When you get down to it, addressing
the entire economy to adjust to lowering of greenhouse gases
and reducing technological production environmental impact to
help mitigate global warming will take some actual monetary cost.
So-what are humans willing to pay for that, what is it worth
right now?
.." The reality, top climate economists say, is that cutting
U.S. emissions sufficiently to hold greenhouse gas concentrations
at near-current levels could soon cost the United States twice as
much per year as it is now spending on the war in
Iraq."..more there
ed: I am not seeing as much of a problem there as a lot of these
economists-the money is a sum total, because it all gets spent
anyway, just different pockets from now might receive it
first. I personally don't care if billionaires become mere
millionaires because our collective spending habits change. I
don't care if Belchfire motors loses value, while Lean and
Green motors increases, or Consolidated Oil and Dictatorships
loses value while Billy Bob's Backyard Biodiesel Franchises
gets a larger share.
I think a lot of the resistance is coming from old established
bigmoney who see their business models being threatened. I mean,
realistically,. what is inherently wrong with having cleaner cars
that get better mileage or homes that don't use as much
energy or even are capable of producing most if not all of their
own energy, and so forth? If we can get less pollution, better
efficiency, and get the cash spread out into more hands instead
of fewer, plus maybe help mitigate any potential negative effects
from climate change that are manmade-where's the economic
problem again?
WTF, climate economists? There's a whole ecosystem developing around this issue.
I say we let the consumer decide. People who want to do their part buy their solar homes and hybrid cars at a premium now and eventually after the price of fossil fuels rises and the price of 'green' tech drops normal folks will switch based on their own economic situation.
Not a popular viewpoint I know but someone needs to throw the rational option out there.
The parable demonstrates how free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately dooms the resource through over-exploitation.
Two things, OPEC controls supply and prices control demand. Doesn't apply for oil. Coal supply is restricted by private property rights, doesn't apply for coal. I could go through the list of fossil fuels but that would be tedious.
It is thought that 98% of the gold in the Californian hills is still in the ground. This theory fails on that point alone because it must be economically feasible to exploit a resource.
The "resource" under discussion is not fossil fuels. It's the liveable environment. The original "Commons" of the parable was a common pasture. If you left it to individual choice, there would be enough selfish assholes (consumers) who would keep grazing their cattle till it was barren and destroyed, unless there is community pressure (in larger terms, government regulation) to force people not to rape the environment for their personal enrichment.
Nowadays you don't have to use parables. There are uncountable real world examples.
Ah, the people won't do the right thing for economic reasons but need to be told what is right by the government. How very socialist of you. Where you live, China?
Ah, the people won't do the right thing for economic reasons but need to be told what is right by the government. How very socialist of you. Where you live, China?
Actually, I live in Hong Kong, possibly the least socialist place on Earth. And I fail to see what socialism has to do with either China or the subject. They gave up socialism in China back in the 80s, because the leadership realised it didn't work. You seem to imagine "socialism = authoritarian dictatorship", though I'm sure many nominally socialist governments are, as are most nominal "democratic republics".
If people would "do the right thing for economic reasons" governments wouldn't be necessary; or their police, armies etc.
Actually, true socialism is a peaceful self-regulating community where government has withered away. That has never worked in practice for any group with more than a dozen members. Because a proportion -- doesn't take many -- of any group will trash shared resources for personal profit if they can get away with it.
I should have just left it at "Tragedy of the Commons". Since you evidently find that concept conflicts with your religion (the Church of Gordon Gecko and his Latter Day Wall Street Saints), I retire from this discussion.
You were so right on the mark with your comment. People need to remember the tragedy of the commons. It's such a basic economic fact and a big part of the reason we have governments.
For your information, both authoritarian and democratic states decide what people should do. Don't mix this up with ideologies (socialism/liberalism/conservatism).
What you are suggesting as (I presume) a democratic way is instead what is normally called anarchism (or, according to Marx, communism, where everyone are expected to do the right thing). As the writer just above me wrote, this would make all governments unnecessary.
Democracy, and especially liberalism, rests on the shoulders of law and telling people what do to.
Three consecutive, inaccurate, counterlogical (I say counterlogical instead of illogical, since their intent is to disrupt logical discourse and logical progress rather than be simply erroneous) statements, each appealing to a baser and lower discriminatory bias:
More like trolling since I knew he lived in China and this place is a den of socialist ideals(even though they deny it). All I really see here is a minority of people trying to control the behavior of the majority mainly by advocating the abuse of the tax code because they know their evidence isn't strong enough to get proper laws passed.
You think that post was bad, try debating gun control with Alan...I don't think there are any scarecrows left in Australia after the Virginia Tech shooting.
Ah, the people won't do the right thing for economic reasons but need to be told what is right by the government. How very socialist of you. Where you live, China?
Wrong axis. This isn't a socialist/capitalist thing, it's an authoritarian/anarchist thing. Anarchists believe that people will do the right thing without being told what the right thing is, authoritarians believe that people must be educated as to what the right thing is.
Socialism/capitalism are just different methods of encouraging people to do the right thing using economic engineering.
Why is it this is so obvious, yet we see it play out nearly daily. I’m getting to the point where I’m ready to say “If you put another cow out on the field, I will kill your cow.”
Alan is exactly right. Some people will always continue to exploit a resource (and in this case that's the general state of the environment) while it can give them an advantage over everyone else.
Fish stocks are a great example of this. We've known for years that fishing levels are unsustainable (a fairly recent article) but politicians refuse to lower quotas and fisherman still argue that quotas are putting them out of jobs. Never mind the fact that in a few years they'll be out of jobs anyway, and it'll be decades before the stocks are back to up healthy levels.
We've known for years that fishing levels are unsustainable (a fairly recent article) but politicians refuse to lower quotas and fisherman still argue that quotas are putting them out of jobs. Never mind the fact that in a few years they'll be out of jobs anyway, and it'll be decades before the stocks are back to up healthy levels.
Decades? No. In the case of the North Sea and Newfoundland cod stocks are unlikely ever to recover. Overfishing appears to have permanently affected the ecosystem.
There isn't much silphium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium) about these days either.
Tarco
Other than the saving money point this is caused by the federal reserve's inflationary policies. They provide a huge amount of cheap money for the banks to get rid of so they make loans that they wouldn't make without government intervention. Blaming the consumers is blaming the victims, the real culprit is the printing presses running full time trying to keep the economy out of a natural downturn.
Most people invest their money instead of saving it, usually in houses. Some people fall for the credit card scams and get themselves in major debt but this doesn't seem to be the majority.
So giving money to credit challenged individuals doesn't relate to this issue at all. Its easier to just say people are stupid and call for government intervention to enact your agenda instead of looking at the root causes of the issues though.
I dont nessesarily disagree with you about the monitary manipulation issue.
I never intended to blame consumers, at least not entirely, but I would probably
put more blame on the companies doing the loaning than I see in your writing above.
( I.E., if the consumer "should have seen it coming", how much more should
the loan companies seen it coming ).
My point is that people have an idea where the wind is blowing, that loan rates have always
been higher than they are now, but they buy adjustable mortgages. Basically, they
cant seem to plan ahead and make a sacrifice *now* in order to make the future
better.
So, I say that giving money to credit challenged individuals *does* relate. If they cant
make a good decision about getting more credit ( sacrificing tomorrow for today ),
then how can we assume they will make a good decisions about a shared resource
we all need today and tomorrow? With the number of these cases ( enough so that
the so called "sub prime" market is a concern, with one company that I know of in
trouble ), I dont think a claim that the numbers of people in this case is insignificant.
And I dont think people are stupid per se, people seem to be quite wise in large numbers,
in some ways ( voting, and such ), but unwise in other ways ( tragedy of the commons
kinds of things ).
Further, I believe geting into space to be a good idea. I dont know if that qualifies as an
agenda or not. but nowhere in any of these writing have I called for government intervention.
I agree that population is a problem. Malthus will be happy.
I dont think that population stabilization or reduction will work though. I have been hearing
about this since the 1970's. China has been trying it, and all they have
done ( as far as I know ) is to reduce the rate of increase. And that is with the
government working on the problem with everything short of shooting 1 in 5,
or implementing Carousel. I know the western world has a lower birth rate,
but I think it is still above replacement ( I could be wrong, but if it is not, it is
enough to offset the higher birthrates elsewhere? )
I know the western world has a lower birth rate,
but I think it is still above replacement ( I could be wrong, but if it is not, it is
enough to offset the higher birthrates elsewhere? )
Not yet. Western Europe and North America are actually far below replacement rate (to the tune of over 15 million people retiring out of the work force each year over kids graduating into it), but that's NOTHING in comparison to 3rd world population growth rates (80 million a year).
What this really means is that western countries are experiencing cultural problems due to massive migration- and the United States WILL be a primarily Spanish-speaking country by 2050.
Better find some pro-life ones; at least half of America's problem with replacement level births can be directly attributed to abortion (and indirectly attributed to the majority of abortions that have economic, rather than medical, causes).
Some people fall for the credit card scams and get themselves in major debt but this doesn't seem to be the majority.
Strapped actually claims this is a majority problem in people under the age of 37, with huge numbers of people one paycheck away from what used to be called bankruptcy.
Zogger, you are absolutely right. I’ve always found much to disagree with economists, they put way to much stock on the status quo. These are the same sorts of guys that would have bet against the industrial revolution because ridiculous new technologies like stream and dangerous things like textile machines.
Seeing a few of the old business models fail and businesses that use them close their doors will be a good thing.
Everybody talks about economic costs that must be paid to reduce global warming. That's like talking about how much the cough syrup is going to cost for a patient with AIDS!
The elephant in the living room here is overpopulation. The only long-term effective solution is to reduce the population. So we should be talking about social costs, incentives and methods for getting people to have fewer kids. If we don't, then like short-sighted fisherman losing their jobs, we will lose our lives and descendants to disease, famine, and war.
It's pretty clear now that even "solutions" like the Prius, ethanol, solar panels, wind turbines, and even fusion power will not allow six billion people to live at what the U.N. would consider a "modern" standard of living. So pursuing those without pursuing population reduction only ensures the decline will be drawn-out.
Which would we rather have: 12 billion people living in squalor, or 3 billion living in relative comfort and plenty? The former is a real possibility in our lifetimes if we keep ignoring the elephant.
The Final Frontier? Eh, not really. I sincerely doubt there will be any significant human population outside the Earth in the next 100 years. The obstacles are myriad, and physics is a bitch. Space travel of the Sci-Fi books and movies of the last 50 years can't happen due to physics and radiation. Interplanetary (much less interstellar) human travel is going to be incredibly expensive and difficult.
100 years from now, assuming disaster doesn't strike, the human population will be approaching 15 billion (growth is slowing and will likely be significantly slower then). That will be unpleasant. As the population grows, less will be spent on space and more on "practical" issues, like war, dealing with re-emergent diseases spurred by the opportunity of a swelling destitute population, and feeding said population. People who are hungry don't give a damn about the ISS. Soylent Green, anybody?
I know that we are not going to colonize planets billions of light years away, nor
even 4 light years away. We can get to the moon, we have landed people there.
Mars seems possible to me, although difficult.
And sitting here mulling over all the difficulties ( and there are many ) will not get
us anywhere. I vote for getting off our collective duffs and *trying*. Before we get
to the point where Mr Heston has to make his unfortunate discovery. Before it
gets more difficult than it is now.
Strict population limit on earth might help people want to go...
We can get to the moon, we have landed people there. Mars seems possible to me, although difficult.
Getting to the Moon is like walking to the corner grocery store. Getting to Mars is like crossing the Sahara in the buff. There isn't much similarity between getting to Mars and the Moon, except that both are in space and you'll need to bring oxygen for both. And we haven't been back to the Moon in 30 years, even though it is right next door.
I'm pretty sure that not even a concerted global effort lasting decades would succeed in successfully deliver an exploratory colony to Mars. The physical challenges are just so much bigger than the relative ease of getting to the moon. While we are genetically programmed to think otherwise ("Go West, young man"), I think there is a real and significant possibility the human race will begin and end on Earth without making even a door ding in space colonization, much less a dent.
Heck, based on what little we know already about what it takes for a planet to support life, and what common cosmological events can wipe it clean, we shouldn't even be here by the odds!
Baring those cosmological burps, humans will probably be here for a long time to come. The choice between living on the edge of starvation in abject poverty or in relative luxury is up to us, and highly dependent on our ability to control our population. All this other hoo-ha about global warming, peak oil, and such would go away if there weren't so many people using-up the resources.
Human history is full of things that were too difficult at one time. I dont
believe that we cant make it to Mars. Yes, it will be difficult, yes, it will
take a long time. If someone had claimed in 1940 that we would be
on the moon about 30 years later, they would have been laughed at,
and probably locked up, if they had persisted.
Again, that's the genetic programming talking, I think. Humans are predisposed to believe that any barrier can be overcome. The barriers to getting to Mars, much less establishing a colony there, are at least hundred times (maybe a thousand times) bigger than getting to the Moon. Will we get to Mars? Probably. Will we colonize it? Not in the next 100 years, if ever.
A concentrated effort got us to the Moon in a decade, now they say we can't get back to the Moon in less than 15 years? With obstacles a hundred times more daunting and waning political will, how could we hope to get to Mars in anywhere less than ten times that? What's that site that takes long-shot social bets? I need to put a big one on not getting to Mars before 2050.
If we get control our population now, we might have the excess resources to make a go of it. If we don't, we aren't going.
It is highly unlikely that we'll be able to colonize space to the extent that we can use it to meet exponentially growing population within the time period given. While it may be an option, given several hundred years of development, overpopulation is an urgent problem.
Other than the malthusian limit to population, just how is the population going to be controlled? The Chinese way? Is that working? It's not clear how effective population control is going to happen worldwide in a voluntary way, especially since some religions are cleary against birth control. I'm not a good example, speaking as the father of 5 and grandfather of 10. I'm not a Catholic either. Durn wife just kept dragging me into the bedroom and ...
Funny how people complaining about overpopulation never seem to do the honorable thing and commit suicide. I guess when they say that there are too many people in the world, they're not referring to their enlightened selves.
How Much is it Worth to Slow Global Warming?
When you get down to it, addressing the entire economy to adjust to lowering of greenhouse gases and reducing technological production environmental impact to help mitigate global warming will take some actual monetary cost. So-what are humans willing to pay for that, what is it worth right now?
.." The reality, top climate economists say, is that cutting U.S. emissions sufficiently to hold greenhouse gas concentrations at near-current levels could soon cost the United States twice as much per year as it is now spending on the war in Iraq."..more there
ed: I am not seeing as much of a problem there as a lot of these economists-the money is a sum total, because it all gets spent anyway, just different pockets from now might receive it first. I personally don't care if billionaires become mere millionaires because our collective spending habits change. I don't care if Belchfire motors loses value, while Lean and Green motors increases, or Consolidated Oil and Dictatorships loses value while Billy Bob's Backyard Biodiesel Franchises gets a larger share.
I think a lot of the resistance is coming from old established bigmoney who see their business models being threatened. I mean, realistically,. what is inherently wrong with having cleaner cars that get better mileage or homes that don't use as much energy or even are capable of producing most if not all of their own energy, and so forth? If we can get less pollution, better efficiency, and get the cash spread out into more hands instead of fewer, plus maybe help mitigate any potential negative effects from climate change that are manmade-where's the economic problem again?