North Pole Movement

No, I'm not joking.

Thankfully there're also a lot of scientifically sound research (=most of it) in the USA, as you have noticed. Still it seems, that the majority of the denial folk (still the minority) are there too.

Personally I don't care whether the majority of the credible climate scientist is 97 %, 95 % or even 80 %. AFAIK it's still the vast majority.

For me it seems, that many of "you" suffer from the mass neurosis, which is gripping the world and underming much of the efforts needed to soften the harmful effects of the climate change.

AFAIK the sky is not falling (don't know how it could be...?).

Haven't bought any.

That's what I meant before. On the second quote the climate change awereness is labelled as "leftist", which understandably alienates many of those, who cannot see behind the labels. E.g. I consider myself as politically "conservative" (= non-socialist), which does not mean I should not stop thinking with my own brains...

Not any "authority", but the people with the needed education and proven research history. The "scientist" in your example were hardly scientist by moders standards and therefore do not count.

So far those trillions of dollars have been skimmed from the consumers by the oil, coal etc. producers, whose profits have not been taxed properly to cover the costs of the devastation they cause to the nature and to the health of the people. Just look at the situation in China to see the extreme consequencies. The USA and the other western countries are better, but not enough so.

 

I'd much prefer those profits went into private corporations which create jobs, fuel investment and provide energy. Money taken by government might as well be burned.

 

I was being diplomatic.

No, you're having a laugh. You must be.

It might be...in North America. I'm not aware of the planet being renamed North America though.

 

Well, you should be since the USA is still one of the major polluters both in total numbers (after China) and per capita (after Australia and some minor oil producing countries).

It's good that the USA has started to do something but there's still long way to go compered to the other countries.

Since you brought it up, please click on the graph:

View attachment 21158

Finland is not sinless but as you can see, there's still quite a difference to the US levels.

When making comparisons it would be fair to have equivalent data, i.e. comparing same years. For Finland 1990 was economically very tough time (= low emissions) and thus very exceptional, because then the international depression was combined with the collapse of the USSR, which wiped c. 25 % of Finnish exports.

And talking about the share of fossil fuels and peat, almost all Finnish rivers are already in the energy use. The solar energy is not really an answer in Finland, where the sun only shines for couple of hours in the winter. The wind energy is stil very, very expensive. Finland is one of the few countries which is building new nuclear reactors as we speak, which should make things a bit better.

It would also be fair to keep in mind, that Finland is situatuated far North between the 60th and 70th parallels, as e.g. Alaska. That means lots of heating. The population is small, which means no advantages of scale. Also many of the Finnish export products (such as paper, pulp, mining products etc.), bought and consumed in other countries, need lots of energy too. What excuses do the USA have...?

Haven't seen that many serious studies with "a vast difference". In general they all show severe effects. Personally I would not like to gamble on such an issue.

So are you saying, that the other private corporations creating jobs, investments and providing CLEANER energy are somehow worse...? Can't quite follow your logics...

Governments have to (should) guide the society in such way, that the individuals or corporations are not allowed to steal our mutual possessions - like clean air, water and such - without having to pay.

Thankfully not.



Moderator Edit: Please Use the MultiQuote option when responding to multiple posts within the same thread. I grow weary of merging your multiple responses. If you need assistance, please contact one of the moderators.

 

Do you remember that thread where we compared cost of living in Finland vs the US? You pay triple what we do for fuel, double for food, double for an automobile, etc. Who is stealing your income and making it harder to live, is it some evil corporation or your own government?

 

Bush

 

Just for further confusion of those who cannot or will not understand "Global Warming"....I like to look at the environment around me where I have worked and spent my time. The San Juan Basin of New Mexico has many different gas producing formations that ultimately end up in the nation's natural gas pipelines going east west and south from that area and more recently even north. One of the newest of devices is a "plunger lift" which operates by something that drops down to the bottom of the well and then makes a trip up by rising with the gas up the drill hole. The problem is during this rise the gas above the lift must be vented to atmosphere to enable the whole system of recovery of low pressure gases in the lesser producing wells but it is a way of recovering something that was not recoverable before. What does the total venting of all those low older wells put into the atmosphere in methane? A single companie's wells usually numbers in the thousands or more if they are a big company and a large number of them are old wells needing "plunger lifts".Secondly, the recovery of byproducts from natural gas requires the removal of all CO2 to prevent freezes that would build up of ice in the internals of cold temperature Cryogenic recovery of natural gas liquids.(supplies our plastics industry) Although there was talk of collecting all the CO2 it was never completed so all plants that do the Cryo process vent their CO2 to atmosphere...which adds up with the colossal size coal burning electrical generating that also happens nearby. Also, visible from space of course is the burning of natural gas byproducts that have occurred with the new shale oil movements in the Dakotas where there are no collective pipelines for the methanes that regularly get "flared" or vented to be safely rid of them from the crudes that are then loaded on trains or crude pipelines for market. So as we use and produce more energy we put more things into the air on massive scales compared to times before now. So I know you have been thinking of cow methane and termite farts as to being major causes of these things in the atmosphere you can now hunt for calculations that would provide information on a whole other new source of things we must necessarily send to our atmosphere to keep you warm, out of the dark, and moving down the roads. Those things have a cost besides the one you must pay from the wallet. You may not notice a rise in water but I do notice those mornings when the exhausts of those power plants blow hundreds of miles away in an inversion and our normally clear blue skies are filthy shades of varying grays and browns, until a wind comes up strong enough to move it away and thin it out. I guess many need to travel to the back country and see what is going on once in a while......gain a little learning and information from actually being in those areas where our needs are being met by use of the resources. Oh and I have even left out the plethora of gas compressor engines and turbines that move the natural gas to markets which is another world of large scale venting of exhausts to atmosphere that must be used to move methane around. Sorry about that.

 

Methane? Here's the leading producer of methane to the atmosphere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9GU4P-1AWI

 

Apologies, wasn't aware I should have done that. Will do in the future.

 

I do...

Your fuel is artificially "cheap" and the price of it does not cover the pollution it causes. Our high taxation of fuel encourages people to buy more economical cars and drive less, as well as companies to find different forms of energy and invest in them.

Our food is cleaner and healthier.

As a matter of fact e.g the oil companies are stealing our income and making it harder to live all over the earth.

And since you want to make comparisons, Finland actually is not that bad place to live. Here's one study...:

Which country is the best in the world for humans?
Top 10 countries:

1. New Zealand
2. Switzerland
3. Iceland
4. Netherlands
5. Norway
6. Sweden
7. Canada
8. Finland
9. Denmark
10. Australia
Selected others:
12. Germany
13. Great Britain
16. United States
20. France
102. India

http://metro.co.uk/2014/04/03/which-country-is-the-best-in-the-world-for-humans-find-out-how-britain-fared-4688018/

 

Market price is market price. Your price is artificially high because government steals money by adding an enormous tax. Doubling the price of food with another enormous tax does not make it "cleaner." The same can be said for any other commodity you need to live where government doubles or trebles the price with a tax.

It's a lot like gangsters in large cities in the US 75-100 years ago. Each gang controlled an ethnic district and everyone in it had to pay "protection" money. If you didn't pay, a couple of thugs would stop by and break your legs. When governments become too large, they are no different than gangsters. You had better pay double or triple for what you need or a couple of thugs will come by and steal everything you own and perhaps lock you up in a cage.

You need some government and some taxes, but when prices are inflated to those levels you're just getting robbed.

 

Now this is just too funny!

Your government is charging you high taxes, but the oil companies are "stealing" your income making it harder for you to live

Hook...Check

Line...Check

Sinker...Check

Yep, he swallowed them all.

 

In case one of us is afflicted, or all of us.....http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/info_schedule_battle/Anti_Government_Phobia.html

 

So, it's a phobia to not want to pay double or triple for the basic commodities I need to survive? This is the issue at hand and it flows from another thread where the basic prices in Finland were compared to US prices. What sacrifices would you have to make if chicken was $10 a pound and heating fuel was $12 a gallon (as in Finland)? A Volkswagen Golf (a very economical car) is 33K in Finland and 19K in the US. The "evil" corporations aren't doing this to the people of Finland, their own government is.

Our socialists would do the same thing here if we allowed them. This is what carbon taxes are all about - a concerted push to wildly inflate the price of energy, which wildly inflates the price of every other commodity you need to survive. And that money would be used to wildly inflate the size of government so they can regulate every aspect of your life.

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll regulate my own life and eat $2 chicken and let Finland keep their $10 chicken.

 

Calm yourself Kodiak, and enjoy the article for what it is sarcastic humor...

Seriously...Dr. Ivor E. Tower..."ivory tower"...Get it.


Excellent find Victor! Quite a humorous article. Do you have any more? I love those sarcastic fake articles that are written as if they were the "real deal."
Or...wait...Did you think this article was actually "real"? If so, never mind then.

 

As our constitution is a " We the people" document and there is so much talk about the "government" doing this and that(perhaps the Federal government) to us..... I am just raising a call to closely examine what we say and write, because if we are constitutionalists we must beleive that we are the government or we are not following or honoring the preamble of the document we run self government by. I was once told by a practicing head shrink that one sick person can make a thousand people sick as well(made me think of Hitler)....I don't think of a thousand however but I do think of the "helter skelter murderer" that had enough mind control to have a following to do his bidding. So I simply raise the question with the article that carefully explains a lot of things...is there a mass hysteria hanging about our politic? A person will have to answer this for themselves. (I do confess to occasional bouts of sarcasm however)

 

If I steal your car and sell it, is that "market price" I get for it? Market price is only that, if the price covers all the costs, also the ones the seller does not want to pay for but wants to steal from the others (= the people of the society).

Your price is artificially low because the oil/coal etc. companies are stealing your/our clean water, your/our clean air and also your/our health. What would be the fair price for YOUR health - or your children's...?

Our food is not expensive mainly/only because of taxation, but because of Northern climate (lower productivity), small population (worse economics of scale) and strict(er) laws for pesticides (lower productivity, cleaner food) and genetic manipulation (lower productivity, presumably healthier food).

You seem to have a personal / principled problem with all kinds of taxation. Although I do not love my taxes and on (too) many occasions the taxes indeed are too high/harmful, in general they still are beneficial and necessary to make the society better for everybody. That's why also the wealthy people in Finland / Nordic countries do not object higher taxation, because they understand the direct and especially indirect benefits also for them. Don't know about your government, but our government uses the taxes for us, the people.

It's nothing like that. Your ideas of government(s) is very twisted. Maybe it's a cultural thing I will never understand? Maybe it has something to do with the corruption...?

The least corrupted countries of the world in 2013:
"

1. Denmark, score 91
2. New Zealand (tied with Denmark for No. 1), score 91
3. Finland, score 89
4. Sweden (tied with Finland for No. 3), score 89
5. Norway, score 86
6. Singapore (tied with Norway for No. 5), score 86
7. Switzerland, score 85
8. Netherlands, score 83
9. Australia, score 81
10. Canada (tied with Australia for No. 9), score 81

What of the United States? The world's largest economy sits at No. 19 with a score of 73, while its fellow Anglophones to the north and south, Canada and Australia, are tied for 9th place with scores of 81. (Both have dropped since last year. In 2012, Canada scored an 84 and Australia an 85.) The United Kingdom is ranked No. 14."

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230189

Glad to have been able to amuse you...

Our government is exactly that, OURS, elected by us and in general executing our democratic, common will. The taxes it collects are for US, so it does not steal. The oil and such companies do not so much steal (mainly) our income but our air, water and health.

It's funny how in the country, which advertises her excellence in democracy, there are still so many people not really believing in democratic governing, but prefer some kind of anarchy of the strongest á la Wild West...

It's a phobia not understanding, that an artificially low price, achieved by exploiting mutual possessions for free, is not a market price.

About the prices of food and energy see my earlier answers.

Like in the USA also in Finland it's sensible to tax imported goods higher than the ones produced domestically. VWs are not made in Finland but are in the USA.

You have a very different idea of "socialists" than the rest of the world. E.g. I have never voted for any socialist party and never will. On the other hand you propably would call (incorrectly) ALL parties in Finland as "socialists".

About the meanings and tasks of governments see my earlier answers.

If all people would only "regulate their own lifes" that would mean total anarchy. About the prices and quality of food see my earlier answers...

 

KB, it is well known, that the greed-based economy does not cover long term hidden costs at all. Environmental degradation, habitat loss, the potential loss of alternative uses, health effects of even non-consumers, are just the easy ones to list.

Sitting around pretending that the market-based economy has all the answers is very naive.

Market-based economies work well to solve supply and demand situations, but they do require a fair competition, and have one answer to any moral-based decisions (cash is king). Which might be nice if your a billionaire, but if you're an ordinary person that enjoys a walk in the forest, sooner or later that forest is getting turned into something that is going to make the billionaire richer.