Kwayera
Passive-aggressive Mod
Re: Strong and effective climate change policy, that doesn't involve a great, big new
Only 63 billion?
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Strong and effective climate change policy, that doesn't involve a great, big new tax (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter John McCain
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Planck
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Re: Strong and effective climate change policy, that doesn't involve a great, big new
ACCORDING TO THE AUSTRALIAN CONSERVATION FOUNDATION
Thorium reactors are like getting hit by a DIESEL TRAIN RATHER THAN A STEAM ONE
fucking, well, I'm sold
ACCORDING TO THE AUSTRALIAN CONSERVATION FOUNDATION
Thorium reactors are like getting hit by a DIESEL TRAIN RATHER THAN A STEAM ONE
fucking, well, I'm sold
jellybelly59
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Re: Strong and effective climate change policy, that doesn't involve a great, big new
thought this article would fuel some constructive discussion for those for and against nuclear:
Nuclear Power | Renewable Energy
thought this article would fuel some constructive discussion for those for and against nuclear:
Nuclear Power | Renewable Energy
jellybelly59
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2007
- Messages
- 1,382
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- Male
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Re: Strong and effective climate change policy, that doesn't involve a great, big new
thought this article would fuel some constructive discussion for those for and against nuclear:
Nuclear Power | Renewable Energy
thought this article would fuel some constructive discussion for those for and against nuclear:
Nuclear Power | Renewable Energy
0bs3n3
Member
Re: Strong and effective climate change policy, that doesn't involve a great, big new
We make up, what, 1% of world emissions? Lets see if I can keep reading this.
Riet
Tomcat Pilot
Re: Strong and effective climate change policy, that doesn't involve a great, big new
per capita
per capita
SylviaB
Just Bee Yourself 🐝
Re: Strong and effective climate change policy, that doesn't involve a great, big new
still pretty meaningless
if AGW is legitimate, Australia could reduce its emissions to zero and it would still happen
still pretty meaningless
if AGW is legitimate, Australia could reduce its emissions to zero and it would still happen
BlackDragon
Active Member
Re: Strong and effective climate change policy, that doesn't involve a great, big new
This is Michael Le Page, the editor of New Scientist Magazine, writing to Barack Obama on a way to address climate change properly. It is a tax, but it is different, it redirects to dividends of the tax back to the public. He is really onto something:
"YOU have promised to help Americans suffering from the financial crisis, to tackle global warming and to bring about genuine change. Well, there is a way to achieve all these goals.
This week diplomats from around the world are meeting in Poznan, Poland, to continue negotiating a successor to the Kyoto climate treaty, which expires in 2012. The world will doubtless be told that Kyoto is on track and that its successor will be based on more of the same. Many hope that under your leadership the US will now join. In fact Kyoto is a dismal failure. We must tear it up and start again.
The latest measurements show that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising as fast as ever. The higher it rises, the hotter it will get. And the hotter it gets, the more danger there is of passing a point of no return. Those who talk about adapting to a changing climate rather than preventing it don't seem to understand that if we carry on as we do now the ice caps will melt, flooding many major cities. We don't know how long it will take, but New York, London and hundreds of others will be doomed without vast engineering schemes to protect them.
At best, Kyoto is noble but ineffective; at worst, it is a deadly distraction, wasting time we cannot afford to lose and blocking better policies. You are the only leader who can persuade the world to change tack.
Kyoto's fundamental flaw is that it is based on "cap and trade", the same approach you plan to introduce in the US: a target is set for emissions, and countries or companies that beat their targets gain carbon credits they can sell to those that don't.
Cap-and-trade schemes might look good on paper but they are doomed to fail when it comes to weaning the world off its addiction to fossil fuels. For starters, without a strong enforcement regime, any cap is meaningless. Under the Kyoto protocol, for instance, countries that do not meet their targets just increase them next time around. It is a joke.
What's more, the approach is a bureaucratic nightmare, needing complex regulation and providing all sorts of opportunities for corruption, particularly when attempted on a global scale. For example, under Kyoto's "clean development mechanism", companies in China are claiming carbon credits for hydroelectric schemes, which they'll sell to polluters in Europe. But these schemes were going to be built anyway, so the overall change to emissions is zero. The UN is cracking down, but many think the whole offsetting approach is flawed.
So what's the alternative? In the US, there is growing support for a carbon tax on fossil fuels. Such a tax can be adjusted to reflect the harm done by different fuels: coal would be taxed far more heavily than natural gas, for instance, unless burned in a power station that sequesters the carbon. The tax should be raised each year to make fossil fuels ever more expensive and renewables relatively cheaper.
There are many arguments in favour of this approach, but perhaps the strongest is that a carbon tax will be hard to dodge. It's more difficult to smuggle oil or coal than cigarettes and cocaine. Those who use fossil fuels will immediately pay a higher price.
Your advisers will tell you this is political suicide: the last thing we need in a global financial crisis is higher fuel prices. Well, here's the clever bit that should make this tax popular with most voters: every penny raised from the carbon tax should be divided equally among a country's citizens. This is called the "tax and 100-per-cent dividend" approach, and it is advocated by leading climate scientist James Hansen of NASA.
People who live in a huge house, drive gas-guzzling cars and fly lots will lose out under this regime. The dividend they receive will be outweighed by what they pay for fuel, flights and heating. Most people, however, will be richer. Families and retired people struggling to make ends meet would gain far more from the dividend than they lose in higher bills.
Instead of meaningless targets, let's have a climate treaty in which countries agree to a tax-and-dividend system and promise to increase the tax each year. Those who sign it should impose a "carbon tariff" on goods and services from countries that don't join up or don't meet their obligations. That will encourage countries like China to take part, and protect jobs and companies in member countries.
Of course, cap-and-trade schemes and the tax-and-dividend approach are not necessarily exclusive. But there is no doubt which is superior. The tax-and-dividend approach is easier to implement, harder to cheat and provides a stronger, more immediate incentive to change. It applies to everyone, not just big companies, and rewards those who genuinely emit less CO2, rather than lawyers and accountants. It's bold, simple and our best hope of averting catastrophe.
Change we need indeed. You have a chance to become one of the greatest leaders in history. Please take it."
This is Michael Le Page, the editor of New Scientist Magazine, writing to Barack Obama on a way to address climate change properly. It is a tax, but it is different, it redirects to dividends of the tax back to the public. He is really onto something:
"YOU have promised to help Americans suffering from the financial crisis, to tackle global warming and to bring about genuine change. Well, there is a way to achieve all these goals.
This week diplomats from around the world are meeting in Poznan, Poland, to continue negotiating a successor to the Kyoto climate treaty, which expires in 2012. The world will doubtless be told that Kyoto is on track and that its successor will be based on more of the same. Many hope that under your leadership the US will now join. In fact Kyoto is a dismal failure. We must tear it up and start again.
The latest measurements show that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising as fast as ever. The higher it rises, the hotter it will get. And the hotter it gets, the more danger there is of passing a point of no return. Those who talk about adapting to a changing climate rather than preventing it don't seem to understand that if we carry on as we do now the ice caps will melt, flooding many major cities. We don't know how long it will take, but New York, London and hundreds of others will be doomed without vast engineering schemes to protect them.
At best, Kyoto is noble but ineffective; at worst, it is a deadly distraction, wasting time we cannot afford to lose and blocking better policies. You are the only leader who can persuade the world to change tack.
Kyoto's fundamental flaw is that it is based on "cap and trade", the same approach you plan to introduce in the US: a target is set for emissions, and countries or companies that beat their targets gain carbon credits they can sell to those that don't.
Cap-and-trade schemes might look good on paper but they are doomed to fail when it comes to weaning the world off its addiction to fossil fuels. For starters, without a strong enforcement regime, any cap is meaningless. Under the Kyoto protocol, for instance, countries that do not meet their targets just increase them next time around. It is a joke.
What's more, the approach is a bureaucratic nightmare, needing complex regulation and providing all sorts of opportunities for corruption, particularly when attempted on a global scale. For example, under Kyoto's "clean development mechanism", companies in China are claiming carbon credits for hydroelectric schemes, which they'll sell to polluters in Europe. But these schemes were going to be built anyway, so the overall change to emissions is zero. The UN is cracking down, but many think the whole offsetting approach is flawed.
So what's the alternative? In the US, there is growing support for a carbon tax on fossil fuels. Such a tax can be adjusted to reflect the harm done by different fuels: coal would be taxed far more heavily than natural gas, for instance, unless burned in a power station that sequesters the carbon. The tax should be raised each year to make fossil fuels ever more expensive and renewables relatively cheaper.
There are many arguments in favour of this approach, but perhaps the strongest is that a carbon tax will be hard to dodge. It's more difficult to smuggle oil or coal than cigarettes and cocaine. Those who use fossil fuels will immediately pay a higher price.
Your advisers will tell you this is political suicide: the last thing we need in a global financial crisis is higher fuel prices. Well, here's the clever bit that should make this tax popular with most voters: every penny raised from the carbon tax should be divided equally among a country's citizens. This is called the "tax and 100-per-cent dividend" approach, and it is advocated by leading climate scientist James Hansen of NASA.
People who live in a huge house, drive gas-guzzling cars and fly lots will lose out under this regime. The dividend they receive will be outweighed by what they pay for fuel, flights and heating. Most people, however, will be richer. Families and retired people struggling to make ends meet would gain far more from the dividend than they lose in higher bills.
Instead of meaningless targets, let's have a climate treaty in which countries agree to a tax-and-dividend system and promise to increase the tax each year. Those who sign it should impose a "carbon tariff" on goods and services from countries that don't join up or don't meet their obligations. That will encourage countries like China to take part, and protect jobs and companies in member countries.
Of course, cap-and-trade schemes and the tax-and-dividend approach are not necessarily exclusive. But there is no doubt which is superior. The tax-and-dividend approach is easier to implement, harder to cheat and provides a stronger, more immediate incentive to change. It applies to everyone, not just big companies, and rewards those who genuinely emit less CO2, rather than lawyers and accountants. It's bold, simple and our best hope of averting catastrophe.
Change we need indeed. You have a chance to become one of the greatest leaders in history. Please take it."
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Re: Strong and effective climate change policy, that doesn't involve a great, big new
The scare is over everyone.
sensitivity is low (lindzen 2009) .
temperatures are not outside of the range of natural variability.
models are useless
and moreover,
atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration may not even be increasing
- Wolfgang Knorr, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK, Knorr, W. (2009), Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing?, Geophys. Res. Lett.,36, L21710, doi:10.1029/2009GL040613.
which concludes, “It is shown that with those uncertainties, the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero.”
With regard to potential impacts to coral reefs, if carbon dioxide were to suddenly rise dramatically. Firstly, as an acid is added to the ocean, sediments, rocks and shells become very reactive. These reactions destroy acid and the oceans can return to their normal state.
Also, I challenge the assertion that the science is settled with respect to ocean acidification. Please take note of Dr. Craig Ipso.
Also, just quickly, i have many many more but, a paper which investigated the effects of carbon dioxide on ocean acidity, Loaiciga, H. A. (2006), published in the Geophysical Research Letters, would be so minute that it would hardly be detectable.
“This paper's results concerning average seawater salinity and acidity show that, on a global scale and over the time scales considered (hundreds of years), there would not be accentuated changes in either seawater salinity or acidity from the observed or hypothesized rises in atmospheric CO2concentrations.”
Correct policy action. Invest in new technologies, just as is currently done. Legislate against real environmental problems such as deforestation, over fishing or ocean pollution, to name just a few
The scare is over everyone.
sensitivity is low (lindzen 2009) .
temperatures are not outside of the range of natural variability.
models are useless
and moreover,
atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration may not even be increasing
- Wolfgang Knorr, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK, Knorr, W. (2009), Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing?, Geophys. Res. Lett.,36, L21710, doi:10.1029/2009GL040613.
which concludes, “It is shown that with those uncertainties, the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero.”
With regard to potential impacts to coral reefs, if carbon dioxide were to suddenly rise dramatically. Firstly, as an acid is added to the ocean, sediments, rocks and shells become very reactive. These reactions destroy acid and the oceans can return to their normal state.
Also, I challenge the assertion that the science is settled with respect to ocean acidification. Please take note of Dr. Craig Ipso.
Also, just quickly, i have many many more but, a paper which investigated the effects of carbon dioxide on ocean acidity, Loaiciga, H. A. (2006), published in the Geophysical Research Letters, would be so minute that it would hardly be detectable.
“This paper's results concerning average seawater salinity and acidity show that, on a global scale and over the time scales considered (hundreds of years), there would not be accentuated changes in either seawater salinity or acidity from the observed or hypothesized rises in atmospheric CO2concentrations.”
Correct policy action. Invest in new technologies, just as is currently done. Legislate against real environmental problems such as deforestation, over fishing or ocean pollution, to name just a few
Last edited: