The Truth, Still Inconvenient

[the iron horse]

From the link posted:

"Canada's previous Liberal government signed the accord but Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government never embraced it."


I'm glad

[purpleoscar]

Originally Posted by BVS

Oscar, you have gone over the deep end. Do you even realize the technologies, health advancements, or energy advancements that have been due in part to governments?

I'm not saying governments don't pose a role but they often have a crappy track record. Something that is in research and development like solar and wind doesn't need to be pushed on the planet until it's proven in a small scale.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by purpleoscar

I'm not saying governments don't pose a role but they often have a crappy track record. Something that is in research and development like solar and wind doesn't need to be pushed on the planet until it's proven in a small scale.

Next time you pull up your smart phone to surf the Internet, check weather, or use the GPS just ignore the irony of this statement and stay the course.

[purpleoscar]

Originally Posted by BVS

Next time you pull up your smart phone to surf the Internet, check weather, or use the GPS just ignore the irony of this statement and stay the course.

None of those cost as much as cap and trade to develop. They also served a government purpose first and are a different area than energy, unless the left has their way. Roads are mainly done by the government, so should cars also be nationalized?

[BVS]

Originally Posted by purpleoscar

None of those cost as much as cap and trade to develop. They also served a government purpose first and are a different area than energy, unless the left has their way. Roads are mainly done by the government, so should cars also be nationalized?

You're pulling an Oscar and changing your argument.

[purpleoscar]

Originally Posted by BVS

You're pulling an Oscar and changing your argument.

You're pulling a BVS and changing my argument. My argument has been the same for years. Just because we have government in some areas doesn't mean there haven't been failures and we should just plow ahead with a huge U.N. takeover of world energy. Does creating GPS cost as much as what the U.N. is asking for? Is money for third world countries as well as green technology? Will this money be wasted? If the government creates nuclear power should it run the nuclear power industry?

[BVS]

Originally Posted by purpleoscar

You're pulling a BVS and changing my argument. My argument has been the same for years. Just because we have government in some areas doesn't mean there haven't been failures and we should just plow ahead with a huge U.N. takeover of world energy. Does creating GPS cost as much as what the U.N. is asking for? Is money for third world countries as well as green technology? Will this money be wasted? If the government creates nuclear power should it run the nuclear power industry?

Let me remind you, you asked:

Do we then need government to create new technologies for other things?

^This argument is ignorant, and I was showing you why...


If you want to talk about the economics of energy develpment then let's do that, but when you constantly change your argument over and over and ask silly questions like this you demean your argument.

Let's take baby steps, one question at a time:

In the long run, what do you think would be cheaper; staying the course with fossil fuels or finding an efficient means to use something that's free and available forever like solar or wind?

[BoMac]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

From the link posted:

"Canada's previous Liberal government signed the accord but Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government never embraced it."


I'm glad

Why is this issue split down partisan lines? Can anyone explain this? Decades from now, we're all going to be wishing we worked together to find solutions, not create problems, point fingers, and maintain the status quo. There needs to be leadership coming from all sides.

Climate change is real. I'm sure many of us have noticed that winters are not what they used to be, summers are warmer and dryer etc. Not sure how some of you could be so blind as to not notice this.

However, I think that climate change is a natural phenomenon that occurs here on Earth. I believe, though, that consumption of fossil fuels and other sources of pollution serve as a means to speed up that process. Take from that what you will.

And, really, if climate change is not real, is there any good reason why we shouldn't be looking at cleaner uses of our energy anyway? If the end result of this is a cleaner, healthier, more efficient way of living that is good for our planet, how is that a bad thing?

[BVS]

Stubbornness and ignorance, those are the only answers I see. And that's from all sides.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by BoMac

Why is this issue split down partisan lines? Can anyone explain this?

because, in the US at least, the Republican Party is entirely sold out to the oil companies, who wish to make money. and they make money by selling oil. the more oil we consume, the more money they make. eventually, the money will be in green energy, but not yet. also, it can be expensive for businesses to conform to environmental regulations. it's much more profitable to, say, dump toxins into the groundwater and settle out-of-court when a bunch of 8-year olds get lukemia than it would be to follow every single EPA rule. that's just the costs of doing business.

[PhilsFan]

Because the Republican Party's sole goal is to make rich people richer.

[BoMac]

Right, but it's not even a Republican-Democrat issue. INDY can point to "anti-science Canucks", but it was our Conservative government that made the decision. This issue seems to be split along ideological lines in whichever country you live in and those who lean left in Canada are embarrassed by the government's decision.

[BVS]

How many left of center folks do you know that believe man has absolutely no impact on climate change?

Now how many right of center folks do you know that that do believe man has an impact?

I would say that if you're being honest with yourself you know where the answer lies, and that answer is pretty telling.

[purpleoscar]

Originally Posted by BVS

Let's take baby steps, one question at a time:

In the long run, what do you think would be cheaper; staying the course with fossil fuels or finding an efficient means to use something that's free and available forever like solar or wind?

Staying the course with fossil fuels precisely because when the technology is good enough then you can expand it. To forcefully expand it before it's good enough will do so much economic damage that even left-wing governments will have to back off to prevent a riot. All countries that adopted it never lowered CO2 emissions because to do that would require all fossil fuels sources to be shutdown like James Hansen wants. Secondly I don't trust the U.N. will even use the money properly. They were already looking at giving corrupt African governments access to this money and to expand their own bureaucracy with a binding world government. I'm actually surprised it took this long for people to wake up.

Any governments that do cap and trade will not eliminate fossil fuels anytime soon and will continue to use fossil fuels to keep the prices from being what they need to be to actually reduce it to the level that Franny Armstrong would like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=314UCvMmgrU

30 or 40%?

We can't trust hypocrites like this with our hard earned money.

Climate change (which science is now showing to be mostly natural) is not the great crisis of today. The debt crisis is. If you and your president want to double down on the wrong priorities then you deserve to be turfed out of power.

BTW BVS, what do you mean by "efficient means" when we are talking about few geological sites that actually fit that description? Everywhere else it's expensive subsidies, while still burning fossil fuels.

Originally Posted by BoMac

This issue seems to be split along ideological lines in whichever country you live in and those who lean left in Canada are embarrassed by the government's decision.

Exactly and in Australia the conservatives are embarrassed by that government's decision to go for a carbon tax when U.S. and China have failed to do so. Totally pointless. My bet is if Harper charged a carbon tax I'm sure the left would take the opportunity to criticize the economic results with complete knowing duplicity. If the U.S. doesn't support cap and trade any carbon tax will bleed jobs from Canada to the U.S. Harper is a genius compared to Justin Trudeau who is a hack and an egomaniac.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by purpleoscar

Staying the course with fossil fuels precisely because when the technology is good enough then you can expand it. To forcefully expand it before it's good enough will do so much economic damage that even left-wing governments will have to back off to prevent a riot. All countries that adopted it never lowered CO2 emissions because to do that would require all fossil fuels sources to be shutdown like James Hansen wants. Secondly I don't trust the U.N. will even use the money properly. They were already looking at giving corrupt African governments access to this money and to expand their own bureaucracy with a binding world government. I'm actually surprised it took this long for people to wake up.

You can't be serious... Did you even understand the question? See? You can't even answer a simple question without politicizing the hell out of it and/ or throwing in a conspiracy.

You can't seem to approach this issue with logic, it's always talking head speak and politicing.

[purpleoscar]

Originally Posted by BVS

You can't be serious... Did you even understand the question? See? You can't even answer a simple question without politicizing the hell out of it and/ or throwing in a conspiracy.

You can't seem to approach this issue with logic, it's always talking head speak and politicing.

Who are you fooling? There's none of that on your side? I did answer your question and gave you multiple reasons. Go join Thom Yorke on the new Greenpeace boat and tell me there's no politicizing there. Climategate 2.0 showed precisely that there is conspiratorial politicizing in science but apparently that's not enough evidence for you. Doing stupid graphs to eliminate the historical medieval warming period to justify brutal energy taxes isn't political for you? Of course there's politics and economics involved. I wish the science wasn't political but after that Climategate 1.0 whitewash investigation it can't be anything but political.

I've showed plenty of science that ironically was brought up in Climategate 2.0 with Mann's own staff only to be ignored by Mann and Jones precisely because it was politically incorrect. Mann uses the term "THE CAUSE" when talking about climate change.

Tell me how can you lower the standard of living of the public with green taxes and not have a political effect?

BTW BVS, what do you mean by "efficient means" when we are talking about few geological sites that actually fit that description? Everywhere else it's expensive subsidies, while still burning fossil fuels.

I would still like an answer to this question. I want reality about the state of the technology, not promises. If solar and wind are capable of replacing fossil fuels venture capitalists would be throwing money like crazy to make profits off the new "efficient system". Even trying to convince coal state democrats to switch over will involve lots of lying about replacing fossil fuel jobs with green jobs 1:1. Geothermal in Iceland and wind in Texas is a drop in the bucket in the amount of energy we need to fuel homes and vehicles worldwide.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by purpleoscar

Who are you fooling? There's none of that on your side? I did answer your question and gave you multiple reasons. Go join Thom Yorke on the new Greenpeace boat and tell me there's no politicizing there. Climategate 2.0 showed precisely that there is conspiratorial politicizing in science but apparently that's not enough evidence for you. Doing stupid graphs to eliminate the historical medieval warming period to justify brutal energy taxes isn't political for you? Of course there's politics and economics involved. I wish the science wasn't political but after that Climategate 1.0 whitewash investigation it can't be anything but political.

Of course there is politics on all sides, I even stated that earlier. But I asked you a very non-political answer and you gave me a bunch of bullshit.

Try and answer the question logically without politics.

Originally Posted by purpleoscar

I would still like an answer to this question.

What I mean is simple. I mean advancing the technology efficiently enough that panels(solar) and storage are small enough lasting enough to be used in a wider variety of environments.

The technology is there for both solar and wind, but it isn't turnkey yet. But if you live in an area of the world where solar can power your house, why wouldn't you? The initial upfront usually pays for itself in less than 5 years. It's a no brainer from an economic standpoint. Now logic says once there is more produced, costs can go down and then the initial upfront costs become almost the same as paying one year of your normal utility bill. Now why wouldn't you want to pay one or two years of utility bills upfront if the rest of your time in that home utilities are basically free?

[financeguy]

Originally Posted by purpleoscar

Who are you fooling? There's none of that on your side? I did answer your question and gave you multiple reasons. Go join Thom Yorke on the new Greenpeace boat and tell me there's no politicizing there. Climategate 2.0 showed precisely that there is conspiratorial politicizing in science but apparently that's not enough evidence for you. Doing stupid graphs to eliminate the historical medieval warming period to justify brutal energy taxes isn't political for you? Of course there's politics and economics involved. I wish the science wasn't political but after that Climategate 1.0 whitewash investigation it can't be anything but political.

There is certainly hypocrisy in both sides. I'd wager a single Radiohead tour produces more carbon than the average person does in a lifetime. (Sorry Thom, but playing to smaller venues than U2 or Bon Jovi doesn't get you off the hook. It just means you don't have as much common appeal). If you look at the most prominent GW personalities in the media, from Yorke to Al Gore to the Guardian's increasingly hysterical George Monbiot, most of them have children - surely if they had the courage of their convictions, they would refrain from reproducing, as (according to them) the main problem with the planet is that there are too many people on it?

The wealthy and cultural elite must realise that they are not going to get away with preaching to working and middle class people until they start by changing their ways first.

[purpleoscar]

Originally Posted by BVS

Of course there is politics on all sides, I even stated that earlier. But I asked you a very non-political answer and you gave me a bunch of bullshit.

Try and answer the question logically without politics.

If these new technologies are cost effective in ALL places everyone would want in on it. The problem is that it's not cost effective in most places. Solar at minimum will have to absorb all the light waves to have a chance at viability. What we see today is heavy subsidies while at the same time mostly using fossil fuels. These subsidies increase energy costs. That's the state Denmark is in now. France at least was smart enough to get in on nuclear for their electricity.

Originally Posted by BVS

What I mean is simple. I mean advancing the technology efficiently enough that panels(solar) and storage are small enough lasting enough to be used in a wider variety of environments.

The technology is there for both solar and wind, but it isn't turnkey yet. But if you live in an area of the world where solar can power your house, why wouldn't you? The initial upfront usually pays for itself in less than 5 years. It's a no brainer from an economic standpoint. Now logic says once there is more produced, costs can go down and then the initial upfront costs become almost the same as paying one year of your normal utility bill. Now why wouldn't you want to pay one or two years of utility bills upfront if the rest of your time in that home utilities are basically free?

Yes but "if you live in an area" is exactly the problem. I live in an area that has lots of sun for half the year and very little for half the year. No amount of wind and solar is going to heat our homes during the frigid winter and fuel vehicles. What would happen to the travel industry without planes? Franny Armstrong is against planes but how are we going to fuel them with what we have now? Natural Gas, Coal, and oil are likely to be here to stay for our lifetimes and farther. Maybe if there are some breakthroughs over the next century to make it cheaper then jobs from one energy sector can be safely be replaced by the new green sector, though likely they would have to involve some nuclear technology. We are not all like Iceland with geothermal but if those regions want it they should be able to pay for it themselves if they are so efficient. I'm more in favor of research and development funding so we can avoid pushing half baked technologies on the populace. It would also avoid U.N. entanglements if we hope to learn from the E.U. experience of layered bureaucracy.

Forcing the public to adopt these in-utero technologies is not like foisting Windows Vista with a quick turn around and voila!...Windows 7. It's way harder than that and it would crush the poor and squeeze the middle class.

Originally Posted by financeguy

The wealthy and cultural elite must realise that they are not going to get away with preaching to working and middle class people until they start by changing their ways first.

Especially Prince Charles.

[BVS]

Ha ha I knew you couldn't do it, I knew you weren't capable of making a single post without politics.


And why are you so obsessed with a turnkey form of energy? You really rather go nuclear instead of a form of energy that can eventually be FREE? That doesn't sound like fiscal responsibility.