Global Warming

[wacki]

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While the costs associated with global warming could be trillions of US dollars, the costs associated with the various Kyoto-style plans to reduce greenhouse emissions are in the hundreds of trillions, with no guarantee that they would work.

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Just call them a fraud, cuz that's what they are.


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Basically what it comes down to is this: significantly reducing greenhouse emissions can only be done by crippling the world economically.

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This is complete crap and you know it. We've been over this before. Hell the programs your economists that you link to want would tax the economy 20x more than smalleys 5 cent tax to develop technology. So you are full of crap on this one.


Ok... now I'm done with politics till tomorrow. ugh... no control.

[Borodog]

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This is complete crap and you know it.

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Must you be such a douchebag?

Clearly I don't know any such thing.

Can you explain how human greenhouse emissions can be reduced, for example by one half (preferably by one order of magnitude), without crippling the world economically?

[wacki]

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Can you explain how human greenhouse emissions can be reduced, for example by one half (preferably by one order of magnitude), without crippling the world economically?

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I've posted links to all of this stuff before so I'm not going to dig them up again. I'd rather make a website so I don't have to repeat myself 20 times a month.

Scientists at berkeley are very close to coming out with an algae that can be used to fuel all of our cars while taking up only a very tiny amount of farm land to grow.

MIT has tons of battery technology coming out.

Algae factory scrubbers perform amazingly well cutting CO2 emissions to a fraction of what it originally was.

If ITER ever comes online (fusion power) that is zero emissions.

All of this is non-profit research btw.

OCES is zero emissions.

I'm becoming more and more confident that we not only can reduce our emissions but we can eventually become a zero emission country through technology. WIth phytoplankton seeding we should be able to become a negative emission country. The only major barrier IMO is developing a fuel cell catalyst. I strongly believe that all the other pieces can be solved with simply time and money. Even the fuel cell catalyst can be avoided if solid state batteries ever come to fruition.

The very economist you link to wants us to tax $1 a gallon and all of these programs would only cost 5 cents a gallon to fund. I really don't see why it isn't being done. Obviously the tax won't hurt the economy and the extra technology will only spur our economic development.

I'm not going to provide a ton of links because I've done them a dozen times before. I'm just going to create a website instead. Il mostro send me your e-mail cuz I know you are a great source of information despite being overly pessimistic IMO.


I'm 99% sure this is my last post for the day.

[Borodog]

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Can you explain how human greenhouse emissions can be reduced, for example by one half (preferably by one order of magnitude), without crippling the world economically?

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I've posted links to all of this stuff before so I'm not going to dig them up again. I'd rather make a website so I don't have to repeat myself 20 times a month.

Scientists at berkeley are very close to coming out with an algae that can be used to fuel all of our cars while taking up only a very tiny amount of farm land to grow.

MIT has tons of battery technology coming out.

Algae factory scrubbers perform amazingly well cutting CO2 emissions to a fraction of what it originally was.

If ITER ever comes online (fusion power) that is zero emissions.

All of this is non-profit research btw.

OCES is zero emissions.

I'm becoming more and more confident that we not only can reduce our emissions but we can eventually become a zero emission country through technology. WIth phytoplankton seeding we should be able to become a negative emission country. The only major barrier IMO is developing a fuel cell catalyst. I strongly believe that all the other pieces can be solved with simply time and money. Even the fuel cell catalyst can be avoided if solid state batteries ever come to fruition.

The very economist you link to wants us to tax $1 a gallon and all of these programs would only cost 5 cents a gallon to fund. I really don't see why it isn't being done. Obviously the tax won't hurt the economy and the extra technology will only spur our economic development.

I'm not going to provide a ton of links because I've done them a dozen times before. I'm just going to create a website instead. Il mostro send me your e-mail cuz I know you are a great source of information despite being overly pessimistic IMO.


I'm 99% sure this is my last post for the day.

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That all sounds great, but it's only half of the equation. How much will these alternative technologies cost? If they are uneconomical, then forcing their use is wasteful, and if you're talking about forcing waste on the entire economy, it's going to cripple the economy.

Also, you're confusing me with someone else again, because I haven't linked to any economists advocating any kind of taxes for anything. You're probably thinking of natedogg.

My point is, and will remain, that when alternative energy technologies and cleaner production technologies become economical, they will be used. Until they are economical, they are uneconomical (by definition). Doing things that are uneconomical is wasteful (by definition). Wasting resources makes people poorer. Wasting resources on a large scale makes lots of people a lot poorer. What the world needs is less poverty, not more.

[Il_Mostro]

I remember reading (no link, sorry) that someone had done an estimation on how much money we where given by the natural processes going on. How much the earth absorbing and cleaning pollution, CO2 and whatnot is worth, i.e. what it would cost if we should do it on our own. Their conclusion was that what we get for free was at least 10x the total world economy.

Guess I'm not making any real argument here, but I belive the effects of pollution and climate change has the potential to cost large large large amounts of money.

" Doing things that are uneconomical is wasteful (by definition)"
I'm not at all sure this is true. It's only true if the price you are paying are reflecting the real value. And in many cases what we are paying does not reflect the actual value, especially not when it comes to natural resources. When it come to oil for example we are paying the price it takes to get the stuff out of the ground, but not really the price it would take to replace it. The value of a barrell of oil is a lot more than 60$ if you should supply the energy or the material for production in some other way.

[Borodog]

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I remember reading (no link, sorry) that someone had done an estimation on how much money we where given by the natural processes going on. How much the earth absorbing and cleaning pollution, CO2 and whatnot is worth, i.e. what it would cost if we should do it on our own. Their conclusion was that what we get for free was at least 10x the total world economy.

Guess I'm not making any real argument here, but I belive the effects of pollution and climate change has the potential to cost large large large amounts of money.

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I think what you're talking about is cost externalities. The argument being that the cost of a barrel of oil is artificially depressed, because the people using it are not paying the costs of pollution. I actually agree with this completely. 100%. What happens is that because the cost is externalized, the resource is used in ways that are uneconomical, i.e. it is wasted, because if the full cost were internalized, the price would go up, and the demand down. Agreed, agreed, agreed. Oil is being wasted by the externalization of pollution costs.

But the solution is not less capitalism, i.e. more government regulations, interventions, and restriction. The solution is more capitalism, i.e. allow the market to internalize the costs of pollution. Statists merely assume the cost must be externalized, and I couldn't disagree more. A completely free market simply would not allow pollution costs to be externalized. I've written about it with regards to private roads before. I think there was a thread by someone titled "Help me understand AC!" where I explained how private roads for example would internalize pollution costs and create incentives to reduce emissions.

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" Doing things that are uneconomical is wasteful (by definition)"
I'm not at all sure this is true.

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But it is true, and true by definition, which is my point. Uneconomical == wasteful.

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It's only true if the price you are paying are reflecting the real value. And in many cases what we are paying does not reflect the actual value, especially not when it comes to natural resources. When it come to oil for example we are paying the price it takes to get the stuff out of the ground, but not really the price it would take to replace it. The value of a barrell of oil is a lot more than 60$ if you should supply the energy or the material for production in some other way.

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That isn't how "value" is determined. How much work or energy went into the creation of a good is completely irrelevent. The only thing that's relevent is how useful it is in satisfying future needs or wants, and how much competition for that good exists in the market.

Frankly, I think fossil fuels are a barbaric and filthy energy source. I am not pessimistic about future energy demands at all, if government allows the market to operate. As the cost of energy goes up and up and up, energy prices, and hence profits, will go up and up and up. This will tempt more and more and more capital into the energy markets. I see no possible fundamental insurmountable technological barriers. The beauty of capitalism is that if energy becomes a bottleneck, if need be, all of the capital of the entire world would eventually be brought to bear in the energy market to break that bottleneck. Literally trillions of dollars of investment, because that will be where all the demand and all the profits are. There's simply no way that humanity working with the available intellectual capital and the technological base that we have now could not solve the "energy problem."

But what really, really, really scares the [censored] out of me, is that I see government turn with hate upon the very providers of what we all need: energy. They see increasing profits as "exploitation". They seek to tax away "windfall profits", i.e. destroy the incentive to invest in the energy industry and supply what we all desperately need. Government will tax away those incentives, install price caps, centrally plan the energy economy (as it has disastrously done for decades) and create endless misery, poverty, and shortages, all the while blaming the "evil capitalists" who are "exploiting the masses". It's happened multiple times in the past (antitrust, the New Deal, etc), and I'm very pessimistic that it will happen again.

[wacki]

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The solution is more capitalism, i.e. allow the market to internalize the costs of pollution.

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Ugh... we've been over this a countless times before. Open up a physics book and see how well capitalism helped create chapters. Who is going to invest billions in ITER over 20 years when patents don't last long enough to build a plant. Again I am repeating myself over and over with you. The other capitalism thread we talked in explains why they will never absorb the costs.



For all those worried about economic costs. The cost of 9/11 alone would be more than enough to fund this research. Then think about how this research effects terrorism and national security. As for the cost of producing energy, solar panels are already becoming competitive with coal in the lab and their is much room for improvement. Offshore wind isn't that far away either. If ITER ever gets finished energy will be dirt cheap. All trends say this is a no brainer. It just takes time and patents don't last very long.

ugh... ok this is my last post for the day.

[Il_Mostro]

"I think what you're talking about is cost externalities."
Yes, I belive I am

"But the solution is not less capitalism, i.e. more government regulations, interventions, and restriction. The solution is more capitalism"
Perhaps you AC could cope with all this, perhaps some subset of it, perhaps none, I am not interested enough to to all the studying. My point is that I don't see the world going that road, we are not getting more and more capitalism, we are getting more and more interventionalism and more and more tolls and what not. I don't belive that's going to change in a hurry. As you have stated yourself, neither you nor me see any way to go from where we are today to where you want us to be.

This is the "Natedogg argument", the free market can cope and therefor it'll be ok (ok, I'm not doing him justice, but anyway). Even if that is true it is only true if the free market is allowed to solve the problems. And I don't see that happening. I guess we share the same worry, but I am not at all convinced your solution would work. But let's not argue that.

Plus I remain unconvinced because of what wacki says, as it is today I don't see many companys investing in things that will bring revenue 20-30-40 years down the road, or not at all because patents don't last long enough. If it's not going to produce results soon it will be rationalized away as soon as there is a mild downswing in revenue.

"That isn't how "value" is determined."
The fact that I'm not an economist usually means I use economical terms the wrong way...

"How much work or energy went into the creation of a good is completely irrelevent. The only thing that's relevent is how useful it is in satisfying future needs or wants, and how much competition for that good exists in the market. "
What I mean is that the price we pay for many things does not reflect the real cost of it. It comes back to extrnalities again, the price we pay for a flight ticket does not reflect the cost on the environment for that flight. Or the price we pay for fish does not reflect the fact that fisheries are used highly unsustainably. We only pay the price for catching the fish. And to make a stab at you "more capitalism", I'm not at all sure that such problems would be solved by having an owner. I belive that in many cases that owner would seek to enrich himself and don't care about overfishing, since it wouldn't affect him, he'll be rich by the time the waters are empty.

"There's simply no way that humanity working with the available intellectual capital and the technological base that we have now could not solve the "energy problem.""
Well, perhaps you are correct, this would be the "Hirsch argument". There is enough tech. to get us through peak oil, but only if we start implement it in a crash-program style 20 years ahead of time. And if we are actually seeing PO now, as there are some indications we are, we are a bit late at it. If we don't, he argues that we'll basically see depression and a very bumby ride for at least a few decades.

And the combination of that with record levels of debt all over the western world and especially the US, does not look good to me.

[HLMencken]

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Can you explain how human greenhouse emissions can be reduced, for example by one half (preferably by one order of magnitude), without crippling the world economically?

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If anarcho-capitalism crippled the world economy, would you still be for it? (And please don't argue that it wouldn't, that's not my point.)

I can say that if a libertarian govt crippled the US economy, I wouldn't give a flying f--k. My measure of merit as far as "good" isn't GDP.

[Borodog]

Do you understand what I mean by "crippling the world economically"? I mean coercively reducing world productivity drasticaly, increasing world poverty by a commensurate amount.

Freedom never lowers productivity.

Luckily the strength of capitalism is not just in morality. It also produces by far the best results economically.