We're melting, we're meltingFollow

Ok. Since your answer is at least more interesting the Red's:



Ok. I'm well aware that we pick and choose a level of government intervention.

The distinction I'm making is between those things that are traditionally within the "scope" of a government, and those which are not.

National defense is part of the natural scope of a government. Trade infrastructure is part of that scope as well (road building). A legal system is part of that scope (so the whole "it's illegal to kill folks" falls under there). Representing our interests to the rest of the world (foreign policy) falls under the natural scope of government. All of these things are legitimate powers that a government should have (arguably *must* have), and therefore are legitimate things to gather revenue via taxation for.

Paying for individual citizens health care is *not* part of the natural scope of a government. Paying for individual citizens housing is *not* part of the natural scope of a government. Heck. Providing an education for the people is not either. We may choose to provide some of these things, but we must always recognize that they are "extra" things that a government "may" do, but is not required to do. They should always be the first things cut if we find ourselves short of cash and the last things to be expanded.

Yet most liberals will argue the exact opposite. I'm simply pointing out that difference. It's a big one.



Every county is not the same. Nor is the solution "fair" or equal". It would be like saying that it was "fair" that every family got to live in the same sized house whether the family consisted of a single person or two parents with 12 kids. The US produced vastly more industrial goods then any other nation on the earth. By a huge factor. It is patently ridiculous to argue that we should produce no more pollution then a nation that has 1/10th our industrial output.

Put it another way. Should the carbon emissions for a semi-truck be the same as a compact car? Or should perhaps the emissions be calculated in relation to the weight carried by the vehicle? See what I'm talking about?

Besides which, Kyoto doesn't even work that way. It does not give a carbon "quota" in terms of an absolute amount each nation may generate. It's done in the other direction. Each nation, depending on it's current carbon emissions must reduce its carbon emissions by a set percent of its current rate. They each have a "quota" to reduce. That's the quota that the can trade. That's why it'll simply result in industry artificially costing more to operate in the US, then in some other nation. But since Kyoto makes *no* account of actual emissions as a percentage of production, this will result in industry moving from where it's expensive (the US) to where its cheap. Resulting in an increase in global emissions (cause where it's cheap is also where the least restrictions on emissions are placed).

Read the accord. Don't just parrot what you've heard.



No. Not even close. I don't think you understand just how much a 7% reduction in CO2 emissions would require. Your solution is the equivalent to blocking a tidal wave by holding a small bucket in front of you and expecting to just scoop it up or something.



It might at that (probably not since that's just power generation and does not account for actual industry that makes stuff). However, that's an absolute impossiblity. Geothermal only works in a small number of locations (we don't live in Iceland), and the one place it would work really well in is a national park. You try to talk the environmentalists into letting you build geothermal power plants in Yellowstone and then get back to me about how this is a great idea. Wind power is equally difficult. And also blocked by environmentalists because of the soil erosion and migratory bird deaths caused by the arrays. Tidal? Yup. Would work. But those darn environmentalists would never let you build them either. Damage to reefs and the fragile aquatic ecosystem and all that. Solar? Your kidding. First off, while solar panel production has advanced, it still requires almost as much "nasty pollution" involved in the production of the panels as you save by running them for the average lifespan of the panels themselves (a fact that solar power advocates conveniently forget to mention). And that's great for small amounts of power generation. For large quantities, you'd need solar panel arrays miles in size. And once again, the environmentalists wont let you build them because they block the sunlight and kill all the plant life underneath them.

And all of those combined, even if we implemented them as efficiently as possible would not possibly be able to make up more then maybe 30% of the US energy needs. The only one you listed that could is nuclear, but I'm pretty sure the environmentalists screwed that one too...

See a pattern? I do. You pick your poison. CO2 emissions? Or those other issues. Maybe if the "left" wasn't made up of a bunch of groups each overfocused on their own narrow causes, we wouldn't have the problems we're having right now. Just a thought.



Preaching to the choir here. I've always been an advocate for advancement in industry and elimination of protectionist schemes. The problem here is that for one reason or another, the things we need to "advance" our industry aren't being allowed to happen. While I agree that the steam operators had to find new jobs when electrical power plants came along, but electrical power plants came along. Your arguing that we should eliminate/curtail our current infrastructure without actually building the replacement first.

See why that's backwards?



You get unemployment insurance, which you and your employer pay into when you work. Kinda does the same thing, only you earn it and it doesn't cost other taxpayers anything. My problem with anything more then that is when it becomes a livelyhood for people and a replacement for working.




I haven't heard his solutions. Really. I've heard a lot of him convincing people that there's a problem. That's it.



Funny. That's not a solution either. I thought you were going to seque into showing me how Gore provided solutions. This looks an awful lot like exactly what I was talking about. More "facts" to convince people of the problem. No mention of what he proposes we do about it.




Did he have a graph that showed where we'd be at if we simply went back to an agrarian society entirely? Probably really low!

Solutions mean presenting a path to get there, not just showing a chart that says where we *could* be if a solution were to present itself. If he says he'll subsidize energy efficient applicances, I'll all for it. Except that I seem to recall it was the Republican Congress that did that back in the 90s. At least I got a rebate when I purchased my new energy efficient, low water usage washing machine. So where's Gore's proposal? Looks like Republicans have already done *something*. What's his solution? How's he planning on getting us from point A to point B? That's what I want to know...

I'm also curious how you think he's going to get everyone to move from power companies who generate power from coal? IIRC, something like 80% of our power is currently generated from coal plants. Again. That's not a solution. That's wishful thinking.

I could create a chart showing what CO2 emissions would look like if space aliens showed up and gave us colf fusion technology. But that would not be a "solution", would it?



What exactly is "everything possible"? How does he propose we do that? How's he going to entice people to do that? See. Those aren't solutions. A solution would show how we get there from here, not just list off all the great things that would happen once we get there. His "solution" is as useful as a guy on a deserted island talking about all the things he'd do once he managed to get back to civilization. That's great and all, but it does not get him there.

I'd also point out (again), that at least according to one major study, the US is *already* producing less CO2 then the continental mass absorbs. So perhaps we need to start by assessing exactly how much global impact any action we take as a nation will have *before* we start embarking on broad plans to change things.

Yeah. Thinking something through before we act. Shocker, I know...



The fact that you actually think Al Gore's graphs represented "solutions" is the first of many flaws in your thinking on this issue. I'm serious here. You need to stop and think about what's really being said. Not just nod your head in agreement while missing the key bits (like the fact that no-where does he say how this can be made to occur).


I'll point out what I've pointed out many many times before (and once already in this thread). The biggest obstacle to actually achieving "solutions" for this issue are those who've already positioned themselves strongly to the left of the political scale. If you make using energy efficient devices cost effective, people will use them. If you make it profitable for businesses to use less polluting technology, they'll use it. If you make it *possible* to build alternative energy generation plants, people will build them and use them.

But as long as the left hand and the far left hand don't know what eachother are doing, we're going to end up stuck in this same cycle. I suspect that Al Gore knows this, which is why he does not go into any detail at all about how to achieve those goals. He knows that any real solution put on the table would be met with massive opposition from his own "side" of the political fence. Thus, he does not present those solutions, but simply plays on the fears over environmental issues to build political power.

But just like the Dems did with the war on terror, once they have that power they'll have no vested interest in ever actually going forward with the solutions. Because they know it'll **** of their own constituents, but also becuase they know that they get more political leverage by highlighting the problem then they get by fixing it. It's much much easier for them to simply blame the Conservatives for all the problems of the world and get gullible people to keep giving them power as a result, even though they've never actually promised to do anything tangible about it.

If it doesn't break the filter, then its Kaolian KAO SMASHING the one who did it.

Let's say America emmits 100 billion tons of CO2 per year. It has to reduce that by 15%, or 15 billion tons. That's it's quota to reduce, and that's it's quota it can trade, if it chooses.

That leaves the remainder of 85 billion tons per year it can emmit. That 85 billion tons is America's allowed quota per year.

It used to be that you there was no way to make a metal implement without burning a tree to provide the energy for the process. Then you couldn't make a metal implement without burning coal. Now you can make a metal implement without burning coal if your electricity comes from a damn, nuclear reactor, solar, wind etc etc. You can make all the metal implements you want without the energy source emmitting CO2 at all.

The CO2 that used to be emmitted as the energy source swamps the amount of CO2 that is released from the ore as it is turned into metal. So you can make the same amount of metal for a fraction of the CO2 output. You can hugely increase your production of metal implements and STILL cut your CO2 output.

That's why Kyoto doesn't take any account of actual emmissions as a percentage of production. America's unit of production might be really low in producing units of harmful pollutants. CO2 wasn't seen as a harmful pollutant and wasn't measured. America'e unit of production might be already energy efficient. Most of that energy at the moment comes from CO2 emmitting sources, so it's really easy to switch to non-CO2 emmitting energy sources, and radically cut CO2 emissions WITHOUT having to make ANY FURTHER ENERGY EFFICIENCY GAINS.

Wait. The semi-truck to compact car analogy was directly comparing emissions to capacity. Demanding a flat 15% cut in emissions is in no way connected to output. It's simply saying the semi-truck, regardless of how efficient it's engine may be, must reduce it's emissions, and the compact car, regardless of how efficient it's engine may be, isn't required to do anything.

And did you actually read where Gbaji talked about the most likely effect of Kyoto? Under Kyoto, it's kind of obvious that the least expensive way to achieve whatever reduction is imposed would be to offshore the industry to developing nations (like China & India) where Kyoto places no restrictions on emissions.


Non CO2 emitting sources like what? If you are talking about electricity generation, then the only real option here is nuclear power (except that unfortunately, environmentalists stupidly block the production of new nuclear power through governmental interference).

No. It doesn't do anything remotely like that. It separates nations into different catagories based on the total current emissions. Then it applies different emissions reduction percentages based on what catagory they're in. The higher the current total emissions, the higher the percentage that nation has to reduce.

So the truck has to drop by 15%, but the compact car only has to drop by say 5%.

The problem is that if the truck can carry ten times as much cargo as the compact car, but produces less then tem times as much pollution, then it's actually more efficient to transport goods using the large truck, right? Assuming you need to transport X amount of cargo, you'll produce less pollution moving it using the truck then a whole bunch of small cars.

Kyoto does not take that into account at all. It simply penalizes the truck for being large, and rewards the car for being small. And that's why it's a disaster waiting to happen.



Except that America is emitting 1/3rd as much pollution per unit of production as Norway. The cost to reduce pollution generated by a process increases as the current ratio drops. So the first 5% reduction is easy and cheap. The second is more expensive. And so on. Thus, by not taking this into account Kyoto puts the US in a position where it must reduce its pollution by some percent (it's actually 7% over 10 years IIRC). However, it's already at such a low pollution rate that it's prohibitively expensive to reduce it any more. Thus, the only way to meet that pollution reduction goal is to move the industry that's generating the pollution elsewhere. But since the US already has the lowest pollution to production ratio in the world, moving any industry from the US to anywhere else will always result in an increase in total global pollution.

Kyoto, if adopted by the US, would force that increase. That's why the US *can't* sign Kyoto.




Um. Let me state the obvious. You're looking at what we do in the US. We didn't magically stop manufacturing stuff. The manufacturing was shifted to other nations instead. And if we were looking only at the US, you'd have a point (although a bad one since the US already has incredibly stringent pollution regulations). But we're looking at a global solution here, right? That's the whole point. Prevent global warming, not warming in the US. To do that, we must have a solution that looks at the entire globe. Any solution that does not apply consistent global criteria for pollution "rates" is doomed to fail.


Kyoto fails miserably. It is at best a thinly veiled industial redistribution plan. Nothing more. Except that while redistributing that industry, it'll increase total global pollution...