleaner power sources have heavily frontloaded costs but are cheap to run. In the absence of those tax credits, investors in cleaner power would be forking out billions of dollars to lose money until fossil fuels got really expensive. I know that some of the newer wind farms in New Mexico, for instance, have been selling their electricity to utilities companies below $0.07/kWh, which suggests that they're eating the difference now in hopes of being much more profitable later. That's all well and good, but when your business plan depends on Production Tax Credits that are renewed, then not renewed, then renewed again but only for a year... you're more at the mercy of Washington than the market. That's not an environment conducive to attracting capital or running a business.
Quote from: llearch n'n'daCorna on November 22, 2008, 12:01:01 PM
Nor did he take into account any repair or replacement costs for solar panels, which I seem to recall some people have calculated that they kick in about where the panel starts making money... and the recycling costs are astronomical, because they're basically a complex film spread under or over a sheet of glass (I forget which, and it varies, I think, depending on what sort of solar panel)
What... you guys wanted a detailed business plan? :3
The panels themselves are pretty rugged these days; some do actually have a MTBF in the 20+ year range. Sure, a few cells might burn out or fade, but others will last longer. O&M costs would depend on the importance of maintaining your rig at full capacity.
Recycling costs pose an interesting issue. However, they could also represent future business opportunities and income streams. It's cheaper to reuse silicon that's already been refined, for instance, and a number of the rare metals used in other technologies may be recoverable at a profit.
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 22, 2008, 04:37:15 PM
Regarding Tazkat's post, tax credits is value someone ends up paying, and that someone tends to be the tax payer when other services the goernment provides are cut or taxes are raised. I don't know how that long island authority works, but I suspect it's another government entity, which means someone's tax money goes to funding it, and it's their tax money be spend as an incentive. Tax credits hide the cost and shift it to other people, but it's a cost that still has to be paid.
LIPA is indeed state-owned, but it isn't taxpayer funded in the sense you suggest. It's profitable on its own, and most of its capital infusions come from bond issues. I only picked it because they have some of the most attractive solar panel incentives around.
Providing incentives to install residental PV isn't throwing money away, even in the case of investor-owned utilities. It's actually a good deal for the power company, because it protects them against expensive peak load spikes and gives them customer-subsidized generating capacity that they can resell elsewhere. I might also add that this is a sneaky way to circumvent deregulation that split up grid and generating utilities. >:]
Deregulation of the electrical grids in the USA has failed rather spectacularly in most places. Rather than introducing an open, competitive framework as promised, it somehow managed to preserve (even enhance) a lot of the old monopolistic characteristics while adding a lot of administrative overhead and profiteering. Electricity demand is fairly inelastic, after all.
Hidden from the consumers, most of the deregulated markets operate on a sort of bid system. Generators offer blocks of electricity at a certain price, and the grid owners buy it up according to demand, starting with the cheapest. Now, this poses a number of problems for renewables.
Most renewable power is intermittent. It's either sunny/windy, or it isn't. Renewable generators have no way of scheduling the weather around demands for electricity, so they have to waste capacity that isn't being purchased, store it until demand arises, or have non-renewable backup generators pick up the slack--all of which raise costs. There's no easy solution. China, for instance, requires utilities to purchase power preferentially from renewable sources, so its renewables are always operating at optimal capacity, but that obviously circumvents anything resembling free market economics. Several states have a slightly more market-oriented version of that called Renewable Portfolio Standards, which require utilities to purchase a certain percentage of their power from renewables, but without accompanying price signals, there's no incentive to install more than the minimum.
As you saw from my quickie price analyses, renewables have huge capital outlays to recoup, whereas combustion plants are more or less marking up fuel. It's not that much more expensive to run a natural gas turbine at 50% capacity than at 100%, but failing to sell half your wind capacity doubles your prices. If they can't compete on price, they lose money.
Again, the policy decision to make here, if you're going to be serious about energy security, is how much of the taxpayer's dollars you're willing to invest now to protect the country against a near future where fossil fuels don't look so good. Investment at home breeds innovation at home. If you wait too long, then those dollars will be going overseas as the country is forced to import foreign technology to meet its energy needs.
What the tax credits are mainly subsidizing at the moment, at least in the case of solar, are jobs for the Americans installing the panels and rewiring your buildings.
Quote from: superluser on November 23, 2008, 12:26:19 AM
Yeah, I don't trust the USGS. It's not really their job. It is, however, the EIA's job.
According to the EIA, we've got proved reserves of 4 billion bbl in Alaska (http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_pres_dcu_sak_a.htm). I don't know if that includes ANWR, but that would only add 1.4 billion (http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/anwr/methodology.html). Saudi Arabia has 267 billion (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Saudi_Arabia/Oil.html), and they can produce in excess of 10 billion bbl per day.
Million bbl per day... :animesweat
Anyways... yeah, if you pulled all the oil out of Alaska, you might be able to satisfy America's oil needs for... um... a year? It's not exactly a recipe for energy security. Valynth may have been thinking of the Arctic Sea, for which I've seen guestimates upwards of half a trillion bbl. If that's the case, then it's not the environmental groups you have to worry about. Those reserves don't belong to the USA.
Incidentally, they represent a store of the CO2 that, 50 million years ago, kept the poles ice free and covered with pretty green foliage. It took the hardworking little plants there nearly a million years to suck the stuff out of the atmosphere. Putting it back might not be such a good idea... although it would be wicked cool to SCUBA dive the ruins of Disneyworld.
:kittydevious
Quote from: Reese Tora on November 23, 2008, 04:53:50 AM
I agree, we need to invest in it, I just think that we need to be realistic about the costs.
I did find that GM is the second largest producer of turbines, and the US has the second largest wind turbine coverage in power generated, so you've got that going for your arguiment.
It's GE that makes wind turbines, not GM. (Thankfully, since GE is still solvent. :3) They're behind Vestas of Denmark, which is still the market leader by a fair bit.
The current American leader in solar power, First Solar (http://www.firstsolar.com/), has moved most of its manufacturing capacity abroad. Basically, everyone else has been throwing incentives at solar power, so they went where the market is. Americans are way behind in the solar energy industry, although a few of the startups I mentioned (like Nanosolar and Sunrgi) look very promising. If they can take their innovations to scale and keep the jobs at home, things might start looking up.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 23, 2008, 03:31:19 PMMillion bbl per day... :animesweat
I swear that said billion when I read it.
Anyway, I'll probably put something else here after I read the rest of your message.
EDIT: Well, I read it. ->SOMETHING<-
Quote from: Tezkat on November 23, 2008, 03:31:19 PMQuote from: Reese Tora on November 23, 2008, 04:53:50 AM
I agree, we need to invest in it, I just think that we need to be realistic about the costs.
I did find that GM is the second largest producer of turbines, and the US has the second largest wind turbine coverage in power generated, so you've got that going for your arguiment.
It's GE that makes wind turbines, not GM. (Thankfully, since GE is still solvent. :3) They're behind Vestas of Denmark, which is still the market leader by a fair bit.
The current American leader in solar power, First Solar (http://www.firstsolar.com/), has moved most of its manufacturing capacity abroad. Basically, everyone else has been throwing incentives at solar power, so they went where the market is. Americans are way behind in the solar energy industry, although a few of the startups I mentioned (like Nanosolar and Sunrgi) look very promising. If they can take their innovations to scale and keep the jobs at home, things might start looking up.
Gawd, considering how many times I retyped that post, you'd think I would have gotten typing GM instead of GE out of my system!
Wait, no, I blame my source, Wikipedia. It's not my fault, even though they got it right.
Quote from: Tezkat on November 23, 2008, 03:31:19 PM
Yeah... I do write a lot of tl;dr posts, don't I? :animesweat Maybe I should start producing podcast versions...
:mowcookie
Only if you do them in the style of Yahtzee. ;-]
Quote from: Tezkat on November 23, 2008, 03:31:19 PM
What... you guys wanted a detailed business plan? :3
No, merely notice taken of the significant details involved in your assumptions. ;-]