Comments jestbill has made

Are any of the Republicans criticizing the bill for its impact on the abortion debate?

I wouldn't be surprised.  Anything to delay, delay, delay.

What's neeeet about the troll is that he/she seems in favor of the current bill.  The best way to kill the entire effort for a year is to try too hard to change it.

Change it next year.

The current state of the United States is exactly what the electorate wants.  Repeat that to yourself three times for effect.  Do not fool yourself by thinking that a cabal of corporations or some such super organization is "really" in charge.  If the electorate cared, they'd be out of business in a second.

I don't propose to stop abuses because they are not abuses.  They are the normal political give-and-take in our kind of society.  If you insist on your (apparent) idea that government is a grand engineer looking for the best technical solution to technical problems, you're going to be anxiety ridden most of your life.

Government is a political tool looking for the "solution" to political problems.  If the electorate want to put the oil companies in charge of the economy, that's what they're going to get.  If they want to dither until Climate Change affects them directly and disastrously, that's what is going to happen.

The best anyone can do is to start: start work on problems as early as possible and get some sort of tools in place.  The EPA and OSHA weren't much when they started and, had the electorate cared much, could be truly valuable today.  The entire point of supporting whatever comes out of WM (while trying to block the idiocy) is to look to what improvements can be made next year and later.

Exactly!

Yeah, so's your old man.

These one-liners comparing hypotheticals are a waste of brain power.  If I didn't trust this web site, I'd jump to the conclusion that you're perfectly happy with this "do nothing/global warming's a fad/do nothing/fat and happy" world.

Again: how is single-payer coming along?

The American electorate hired a bunch of oil company executives to run the country and then re-elected them four years later.  They only tossed 'em out because the economy tanked.  If that economy comes back so will the political strength of the energy industry.

The American majority does not act, it reacts.  It reacts to looming disaster only if it will clearly affect them personally and only if action (that's action by some heroic third party) is sold, sold, sold on prime time TV.  Were they rational participants in their own futures, WM would have been passed during the Carter administration and would have been honed to perfection by now.

Those "moderates" you dismiss are actually wild radicals in their own communities.

So many words to no point.

If you push "cap-n-trade" back upstream to the ultimate extractor, there's plenty of room to "cap" but nowhere to "trade."  So you're really advocating a tax.

I'm for that--but....

This is the United States.  It is perfectly obvious that to solve the health care problem, the simplest, fairest, cheapest solution is single payer.  We're not going to do that.  It is perfectly obvious that to solve the carbon problem, the simplest, fairest and cheapest solution would be a well-head/mine adit carbon tax.  We're not going to do that either.

The only way to do things in the US is to turn the process into a game.  A tournament wherein some people can "win" over others both by sitting on the rules committees and by cleverly working those rules in their favor.  That's what WM really is.

Yes, the game has changed.  Environmentalists need new strategies to maintain their advantage.  First off, what is their advantage?  Answer: "Is the camel's nose in the tent?"

HAPA:

I'm guessing that your "error" was that you've listened to the Bush administration and it's messed up your thinking.  They wanted to measure everything relative to GDP so the US would be free to do nothing about any of it.  There are internet sites devoted to that kind of analysis:

Co2 intensity: CO2 emissions per GDP  http://earthtrends.wri.org/searchable_db/index.php?action=select_countries&theme=3&variable_ID=468

Ennyhoo, if a writer is presenting evidence about CO2 and tries to confuse the "total emissions" with indices related to GDP or other barely related matters, chances are they are producing FUD, not FOOD for thought.

By all means, make the process as complicated as possible.  If there's anything we know, it's that people respond to and will vote for laws they don't understand and that may give advantage to people they don't know.

/snark

Why not just admit you don't want any changes to the status quo?

Poor people don't have much of anything to do with future energy use.  The whole point of a tax is to get rich people to change their behavior (e.g. insulate rental units.)  If the tax is used to pay off other rich people, they'll all fight: better to make the argument about "wealth redistribution" and get it over with.

bah--again

I really don't know where to start.

If we are SURE that CO2 is a problem and that it will continue to be a problem until we deal with it properly, then my "strategy" of doing something and then modifying it as needed is the only correct way to proceed.

Claiming that some system that might be agreed to will "collapse" is not a complaint about "details" it's a complaint about active corruption and obstructionism.

Agreed, we "know" that deregulation didn't work.  Sorry to say, we "knew" it wouldn't work and that, had it been done "right" would have left us even worse off now.  We'd still have a bunch of independent producers all claiming that CO2 is not a problem and to leave them alone with all that radical nonsense.

We are not suffering from doing the Clean Air Act wrong but from not updating it as needed.  We are suffering from ideological paralysis.  Crony Capitalism is the enemy, not abstruse policy details.

Where have all the horses gone?

So why not have it both ways?

Is it possible for someone to calculate these carbon footprints with separate numbers for "living carbon" and "activist carbon?"

Then they could crow about a decrease in either column.

Where have all the horses gone?

process

I don't get it.
The attitude here seems to be that we need some kind of system that will be perfect in every way from the beginning unto nirvana.
Bah!

This is as much politics as it is science or economics.  Change the rules year by year until you get the right answer.

Further, I just don't see why current economic conditions should not be taken into account.  Yes, we need change.  But, given that this is a political situation, it makes no sense to set goals or policies that will not be implemented.  

If companies spend more money when they have it and less when they don't, that's completely understandable.

Where have all the horses gone?

yeah right:

Let's go whole hog Republican and invest Social Security in the super grid stock market.

Bah!
One reason mentioned was that electricity has to be routed not to where it's needed but to where the most money can be made.  That needs to be fixed before any of the rest of this cooperative world can be implemented.

Yes, "cooperative:" we're back to the era when fire departments all had different sized water connections and different financial arrangements and so would stand and watch your property burn.

If one part of the grid can with hold power from or charge monopoly prices to another, there is a real problem.

Where have all the horses gone?

Har!

I understand that you are trying to be clear.  The problem with this exchange is that we both have made some assumptions.

Arithmetic:
Suppose you have a power plant that is running flat out.  You put in some equipment to reduce the output of some pollutant.
The equipment takes out the pollutant and uses some energy.  It does not increase CO2 output since you're already running at maximum. It does not reduce production of some other pollutant.

Now, whether you measure the production of another pollutant in the output stream by ppm or ppm/MWh or tons/MWh or whatever, you have left the numerator alone while decreasing the denominator.  So your "fix" has no effect on the argument itself.  Were they going to sue, they would have done so when they had to reduce production of two pollutants instead of one.

Policy:
Your assumption is that more energy will be required, my assumption is that the more expensive energy will reduce demand.  Neither will lead to lawsuits.
You actually know something about practices and technology, I just assume that people will eventually figure out how to do what's required.

What's required:
Since CO2 pollution causes trouble not by local concentration as does SO2 but by total global volume, it needs to be handled differently no matter what kind of arithmetic is used.

I fear that it could be found that a reduction in your measure of pollution could be effected by just building a bigger plant.  That might even reduce CO2 pollution as it might be measured currently.  Unfortunately, any measure that allows more tons of CO2 to be produced per year would be wrong and harmful.

Where have all the horses gone?

OK, I'm SURE I don't understand.

1.  If you are controlling one pollutant (under the current model) and decide to control another, you'll be mandating an increase of the first.  That's what your arithmetic shows.
The reason it hasn't caused lawsuits yet is that ways have been found to decrease both at the expense of increased CO2 release.

Now that someone has decided that we need to control CO2, there might be a problem because CO2 is essential to the process, not an added pollutant.  

I still do not see the problem.

Are you saying that the only fuels that burn more efficiently also contain more of the other controlled pollutants?  If not, then switching to such a fuel will not cause trouble.  If so, then the other mitigation technology will have to be improved.

If you are talking about some technology that uses energy to reduce CO2 production without sequestering it, I see your point but I don't understand it.  If that technology is just to burn the fuel in a way that reduces CO2 while increasing the formation of other pollutants, there still is no lawsuit, just a mandate to improve the other technology to sequester the other pollutant.

One way or another, these pollutants will have to be taken out of the exhaust stream completely.  The possibility of new CO2 regulations just makes that point clear.

Where have all the horses gone?

How about this?

(Posted with some trepidation since I now see that I'm talking to people who have some connection reality--not my usual millieu.)

1. Sequestration.
Under current rules, a CO2 limit would require sequestration.  So what's the problem?

2. Grandfathering is like time travel.  We don't have to grandfather anyone in and wait 30 years, that's already been done. Plants were grandfathered in, time has passed so they can be safely shut down now that we are in this new regime where GHG concentrations are so dangerously high.

3.  The whole idea that plant improvements to reduce pollution are governed by the "major improvement" tripwire is the kind of silliness that makes passionately interested people write like chaotic trolls.  

Where have all the horses gone?

wrong thread /nt

On NOAA: Global warming 'irreversible' for next 1,000 years posted 10 months ago 15 Responses

painting roofs

Recently there was an article about choosing different varieties of crops so as to reflect a bit more sunlight back into space.

One problem mentioned is that in Asia, there is so much cloud cover that the different crops would make no difference.  Seems the same would be true of white roofs.On Study says geoengineering 'useful' against climate change posted 10 months ago 3 Responses

sometimes actions are mute

I agree--sort of...

The "ideals" in this case have to do with spreading the word, not with avoiding energy consumption.  It's important to remember the subject of the discussion.  If it takes glitz to spread the word, then use glitz: it's a matter of leverage, not of specific actions.

But then, who are these "environmentalists" who "are not willing to take the first steps?" There's quite a difference between "first steps" and zero consumption--your brush is too broad.

I haven't owned a vehicle for nearly 40 years.  Are you still waiting for me to take a first step?

Where have all the horses gone?

Feh...

How about if they put a tax on mountain bikes to pay for upkeep?

It all depends on motorized access.  If the bikers can drive in, bike awhile and then drive out, they'll do a bunch of damage.

If not, not...On Rule change would allow more mountain biking in national parks posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago 11 Responses

capitalism is dead from economic contraction?

Not!

Economic contraction might be death for some current ideas about capitalism--cowboy capitalism, eternal growth capitalism--but capitalism will survive.

Now, if the "economy" became completely steady-state, with no new inventions, no new building, then maybe capitalism would become useless. Not going to happen soon.On Big drop in U.S. electricity consumption confounds utilities posted 1 year ago 14 Responses

media, media, media

So it's a big deal that people who are not directly affected by higher prices also start saving?
Maybe they watch TV?

Hydrogen cars have to get their hydrogen from somewhere: somewhere that uses the energy and produces the CO2 that they supposedly save.  I expect Grist readers to know that.On Big drop in U.S. electricity consumption confounds utilities posted 1 year ago 14 Responses

lots of strings

Green Granny wrote:

Ah, the political differences among enviros pop up.  There's the anti-capitalist, undo the industrial revolution, curse the "rich" camp and there's the let's remake what we have into something sustainable without suffering much change to our "standard of living" camp.

We could follow John McCain's advice and do it all...
Make 'em live on only a few hundred thousand a year.
Make 'em improve fuel and manufacturing efficiency to something sustainable.
Make prices reflect true costs so that people live in circumstances that require less "industrial revolution" and more environmentalist evolution.On Nix fuel-efficiency requirement from Big Auto loan, says White House posted 1 year ago 11 Responses

stupid zones

A Colorado columnist once wrote an article advocating the designation of "stupid" zones.

Anyone building inside a "stupid" zone could expect zero help.  No state, federal or local money should be spent trying to aid people too stupid to understand simple facts about Mother Nature.On Concerns raised about wildfire-fighting chemicals posted 1 year ago 2 Responses

apples and oranges

When I buy TP at the supermarket, they have tags showing the price of each type PER SQUARE FOOT.

I don't use it by the square foot, I use it by the linear inch.

I have a similar quibble about this article: A DLP set uses less energy per square inch, but the smallest you can buy is around 50 inches diagonal.
Too many square inches.

I'm guessing that a 23" LCD probably uses the same energy--what am I missing? (besides a huge TV?)

Which part of "all" don't you understand?