Hypocrisy Regarding Climate Change

[cfimages]

They still use American workers who are governed by the same laws, awards, safety regulations etc.

But, not the same pay and compensation packages. And your contention was in regard to costs. Unions are wicked expensive.

Not hiring union workers would seem to be the solution then. Do it the same way Toyota does.

[Mick]

Mick, posting briefly while on the MRT.

I'm not suggesting the west pay for everything at all. Far from it. The Kyoto target date was 2010. If it had have been abided by, sometime by then a follow up would have been negotiated that would have included the likes of China. Obviously that gets into the realm of speculation because Kyoto was doomed from almost the beginning so we don't know what China or India or African nations would have agreed to.

I think everyone should realize the way China does business, everything is open for negotiation on their side later on, so long as it doesn't mean a material commitment now and in return for a material commitment from others now. You saw it in the Olympics, sure if you give us the Olympics we will address human rights, and once they get it, any commitments are shelved.

China (for example) needs to lift those below the poverty line out of poverty, and that means substantial increases in emissions, which the people will thank them for, and that is their priority.

[divea]

China (for example) needs to lift those below the poverty line out of poverty, and that means substantial increases in emissions, which the people will thank them for, and that is their priority.

That is what the west did, no?? Developed developed industries for decades and decades, unquestioningly, for their peoples to be able to buy dried potato powder and now the minute China and India and basically BRICS gets onto the industrial revolution bit, the west wags its finger, no???

Let's pull out some charts and see, who was the biggest polluter until 2 years ago??? Man we've been through this rigmarole here.

You keep harping on the quadrupling of India's emissions, and I told you earlier:

:eek: Where is the 400% rise??? Fourfold of 4% is still 16.....in projections. Canada already exceeded by 17%.

Maybe this would refresh the memory a bit...if you are willing to really understand the climate change issue. If not, then well let's just stand around and beat our chests and yell, those Chinese are slimy bastards and those Indians want a free pass...booo hoooo boo hooo......Propoganda style.

FOr a personal debate and opinion, get your facts right or accept corrections and then go on to extol your opinions, or else you just sound like a well, an ill informed debater.

[Mick]

Welcome divea . First point, yes, that's exactly what they did, now extrapolate the world population and calculate how many percent a very small population emits and if everyone were to do the same and calculations on global warming are correct, what do you get?

The second, are you doubting India projects 4x growth?

Also, I will welcome you can correct any propaganda style statements I make, please.

[Chris]

I keep seeing this old fallacy: economic growth = high emissions. We have the technology and knowledge so that this need not be the case.

[Mick]

I keep seeing this old fallacy: economic growth = high emissions. We have the technology and knowledge so that this need not be the case.

Well ... it's not really a fallacy. The main problem is this equation: economic growth = always good. Economic growth does basically mean increased rate of resource consumption. We can improve (reduce) our rate of resource use, including energy, for any given output rate, but not by as much as you'd think.

I was reading yesterday that the latest digital ICs (microprocessors and suchlike), which are based on a 28nm feature size, are so fiendishly difficult and expensive to design and set up for manufacture that it's not worthwhile unless you can guarantee a billion pieces sold. A billion. Do we really, honestly need a billion iPads released out into the wild? Does it actually make life better if people can now sit on the MRT playing Angry Birds on the kind of technology that, 20 years ago, would have given the Department of Defence wet dreams? Apart from anything else, continuous growth in anything is obviously physically impossible. We need to re-assess the dogma that "growth is good" and find alternative economic models, before nature intervenes and says "OK, that's enough, guys. Time to thin the herd a bit."

[Tigerman]

Not hiring union workers would seem to be the solution then. Do it the same way Toyota does.

I think that's easier said than done for GM and Ford.

[Mick]

I'm deeply disappointed by those advocating expensive policies to actually deliver anything more than thinly veiled vacuous attempts at justifying those costly policies, and I believe global warming is real and something should be done. Hypocrisy is claiming economic growth will not lead to higher emissions.

Divea it seems got a bit bent out of shape that I used India as an example, of course it could be equally applied to Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil, China, or dozens of other countries. So in my mind her post comes across like a crack addled hopelessly lost I-dont-even-know-what-we-are-discussing type of reply after half a dozen cups of coffee and a gram of amyl nitrate. The issue raised, is rising emissions from developing countries and what is the correct policy to adapt (for diveas benefit, Im not saying India shouldn't do what it is doing, Im sure if I were India I'd do the same).

Cap and trade which is the current conventional wisdom, hasn't been discussed. Increased prices as a result of either cap and trade or a direct tax on fuel and the economic consequences has not been discussed. How much needs to be spent on mitigation to other countries, and the economic consequences of that seem to be ignored. The best I have heard is the patronizing "think of it as an investment in the future" reply.

[Mick]

Cap and trade which is the current conventional wisdom, hasn't been discussed. Increased prices as a result of either cap and trade or a direct tax on fuel and the economic consequences has not been discussed.

Let me start off by saying that I very much believe in global warming. I'll also state that I believe cap-and-trade is a total scam. Is cap-and-trade really the "conventional wisdom?" I'm old enough to remember where and when cap-and-trade originated - it was a conservative big business idea, promulgated by Wall Street in the 1990s because it looked like a great money-making scheme. The Economist magazine (which I used to read) was most enthusiastic about this idea, at the same time they were ridiculing the whole notion of global warming. They didn't believe in global warming, but they did believe in stock market money-making schemes. Just like trading derivatives, it doesn't matter if the underlying "value" of "carbon credits" is fictitious - the idea of a Ponzi scheme is to make money, never mind that what you're trading in isn't real.

It's ironic that today, cap-and-trade is regarded as a wacky idea of liberals - an Al Gore/George Soros scheme in cahoots with climatologists to take over the universe and impose a "New World Order." It's probably got something to do with gay marriage and Obama's birth certificate too.

Carbon taxes - I can see some value in heavily taxing gas guzzlers to push people towards more fuel-efficient vehicles. However, it's a stop-gap measure at best, not a long-term solution.

As for that elusive long-term solution, I don't expect it to be easy. A nice start would be achieving zero population growth, but I am not optimistic - we're on target to have 10 billion people by 2050 (there were 2.5 billion when I was born). Of course, we may be back down to 2.5 billion by 2100, but not because of a falling birth rate, but rather, an escalating death rate, caused by our failure to deal with global warming.

Among those who seriously want to solve the problem, there is an unfortunate division into two camps, pro-nuclear and anti-nuclear. I'm not shy of admitting I'm in the pro-nuclear camp. The anti-nuclear camp thinks we can achieve zero-carbon with wind and solar power, and I actually wish they were correct - but I believe they are wrong.

More than likely, we'll go on denying the problem because it's so much easier than trying to solve it. Judging from some of the comments in this thread, denial seems to be very popular. And that "solution" will work for awhile. If you're already in your 50s or 60s, maybe you can squeak by and die before global warming plunges the world into crisis. If you're young or have kids (and actually care what happens to them), then you ought to be thinking about how to solve this.

[finley]

More than likely, we'll go on denying the problem because it's so much easier than trying to solve it.

Unfortunately, history suggests you're spot-on. I personally think some variant cap-and-trade might work, but only because (as you point out) it enables TPTB to make shitloads of money. Again, historically, the only time things actually improve is when TPTB are guaranteed shitloads of money for making things better. OTOH I think cap-and-trade is fundamentally misguided in that it assumes business-as-usual, except with (slightly) lower emissions, and therefore pretty much the same level of general consumption and waste as before. With 10 billion people, we'll be right back where we started.

As for that elusive long-term solution, I don't expect it to be easy.

No, of course not. I'll take an unbelievable load of work, and it pisses me off when governments offer grants and whatnot for technology that (in some facile alternative universe inside their heads) will make everything all right again, with minimal effort. We will basically have to put in as much work as we avoided doing during the last fifty years. Honestly, humans are pretty daft: over several million years of evolution, we STILL haven't figured out there's no free lunch, even though we're fond of telling each other exactly that.

The corollary is that lots of countries which are full of young people with nothing better to do except shoot up and/or shoot AKMs could benefit mightily. Adopting "green" technology and modern farming methods in those countries could push their economies into the stratosphere, while the West runs around chasing its tail. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen while those countries are run by peevish little nobodies like Robert Mugabe or Than Shwe, holding out their begging bowls with one hand and counting their diamonds with the other.