Cap and Trade

[Brian H]

HermannH wrote:

Typical misrepresentation. The bases are in NO countries that don’t want them, and most howl like banshees when their removal is contemplated for strategic or cost reasons. The justification for the ME wars is something for another locale, but I can refer you to some very grateful Iraqis etc. who say things like …

Really?

About the bases have a look at this.
.
What did I misrepresent about the ‘Project for the New American Century’?

As for the Iraqis, it appears to me that there have been far more Iraqi losers than winners. Probably well over 100,000 dead, a million who are refugees in other countries and large internal displacements. These losers lost big time and you need a lot of winners to make up for it. Of course the Americans are losers too, they (and other countries) lost thousands of soldiers’ lives, not to mention the tens of thousands wounded and the cost of over a trillion dollars. It isn’t much mentioned, but far more American lives were lost in Iraq than on September 11. And all because of the imperial ambitions of a bunch of neo-cons in the White House.

The neocons were/are recovered liberals. And we were/are substantially right. The 100,000 Iraqi deaths is a terrible indictment of the bloodthirsty machine-gun-spraying street-bomb-laying head-chopping A-holes who inflicted the vast majority of them. But even that was less than Saddam’s output for similar timespans.

Now, the result of the war is the third or forth federal election with winners getting 50-60% or so instead of 99%. With the result in doubt. As one Iraqi (as I once mentioned) said proudly to David Ignatius, “Name one other Arab state you can say that about!”

Yes, there were American deaths — it’s war. But the casualty rate was miniscule compared to any other serious war. If you refuse to take casualties, you can’t fight. Which is the undertext to what you’re saying, I think.

As for Gwynn, I’ve followed him for years (he’s a fellow Canadian, btw); his viewpoints have gotten more strident as he ages. Your leap from that issue to your conclusion is more than a bit much. Try Stuttgart, instead. And what would you prefer next? The New Chinese Century? The new Islamist Century? Be careful what you ask for. You might get it. (And no, a benign multinational co-operative Co-Dominium is not on the cards. 2/3 of the members of the U.N. are satraps or borderline dictatorships. They want a piece of your pie, but are not going to give up a crumb of their own “sovereignty”. The EU is on track to becoming a horrible example to be avoided, PR and fireworks displays notwithstanding. The Lisbon treaty has created a permanent unelected ruling bureaucracy, whose regionally-inappropriate rulings are already legion and legend.)

Cap-and-trade is dangerous precisely because it gives that lot, and other similar bodies, authority over the valuation of every productive activity on the planet, almost. The visible, heavy hand of New World Order bureaucrats is far more inept and destructive than Smith’s invisible one (prices and products set by what people are willing to purchase with their own earned resources and time.) The distortions of pricing world-wide caused by agricultural subsidies alone is a massive burden on consumers and producers, benefiting mainly rentier non-producers. Carbon-pricing by committee would be much worse, especially since the entire basis for their rules of valuation is bogus.

[JimmyT]

Aeronaut wrote:

I easily see the US’s environmental laws making us the last country to adopt the desalination plants. And that’s along the coasts.

What about the ecological effects of the brine concentrate that you have to dump back into the ocean?

Do I believe that this is a major concern? Emphatically no! But there is always some issue that can be used to block new technology.

Water extraction from the atmosphere? What about the decreased rainfall in the water-diminished-plume downwind? Shouldn’t the adopters of this technology have to pay the rest of the world some sort of “environmental sin tax” for the horrors of ecological disruption this causes?

It never ends folks.

No need to dump it back into the ocean, Jimmy. We use it on roads all year around- and that’s just part of the salt industry.

http://en.wiki.org/wiki/Calcium_chloride%5B/quote

Brine, or no brine. It depends on what method you use. I think reverse osmosis is the best current technology, and It makes brine. I really don’t think it is a significant problem.

Nature makes brine too. Its just not as localized as a big reverse osmosis plant would be. As one of my professors put it: “The solution to the problem of pollution is dilution”.

“Give me an equation with five variables and I’ll draw you an elephant” – Dr Skidmore professor of chemical engineering at The Ohio State University.

[Breakable]

JimmyT wrote:
Nature makes brine too. Its just not as localized as a big reverse osmosis plant would be. As one of my professors put it: “The solution to the problem of pollution is dilution”.

Dilution can only work in some cases. In this case I agree that any water distilled will probably go back into the ocean/sea.
In some cases dilution does not work, when the materials are bio-accumulative such as Mercury.

[JimmyT]

Breakable,

No argument there. It was only meant to apply to this case. It was just too good of a quote to pass up.

[Brian H]

JimmyT wrote:

I easily see the US’s environmental laws making us the last country to adopt the desalination plants. And that’s along the coasts.

What about the ecological effects of the brine concentrate that you have to dump back into the ocean?

Do I believe that this is a major concern? Emphatically no! But there is always some issue that can be used to block new technology.

Water extraction from the atmosphere? What about the decreased rainfall in the water-diminished-plume downwind? Shouldn’t the adopters of this technology have to pay the rest of the world some sort of “environmental sin tax” for the horrors of ecological disruption this causes?

It never ends folks.
It’s the old tactic/error of making the perfect the enemy of the good; only ZERO ‘downstream’ impact is acceptable. It’s all laid out in Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”.

[dennisp]

“Cap-and-trade is dangerous precisely because it gives that lot, and other similar bodies, authority over the valuation of every productive activity on the planet, almost.”

Once we have a fusion-based economy that will no longer be remotely true.

[Rezwan]

dennisp wrote: “Cap-and-trade is dangerous precisely because it gives that lot, and other similar bodies, authority over the valuation of every productive activity on the planet, almost.”

Once we have a fusion-based economy that will no longer be remotely true.

Again with the fusion ex machina. Which is fine, but won’t make the preceding any more or less “true”. “Moot”, perhaps. “Unresolved”.

Cap and Trade isn’t any more dangerous than drilling for oil, I suspect.

As to giving “that lot” authority over the valuation – not quite. That’s what’s left up to markets to determine. “That lot” sets the cap, and then all the trading (market-based valuation exercise) begins. Knowing that only x amount of pollutant can be produced, trades occur to bring about the most beneficial (per the market) use.

So people, in their amazing, flexible, market oriented way, find substitutions and carry on their merry ways.

This is the kind of thing you need for water (so people don’t demand some kind of G*d given right to use up every drop of water, even though it’s more expensive to clean that water later – or to replace groundwater) and so forth.

We only have x amount of water – so let’s work out the most lucrative use for it and find ways to conserve elsewhere. Sounds reasonable.

Of course, this is said in the context of a world where the market is artificially propped up in so many ways with corporate welfare rampant, water rights completely insane and so forth.

To even begin to try and get people to make an honest living or evaluate their true costs – well, that just sets everyone to howling.

[dennisp]

“Again with the fusion ex machina.”…hmm, as if fusion were some unexpected savior coming out of nowhere? Isn’t this entire forum about the invention of fusion, and its consequences? On non-fusion related forums, I don’t bring in fusion as an argument.

Pretty much agree on the rest. If we were smart, we’d start taking carbon out of the atmosphere, with things like biochar and carbon-negative cement. Then instead of carbon credits being issued by the government, they could be issued by anyone who verifiably remediates carbon. If you emit, pay someone to clean up your mess, or do it yourself, like we all learned in kindergarten. The technologies are remarkably inexpensive.

We could have a carbon-neutral civilization and still drive around our SUVs, even without inventing fusion. Fusion is my main hope only because I think we’re too dumb to actually do it.

[Aeronaut]

dennisp wrote: “Again with the fusion ex machina.”…hmm, as if fusion were some unexpected savior coming out of nowhere? Isn’t this entire forum about the invention of fusion, and its consequences? On non-fusion related forums, I don’t bring in fusion as an argument.

Pretty much agree on the rest. If we were smart, we’d start taking carbon out of the atmosphere, with things like biochar and carbon-negative cement. Then instead of carbon credits being issued by the government, they could be issued by anyone who verifiably remediates carbon. If you emit, pay someone to clean up your mess, or do it yourself, like we all learned in kindergarten. The technologies are remarkably inexpensive.

We could have a carbon-neutral civilization and still drive around our SUVs, even without inventing fusion. Fusion is my main hope only because I think we’re too dumb to actually do it.

Until we actually prove a minimum of energy breakeven (unity), we may or may not have a technically feasible solution. And as Rezwan pointed out, the status quo has no pressing reason to change, unless they can be shown that they can make more money by adopting fusion energy than they can by opposing or ignoring it.

There’s already an industry that revolves around brokering carbon credits, and I suspect that carbon reduction consultants are cleaning up cleaning up by charging to reduce carbon exposure, and again by selling the newly available credits.

[Rezwan]

Happy Monday!

This thread is now officially capped, per our new GW Policy.

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