As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

Climate Change or: How I Stopped Worrying and Love Rising Sea Levels

19192949697100

Posts

  • That_GuyThat_Guy I don't wanna be that guy Registered User regular
    Welp, so much for climate change denial. It's going to be almost 70 today here in the Appalations.

  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    I really hope that the future Senate will at least be willing to pass something like Pelosi's old cap and trade bill that she pushed hard before it got murdered in the Senate.

  • VeeveeVeevee WisconsinRegistered User regular
    That_Guy wrote: »
    Welp, so much for climate change denial. It's going to be almost 70 today here in the Appalations.

    There's a strong cold front coming your way that will let people forget about the day it was summer in December. Human ignorance can't be beaten that easily.

  • Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
    It's fascinating to me, being in Spokane again. When I was a kid snowfall was super common here, as well as severe winter storms. The great ice storm of the late nineties happened when I was in kindergarten here! Now that I'm back 20 years later, we've had snowfall once that actually stuck to any significant degree, and it's December.

  • CalicaCalica Registered User regular
    If I die before we find out whether humanity is doomed or not I'm gonna be pissed.

  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    We're not doomed under almost any model. The difference is between a good life and a terrible one. 500 years from now, our environment will be healthy. The question is how much will our life have reassembled judge dredd in the interim.

    "That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    tbloxham wrote: »
    We're not doomed under almost any model. The difference is between a good life and a terrible one. 500 years from now, our environment will be healthy. The question is how much will our life have reassembled judge dredd in the interim.

    Eh, in some of the historical warming scenarios it has taken a few million years for things to naturally return to prewarming temperatures.

  • JepheryJephery Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Once you knock Earth out of its sweet spot, feedback loops will force it towards hothouse or icebox mode. Increasing heat increases the amount of greenhouse gases through feedback effects and reduces the albedo of the Earth as ice melts. Decreasing heat causes the opposite to happen as permafrost sequesters greenhouse gases and increasing ice coverage increases the albedo of the Earth. Like Jealous Deva said, it takes millions of years for these cycles to resolve naturally.

    The 2C degree line is important because that is the point where scientists are fairly certain avoids the hothouse feedback loop. If business as usual continues then +4C is predicted, which may be past the point where the temperature just keeps going up.

    Jephery on
    }
    "Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
  • KarozKaroz Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Well so much for the France gas tax (for now).

    Good in theory but yeah I expect there to be a lot of pushback with the way things are if you aren't developing the infrastructure to transition to more reliance on public transit. Plus the inequality that has been growing for years and I'm not surprised those already being squeezed are pushed over the line by this action.

    Chalk one more up to the failures of capitalism I suppose.

    Karoz on
  • TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
    Karoz wrote: »
    Well so much for the France gas tax (for now).

    Good in theory but yeah I expect there to be a lot of pushback with the way things are if you aren't developing the infrastructure to transition to more reliance on public transit. Plus the inequality that has been growing for years and I'm not surprised those already being squeezed are pushed over the line by this action.

    Chalk one more up to the failures of capitalism I suppose.

    Not surprising. Got to give something to the transport sector if you are charging them more money with higher taxes (or expect them to cough more money of their pockets for replacing their fleet for hybrid vehicles). Else they will fuck you up.

    Like, a bus doing a route charges fuel at least once per day. So a gas tax is a big fucking deal.

    And that tax came after a round of, you guessed it, reducing taxes on the rich. So...

  • KarozKaroz Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Didn't know that last part but I'm no longer shocked.

    Edit: Also Contrapoints did a great episode on Climate Change but it is NSFW.

    Instead use this list of responses to climate change denial in your day to day life.

    Karoz on
  • CalicaCalica Registered User regular
    Gas taxes are regressive anyway. You can't tax [thing] to discourage use of [thing] when a substantial number of people* are dependent on [thing] to live and have no viable alternatives.

    *consumers, that is, not producers

  • Giggles_FunsworthGiggles_Funsworth Blight on Discourse Bay Area SprawlRegistered User regular
    Calica wrote: »
    Gas taxes are regressive anyway. You can't tax [thing] to discourage use of [thing] when a substantial number of people* are dependent on [thing] to live and have no viable alternatives.

    *consumers, that is, not producers

    I agree in the US. France tho?

  • DedwrekkaDedwrekka Metal Hell adjacentRegistered User regular
    Calica wrote: »
    Gas taxes are regressive anyway. You can't tax [thing] to discourage use of [thing] when a substantial number of people* are dependent on [thing] to live and have no viable alternatives.

    *consumers, that is, not producers

    Yeah, but [thing] is going to cause loss of life, mass crop failures, and destruction along every coastline. I'm not sure the nature of the way we discourage it's use can really fit with modern economic policy terminology.

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    Yeah the riots don't really seem to have come down to any one thing, but the gas tax really seemed like another instance of capitalism off-loading its costs on individuals. Like when a company that deforests the Amazon reminds you to run a home compost and don't shower too long.

    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • PhillisherePhillishere Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    Calica wrote: »
    Gas taxes are regressive anyway. You can't tax [thing] to discourage use of [thing] when a substantial number of people* are dependent on [thing] to live and have no viable alternatives.

    *consumers, that is, not producers

    Yeah, but [thing] is going to cause loss of life, mass crop failures, and destruction along every coastline. I'm not sure the nature of the way we discourage it's use can really fit with modern economic policy terminology.

    It's part of the overall critique of modern governance that usually gets lumped into technocracy or neoliberalism. The gas taxes have a noble goal, but the implementation revolves around tweaking the formula so "the market" will solve the problem while ignoring the negative effects on those who do not have the capital to ride out the aftereffects.

    A wiser program would have been tied to massive incentives, grants, and other mechanisms to ease the pain during the transition. The program should have been revenue neutral or even operate at a temporary loss, in order to make sure that it wasn't harming individual citizens already dealing with a bad economy. Instead, you have the optics of a middle/lower class tax increase following a tax cut for the rich, while the politicians in the best position to capitalize on the grievances are on the far right.

    Phillishere on
  • DedwrekkaDedwrekka Metal Hell adjacentRegistered User regular
    I can't believe we're arguing over whether the solution to our Sword of Damocles issue is revenue neutral or not.

  • Styrofoam SammichStyrofoam Sammich WANT. normal (not weird)Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Yeah the riots don't really seem to have come down to any one thing, but the gas tax really seemed like another instance of capitalism off-loading its costs on individuals. Like when a company that deforests the Amazon reminds you to run a home compost and don't shower too long.

    To quote one of the protesters: "they talk about the end of the world and we talk about the end of the month"

    Styrofoam Sammich on
    wq09t4opzrlc.jpg
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Dedwrekka wrote: »
    I can't believe we're arguing over whether the solution to our Sword of Damocles issue is revenue neutral or not.

    Capitalism is really what's gonna kill us in the end, the climate its just the gun its shooting us with

  • OremLKOremLK Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    Calica wrote: »
    Gas taxes are regressive anyway. You can't tax [thing] to discourage use of [thing] when a substantial number of people* are dependent on [thing] to live and have no viable alternatives.

    *consumers, that is, not producers

    You raise the gas tax and you use the revenue to fund new subsidized urban housing and public transportation so that it's easier for people to make do without driving. The cost of using fossil fuels has been too low for far too long and we have to start weaning the world economy off of them.

    Yes, this will still make some people's lives harder.

    It's still better than the alternative.

    OremLK on
    My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
  • PhillisherePhillishere Registered User regular
    OremLK wrote: »
    Calica wrote: »
    Gas taxes are regressive anyway. You can't tax [thing] to discourage use of [thing] when a substantial number of people* are dependent on [thing] to live and have no viable alternatives.

    *consumers, that is, not producers

    You raise the gas tax and you use the revenue to fund new subsidized urban housing and public transportation so that it's easier for people to make do without driving. The cost of using fossil fuels has been too low for far too long and we have to start weaning the economy of first world countries off of them.

    Yes, this will still make some people's lives harder.

    It's still better than the alternative.

    Well, the fascists certainly agree that this is better than the alternative. That kind of cold rationalism is what is fueling their rise across the West.

  • That_GuyThat_Guy I don't wanna be that guy Registered User regular
    A personal tax is absolutely not the way to discourage gasoline use. It only serves to galvanize people against the idea of doing something about climate change. If you want people to use less petrol, you stop subsidizing it's production. Ending fuel subsidies and shifting that money to renewable subsidies will encourage private growth in the area. We've already seen a massive shift in Solar and EV uptake since tax credits were added. We could take this a step further and bring the cost of a new EV down to roughly the cost of a new petrol car. With a tax credit in one hand and a fuel savings estimate in the other, it would be a no-brainer for most people. Likewise if the cost of installing solar+battery was just a bit lower the economics of scale would kick in and we'd see a new race to the bottom like we've seen with transistors.

    Now, yes ending fuel subsidies would create the same spike in price as a tax but the blame could more easily and effectively be shifted to the companies selling the products. People hate taxes but they don't understand subsidies. We can take advantage of that.

  • Romantic UndeadRomantic Undead Registered User regular
    I believe it was in one of the latest Start Talk episodes where Neil and guests talked about how we need to veer conversation away from proving climate change. The science is in, there is no more debate to be had. We no longer need to convince people that climate change is real and man-made, we may no longer be even able to prevent it, we now need to shift policy focus to prepare ourselves for it. One of the side-tracks I recall getting mentionned is that, it's not that people don't believe that climate change is real, it's that they don't care (ironic considering thread title).

    People are not willing to make sacrifices for the sake of an unkown future, even for the sake of their very own children. "I don't care that the world is burning, keep the government's hand out of my pocket and off of my SUV!"

    This is the attitude we need to combat. Time to stop focusing on the deniers and shift to the egoists. That being said, demonising profit-making as the moral imperitive of Capitalism can't work. Our society relies on Capitalism to survive; any attempts at tearing down that system will be fought tooth and nail. Instead, the focus should be on promoting responsible Capitalism with an eye to long-term sustainability and investment (in green technologies, for example) as a preferred alternative to short-sighted and self-serving reactionary/hoarding Capitalism that seems to rule the day today.

    3DS FC: 1547-5210-6531
  • mrondeaumrondeau Montréal, CanadaRegistered User regular
    Calica wrote: »
    Gas taxes are regressive anyway. You can't tax [thing] to discourage use of [thing] when a substantial number of people* are dependent on [thing] to live and have no viable alternatives.

    *consumers, that is, not producers

    I agree in the US. France tho?
    France is surprisingly rural, and the government severely cut public transport first.
    I mean, I don't think that increase is nearly sufficient, but you kinda have to provide an alternative first.

  • TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
    That_Guy wrote: »
    A personal tax is absolutely not the way to discourage gasoline use. It only serves to galvanize people against the idea of doing something about climate change. If you want people to use less petrol, you stop subsidizing it's production. Ending fuel subsidies and shifting that money to renewable subsidies will encourage private growth in the area. We've already seen a massive shift in Solar and EV uptake since tax credits were added. We could take this a step further and bring the cost of a new EV down to roughly the cost of a new petrol car. With a tax credit in one hand and a fuel savings estimate in the other, it would be a no-brainer for most people. Likewise if the cost of installing solar+battery was just a bit lower the economics of scale would kick in and we'd see a new race to the bottom like we've seen with transistors.

    Now, yes ending fuel subsidies would create the same spike in price as a tax but the blame could more easily and effectively be shifted to the companies selling the products. People hate taxes but they don't understand subsidies. We can take advantage of that.

    Not to mention that a tax shifts the costs to the consumers instead of the oil companies. Which is why people kinda have an issue with it. Like the Sun being kinda hot.

  • TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
    edited December 2018
    mrondeau wrote: »
    Calica wrote: »
    Gas taxes are regressive anyway. You can't tax [thing] to discourage use of [thing] when a substantial number of people* are dependent on [thing] to live and have no viable alternatives.

    *consumers, that is, not producers

    I agree in the US. France tho?
    France is surprisingly rural, and the government severely cut public transport first.
    I mean, I don't think that increase is nearly sufficient, but you kinda have to provide an alternative first.

    Is not only transporting people around (turns out that cab unions are serious business), but there's also transport of goods. How much fuel you think that a 16-wheel truck consumes? Is there an actual, viable hybrid alternative for moving goods around at that scale?

    EDIT: Google says yes, but nowere near the scale needed.

    TryCatcher on
  • hippofanthippofant ティンク Registered User regular
    TryCatcher wrote: »
    That_Guy wrote: »
    A personal tax is absolutely not the way to discourage gasoline use. It only serves to galvanize people against the idea of doing something about climate change. If you want people to use less petrol, you stop subsidizing it's production. Ending fuel subsidies and shifting that money to renewable subsidies will encourage private growth in the area. We've already seen a massive shift in Solar and EV uptake since tax credits were added. We could take this a step further and bring the cost of a new EV down to roughly the cost of a new petrol car. With a tax credit in one hand and a fuel savings estimate in the other, it would be a no-brainer for most people. Likewise if the cost of installing solar+battery was just a bit lower the economics of scale would kick in and we'd see a new race to the bottom like we've seen with transistors.

    Now, yes ending fuel subsidies would create the same spike in price as a tax but the blame could more easily and effectively be shifted to the companies selling the products. People hate taxes but they don't understand subsidies. We can take advantage of that.

    Not to mention that a tax shifts the costs to the consumers instead of the oil companies. Which is why people kinda have an issue with it. Like the Sun being kinda hot.

    Well... let's be real, the costs are always shifted to the consumer. The only question is whether they know about it or not.

  • discriderdiscrider Registered User regular
    TryCatcher wrote: »
    mrondeau wrote: »
    Calica wrote: »
    Gas taxes are regressive anyway. You can't tax [thing] to discourage use of [thing] when a substantial number of people* are dependent on [thing] to live and have no viable alternatives.

    *consumers, that is, not producers

    I agree in the US. France tho?
    France is surprisingly rural, and the government severely cut public transport first.
    I mean, I don't think that increase is nearly sufficient, but you kinda have to provide an alternative first.

    Is not only transporting people around (turns out that cab unions are serious business), but there's also transport of goods. How much fuel you think that a 16-wheel truck consumes? Is there an actual, viable hybrid alternative for moving goods around at that scale?

    EDIT: Google says yes, but nowere near the scale needed.

    Trains.
    At least up to the goods distribution hubs.

  • silence1186silence1186 Character shields down! As a wingmanRegistered User regular
    Yeah, making gas more expensive and life harder for the common people is a sure fire way to get a backlash against combating climate change. If given the choice, I'm sure most people will say "I don't care if the world burns in 20 years, I won't survive this year if my outlay for gas doubles."

    In order to wean people off fossil fuels, the government would need to spend $texas to make renewables cheaper than the current subsidized level of fossil fuels. Then, as people start to switch to the now cheaper renewables, then and only then can you start to slowly raise the price of fossil fuels, to encourage later adapters.

    Oh, what's that, the government is doing the opposite? Thanks Larry Kudlow, for killing all electric car and renewable subsidies.

  • Captain InertiaCaptain Inertia Registered User regular
    Climate change denialism is real close to just being a “fuck the libs” movement vs protecting profits of gas and oil companies

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Climate change denialism is real close to just being a “fuck the libs” movement vs protecting profits of gas and oil companies

    It's always fun watching spite literally burn down the world.

  • TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
    France is also "considering" bringing back the rich people tax that they cut before this shitshow.
    The French government will consider bringing back a tax on high earners which President Emmanuel Macron abolished early in his presidency, a key demand of "yellow vest" protesters who have been blocking roads and fuel depots for weeks, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said Wednesday.

    "If something isn't working, we're not dumb, we'll change it," Griveaux said on RTL radio, though "the issue is not on the table for now."

    Ending the ISF "wealth tax" on high earners was a key part of Macron's pro-business presidential campaign, seen as a way of encouraging people to invest and hire in France.

    But critics accused him of favouring the rich while his government raised taxes on pensioners and others.

    The "yellow vest" movement, which originally erupted over anger at fuel tax increases, has ballooned into a wider protest over rising costs of living and a perceived disregard by Macron for the problems facing rural and small-town France.

    Restoring the wealth tax became one of the protesters' key demands, along with the end of fuel tax increases and a higher minimum wage.

    Griveaux asked for "18 to 24 months to let the measure take its full effects," saying parliament would review the results in late 2019.

    So, the plan seems to be to run the clock on the protests with empty promises. Good luck with that. Specially after getting an inmediate result from making the fuel tax political poison aka people ain't voting for it on parliament.

  • OghulkOghulk Tinychat Janitor TinychatRegistered User regular
    Carbon taxes have been modeled as a much more efficient way of shifting consumers from reliance on fossil fuels to reliance on renewable energy. There's quite an abundance of evidence for this. Gas taxes are a bit different: they are regressive, but this merely means that the tax affects low-income consumers greater than high-income consumers. The elasticity of the price of gas is actually not terrible, and there's evidence supporting the claim that price increases shifts people away from low-MPG ICEVs toward high-MPG ICEVs, PHEVs, and BEVs.

    The combination described earlier was a regressive tax + inelastic demand product. Cigarettes and alcohol are prime examples of this, where the tax disproportionately affects low-income consumers while also not affecting the demand of these products due to a variety of factors, namely addiction.

  • OremLKOremLK Registered User regular
    Gas taxes aren't quite as regressive as people think, by the way--because people in true poverty usually can't afford cars anyway. It dings the next rung up, the lower middle class, the hardest.

    My zombie survival life simulator They Don't Sleep is out now on Steam if you want to check it out.
  • TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
    OremLK wrote: »
    Gas taxes aren't quite as regressive as people think, by the way--because people in true poverty usually can't afford cars anyway. It dings the next rung up, the lower middle class, the hardest.

    So? Telling cab unions to get fucked is still not working for Macron.

  • DoobhDoobh She/Her, Ace Pan/Bisexual 8-) What's up, bootlickers?Registered User regular
    hold up, what is "true poverty"

    is this one of things where you can't be considered poor if you own X, Y, or Z

    gas taxes will extremely hurt people living month to month - poor folk are everywhere, and large swaths of America require owning a car if you plan to live there

    just because it will hit the middle class 'harder' doesn't mean it wont do very real harm to folk teetering on the edge

    Miss me? Find me on:

    Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
    Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
  • PhillisherePhillishere Registered User regular
    Doobh wrote: »
    hold up, what is "true poverty"

    is this one of things where you can't be considered poor if you own X, Y, or Z

    gas taxes will extremely hurt people living month to month - poor folk are everywhere, and large swaths of America require owning a car if you plan to live there

    just because it will hit the middle class 'harder' doesn't mean it wont do very real harm to folk teetering on the edge

    “It’s for the greater good” is still nasty even when there is a greater good.

  • LanzLanz ...Za?Registered User regular
    Also like

    Just because it may hit the lower middle class harder than folks who literally can't afford a car doesn't mean that it's not a regressive tax.

    It also ignores the potential for those below lower middle class, who may live in areas that absolutely require personal transportation, to find a suitably cheap used car, or put themselves into debt for said cheap used car, to then be hurt by gas taxes.

    Also the fact is: for a lot of folks, you're not going to get them to use less gas by taxing their gas. Especially folks who aren't making all that much to begin with. They're not driving for fun, they're driving because they need to. It effectively punishes non-negotiable behavior because you've misunderstood the systems at play.

    waNkm4k.jpg?1
  • LanzLanz ...Za?Registered User regular
    You want to fight Climate Change?

    - Increase income taxes and capital gains taxes, diverting some of those funds into measures that actively fight climate change and funding non-carbon energy sources.
    - Pass stronger emissions regulations for corporations
    - Fine the ever living hell for violating those regulations. Not Slap on the wrist levels, like "You Will Not Do That Again, and your board of directors and shareholders will consider dropping your ass" level.

    waNkm4k.jpg?1
  • OghulkOghulk Tinychat Janitor TinychatRegistered User regular
    The proposals I've seen for carbon taxes are to use that money to redistribute back to lower income folk

This discussion has been closed.