'Whatever happened to global warming?'

I think that argument, laid out more accurately, is that through industry all of us spew out an externality, to our benefit in the short run but, potentially, to our (or our descendants') harm in the long run. Firms will not pay a carbon tax ... firms will collect a carbon tax.

Re: trees. Ever read about how much effort went into gathering fuel prior to industrialization? I read somewhere that, way back when, the typical pioneer farm family in the U.S. went through something like 20 cords of wood a year just to heat the home and cook the food. That, coupled with how little land (especially in the East/Northeast) is used in farming these days makes me not at all surprised that there are more trees out there.

 

But firms push that particular externality globally. So while domestically we may benefit, so we should share in the tax, globally it's still an externality on people who don't benefit. It's not like acid rain, which is localized.

Most of the literature I've seen advocates for an "upstream" tax or cap (on the top-of-the-chain producers of carbon) rather than the "downstream" users. Although, ultimately, it all becomes a downstream tax because you know who ends up paying for it. Us. The mechanism is more an argument about practicality and logistics.

 

The crying Indian was trying to peg the kids watching, not the adults. It takes 15-20 years for a good grassroots education program to work. But once it is in place, it is set forever.

I don't litter, so my daughter won't litter. Monkey see. Monkey do.

Now recycling and conservation is pegging te children and youth. In 15 years, people who do not recycle will be the exception, not the norm.

And for the big production plants?

When I was growing up in Western Pennsylvania we had tons of blackberry bushes, but the blackberries were always small and not that big. Then the steel mill five miles away shut down. Since then you could find blackberries as big as your thumb on my grandparents property.

It does screw with you somehow. Oh, did I mention that all of my childhood friends, me included, had their fathers die before they were 30 and their fathers never made it to 63?

 

I lived in Western Pennsylvania for five years and this does not surprise me. The manufacturing there, steel, and the coal mines are about the dirtiest things you can find. There was a creek south of the town I lived in (Butler) that was FULL of nitrates. The water actually glowed at times.

Now if the manufacturing in Western Pa were something different, something cleaner, those problems wouldn't have been as bad. The smoke from steel mills is awful and I agree something has to be done to protect the people that live around them. Again, not a tax but some kind of technology to reduce the pollutants in the smoke (they came up with clean coal, which is tons better than the old stuff).

I already am surprised when I see someone that doesn't recycle. I don't even think about it anymore...the cans go with the cans and paper in the green trash bin without a second thought. It would be nice if everyone participated in it.

 

With all due respect, herein lies the greatest flaw in the deniers' logic. You are waiting for absolute proof, which will never come. But you would NEVER take that approach with your children. If a child was sick and you had even the slightest hint of what might be causing it, you would immediately cease the activity.

To put it another way: Let's say your child has a sudden ugly growth on his skin. You take him to 100 doctors. Of the 100, 97 tell you he has skin cancer and the other three say, "Aw, it's nothing to worry about ... just slap a little sun-tan lotion on it." Oh, and by the way, the other three are funded by Coppertone. What would you do? CarltonBanks and his ilk would slather on the lotion because there isn't definitive proof.

The issue is not whether climate disruption is man-made. It's happening. Meanwhile, we've built an entire society around a different climate model. Think, for example, of the toxins that will wash into the ocean if the seas rise just a foot or so and wash into the cities built on the shores.

Yeah, it'd be a good idea to adjust our way of life. Equally important if I was a civic leader would be to take a look at what the models are forecasting for my region and figure out how to adapt.

 

Um.

www.economist.com/node/13235041?story_id=13235041

 

Save us, climate data manipulators!!!

 

It's so damned hard to adapt on a local scale right now, though, because there's so much uncertainty. Overall, yes, but certainly locally. You can end up wasting a lot of money and resources. A lot. And totally whiffing on other effects.

 

I used to be fairly skeptical of global warming. Most of what I read and heard about it seemed to be bordering on being akin to apocalyptic prophecy in support of an ideological crusade and it made me leery.

Now, I tend to accept the view that the world is likely warming and it is likely, to some degree, caused by human development.

The main problem is that ideologues have taken these facts and, rather than calmly and rationally discussing the potential costs and benefits of warming and rationally evaluating potential responses, turned it into an anti-human, anti-freedom ideological crusade.

 

No, the main problem is that people want to resist any changes by calling them anti-human and anti-freedom, whatever that even means. I'm sorry that the planet won't allow you the freedom to burn whatever you please to heat your house and run your car. But pointing that out isn't "anti-freedom," and neither is introducing alternatives.

 

There is plenty of clear-headed, thoughtful policy analysis about global warming, and it isn't all that difficult to find.

I mean this constructively: The problem isn't the idealogues. It is that you are letting them be your source of information on this.

 

The problem is certain people will lose money and certain will gain money depending on what side of the global warming debate they fall.

There are billions upon billions of dollars invested in fuel oil and gasoline, and certain companies have found it easier, and cheaper, to discredit global warming through made up think tanks and BS web sites rather than develop new fuel sources in house.

This should be about the planet, but it is about money.

See: Koch Brothers