Irreversible climate damage is imminent

[i_got_a_mohawk]

We have to remember that one way or another, fossil fuels are going to run out - not today, not tomorrow, but they will run out - so it makes sense to have replacement tech in place that is as mature as possible for when that starts to happen.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

We have to remember that one way or another, fossil fuels are going to run out - not today, not tomorrow, but they will run out - so it makes sense to have replacement tech in place that is as mature as possible for when that starts to happen.

And that's why it's important we start working towards the advancements of those technologies now, while we still have plenty of petroleum to sustain us through their advancement. It'd be unwise to start on those technologies only when real shortages begin to emerge.

 

[Unrepresented]

Where would you lose stability?

In my dream system those with more would contribute more, those with less would contribute less, but everyone would contribute something, thus being invested in society and incentivized to improve and preserve it. All while simultainiously taking power away from the powers that be to limit their tomfoolery creating and manipulating false markets via tax code manipulation. Win/win.


+1 to eliminating all this plastic.

A) Good news. We are currently living in your dream system. The tax rate is progressive. Everyone pays taxes. Done.

B) As for government investment as a means of stability:

1) you're aware we're conducting this conversation almost entirely based around technology, materials, and science created by government projects.

2) Individuals are incredibly short sighted. Most of us live paycheck to paycheck, and tend to be kinda small thinkers. The government is the one thing capable of having sufficient capital and foresight to both develop large scale products and projects and to fund them.

 

[Unrepresented]

Not true. Petroleum has lasted as long as it has because it is the most dense form of energy available for us to use. There are no other sources of energy to power our industrial society that provide anything close to the energy density and transportability of petroleum.

Every industrialized country in the world uses vast amounts of petroleum to keep things running along.

Murder is the must efficient and permanent way to settle differences of opinion.

 

[will33]

A) Good news. We are currently living in your dream system. The tax rate is progressive. Everyone pays taxes. Done.

B) As for government investment as a means of stability:

1) you're aware we're conducting this conversation almost entirely based around technology, materials, and science created by government projects.

2) Individuals are incredibly short sighted. Most of us live paycheck to paycheck, and tend to be kinda small thinkers. The government is the one thing capable of having sufficient capital and foresight to both develop large scale products and projects and to fund them.

The current system keeps people at the bottom pinned there in a never-ending cycle of dependency while subsidizing those at the top, making sure they stay at the top.

Doesn't seem very progressive to me.

 

[Unrepresented]

The current system keeps people at the bottom pinned there in a never-ending cycle of dependency while subsidizing those at the top, making sure they stay at the top.

Doesn't seem very progressive to me.

I agree there is room for improvement, but the broad description you made matches our system.

 

[NWB]

Murder is the must efficient and permanent way to settle differences of opinion.

What do you mean by this?

Do I need a restraining order?

 

[Unrepresented]

What do you mean by this?

Do I need a restraining order?

Just trying to point out that the most efficient thing to do won't always be the most harmonious option. We create laws for harmony which long term ideally builds efficiency. There's no reason that fossil fields had to be protected by law any more than any other action or product.

 

[gbrooding]

The tax rate is progressive. Everyone pays taxes. Done.

Are you talking about Income Tax rates? Because if so, you are wrong...

 

[mapadofu]

That may be true in some parts of the world, though here, and I'd imagine in most developed nations, pretty sure poor people aren't living on ocean front property. It's usually the more well to do that can afford those properties.

Could use that to argue economic destruction though. Wipe out a few major port cities in any country and watch what happens to their economy.

It seems like even 1m of sea level rise would displace quite a few Americans (rich and poor), let alone Dutch, Englishmen (London), Bangladeshi etc.

Link Removed

 

[NWB]

Just trying to point out that the most efficient thing to do won't always be the most harmonious option. We create laws for harmony which long term ideally builds efficiency. There's no reason that fossil fields had to be protected by law any more than any other action or product.

I think you could have made your point in less ominous terms.

 

[Unrepresented]

Are you talking about Income Tax rates? Because if so, you are wrong...

No. I wasn't limiting it to strictly income tax rates. That would ignore capital gains taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, etc.

 

[Ironbar]

Great. The thread has devolved from a talk about climate change into one about social structures. Time to close this boondoggle.

 

[Unrepresented]

Great. The thread has devolved from a talk about climate change into one about social structures. Time to close this boondoggle.

Bummer. Your entrance is typically a welcome sign for moderate, intellectual conversation.:|

 

[gbrooding]

No. I wasn't limiting it to strictly income tax rates. That would ignore capital gains taxes, payroll taxes, sales taxes, etc.

Well, the only tax rate that you could argue that everyone pays is sales tax. Not everyone pays the others that you listed. And sales tax is not progressive.

 

[Unrepresented]

Well, the only tax rate that you could argue that everyone pays is sales tax. Not everyone pays the others that you listed. And sales tax is not progressive.

Agreed. Let's discuss this item further in the taxation thread. As Ironbar pointed out with his typical insight, we're off topic.

 

[aborgman]

It isn't my burden to disprove the claims. It is the burden of those making the claims to prove them so, under the scrutiny of peer review and rigorous testing.

So you don't understand science?

... in science there is no 'knowledge', in the sense in which Plato and Aristotle understood the word, in the sense which implies finality; in science, we never have sufficient reason for the belief that we have attained the truth. ... This view means, furthermore, that we have no proofs in science (excepting, of course, pure mathematics and logic). In the empirical sciences, which alone can furnish us with information about the world we live in, proofs do not occur, if we mean by 'proof' an argument which establishes once and for ever the truth of a theory."

- Karl Popper

"A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration."

- Bertrand Russell

"It is the aim of science to establish general rules which determine the reciprocal connection of objects and events in time and space. For these rules, or laws of nature, absolutely general validity is required — not proven."

- Albert Einstein

 

[aborgman]

Even if it is a "wash" (it won't be) shifting the entire world's populations around the globe to different areas seems like a massive, massive undertaking, and far, far more invasive than just limiting some emissions in the first place.

Bingo.

Humans are highly dependent on modern agriculture. Modern agriculture is almost wholly dependent on predictability.

Climate change, in and of itself, isn't necessarily bad. It's the rate of change that may be a serious issue.

 

[aborgman]

Basically everything the government does picks winners and losers on some level. The government had been picking petroleum as a winner for the last century. It wasn't market manipulation when something went wrong then.

Yep...

Houses over apartments (see mortgage tax deduction)

Children over childless (child tax credit)

Saving over spending, certain savings over others (tax deductability of 401k/IRA/various investments)

Investing over saving (capital gains taxes).

...and on and on and on...

 

[DwaynieAD]

And that's why it's important we start working towards the advancements of those technologies now, while we still have plenty of petroleum to sustain us through their advancement. It'd be unwise to start on those technologies only when real shortages begin to emerge.

and this is the false dichotomy often presented. just because someone doesn't believe the climate change alarmists doesn't mean they want to scorch the earth and rape her for her resources nor does it mean they are against green energy.