kutulu

And the additional costs are rolled into the mortgage over 30 years. By doing so, it is a net gain for the homeowner.

Rekna

I was listening to the radio the other day and I heard that the Republican party is going to start enslaving people. Do you think it is fair that the Republican party is going to do this?

shakran

Earlier you complained that we can't trust the democrats "(most of whom have not read the bill)" to be honest about whether or not the bill will harm us economically. Yet you have not read the bill, so how can we trust you to be honest about it either?


You have not read the bill, and therefore you do not know that. You only know what some talking heads, most of whom I would wager have also not read the bill, are telling you to believe about the bill.


So far the entirety of your arguments in this thread have amounted to stuff you say you think you heard someone on one of 4 cable news talk show networks say, or stuff that you admit to having made up. How are we to take your side seriously if you cannot bring one actual, hard fact to the table?


And then as you said earlier, you would not believe them because "they haven't read the bill."

I find it interesting that you can predict the outcome of a piece of legislation which you have not read and about which you have no first hand knowledge. The only other people I know of who make such claims have coins hanging off their shawls and stare into crystal balls all day.

We are being honest. We just aren't giving you the answer you want to hear - an answer based on your preconceived notions about a subject to which you have admitted knowing nothing factual about.


I won't put it in such crass terms, but you are making impassioned arguments about a topic that you admit you not only don't know about, but have no intention of finding out about. What would you call it?

Cynthetiq

I don't need to read the bill to know that the politicians were remiss in their duties to be able to make a responsible and careful decision. It's not much different than the other bills that have been railroaded through Congress these past few months.

---------- Post added at 05:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:48 PM ----------

and if you'd like to spend the better part of time that you should be doing living instead of what you voted people into office for.. you can read the bill here:

Search Results - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

---------- Post added at 06:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:50 PM ----------

I doesn't, it spouts volumes to me how someone is allowed to have FREE CHOICE to buy a SUV and have shit gas mileage, but I have no choice any longer to buy incandescent bulbs and have to by CFL crap. All the scrimping and saving of CO2 done by the human beings can all be completely offset by 1 volcanic eruption of 1 simple change in the solar cycle. I especially take umbrage to those that tout one should be doing better for the environment and then doesn't do any of their own conservation of living small. Buying carbon offsets is like buying induldences for sins.

as far as the rest of the bill, I'm not all that pleased since the BILLIONS that are collected aren't going to just appear from nowhere. I'm already on the hook for the stimulus package, and now because some hippy thinks it's better this way, I'm on the hook for this crap too.

----------------


Director’s Blog Blog Archive CBO?s First Cost Estimate of Cap-and-Trade Legislation for the 111th Congress

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

aceventura3

I love math.

$3800 amortized over 30 years at 6.5%, means the person would pay over $5,000 including the interest. If they save $25 per month in their utility costs, the payoff goes up from 12 years to about 16.6933 years. I read somewhere that the average person lives in a home for about 7 years.

Here is a link to an on-line amortization schedule calculator:

Amortization Schedule Calculator

---------- Post added at 11:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:38 PM ----------

There is no opportunity to do so, the Democrats already got it covered. They already have the plans to manage your life from birth to death. You do get the option of marrying a same sex partner, as long as you can prove you gave equal consideration to those with the government designation of being visually and/or personality challenged.

---------- Post added at 12:05 AM ---------- Previous post was Yesterday at 11:45 PM ----------

I am a cynic. I am always against something until convinced otherwise.


True.

Will the first person who actually reads the bill, please stand-up? Let us know who you are, you deserve special recognition.

Let's not overlook the obvious. This bill will have consequences, there will be winners and losers. An honest discussion begins with an assessment of that fact. If you don't like my analysis, do yours - and let's compare. Are you suggesting low/middle income people will come out ahead?


Call your Congress person and ask them if they read the bill before voting on it. I admit to not reading the bill, have you read it? If not what is your real point?



What-if's is what I do. I speculated, was honest about it, gave my justifications, and showed my conclusions. If you disagree, o.k., but let's be fair. You have come to a conclusion and have you read the bill either, correct?



What do I want to hear? I pretty much do not support the bill, the concept, the stated need for the bill, the way it is being "sold" and there is virtually no possibility that I ever will. The Senate voting "no", would be nice to hear.


I said I was not going to read the bill, not that I was not going to become informed on its contents. There are many things put in writing, that I have not read but that I have an opinion about. Sometimes I just wait for the movie to come out.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

scout

This is but one example of what I've been finding while researching and reading up on the impact of this legislation.

Ok someone tell me again how this is going to be good for the economy and good for the USA? Tell me again how this is going to positively impact the lower/middle income group and the elderly on a fixed income? Passing this legislation now is fucking nuts. Democrats have had control of all three Legislative branches for not even 6 months and already they've lost their collective fucking minds. This is insanity in action. Hopefully the Senate will see this for what's it's worth and kill it before it goes any further.

__________________
"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
Thomas Jefferson

aceventura3

They can not do it. At best they will ignore your post, but most likely expect an attack on your source or some other ad hominem response.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Derwood

I can't defend or attack something I don't know the details of

dippin

Ignore his post as much as you've ignored post number 8 on this very thread?

Now, let's look at this "if we push for more environmental regulations, our economy will suffer" argument in its historical context.

It has been the argument of choice, for example, for GM, Ford and others as they prevented congress from enacting fuel efficiency legislation. Meanwhile, Europe and Japan were much more aggressive in this. Tell me, again, which car companies are failing and one of the main reasons for that?

As far as the assertion that the CBO did not look at any potential GDP reduction while looking at the costs, it is also true that they did not look at the costs of the gas emissions themselves.

Because, as its been said at least twice in this thread (talk about ignoring posts), these gases are not only related to global warming and have real health consequences, all that come with a price. Health issues, reduced agricultural crops, altered sea alkalinity, etc.

On top of that, there is the very real reduction in GDP that comes from global warming itself. Most recent MIT studies show an increase in temperatures of 9 degrees by the end of the century, and sea levels are estimated to increase by 80 to 130 centimeters in one century.

Of course, I know all about the "OMG, its global warming is a HUGE conspiracy" crowd. But I would love to get any sort of real evidence from them, either disproving global warming or proving the conspiracy. Saying "jeez, there is that one time Science rejected our open letter written by a theologian in a southern baptist seminar" is really no proof of anything other than Science is not about to let quacks use it for political purposes.


Finally, for all the doom and gloom, cap and trade is only a federal level extension of something several states have adopted. And cap and trade systems have been implemented with regards to other gases, such as nitrous oxides and sulfuric dioxide. And in the case of cap and trade in those gases, they were far more successful than anticipated, at a fraction of the cost critics estimated.

Green house gases have real negative consequences, that go beyond global warming (go read on how low level ozone is formed and how it impacts health and crops). Being able to produce it with impunity is basically free riding and infringing on other people's health and property rights. A market for those gases is certainly the most "free market" way to control them.

Of course, given how often you've completely ignored other posts here, Im sure soon you will post yet another column by former Bush aides on how 700 scientists disagree with global warming.

shakran

Yeah, actually, I did read it.

There are parts I like, and parts I don't.

I'm pleased to see that electrical generation units, as the bill calls them (EGU's, otherwise known as power plants) are going to be required to recapture a large percentage of their carbon emissions. I'm not only thinking of my wallet next year, but of my health when I'm 70.

I'm equally pleased to see that there will be a push toward making utilities figure out how to use renewable energy sources to generate their power. This is, however, going to require some citizen involvement, else the utilities might just try to raise rates without actually making any changes to their power generation strategy. It's going to put them between a rock and a hard place, really, because they either have to build new plants which run on renewable energy, a cost which would be passed on to consumers, or they have to raise rates to cover the energy credits, which would also be passed on.

That said, we've been frolicking with cheap energy for more than 2 centuries. The bill is going to come due at some point, and the longer we wait, the more that bill is going to cost. Those who advocate leaving things as they are are advocating a strategy of "wait until the coal or oil runs out, and then panic while the country is plunged into darkness until someone brings online technologies that we should have been investing in years ago." That's not really the sort of long term energy plan that I think is particularly intelligent. We have to switch some time, and the longer we wait the more it's going to cost us, so we might as well start now, while we still have a little time to move at a rational pace rather than having to fast-track it.


I'm not terribly thrilled about the biofuel requirements for vehicles. I think ethanol is a giant scam that cannot work unless we intend to tear down every building in the country, plant all of the land with corn, and then find a landmass that's half the size of the country and plant it with corn too. Burning our food is not the future for energy, no matter how much the corn farmers want you to believe it is so they can sell more corn.


As far as the "zomg they're gonna make us spend tons of money to retrofit our houses," well, that's just a bunch of fearmongering from the talking heads.

The actual program will work somewhat like efficiency incentive programs work now. As it stands now, if you replace your windows or your water heater with something that meets certain energy efficiency standards, you can get a rebate from the government. This program will work very similarly.

Under the program, you can get a free energy audit of your house. The audit will give you a list of things to do to achieve a 10 percent energy use reduction, and to achieve a 20 percent energy use reduction. If you follow the 10% prescription, you get $1,000. Follow the 20%, you get $2,000. And if the 20% reduction recommendations that you followed actually achieve a 20% energy use reduction, they'll give you an extra grand. Further, you get $1,000 for every 5% reduction you pull off beyond the 20%, up to half of the cost of retrofitting the building.

After doing all that, if you decide to take steps to reduce your water use as well through more efficient appliances (like showers and toilets) you will get up to $1,200 to help you with that.

You are not required to do any of this, but if you do, you'll get some cash to help you out.

Not quite as scary as Hannity would have you believe, is it?

aceventura3

Perhaps you should re-read what followed post #8. what part of it do you think I ignored?

Straw man argument. Being against this legislation does not mean one is against all environmental regulations. Also, an honest discussion involves an objective look at trade offs and making informed decisions. In some cases environment regulation is clearly well worth the price. In the case of this legislation we will spend billions, hurt our economy and standards of living to, assuming there is an impact, lowering the average global temperature by a hypothetical .1 degree F. No honest objective case has been presented to justify this legislation, all they have done is use fear, by saying we will destroy the planet unless we do what they want, gee - that is a bad way to make decisions!

---------- Post added at 03:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:41 PM ----------

All 1,200 pages?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Cynthetiq

No it's still scary, that money isn't free, it has to come from somewhere.

I live in a building built in the 50's, and many of the Northeast homes are older. Costs and possibility to retrofit are next to impossible for some of us.

I don't like the idea "$25 billion, the aggregate amount of loans Department of Energy is authorized to make to automobile manufacturers and component suppliers" is something that should be shouldered by the taxpayers. The industry should support their own R&D.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

shakran

I go to all the trouble to explain the bill and that's the best you can come up with for a response?

Most of those pages are repetitive definitions of terms. The meat of the bill is much smaller.


Well, gee, yeah, surprise surprise, infrastructure improvements cost money. Ever since Reagan there's been an attitude that everything government does has to be free or it's an unfair burden on the people. Guess what. If you want to live in the first world, you have to pay for it. No one bitched that the railroads cost too much money back when they were linking the country with them. No one's arguing that the interstate bridge collapse in Minnesota was a good thing because it proves that the gubmint isn't spending our hard-earned money on stupid shit like the country's infrastructure. It's time this nation wake the hell up and face reality. The standard of living we want costs money. If you don't want to spend that kind of money, move to Haiti or Zimbabwe. Much lower tax burden there, though I don't think you'd care for the living conditions.

So then don't retrofit it. Problem solved.


And if they do, they'll pass the cost on to consumers, and people in here will still call it a tax. What's the difference. Also note that it is a loan, not a gift, so claiming that they aren't supporting their own R&D is false.

dippin

talk about ignoring arguments... It is really hard to discuss this issue if someone is not willing to discuss:
past experiences with cap and trade in the US (like the one to reduce acid rain)
effects of global warming
other effects of greenhouse gases. Like how increase in low level ozone may reduce soybean yelds by up to 20% by 2030...

Cynthetiq

with re: to the

No it's not false. Since they should have been doing such things for years, lobbying against raising of the CAFE standards is money they could have used to put in this direction. As far is it being a true loan, I don't know, it sounds free since I don't know the details and stipulations of the return payments, ie interest free means you and I shoulder it.

My small business doesn't get such generous loans. Now, few banks are willing to loan them money if they were to get them off the street, well isn't that the point of issuing stock to raise funds and capital for such types of projects? Or is it just to churn and burn money and profiteer?

I will suffer from not retrofitting since we burn #6 oil about 2-3 trucks a day across 1600 apartments. Our fuel bills went from $2M to $14M in about 5 years.

Electricity we just locked in pricing but "transport" costs well those fluctuate and aren't regulated. So we still get fucked since that's not even something you can use for comparative costs.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

aceventura3

No. I work like most great artists. Basically you start with a little tease and then gradually lead to a mind numbing climax, followed by a satisfying denouement. And also, like great artists we sometimes fail, so if after an opening we get "...that the best you can come up with...", you go back to the drawing board.

I think there were 1,500 pages in the bill.

---------- Post added at 06:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:05 PM ----------

I am simply not going to play the game of - if you don't support this legislation, you don't give a shit about the environment.

If you acknowledge that, I will move forward with you.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Cynthetiq

I hate that part of the game. It's annoying at best.

Since there are many greenies that talk the talk but don't walk the walk, and still criticize those that don't support the green bills even when the non-supporters live much greener by default.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

aceventura3

So, true.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

shakran

You'll get no argument from me there. Believe me I do not view the automakers as anything close to innocent in this situation. I agree that they should have been putting their lobbying money into making more efficient cars from the get-go, but to stop them from lobbying, we have to stop treating corporations as persons, with the right to free speech and the right to petition the government, and that's a whole other argument that's well outside the scope of this thread. (Though one that would be good to chew on some day).

But, whatever they did with their money before, now they need to do the R&D with it, and provided the government is giving them a loan instead of free money, I'm fine with the government helping to hurry the process up.

Only the theoretical lost interest. We don't shoulder the principal. At worst we shoulder the cost of inflation.

And I do have a problem with that, especially when you're talking about small business like Tesla, who are already doing research into alternative energy sources for vehicles. But again, that discussion is starting to get outside of the scope of this thread.

You and I both know the answer to that. A corporation exists to make as much money as possible. But it isn't the fault of the current administration that for the last 30 years government has been rabidly cutting back on regulations on corporation's money making procedures.

So that $12M increase has happened already, before this bill was even discussed in session. Fuel prices are increasing, and they will continue to increase as the supply dwindles (whether it dwindles because of actual supply shortfalls or because the oil cartels are screwing with us really doesn't matter to your bank account). Why not see this bill as a way to embrace reduced demand for that oil. After all, even if you personally don't retrofit your apartments, if they get people in, say, the upper midwest, where heating energy use in the winter is extremely high, to use less oil, that would lower the demand and therefore the price to you.


Do I need a cigarette for this?

That isn't the game I'm playing either. I'm saying if you don't support this bill, give us a better reason than "Crap, it'll cost money to upgrade our infrastructure," because the country's infrastructure has been neglected for over 3 decades, and it's high time we start modernizing it if we want to stay in the first world.

dippin

Where did I imply, in any post of mine, that you are not "green" enough?

I am sorry, but this is a silly way of trying to sidestep the issue.

First of all, because if you do live "much greener" then the costs of this bill to you will be negligible.

Second, because in all these posts about 700 scientists this and that, you seem to do everything to avoid discussing the meat of the issue.

There are two questions here, and I've yet to see you tackle each head on:

Is reducing emissions a worthy goal?

I answer it with an unequivocal yes, because not only does the science support the idea that there is global warming, that human action has had a significant impact on it, and that it has serious consequences for mankind, but because those gases also have several other negative side effects, which you still have not acknowledged, which means that there is a social interest in reducing their emissions. Otherwise, we are talking about a private activity with socialized costs, costs that we have every day in health and food expenditures.

Is cap and trade the best way to deal with this?

To me, it is the best "free market" alternative. Other than that, we have two options which were preferred in the past: hard limits, which I don't particularly like because there is no additional incentive once you are under them; and "suggestions" in the form of available subsidies, which I don't like because it is basically a give away without a corresponding obligation. Our experience with cap and trade in the case of acid rain gases has been a great success, so I dont see how it can't work elsewhere.


Yet every other post is some former Bush aide column pointing to vast conspiracies and misleading "scientists."

dksuddeth

one decent thing about this legislation is that once middle and lower income families see an over 1,000 dollars a year increase in their energy bill, democrats will lose power. That downside to even that is that once this program is started, stopping it will not be an option. congratulations environmentalists, you've take great gains in scaling back the prosperity of millions of Americans.

:clap:

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Cynthetiq

It isn't an accusation directed at you, but if you feel that, like mom said, maybe you have something to be guilty about.

Personally, I don't give a shit about the environment 50 years from now since I have no legacy to have stake in the matter. I do it because it means LESS out of my pocket now. Use less energy means it costs me less each month. use less gas, means it costs me less each month.

The way that I read this bill is that eventually my electricity will cost more, just like my gasoline did when they started putting ethanol into it. The idea that it was going to cost less and be less impact on the environment was a bill of goods sold to the American public.

Sorry you may believe that trading for this and that works for you. If it's bad, then outright stop doing it. Saying a company, group, or individual can purchase their way out if it...and they do, doesn't mean that they really have the convictions or intended results. Myself I state that Mr. Gore since he's the Captain of the Greenie movement in my book, doesn't seem to walk the talk, but just buys his way out of having to reduce his consumption or impact. Sorry, hypocrite in my book.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

dippin

Or maybe he fucking quoted me before saying that.

Great for you, but it isn't really sound policy, it isn't really debatable (I mean, Im certainly not going to dedicate more than one sentence to "things you care about"), and it says literally nothing about the current existing costs of pollution.

Cynthetiq

actually it is a sound policy dippin. If you don't want to spend more for something you don't.

You don't want to pollute more, you don't.

Saying, "well, if you want to pollute, you just have to pay more if you do." Sorry in my book that's not sound policy to achieving goals.

It's really simple common sense.



See, it's not much different than the banking crisis, the banks wouldn't be in the problem they are in if they didn't do the things that they did. Not much different with pollution, you don't want to pollute? Then don't do the things that pollute.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

shakran

I'm not sure I get what you're saying there Cyn. Are you suggesting that heavy industry and power generation facilities don't want to pollute, and will therefore stop polluting all by themselves? Because I can guarantee you that the vast majority of them don't give a shit about polluting. They want to pollute. It's the rest of us that want them to stop.

Cynthetiq

shakran, we could have had a much larger and safer infrastructure of cleaner nuclear power in the same league and realm of France's power grid. Too many NIMBYs in the 70s and 80s.

You want other industries to stop polluting you stop buying their products. This is the same for power generation as solar and wind isn't feasible for most of the population on the planet.

How much pollution is GM doing these days? Not very much in comparison to their past. Apple and Dell? How about their products? Oh they don't pollute much in the US, but look at where they are getting their stuff from and how it's put together and assembled. Yes, lots of pollution. Same goes for the hybrid vehicles, since the battery materials are shipped to and from all over the globe until the come to rest in the vehicle, and see we don't know what we're going to do with those batteries just yet when it comes time to dispose of them.

But you know these shiny little gadgets.. yeah LOTS of fucking pollution associated with them. No matter how many little stickers are on the side saying things like "arsenic free glass" "mercury free display"... the industry that makes the chips, boards, and circuitry still is a top polluter.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

YaWhateva

The recent comments made me think of this video.

__________________
“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

"This is my United States of Whateva!"

shakran

And we're still having a problem figuring out what to do with the waste of the plants we do have. We shouldn't make more waste until we can get rid of the stuff we already made. Once you tell me how to do that (and preferably in ways that do not require coming up with symbols for danger that theoretical future civilizations tens of thousands of years in the future can interpret so THEY don't die from it ( An Alert Unlike Any Other - Los Angeles Times ) and without having to design buildings to meet a code that requires they last a million years ( EPA Expected to Issue Million-Year-Long Regulation : NPR ) then I'm all for nuclear power. But to charge full speed ahead without knowing the solutions to these significant problems is foolhardy.


As to your other points, those industries that aren't polluting as much anymore are either doing it because they had to in order to comply with regulations, or because it is a side-effect of new manufacturing processes designed to economize. They certainly didn't do it out of a sense of stewardship to the planet.

Cynthetiq

The tuna fishermen didn't change their habits because they wanted to kill less dolphins, they did it because they couldn't sell any tuna to people who wanted a dolphin free tuna purchase.

People aren't riding bikes just because they want a cleaner environment, some because they don't want to give money to oil companies.

As far as the whole idea about the future people, well we're able to decipher the Rosetta stone and put up the Voyager Golden Records. We're able to make a pictogram that transcend written language and still get point or idea across. I think that the very idea as that stopping is ludicrous at best.

France must have figured something out to do with that waste, as have other countries that have nuclear facilities. So again that idea doesn't float with me.

If I have to change, you have to change too. It can't be no compromise from the other side. Or is that the way that it works best, because that's what I tend to understand from the greenies and liberals, "I don't have to change, YOU have to change."

What about the fact I can't just toss out my cellphone batteries, laptops, TVs, comptuers, other electronic waste? Since I can't get rid of those, I don't think that these hybrid batteries will have any different conditions.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Xazy

Sorry latecomer to the thread here.

So basically we make a rule, that does not really affect the businesses that much, but make us taxpayers pay more. This will enable us to create a whole new group of jobs for people to oversee it all. Now we can trade a commidity how much carbon we can emit, just amazing. Yep you can buy and trade polluting permits. Also there is a study by the EPA, that says that there will be limited energy growth, including some fo the silly stuff like farmers paying for rainforest to be saved in brasil, that works as them doing their part. Oh and a 98 page report that administration does not want us to see was suppressed, read the article about it here.
If you want to read the Carlin report that was not released here it is

Either way there are so many things in this bill including, how every new house needs to have an outlet in the garage for a hybrid. How before you sell your home a federal agent will rate your energy efficiency (This is a free service for now), etc... As I said elsewhere, good thing MJ died, so they can push this bill through under the radar.

shakran

So you're saying "leave every environmental issue up to the people and hope they get it right in time?"

I would guess that the percentage of bike riders who ride bikes for political reasons rather than that they can't afford the gas or don't want to pay for the gas without any political ulterior motives is quite small.

The Rosetta stone is 2200 years old, not 10,000 or 1 million. And the reason we were able to decipher it is because it happened to be a translation matrix that included classical Greek, which we were still able to read. Without the Rosetta stone, we'd have been unable to decipher hieroglyphics (also 8,000 to 998,000 years younger than the warning signs will be), and I should point out that hieroglyphics are pictograms. So basically under your idea we have to provide our own Rosetta stone, and hope that in 10,000 years or 1,000,000 years, assuming humanity is gone and another civilization has taken our place, that someone still knows how to read English.


France also has comprehensive national health care. Are you advocating that we do that, because France does it?

To the point, France still doesn't know what to do with its nuclear waste. They're fighting the same storage oppositions that the nuclear industry here is fighting. True, they do have a nuclear waste recycling program which delays the date that a given chunk of fuel will become waste that needs to be stores, but it also produces as a byproduct, plutonium. Having a bunch of plutonium lie around is very, very bad idea.


I already told you I'm totally fine with nuclear energy as long as we know what to do with the waste. Saying "well France isn't solving the waste problem either but they're going full steam ahead and therefore so should we," is not a solution.

Sometimes. To cherrypick your example, one side said "stop killing the dolphins," and the other said "I don't want to have to care if I kill dolphins." The compromise of "kill only half as many dolphins" wouldn't really have made anyone happy.


Saying that you can't throw them in the garbage and therefore you "can't get rid of them" demonstrates a shocking lack of knowledge of the situation. Of course you can get rid of them. Take them to a recycling center. Many battery stores will take them to the recycling center for you. It will be the same with the hybrid batteries.

Saying that you can't ever get rid of something because you can't put it in the trash is like saying you can't ever defecate again because you aren't allowed to do it in the neighbor's yard.

Cynthetiq

I get 2 times a year to recycle products. If I miss any of those two times, I wind up holding onto the objects. If not I get fined or the building that I live in gets fined if I put these things in the compactor. We already have a mandate for ratio based recycling. So for X amount of trash we "should" have Y amount of recyclables. So even if people decide they don't want to use products that require a recycle such as soda bottles, we are still penalized and fined because we didn't recycle enough.

Now I'm supposedly able to bring my cellphones to the manfacturers and they'll dispose them. Apparently disposing them means that they can refresh and repacked my old cellphone and resell it in an emerging territory. How nice of them! They get to make more money and still charge me exorbitant fees for their service. It wasn't told that this was their disposal method. So it's not really disposed, but it's still in the some use. They get to ride more for free off my sale and generate more profits in an emerging marketplace.

So we're trying to enact laws that force the manufacturer to deal with this. You can see that manufacturers are lobbying hard to not let such a thing happen as it is cost prohibitive to some if not flat out unfair even if they do not sell product in our state.

Come by NYC sometime, you'll see on street corners from time to time old CPU cases sometimes with full contents including hard drives, old printers, old monitors. People have actually taken the hard drives out, recovered them and used the data for identity theft, or expose the original owner and fear monger more identity theft because of someone else's bad judgment on disposal method.

I have other articles on how many people have TVs sitting in their closets because they don't know what to do with them before and after the digital switchover.
Surely the French are putting the waste in some space and taking care of that space. Same with the US for their small stock of nuclear power generators, aircraft carriers and submarines. Yucca Mountain in my opinion is more NIMBY fearmongering. Again, if I have to change, you have to a little also. Apparently the immediacy for greenhouse gases is so great, but the fear of radioactive materials and their storage is even greater.

People are living in Nagasaki and Hiroshima years after detonation of nuclear material. Chernobyl is going to recover over time as well.
I find it more acceptable that they are making attempts to figure it out than just say, "We don't know what to do with it, so we're not doing anything." Even if as they say it takes 100 years, they have emitted less of the offending greenhouse gases and associated pollutants, but of course traded that off for nuclear material which is a bit more localized.

---------- Post added at 08:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:34 AM ----------

here's a new one, and yet more reasons why I don't trust legislation to deal with this. While this is very tangible materials, the idea of the rest of the emissions in my opinion is not truly measurable it is just best guess on behavior in a slice of time. Depending on what time of the year it is, my electricity usage goes up and my oil burning goes down and my electricity usage goes down and my oil burning goes up. My driving also fluctuates. I assume it is not much different with companies, and again, if you can't stick a meteric on it that says EXACTLY how much, it's not any better than the policy of assessing property value for property taxes. When the city needs more money, they asses the value higher or give a higher percentage multiplier. Either way, it's a best guess with no rhyme or reason.

As far as the recycling.... yeah good job on that one!

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dippin

That the piece Carlin wrote is being called a report, and that people are saying it has been suppressed, is a joke. What he did was a literature review that the EPA decided against including in the final report. There was not one line of original research in what he submitted, he just did a lit review and forwarded it to the group that was doing the final report.

I work part time and do some consulting for a private research institution that evaluates a federal children's mental health initiative. They write congressional reports as well. Ive submitted materials to be included in the congressional report that were left out. That was to be expected, given how many research analysts are there.

In fact, it is so obvious that that is NOT a report that you can see it in the title:
"Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act"

So the guy, who is an economist, by the way, writes some comments on a report, the authors ignore him, and all of the sudden its "suppressing a report?"

Again, the challenge remains: find me a piece of original research that disputes global warming that is being suppressed without reason and well talk about conspiracy. Before that, open letters by theologians and comments by economists are not new and relevant research.