Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

Yay population control is next...I mean if we're producing 19.1 metric tons of CO2 per capita, we should be extremely happy that there are so many abortions in this country or we'd probably have already ruined the planet and everything on it. Maybe we should just stop allowing people to be born so we can get this global warming stuff under control.

Yup, people don't say it that directly, but that vein of thinking isn't as rare as it should be. Population controls of various sorts have been promoted for various reasons. With the zeal for saving the world we see these days, it's not hard to imagine someone connecting the dots the way you outline and trying to push such policies, though not in as straightforward a manner as you lay out.

Hey, one could always join the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (I'm not making that up).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement

Here's a couple gems from the founder:
"...as long as there is one breeding pair of humans, there's too great a threat to the biosphere"
"...voluntary human extinction is unlikely, but it is the moral thing to do."

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

For now lets put aside the fact that taxes are supposed to be about funding the gov't not creating social policy.

Would you work an extra hour of overtime if it meant that you would only get to keep 10% of the effort you put in?

Or this may be a better way to sum it up when you consider there is no guarantee of a profit when you risk your money in a business. Would you make a wager in blackjack if you only got to keep 10% of the winnings?

Your overtime analogy doesn't work -- that's not how income works. Effort and income do not scale directly - the million plus first dollar represents much less effort than the first dollar.

I would wager in blackjack if my expected value was positive. For instance, would I invest in a business if I "had to" factor in paying my employees and my subcontractors? Yes, if I still showed a net profit at the end.

The invocation of "social policy" as an objection is not realistic. Every tax structure is a social choice -- there is no "neutral" system the departure from which is social engineering.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

Yup, people don't say it that directly, but that vein of thinking isn't as rare as it should be. Population controls of various sorts have been promoted for various reasons. With the zeal for saving the world we see these days, it's not hard to imagine someone connecting the dots the way you outline and trying to push such policies, though not in as straightforward a manner as you lay out.

Right.

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

When the government stimulus funds are used to grant an $800k study on men washing their junk in another country to prevent AIDS, it's abundantly clear that our priorities are seriously *'d up (link: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/75198).

This is where someone like 5mn major will step in and say that the government spending was absolutely necessary and things would have been much worse without it. Yeah, I can't imagine how bad the world would be if the US wasn't spending money to teach people in another country how to wash their dicks.

"Murray Blum, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you"

I don't want to tell people we can't pay for other countries to wash their junk...do you want to tell them that?

...anybody in any position of responsibility that would say we can't cut another dollar and have to raise taxes so we can do stuff like this should be named the executive director of junk washing and send to the country so they can perform the task themselves.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

"Murray Blum, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you"

I don't want to tell people we can't pay for other countries to wash their junk...do you want to tell them that?

...anybody in any position of responsibility that would say we can't cut another dollar and have to raise taxes so we can do stuff like this should be named the executive director of junk washing and send to the country so they can perform the task themselves.

Let's be bi-partisan about this and send Gerry Studds and Mark Foley. Yes, yes, I know Studds has gone to that great tea room in the sky.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

Let's be bi-partisan about this and send Gerry Studds and Mark Foley.

This could bring a whole new meaning to "blue ribbon commission."

 

[sagard]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

Well, as far as the environmental impacts are concerned, the increase in concentration is what matters. If we can contain t

<snipped>

The idea is to set up a framework and let the market do its thing - allocating those resources efficiently and effectively.

I'm usually with you on most arguments. Your losing me here. Setting up an inefficient gov't program to perform a carbon tax or a cap and trade is stupid. It is just being floated because the politicians don't have the stones to either appropriately tax gas usage or flat out endorse and subsidize nuclear power.

I truly believe in and support your environmental concerns, but the means being proposed are destined to fail and be corrupted.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

The world has changed since the Tax Cuts of 2001

Not only is raising taxes right now on anyone economically a bad idea, it also puts us at a competitive disadvantage when compared to other countries since they have dropped their tax rates since 2001.

There are many reasons that the US is at a competitive disadvantage to other countries in a variety of sectors...tax cuts is waay down on the list.

If it were about taxes...Minn and Mass would be economic wastelands. Needless to say they're not...in fact, state aided education, technology and infrastructure aids their dynamism.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

Obviously the natural system can absorb most, if not all, the carbon being produced by power plants...

That depends on what you mean by "the natural system can absorb". If you mean that it will take it in, and we won't all die tomorrow, but things won't be the same, probably in ways that we will not desire, then that's certainly true (though also hardly groundbreaking news).

If you mean that it will take it all in and nothing will change, then chances are pretty good (modulo how much we also emit from vehicles) that you are completely and utterly wrong.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

Here in Arizona, we've always been peeved that LA auto pollution gets to float over the Grand Canyon and nothing is done to deal with that problem...

I tend to doubt that nothing is done to deal with it. Air quality issues in Houston led to a number of measures to try to improve things. I'm not certain any of them were effective, but it's also not the case that nothing was done.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

That depends on what you mean by "the natural system can absorb". If you mean that it will take it in, and we won't all die tomorrow, but things won't be the same, probably in ways that we will not desire, then that's certainly true (though also hardly groundbreaking news).

If you mean that it will take it all in and nothing will change, then chances are pretty good (modulo how much we also emit from vehicles) that you are completely and utterly wrong.

I think it's pretty straightforward that the natural system absorbs CO2. And unlike blockski (and maybe you), I think that nature has some capacity to adjust and if there's more CO2 in the air, to some extent it can take more CO2 in, how much being very hard to say. Things always change, if that is of any consolation to you.

Don't know what "modulo" is.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

I tend to doubt that nothing is done to deal with it. Air quality issues in Houston led to a number of measures to try to improve things. I'm not certain any of them were effective, but it's also not the case that nothing was done.

Of course there are emission controls in LA and all, but those weren't put in place to address Grand Canyon issues. But the studies I've seen say that LA smog is the biggest source of haze over the Grand Canyon, but to meaningfully stop that would take measures California would have a fit over and would politically stop from happening. It's your basic case of finding the easy way out to look like you're dealing with the problem rather than tackling the main source, because it's difficult to do technically and politically.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

There are many reasons that the US is at a competitive disadvantage to other countries in a variety of sectors...tax cuts is waay down on the list.

If it were about taxes...Minn and Mass would be economic wastelands. Needless to say they're not...in fact, state aided education, technology and infrastructure aids their dynamism.

You're right that there are many things that determine competitive advantages, and taxes are not a dominant factor, but they are an important factor. Not only does that play out between countries, but between states. Here in Arizona a good number of businesses here moved here from California with higher taxes being an important factor in many cases. Seems like every month or so there's a news article about such businesses moving. Of course lots of businesses stay in California or start up or expand there, so those are cases where something other than California's oppressive tax regime is the deciding factor in where they locate.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

I think it's pretty straightforward that the natural system absorbs CO2. And unlike blockski (and maybe you), I think that nature has some capacity to adjust and if there's more CO2 in the air, to some extent it can take more CO2 in, how much being very hard to say. Things always change, if that is of any consolation to you.

Don't know what "modulo" is.

There is almost certainly some limited capacity for the natural CO2 sinks to absorb more than was emitted before we started burning coal, gas, and petroleum reserves. However, as ongoing measurements of the concentration of CO2 in the air demonstrate, that capacity is being substantially outstripped by the amount of CO2 we're pumping out and/or the rapidity with which we're doing so.

The only real quibble I could have with predictive models for CO2 concentration is that I doubt we have a firm grasp on the capacity or time constants of some of the larger and slower CO2 sinks... so are they full, or are the time constants just relatively large? (As a practical matter, mind you, at a certain point it doesn't really matter whether it's a larger capacity with a huge time constant vs. a smaller capacity, as it would still take many generations in order to have an effect...)

Beyond that, though, I think they're a great deal more detailed and well-founded mathematically than a layperson might realize.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

I tend to doubt that nothing is done to deal with it. Air quality issues in Houston led to a number of measures to try to improve things. I'm not certain any of them were effective, but it's also not the case that nothing was done.

Can't speak to the efficacy of those measures either. But Houston used to have "Ozone" days where people with respiratory problems were strongly urged to stay indoors.

 

[amherstblackbear]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

The U.S. and other wealthy, industrialized countries have done a pretty good job limiting or reducing urban particulate pollution over the last 20-30 years.

People will support environmental regulation if they know that they will be the direct beneficiaries. The problems really start when you have more diffuse consequences (i.e., you don't bear the full consequences of your actions).

 

[walrus]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

Can't speak to the efficacy of those measures either. But Houston used to have "Ozone" days where people with respiratory problems were strongly urged to stay indoors.

We have those in Maine, statewide

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

Can't speak to the efficacy of those measures either. But Houston used to have "Ozone" days where people with respiratory problems were strongly urged to stay indoors.

If they did that in Maryland, they wouldn't go outside all of August.

Have I mentioned August here sucks? I think that bears repeating. April, lovely. October, heavenly. August? Not so much.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

If they did that in Maryland, they wouldn't go outside all of August.

Have I mentioned August here sucks? I think that bears repeating. April, lovely. October, heavenly. August? Not so much.

In Houston they like to say they have two seasons: summer and July and August. For those two months, and more, before the sun comes up the relative humidity is 100%. No rain. No fog. Just saturated air. Of course, when the sun comes up, the RH plummets to 80 or 85%.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: Obama XV: Now, with 20% more rage

We have about a month of late fall/early spring, 2 months of spring, 2 months of fall, 5 months of summer, and July/August.