Reply To: Cap and Trade

[Breakable]

So you are still not convinced co2, is causing climate change?
Well I am not here to convince you. I am not convinced myself, I just choose to believe one side. I am not a scientist, but I think a definitive proof would be if we had a model that can predict climate changes for 10 years ahead with 1% accuracy. We don’t have that model. That means we can believe anything? Well if you want to doubt the most of scientific establishment, then yes. But then what about Big bang? Quantum mechanics? Evolution theory? Thermodynamics? Germ theory? Gravity? Newton physics? Calculus? Round earth? Reality? There are skeptics everywhere. All those explanations and predictions of the world around us are based on some Axiom that we have to accept without proof. They are build one on top each other, and if you pull out the bottom building blocks they just collapse. Faith is the root of all science. What you believe is what you can build upon. Proof just complements that belief.

The situation for Cap and Trade is even worse. We don’t have a perfect economic theory that can predict how Cap and Trade will affect the markets. We don’t even have a working one. Consensus is much harder to form when there is nothing to test on. There are skeptics and there are believers. I can find you Blogs from both sides on the net, but what good would it do – its just opinions.
One interesting point I could show you is some calculations I made about renewable energy. This is a very simplified chart of what would happen if energy was taxed 10% and this tax (plus any savings) would be used to build renewable energy sources which payback time is 20 years.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rh1gl1vIfbzoWublfQ7ORnQ&oid=4&output=image