The Climate thread

[Incredulity 11879]

3 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

Carbon "taxes" are frankly a very simple free market approach to limiting greenhouse gases.

Jesus.  Really????

Quote

In economics, a free market is an idealized system in which the prices for goods and services are determined by the open market and by consumers. In a free market the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, by a price-setting monopoly, or by other authority. Proponents of the concept of free market contrast it with a regulated market, in which a government intervenes in supply and demand through various methods — such as tariffs — used to restrict trade and to protect the local economy. In an idealized free-market economy, prices for goods and services are set freely by the forces of supply and demand and are allowed to reach their point of equilibrium without intervention by government policy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market

[elfenix 34754]

^^ you're correct that it's not a "free" market based approach (not that those actually exist - they're just as theoretical as perfect competition), but a carbon fee is a market based approach, rather than something like quotas or outright outlawing products or addressing it through CAFE

 

 

[hayden_horn 11402]

12 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Jesus.  Really????

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market

so...let's just get this out in the open: do you support trump's tariff policy?

do you think we live in a free market today?

[Incredulity 11879]

5 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

so...let's just get this out in the open: do you support trump's tariff policy?

do you think we live in a free market today?

imgur

[Incredulity 11879]

No, I don't think tariffs work, especially in the medium to longer term.

[Dahobbs 18334]

16 minutes ago, Zavala said:

The cycles of the sun don't have anything to do with the temperature on Earth? What about other planets?

So corporations pay the government to rent carbon in the US, won't this just shift more companies overseas, where they are allowed to pollute like crazy? What are India and China doing about their massive amounts of pollution and cheating their own regulation standards? 

Solar minimum and maximum cycle doesn't really affect our climate to any great extent. Yes, eventually the life-cycle of our sun will ultimately destroy the earth, but our species will be extent long before then. Here, from NASA:

 The sun goes through roughly an 11-year cycle of activity, from stormy to quiet and back again. Solar activity often occurs near sunspots, dark regions on the sun caused by concentrated magnetic fields. The solar irradiance measurement is much higher during solar maximum, when sunspot cycle and solar activity is high, versus solar minimum, when the sun is quiet and there are usually no sunspots.

The fluctuations in the solar cycle impacts Earth's global temperature by about 0.1 degree Celsius, slightly hotter during solar maximum and cooler during solar minimum," said Thomas Woods, solar scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder. "The sun is currently at its minimum, and the next solar maximum is expected in 2012."

That isn't to say that something couldn't change dramatically with the sun and alter our climate. It could. But the solar minimum and maximum cycles are expected and normal. Even historical extremes in the solar cycle would have a very small affect on our climate in comparison to human activity. 

[Dahobbs 18334]

26 minutes ago, elfenix said:

^^ you're correct that it's not a "free" market based approach (not that those actually exist - they're just as theoretical as perfect competition), but a carbon fee is a market based approach, rather than something like quotas or outright outlawing products or addressing it through CAFE

 

 

Right. A carbon tax is designed to correct an inefficiency in the market: mainly the failure of the market to account for externalities (climate change). It is sort of like if a factory pollutes a local river and kills all the fish. The polluted river is a cost associated with the factory. And in a true free market system we would want the supply and demand curves to account for that cost so that the market reaches an equilibrium based on all the costs and benefits of the factory. But, when the cost isn't clearly attributed to a market participant, that balance isn't reached, or rather the most efficient outcome isn't reached (i.e., you have more widgets produced than you would in a completely efficient system that account for the external costs). Correcting such inefficiencies is a classic market based approach, with the goal of having something closer to the theoretical perfect market. 

Edited November 27, 2018 by Dahobbs

[Dahobbs 18334]

13 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Solar minimum and maximum cycle doesn't really affect our climate to any great extent. Yes, eventually the life-cycle of our sun will ultimately destroy the earth, but our species will be extent long before then. Here, from NASA:

 

 

To clarify, the last paragraph below should have been outside of the quote:

That isn't to say that something couldn't change dramatically with the sun and alter our climate. It could. But the solar minimum and maximum cycles are expected and normal. Even historical extremes in the solar cycle would have a very small affect on our climate in comparison to human activity. 

 

[Incredulity 11879]

15 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Right. A carbon tax is designed to correct an inefficiency in the market: mainly the failure of the market to account for externalities (climate change). It is sort of like if a factory pollutes a local river and kills all the fish. The polluted river is a cost associated with the factory. And in a true free market system we would want the supply and demand curves to account for that cost so that the market reaches an equilibrium based on all the costs and benefits of the factory. But, when the cost isn't clearly attributed to a market participant, that balance isn't reached, or rather the most efficient outcome isn't reached (i.e., you have more widgets produced than you would in a completely efficient system that account for the external costs). Correcting such inefficiencies is a classic market based approach, with the goal of having something closer to the theoretical perfect market. 

Adding costs via government dictate moves us closer to a "theoretical perfect market"????

No, no it doesn't.

Plus,  there is no agreement on the "cost" that carbon puts on the world. 

Carbon taxing is quite simply a money grab.  Most specifically under the pretense of "spend it on whatever". 

 

[Dahobbs 18334]

36 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Adding costs via government dictate moves us closer to a "theoretical perfect market"????

No, no it doesn't.

Plus,  there is no agreement on the "cost" that carbon puts on the world. 

Carbon taxing is quite simply a money grab.  Most specifically under the pretense of "spend it on whatever". 

 

Yes it does and yes there is. Read the Coase theorem link in its entirety for the first point. For the second, scientist are in general agreement. Uneducated rubes and politicians are the ones that disagree. I dont consider that a real disagreement.  But, I do acknowledge that while a carbon tax is theoretically good, the determination of how much to allocate can be abused. 

[Incredulity 11879]

7 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Yes it does and yes there is. Read the Coase theorem link in its entirety for the first point. For the second, scientist are in general agreement. Uneducated rubes and politicians are the ones that disagree. I dont consider that a real disagreement.  But, I do acknowledge that while a carbon tax is theoretically good, the determination of how much to allocate can be abused. 

I am talking about cost in the specific sense.  Is the "damage" done by 1 ton of carbon equal to $50, $500, $500,000......

Then you also get into the whole issue of a secondary market for carbon( carbon credits, offsets.....),which is just a whole realm rife with opportunity for graft, corruption, crony capitalism.

Not the overall question of if carbon is an issue.

 

 

[Dahobbs 18334]

11 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

I am talking about cost in the specific sense.  Is the "damage" done by 1 ton of carbon equal to $50, $500, $500,000......

Then you also get into the whole issue of a secondary market for carbon( carbon credits, offsets.....),which is just a whole realm rife with opportunity for graft, corruption, crony capitalism.

Not the overall question of if carbon is an issue.

 

 

Oh sure, if you are using damage estimates, my preference would be to use the lower end of estimates based on existing studies.  That way you can be very confident you aren't distorting the market by overtaxing carbon, just bringing it closer to a true efficient market. The other way to do it, and it has a lot of merit, is to base the tax not on the damage done, but rather by what taxing level is going to cause the decrease necessary to meet our reduction targets. I think the latter is the favored way to do it, but I admit to not doing a ton of research on the actual implementation. Also, the more I think about it, the more I like just offsetting the tax revenue by giving out a tax credit to everyone on a per capita basis.

Edited November 27, 2018 by Dahobbs

[elfenix 34754]

1 hour ago, Incredulity said:

I am talking about cost in the specific sense.  Is the "damage" done by 1 ton of carbon equal to $50, $500, $500,000......

Then you also get into the whole issue of a secondary market for carbon( carbon credits, offsets.....),which is just a whole realm rife with opportunity for graft, corruption, crony capitalism.

Not the overall question of if carbon is an issue.

 

 

carbon fee != credits.  credits are part of a quota system, which would be a different regime entirely.  using a fee based system where producers of carbon and equivalents pay a fee equal to the cost that all the rest of us bear for that production reduces most of the crony capitalism concerns,* whereas setting industry quotas and using credits and offsets and all that doesn't.  

there's a massive study being undertaken by university of chicago to estimate in all the different areas of the world the economic cost of carbon emissions.  and since it's just economic concerns it'll undershoot by not taking into account non-economic environmental concerns.  so that'll be a good lower bound for the amount.  

don't let perfect be the enemy of good, especially for existential questions.  carbon has the ability to be an existential threat.  

 

 

*i guess there's always the concerns inspectors that make sure the meters are working properly can be bought off.

[MissingInAction 25562]

If you still dont understand what is going on, light a fire in your house with the windows closed.

That but on a planetary scale.

[Post Oak 20570]

This is what we’re up against.

A real thinker

Edited November 28, 2018 by Post Oak

[Nice Guy Eddie 13739]

Stupid comment.  But I assume he uses that “sell and move” phrase meaning that those people basically just move to houses that are not underwater and therefore they are still participating in the economy.   And that the economy would still thrive.

now I don’t agree with that.  In the modern economy we’ve never had that much land be effectively destroyed.  Yes it’s occurs in some regions (Louisiana coastlines) or very local when land is taken for projects and the owner receives low compensation.  But never globally.  Trillions of dollars of wealth will just disappear over a relatively short time.

now it’s possible that part of trumps thinking is correct in that we can’t stop this damage now.   And reversing it is cost prohibitive.  We don’t really know how to in a large, quick scale.   However that is like thinking that the garage is on fire and can’t be saved, let’s just watch while the house burns too.  Stupid thought.

We can take action to limit further damage.  Say coastline only rise 5 feet vs 10.   Or whatever.  That can be a major difference that we might be able to control.

 

 

 

[Bookman 4764]

18 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

Right. A carbon tax is designed to correct an inefficiency in the market: mainly the failure of the market to account for externalities (climate change). It is sort of like if a factory pollutes a local river and kills all the fish. The polluted river is a cost associated with the factory. And in a true free market system we would want the supply and demand curves to account for that cost so that the market reaches an equilibrium based on all the costs and benefits of the factory. But, when the cost isn't clearly attributed to a market participant, that balance isn't reached, or rather the most efficient outcome isn't reached (i.e., you have more widgets produced than you would in a completely efficient system that account for the external costs). Correcting such inefficiencies is a classic market based approach, with the goal of having something closer to the theoretical perfect market. 

Wow it's like you took introductory economics in college.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13739]

By the way, attitudes are moving in the right direction.  20 years ago the skepticism was that climate change wasn’t occurring.  Now only a few foolish people believe that.  Critics are now in the space that humans aren’t causing it and it will take 100 years to occur. These opinions will also pass.  

Yes, the next logical skepticism step is that we can’t afford to stop/reverse it but it will at least acknowledge it’s a problem caused by us.  Which also implies that we CAN do something to fix it.

Finally it doesn’t matter what trumps thinks about this and even if he changes his mind.   The real battle for climate change will be in places like China, India, etc.   trump can’t do crap diplomatically.   His admin is a lost cause when it comes to climate change.  

[EuroHorn 3295]

19 hours ago, Zavala said:

 

So corporations pay the government to rent carbon in the US, won't this just shift more companies overseas, where they are allowed to pollute like crazy? What are India and China doing about their massive amounts of pollution and cheating their own regulation standards? 

 

Yep...

[Dahobbs 18334]

34 minutes ago, Bookman said:

Wow it's like you took introductory economics in college.

Surprising, I know. 

[Dahobbs 18334]

8 minutes ago, EuroHorn said:

Yep...

Yeah, it is almost like the best solution is a big international treaty that gets as many nations involved as possible. Maybe we should look into that?

[Nice Guy Eddie 13739]

1 hour ago, Dahobbs said:

Yeah, it is almost like the best solution is a big international treaty that gets as many nations involved as possible. Maybe we should look into that?

You sound like a globalist. #mawa

[Biff Tannen 46173]

Let's be honest, nothing meaningful is going to happen until we are in full on crisis mode and it is too late.  We will only be able to deal with mitigating the effects.  We are far too late to stop the ball rolling downhill now.

[elfenix 34754]

Thanks Ronald

http://think.kera.org/2018/08/09/that-time-we-could-have-fixed-global-warming/

[Johnny Sack 8397]

On 11/26/2018 at 4:48 PM, Dahobbs said:

The main purpose of a carbon tax isn't revenue generation, but rather price internationalization. Climate change causes costs that, due to their nature, are external to any actor and thus do not get accounted for in the supply/demand curve. Economists like the idea of a carbon tax because it forces market participants to recognize these costs, allowing the market to properly price the goods and/or services. 

Personally, I'd assign all the revenue to either social services, NASA, or cancer research. But it doesn't really matter where you send the money; the goal of the tax is achieved by it simply existing.

It matters to me where the money is sent.  If it’s used here for our needs, I could live with it.  If it’s used to transfer cash to third world countries, that’s a no for me dog.  

[High Plains Drifter 11192]

18 hours ago, Post Oak said:

This is what we’re up against.

A real thinker

lulz.

 

[High Plains Drifter 11192]

Guess this thread is the place for this:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-04-25/fight-grows-over-who-owns-real-estate-drowned-by-climate-change

 

In North Carolina, the state has blocked attempts by local officials to demolish homes whose foundations are underwater. In Florida, the legislature just made it harder for counties with shrinking beaches to intrude on homeowners’ private land. And in Alabama, owners of lots that are now completely underwater want the government to restore their land, even though nobody knows who would then own it.

In Florida, rising seas and erosion have sparked a different debate: As beaches recede, should private property owners near the coast be forced to let the public use their share of what remains? In Walton County, part of Florida’s Panhandle that includes Miramar Beach, the line between public and private land has always been tenuous. The state owns everything below the high-tide line, but the dry beach is a mix of public and private property. Historically, the public has been free to wander across sands that are technically owned by private households.

Then two things happened. In 2005, Hurricane Dennis struck the Panhandle, washing away swaths of sand. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection now lists 18 miles of Walton County’s beaches as “critically eroded,” among the worst in the state.

A few years later, county officials started to notice a spike in confrontations between beachfront homeowners and beachgoers who wandered up onto the sand in front of their homes. The property owners started calling the police, or worse. “We had a homeowner brandish a weapon,” says Louis Svehla, a county spokesman. So last year, officials passed an ordinance that explicitly required homeowners to let the public use the beach on their property. The rule wasn’t a direct response to climate change, Svehla says; the county just wanted to clarify the previously unwritten rules for sharing the beach—rules that had started to fall apart.

Private property owners are suing to stop the ordinance. Meanwhile, Florida lawmakers passed a bill in March that would make it harder for local officials to grant public access to private beaches, requiring such rules to be approved by a judge first. Kathleen Passidomo, the state senator who sponsored the bill, says local officials should be careful about impeding private property rights above the high-tide line. But as that line keeps moving inland, she added, so will the public’s right to access what is now private property. She says it’s unclear what will happen next. “The real problem will be when the mean high-tide line is 20 feet from the back door,” says Passidomo. “At some point it could go right through somebody’s house.”

 

Regarding the landowners, I say "fuck em". You were warned years ago your beachfront property was going to be underwater at some point. State shouldn't be bailing your ass out now. Sorry if the high tide line is now at your back door and the beach is public property.

[bolverk 30350]

A reminder that Trump believes in climate change when it suits his fat ass:

Quote

Trump acknowledges climate change — at his golf course

Donald Trump says he is “not a big believer in global warming.” He has called it “a total hoax,” “bullshit” and “pseudoscience.”

But he is also trying to build a sea wall designed to protect one of his golf courses from “global warming and its effects.”

The New York billionaire is applying for permission to erect a coastal protection works to prevent erosion at his seaside golf resort, Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Ireland, in County Clare.

A permit application for the wall, filed by Trump International Golf Links Ireland and reviewed by POLITICO, explicitly cites global warming and its consequences — increased erosion due to rising sea levels and extreme weather this century — as a chief justification for building the structure.

The zoning application raises further questions about how the billionaire developer would confront a risk he has publicly minimized but that has been identified as a defining challenge of this era by world leaders, global industry and the American military. His public disavowal of climate science at the same time he moves to secure his own holdings against the effects of climate change also illustrates the conflict between his political rhetoric and the realities of running a business with seaside assets in the 21st century.

“It's diabolical," said former South Carolina Republican Rep. Bob Inglis, an advocate of conservative solutions to climate change. “Donald Trump is working to ensure his at-risk properties and his company is trying to figure out how to deal with sea level rise. Meanwhile, he’s saying things to audiences that he must know are not true. … You have a soft place in your heart for people who are honestly ignorant, but people who are deceitful, that’s a different thing.”

 

 

For more reading: https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/donald-trump-climate-change-golf-course-223436

[bolverk 30350]

It looks like a weakened polar vortex might just be a permanent deal, meaning harsher winters in parts of North America. Can't wait to hear the climate skeptics come in here saying that means climate change/global warming is a hoax.

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/weakening-polar-vortex-may-yield-longer-harsher-winters-in-north-america/70000025
 

Quote

 

Longer, harsher winters may be in store for the portions of North America as the polar vortex continues to weaken and shifts, according to a new study.

The polar vortex is a large pocket of frigid air that hovers above the polar regions, and is most prominent in the winter months.

Researchers at China's Lanzhou University penned the study, which was published in Nature Climate Change last month.

Lanzhou researchers found that a loss of sea ice in the Arctic regions due to rising temperatures in the Barents-Kara seas, along with an increase in snow cover over Europe and Asia, has caused the polar vortex to weaken. The pocket of cold air has in turn shifted toward Eurasia.

This movement could lead to colder and possibly extended winter seasons for portions of North America and Eurasia, according to the study.

"With warming and ridging in the Kara Sea, this typically allows for less ice cover but also is a conducive atmospheric pattern for lower temperatures in the North American mid-latitudes," AccuWeather Meteorologist Edward Vallee said.

 

 

[ADHD 28]

Baby it's briefly VERY cold outside.

[High Plains Drifter 11192]

I could use me some global warming right about now huh huh huh/ obligatory mouth breather denier joke

[Nice Guy Eddie 13739]

Breakdown of the electricity generation sources for the US and each state over the last 20 years.   Amazing how coal has disappeared in so many states. 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/24/climate/how-electricity-generation-changed-in-your-state.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[Incredulity 11879]

On 12/24/2018 at 4:10 PM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Breakdown of the electricity generation sources for the US and each state over the last 20 years.   Amazing how coal has disappeared in so many states. 

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/24/climate/how-electricity-generation-changed-in-your-state.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Were you in a coma from 09-17?

Barack’s administration used EVERY means possible to eliminate coal fired electricity.  You don’t unring that bell in even a decade.

[Brisketexan 106947]

Were you in a coma from 09-17?
Barack’s administration used EVERY means possible to eliminate coal fired electricity.  You don’t unring that bell in even a decade.

Read the article. Look at the profiles. Obama didn’t kill coal. Natural gas did. Easily extractable and plentiful gas (fracking) is cheap. And it allows for quick-start plants to handle peaking needs. Industry followed the law of economics.

[Incredulity 11879]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Read the article. Look at the profiles. Obama didn’t kill coal. Natural gas did. Easily extractable and plentiful gas (fracking) is cheap. And it allows for quick-start plants to handle peaking needs. Industry followed the law of economics.

I will concede the economics of Nat Gas made the closure of billion dollar assets possible.

 Without political and regulatory pressure I assure you there would be a number of recently decommissioned power plants still running in the US.

[Biff Tannen 46173]

45 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

I will concede the economics of Nat Gas made the closure of billion dollar assets possible.

 Without political and regulatory pressure I assure you there would be a number of recently decommissioned power plants still running in the US.

And we'd be so much better off...

[Nice Guy Eddie 13739]

I recall listening to some natural gas traders circa 2009.  They mentioned that electrical generation industry finally came to believe in a consistent natural gas supply.  Before there was uncertainty about the supply.    They were very bullish on the future of natural gas becoming dominant.

i don’t claim to understand it but I recall the comment.

 

[Incredulity 11879]

7 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I recall listening to some natural gas traders circa 2009.  They mentioned that electrical generation industry finally came to believe in a consistent natural gas supply.  Before there was uncertainty about the supply.    They were very bullish on the future of natural gas becoming dominant.

i don’t claim to understand it but I recall the comment.

 

Nat Gas traded around $8 in the 10 yrs prior to 09.  Its been around $3 since then.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13739]

47 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Nat Gas traded around $8 in the 10 yrs prior to 09.  Its been around $3 since then.

If you have some points to make, please state them.    You’re like a guy that always ends up in the friend zone with women because you can’t get to the point of why you’re talking to them.

[Incredulity 11879]

9 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

If you have some points to make, please state them.    You’re like a guy that always ends up in the friend zone with women because you can’t get to the point of why you’re talking to them.

So sex is off the table?

[Revolution512 1518]

2018 is the first year without any violent tornadoes in the U.S.? Interesting stat

[bolverk 30350]

7 minutes ago, Revolution512 said:

2018 is the first year without any violent tornadoes in the U.S.? Interesting stat

What the hell are you talking about? Are you saying none of this year's tornadoes intended to be violent for the first time ever?

[David Dennison 19560]

13 hours ago, Incredulity said:

Were you in a coma from 09-17?

Barack’s administration used EVERY means possible to eliminate coal fired electricity.  You don’t unring that bell in even a decade.

That bell is never being unrung. 

[Revolution512 1518]

4 hours ago, bolverk said:

What the hell are you talking about? Are you saying none of this year's tornadoes intended to be violent for the first time ever?

They are measured

[elfenix 34754]

here come conservatives with their carbon tax to save us from THE LEFT and SOCIALISM!

 

 

[Revolution512 1518]

Holy shit! That might be the dumbest article on the topic I’ve ever read. Germany....lol and then they list her....fucking wow

Edited December 28, 2018 by Revolution512

[triplehorn 2664]

 

[Blotto 24031]

On 12/27/2018 at 9:17 AM, bolverk said:

What the hell are you talking about? Are you saying none of this year's tornadoes intended to be violent for the first time ever?

No EF4 or EF5 tornadoes touched down.

[ADHD 28]

The Bush Administration did 911 and global warming is the result. And this is the only thing which matters.

You're not allowed to tell people this, they'll make you disappear if you do. 

It is the truth. And for goodness sake, tell the truth.

[ADHD 28]

Voices, they disappear.