How Bill Gates Would Fight Climate Change (gatesnotes.com) 217
"There's another global disaster we also need to try to prevent," Bill Gates wrote on his blog Thursday: "climate change."
As I have tried to make clear on this blog over the past two years, we have only some of the tools we need to eliminate the world's greenhouse gases. We need breakthroughs in the way we generate and store clean electricity, grow food, make things, move around, and heat and cool our buildings, so we can do all these things without adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
In short, we need to revolutionize the world's physical economy — and that will take, among other things, a dramatic infusion of ingenuity, funding, and focus from the federal government. No one else has the resources to drive the research we need.
CNBC summarizes Gates' plan: Bill Gates on Thursday proposed the formation of a new U.S. agency to tackle climate change and a five-fold jump in funding for research on renewable energy... "There's no central office that's responsible for evaluating and nurturing great ideas," Gates wrote. "For example, research on clean fuels is managed by offices in the departments of Energy, Transportation, and Defense — and even NASA. Similarly, responsibility for research on energy storage is spread across at least four offices in the Department of Energy..."
"To be fair, the U.S. isn't the only country that underfunds clean energy research," Gates writes on his blog. "All the governments in the world spend about $22 billion a year on it, or around 0.02 percent of the global economy. Americans spend more than that on gasoline in a single month."
In February Gates will publish a book titled How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.
As I have tried to make clear on this blog over the past two years, we have only some of the tools we need to eliminate the world's greenhouse gases. We need breakthroughs in the way we generate and store clean electricity, grow food, make things, move around, and heat and cool our buildings, so we can do all these things without adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
In short, we need to revolutionize the world's physical economy — and that will take, among other things, a dramatic infusion of ingenuity, funding, and focus from the federal government. No one else has the resources to drive the research we need.
CNBC summarizes Gates' plan: Bill Gates on Thursday proposed the formation of a new U.S. agency to tackle climate change and a five-fold jump in funding for research on renewable energy... "There's no central office that's responsible for evaluating and nurturing great ideas," Gates wrote. "For example, research on clean fuels is managed by offices in the departments of Energy, Transportation, and Defense — and even NASA. Similarly, responsibility for research on energy storage is spread across at least four offices in the Department of Energy..."
"To be fair, the U.S. isn't the only country that underfunds clean energy research," Gates writes on his blog. "All the governments in the world spend about $22 billion a year on it, or around 0.02 percent of the global economy. Americans spend more than that on gasoline in a single month."
In February Gates will publish a book titled How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.
What ever it is I am sure (Score:4, Insightful)
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Naaa, it's just forced progress (forced by our past and current lack of progress in these areas).
Nothing sinister, just progress.
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The "sacrifice" will be middle class people having lower quality of life, the 1% unaffected, and nothing getting better with climate change.
Look at the elephant in the room, the factories, the nations that use shitty lignite coal, and many other industries. Fix climate change there. Go for the best returns.
Otherwise, nothing changes, except people get poorer and wealthy people get richer, to the point where revolutions and wars happen... and wars are not exactly good for the environment.
Re:What ever it is I am sure (Score:5, Insightful)
The "sacrifice" will be middle class people having lower quality of life
I have an EV and solar panels on my roof. Both will save me money in the long run. My quality of life has not diminished.
As we move away from fossil fuels, the big losers will be petro-states: Russia, Venezuela, Saudia Arabia, Iran, etc. Most of these countries do not share our values or interests. As their power diminishes, they will cause less instability and turmoil in the world. So we can pay for the research and development of energy alternatives by shifting money out of our military budget.
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Considering how cold Siberia is, and how much of the Arctic Russia controls, I don't think they are going to be one of the big losers as global warming proceeds. Based on my research into the last major global warming event, the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum, Siberia is going to become a very desirable piece of real estate.
Bill got old. 20 years ago he would have been trying to seize control of the polar caps and capitalize on the opportunity. Now he's talking like a 15 year old.
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If you own an EV and have solar panels on your roof then you are not middle class.
Those both seem to be pretty easily inside middle class means. Especially solar panels. As for the car, a Tesla Model 3 basic model without self driving is $37,990. That's only bit more than the average new car price. That's certainly within the means of a middle class family. Certainly many middle class families may choose to prioritize other expenses over cars, so it's not like you'll see that in every driveway.
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In Norway, they tax normal cars to high heavens and has punitive rules on cars that EVs are exempt from, making EVs almost on par in costs while less constrained to drive in many places in Norway. As in many other things in life, Norway is a massive outlier.
Re: What ever it is I am sure (Score:2)
A lot of small businesses in Indian, Taiwan, China, and Australia use solar just fine. We are talking about middle class in those countries but most American poor are richer than those. Their market factors are quite different than ours with cheaper labor, unreliable grid power, and expensive alternatives.
But solar panels are an international market where everyone pays the same amount for the raw panel parts. The various locations also have less direct subsidies compared to the EU and the US.
Those govern
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In summary, if the poorest of the panel consumer market is readily purchasing the product, I would say your argument doesn't lend much weight since a good 5 years.
The GP didn't explain what they meant so I will try. Energy prices directly correlate with quality of life. The price of energy is folded into the price you pay for almost everything. So cheaper energy means more abundance. That's what would drive down the quality of life of the middle and lower classes. You being able to afford solar panels is largely irrelevant other than the fact that more resources went into your power than some of your neighbour's power (renewables are really inefficient). Its a
Re:Bill Gates: STFU, KYS... (Score:5, Informative)
hyper-focused on ways to dominate the entire world's population?
Working toward eradicating malaria doesn't help him dominate the world. Reducing tuberculosis and HIV, providing clean water, sanitation, and family planning in Africa, don't appear to be self-interested. Bill Gates is a major benefactor of Khan Academy.
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His plan against HIV is useless genital mutilation.
There is overwhelming evidence that circumcision reduces HIV infections. It also reduces HPV and syphilis infections.
Circumcision and HIV [wikipedia.org]
Re: Bill Gates: STFU, KYS... (Score:4, Interesting)
There is some statistical correlation but only when condoms weren't used 90% of the time and partner was HIV +ve
And the mechanism of action isn't understood beyond some simplistic speculation that foreskin had immune cells which when removed could reduce the infection probability.
So, slightly worse case than getting your tonsils removed. I am going with condoms or avoiding +ve people
Re: Bill Gates: STFU, KYS... (Score:2)
No. But given the sheer volume of data, it's pretty darn suggestive.
I'm waiting for your research paper showing your alternative hypothesis that better explains the data.
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It could come from whoever the fuck that is.
Or it could come from:
The Lancet: https://www.thelancet.com/jour... [thelancet.com].
The NIH: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
The WHO: https://www.who.int/teams/glob... [who.int]
Or any of literally hundreds of Googleable resources. Can you find me some peer reviewer studies that show the opposite?
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Going to need some context on this one...
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Gates Foundation promotes circumcision in Africa to prevent HIV, but in reality circumcision is useless at that, and harmful.
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Nope. [circumstitions.com] It's a myth. [bmj.com]
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so does wearing a condom, and it doesn't require mutilating a baby.
Re:Bill Gates: STFU, KYS... (Score:4, Insightful)
Circumcision is entirely voluntary. Nobody is forcing anyone to "mutilate" their baby.
How does a baby volunteer for circumcision?
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What vaccine amputates a body part?
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they're working on it, and will let you know once the preliminary trials are complete.
Neither of them have done much for mankind (Score:5, Interesting)
Hyper loop especially pisses me off. It was an idea dismissed in the 50s because if there's a break in the line the entire thing collapses from the pressure. That problem hasn't been solved, and terrorism has made it worse. But what Hyper Loop *did* accomplish is give governments an excuse to drop high speed rail, a tech that does work and works very, very well. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the 2 major investors in Hyper Loop are an airline owner and a guy that sells cars.
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Pretty much every sentence in your comment deserves a [citation needed]...
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Re: What ever it is I am sure (Score:2)
It's very legal, and very cool!
Bill's solution (Score:5, Funny)
How about a real solution to climate change? (Score:5, Informative)
How about a real solution to climate change? Nuclear energy. Yes, the mighty atom which spearheaded the greatest technological and infrastructure development in the US in any time in history. Yes, people are fearful about it... but research has proceeded 40 years since Three Mile Island. There are thorium reactors, liquid fueled reactors, reactors which are prebuilt and just need dropped in the ground, so the tech knowhow of the installers can be low. Nuclear, a beefed up power grid, and converting energy to synthetic fuels until battery density is good enough to replace gasoline, diesel, and other fuels for good.
So, what can nuclear energy bring us? Everything from scooping up plastic and using thermal depolymerization to "boil" the waste crap back into useful monomers and oil that can be reused, to creating synthetic fuels which don't need a catalytic converter to burn cleanly, to allowing for high energy operations like smelting aluminum to be done in places other than near a hydroelectric dam. Nuclear energy can provide us cheap processes to recycle e-waste which is otherwise unusable and takes landfill space.
Of course, solar and wind are nice to have, but until battery density is enough to allow those to run things at night, and allow for (currently) expensive chemical processes to be reduced in price, nuclear has its place too.
There are risks, but realistically, what other solutions are there? We can continue to be "eco concious" and burn fossil fuels until we go extinct, or just bite the bullet and go with something that only puts out steam in the air from cooling towers. It can't hurt to have more research in this field, especially with thorium reactors which are far less a danger to the environment.
The new plants keep running way, way over budget (Score:2, Insightful)
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too much to chalk it up to bureaucracy.
I'd blame it on a lack of experience and a lack of economy of scale.
If you want to see nuclear power get lower in cost then create a means to have economy of scale and plenty of experience. France tried this by building a bunch of the same reactor all over the country. That worked until they found a flaw common in all the reactors that cost a lot to fix, and they stopped building them meaning they lost all their experienced workers.
Let's try this, and a nation like the USA is one of the few big enough to
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Nuclear has two major problems that prevent it being useful for fighting climate change.
1. It can't be deployed everywhere. Some countries are not allowed to have nuclear programmes, and many simply don't have the institutions or infrastructure or the desire to create them.
2. It's too expensive. Any solution has to be economically viable and competitive with other sources of energy.
Modular reactors, thorium reactors and all the other ideas proposed won't solve either of these problems, let alone both.
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Nuclear has two major problems that prevent it being useful for fighting climate change.
1. It can't be deployed everywhere. Some countries are not allowed to have nuclear programmes, and many simply don't have the institutions or infrastructure or the desire to create them.
2. It's too expensive. Any solution has to be economically viable and competitive with other sources of energy.
Modular reactors, thorium reactors and all the other ideas proposed won't solve either of these problems, let alone both.
Good news is that you can turn nuclear heat into hydrocarbon fuel (like diesel). And there is no reason that you can't generate energy in one place and use it somewhere else if you can generate a lot of heat and do it really efficiently. But it has to be about 2x as efficient as doing it directly. Also, Th is about getting rid of Pu in the waste stream which is big as it reduces the time you need to store the end of the waste stream. And nuclear isn't the right option, its the only viable option.
Say what? (Score:3, Interesting)
No one else has the resources to drive the research we need.
No Bill, the big corporations of which you are both a prime representative and an unapologetic shill, are the ones who have the resources. Government can legislate and coordinate, but where will they get the money to actually execute when your lot has put the middle class on the endangered species list and is looking to convert everything to the rent-to-not-own model so you can suck the last few pennies out of everyone's pockets? You folks are the only ones with the resources. Also, you're the ones who kept on touting endless growth, so you're more to blame than the citizens whom you're asking to pay to solve the problems you shepherded into existence. Now go piss up a rope until you stop sounding like a Satya Nadella wannabe with your grand, empty, ill-informed pronouncements, you entitled snowflake fucktard.
In short, we need to revolutionize the world's physical economy - and that will take, among other things, a dramatic infusion of ingenuity, funding, and focus from the federal government.
The physical economy? Wrong again Bill. The real problem is the actual economy - you know, that smoke-and-mirrors deified abstraction which, like a cancer, is predicated on uncontrolled and limitless growth. See my sig for another description of same - then kindly shut the fuck up until you've managed to pull your head out of your ass and acquire a clue.
Re:Say what? (Score:4)
I mean, the US spends more money on it's military that it would take to just buy Google outright. It would take 2 years to buy Amazon. The bottom line is the US government is the single most powerful entity on the planet.
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What you're saying is right, but spewing anger at BG on /. isn't going to fix anything.
May I ask if you've done anything to improve things?
Put some PV on your roof? Turn your A/C thermostat up past 75 degrees (or 25, if you live outside the USA)? Use an outside clothes line instead of a dryer?
I know that these options aren't available to everyone, but if everyone took advantage of the options that *are* available, we'd be in a much better position to face the challenges of the future.
Let's face it, things a
Book's going to need a new title. (Score:5, Insightful)
We're way beyond averting climate disaster.
It's all mitigation now.
Our house is fully engulfed in flames. The question is what will remain.
The only serious discussion now begins with 'each of us has to make incredibly huge changes in our lifestyles'.
I'm not being an alarmist, we're way past the tipping point now. There's no feasible way to capture the carbon required to 'avert climate disaster'. Our reality is now reduced to trying to dull some of the edges.
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Those changes don't have to be for the worse though. We can make changes that improve quality of life as well as reducing the impact on the climate.
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I'm not being an alarmist, we're way past the tipping point now. There's no feasible way to capture the carbon required to 'avert climate disaster'.
Why do you think carbon capture is infeasible?
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We can barely reduce our current emissions, how do we reverse decades of fossil fuel emissions in a few years? Yes, we can capture some carbon, but certainly not an amount that will have any meaningful impact in time that is necessary. Like 10yrs ago. If we'd been capturing for the last decade, and capturing more than is emitted, we'd have a chance. We're nowhere near that, and probably decades away from anything that would be able to accomplish that. We need people to treat this with the urgency it deserve
how he IS fighting it is... (Score:3)
If he REALLY wanted to make a change, he would do several things that require loads of $
1) help get several other reactors off the ground ASAP. For example, NuScale is one that with some funding could be running in 2025. Even the micro reactors would be able to kill much of the industrial CO2 that they currently obtain from electricity.
2) start a new EV company, using Tesla's architecture to get things going. Then start to compete against him.
3) invest into Geothermal electricity/HVAC. These would go a long ways towards dropping CO2/electricity, but the HVAC would then force burning nat gas for HVAC to disappear (thought it makes good sense for outdoor grills, fireplaces, and even back-up heating).
How would Bill Gates fight climate change? (Score:3)
He keeps looking for the Unified Field solution (Score:2)
And it's actually much simpler than that.
Power:
We KNOW nuclear power works. Is it more expensive? Sure. So?
It's clean and dependable power. And advances in nuclear are making it safer than ever, including reductions in long-lived waste.
We need to stop trying to "100% renewables", because all that's doing is time-shifting pollution.
A truly mixed solution power system
More-over, we NEED to work on the grid. Both locally and nationwide.
This way we can locate power generation facilities where they make SENS
How Bill Gates Would Fight Climate Change (Score:2, Interesting)
`Who the fuck cares?
The man has ZERO education in Climatology or other environmental sciences, beyond possibly taking a class or two in college/high school to clear a graduation requirement.
Given his back ground the only thing I would think he is qualified to comment on is monopolies abusing their positions and how to destroy competition as a monopoly.
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The man has ZERO education
Citation needed. It's incredibly ignorant to assume that someone capable of investing literal billions of dollars doesn't educate him, or even surround himself with the best educated people money can buy before making an investment.
Holy cow! (Score:3)
Bill would.... (Score:2)
He better do something nice... (Score:3)
... with the money he stole from us.
Yes, if you take something I have worked for, and don't give anything back that you worked for, that is stealing, Mr. Gates. Calling it "profit" or "stock" or "being the boss" doesn't change that. This is not the Ferengi home planet.
Other people's money (Score:2)
Yep, that's Bill's solution in a nutshell. Spend other people's money on it. Ironically, it's akin to his solutions to an operating system for IBM and another operating system to compete with Apple. Why is it that some people think it's their destiny to tell other people what to do instead of doing it themselves?
TerraPower: Bill Gate's Nuclear Energy Company (Score:2)
"A nuclear energy venture founded by Bill Gates said Thursday it hopes to build small advanced nuclear power stations that can store electricity to supplement grids increasingly supplied by intermittent sources like solar and wind power.
The effort is part of the billionaire philanthropistâ(TM)s push to help fight climate change, and is targeted at helping utilities slash their emissions of planet-warming gases without undermining grid reliability.
TerraPower LLC, which Gates founded 14 years ago, and it
He would start by... (Score:2)
Enriching himself, then eradicate any competition.
we have the technology (Score:2)
I am a fan and going to read his book, but so far i am not sure i agree with the premise that we need "to drive the research we need." Don't get me wrong research spending is a great thing and we need more of it! But we do have the technology to change most of our infrastructure and make it greener right now, and we can do it in 10 years if we wanted to.
The problem is that many people are not comfortable of doing it in a top-down planned and coordinated way, using government mandates, (like it has been for
why do we care (Score:2)
Standard Microsoft Development (Score:2)
Bill would undoubtedly use the traditional Microsoft development strategy:
1. Propose and build an inferior solution that doesn't really work, but market it extensively.
2. Introduce new, improved solutions over a couple of years that still don't work very well.
3. Wait until someone else solves the problem and partner with them.
4. Take the partner's IP, market it as a new Microsoft product, and drive the partner out of business.
This strategy has worked for him quite a few times in the past.
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How did you calculate $20/gallon?
One of the questions never asked -- or answered -- by those concerned with global climate change is what the cost/benefit analysis is. It is even possible, after such an analysis is done, that "do nothing" is the most cost effective approach because the costs to society of intervention would not produce sufficient benefits down the line. I doubt that's true, but there is some magic number for a gasoline tax, as well as other sources of carbon. We can't even fathom what that
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$20/gallon would be more like a 1000% increase. With prices 200-300% of what they are now, we were seeing people more interested in fuel efficient vehicles. If a gas tax made that price increase permanent, so people knew they couldn't just wait it out until prices come back down, it would be interesting to see what effect it would have. But of course as long as Americans are more interested in cheap gasoline than saving civilization from disaster, nothing will be done.
Re: Tax (Score:2)
What about when food runs out? Will they go nuts then? What about clean water?
You fucking "I can't have my lifestyle impacted" spoiled brats who think that a decade is the only time horizon we need to think about are the reason children are going to inherit a world in crisis.
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Re: Tax (Score:2)
Fun fact: homelessness, poor healthcare, and lack of resources comes from the same root problem that gave us climate change.
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A tax of $20 per gallon with all revenue redistributed equally to everyone would make a lot of poor people very happy!
Sure, some people with ridiculous commutes would complain.
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Re:Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes the "free market" where its cheaper for US citizens to fly to Germany to purchase insulin than it is to buy it domestically.
Re: Tax (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, the free market that lied for 60 plus years about food so now untold millions are on the insuline leash (highly profitable, yay) instead of not being diabetic. You know diabetes can be reversed, right? By eating low or zero carbs. The US diet guidelines for diabetics, crafted by liars, industry shills and ideologically possessed 'greens'. (I can defend with facts these qualifiers; after all it all began with a scientific fraud back in the 60ties) is high carb, low fat. Your diabetic children are fed donuts in hospitals!
But hear this. US medicare is now an integral part of your economy (same for other countries), yes? And an increase of GDP is always good, yes?
Then, suppose that Bill G really wanted to make a difference and went out to debunk the slow and painful high carb murder (of Nature too, think about the C footprint of medical products and services) that's out there... people listen to him, switch to low carb en mass and a year later your medical expenses drop by 25 percent.
What's going to happen to the economy?
Do you see the travesty of having economy growth by increasing the number of sick and dying people? The travesty of sick people having their pension funds in pharmaceutical companies so that if they get healthier their funds would evaporate.
When has the world gone mad and was I too wrapped around myself to notice?
Bring back real farmers food and nuclear energy, Bill, or shut the f up!
Signed: someone who was confirmed pre-diabetic and reverted to top 1% metabolic health (based on a dozen of biomarkers) in the world in only six months of low carb, high fat, no seed oils, real food, intermittent fasting.
Going down in weight to what I was at 18 years old was nice too. Not to mention the psoriasis and the eczema and the prostate pain...and all these things I was told I need to 'learn to live with' because they are incurable. All gone now...
Have a nice day!
Re:Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how the same drug from the same manufacturer costs $275 in the USA and only $32 in Canada. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/u... [nbcnews.com]
Re:Tax (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually this goes back to one of the few good things Trump tried to do and was shutdown. He wanted the government to negotiate drug prices, like the rest of the world does. Well big phrama nearly shit themselves over that one and the lobbyists went into beast mode. It ended like how you would expect.
Re:Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
appropriately sized and levied carbon tax that represents the negative externalities
Good luck calculating that number. Soviet economic planning failed miserably when trying to optimize input/output values to such things. Cap and trade and let the market settle on a price.
today's activities imposed upon future generations
I'll bet that when those future generations come looking for the funds, they will mysteriously have disappeared.
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Cap and trade is a corporate welfare scam. Carbon credits were to be given to multinational corps for free, who would then auction them off. Why not have the government auction them off in the first place and realize that revenue?
Perhaps you missed my point of the tax being revenue neutral. That means there would, indeed, be no additional revenue, now or for future generations. My goal was simply to discourage, via financial penalty, carbon-generating activities.
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Carbon credits were to be given to multinational corps for free, who would then auction them off.
Only for the amounts of produced carbon that they manage to cut back. If they keep producing, they need to hang on to those credits. This amounts to a reward for industries that manage to cut back, paid for by those who can't, or won't.
Revenue neutral just means that the carbon tax receipts will go down the same rat-hole that income taxes go down now. Either way, future generations won't see diddly.
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My goal was simply to discourage, via financial penalty, carbon-generating activities.
Carbon generating activities like driving to work?
An engineer, lawyer, and other information workers can find ways to work at home at least part of the work week. Someone working in a factory, restaurant, sales, shipping, or whatever, can't.
Speaking of shipping, what happens to the prices of food, clothing, and building materials when fuel costs go up?
Here's an idea, let's not raise taxes. This looks more like an engineering problem to me than a political one. Taxes will encourage engineering solutions, that's not being disputed. We don't get engineering solutions just because the government created a greater incentive. Let's not forget that engineering solutions use fuel too. If people want to take a train to work instead of drive then there's going to be a lot of fuel burned up to build a train track. Higher costs can make that train project too expensive to be viable. Government subsidies can help but that's going to have to be paid back in taxes somewhere else.
There's plenty the government can do besides raise and lower taxes. One such thing is find ways to lower regulatory costs. Take that train example. Can there be ways to assure safe travel on the train and keep government interference to a minimum? Make that happen. Then look at other regulatory costs.
You're just deliberately ignoring the point that most people calling for a carbon tax think that it should be implemented in a revenue neutral way. That means that everybody gets a refund equal to the total carbon tax revenue divided by the number of people. That means that for low income, low-consumers of resources they will see a net decrease of taxation, while the wealthy high resource consumers will see a net increase. Certain product prices will go up but for the average consumer their refund will mo
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You're just deliberately ignoring the point that most people calling for a carbon tax think that it should be implemented in a revenue neutral way. That means that everybody gets a refund equal to the total carbon tax revenue divided by the number of people. That means that for low income, low-consumers of resources they will see a net decrease of taxation, while the wealthy high resource consumers will see a net increase. Certain product prices will go up but for the average consumer their refund will more than cover these increases.
No revenue neutral system can be truly revenue neutral because people will act on this carbon tax. In fact its expected that people will act on this tax to get carbon taxes to lower CO2 emissions. What will happen is that the working poor will get shit on by a carbon tax.
A wealthy person will have greater means to lower their CO2 emissions. If prices for natural gas goes up then they buy a heat pump. If gasoline prices go up then they buy an electric car. The middle class will see heat and transportati
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Good luck calculating that number. Soviet economic planning failed miserably when trying to optimize input/output values to such things. Cap and trade and let the market settle on a price.
The problem with this is that it doesn't really matter which number you use. Whenever you tax an activity, you disincentivize it. Taxing carbon production (which is bad for society) is therefore much better than taxing income (which is good for society) in order to raise a certain amount of government revenue.
Meanwhile, taxation of carbon is really easy (you only have to tax a few coal mines and oil companies, whose production totals are public record). With cap and trade you have the much harder problems o
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Whenever you tax an activity, you disincentivize it.
Weed tax.
Washington State taxes weed sales. At first, they promised to use the revenue to fund drug abuse mitigation. But pretty soon the funds made their way to the general education fund. Now they just sit around and count their nickels and than the stoners for putting kids through school.
Same will happen with carbon taxes. The government will become dependent on them. And if at some point carbon production takes a plunge, they will have to come after something else to feed their insatiable hunger for O
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appropriately sized and levied carbon tax that represents the negative externalities
Good luck calculating that number. Soviet economic planning failed miserably when trying to optimize input/output values to such things. Cap and trade and let the market settle on a price.
Cap and trade would settle on a market price, but then you need to define a limit for CO2 output, which is just as arbitrary.
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"Tax the poor (who couldn't afford an EV) and give it back to the rich
An obvious solution would be to offset the cost by eliminating other regressive taxes that disproportionally affect the poor.
Both rich and poor would be better off if we eliminated payroll taxes and replaced them with an excise tax on fossil fuels.
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Both rich and poor would be better off if we eliminated payroll taxes and replaced them with an excise tax on fossil fuels.
I doubt it. The working poor is driving a beat up Escort to work while the wealthy drives a new Tesla, natural gas car, or works from home. Drive up fuel costs enough and the wealthy just find ways to not buy fuel. The poor aren't going to buy an electric car, increased fuel prices would drive up EV prices and the rich just buy them all up.
Any fossil fuel tax will hurt the poor disproportionately. The poor pay a greater percentage of their income on fuel than the wealthy. Raise that cost and it takes a
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No a lot of them are off their rocker anti mask types.
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It may be simple cause and effect. They have conservative views because they are so frightened of things.
https://www.psychologytoday.co... [psychologytoday.com]
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Why would we expand government purview more than what is necessary?
The free market naturally exists everywhere government does not meddle.
Re: Tax (Score:3)
Bullshit. The free market naturally exists everywhere *corporations* do not meddle! Which is *nowhere*. Because the free market is the biggest enemy of profit maximization. I'm sure you can read all about that in you copy of the Rules of Acquisition / Atlas Shrugged.
Re: Tax (Score:2)
P.S.: Any for-profit business's natural end state is a monopoly and the worst possible state (=mos wealth drained) for all human beings but their Inner Party.
Re:what "research" (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama spent 0.00004% of the military budget on climate change? cry me a fucking river.
Made money (Score:3, Informative)
To the best of my knowledge, the Obama administration's alternative energy investments were paid back in more than full and turned a profit.
Re: (Score:2)
wow you drank the kool-aid.
No, the Obama alternative energy was investment in theft, fraud and waste.
https://money.cnn.com/2012/10/... [cnn.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Did you read your source? It contradicts your point.
Re:Made money (Score:5, Informative)
>Does that include the half BILLION down the drain at Solyndra?
YES. Yes, it does include that. You missed out on the final profits from the overall fund package that Solyndra was about part of, six years ago.
New York Times, 2014/11/17:
"Here’s another: Remember Solyndra? It was a renewable-energy firm that borrowed money using Department of Energy guarantees, then went bust, costing the Treasury $528 million. And conservatives have pounded on that loss relentlessly, turning it into a symbol of what they claim is rampant crony capitalism and a huge waste of taxpayer money.
Defenders of the energy program tried in vain to point out that anyone who makes a lot of investments, whether it’s the government or a private venture capitalist, is going to see some of those investments go bad. For example, Warren Buffett is an investing legend, with good reason — but even he has had his share of lemons, like the $873 million loss he announced earlier this year on his investment in a Texas energy company. Yes, that’s half again as big as the federal loss on Solyndra.
The question is not whether the Department of Energy has made some bad loans — if it hasn’t, it’s not taking enough risks. It’s whether it has a pattern of bad loans. And the answer, it turns out, is no. Last week the department revealed that the program that included Solyndra is, in fact, on track to return profits of $5 billion or more."
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/1... [nytimes.com]
Re:Made money (Score:5, Insightful)
And conservatives have pounded on that loss relentlessly, [...] Last week the department revealed that the program that included Solyndra is, in fact, on track to return profits of $5 billion or more.
Yeah but if there's one thing they hate above all else it's when the government demonstrates competence, because that has all sorts of implications.
Your point is better made one link further on.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Your point is better made one link deeper, where the Times author cites on the program.
It's significant, though, that:
- The profit is to the loan-and-loan-guarantee program, which charges premiums over T-bill rates.
- The 5 billion isn't in the bank yet. It's a best-case projection based on the results so far - crashes (Solyndra, Fisker Automotive, Abound Solar, and Vehicle Production Group), big wins (Tesla, loaned almost asmuch as Solyndra, paid off nine years early), and the apparent ass
Re: (Score:2)
That didn't stop you from bringing up unrealized losses with regard to Solyndra. What's wrong, changing standards?
Fixed that for you. I can just as easily write something stupid like "The problem here is competition among many companies. You see the benefits. You don't see the lost benefit
Re: (Score:2)
Pointless political blame-game shit.
Who gives a fuck who did what.
This is a discussion of what needs to be done.
Re: (Score:2)
The other hand of nuclear ship narrative is port access. Large nuclear powered vessels are unquestionably superior to large oil fired or gas fired ones in most metrics. But anti-nuclear lobby has successfully lobbied in a way that makes if hard for most ports on the planet to let them enter.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: We only need two things.... (Score:2)
Bullshit. Human population still grows exponentially.
Re: (Score:2)
That does not mean his statement is incorrect. I don't know if it is or not, but both statements can be true at the same time: most countries are below replacement birth levels, and the world population is still increasing exponentially. Thankfully though the exponent is now getting smaller.
Re: We only need two things.... (Score:2)
Poor people make so many kids in order to survive.
You are the main threat to their survival. Your leeching is the main cause of their poverty. How about you just close yourselves off completely so we can heal while you keep festering and die out?
"US self-embargo? Sounds nice." -- Rest of the world.
Re: One World Government (Score:2)
You think that government will agree with you, when there will he nowhere to run to anymore, do you?
lol
"Give me seven lines, written by you, and I wil find something to hang you for." -- world admins
Re: One World Government (Score:2)
USA too.
They're already acting as if they were the world government for 80 years anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
He could not make his windows virus free
Not a single computer developer in the world has made their platform virus free. Windows gets the press because it's the biggest target.
The climate thing will be for the same reasons.
In all the dumb things I've heard dumb people say on Slashdot, this is the dumbest fucking thing this year. anonieuwling logic: That someone is running a company whose programmers weren't able to get a virus under control somehow means that funding philanthropy 20 years later is also destined to fail. That makes about as much sense as your crappy leap of logic prohibiting y