Until we get a Carbon Tax, we haven't even started - Page 3 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Pollution, global warming, urbanisation etc.
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#15044060
BigSteve wrote:
I'm simply refusing to blame the United States for what is a global issue.



In that case, you need better lies.

We will have precisely zero standing in the global community as long as we are not doing our part to curb emissions.

This is grade school level analysis, you need lies that are at least vaguely plausible.
#15044062
Being part of the problem is exactly what "accepting responsibility" entails. It's not idiotic to accept being part of the problem. Canada is about as bad, and needs to do more, too. That is not too much to ask, as even China and developing countries are making good strides with renewables.

Top polluters per capita
https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1029 ... er-capita/
Last edited by Godstud on 22 Oct 2019 13:33, edited 1 time in total.
#15044063
late wrote:In that case, you need better lies.

We will have precisely zero standing in the global community as long as we are not doing our part to curb emissions.

This is grade school level analysis, you need lies that are at least vaguely plausible.


What lies?

I've acknowledged that we should take a leadership role.

Can you acknowledge that this isn't an American problem?
#15044068
BigSteve wrote:
I'm not making excuses. I'm simply refusing to blame the United States for what is a global issue, which seems to be pretty common. Those who keep belching up the retort of "everyone knows this is global" are usually the first ones to blame the United States...



Repeating childish absurdity is hardly a counterargument.

We need to curb our emissions, which will give us the standing to put pressure on other countries to do more. A Paris climate agreement with teeth.

But, in reality, you want no part of any of it.
#15044106
late wrote:1) Brain dead dodge, that comes from economists.

:roll: I see your love of "experts" knows no bounds. Most of them are government funded as well.

late wrote:2) Europe has had high energy taxes for a couple generations.

And slower economic growth than much of the world. It's part of why Europe is not so dynamic nor seen as a world leader anymore.

late wrote:France has "structural impediments to employment" that has nothing to do with the topic under discussion.

Yeah? So why would its elite import more people into France then? Is it to deliberately sow discord?

late wrote:3) You are faking it again. We need to reduce our emissions.

The United States is reducing its emissions, and the US is a carbon sink. China's emissions have exploded over the same time period and China is not a carbon sink.

late wrote:4) You are projecting there. Americans get led around by the nose by Big Oil, whining about taxes all the way. The observation is depressingly accurate.

Europeans would be squealing like stuck pigs if the US pulled the Fifth fleet out of Bahrain. Our own deep state is whining like little bitches over pulling out a few troops out of Syria, while Congress is too lily livered to vote on an authorization to use military force their and outline the reasons why--the same Congress that passed the War Powers Act saying the president had to cease a military action after 60 days if there was no legal authority to undertake it. Europeans would not be getting oil if the US was not defending open seas.

late wrote:5) The science is real, your comments are not. Which is also to say personal efforts are no replacement for a national policy that reduces emissions.

Science is conjecture about the physical world. It's not physical itself.

late wrote:6) I agree with that. But we need new reactor designs, and science based waste disposal methods. We will prob need to make that part of a Smart Grid initiative so we can do the usual Fed carrot and stick.

Breeder reactors and the molten salt based designs can address that. In fact, they can be fueled using the waste product of existing nuclear plants--no need for more mining. We could run the US for 120 years on nuclear waste alone.

BeesKnee5 wrote:It's nice to point to them as the bad guys but their CO2 emissions per capita is far lower than the US and they are on target to meet their Paris commitment of peak CO2 emissions in 2022 which is 8 years early.

The US will meet its commitments anyway, because we have a plethora of natural gas which is making it economically advantageous to shut down coal plants and repurpose them for natural gas. The US doesn't need the Paris accord, as we've been doing this on our own for decades now.

late wrote:Everyone knows this is global, you are just doing your usual lunge to evade responsibility.

It's significantly a Chinese problem. Asian waste deposal methods are deplorable. We should consider reducing trade with India too, until they clean up their trash strewn cities. Most of the garbage in Pacific garbage patch is from Asia. They're destroying the oceans. Time to put up tariffs and make them start paying for the damage they are doing.

Godstud wrote:The US, like Canada, is a richer country which pollutes more per capita than most other countries in the world. Expecting US, Canada, UK, etc. to take a leadership role is NOT too much to ask.

Throwing our elites out of office and cutting off access to our markets from the world's worst environmental offenders makes more sense to me. We don't have a global government, so it is childish to harbor the illusion that "global" agreements will get anything done.

late wrote:We will have precisely zero standing in the global community as long as we are not doing our part to curb emissions.

Oh no! We won't be part of the cool kids? We'll be the misfits? Say it isn't so! The US has dramatically increased GDP per unit of energy. We're middling compared to poor countries who are hopelessly inefficient.

List of countries by energy intensity

This is why trying to bring poor countries out of poverty without an economic plan has proven to be a disaster. It's why we simply do not believe the elite, because they never would have done so much for China if they truly believed they were destroying the world in the process.
#15044112
Sivad wrote:Carbon pricing is just about the weakest, most inefficient, ineffective means imaginable of addressing climate change.


Dumb, unsubstantiated claim.

Sivad wrote:If this world that they own and the rest of us are just living in was really facing the kind of existential threat they claim climate change poses they'd have trillion dollar energy r&d projects going that would dwarf the moonshot and the Manhattan Project combined. The fact that they don't tells me that the globalist oligarchs really don't believe any of this shit and that it's all just a great big fucking scam.


Public low-carbon energy RD&D of industrialized countries (Europe, NA, Japan, Korea) is roughly $19bn per year.
https://www.iea.org/statistics/rdd/
Global renewable energy capacity investment is several hundred billions per year and $2.6trillion over this decade.
https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handl ... sAllowed=y

A great big fuckin scam, right?

blackjack21 wrote:I see your love of "experts" knows no bounds.


And this is basically what it boils down to. We should believe a bunch of loudmouths and know-nothings on Pofo over economists working at the IMF and many other institutions.
#15044132
Rugoz wrote:

And this is basically what it boils down to. We should believe a bunch of loudmouth know-nothings on Pofo over economists working at the IMF and many other institutions.



And climate scientists, and the Pentagon (which is issuing climate warnings), other scientific disciplines and people in crisis (like the mayor of Barrows, Alaska who has had to move his house twice).

The simple truth is that they know they are wrong, and they are willing to end the human race to get gas a couple bucks cheaper.

There's a lot of words to describe that, but I'd get in trouble if I used them.
#15044168
Rugoz wrote:Public low-carbon energy RD&D of industrialized countries (Europe, NA, Japan, Korea) is roughly $19bn per year.


:lol: That's peanuts. It's hilarious that you think you got me with this one. The kicker is according to your source the funding is lower now than it was in the 1970s. I knew it was almost nothing but I didn't know it was that low. :knife:

Global renewable energy capacity investment is several hundred billions per year and $2.6trillion over this decade.


We already went through this in another thread, it's a massive debacle:

https://www.spiegel.de/international/ge ... 66586.html



A great big fuckin scam, right?


Humongous.


And this is basically what it boils down to. We should believe a bunch of loudmouths and know-nothings on Pofo over economists working at the IMF and many other institutions.


:knife:
#15044194
The report notes that several commentators have argued that a single, economy-wide carbon price is the most effective way of addressing the climate change challenge. However, although carbon pricing has an important role to play, it is far from sufficient on its own to bring forward investment and accelerate cost reductions in emerging renewable technologies, or to avoid lock-in to high carbon infrastructure.

Dr Rob Gross, Director of the Imperial College Centre for Energy Policy and Technology, said: "There is a notion, popular amongst some energy economists, that carbon pricing is the only policy we need in order to save the planet. This is so simplistic it is absurd. Renewable energy in particular needs the policies that are investment grade. Only then will we get costs down and create a cleaner and more secure energy system.

"Investing in large-scale wind is not the same as investing in small-scale wind or solar and neither is it the same as investing in gas. We need horses for courses in our energy policy. The government understands this but is often being urged to take a different approach in order to simplify energy policy. I am all in favour of simplicity, but we must not lose sight of what drives investment, and what investors need. Targeted policies are essential. If the government relies too heavily on carbon pricing the result will simply be higher bills and higher carbon."

The report highlights a number of limitations which could arise if carbon pricing was the only policy driver to support investment in renewables:

· A carbon price will rarely be set at the level necessary to attract investment in newer clean technologies like renewables. Instead, it is more likely to drive investment from coal to gas. [4]

· A carbon price set high enough to drive investment in emerging technologies which cannot yet compete with established fossil fuel generation would risk a windfall for operators of existing low carbon plant and higher prices for consumers. Targeted financial support policies combined with a lower carbon price provides an effective way of providing certainty to renewable energy developers whilst driving investment away from high carbon technologies across all sectors.

· At the global level, fossil fuels are more often subsidised than taxed, which also undermines carbon pricing. The effect of fossil fuel subsidies is therefore to create, in effect a 'negative carbon price'. [5]

· Carbon pricing does not do enough to overcome the non-financial barriers that hinder the deployment of emerging technologies such as compatibility with existing infrastructure, incumbent lobby interests and skill shortages. [6]

David Nussbaum, Chief Executive of WWF-UK said "Dr Gross' report exposes the deep flaws in the argument that carbon pricing can do it all. Whilst the simplicity of this argument may sound appealing, in practice relying on carbon pricing alone is likely to lead to carbon-intensive gas plants continuing to dominate our energy mix - preventing newer and cleaner technologies from realising their potential and locking us in to a risky reliance on largely imported fossil fuels.

https://www.wwf.org.uk/updates/targeted ... newables-0


The only path to cheap and reliable clean energy is innovation: better batteries, better solar cells, better biofuels, better nuclear reactors, etc. Unfortunately, few economists focus on innovation and to the extent they do they see it as “manna from heaven,” something that just happens. To the extent a carbon tax induces innovation it is through the magic of the market: higher prices provide an incentive for entrepreneurs to develop a better energy mousetrap.

Economists have built a cottage industry out of comparing carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, and conventional pollution regulations. But an innovation strategy to develop cheaper, better clean energy technologies doesn’t make the cut. Frankly, this shouldn’t be a surprise as innovation is not part of neoclassical economists’ lexicon.

to believe that modest price signals in the United States alone will transform the world’s energy system is an illusion.

https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/ener ... on-pricing
#15044201
The carbon tax fallacy

Recently, a coalition of business and advocacy groups from around Washington gathered to kick off a campaign to enact a carbon pricing program in the capital. Known as the Climate and Community Reinvestment Act of D.C., the plan would place a new tax on all fossil fuels bought or sold, with the hope of ultimately discouraging the use of these polluting energy sources.

The big-picture goal of this campaign (and others like it suddenly sprouting up around the country) is admirable: to address the ever-deepening crisis of humanity-driven climate chaos by dissuading the continued use of coal, oil and gas, the filthy substances rapidly warming our planet. But unfortunately, the approach — one based in a world of financial markets, trading schemes and enticing new public revenue streams — is deeply and inherently flawed. Simply put, carbon pricing is a false solution to climate change and a problematic distraction from real, effective climate solutions we must urgently pursue.

To date, there is scant evidence to indicate that carbon taxes lower greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the opposite is true. Recently Food & Water Watch reviewed the British Columbia carbon tax program, often cited by advocates as an example of success. We found that taxing carbon emissions did not reduce pollution; greenhouse gas emissions actually increased under the plan. From 2009 (the first full year of the tax) to 2014 (the most recent data available), emissions from taxed sources in British Columbia grew by 4.3 percent. And in the seven years after the carbon tax took effect, total gasoline sales increased by 7.37 percent.

Supporters of such plans like to focus on a deceivingly simple notion that increasing the price of a consumer good will automatically reduce its use. But this just isn’t the case when it comes to the purchase of necessities. People must heat their homes in winter, and they must commute to work, regardless of the cost.

Those backing the D.C. carbon pricing plan like to note that revenue from the new tax would go toward investment in clean energy sources. But only 20 percent of the generated funds would be allocated in this manner. The rest would be divvied up in tax breaks for businesses and rebates for consumers, another factor undercutting the notion that increased costs up front would change consumer behavior in the long run.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel giants such as ExxonMobil are increasingly coming out in support of carbon pricing. This should be cause for alarm for anyone concerned with stamping out the use of the dirty energy sources these corporations profit from. Exxon knows that carbon taxes will do little the change the business-as-usual dependence on oil and gas that it relies on to continue operating and enriching shareholders. Furthermore, corporations such as Exxon rightly view carbon pricing schemes as a means of diverting energy and interest from tougher regulations that might actually encroach on their business plans and bottom lines.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/al ... x-fallacy/
#15044238
Renewables Threaten German Economy & Energy Supply, McKinsey Warns In New Report

A new report by consulting giant McKinsey finds that Germany's Energiewende, or energy transition to renewables, poses a significant threat to the nation's economy and energy supply.

One of Germany's largest newspapers, Die Welt, summarized the findings of the McKinsey report in a single word: "disastrous."

"Problems are manifesting in all three dimensions of the energy industry triangle: climate protection, the security of supply and economic efficiency," writes McKinsey.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshe ... 753e708e48
#15044242
Sivad wrote:Renewables Threaten German Economy & Energy Supply, McKinsey Warns In New Report


:lol: The fossil fuel industry fighting its last rearguard action.

How does it feel to face extinction @Sivad, no, not in a billion years, in a few short years from now?

The Trumpets can keep on digging coal, German industry will rid itself of Yankee imperialists and Arab pariahs by generating its own energy with its own technology. You can close the Strait of Hormuz and destroy your country with fracking, it's of no concern to Europe.

The market for renewable energy and green technology is virtually unlimited. It's the new West. The US can destroy its manufacturing industry and become a developing country with a resources-based economy. In view of the functioning of the Dutch disease in combination with the Resource curse, it was totally predicable that Trump would turn your country into a banana republic.
#15044247
Sivad wrote:
Simply put, carbon pricing is a false solution to climate change and a problematic distraction from real, effective climate solutions we must urgently pursue.



"If you want to change behavior, change the price."

Let's take a brief vacation in the real world, shall we?

Congress loves things that either don't help (booze-ahol) or make things worse (mileage regs).

An incremental Carbon Tax is the first step to changing that. You simply can't do it fast enough to get a big change immediately, so the sources you are quoting have their head up their butt.

It's also not enough by itself, so your sources have a point there.

For example, we are getting close to the tipping point with electric cars and efficient hybrids. A Carbon Tax combined with incentives would get us there faster.

You can settle this one with a gendanken experiment. Let's say the increment is 25 cents a year on gas. After a few years would people would see the handwriting on the wall. They would tolerate a buck, but if they are buying a new car, and knowing that (over the lifetime of the car) the tax would add 2 and then 3 additional dollars per gallon, that would be a powerful incentive to get an electric or a Prius.
#15044254
Regarding carbon taxes.

They obviously work if they are high enough. Saying they don't work because in British Columbia emissions still grew despite the tax is bullshit. You would have to set up an empirical model that controls for other factors to estimate the effect of the tax.

The question is rather whether it is the most efficient tool available at any point in time. The advantage of a carbon tax is that it's a market solution, meaning the market gets to decide on how to reduce emissions. The disadvantage is that there may be an incentive to invest in high TRL technologies that help reducing emissions in the short term but don't necessarily have a future.

Hence carbon taxes are usually considered to be a good tool when the technology path has already been roughly laid out. I would say that is the case.

Sivad wrote:That's peanuts.


$20bn public R&D per year is not peanuts. It doesn't include corporate R&D and actual deployment.

You mentioned the Manhattan Project and the Apollo program. The Manhattan Project cost $21bn over 4 years in 2018 USD. The Apollo program $153bn over 11 years. So it dwarfs the Manhattan Project and is comparable to the Apollo program.

Sivad wrote:The kicker is according to your source the funding is lower now than it was in the 1970s. I knew it was almost nothing but I didn't know it was that low.


In the 70s we had the oil crisis. That should tell you how seriously it is being taken.

Sivad wrote:It's hilarious that you think you got me with this one.


It's easy to "get you" since you don't have a clue and are talking out of your a**. The only question is why you don't feel embarassed doing so.

Sivad wrote:We already went through this in another thread, it's a massive debacle:


Yeah, you lost that one already. Meanwhile in the first half of 2019, Germany produced 47% of its electricity with renewables, up from 17% 10 years ago. The goal is 80% in 30 years. There's a wide scientific and political consensus in Germany that it can and will be done.

But, you were distracting from your silly claim. Is $2.6trillion investment a scam?
#15044260
blackjack21 wrote:
Stop trading with China. That would do more to help the environment than just about anything.


Europeans like insulting Americans, because they don't run the world anymore and can't defend their own borders.


They were brought into a program: the World Trade Organization. Kick them out. Stop trading with them.


That sounds good but is not practical and would severely cripple many sectors of our economy in particular commodities which have economies and price derisions based on "world supply and demand economics". I like the use of the tariffs. I think we will see the Chinese cave once Trump gets a second term or shortly before.

blackjack21 wrote:Europeans like insulting Americans, because they don't run the world anymore and can't defend their own borders.


It must be jealousy.
#15044417
Rugoz wrote:The Apollo program $153bn over 11 years. So it dwarfs the Manhattan Project and is comparable to the Apollo program.


:knife:

The United States spent $28 billion to land men on the Moon between 1960 and 1973, or approximately $288 billion when adjusted for inflation. Spending peaked in 1966, three years before the first Moon landing. The total amount spent on NASA during this period was $49.4 billion ($490 billion adjusted).
https://www.planetary.org/get-involved/ ... ogram.html


Everything else you wrote was even more wrong and retarded but it's pofo so whatever. :knife: :lol:
#15044419
When NASA’s funding peaked in 1966 the organisation employed 400,000 people and consumed more than 4% of the US federal budget.

total R&D makes up just 3.6% of the US budget in 2015, and spending on renewable energy makes up less than 4% of that. That’s a little more than US$5 billion out of the total US$134.2 billion R&D expenditure. Compared to the effort and outlay to put a man on the moon, this is orders of magnitude smaller.

http://theconversation.com/why-we-need- ... anet-50885
#15044433
Sivad wrote::knife:

The United States spent $28 billion to land men on the Moon between 1960 and 1973, or approximately $288 billion when adjusted for inflation. Spending peaked in 1966, three years before the first Moon landing. The total amount spent on NASA during this period was $49.4 billion ($490 billion adjusted).
https://www.planetary.org/get-involved/ ... ogram.html


Everything else you wrote was even more wrong and retarded but it's pofo so whatever. :knife: :lol:


My source was Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program

Yours uses a slightly higher figure and an aerospace-specific inflation adjustment. Either way, it's $288bn and thus in the same ballpark, not $490bn, that was the entire NASA budget.

If someone like you calls me retarded, that's a compliment highly appreciated.
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