I’m in favour of raping and pillaging the planet. Floods? Buy a boat. Weather change? Grow lemons instead of turnips. Just don’t curtail industrial production with one thing, such taxes, on the basis that industrial production will be curtailed by one other thing, such as climate change. Self-defeating idea is self-defeating.
Guys I don’t doubt that ACC does not require mitigation. I only ask how do you suggest an an-cap society can deal with issues which negative effect everyone and which are hard to prove. I gave my version of ACC then, one that is a lot more major that we really have. I’d like a theoretical framework for dealing with these sort of things in an-cap society. Do we really need a state if such things happen? Or is there a more libertarian method at disposal?
Mitigation is nonsense. Even if we can predict how the atmosphere will react to changes in emissions (and nobody can), it will require like 10.000 years for changes to effect. The atmosphere isn’t some predictable mechanism that you can micromanage with minor changes in emissions, and then see the effects show a decade later. Also, the amount of reduction that we could achieve, even if everybody was on board (and developing countries certainly aren’t) can’t do a squat of good. It would require shutting down the entire world economy - zero emissions - for 30 years to mitigate one degree of warming by the UN’s own numbers. Of course they made that up, in reality climate change is controlled by the sun, manmade emissions have no effect. There are numerous other logical contradictions within the notion that you could mitigate global warming. The whole theory was made up precisely for the purpose of requiring state intervention.
Even if you invented some hitherto impossible device that reduced emissions from all chemical reactions by 90% you would just get global warming again when the population has increased 10 times. The only real solution in terms of stopping that is to execute a billion people here and there. But, that is still self-defeating if the issue of the negative impact to begin with is that, let’s say, a billion people around coasts have their homes flooded.
Non/anti-libertarians can croon about “solutions” to the sunset. Truth is, they don’t have any of their own. Never did and never will.
This is a little off topic, but I thought of another objection. Does anybody ever claim that humans were responsible for the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere? It’s always “humans emit a lot of CO2” and “CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have increased by 100 ppm”. But do they ever claim that there is a causal relationship? I think that CO2 concentrations have gone up for natural reasons due to more warming from the sun, not because humans blew it there with factories. As such not even the increase in CO2 concentrations is manmade.
Basically its to late to mitigate man made global warming, the market should have acted 25 years ago [1] and now its up to government but thats not to say that they will act. EmperorNero is right that the market itself cannot act in a way that would move us from a CO2 based economy to a steady state (low growth or zero growth) green economy that would have mitigated global warming. The whole problem cannot be solved by a free market because there is more profit in remaining with the current system which has caused the problem. Every other means of producing energy other than coal, oil or gas is more expensive, and requires government to tax or regulate so that other energy production methods can be profitable. Also there is alot of money invested in the current system as well, transport etc would have to be completely switched over to a new system if oil use was capped or taxed to much. The market has been actively fighting any changes away from coal, oil or gas. Sustainable energy is still way too expensive.
Countries like china which export goods to countries like the USA, who pollute producing the goods we buy would find their goods facing the negative sides of regulations, caps, taxes or research cost that any change would bring. This would likely start a trade war or worse. Climate Change cannot be solved by the governments of the world, as agreement is impossible because of economic hurdles.
We have to change the whole world over to zero emissions or we may in future hit a tipping point [2] and a rapid climate shift will occur. We know in the past such events have occured but it is still very difficult to predict future ones. [3] It could be to late to do anything if we do see the passing of any critical thresholds. If a shift in climate did occur it would be impossible to change the climate back afterwards. With World population forecast to be 9.2 billion people in the world of 2050 and staggering 11.4 billion, by the mid 2060s. Can we risk a large drop in carrying capacity, with biodiversity reduction in future?
What way do you see the free market fixing this problem without the government acting, regulations (voluntary ones have failed already), caps or taxes? Remember this is not a trick question, there is alot of evidence that the market is unsustainable in the long run and that the change to a sustainable economic system must take place at some point. Not everyone thinks we can fix the problem see [4].
[1] Page 3 - The IPCC notes that there are cost-effective solutions, such as retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency, but says they must be implemented in short order to stem further damage. “We are 25 years too late,” Schneider says. “If the object is to avoid dangerous change, we’ve already had it. The object now is to avoid really dangerous change.”
[2] Page 1 - Therefore, our results imply independent empirical evidence for the idea that past abrupt shifts were associated with the passing of critical thresholds.
Source - http://www.indiana.edu/~halllab/L577/Topic3/Dakosetal_2008_PNAS.pdf
[3] Page 1 - tipping points in eco-systems and other complex systems are notoriously hard to predict.
Source - http://www.indiana.edu/~halllab/L577/Topic3/Dakosetal_2008_PNAS.pdf
[4] page 1 - Can We Fix It? perhaps we should start to consider No, we can’t!
source - http://hubpages.com/hub/Can-We-Fix-It-No-we-Cant-Innovation-gets-Harder-and-Costly
This is the one accurate statement in the above post. It’s never 25 years too late to get out the zyklon B.
“This is the one accurate statement in the above post. It’s never 25 years too late to get out the zyklon B.”
It is more or less the academic position and the real world position we are in with most free market thinkers denying climate change is any problem and the science saying in a massive problem. Nothing will ever be done about climate change until its to late, there is no reason for there to be change under the economic system as it is a negative externality. If the negative externality of climate change collectively costs us greatly collectively then it could have the potential of making the whole economic system self-defeating.
please cite a scientific paper on this for me…
Yes, human extinction would make the economic system self-defeating. Why aren’t you this concerned about nuclear war?
“Yes, human extinction would make the economic system self-defeating. Why aren’t you this concerned about nuclear war?”
Do people deny the negative impact of that of nuclear war, do they fail to reduce the number of warheads? Remember the US has eliminated over 13,000 nuclear weapons and thats over 80% of its deployed strategic warheads and 90% of non-strategic warheads.
I think the concern about nuclear weapons is being addressed, why not the same with climate change? Next to nothing has been done, there have been lots of talk, even very limited agreement, but no real action on reducing CO2. CO2 ppm continues to increase, how is a free market going to fix this?
" Eugene:
Again, you ignore my initial assumption, which is that ACC is absolutely catastrophic and will cause massive earthquakes
please cite a scientific paper on this for me…"
I doubt that there will be massive earthquakes due to climate change. lol
Welcome zx128k. You espouse the usual environmental socialist litany that the state is teaching in schools these days. I’m going to set the record straight because I think you probably never heard these arguments before. If you want to discuss this, I’ll be happy to elaborate on any of this. Just don’t post your “sources” and expect me to believe them.
I said no such thing. My point was that mitigation is scientific nonsense and physically impossible. Not just that market liberalism can’t do it, but that the state especially can’t do it, because the state is worse at doing everything. My argument was that a environmental problem that has to be mitigated can’t exist and was manufactured precisely for the purpose that it can’t be fixed by the market and requires statism.
Actually the market has caused a change towards less “CO2 based” fuel sources for hundreds of years. Humanity wen’t from burning hay to burning lumber to burning coal to burning petroleum, and now solar and nuclear. That has been happening because of free markets, not because of environmentalist busybodies. A green economy will happen because of free markets, socialism impedes that progress. The reason India and China are using more coal than the west is that they were socialist until recently. Looking at the empirical evidence would lead you to conclude that environmental socialism is counter-productive.
That we are relying on coal so much is the fault of the last generation of misguided environmental activists; the anti-nuclear energy movement. Without them we would already have a pretty low carbon energy economy.
Business doesn’t care what energy source we use. It doesn’t save them any money, all costs would be passed on to the consumer. This is basic supply and demand economics. If anything, business likes the environmental movement because there’s a lot of profit in selling people more expensive “green” products. The oil and coal lobby love (and fund) the global warming movement, because it helps to cartelize their industry with cap and trade. All the big global warming people come from the oil lobby, including Al Gore.
If something is too expensive, that means it requires resources that humanity doesn’t have. The problem isn’t coming up with enough money, humanity doesn’t have the resources for a green energy economy. The state can’t create resources out of thin air, only the free market creates resources. (And it has been the market that produced changes away from less clean fuel sources.) If the state expropriates resources to subsidize green energy, it merely impoverishes humanity to buy something that people don’t want and can’t afford yet. Some people rather have food on the table than feel-good green energy. That’s a luxury for the rich.
There’s no such thing as a environmental tipping point. The environment isn’t in some balance that we could ‘tip over’. Carbon dioxide levels have always been changing and were 18 times as high before. That didn’t seems to tip the balance. If such events have occurred, they were natural, so why wouldn’t this one be? If it’s natural it can’t be mitigated.
It was just a matter of time until you bring up world populations. Uhh, big numbers are scary. But so what? Big numbers just sound scary, humans have a hard time grasping them, they don’t do anything. Standards of living are going up for pretty much everyone. Make no mistake about it, the only thing that changed about population is that the numbers happened to reach a point where they sound scary. That’s just an artifact of the base ten numeral system.
I’ll risk that before I risk more statism, which was the leading cause of unnatural death in the last century.
Sustainability is a myth. There’s no such thing. All energy sources require human action to be replenished. Even solar panels have to be repaired.
I was waiting for it… but you finally appealed to consensus. I shouldn’t have to tell you that science isn’t about consensus. “The science” does not say that climate change is manmade. A few scientists do, and they are controlled by politicians and oil lobbyists. The core of the climate change science is only produced and understood by a dozen or so people. Everybody else is put on a list that they agree with global warming. They have to sue to get off it, which most scientists don’t dare for fear of their jobs. That’s your consensus, a political fabrication.
Also, climate change is not a scientific theory. A scientific theory has to be falsifiable and verifiable. Climate change is neither.
Yet nuclear weapons would never have been developed if it wasn’t for 20th century statism. If we had a free market there wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.
If you are going to post here you should know that invoking the respectable name of “science” as if we are all base morons that automatically drop to our knees in hail of the favourite avatar of interdisciplinary crankery does not work around here. Just trying to save the thread getting polluted with ye olde sophistry.
Let’s just lay out the options. Which sounds more appealing: 1. Entire world population sitting in fields eating grass and meditating 24/7 like buddhist monks to bring emissions to zero. 2. Spending some resources on revamping infrastructure. I’m going with 2. Anyone going with 1?
yah zx128k!!! Caley has been studying climate science for like 2 weekends now. So keep your namby-pamby IPCC conclusions to yourself!!! We can interpret the evidence for ourselves!!!
I don’t need no “scientist” telling me nothing!!!
“Welcome zx128k. You espouse the usual environmental socialist litany that the state is teaching in schools these days. I’m going to set the record straight because I think you probably never heard these arguments before. If you want to discuss this, I’ll be happy to elaborate on any of this. Just don’t post your “sources” and expect me to believe them.”
I am trying to stick to the science, funny how you a labeling me like religious people do. I guess socialists are your version of what satan worshipers are to christains. I will link to alot of websites, check any links if you want.
“I said no such thing. My point was that mitigation is scientific nonsense and physically impossible. Not just that market liberalism can’t do it, but that the state especially can’t do it, because the state is worse at doing everything. My argument was that a environmental problem that has to be mitigated can’t exist and was manufactured precisely for the purpose that it can’t be fixed by the market and requires statism.”
Mitigation his problems now in that it is to late to stop the warming we have already caused, an additional cost most also be paid by the market to adapt and address the problems this warming may bring. [1] Cost or extent of the required adaptation is unknown. [2]
Likely impacts of increased warming can be seen at [3], but even so we have reached the point where we must act to stop dangerous climate change. [4]
“There’s no such thing as a environmental tipping point”.
Please take a look at this paper, it covers the issue [5] and looks at slowing down as an early warning signal for abrupt
climate change.
“It was just a matter of time until you bring up world populations. Uhh, big numbers are scary. But so what? Big numbers just sound scary, humans have a hard time grasping them, they don’t do anything. Standards of living are going up for pretty much everyone. Make no mistake about it, the only thing that changed about population is that the numbers happened to reach a point where they sound scary. That’s just an artifact of the base ten numeral system.”
Your opinion but this website covers the issue. [6]
“I’ll risk that before I risk more statism, which was the leading cause of unnatural death in the last century.”
Then hopefully your opinion will kill only you.
“Sustainability is a myth. There’s no such thing. All energy sources require human action to be replenished. Even solar panels have to be repaired.”
Sustainability is the capacity to “endure”, if sustainability is a myth then then this economic system cannot endure and must be replaced or it will fail. If this system fails there will not be a future for “free market” thinking. Sustainability is a requirement of any system, all systems fail without it.
“All energy sources require human action to be replenished.” This is factually wrong. Renewable sources can be readily replaced or replenished, either by the earth’s natural processes or by human action. The heat you feel from the sun each day is a renewable energy source but it does not take human action for the sun to come up every day, its a natural process. In contrast, fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas are non-renewable. Once a deposit of these fuels is depleted it cannot be replenished – a replacement deposit must be found instead.
“I was waiting for it… but you finally appealed to consensus. I shouldn’t have to tell you that science isn’t about consensus. “The science” does not say that climate change is manmade.”
See [7] page 3.
“Yet nuclear weapons would never have been developed if it wasn’t for 20th century statism. If we had a free market there wouldn’t be a problem in the first place.”
Nuclear power is a well established low carbon source of electricity and a posible way to reduce CO2 without significantly add to the cost of electricity. See [7]. Nuclear power will most likely be part of the solution to reducing CO2 but is likely to be used with renewable sources.
[1] source - http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/spmsspm-d.html
“Adaptation will be necessary to address impacts resulting from the warming which is already unavoidable due to past emissions.”
[2] At present we do not have a clear picture of the limits to adaptation, or the cost, partly because effective adaptation measures are highly dependent on specific, geographical and climate risk factors as well as institutional, political and financial constraints.
source - http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/spmsspm-d.html
[3] Key impacts as a function of increasing global average temperature change
source - http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/figure-spm-2.html
[4] The stated goal of the UNFCCC – avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate – is in fact unattainable, because today we are already experiencing dangerous anthropogenic interference. The real question now is whether we can still avoid catastrophic anthro-pogenic interference in climate.
source - http://wacsf.vportal.net/launchpad/Client_00057/2007/SF%20Conference/Holdren_presentation.pdf
[5] Slowing down as an early warning signal for abrupt climate change.
source - http://www.indiana.edu/~halllab/L577/Topic3/Dakosetal_2008_PNAS.pdf
[6] Another Inconvenient Truth: The World’s Growing Population Poses a Malthusian Dilemma
source - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=growing-population-poses-malthusian-dilemma
[7] The understanding of anthropogenic warming and cooling influences on climate has improved since
the Third Assessment Report (TAR), leading to very high confidence that the globally averaged net
effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming, with a radiative forcing of +1.6 [+0.6
to +2.4] W m-2.
source - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/02_02_07_climatereport.pdf page 3.
Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. IPCC. Summary for Policymakers.
[7] CHAPTER 2: RENEWABLES AND THE UK ENERGY SYSTEM see part 19 and 23.
source - http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/195/19505.htm
The irony is most environmentalists I cross paths with have studied a climate related science, like meteorology, for less then 2 weekends. Most information available regarding the environment nowdays is mostly political propoganda. Very few publications outside of academia are actually science based.
Sadly that includes alot of information that filters through the IPCC which I have a hard time now distinguishing as just another political organization. But what can you expect from a bureaucracy.
Are those citations you offered worth reading if the very premise of many of them are logical fallacies? It must be embarassing for a scientific community to let such a nasty habbit run rampent.
Student, enough with the trolling.
"
The irony is most environmentalists I cross paths with have studied a climate related science, like meteorology, for less then 2 weekends. Most information available regarding the environment nowdays is mostly political propoganda. Very few publications outside of academia are actually science based.
Sadly that includes alot of information that filters through the IPCC which I have a hard time now distinguishing as just another political organization. But what can you expect from a bureaucracy."
Sounds like you use the same arguments religion uses against science, in the debate over evolution. If you are all illogical, irrational, science denying nut jobs I would rather spend my time elsewhere to be honest.