The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules
document is now in effect.
Convincing people that global warming is a real thing
Posts
No, I am saying that it isn't a pollutant because its retarded to make the name one most generated substance by animals and the number one substance used by plants into a pollutant. If thats the case we should kill all of the physically or mentally incapable people because of the lifelong CO2 production capabilities. Its a necessary part of life and regulating is a dangerous and slippery slope.
Politics does not allow for very precise language due to the small vocabulary of the population and many of its leaders.
Except we're ignoring the scientific evidence to get past the "is Global Warming caused by man" question and rather are looking at the larger consequences of action independent of what is, in fact, the case.
And this is exactly what Pascal does.
So if we're fully engaged with the argument as it is presented (ignore evidence and simply base decisions upon understood consequences of action) then would we not have to think Pascal's Wager a sensible argument?
Because, again, we're talking about consequences of action rather than proof of what is the case.
Your "arguments" hurt my brain. It's like you have no idea about how carbon taxes or a cap and trade system work, or what their goals are.
Plus, you completely ditched your sunspot argument. Care to revisit it? Or can we safely ignore you?
I think the problem with methane comes from factory farms where you have thousands of cows crammed together eating things that cows probably shouldn't be eating, releasing the methane kraken. At that point it becomes a pollutant.
Yeah, I really don't have a strong opinion on global warming since I haven't really looked at the evidence in depth or anything - but this argument, and the sentiment behind it actively harms the 'global warming exists' side. The idea of 'regardless of evidence we should do something' is an insidious stereotype which has been grafted onto the environmentalist side, and this video just keeps it going. It should never be posted. Anywhere.
Small businesses or fleets* have historically been given fairly reasonable breaks in this regard, at least in California. Hopefully they would be considered here as well.
*Primary carbon production is often due not to the size of the company itself but the amount of equipment they use.
Directly from the Heritage Foundation (yay for conservative think tanks):
"The only entities directly regulated by Waxman-Markey would be the electric utilities, oil refiners, natural gas producers, and some manufacturers that produce energy on site."
The second video gives a much better argument. i agree, I found the argument in the first video annoyingly similar to Pascal's wager. When making any decision, you HAVE to have at least SOME estimate about the probabilities of each side. People who blindly ignore probabilities, and focus only on the possible outcomes, are people who lose a lot of money at poker, not to mention lotteries, religion, etc.
I also don't really see which "Mom & Pop" businesses are grand polluters.
That's my problem with the video. It's just Pascal's Wager and engaging with consequences of hypothetical situations. There are any number of hypothetical situations which could be approached in this way
- What if a giant meteorite is headed to earth?
- What if the next hitler is being born right now in Germany?
- What if this thread is going to be locked and everyone in it banned?
You could make the same chart, the same table, for all of these hypothetical situations and arrive conclusions similar to those put forth in this video and pascal's wager.
How is that a fair thing to do? Isn't that a passive-aggressive way of approaching said 'problem'?
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Bolded section is why we need to have penalties for developed nations that do not comply. Paul Krugman argues for "border adjustments" here.
Well god damn I never thought of it that way. Your contribution to the conversation is a prize I will cherish always.
This is part of the problem: If we're trying to remain beholden to Mother Culture and our idiotic notion that human beings are somehow estranged from the planet then we cannot genuinely engage the problem. So we get stuck half-assing any attempt to change how things are and, at best, put off the extinction of the species.
No, not really. People are already paying for the environmental damage we're causing. It may be indirectly (for example, altered weather patterns including flooding and drought) or in poor areas (i.e. not the country's causing the pollution). So we're actually CORRECTING the price of consumption and production to reflect this reality by including these costs in the price of a good or service.
I quoted from that particular article to avoid claims of bias on the reading of Waxmen-Markey, not to suggest that I agree with the rest of its text.
You asked a yes or no question, what kind of answer did you want?
It's "fair" in that we will decide what amount of emission is acceptable, and use a market mechanism to assign that ability to pollute in the way society would like it assigned.
What the fuck does "isn't it passive-aggressive" even mean?
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Yeah, that too
It's not like our "slowing down" of polluting will offset the new factories and industries that go up in China or anywhere else.
If your sentiment is "We need to stop all industry" then I agree with you.
Nah... just... work toward progression. Fuel-cells for cars or some shit, rather than turning it into a financial thing. America is so far in debt right now so I'm sure it's nice, and I wish I could tax the hell out of my neighborhood when I went out and spent too much on my new TV.
It's better than doing nothing.
The idea is that government fixes things much more slowly and expensively and less creatively than thousands of independant industries thinking about how to save money.
I agree with all of this. That video is awful.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I do not like "solutions" which are simply "let's take what we have...and change it...so that we still have it...but it doesn't fuck us over."
That's not engaging with the problem. That's continuing to live in the magical fairy land in which humans are somehow seperate and distinct from the planet.
We cannot have industry, agriculture, and technology AND not fuck over the planet. Industry, agriculture, and technology (on the scale that humankind utilizes them) are fundamentally destructive to the planet.
So instead of trying to magic them into not harming the planet let's just stop doing them.
Like the control of banks/cars/insurance/health/housing/unemployment/etc in a matter of 6 months? They haven't fixed anything, and already they're wanting another stimulus? This climate change seems like it could take a back-seat while all that other stuff gets fixed first, and it doesn't look like this is the kind of administration that's going to do that responsibly. Hell, the entire attitude of "lol these are Bush's problems" is over, and I get pretty pissed off every time he says that. No one has spent as much as he has... and now Cap/Trade is here to fix more? That's why I'm skeptical/doubting of it.
Did you just confuse "The government will give you money until you stop screwing up" with "The government will take more and more of your money until you stop screwing up?"
Ishmael
While the book has a few flaws I think the core message of "human beings think they are somehow seperate and distinct from the planet...but that is a stupid fucking thing for a species which resulted from common evolution to think" is pretty damned on the ball.
And if you can think that we can pave half the world and still maintain the atmospheric conditions which occurred prior to paving half the world...i'd be interested in your source.
I've heard his second video is better, but haven't seen it yet. I posted the video back when this was in Help/Advice, I wouldn't have posted it in a D and D thread.
The idea that our government, which is huge, complicated and employs tens of thousands of people, can somehow only address one problem at a time is one of the biggest things that needs to get the fuck out of our public consciousness.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
So you are against cap and trade or Carbon-tax because of Obama?
You do know that these not actions that are being considered or taken only by the U.S right.
For instance my home country(Sweden) have been reducing its output of CO2 with a combination of laws and various taxes without noticeably hurting the economy
...yeah. Don't see that happening.
Sure, we can improve efficiency, make stuff produce the same output with fewer resources. But 80%? This is a figure out of goddamn fairy land. We'd have to dismantle the industrialized society to even begin to approach that.
Well 80% would require a economically crippling remodelling of society to achieve in roughly 10 years, but hey are not known for being realists . However it will be interesting to see how the current EU goals will handle and what effect they will have on the economy