Global Warming

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I hadn't looked into the "Green New Deal" in any depth. It seemed to me like a bit of a meaningless phrase - kinda symptomatic of the activist class who care deeply about global warming and think the government should be doing "more", but with no idea of what the government is actually doing.

So I looked up what's behind this latest craze, and it's a real mixed bag. According to Wikipedia:


As I said either in this thread or the other one, this sort of thing is my day-to-day work. So while I don't claim to know everything, and certainly there are lots of things that experts are wrong about, and I know enough to know that I don't qualify as an expert, I also know that I am in a much better position to judge the feasibility of these proposals than most people.

So here's my take:

- an expansion of the Clean Air Act - I'm not entirely sure about either the legislative context in the US or how these activists want to change the act, but this is a piece of legislation which hasn't been amended in nearly 30 years despite huge scientific advances in this time. Air pollution is a trickier issue than people realise, but I think there's probably a good case for some sort of updating of this act.

- a ban on crude oil exports - the US is a net exporter so this makes some sense from a climate perspective, but from a policy perspective an end to US exports would just cause other countries to benefit without affecting the market much at all. There are some situations in which we still need hydrocarbons, such as certain industrial processes and long-range air transport or remote areas without reliable renewables. Carbon taxes would make more sense.

- an end to fossil fuel subsidies and fossil fuel leasing - would be a significant shock to the economy but need not be a shock to the energy system as more advanced renewables are now capable of competing subsidy-free. Remarkably right-wing policy though!

- a phase-out of all gasoline powered vehicles by 2040 - unsure exactly what "gasoline" means in this context. I think this is almost a really good idea. There needs to be a very ambitious policy to end the sale of cars powered by internal combustion engines by around that sort of date, and attempts should be made to achieve the same for other forms of road transport. Railways should largely be able to be electrified if they aren't already. Air travel is much trickier, and I think the same is currently true of boats. All vehicles? No, probably not. All cars? Yes, good suggestion.

- "vigorously oppose" ... “market-based mechanisms and technology options such as carbon and emissions trading and offsets, carbon capture and storage, nuclear power, waste-to-energy and biomass energy.” - erm, this is stupid. Net zero is net zero. Obviously we need to take other things like air quality into account, but renewables are largely intermittent and can't respond to surges in demand - the only foreseeable alternative to CCUS or nuclear power is massive energy storage, which is currently rather environmentally damaging. Negative emissions technologies such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) are necessary for the little bits of the economy that we can't decarbonise. Emissions trades and offsets can serve a similar purpose while also creating extra economic opportunities for developing countries. If a poor country discovers an oil field under a rainforest then economics will currently force them to cut down the rainforest and burn the oil. If instead we offer to pay them to plant new rainforest so we can legally burn a little more gas without damaging the environment, then we're all better off.

In theory, I think a radical investment in green technology could be extremely good for the economy as well as the environment. It's a real technical challenge that creates high-skilled jobs as well as more manual construction jobs. Everything from constructing wind turbines to re-insulating houses via installing EV charging points will help create jobs and inject stimulus into the economy. And sometimes you need to couple investment with "stick" legislation to make people abandon their polluting lifestyles. But these policies need to be thought out properly - it seems the Green New Deal people haven't even thought about domestic energy consumption for example, or smart grids, and they've dismissed most of the best tools we have.

You weren't being curious and asking me where I'm from, you just assumed I'm American.

Easy fix...
Cut and paste where you think I assumed you were Amerikkan...
And I will talk you through it, one way or the other...

I'm not going to hunt down what I think you are referring to...
From memory, I may have *asked* if you were Amerikkan(?)...
People who know me know I admit to my mistakes...

Pax...

Edit:
I found out what you are talking about: "Politicising (truth sodomy) on both sides of the political divide may not be the case in America (I am assuming you are from there), "

Let me explain:
I am assuming you are an Amerikkan until you correct me...
I gave you a chance to clarify where you are from...
What I should have done was to add a question mark...
I.E.
(I am assuming you are from there?)
This is something I often do...
In this case, the question mark was implicit rather than explicit...
I will change this in future...

In any case, I don't understand why it offended you so much...
Well, actually I do...
Who wants to be a damn Ammerikkan?
I am assuming you are Canadian...err...(?)...

Trying to talk to you through your vague BS is a waste of time. I told you already this is why I'm not taking you seriously, you don't seem to want to be taken seriously by the way you comment. You can continue to assume what you like about me, it makes no difference. I assume your further comments will be equally as meaningless and full of jokey emoticons.

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I don't think he'd like "Asstralia," either....

It's nothing personal.

That's one of the things I think is outrageous, the fact that valuable green technology already exists yet corporations buy the patents up, blocking people from being able to use the technology. So it's not that we don't have the technology to put a huge dent in CO2 output, so pumping more resources into creating more technology will likely follow the same current course, we really need to focus on doing something about allowing corporations to buy up patents and sit on useful technology without any intentions on using it.

I think it would be great all around for people who patent there creations to be able to sell there technology to multiple companies or individuals and outlaw the ability for one company to buy the patent and prevent others from having access to the technology. The original designer gets to make more money off of their idea(Great!), then it adds more competition which drives prices down and opens up the possibility for more people to start business rather than having corporations be able to dominate so fiercely.

Here is another person that is very intelligent and not paid by 'Koch brothers', the entire conversation was very interesting, I recommend watching it all, but I know not all people like 3 hour conversations. Climate change was not his focus it just came up towards the end of the conversation. He has wrote a few books which some respected scientists have given him props for, a very interesting guy and he discusses a lot of interesting things.



Here is the whole episode...

Joe Rogan Experience #1119 - Howard Bloom

I know I've responded to this in the other thread - I don't think very much patent trolling goes on in this field - but I think it's worth noting that innovation has already lowered the carbon emissions of most countries significantly. I think the UK currently has its lowest emissions for 150 years or something equally ridiculous. Wind and solar power are now capable of competing with fossil fuels without subsidy. We're soon going to see floating wind turbines in deep seas. And with technologies like insulation and electric cars, the issue isn't the engineering so much as the practicalities - people need places to charge their cars and expect that if they wait a few years then the government will pay for their insulation.

I guess he wouldn't be immediately called a climate change denier if he didn't start out with something that sounds a lot like a common argument climate change beniers bring forward - the fact that the climate has always changed (which is true, of course, except for the relatively stable period since the last ice age in which our current civilization flourished in). Pretending that the environmentalists are unaware of that is dishonest.
And if you spend time listening he makes good points - reducing co2 emissions is one of many techniques to cintrol the climate - and given how little we understand all the other factors, dialling back the one knob we turned way up is probably the least risky choice.

Btw.: the first serious notion of global warming was by the insurance company Munich Reinsurance in 1972. Not exactly environmentalists hellbound on ushering in a hunter-gatherer eco-utopia.

he seems to be very intelligent and very successful. He doesn't seem like the type to just 'make something up'.

I guess he wouldn't be immediately called a climate change denier if he didn't start out with something that sounds a lot like a common argument climate change beniers bring forward - the fact that the climate has always changed

There are so many reasons that the term climate benier should never be used, but let me provide a few:

(1) It plays off the term "Holocaust benier". For most of the second half of the 20th century, the term holocaust benier was given to those who benied the reality of the holocaust--- bottom feeders such as neo-Nazis and those with strong anti-Semitic tendencies. The Holocaust is an historical fact in which 1/3 of the Jewish people were killed: an obscenity and a crime against humanity. It occurred.
<snip>
In short, using the term "climate benier cheapens the term "benier" in a way that is painful to many in the Jewish community. https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2018/05/ ... imate.html