errata

effect. sheesh.

Anybody who is a "research

Anybody who is a "research fellow" with the CD Howe needs no other introduction .

Like the Fraser Inst. it is nothing more than another advertising agency for global corporate dictatorship, beginning with the EU and NAU, using fraudulent figures, like the GDP, to justify it.

Ed Deak.

Alarmists Stump Me.

It is the irrationality of the position articulated.
Stump's assumption is just that. There is no proof for CO2 being other than a beneficial trace gas with a limited capacity to impact temperature.

The planet isn't "burning", the historical record shows that warming not only occured but was greater numerous times in the last 2000 years without "fossil" fuel involment and in the last 10 years CO2 levels have gone up and the temperature hasn't.

The discrepancy between the very dodgy ground based station data showing a warming trend and the more reliable satellite data showing far less and the alarm would be found to be false by any rational person.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/a-look-at-temperature-anomalies-for-all-4-global-metrics/

I might add that it is this faulty ground station data that well rewarded Saint James Hansen of GISS dabbles in.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/

Here you are, all griping about the gas tax and yet you insist on holding up the lie it is based on.

That's not tiresome?

mopled

Because we all know the real lie is that the gas tax has anything to do with climate change.

Bravo Frank!

If you could only take the next step and examine the evidence that shows CO2 has nothing to do with climate change either!

Oh, I forgot, you don't consider yorself capable of judging the scientific arguments, so you are running on various beliefs.
It might be a good idea to read Michael Chrichton's 2003 speech on Environmentalism As Religion.

http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html

mopled

You mean the dinosaur guy?

And when you're done that Frank

You can read Michael Crichton's political 'novel' STATE OF FEAR, a work of lame political commentary, in which a wildly implausible plot - eco-terrorists take over from Al Qaeda as the leading global menace, devising weather modification schemes to convince the public of a nonexistent global warming threat.

Can't imagine why mopled would be a fan, can you?

Here's a good review from the Brookings institution:

http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2005/0128energy_sandalow.aspx

But don't mess with Michael

He started out plagiarizing George Orwell in college and now he's into casting aspersions on his critics by 'associating' them with child molestation.

You can read all about it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/books/14cric.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Lee%2C+Felicia.+%22Columnist+Accuses+Crichton+of+%91Literary+Hit-and-Run%92%22%2C+The+New+York+Times%2C+December+14%2C+2006.+&st=nyt&oref=slogin

Nice guy...

I haven't read the novel

but his comments on the new secular religion are to the point.

You might be interested in a former Amoco economists view-point, since Jaccard has often represented the coal industry.
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artid=22216

Carbon Tax Challenges

There has been a lot of attention given recently to the supposed superiority of a revenue-neutral carbon tax over a cap-and-trade system. Both the American Enterprise Institute and Resources for the Future have voiced a preference for the carbon tax.

Both recognize taxpayers are suspicious of whether the "neutrality" of the new tax will actually accrue to the individual taxpayer or will be tilted to powerful political constituencies. In addition, it would be difficult to estimate the proper tax level to be imposed.

Tax collectors prefer the tax on carbon emissions over the cap-and-trade system. George Osborne, the shadow finance minister of the United Kingdom's Conservative party, points out how the cap-and-trade system has serious transaction costs and is subject to fraud in initial allocation and in enforcement. But benchmarking of emissions would also be required for taxation, as would monitoring and enforcement for each emissions source.

Thus it would appear there is as much potential for fraud under a carbon tax as there is with cap-and-trade, although one of the proposed modifications to cap-and-trade is to charge emissions sources for the initial allowances they receive."

Costs vs. Benefits
"On a macro level, Yale University economics professor William Nordhaus in July of this year updated his estimate of the impact of carbon abatement. Nordhaus found the costs of reducing carbon emissions exceed the benefits by a substantial amount. This is true for either a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax.

This ought to make us pause to think through what we know about global warming and what we are guessing about.

We especially ought to know the pace of warming from actual measurement rather than relying on opaque models that fail to explain the present changes, or lack thereof. It may be that the pace of change is so slow that adjusting to the change is less costly than trying to alter the laws of physics.

We ought to understand the workings of the world before we set out to change it."

Tyee, What the hell's going on here?

While this appears under other's submissions:

Suggest as offensive | Recommend as a best comment | Help

mine shows only "Help" - even as it is posted - and in all threads.

Is this to suggest that I need help, or that some person, persons, lobby or some phantom, keyboard babbler, that may be targeting skeptikool, may need help?

It is certainly assuring that, no matter what I write, it will be hidden from those who read only "Best comments".

Some would call that, censorship.

Lynn

Hey Lynn, if you detest those pesky, evil corporations so much you could either become one, or stop patronizing them……

road removal and science advice from Crichton

Redunk:

Road removal and bomb building are not comparable. That's a dumb comparison IMO.

There's lot of valid reasons to remove roads, esp in a region in desperate for land to accommodate housing and agricultural self-sufficiency. Less roads could make our region more affordable. Hard to see how bombs ever improve a place.

Mopled:

If you want to take science advice from a guy who pens so-so thrillers and mediocre science fiction... knock yourself out. Personally, I aim a little higher when I seek accurate information.

I know y'all would love to see yourselves as the Galileos of this century... lone voices crying out for scientific rigour, but the fact of the matter is that most scientists and many non-European cultures had already figured out the world was round, and a small minority eager to maintain power were the doubters. Sound familiar? They were wrong then too.

There's a wealth of data to support the accelerating climate change we're experiencing. Focusing on the altitude of weather stations while giant chunks of Antartic glaciers calve and melt in the sea (also at ground level in case you're wondering) is just another example of the information cherry-picking you need to do to prop up your position.

I want a need

"in desperate need for land"

recommend as best comment

To answer a question you posed to the Tyee. You can't flag your own comments as best or offensive.

Stump, You labor under an assumption

No, I have flagged nothing - of my own or others. And the question remains unanswered.

Thank you, at least, for commenting on it. Check the previous Jaccard column comments. The sole "Help" under my posts stand out like a sore thumb - and the same, every post since.

Realizing that it's non-functioning, the cutting and pasting I do here is just to serve as a reminder. Who knows someone else may even ask why? It's a sad comment on a communication medium if such curiosity has died:

Suggest as offensive | Recommend as a best comment | Help

skeptikool

Its the same under my posts. Its just the way you see your own posts. You don't see the provision to recommend best comment or suggest as offensive when looking at your own posts.

When I look at your posts I do see the full "Suggest as offensive | Recommend as a best comment | Help"
underneath your comments in red.

But when I wanted to flag one of own posts as offensive I was unable to do so because the option doesn't exist.

Hey Skeptikool ....

Suggest as offensive | Recommend as a best comment | Help

Hmmmmmmmm ... methinks I also get your point! lol

Suggest as offensive | Recommend as a best comment | Help

The Big Three

Look around, other car companies besides Ford, GM and Chrysler build trucks and SUV's.

INC.

re: "corpo-dictatorships", City Person wrote:

You sure you're a history major? Do you not see the irony in that?

I've always voted....so far at least... but more and more.... a vote just ain't what it used to be. If all so-called "alternatives" were really just the same old thing dressed up in various guises....thus making the act of voting a sham and if I thought by voting I was just prolonging the madness and the subterfuge, I think not voting then becomes a much more powerful political act...and a more honest one.

NLN wrote:

Working on that right now, NLN.

Gonna call it ALIVE INC.

INC. stands for I'm Not Corporate. It will bloom and flow all the world. Everything that's alive and breathing will trump the dead material world of corporations. Our living shares will soar - lifeless corporate shares will plummet. The laws will be made in our favour, for our protection, for the good of living things. A surge made up of man, woman, bird, beast, flower, river, ocean, air....will take back their stolen rights - and steal 'em right back in broad daylight from those dead as a doornail, non-breathing, vampirish, socio-pathic corporations. ( Think that's enough adjectives? ;-))

Lots of kinks yet to work out, Noleft nutter, but you get the general idea.

LIFE INC

... sorry....a woman's perogative to change mind, a man's too, I imagine.... I'm thinking maybe we should call it LIFE INC.

A better branding, don't ya think, Noleft nutter? C'mon, you're the one who gave me this idea? ....whatya think?

Think it will sell?

What a concept? "LIFE". Think it will catch on, Noleftnutter?

labour yes assumption no

Skeptikool:

No one can flag their own posts. Not sure what the inside joke or trenchant commentary is that I'm missing. So, I'll ask, "Why the cut and paste?"

I prefer to get back on topic

Thanks for that, Frank, Luke and Stump. I did not realize that everyone saw only "Help" when viewing their own posts. Perhaps I was further confused by not one of my pieces of brilliant repartee having made the big-time, "Best comments" Never mind, not being scroll-challenged, I read everything anyhow. ;<)

A note of explanation: In the past two or three days I've posted links that may have made me look like a shill for CanWest. Not so. With my morning MacDoldald's coffee, those are the papers provided. I'm sure those columnists I linked were on the topic under discussion.

Perhaps I'll search the electric editions of other papers and the CBC more.

Know thy enemy

Hey, I listen to CKNW in the a.m. I don't agree with much of what Bill Good and his callers have to say, but it's important to know what is being said.

Christy Clark in the afternoon however, is so painful to listen to that I can bear more than a couple of minutes of her nattering.

Plus, last time I was on Granville Island, I watched her park her fancy-shmancy Volvo wagon in a fire zone while she picked up her spawn from Arts Umbrella. There's your provincial Liberals in a nutshell, do as I say, not as I do.

Hmmmm...

All of a sudden the wingnuts are on the green bandwagon, with all their ifs and buts, and "let the free market handle it"-, so long as its subject to the control of the neocons.

Tells ya something about the current state of the so-called Green Revolution. Control is still fully in ruling class and their MSM hands. You'll know it's really underway when its taking big bites out of these dipshite's "market based" assumptions. Then these guys will be screaming bloody murder per normal, with bulging neck vessels and wide, unblinking eyes in their rage drained faces.

As for voting in the rigged ruling class, money controlled electoral system, upon which at least one here hangs his pathetic "true believer" religious zealot faith, I and most will get more satisfaction lying buck naked in a field of periwinkle, looking up at the prophetic, shifting shapes of the clouds sliding by overhead.

Yup! The Green Revolution is really a happening thing. No doubt about it. And control of it is where it should be-, in the hands of our democratically elected "vanguard party" leaders.

I want a hit of whatever it is you're smoking, man. And none of your goody-two-shoes bs. :-)

KWD & Lynn

Thanks for the below, KWD, and to you too, Lynn for seconding it.

In my opinion there's little that needs adding to KWD'S post, the gist of which was: (emphasis mine.)

"And he’s right; except for one tiny flaw … we don’t live in a democracy and haven’t done since corporations were given the legal status of “personhood".

Few people understand the far-reaching implications of "personhood" for Corporations, and I think this would be a most worthy topic for a TYEE article.

True Believers

Great suggestion, ME2.

And here's seconding Canis Latran's post as well, for both the incisiveness of thought.... and the poetry ;-):

Stump, in typical obscurantist

fashion, says: "There's a wealth of data to support the accelerating climate change we're experiencing. Focusing on the altitude of weather stations while giant chunks of Antartic glaciers calve and melt in the sea (also at ground level in case you're wondering) is just another example of the information cherry-picking you need to do to prop up your position."

It is not the "altitude" of climate stations that is the problem, it is that few of them are set up to collect data uncontaminated with reflected heat from being set up in parking lots,or on roofs or next to air-conditioner exhausts or even a barbeque grill in one instance.

You mix up cause and effect. No one denies that climate changes or that Antarctic glaciers calve...that's what they've always done....it means they are growing!

So it is the cause of climate changes we disagree on and since all of the evidence for CO2 changing climate has been discredited, there is no reason to tax its production.

Most of the criticism against skeptical scientists has been typically ad hominem while any old rock star gets listened to.
"Scientists made up only 15 percent of the global warming proponents shown. The remaining 85 percent included politicians, celebrities, other journalists and even ordinary men and women. There were more unidentified interview subjects used to support climate change hype than actual scientists (101 unidentified to just 71 scientists)"
http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2008/GlobalWarmingCensored/GlobalWarmingCensored_execsum.asp

Have there even been any skeptical scientists given exposure here at the tyee?
Journalism's Code of Ethics requires it.
http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

sorry, but you're wrong

That's just not true. There may be isolated instances of such, but the majority of glaciers are shrinking... in the Antarctic, the Arctic, the Alps, pretty much worldwide.

Climate change IS happening, C02 IS a factor, and human activities ARE the only variable we can control. Ergo....

Stump's full of Warmist propaganda

Glaciers are growing and receeding.
All the rest is scare-mongering.

http://nksagar.indiainteracts.com/2008/01/12/sikhim-84-glacier-grown-about-four-times-in-six-years/
Sikhim 84 glacier grown about four times in six years
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/greenlands-glaciers-take-a-breather/
Greenland’s Glaciers Take a Breather
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/08/10/are-greenland-s-glaciers-expanding-temperatures-cooling
Are Greenland’s Glaciers Growing and Temperatures Cooling?
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/55553;jsessionid=baa9uwnilQjSi_?fulltext=true
American Scientist Online - The Shrinking Glaciers of Kilimanjaro: Can Global Warming Be Blamed?
http://www.sepp.org/Archive/controv/controversies/afp.html
Norway's glaciers growing at record pace
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/215/2
Predicting Fate of Glaciers Proves Slippery Task
"Glaciologist Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University in State College agrees. "Lots of people were saying we [IPCC authors] should extrapolate into the future," he says, but "we dug our heels in at the IPCC and said we don't know enough to give an answer." Researchers will have to understand how and why glacier speeds can vary so much, he adds, before they can trust their models to forecast the fate of the ice sheets, much less sea level."

Stumps little "ergo" on the CO2 Question is without logic. Correlation is not causation.

http://www.helium.com/items/540228-heres-things-people-because
"12. The modern theory of global warming is based upon the fact that the temperature has been rising steadily for the past 100 years due to rising CO2 and other emissions. The fact is, around 1880 (the beginning of the temperature rise) was actually the end of what many scientists call the "mini-ice age." Where, for about 400 years, the earth had cooled. The theory also presupposes that the greatest change occurred during the height of industrialization (roughly the 1940s-1970s). However, temperature graphs show that:
a. From 1940-1970 CO2 rose moderately yet the earth's temperature actually cooled.
b. The temperature in the United States peaked in the mid-1930s, cooled for about 60 years, and now has risen slightly again, although still not as much as it was in the 30s.
These graphs can be found at www.giss.nasa.gov.

More of these graphs show that, while large urban areas have shown mild increases in temperature, many rural areas have actually cooled in the past 150-200 years. This is true globally.
These are just some of the facts people, from real scientists who do REAL research. These facts are not from politicians or actors. Whether the majority of scientists believe in it or not, there simply is not enough evidence to show that global warming is a threat in any way"

just one question for you mope

If the science is wrong and we're not heading into global warming the downside (less C02, less traffic, less pollution, better and more sustainable economies) doesn't seem so bad to me.

On the other hand, if you and and the ice men are wrong it seems to me the downside of doing little or nothing is a complete disaster.

Maybe you can explain how doing nothing in a situation that may well be degrading rapidly can be anything but BAD for ice men and warmists alike.

Somehow in that light your concern for your pocketbook kinda pales in comparison from the point of view of the human race.

Attempting to justify

Jaccard, simply stated, is just another over paid bureaucrat, attempting to justify his over compensated position. His and Gordon suggestions and ideas on carbon tax are not equitable, simply stated I feel their approach is a recipe for economic disaster.

Research, logistics on how to handle climate change along with the pending fuel crises have already been worked out. People are already educated on how to ration, the 1st and 2an world war thought us this. The following link is an example of a more realistic approach to cutting emissions without taxing the shit out of us every time some bureaucratic dork has a brain fart.

http://www.historyandpolicy.org/papers/policy-paper-54.html

Green Biocentrism...

KWD?

My first thought was, this guy is a KD Lang. :-)

Good to read ya, bro. But behave yourself in here, eh? We know all about you green radicals from Victoria-, Trouble with a capital T, no bloody doubt. B-D lol

Jeesh West, how you hyperventilate!

Well, if it was just my pocketbook, you might have a point. But there are others who will be penalized by this cockamamie scam.

Most folks understand that without a transportation system a gas tax is just a gas tax...and it is inflationary because everything that moves by truck in the province will bear the cost.

You must remember the story about the stage director who said to Katherine Hepburn, "Don't JUST DO SOMETHING, stand there\" It is advice a wise government would take given that:

" Firstly, the now widely acknowledged "saving" (amount of warming avoided) potential for complete implementation of Kyoto is ~0.07 �C by the year 2050. Since skeptics (e.g. Pat Michaels) and advocates (Kevin Trenberth, for example) alike have signed off on the figure we see no need to dispute it (granted, many have pointed out that the potential "saving" is closer to 0.02 �C but who's quibbling - that's way less than error margin for trying to measure global temperature anyway). .....our potentially "saved" temperature figure is simply 0.07 �C/45 (the amount per year assuming a linear progression) further divided down to an accumulation per second. Granted, this is not likely a very accurate nor realistic representation but hey, we don't even know the absolute mean surface temperature of the planet within �0.7 �C anyway."
http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Kyoto_Count_Up.html

How can any tax or restriction of CO2 be justified by a result of 0.07 degrees difference in estimated temperature 42 years from now?

This miraculous result of draconian intervention would cost TRILLIONS. (The estimate is $100 K per billionth of a degree.)

So Garth, old boy,even if you are willing to sacrifice yourself for the sake of something that "might" happen to the the planet, most would not if they knew the true result....lots of economic downside and NO BENEFIT.

The Long Now

I don't think you are capable of envisioning our planet 500 years from now Mopled. On our present course, there will be no one to employ, to buy things, or to tax, even if temperatures didn't move an iota.

There are no jobs on a dead planet.

mopled

Me????

Hyperventilate?
You must be joking!

How about simply responding to the question: If you're wrong and science is right we may have a chance for a future.

On the other hand if science is right and you're wrong...we're all screwed.

Deal with it.

Wait just a minute

"On the other hand if science is right and you're wrong...we're all screwed."

What science is right? Last year most of the new publications went against the CO2 hypothesis. You keep pretending that Gore got it right. There are 35 errors in his movie and even the IPCC has revised all the estimates of warming and ocean rise downward from their last report.

We may be heading into a cooling trend and you want to spend trillions to perhaps prevent a maybe ?

trillion$

Trillions spent on a maybe? What a waste. We could spend that money on an unwinnable war!

Why are you afraid of economic opportunity mopey?

Lots of money is routinely spent on things with an uncertain outcome. Trillions spent to curb pollution, sprawl, and the waste of a precious resource seems like money well spent to me, even if your Coolist religion was prophesying an accurate view of the future... which it isn't.

Specious argument

Who says the money spent on carbon taxes and carbon credits will be spent on "curbing pollution"...real pollution?

Dream on....the gas tax is going into general revenue and nobody here buys into the "revenue neutral" farce.

New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=84e9e44a-802a-23ad-493a-b35d0842fed8
"An abundance of new peer-reviewed studies, analyses, and data error discoveries in the last several months has prompted scientists to declare that fear of catastrophic man-made global warming “bites the dust” and the scientific underpinnings for alarm may be “falling apart.” The latest study to cast doubt on climate fears finds that even a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would not have the previously predicted dire impacts on global temperatures. This new study is not unique, as a host of recent peer-reviewed studies have cast a chill on global warming fears.

“Anthropogenic (man-made) global warming bites the dust,” declared astronomer Dr. Ian Wilson after reviewing the new study which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Another scientist said the peer-reviewed study overturned “in one fell swoop” the climate fears promoted by the UN and former Vice President Al Gore. The study entitled “Heat Capacity, Time Constant, and Sensitivity of Earth’s Climate System,” was authored by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz. (LINK)

“Effectively, this (new study) means that the global economy will spend trillions of dollars trying to avoid a warming of ~ 1.0 K by 2100 A.D.” Dr. Wilson wrote in a note to the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee on August 19, 2007. Wilson, a former operations astronomer at the Hubble Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore MD, was referring to the trillions of dollars that would be spent under such international global warming treaties like the Kyoto Protocol.

“Previously, I have indicated that the widely accepted values for temperature increase associated with a doubling of CO2 were far too high i.e. 2 – 4.5 Kelvin. This new peer-reviewed paper claims a value of 1.1 +/- 0.5 K increase for a doubling of CO2,” he added."

That's a totaly illusory pig in a poke you're selling there, Stump

It's a huge scam

Jumping on the bandwagon might glean a few votes though.

http://www.inteliorg.com/US_Senate_Report_Over_400_Prominent_Scientists_Disputed_Man_Made_Global_Warming_Claims_in_2007.htm

Even some 'Progressives' are coming in from the cold.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=84e9e44a-802a-23ad-493a-b35d0842fed8

Those credits are going to be as valuable as Green Stamps.

squillions

Who says a cleaner, greener planet will cost trillions?

My switch to a green-as-possible way of life is saving me money.

Stump my dear chap or chappette

Be as green as you like, just leave CO2 out of your calculations, because reducing it will take funding away from real solutions to real problems.

You can't be so dense that you can't see that spending money sequestering CO2 for no good reason will be money down the drain.

Mopled

Don't sweat it so hard, Mopled. Time is on your side. The Chicken Littles need a while to figure out how to ease out of this one gracefully without losing their credibility - or their grants.

CO2 warming is an issue now only because so many ivory towers have been built upon it.

And even though it will irritate you, GWest, I once again have to express my admiration of Gordo's political strategists for yet another end run around the Greens with his "Carbon Tax". :-)

just answer the question

You're hyperventilating again.

The point is, you and your coterie of challenged scientists say one thing; the majority of scientific opinion says another.

If we follow your group out of Hamelin and into the forest and you're wrong - boom goes the dynamite – everyone is toast

If we follow my group of scientists and they're wrong we have a better, cleaner, more sustainable world into the bargain and we’ll have spent the money on something worthwhile.

That's the choice: why can't you simply face up to it?

Your way, we hang onto the money and kiss the future good bye.

This ain’t such hard stuff and your paranoia about Al Gore and Maurice Strong is getting a trifle pathetic….

density - it's going around

What I find hard to believe is that you are so dense that you can't see how our fossil fuel addiction has so many downsides above and beyond climate change that REDUCTION (screw the sequesterers and taxers and all that) is absolutely crucial for the long-term health of the planet and humanity.

Carbon illiteracy strikes again

Don't let facts get in your way guys. Your calls to sacrifice make as much sense as the Aztec's tearing out hearts to influence the gods.

"Based upon a widely accepted formula originated at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., if the entire United States adopted the original Kansas legislation, it would prevent a total of 0.11 degrees F of global warming per century. Read that again, because it's not a typo: Eleven one-hundredths of a degree in 100 years.

Instead, let's apply the original Kansas legislation to every nation on the planet that agreed to limit its emissions under the infamous 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to a 1992 United Nations global climate treaty that would require the U.S. to reduce emissions far beyond what was written out of the Kansas bill. The new law would prevent 0.27 degrees F of warming per century. That's an amount too small to measure, because global temperatures vary by more than that from year-to-year — global warming or not.

Since 1979, satellites have been measuring lower atmospheric temperatures around the globe. In the last 12 months, they show that the earth's mean temperature has dropped by 1.13ºF. Thus, in one year, that natural variability is four times greater than the amount of warming that would be prevented if the entire industrialized world adopted the original Kansas statute.

The satellite temperature surveys also show there has been no net global warming since 2000. It's a little unfair to go back much further in this discussion, because 1998 was an extremely hot year — the high point in both satellite and land-based temperature histories — because of a huge El Nino (which, incidentally, proved to be a great boon to Kansas's wheat farmers).

All of which is to say that global warming isn't exactly proceeding apace. Rather, the rate of planetary warming is falling in line with the low end of 21st century projections made by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, with the smart money now riding on a bit more than 3 degrees F of warming this century. It's worth noting that the 20th century saw about half of that warming, along with a doubling of life expectancy in the industrialized world, and an approximately ten-fold increase in real personal wealth."
http://www.voiceofthetimes.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1002&Itemid=2
How about finding a water hole you could throw virgins into. It would have almost as big an effect on climate as limiting CO2.

City Person

The thing is City Person, your argument is with the North American consumer, not the "Big Three". The best selling vehicle in Canada and the US over the years has usually been the Ford F150 truck.

The money the Big Three are losing is not because they build the trucks and SUVs we want to buy and will continue to buy.

That's why Toyota trucks have gotten bigger, (just look at the Tundra) its why Honda has come out with their first truck (the Ridgeline). Because even Toyota and Honda know the consumer wants trucks and SUVs. not glorified mopeds.

The best thing Toyota and Honda have going for them is their reputation for reliability. That is where they're hurting the Big Three, not because GM and Ford are incapable of building small cars.

mopled said,

mopled said, How about finding a water hole you could throw virgins into.

To what I will add, good luck on the Virgin thing, as they are none left, the suicide bombers have used em all up.

a degree here, a degree there

Nature is a very precise mechanism. A few degrees can make a big difference. If you think the changes in flora and fauna that are triggered by temperature changes can adapt in a century, I'd say you are very, very wrong. If you don't understand the interconnectedness of all living things... and our reliance on that system to function at near optimal conditions you have no business even entering into this debate.

Stumped again

Your lack of understanding surpasseth all understanding, but your ability to grasp at straws is a constant source of amazment to me. Willful ignorance is not an endearing trait.

We are still coming out of the "Little Ice Age". See this:
http://thenewamerican.com/node/6973
The Recovery from the Little Ice Age and Global Warming

Maybe you'll be inspired to look at the nice graphs here.
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/Earth_recovering_from_LIA_R.pdf

Perhaps then, the unthinking hysteria will subside, and a Stump will sprout an new shoot.

mope

you're still hyperventilating...and you still haven't answered my question.

How come?

Avoidance, maybe?

we are fools

Whether you are a full-blown CO2 skeptic, or a firmly-rooted believer in global warming, there are three things that we can all agree upon:

A. The fossil fuel reserves of the planet are finite, and they take greater amounts of energy for extraction.

B. Burning and/or producing hydrocarbons (fossil fuels, wood, ethanol) causes environmental degradation/pollution.

C. Batteries are heavy, caustic, and harmful for the environment. They wear out and they present problems related to disposal.

All CO2/carbon taxes should be collected for building green infrastructure.

We could be compressing air and running much of our world on it. The city of Vancouver/the province of BC/the country of Canada could be moving toward using compressed air for energy storage*, for electrical generation during peak usage needs (to augment hydro-electricity), and for most of our transportation needs. The technology is here, the wind and water energy to power the compressors already exists. The cars for our use are already being built/developed in other places in the world.

With our wealth, we should be world leaders in building the infrastructure for this sort of system. Instead, we let the oil, gas, electrical, and automotive industries tell us what we can use. We let already wealthy people earn many times the amount that the vast percentage of people earn by accepting and using polluting technologies rather than taking care of ourselves and our planet. We are fools.

*Energy storage: not only can we store wind and water energy by compressing gas, we can store it by pumping water uphill. It can then be released to turn turbines connected to either electrical generators or air compressors. Wave and tidal forces can also be used for these purposes. If nothing else, we could have huge savings in our not having to use inefficient electricity to pump water. Compressed air is easy to pipe; it loses virtually no energy in a closed system; and, as it is already mechanical energy, it can be used with great efficiency to push water pumps.

Perhaps Tata Motors of India will be powerful enough to overcome the oil and gas monopoly that has stopped the others.

http://www.mdi.lu:80/eng/affiche_eng.php?page=moteurs

http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=3435

http://indicview.blogspot.com/2007/03/evolution-air-car-in-previous-avatar.html

Obvious tactic West

You ask a question, I answer and then you pretend I haven't for the next upteen postings.
This is hyskool debating.

I ask you all to take a look at fiqure 2 in the Sunyaku pdf. Where's the relationship between energy production and temperature rise?
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/Earth_recovering_from_LIA_R.pdf

Figure 2: Temperature changes, 1880-2000. Red – global average change (IPCC Reports). Blue –data from stations along the coastline of the Arctic Ocean (Polyakov et al., 2002). The figure shows also the amount of various sources of energy used during the last century; gas, oil, and coal all release CO2.
The figure also indicates the amounts of CO2-producing coal, oil, and natural gas (as well as amounts of nuclear and hydro/renewable energy sources) consumed during the same period. It is immediately obvious that the amount of the consumption began to increase rapidly in about 1945. It can also be seen that, in addition to the linear change indicated in Figures 1b and 1c, the temperature increased from 1920 to 1945 and then decreased from 1945 to 1975; the latter period coincided with the period of a rapid increase in fossil energy consumption. The cause of this temperature increase/decrease is not well understood. Some scientists and news media declared, at the time of the decrease from 1945 to 1975, that a new Big Ice Age was coming and that we should urgently prepare for it, with rhetoric that sounds very similar to that used about the present global warming (changing the term “cooling” to “warming.” The temperature began to increase again starting in about 1975."

More energy efficiency is a worthwhile pursuit, but to deny and tax energy use for the specious argument that CO2 alters climate is ridiculous.

Real pollution abatement has been happening all along and we get better at it all the time. It is enforcement that may be problematic.

Dont' worry Mopled

Your ability to ignore the probable effects of a few degrees of change surpasses belief too. You crow on and on about that we should only expect a few degrees of temp. change... but completely ignore the outcome of such a change. Quoting the New American to me as some kind of bastion of truth, is like me trying to use the ELF website to convince you. Both are completely partisan and their information is to be taken with a grain of salt.

Your focus on the degree(s) of change only serves to highlight how badly you want to ignore what small differences in average temperatures will mean in terms of global food supply and consequently political stability. I'm not afraid to agree with you that the temperature change may only be a few degrees by the end of this century. I challenge you to disprove that such a change has far-reaching implications. I'll bet you'll just ignore that challenge and post yet another link pointing out what most of us already know.

Hey, Lynn! In complete agreement as per..

USUAL!! :-)

As far as this so called carbon tax goes, its nothing more than a consumption tax. Is the tax on gas by the GST called a "carbon tax"? Nope. Its a consumption tax that was supposed to go towards paying down debt. Instead, Harpers Cons used it to give tax breaks to corporations and the rich, somehow believing a reduction in tax revenue in the midst of a shrinking GDP will somehow produce surplus's... man is that slow.

But I'm off topic. The only way a carbon tax can be called a carbon tax is if the revenue is earmarked to go towards reducing carbon. This clearly hasn't happened. What did happen is corporate taxation being reduced to 11% in BC and this province is also predicting a deficit. Otherwise, to think that a tax on gas will somehow encourage conservation is to believe that people still waste gas driving around for something to do. Those days are over.

As for the global warming so called "debate" mopled seems intent on discounting, its like this, mopled.

Look up the Milankovich theory. Note the earths 3 dimensional orbit, its eccentricity, precession, and axis tilt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

Note EPICA's ice assay samples of 3.2kms of antartic sea ice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core

Note as well, EPICA's ice core peer viewed interpretation.

http://www.esf.org/focus-on.html

Finally, use your own common sense. C02 levels have increased dramatically, with decreased 03 levels (damaged Ozone). We have more radiation coming down to earth than we've ever had before, combined with atmospheric & trophospheric heating from GHG's. The result? Higher atmospheric tempuratures that are melting ice rapidly in all but the highest elevations of the world and even then... don't invest in ski hills in the long term. Every year, the bar is raised with rain as opposed to snow in higher altitudes.

The final analysis? Mopled simply doesn't know how to interpret scientific evidence and data, but has clouded his own view with bias that is not only false, but highly damaging for any and all who would believe him and do nothing about the world's number one threat to Earths life and existence. Growing populations + growing consumption = deadly climate change. Its time we woke up to the formula that must change if we want our grandchildren to have a future worth living.

What!!!!

Go away for a few days, and the place is over-run with wingnuts-, and the brave few like Stump, KWD, Lynne and the rest of the valiant few are standing them off without the aid even of any rescuing cavalry. :-)

Sorry I've been away you guys. Springs beginning to break out all over here, and before the End of Days that Capitalism is endlessly growth developing for us becomes irreversible, carbon taxed or not, I just had to be out "tuning up" my horse. (Never know what you are going to need when peak oil suddenly collapses mid greed-blind capitalist development flight.:-)

May have to take up train robbing again, reverting to the frontier past in this country, or ambushing supply mule-trains coming across these Rocky Mountain passes bound for the starving millions fleeing the coast. (The salmon runs have all finally collapsed from fish farm sea lice infestations and glacial melt has raised the oceans such that Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, like Bangladesh, are all now under water.)

Those of us clinging to life in some of the valleys and on the ridges of the mountain passes have been forced to shoot all those fleeing the coast , for fear they steal our food and spread out like locust over the remaining life sustaining lands of the interior.

'sides, this thoroughbred, one of my fight or flight means of last resort, may also come down to being my last meal in the great, final failure of capitalism, that culls out the greedy and allows the survival of the fitter, more real analysis of the present. :-)

Carbon tax this you wingnut dipshites!

Good job many of you, with a special genuflection to KWD and Lynne.

Now, lets dig a few long and deep pits, in which to bury these neoconazi troglodytes. (Troglodytes: 1. a cave dweller, 3. a willfully obscurantist or old fashioned person.)

What did you expect from the sexual liaison of a pre-peak oil heavy crude smelling refinery worker and a poetess-goddess, hanky up the sleeve refinement? :-)

Still no answer, eh mope!

If you can't contemplate the mess that will result if you're wrong and we do bugger all - please don't accuse ME of avoiding the issue.

It isn't a debating tactic. I'm simply asking you why, given the downside of the two positions, any sane individual would adopt your attitude.

You clearly aren't going to respond and that says as much about your thesis as it does about you.

I freely admit that the IPCC and the rest of us may be wrong...and what that'll mean for the future.

I think it's contingent upon you to acknowledge that accepting your thesis and doing nothing will, if you're wrong (and there's scads of evidence to indicate you are) put the whole future of life on this planet in a cocked hat.

I can understand why you won't acknowledge the box you've got yourself into - but that isn't going to make me hesitate to slam the lid shut on you and seal it up with some 'homeland security' duct tape

.

Twin Scams

Man-made climate change AGW/CC and Peak Oil.

The Russians have been working on the premise of an abiotic origin of hydrocarbons and striking it rich by deep drilling.

Where is Truman when I need him. He, who pointed out the real meaning of pools of hydrocarbons on Titan for us here on Earth.

It's reminscent of the fact that all the planets warmed at the same time we did, during this last warming cycle.

We even get confirmation from the solar system that the hydrocarbons in the Earth have nothing to do with fossils and that the cause of the planetary warming has nothing to do with CO2. Some of the planets don't even have any CO2.

The people who push the nonsense about these two things are laughing themselves silly at the various places they hang out together.

Did you catch Prince Charles latest sacrifice for the good of the planet?
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002825.html

Ah, West. I have answered and I do have a life, so believe it or not, I am not always at the keyboard.

There is no possiblity...non....zilch....that that what you propose can come to pass.

We only produce 3% of the total CO2 in the atmosphere.

CO2 levels have been higher in the past without our help.

It has been warmer in the past before we started using oil and gas in a big way.

Numerous scientists have written numerous papers, two just last year, showing that higher levels of CO2 follow Earth warming by 800-1200 years, so cause and effect have been reversed in your scary scenario.

It doesn't matter how much we spend on CO2 restriction, it will have no meaningful effect.

How many more reasons do you need to get that the hypothesis is false?

Your question is emotional,irrational and devoid of any relationship to reality.

Here's a nice article from today's Times Colonist that puts in all together nicely.
We're A Long Way From Warming 'Oblivion'
Ancient carbon dioxide levels were up to 10 times above today's levels.

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=23e5f1f9-bb7c-47b4-9107-04e7e73c9d7e&p=2

Academia nuts?

Sorry. Couldn't resist. The fact remains that when "experts" take opposite views, those of us who don't know a periodic table from a hole in the ground become further confused.

So much is at stake that we must err on the side of caution. As I understand it, the plan would be to direct smoke, that would normally go up a plant's chimney, deep underground where it would be sealed against leakage.

It seems to me that we're talking huge volumes here. And what if there is not a disused mine or deep natural caverns close by?

While this is being beaten back and forth, much that could be discussed is not. Some of us, however, are lighting candles - or are attempting to.

I don't believe you

You are always at the keyboard.

Have a look at the production you've put out on this thread alone.

Compare it with a few short lines and one simple question from me.

The point is, the downside of 'believing' you and the skeptics is disaster. If you're wrong - and you may well be...so carry on....

Erring on the side of caution

only makes sense if there if there is some evidence to support a case for it.

With all due respect, Skepticool,since we are dealing with a matter of science here, would you please make the attempt to understand the issue before venturing an opinion urging "caution". It is not that complicated and the article I linked to above was written with you in mind.

"Our planet now is unusually cold by paleo-climatic standards, not warm. Carbon dioxide levels are unusually low, not high.

Note, too, that in 600 million years the global temperature hasn't gone much above 22°C no matter how high the CO2 levels were.

That's because the relationship of CO2 to temperature is logarithmic: the more CO2 you put in, the less effect it has on temperature.

This means there's no need to fear "runaway" global warming.

Moreover, most of our planet's species (including us) would face oblivion should temperatures and/or carbon dioxide levels get too much lower. If CO2 dropped to, say, 125 ppm, there would be very little plant life and most forms of animal life would die."

http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/comment/story.html?id=23e5f1f9-bb7c-47b4-9107-04e7e73c9d7e

mopled

You are right but as is so often the case logic and facts are up against sociological and political ideas.

as Joe Walsh published:

"You can't argue with a sick mind."

I'd let him go, G West. We spend valuable energy fighting with fools who would blow smoke up our asses; it makes us Foo-Fighters.

I think we are better off if we look to dethrone the provincial and federal government, as well as, lead through example. MDI/Tata Motors has the right idea. They understand the need for small and efficient. The building and using of small/compressed air cars will help propell India forward while North Americans move toward their Dark Ages and Canada, in particular, becomes more and more a 3rd world, resource economy dependent country.

GWest

Ah Yes, GWest, the good old Precautionary Principle, guaranteed to validate (for some) ANY position in which even the tiniest chance for harm can be posited.

If you applied that same rigour in risk analysis to automobile use, you wouldn't come within 10 feet of a car. If you were familiar with the stats re deaths resulting from mis-prescribed pharmaceuticals, and applied your risk-aversion odds to them, you'd tear up every prescription your physician gave you.

If you analysed why fire insurance costs so much, you'd throw out your gas or oil furnace and your kitchen stove. And some people, in considering crime stats, won't go out after dark.

The fact is, almost everything we do entails some risk, and we accept those risks when we balance them against their value to us and our society.

Considerable effort is put into the evaluation of risk, whether it is for insurance, safety or profitabiity purposes. Doing so is not a DENIAL of risk, merely a recognition that it is there.

The unavoidable fact is that to date there are NO reasonably incontestable facts which prove the cause and effect linkup between CO2 and GW. This is not Science at all, merely a hyped-up scare campaign designed to avoid proper risk analysis.

Stump thinks all is excused because of so-called "Peak Oil". However, there is no shortage of oil reserves at all. What is becoming scarce is Cheap Oil. But oil is so useful, and thus so valuable to our modern world, that only price will limit its use, and even that will be some time in coming, as technology improves.

Mopled has pointed out - and correctly so - the doubtful value of money spent on CO2 diminution/sequestration when compared to investment of the same money if spent on alternatives.

And it is here the "rub" is found. By far the most efficient new means of generating power - for coastal nations anyway - is tidal power. The drawback, as seen with the VAT, the Vertical Axis Turbine, is its high initial cost because of its cement emplacement. This is the same as with the large dams, which can be financed only by governments having access to very low interest long-term bonds.

Far better, say today's neocon governments, that we go with the get-rich-quick investor who cares not a bit for today's or tomorrow's energy user.

And it would piss off the touchie-feelies too, since it would let their real nemesis, which is NOT CO2 but the Oilcos, off the hook.

There is lots of evidence

For those with the wit to accept it. And even if it's not persuasive, doing something about a clearly deteriorating situation is always better than doing nothing - for everyone except a nihilist.

Moreover, that's what mopled is, at bottom, a nihilist.

Moreover, acting has logic in its favour too r/man.

Logically, to refuse to do what is for the good of the future of the planet is insane.

To continue to behave in a way that everyone recognizes is worse for our collective future is just plain nuts.

mopled's way is the way of death - no matter what the final verdict on global warming is - his way leads us all to Easter Island.

There is no rub there, ME2 - if we don't smarten up soon, there will be no 'there' there either. As for what the government does with the proceeds of its stupid and ineffectual tax, anything designed to be revenue 'neutral' when the house is burning down will pour fuel on the flames - watch and see.

On another subject, I hope you all watched the documentary on some homeless people in the DTES on Newsworld tonight ( The Passionate Eye: Devil Plays Hardball).

.

BTW - Sharing

I think you're right - hope you saw the doc I referenced above.

Getting things done

Mopled a nihilist? That's an ad hominem argument Garth.

And re "doing something", you say?

"And even if it's not persuasive, doing something about a clearly deteriorating situation is always better than doing nothing - for everyone except a nihilist."

Campbell's great at "doing something" and every time he does, he knifes the greens while they can't protest 'cause he's "Done Something" LOL

Anyone who believes that doing nothing

Is preferable to doing something positive is, in my view, a nihilist.

Nothing ad hominem about it.

If you read my comments carefully, you'll see I hold the same opinion about Campbell and his 'revenue neutral' carbon tax...

All he's doing in shifting gears - the road ahead hasn't changed a bit.

And it's not funny at all.

The point is it is not positive!

Restricting CO2 has no positive effects.

In fact it has already had plenty of negative ones. Turning food into fuel is destructive.

Clearing rainforest, with loss of unknown numbers of species, for monoculture palm oil plantations is DESTRUCTIVE!

Turning corn into ethanol is a waste of food, energy and WATER too.

The real nihilists are those running this scam. It fits right in with the depopulation agenda. Drive the price of food up and you kill people.

Now that's real nihilism!

peak schmeak

I didn't mention peak oil ME2. I do believe it (fossil fuel) is a valuable, finite resource and one worth conserving.

Mopled, I wonder if you'll address my question regarding the effect on the natural environment of a change of a few degrees in average temperature by 2100?

Cherry-picking again Mopled

What happened to correlation and causation?

Hmm, Titan and Earth, so very similar.

Mopled

Hey man, are you one of them there denihilists ??? LOL

mopled

Let me know when all this has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Until then its interesting but worthless.

the other way

Actually conservation of existing resources is more efficient. I think most people could find a way to leave the car at home one day a week... there's a twenty percent drop in your commuting energy needs right there. Similar efforts in other areas of our life are equally possible.

Everybody wants the technology fix for a behavioural problem. Such a male approach. I think we need more women offering up solutions... just not the petrol princesses that are afraid to muss their hair or smell like a human.

Todfay's Globe and Mail

Today's Globe and Mail published exactly which province is producing CO2. Alberta leads to back and Ontario not far behind. BC is at only 5% of national CO2 emissions.

FACILITIES TOTAL EMISSIONS PERCENTAGE
REPORTING (kt CO2 EQ.) OF TOTAL
Alberta 101 109,323 39
Ontario 85 78,400 28
Saskatchewan 22 22,870 8
Quebec 53 22,101 8
British Columbia 37 13,902 5
New Brunswick 12 12,611 5
Nova Scotia 9 12,015 4
Newfoundland and Labrador 7 5,216 2
Manitoba 7 2,941 1
Northwest Territories 2 359 0
Prince Edward Island 1 104 0
TOTAL 336 279,842 100

Nope

Unfortunately, “compulsory policy" has become too common and unwelcome; by association with this government, your respect will have to be earned.
It is incredible you should bring up “acid rain” as justification for more of the same.
Lead is NOT the only cause of acid rain. But it is still added to gas, just not for automobiles or just not here, as you should know.
And lead is still a very critical issue:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000320/kitman
“Personal Mobility, Status Enhancing and Sexual Insecurity Compensatory Devices” is an insult. Knowledge IS power.
Many people have made many changes already; unlike our government -unless you are counting the creation of poverty and homelessness as creation of less “carbon”.
If our government, as yourself, wanted to “save the planet”, a lot more would have been done already. I guess the pay raises and give aways had priority. Unfortunately, it seems now glory is the priority.
The Carbon Tax is not “world-class”.
I’ve read better suggestions here at The Tyee that would've created legislation with teeth.
An “international standard“ is needed and that is the bitch, we are capable of and long aware of so much more than just two pennies here and a $100, there.

City Person

Lets not be too coy about this: What do you think happens to the coal we mine here in BC once it gets to Asia?

Well put, btw, Hawkeyes....If this crisis is the moral equivalent of war, it has to be fought on that basis.

Led by the current bunch of kleptomaniac sell-out artists that seems unlikely - they prefer to tell lies about the effectiveness of what our 'troops' are doing in Afghanistan.

More unintended consequences

I thought Solar was clean...didn't you?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802595.html

"In China, a country buckling with the breakneck pace of its industrial growth, such stories of environmental pollution are not uncommon. But the Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co., here in the central plains of Henan Province near the Yellow River, stands out for one reason: It's a green energy company, producing polysilicon destined for solar energy panels sold around the world. But the byproduct of polysilicon production -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards.

"The land where you dump or bury it will be infertile. No grass or trees will grow in the place. . . . It is like dynamite -- it is poisonous, it is polluting. Human beings can never touch it," said Ren Bingyan, a professor at the School of Material Sciences at Hebei Industrial University.

The situation in Li's village points to the environmental trade-offs the world is making as it races to head off a dwindling supply of fossil fuels.

Forests are being cleared to grow biofuels like palm oil, but scientists argue that the disappearance of such huge swaths of forests is contributing to climate change. Hydropower dams are being constructed to replace coal-fired power plants, but they are submerging whole ecosystems under water."

Just off the top, it looks like we're doing far more damage to the Earth by trying to accomodate the twin scams of Peak Oil and Climate Change than we did before this nonsense started.

What's a little CO2 compared to silicon tetrachloride?

Just a quick reminder about all those mercury filled light bulbs which will be heading to landfills and I'd say a good deal of this "Green" action is decidedly black].....but then I'm just a denhilist.
(Thanks ME2, very funny)

Oh really?

Could we have a little more evidence of this.

Please pay particular attention to the atmosphere above London, England for example - reference should be made to the winter of 1952.

Also please pay particular attention to these items:

http://www.ehponline.org/members/2003/6539/6539.html

http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/5/2/82

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE1DE123CF932A15752C0A966958260

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1820523.stm

China has no lessons to teach in this area - but most of the pollution there isn't coming from silicon tetrachloride either mope.

So, what's your point?

Mine is that the "solutions" proposed for the "climate catastrophe" are worse than what is supposedly a problem.

Compound that with the fact that climate changes are beyond our control anyway, and I'd say the climate scam is very destructive.

And I say that's nonsense

Things were, and are, far worse in the past and we're never going to recover from that past if we accept the nonsense idea you wrote - here, I'll post it again - bolded, so everyone can see exactly how bankrupt your ideas are:

Just off the top, it looks like we're doing far more damage to the Earth by trying to accomodate the twin scams of Peak Oil and Climate Change than we did before this nonsense started.(mopled)

Or do you now disavow your own words?

"twin scams"

It always comes back to a giant conspiracy led by giant alien lizards. Which is why realisticman buys into it hook, line and two sinkers.

I await the forthcoming google from Bob Jones University proclaiming that scientists have created all those dinosaur fossils in their left-wing funded labs and that's why we shouldn't believe anything they say.

Meanwhile, in the world where the sky is blue, the one where people don't believe global warming is a scam perpetrated by the new lightbulb people, I think mopled just needs a hug.. by a scientist.

China's carbon reduction

Not directed at anyone here.

I don't know whether China is involved in carbon taxing, but with its phenomenal industrial growth, as the U.S. economy appears in danger of tanking, China-bashing seems much in vogue.

How many of this continent's fertile valleys have been lost to dams? There are environmental costs associated with all such structures.

The Three Gorges Dam is an amazing engineering feat. It will power a lot of electric scooters and leave a lot of dirty coal unburned. Many have been displaced, but a lake will have been formed with about 700 kilometers of shoreline at completion.

With the fast-developing entrepreneurial spirit evident, that's a lot of waterfront property potential. 100 foot lots? You do the math.

Oil on the Fire

Oh No. Another 'expert' weighs in. Law suits coming?

By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
3/4/2008 11:47:32 AM

It turns out Al Gore was wrong. The scientists aren’t all in agreement on global warming; thus there is no “consensus.”

Prominent hurricane forecaster Dr. William M. Gray, a professor at Colorado State University, told the audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 4 in New York that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures related to the salinity (the amount of salt) in ocean water was responsible for some global warming that has taken place. However, he said that same cycle means a period of cooling would begin within 10 years.

“We should begin to see cooling coming on,” Gray said. “I’m willing to make a big financial bet on it. In 10 years, I expect the globe to be somewhat cooler than it is now, because this ocean effect will dominate over the human-induced CO2 effect and I believe the solar effect and the land-use effect. I think this is likely bigger.”

Gray, 79, wasn’t sure if he’d be around to see his prediction come true.

“I may not be around by that time,” Gray said. “But, I’ve asked some of my students to put dandelions on my grave if that happens.”

Gray criticized NASA scientist and global warming alarmist James Hansen, calling him “the most egregious abuser” of data. According to Gray, Hansen’s alarmism is exaggerated because the models he uses to predict the increase in global warming count on too much water vapor in the atmosphere.

“[S]o he puts that much vapor in his model and of course he gets this,” Gray said. “He must get upper troposphere where the temperature is seven degrees warmer for a doubl[ing of] CO2. Well, the reason he got that was – why this upper-level warming was there – was he put too much water vapor in the model.”

At the same conference March 3, the founder of The Weather Channel advocated suing carbon traders, including former Vice President Al Gore, to expose what he called “the fraud of global warming.”

Good times ahead on Howe St.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=56d49210-2486-4b87-88a9-df5ab306f6fa&k=10202
The commodification of your breath proceeds apace.
"Vancouver set to host carbon trading registry"

"Here's how it works in the provincial microcosm: In B.C., in the government's latest budget, carbon is valued at $25 dollars a tonne. Once B.C. introduces its carbon-cap-and-trading system, that means if you can reduce one tonne of carbon, you theoretically create a $25 carbon credit. That can then be sold to a company (or a government) anywhere that is one tonne over its carbon cap, and thus in need of a carbon credit to offset its greenhouse gas emissions and thus avoid more expensive government penalties.

Carbon trading is new. It's unpredictable. The value of that $25-a-tonne credit will fluctuate, depending on market demand and the steepness of the penalties set by government. But it's already clear that the scale of the emerging carbon-trading business is simply enormous.

Again, just consider our own tiny carbon market.

The B.C. government wants to cut our province's current carbon footprint to about 45 million tonnes annually by 2020. Since the growing economy is expected to create about 85 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by that year, it means we're looking at cutting about 40 million tonnes by 2020. Now, if you calculate a carbon credit at $25 a tonne, as the government does, that adds up to about $1 billion on today's carbon market.

Of course, a carbon credit could be worth much more a dozen years from now, or much less. Nobody really knows. If the fears of climate change don't diminish, carbon credits may be as buoyant as the price of oil and make $25 a tonne look cheap. But if people start to think global warming isn't such a big deal, carbon credits could be near worthless."

So, the gas tax is only the beginning, and as has been pointed out by savy economists, carbon trading is a Mafioso's dream come true.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0711/S00060.htm
Carbon Trading Open Invitation To Fraud

Carbon trading is an open invitation to fraud, in the opinion of Auckland energy consultant Bryan Leyland, who is chairman of the economic panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.

"I first heard about carbon trading at a conference more than 10 years ago. I got up and said 'If I was the financial adviser to the Mafia, I would advise them to get into carbon trading.' Nothing that has happened since then changes my opinion - rather the reverse," said Mr Leyland."

Quote:You're the one who

I understand that you’re so fond of me that you’ve kept all my previous posts, perhaps you can pull out the one where I’ve made this statement because I don’t remember ever saying that.

What I do remember is railing against dumb ideological driven nonsense like this….

As to your question about what actually goes on here, it looks suspiciously like a left-wing group hug to me……

China's going Clean

More good news for BC's coal miners.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2008/2008-03-10-03.asp

Skepticool

Sorry for the delayed response, Skepticool. To answer your question...

Suggest as offensive | Recommend as a best comment | Help

mine shows only "Help" - even as it is posted - and in all threads.

Is this to suggest that I need help, or that some person, persons, lobby or some phantom, keyboard babbler, that may be targeting skeptikool, may need help?

It is certainly assuring that, no matter what I write, it will be hidden from those who read only "Best comments".

Some would call that, censorship.

...as Frank and Stump point out, our system doesn't let at commenter recommend his/her own comment as a Best Comment or an Offensive comment. Thus, the only option left is Help. It's in no way a commentary on your particular need for help. I won't comment on that one way or the other. :-)

Well, nln, you're not invited to any group hug I'm part of.

And yep, I do have your posts complaining about the size of government budgets, the growth of the deficit, the level of taxation and how much happier you'd be if the situation was different.

I think that pretty much sums up your attitude - and certainly isn't materially different from what I wrote about you.

I realize it takes some sophistication to make the connection.

Perhaps I misjudged that you would be capable of managing the mental gymnastics. That’s my mistake; I won't give you so much credit in the future.

GW

Please, you can make the improbable leap of logic more effectively than anyone else on the Tyee. Being unable to perform the mental gymnastics that you suggest is way better than living in the fantasy world that you occupy…..

BTW, what would be wrong with less government taxation, waste and spending? Considering that the meteoric rise in government spending in the last 15 years has done nothing to improve the life of the average Canadian.

G

I disagree, NLN has not complained once about any of those things since the provincial Libs and federal Cons took power.

Its only when the provincial NDP and federal Libs are in office that those are concerns.

mopled

Rail all day against carbon taxes. I'll even join you. But drop the argument that its a massive worldwide conspiracy financed by Magna International, it really doesn't lend much credibility to your argument against carbon taxes.

There you go again....

Ever the obscuratist. It is a toss-up as to whether you or G.West is better at it.

Who said anything about Magna? I said Mafioso!

Carbon trading markets are all over the news right now, and the Mafia has been in commodities trading for years. I love this quote:
"US regional programs like the Western Climate Initiative are picking up steam, and 32 states have now adopted hard emissions targets. The conference sponsor, the International Emissions Trading Association, is banking on the idea US investors will embrace a worldwide carbon trading market that reached $60 billion in 2007 and could mushroom to $300 billion or more very soon. But what exactly is a carbon market?

At a press briefing, IETA president and CEO Henry Derwent acknowledged the concept was a difficult one to explain. "Carbon is an externality, not a commodity. People say, 'What on earth do I need that for? It's not a pork belly.'"

Derwent said investors should look at carbon trading as a form of derivative like a hedge fund. He defended the idea of traders making a profit from carbon trading. "They should be taking a margin for a service. If they do their job well they will provide the world with energy with a lower risk of climate change."

Environmental critics of a cap-and-trade system worry carbon traders, like other derivatives traders, will get carried away and game the system to produce excessive profits for themselves. But the biggest issue as the US contemplates its first national climate bill is the how to allocate the emissions under the cap.

The European Union Emissions Trading System established under the Kyoto protocol gave away emissions allocations to polluting industries in a grandfathering scheme. This depressed the price of carbon and got the market off to a slow start in 2005. The Lieberman-Warner bill would repeat this strategy in the US by giving away over half of the pollution allowances -- worth billions of dollars -- to big industries like coal-burning electric utilities."

http://www.alternet.org/environment/78900/

Frank

Sorry, not true. I've only been a member since after the Liberals took power. Stupid spending is stupid spending and both the Provincial Liberals and Federal Conservatives are as good at it as anybody.....

Naw! Frank

Don't you remember the apoplexy he got himself into in Taylor's last budget (2007) when he saw it topped 30 Billion bucks...I think the comments were in response to a Will McMartin column.

nutter hates anyone spending his money.

mopled

You have in our past discussions.

Is that Latin for "denihlist"?

In other words why should I worry about a by-product of what I do since the "environment" doesn't actually mail out bills?

NLN

Well, we've all only been members since the Libs took power since the Tyee wasn't around in the NDP era. However, I don't recall you ever criticising Campbell's running up the debt or his spending. Instead you've attacked us NDPers because, in your opinion, we'd spend even more in spite of the fact that the Liberals really have spent more than the NDP did in the 90s.

Now G defends you and says he does recall you criticising Carol Taylor's budget and perhaps that's true. I only go by memory.

Oh, I'm not defending him Frank

Just pointing out the fact that he doesn't really care who's in power all that much - nutter is an equal opportunity hater.

What he loves is cash - and hanging onto it.

He figures he could get along just fine without the government - reminds me a bit of murdock, without the wide range of extracurricular reading of course.

Avoiding the question

I'd just like to point out that Mopled... who has a link and an answer for everything, seems unable to answer a simple question.

What happens to our natural environment with only a few degrees of change in the next hundred years?

All you folks so eager to ride his coattails might want to think about that. If you have children or grandchildren... I suggest you think real hard.

Thanks Geoff

Yes, I could see what was happening once explained, though I cannot see anyone suggesting that their own post was offensive - nor that it was a best comment for that matter. Can there be such people?

Answer to

"What happens to our natural environment with only a few degrees of change in the next hundred years?"
We reach the temperature level of the Medieval Warm Period when the world blossomed.

Warm is good. CO2 is good.

We have polar ice caps because we are still in an ice age. If they melt, we move further up the hill just as we have always done. The constant warming scenario does not fit with the observed pattern of periodic warming and cooling the Earth goes through and over which we have never had control. Blaming CO2 is a scam and leads to real craziness like this charmer.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/09/AR2008030901867.html

The Ken Caldiera mentioned comes out of Lawrence Livermore Labs,( as did Lovelock and that changer of IPCC reports and finder of man's footprint in AGW/CC in 1996, with no back up evidence, the well rewarded Ben Santer) Caldiera is not a climate scientist or oceanographer, but he has written on both recently. He also worked with Teller on "Aerial Obscuration", aka Chemtrails as a supposed AGW solution.

BTW, the idea of "tipping point" and "point of no return" are straight out of nuclear physics and make no sense in the system of positive and negative feedbacks which makes up climate. The only way to go to no carbon emmisions is through nuclear power replacing coal oil and gas.

That's what you are all supporting, whether you know it or not.

Frank, obviously you can't hit me on fact, so you make stuff up. Again, MAFIA, not Magna.

GW

More flights of fancy I see….I’m happy to take the position that there is plenty of government spending being done, only that too much of it is spent on buying votes rather than serving the citizenry. You, on the other hand seem to support the position that all governments are entitled to everything we produce. A perspective usually held by elitists that believe they not only know, but have the right to dictate, who is entitled to what.

How did you get to be so important?

Now you really are into flights of fancy

As to governments buying votes that would definitely be a characteristic of the Campbell government and a characteristic of a certain reciprocal relationship they have with business and industry as well.

You might want to check their donor list...I think you'll find it quite illuminating of the fact that this government is definitely bought and paid for.

Have you signed up for your NDP membership yet?

As to your imaginary characterization of what you think I believe...I'd like you to find a single instance where I've ever posted anything like what you've just alleged.

Moreover, relative to my being elitist, that’s hardly the case; another specious allegation from someone who hasn't actually taken the trouble to read what I write or to understand even a scintilla of what I believe.

If it makes me elitist to actually have an opinion and some preferred policy options that I can articulate with a modicum of style and wit and an absence of ad hominem references - so be it.

I'll live with it - as well as your negativity and humbug - I see it as a badge of honour - one has to be careful whom one associates with these days. I am quite surprised – given you opinion of this place as a den of iniquitous leftists – that you permit your reputation to be soiled by appearing here at all.

mopled

hehe, that was funny mopled, nothing like a good chuckle in the afternoon. thanks

NLN

So you're unhappy with Campbell and Harper?

Mind-bogglingly stupid answer

Newsflash M. There's six billion of us on the planet now. Just a few more than during the Middle Ages. Not room enough for everybody on the top of rocky, agriculturally-wanting mountain peaks. I guess you'll be volunteering you and yours to live underwater?

Thanks for your answer. It proves exactly what I've suspected all along. You're pretty handy with Google and the talking points, but your actual grasp of the depth and breadth of the narrow ribbon that constitutes a livable biosphere for humans and other living creatures is woefully inadequate.

Since that's been established, I'll take the win and leave you to quote more astronomers about a problem that has nothing to do with the stars.

Infrastructure Spending Missing

The problem with Jaccard's work is that he only admits the existance of two kinds of government action:
1) financial policies (taxes,fines and subsidies) and
2) regulatory policies

He leaves out infrastructure spending completely. So for example, if (as mentioned in the previous Tyee article) you want to stop speeding beside a school or playground you can only fine people who speed or suspend their licences. Building speed humps is not an option.

Likewise for global warming. In Jaccard's world, stopping building freeways (such as Gateway)and re-allocating existing road space to transit (as per the Zurich example)does not exist as a meaningful policy instrument.

A lot of what he has to say is right on, but he has a huge ideological blind spot.

Pshaw, Stump

The point is we have no control over rising sea levels, which aren't rising at the fantastic rate the Goracle scared everyone with and with wich we have been coping for the last 10,00 years anyway.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

At the rate of 0.4mm year, I think we can handle it, so you may untwist your knickers now.

Too late Mopled

I already popped the top on my recyclable Grolsch bottle in celebration of my pointing out how you manage to miss the essence of the problem. Maybe next time. Cheers!

Narrow-mindedness on these carbon tax stories

First, off my chest, all you city people who say - 'buy a bike'. Fine. I own 3 - a trainer, a road, and a mountain, but I can't use it to commute to work - what with winter, rain, ice, truck traffic, oh, and distance 70 km one way, plus time driving 'for' work. Why don't I live a town closer to work? Thanks to tourism and the Alberta dollar, the cost of a house in the town my job is in is above my income, period - I can work in a ski resort, but I can't afford to live there.....

Ok, now on to my thoughts about the carbon tax. I don't like it. I have been doing my bit - a small car - 6.5 L/100 km. 11 years old, but still, its a Honda. I turned down the home thermostat - electronic, so it is even lower when I'm not at home...and I am borrowing money to replace both my furnace and water heater with +90% efficiency models - no help from anyone there..... And I recycle as much as possible... So why is it that I still see large trucks and hummers on the highway???? never dirty, never 'off road'... ok, they do go off road in the snow and ice - something about the laws of physics I guess.... Anyway, why not place a high tax (15%...20%..) on the purchase of vehicles that use above some level of fuel (ie; 12 L/100 km and above) - maybe a sliding scale, with tax credits for the farmers and businesses that need them - but not for the RV'ers.... and the same high tax should be levied on each and every resale of these vehicles. And how about a credit, or no tax - on vehicles that use below some value, say 7 L / 100km... And Add to this - a voluntary 'take it off the road' cash payment to everyone who delivers their licensed/insured (say last 2 years running) old 'gas guzzler' (see guidelines above???) to a wrecker to pull the "numbers" and crush it - removing the vehicle permanently from the roads - voluntary so that those who can not afford to replace their vehicle are not forced into walking, but with a high enough dollar value to make it worthwhile (ie; more than the vehicle is worth to sell or trade in... $2500/vehicle or more...). These taxes could raise the revenue to fund these pay outs to people..... And I'm just starting - lets move on to industry...!!!!!!!

Shortsummer

Frank also suggested a $2 - 3 G allowance to pay local garages (not dealers) to do propane or natural gas conversions in work trucks - the kind of vehicles working people can't do without - a much better use of tax revenues than a 100 buck a head bribe from Victoria.

He even checked out what it'd cost for his own truck.

You could do a lot of conversions for 400 million beans. There is a wide range of things that the government could have done but failed to do - I think maybe they hired the wrong consultant.

On the basis of Jaccard's defence of his own plan I'd almost guarantee it.

Shortsummer

You're in the minority and quite welcome to use a car if that's your only option. But, despite the caterwauling from many that they are in the same boat... it's simply not the case. Let's not confuse necessity with convenience.

I'm new here and will wade

I'm new here and will wade in on this subject under an inevitable future article.

I will say after reading your posts here and elsewhere that long before we ever come to a consensus on climate change the battle between the global warming faithful and the skeptics will do this planet far more harm than the increase in CO2 levels predicted.

Frank

Absolutely, neither one provides the fiscal responsibility that I prefer. Unlike most Tyee posters I’m not in favour of the nanny state controlling every element of the quality of our lives from cradle to grave.

The average Canadian pays too much tax that goes towards too many pet projects and special interest groups in the name of buying votes. That does nothing to lift the quality of life for the average Canadian, it only serves to keep the ruling party in power.

What's that fishy smell

Like the right-whinger posters who frequent the Tyee however, you sure like the taste of red herrings. Keep it NLN, intellectual bankruptcy suits you.

NLN

That's fine, the NDP spends less than Campbell because we don't believe in grandiose projects to make us look glorious. Taxes paid to NDP governments are more likely to go back in your pocket in the form of services.

You can choose which you prefer until there's a no-tax party that comes along.

Frank

You’re entitled to your opinion. I think the NDP overpays the civil service unions to curry their vote and I don’t mind enjoying the occasional grandiose project myself from time to time……still think that all current governments redistribute more than they need to.

I’m not sure how you translate that the 55% or so, of my productivity that is taken to support all levels of government means that I support “no taxes”, I definitely support “no more taxes”.

NLN

You figure you're paying 55%?

I'm sincerely curious as to how you computed that being as I've never done so.

REALLY, ERIC

A lot of what he has to say is right on, but he has a huge ideological blind spot.

Really, Eric, do you think it's wise of you to accuse others of being ideologically blinkered?

Don't worry about nutter Frank

He never could understand the Canadian tax system.

The top marginal rate of tax in British Columbia is 43.70% and that only applies to taxable incomes of more than $123,184.00.

So he's not paying 55% of anything and I'll bet he's paying a lot less, in actual percentage terms, than 43.70 % too.

You should get a new tax adviser NLN - and hurry - April 30 is fast approaching.

GW

For a bright guy sometimes you sure can be dumb. My property taxes are about 7% of my annual family income, gas taxes alone are another 3%, GST and PST are about 4.5% and that doesn’t include all the other assorted methods all levels of government use for taxing the average Canadian.

You’re either blind to the issue or being ignorant simply for the sake of argument. Which is it?

NLN

3 + 7 + 4.5 = 14.5%

So you're saying you pay 40.5% in income tax?

Then you guys on the Right gotta drop your love of the grandiose projects. They're too expensive for you and the rest of us don't want them anyway.

Mais non

Those taxes are consumption taxes - not income taxes. You pay them by choice - not because of anything you earn.

In fact, as I pointed out, I wager you're actual effective rate of tax is far lower than the top marginal rate anyway. No matter how hard you tried, my friend, you wouldn't be paying 55% and you know it - either that or you really are dumb.

If you want to look at someone who is overtaxed you need to look at a fellow with a couple kids who needs day care who is trying to make a go of it on less than 40 G a year..

As to the property taxes you pay - have you tried renting lately? I recommend it, but I bet your rent will be a lot more than 7% of your net too.

Cry me a river, if you don't like the fact you pay property tax I suggest you move to the sticks and buy a small acreage - keep a couple goats and chickens and you can call it a farm...but don't cry when you don't have any of the 'services' that property tax pays for.

And you don't have to drive your car either - your friend Stephen will even give you an $80 rebate against transit fares....but you'll have to keep receipts.

Cry me a river.

Now, what is your real rate of income tax?

About 37% I'll wager.

Get a new tax accountant - this one is just supporting your misapprehensions about the tax system.

GW

Tax is tax…only someone way behind in the discussion would drag out the cheap rationalizations that you do. But, then again, that’s what you’re good at. I’d be happy to hear how your accountant ensures that the only tax you pay is income tax.

And Frank, yes I do. And, you're forgetting the innumerable fees and levies that we all pay.....

NLN

Not at all, I've always argued against such fees on other threads because they hit low incomes harder than those like yourself.

NLN

55% taxation is too high.

However, although you may not like us NDP types the fact remains that generally you don't see NDP gov'ts using taxpayer money building testaments to our own vanity. We spend that taxpayer money on people. Whether we always spend it wisely is up for debate but in general I'm more comfortable with our priorities.

And I realize we're not perfect and there are those among us that have a screw loose and want to "pour cement like a drunken Socred" but overall, the average joe will face higher taxes when he's governed by someone wanting to put his name on a piece of cement.

And there have been good Conservative premiers, but for every one of those there seems to be three or four Ralph Kleins and their frequency has been declining drastically since the Thatcher era.

Still can't cope with the truth I see

Let's look at payroll taxes, just as a fer instance.

Do a little math on which income groups get hit hardest by those taxes you turkey.

The fact is that your 55% claim is total garbage and you know it. Like I said, I'll bet your net effective rate of tax is less than 37%..if it's a penny more you're being overpaid, cause you're not worth it.

Tax is not 'just' tax - a consumption tax is paid by choice - if you don't like it then don't buy the stuff that's taxed; take public transit; put your 5G in pee wee's latest 'savings' vehicle and see how much you can make tax free. Good luck on that one btw.

But stop pushing bull shit around here.

Like the last time you came up wrong about Taylor's budget, you should just fade away and not come back.

Frank

Fair comment....

GW

Nobody on the Tyee blows and sucks the way you do….what wonderful logic, don’t want to pay consumption taxes don’t consume anything….don’t want to pay property taxes don’t own property, don’t want to pay death taxes, don’t die………you are one fine piece of work.

Surprised that you’d dredge up that other imaginary success of yours, the discussion over the 2007 Carole Taylor budget. You’re so far behind you think you’re first.