(Some of) The Cost of Carbon Emissions

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SageBrush said:
powersurge said:
Isn't it amazing ...
Your post is a series of straw men and logical fallacy.

No rebuttal needed.

I appreciate that you responded and tallied your difference of opinion to my post.

However, whenever there are challenges to the "climate change" ideology, I never hear facts included to the rebuttal... The truth is that no one actually knows anyone who is dying or having a life-changing event as a result of too much carbon in the air.

The best that anyone who believes in climate change can do is "believe" that the scientists they hear about (indirectly) are correct. Another term for "believing" in something they cannot prove is called "trust"... Or should I say.... FAITH.... Which is the term for a religion. I have my religion, I do not need carbon emissions to be an additional religion.
 
powersurge said:
SageBrush said:
powersurge said:
Isn't it amazing ...
Your post is a series of straw men and logical fallacy.

No rebuttal needed.

I appreciate that you responded and tallied your difference of opinion to my post.

However, whenever there are challenges to the "climate change" ideology, I never hear facts included to the rebuttal... The truth is that no one actually knows anyone who is dying or having a life-changing event as a result of too much carbon in the air.

The best that anyone who believes in climate change can do is "believe" that the scientists they hear about (indirectly) are correct. Another term for "believing" in something they cannot prove is called "trust"... Or should I say.... FAITH.... Which is the term for a religion. I have my religion, I do not need carbon emissions to be an additional religion.

It is a huge sleight of the hand, from trust to faith. I trust scientists, because they have verifiable evidence, repeatable results and self-correcting mechanism. Faith has nothing; you have nothing, besides rhetoric. Based on this faulty logic, you we take it on faith that the planet is round. This is an indication of a substantial gap in one's education.
 
roussir said:
It is a huge sleight of the hand, from trust to faith. I trust scientists, because they have verifiable evidence, repeatable results and self-correcting mechanism. Faith has nothing; you have nothing, besides rhetoric. Based on this faulty logic, you we take it on faith that the planet is round. This is an indication of a substantial gap in one's education.
Well said !

Since no one wants to discuss the OP I'll go off on a tangent and mention that not too long ago I asked myself and then my wife if either of us could reasonably prove to ourselves that the Earth is round (other than staring at photographs ;) )
Common sense and simple reasoning tells us that it is so but any attempt at rigor is not that easy. I realized that an overwhelming fraction of what we take as correct and true for the natural world has been fed to us as facts that we do not question and cannot prove. So what is a student of science and the scientific method to do ?

Well, I realized that we are recipients of what I think of as a chain of custody of science. A few really smart people figure things out and those ideas are vetted by a few other really smart people and the passage of time. These ideas slowly trickle down the pyramid until they reach us. So while we cannot vett them ourselves, we rely on rigorous observation, x-checks, application and the analysis of others who apply the scientific method.

As you say, it is not faith; but it is trust in a very tried and successful mechanism.
 
SageBrush said:
roussir said:
It is a huge sleight of the hand, from trust to faith. I trust scientists, because they have verifiable evidence, repeatable results and self-correcting mechanism. Faith has nothing; you have nothing, besides rhetoric. Based on this faulty logic, you we take it on faith that the planet is round. This is an indication of a substantial gap in one's education.
Well said !

Since no one wants to discuss the OP I'll go off on a tangent and mention that not too long ago I asked myself and then my wife if either of us could reasonably prove to ourselves that the Earth is round (other than staring at photographs ;) )

Common sense and simple reasoning tells us that it is so but any attempt at rigor is not that easy. I realized that an overwhelming fraction of what we take as correct and true for the natural world has been fed to us as facts that we do not question and cannot prove. So what is a student of science and the scientific method to do ?
It helps to live near an ocean. :D
 
SageBrush said:
...not too long ago I asked myself and then my wife if either of us could reasonably prove to ourselves that the Earth is round (other than staring at photographs ;) )
Common sense and simple reasoning tells us that it is so but any attempt at rigor is not that easy. I realized that an overwhelming fraction of what we take as correct and true for the natural world has been fed to us as facts that we do not question and cannot prove. So what is a student of science and the scientific method to do ?

Go 50 miles east and she goes 50 miles west. You both drive a measured stake into the ground, plumb, so that you have exactly 1 yard long above the ground. You both measure the shadow cast at the same time (length and direction). Wait an hour and repeat. Try it again but orient yourselves on a north-south line. The more data points you collect the clearer it will become that you're living on a ball. You can even calculate a reasonable diameter for that ball.
 
Nubo said:
Go 50 miles east and she goes 50 miles west. You both drive a measured stake into the ground, plumb, so that you have exactly 1 yard long above the ground. You both measure the shadow cast at the same time (length and direction). Wait an hour and repeat. Try it again but orient yourselves on a north-south line. The more data points you collect the clearer it will become that you're living on a ball. You can even calculate a reasonable diameter for that ball.
You are starting with some assumptions about the sun, namely that it stays in the same place and that it far enough way to shine parallel light on to the earth.

A test with 3 people is a better argument, but how many people can come up with that on their own ?
 
SageBrush said:
Nubo said:
Go 50 miles east and she goes 50 miles west. You both drive a measured stake into the ground, plumb, so that you have exactly 1 yard long above the ground. You both measure the shadow cast at the same time (length and direction). Wait an hour and repeat. Try it again but orient yourselves on a north-south line. The more data points you collect the clearer it will become that you're living on a ball. You can even calculate a reasonable diameter for that ball.
You are starting with some assumptions about the sun, namely that it stays in the same place and that it far enough way to shine parallel light on to the earth.

Most people have seen evidence of this.
1065333_450_450_81514_0_stretch_0_231d23bd34ff24b2221956b735a24923.jpg


A test with 3 people is a better argument, but how many people can come up with that on their own ?

The Greeks did, thousands of years ago.
 
I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion.

My basic opposition is the idea to use current money and resources for a long term cause when our country has so many more present day challenges.
 
powersurge said:
I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Opinions, yes. Actions are something different.

powersurge said:
My basic opposition is the idea to use current money and resources for a long term cause when our country has so many more present day challenges.

That's why you don't save for retirement, eh?
 
You make a good point (that people don't believe that the funds will be used responsibly). I prefer the "carbon fee & dividend" scheme, where every dollar extra that gets collected at the pump gets refunded to citizens or state residents. I'm also biased because I know I'm cheap, but the world is full of spendthrifts, so I will personally come-out ahead :) .


johnlocke said:
Taxes on gasoline were supposed to be used to fund road repairs. How did that work out?

It worked-out miserably, but not due to "politicians redirecting the money": rather, nobody could ever increase the gas tax (because politics), even as cars consumed less gas per mile, and the amount of money collected per gallon got smaller due to inflation, and the price of road repairs increased much faster than inflation. It got to the point where the gas tax is not even half of the money spent on roads & bridges by my state (MN).

In my state, gas tax generated $0.9 bn in 2018 but the Trunk + County + Municipal highways and bridges it funds used-up $2.95 bn.

In my state, you _could_ accurately complain that 3% of the gas tax money goes to non-road/bridge things like ATV trails and tax collection, but for every dollar of gas tax "siphoned off" to pay for these non-road uses, there are $58 which were collected other ways (e.g. sales tax), but got "siphoned IN" and lumped-together with the gas tax to pay for the roads and bridges.

Maybe other states fund more things with gas tax, but you'd need a crazy high gas tax to actually collect more money than is spent on roads & bridges. If MN ($0.286/gal) collected the same per gallon as CA ($0.5522/gal), MN would still come up short when it's time to pay for roads, if it wasn't also taking money from other places.

https://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/hwyfin.pdf
 
Here's an article explaining why CA has the highest gas prices in the country and where a lot of it goes, partly because we've internalized some of the externalities, and also because our roads have been neglected far too long, and are in crappy shape: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea...an-nickel-a-gallon-on-14016075.php?psid=bC1QN

Note that here, at least, the public has been willing to tax itself to improve transport infrastructure, because everyone has experienced the problems. IIRR the environmental components of the tax (cap and trade, LCFS, gas station cleanup) were done by the legislature, but generally with public support. Of course, our fuel taxes are still far less than is the case in Europe.
 
powersurge said:
My basic opposition is the idea to use current money and resources for a long term cause when our country has so many more present day challenges.
Ahh ... so your extra $10 a month not spent on clean energy is directed to what national challenge specifically ?

More importantly (to me anyway) is a basic flaw in your reasoning:
You are dumping your pollution and the costs of your pollution on other people and future generations. Why do you think you have that right ?
 
Gallup says that only 4% of Americans see "enviroment/pollution/climate change" as the most important problem as of June 2019.
Just 4% and the way the data is totaled they are likely rounding up.
 
I don't know if anyone has considered that all media is run by governmental reports that are geared towards unmentioned end goals.

All of this global warming news has been circulated in order for us to agree to new laws that are "good for the environment".

We, as a country, love to say "yes" to all of our idealistic goals such as "humanitarian crisis", "no children in cages", "self-driving cars" etc.

Has anyone been following the CURRENT underhanded governmental push for cities to pass unadvertised "Sustainable Cities" laws? This is the result of future "city planning" to build "green" cities which will include no cars, with government controlled mass transit. Some of those sustainability laws will be Where people are allowed to live, and what "nature areas" will not be open to people. They disguise their intentions with nice sounding terms... I mean.... No one will say no to a law for "self-sustainable cities".... Right?

Also, they will push a new economy with all of the "green technology" like wind, solar, and high tech building technology. Do you have any idea how much money is to be made with these deals to replace all of the infrastructure of out country?

At this rate, we will all be happily saying "Yes" to restricting our lives and living in "green" sardine-can tenements in 50-75 years. Would anyone like to be living in cities like the dystopian science fiction movies? Check out the cities in movies like Demolition Man, Blade Runner, Judge Dredd, and The Fifth Element. That is what the government wants to do in the name of "saving the planet".

Yes, I know, you will probably think that I am a nut, and wear a tin foil hat against alien control rays.... However, when there is an overwhelming governmental "goal", I like to think what will happen decades from now... Just consider my points..
 
Not necessarily a "nut," but you do seem to think that enviros have much more power than they do, while not noticing the truly vast power of the energy industry, the money it makes from mindsets like yours, or the near-unanimity of the world's climate scientists in believing that the world's human population is on the verge of ending the planetary ecosystem as we know it.
 
This is true. The NM renewable energy act was written by out of states activists and appears to benefit a 3rd party more than NM citizens.
 
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