Kaitlyn S, on 2016-November-23, 17:00, said:
It sounds like what you are suggesting is cap & trade here in the US, and then when we develop technologies to develop energy cheaper and cleaner, let the rest of the world use the technology gratis.
It could work.
You are being, not for the first time, obtuse.
I will start this post by referencing your assertion that you caught me in a contradiction in my posts re muffled climate scientists and suppressed health remedies. There was no contradiction, and I suspect that you only think there is because you failed to understand me.
I argued that it is silly to claim that there are many muffled climate scientists who would, if they could, demonstrate that human0caused climate change isn't real. There are wealthy, powerful interests who would be happy to spend hundreds of millions promoting such opinions. It is a fair inference, from the virtual absence of such opinions, that there are no muffled scientists.
As for quack therapies and treatments, once again there are wealthy people and companies who could run studies showing that their pet quackery was legitimate. Bear in mind that it would cost relatively little to do studies on supplements or reiki, etc, because these therapies are not required to meet FDA standards of review. Not for them the many years of animal then human study. No: all they need is one university professor with some grad students and a pool of volunteers. There are not even adverse side-effects to worry about with something like Reiki. Note that there are studies that show these therapies to be nonsense, so doing the study isn't the problem. So who is suppressing these studies, and why? How the heck are they doing it?
The fix is in at every university in the Western world? At every health related scientific journal?
When one makes claims one needs evidence if one is to be believed. The more extravagant the claim, the greater the evidentiary burden.
As for your two questions, you have a bunch of unstated assumptions buried therein, and those appear to be, at least, questionable.
The US has been slowly implementing some climate change measures. While you assertion that the US has met the Kyoto protocol targets was false, it is true to say that some progress has been made on some of the targets. The economy seems to have done fairly well despite that, and I know of no economist who says that the US economy has been noticeably and adversely affected.
The pace ought to pick up, altho the incoming regime is unlikely to do that, and seems likely to cause catastrophic harm to the entire planet. For example, the transition team has announced an intention to shut down NASA's global climate monitoring project: the single most productive method of measuring climate change in the world. While they say they will pass this on to another agency, that same agency is under near constant attack by republicans in Congress and in any event depends on assistance from the now-to-be-cancelled NASA program to access the satellite data that underpins all of these efforts.
It is essential to remember that developing new industries, such as clean energy, pollution abatement, and pollution control, means new jobs and new investments. Yes, coal miners face a dim future, but many others will find employment or business opportunities in the new industries. I doubt anyone can predict, with any confidence, the net effect, but your post seems to assume that there is no upside. This reminds me of the Trump (and to be fair, Sanders) arguments about free trade. It is easy to show that free trade deals cost entire industries money, and cause unemployment. However, most economists seem to agree that NAFTA, as one example, is a net benefit to the US economy. Similarly, lowering tariffs on China added to the already underway shrinking in the US textile business.....so losses are easy to identify.
As an aside, you might want to google to see whether the decline of coal in the US is due to pollution regulations or to the cheap abundance of natural gas. NG is cheaper to buy, easier to burn, and produces relatively little pollution compared to coal.
Meanwhile, all of those Americans involved in importing from China, including dock workers, transportation workers, wholesalers, and retailers make more money and have more job opportunities. Plus every consumer in the US can now buy clothing cheaper than they used to be able to do, and as such most people now have more disposable income. Neither Trump nor Sanders, nor Clinton, advance that argument because, while it is true, doing so would be spun by the other side as showing a lack of feeling for those who lost.
Another factor is that the extent to which increased operational or capital costs cause business failure, and resulting unemployment, is not a simple issue.
If all producers in a segment face similar increases in cost, and if the demand for the product has some resistance to price-induced change, then requiring all producers to spend to become green is unlikely to cause any direct loss. For example, it is unlikely that many people will go without necessary electricity if their utility bill goes up by 10%. Maybe the price-sensitive customers will stop leaving lights on in rooms when they leave the room. Maybe some will change their thermostat setting by a degree. Maybe some will install smart meters, or smart wiring (I know that most won't be able to afford this, but many will and virtually everyone can lower their electrical consumption with no discernible loss of quality of life).
Thus your unstated assumption that compliance with the steps needed to control global warming would be ruinous are, as with so many of your opinions, unsupported by facts. When one utters opinions with no apparent basis in reality, one should get used to others calling them nonsense.
As for your silly retort to Hrothgar, he didn't say or imply that the US would give away technology. I suspect that you know that one can buy a 4K 80 flatscreen television today, with built in internet connectivity, for a fraction of what one would have paid for a 37" old-fashioned CRT television 20 years ago?
My wife and I paid over 3,000 (admittedly in Canada where prices tend to be higher than in the US) for a top of the line Sony 37" television just when the 'new' 5 x 8 format was coming in. We looked at one: effectively equivalent to the Sony, it was 'on sale' for $8,000. That same size (of picture, the set itself is far smaller) is now often given away by furniture stores free if you buy a sofa set.
I paid over 3300 for an Apple II, with black and orange monitor, a thermal printer, and an external floopy drive in, iirc, 1978. My cellphone, with more data storage than existed in the world and more computing power than existed in the world when I took a computer science course in 1970, cost a small fraction of that, even ignoring the 500% inflation since 1970.
All of this is by way of saying that early adopters pay more for worse technology than those who wait for version 2 or 3 or....
So, if and when the US, or China, or Germany, work out how to build green technology effectively, the unit price will plummet, and the products can be sold at a fraction of the initial cost, while generating billions in profits.
Btw, in terms of the US and China, Hrothgar correctly points out that the US is by far the worst polluter in the world per capita. China is worse in absolute terms but has 4 times the population.
Third world overpopulation is an issue, but not remotely the same, in terms of climate change, as First World consumption. Most of the teeming billions 'enjoy' a subsistence standard of living, and hardly generate any carbon footprint.
There are obvious and real reasons to be concerned about overpopulation, but the US isn't exactly helping other countries to deal with it.
Under the Bush administration, much foreign aid was subject to the recipient country limiting its promotion of birth control!
That seems likely to resume with republican domination of your federal government.
Now add in the anti-muslim rhetoric of your incoming administration and ask yourself how influential the US will be, in terms of persuading hundreds of millions of poor muslims to accept guidance from the US. How much pull will the US have in the UN or in capitals around the world?
Oh well....as predicted, your 'very real questions' are indeed nonsense. You seem incapable of doubting any of your beliefs no matter how often you are exposed to evidence that ought to cause you to change your mind.
Btw, let me point out one factor that you seem to overlook. Your critics generally provide you with specific facts or rebuttals. Some, more deft than I, embed links to relevant sources. I don't. But I do provide you with the information needed to do simple google searches, and I assure you that in each such case I have done the search, so as to be sure that I am pointing you to a variety of sources. In contrast, other than early references to Jihad Watch, Hannity or Breitbart (lol), you never post references to facts or other evidence supporting your beliefs or contradicting statements of fact made by your critics.
Imagine that you were a stranger to this thread, and read it for the first time, and noted that pattern. One school of thought provided references and evidence and the other merely stated beliefs. What would you think? Be honest, with yourself at least, if not us.
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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