Want to Slow Climate Change? Stop Having Babies

Is it though in the US? Isn't this just another area where money and corporations rule more than science?
Compared to Europe I am pretty sure that the difference is quite big.

 

If you eat the food and drink the water in the US you rely on public policy based on scientific consensus. Do they get it wrong sometimes (Flint)? Yes. But that is still how we do things

 

As far as I know the food safety controls are terrible in the US... How many people die every year? In the thousands?
How many people actually work for the FDA compared to the European equivalent?

My impression is that the US is woefully behind on these areas but I might be wrong.

 

And yet we eat the food and drink the water

 

Do you have a choice?
It's a weird reply though. I guess I am not wrong?

 

You always have a choice. You can move or live off the land.

 

Well... That requires wealth... I would think that a lot of people do not have those options.
Doesn't matter as this thread is not about that..

I hope Clinton shows the will to do something about AGW... We have lost decades because of the US.
A Trump presidency will be a disaster on a level we haven't seen before. On this issue and many others.

 

And again there is no quantification on the reduction of global average temperature by the Obama Clean Power Plan. I must assume the consensus is zero since nothing else is forthcoming. It is the height of stupidity to implement a public policy with real economic costs which achieves absolutely nothing with respect to the goal of reducing the rate of increase in global average temperature. This can only be attributed to a complete abdication of critical thinking and complete and unquestioning support of eliminating CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. What is next - the reduction in human emissions of CO2 by eliminating certain humans. This comes up in every "town hall" discussion of global warming.

 

The original link brings to mind a new expression I came across - "placebo environmentalism."

http://arachnoid.com/lutusp/populati.html

 

Your link puts the screws to the warmer cult in here saying it's not our fault because it's the third world having all the extra babies. This quote kind of kicks them in the teeth.

"So, given this fantastic population increase, one might ask "What are they doing about it?" There are two answers to this question: (1) nothing, and (2) We are the "they" in the question. It makes no sense to blame third-world countries for uncontrolled population growth. America has 5% of the world's population but consumes 25% of the world's resources. So, in terms of resources used, each new American born equals five world citizens."

 

What's with this warmer cult bit? AGW is a problem. Population and high fossil use are central to the problem. The denialist cults in both cases are out to lunch.

 

So you'd rather talk about a word than the fact that every baby born in America has five times the C02 footprint of a third world baby. You'd rather avoid that subject because it makes you feel like s hypocrite for having and or intending to have more babies

 

Your disingenuousness is glaring. What does America's higher carbon footprint have to do with a "warmer cult"? AGW is a problem. Population AND excessive
fossil fuel use are BOTH contributing to the problem. Your own original link says as much. Curious that you use an AGW article to join forces with the denialist crowd.

Perhaps you are just one confused dude. Ideology has a way of doing that to folks.

 

At it's current rate of CO2 concentration increase AGW will be a net benefit to the human race for the next 200 - 300 years - maybe longer assuming (correctly) that economic growth and technology will allow better adaptation than is possible today.

 

want to slow down the biggest contributor to green house gas emissions? do something about Cow farts

 

Every scientific organization on the planet disagrees with you.

 

The thread is about how having children contributes to AGW and bringing up the fact that one child born in America has the C02 footprint of five children in the third world is something that makes you AGW cultist in America extremely uncomfortable.Truth is a (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) huh.

 

So now you guys are saying " scientific organizations" instead of just scientist because that has proven far too easy to disprove. This is what the AGW cult does time and time again. As one talking point or prediction after another fails they shift words to try and keep one step ahead of reality. The switch from global warming to climate change is the biggest example

 

The guy's not wrong. But that doesn't mean reducing population should be a main goal in the battle against climate change. Just like simply outlawing fossil fuels overnight is not the way to go. There would be unacceptable side effects and consequences to such an immediate, drastic action.

Policy is about making workable, intelligent choices that move us toward our goals in a way that produces the most benefit and the least pain. We have a path forward on climate change that involves transitioning to sustainable energy sources, in conjunction with other practices (recycling, conservation, more efficient use of energy, local-sourcing, better transportation systems, etc.) that reduce our per-capita need for energy. Indeed, the battle against climate change might end up being a global economic BENEFIT, given the new technologies and practices it is generating.

Why wouldn't we go that route, rather than a simplistic "ban babies and oil" approach that would be both authoritarian and economically disastrous?

Heck, you know what I did this year that immediately reduced my carbon footprint, improved my life and helped the economy? I began working from home.

Now the car that I used to drive 25 miles a day to/from work sits in my driveway most days. I'm one fewer car on the roads, meaning less strain on the transportation net, meaning fewer roads needed and less gas wasted idling in backed-up traffic.

For my employer, enough people worked from home that they were able to sublease out half of their office space, making money and reducing the need for more office buildings and all the carbon involved in building, maintaining, heating and lighting them.

That was a pure win-win, for everybody and the planet.

Climate change deniers are the only people who are insisting that fighting climate change must involve destroying the global economy. People actually dealing with the problem understand that that is nonsense.

Your hysteria about a carbon tax is similarly unfounded. A carbon tax is an old CONSERVATIVE, MARKET- BASED IDEA, in which you give your biggest emitters of carbon a financial incentive to reduce emissions. You could do it through tough regulation instead, but a carbon tax is better in almost every way: it is gentler, it is less intrusive, it results in more creativity from the emitters in terms of developing practices and technologies to reduce emissions, it's flexible (if a business NEEDS to emit lots of carbon, it can simply buy offsets from another, more efficient company), and you don't need a massive regulatory structure. It will not destroy the economy or the energy sector. Yes, it is biased against fossil fuels, because they are the biggest emitters of carbon; that is sort of the point. But if oil and coal companies can come up with ways to make their energy less polluting, no problem. It gives them the incentive to do so where no such incentive existed before.

Remember the conservative hysteria over light bulbs? The new energy-consumption standards were a sign of dictatorship. It was unwarranted government intrusion into the marketplace. We were going to have to give up all of our nice, friendly incandescent bulbs for cold, harsh CFL bulbs. They complained that the new bulbs were more expensive, even though they actually SAVED money over their lifetime because of their much higher energy efficiency. Some actually stockpiled incandescents, defending their right to use 10 times more electricity than necessary to light their homes.

What actually happened? The new standards helped drive innovation. We have all sorts of lights that meet the new standards. We are largely moving toward LED bulbs, which are ridiculously energy efficient, last forever, don't have the (minor) environmental downside of CFLs, and can produce light in a range of warmths and colors. As time goes on, economies of scale and technological improvements will make them cheaper and cheaper. The standards didn't damage the economy: they improved it. And lest you forget the point of all this, they are reducing energy consumption, which reduces carbon emissions, which helps fight climate change.

So less carbon, we save money, and we have a range of lighting choices we didn't have before. Another win-win.

That is what the battle against climate change will look like, if deniers would simply accept the scientific reality and get out of the way.

 

Anything you choose to do in your private life to practice what you preach is fine by me but your assertion that a carbon tax is off the table and somehow related to being a conservative is straight from the Twilight Zone.

"A carbon tax is a fee intended to make users of fossil fuels pay for climate damage their fuel use imposes by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and also to motivate switches to cleaner energy. Because CO2 is released in strict proportion to the fuel’s carbon content, the carbon tax can be levied “upstream” on the fuel itself.
Carbon tax is shorthand for carbon dioxide tax or CO2 tax — or, one could say, for a carbon pollution tax.
source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
The essence of every fossil fuel — coal, oil and gas — is its carbon and hydrogen atoms. Oxidizing (combusting) those atoms releases their heat energy. Natural gas has the highest hydrogen per carbon ratio, making it the least carbon-intensive fuel, while coal is the opposite. When these fuels are burned, CO2 is released into the atmosphere and remains resident there, trapping heat re-radiated from Earth’s surface and causing global warming and other harmful climate change.
The carbon content of every form of fossil fuel, from anthracite to lignite coal, from heating oil to natural gas, is precisely known. A carbon tax would obey these proportions, taxing coal more heavily than petroleum products, and much more than natural gas. This makes a carbon tax simple to document and measure.
How is a carbon tax implemented?

Utilizing existing tax collection mechanisms, a carbon tax is paid “upstream,” i.e., at the point where fuels are extracted from the Earth and put into the stream of commerce, or imported into the U.S. Fuel suppliers and processors would pass along the cost of the tax to the extent that market conditions allow. Placing a tax on carbon gives consumers and producers a monetary incentive to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions while adjusting prices of fossil fuels to reflect the damages to our planet"

NB: Canada now has its own page, in recognition of its several actual and proposed provincial carbon taxes. Discussed at length is the British Columbia carbon tax, befitting its status as the most comprehensive and transparent carbon tax in the Western Hemisphere, if not the world.

This page reports on carbon taxes that have been enacted or proposed around the world, including in:
Ireland
Australia
Chile
Sweden
Other Nations (including Finland, Great Britain, and New Zealand)

 

Nothing you wrote after this line meaningfully addressed what I wrote.

A carbon tax is conservative because it is a market-based approach, rather than a direct regulatory approach. It is the least intrusive, most flexible way to reduce carbon emissions from energy and manufacturing companies.

The only way you can claim it's not is if you view ANY regulation as non-conservative, which is lunacy.

 

Over 90% of scientist that study climate would disagree with AFM.

 

And any carbon tax large enough to significantly reduce the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere would be completely unacceptable for political and economic reasons. And it would be a morally wrong action resulting in loss of human life.

 

73% of economist disagree with you.

 

Please cite your basis for that claim.