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Just getting back to this.

First, I want to note that I really respect your environmental concern and passion on this issue. Very admirable.

That said, a good bit of what you're saying here doesn't add up for me in terms of practical application. Maybe you can fill in some of the gaps.

On 9/7/2021 at 5:41 PM, Armacing said:

See, that's where you go wrong.  As a plaintiff in a free market, I don't have to wait to get cancer and prove your chemicals caused it.  All I have to do is prove you put chemicals into my section of the river (because - remember - in a free market environment the property line extends out into the river) without my permission. 

Based on your parenthetical there, it seems like you're aware that under current law that nobody actually owns the river - people who own property adjacent to rivers just own the banks but not the water itself, which is why it's illegal to damn them up or divert all the water thereby preventing the water from reaching the property owners downstream. 

If I understand what you're proposing correctly, and if property owners property lines extend into the river itself, what keeps the property owner or owners at the source of the river from building a lake and depriving all the downstream property owners of their water rights? 

On 9/7/2021 at 5:41 PM, Armacing said:

That means if I detect chemicals in my section of the river and they came from you, then you owe me damages because you polluted my water. 

What are the damages for polluting water? Is it a sliding scale, meaning more pollution equals more damages? Are some forms of pollution worse than others? Do you expect the government to define these damages through legislation or do you envision just tossing these questions to juries on a case by case basis? 

On 9/7/2021 at 5:41 PM, Armacing said:

In a free market we are talking about the right of all injured parties to seek damages for any pollution that is conveyed onto their property via any means (air, surface water, ground water, contaminated wildlife, electromagnetic radiation, etc.) and without any safe harbor regulation for the company to hide behind.  

When you bring things like air and electromagnetic radiation into the mix, it seems like your plan here becomes a lot more problematic.

You still have the damages issues. For example, can I sue radio broadcasters for the radio waves that pass through my property? Who defines how much that cause of action is worth and what is that definition based on? Can I get an injunction to prevent the radio waves from passing through in the first place? 

Air is even trickier. So you take a sample of the air on your property and find it's loaded with C02 (or any other "pollutant" for that matter). How do you prove that C02 came from a specific entity, or do you literally have a cause of action against any person and any company on earth given that we all emit C02? For example, (beyond CO2) if you find traces of cigarette smoke in the air on your property, can you sue every smoker in the city, the county, or the state? 

On 9/7/2021 at 5:41 PM, Armacing said:

I would be curious to know why you think any shareholder should be shielded from liability in any instance because the choice to invest is completely voluntary.  It's not like they don't know what they're getting into when they buy the shares.

I think you overestimate the amount of information available to passive shareholders - in my experience, they often if not usually don't know what they're getting into when they buy the shares. If they're investing through a brokerage account or in a mutual fund or index, etc. (which is like half of US households) then they most likely don't even know which companies they own stock in on a given day. But even for passive investors who are actively picking companies, I still think it's a bad idea to impose liability because those investors don't have access to detailed information on the company's operating practices. For larger companies, most of the company's own employees don't have access to enough information to see all the potential avenues for legal liability that the company may be exposed to at any given moment, and they certainly don't have much opportunity to influence those operations beyond the scope of their own employment. Why would we expect passive investors to be in a better position to 'know what they're getting into' than the company's own employees? 

Further, do you envision passive shareholder liability to be joint and several? Do you think it should be proportional to ownership share? Case in point, if I own stock in McDonald's and somebody decides to sue me because they get badly burned by McDonald's excessively hot coffee, am I liable for the entire extent of the damages or do I only owe the value of my stock divided by the entire McDonald's market capitalization?

These principles apply beyond stock bought through exchanges, too. If for example, I give my brother $5k to help him start an ice cream truck business in exchange for some equity, do you think I should be on the hook for damages if he accidentally runs a school bus off the road and is sued for millions? Seems to me like that kind of system would prevent just about anyone from investing in any business. This would be especially devastating for businesses with only moderate ROI expectations. For example, I might be able to justify this kind of risk exposure on a 5k investment if it was a tech startup that had the potential to earn millions, but the risk/reward calculation will never come out in favor of investment under these conditions for smaller ROI ventures like restaurants, anything brick and mortar, services like plumbing/electricians/contrators, or just about any small general proprietorship and partnership operation, which would be the only kind of corporate structure left once all liability-limiting vehicles have been eliminated per your design. Seems to me that would put a swift end to the vast majority of investment and new businesses across the board (which may or may not be your goal here, I'm not entirely clear).

In any case, thanks again for the full-throated environmental defense. I'm curious to see how you resolve some of the uncertainties (or confusions on my part) I've pointed out, but thanks for the thought exercise either way.

Edited by ruraljuror
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9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

If I understand what you're proposing correctly, and if property owners property lines extend into the river itself, what keeps the property owner or owners at the source of the river from building a lake and depriving all the downstream property owners of their water rights? 

It works like this:  You buy land and your property line extends to the middle of the river where it meets another property owner.  That means you own river-front land and all of the benefits that come with it, namely:  flowing water along one side of your property.  As an owner of river-front property you have the ability to enjoy that water:  swim it it, draw from it for agriculture, fish in it, etc.  But the person downstream has the same rights, so anything you do that prevents them from enjoying their use of the river causes a dispute to arise.  That dispute will be settled in court on a case-by-case basis.  Over time accepted usage practices will be identified and adherence to these "commonly accepted practices" will become pre-conditions for insurance policies to remain in effect.  As a consequence, a person who engages in activities related to the river that are outside of practices allowed by their insurance policy will open themselves up to liabilities not covered by personal liability insurance.  Given that pollution (or diversion) affects all parties downstream, you might say that one wrong move would open the proverbial floodgates of litigation.

9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

What are the damages for polluting water? Is it a sliding scale, meaning more pollution equals more damages? Are some forms of pollution worse than others? Do you expect the government to define these damages through legislation or do you envision just tossing these questions to juries on a case by case basis? 

If someone just tows a bunch of junk cars onto your land and leaves them there, then a dispute has arisen as a result of the transgressor's actions.  What are the damages owed by the person who has done this?  Probably the cost to remove the offending (unwanted) materials from your property and compensation for any time when the property owner could not enjoy the desired usage of their own land.   Same principle applies to all manner of unwanted materials conveyed onto another person's property, including liquid waste via the river.  Juries will decide the monetary value of any compensation and what the corrective actions should be.

9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

When you bring things like air and electromagnetic radiation into the mix, it seems like your plan here becomes a lot more problematic.

I think it only stands to reason that if someone can't pollute the river with liquid waste if I'm downstream, they likewise cannot pollute my air if I'm downwind, nor can they irradiate me with impunity.

9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

You still have the damages issues. For example, can I sue radio broadcasters for the radio waves that pass through my property? Who defines how much that cause of action is worth and what is that definition based on? Can I get an injunction to prevent the radio waves from passing through in the first place? 

All good questions for a jury, but I don't think anyone should be limited from bringing legal action against someone who is broadcasting EM radiation onto their property without permission.   What about all those crazy tinfoil hat people who think the radio waves are controlling their minds?  Shouldn't they have their day in court?   The law doesn't guarantee the success of any single business model or new technology, only that life, liberty, and private property will be protected.  All non-violent disputes arising with the free society will either be solved via mutual agreement of the parties involved or a trial.

 

9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

Air is even trickier. So you take a sample of the air on your property and find it's loaded with C02 (or any other "pollutant" for that matter). How do you prove that C02 came from a specific entity, or do you literally have a cause of action against any person and any company on earth given that we all emit C02? For example, (beyond CO2) if you find traces of cigarette smoke in the air on your property, can you sue every smoker in the city, the county, or the state? 

Well, first of all, CO2 is not a pollutant:  It's a natural constituent of the Earth's atmosphere and every animal exhales CO2.  Now talking about real pollutants like cigarette smoke:  I say if you are getting blasted with cigarette smoke on your property you should be able to bring legal action against the offending party.  The jury will have to decide how egregious the transgression is on a case-by-case basis and determine compensation accordingly.

9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

I think you overestimate the amount of information available to passive shareholders - in my experience, they often if not usually don't know what they're getting into when they buy the shares. If they're investing through a brokerage account or in a mutual fund or index, etc. (which is like half of US households) then they most likely don't even know which companies they own stock in on a given day.

You're making my point for me here.  The very fact that they don't know what they're investing in is a symptom of the problem - it's caused by limited liability.  They don't know because they don't have to know, because not knowing now doesn't carry any risk.  Once limited liability is gone and people start losing their house for being shareholders in a high-risk company, you better believe they will know.  Mutual funds might become a thing of the past like lead pipes or asbestos.

9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

But even for passive investors who are actively picking companies, I still think it's a bad idea to impose liability because those investors don't have access to detailed information on the company's operating practices. For larger companies, most of the company's own employees don't have access to enough information to see all the potential avenues for legal liability that the company may be exposed to at any given moment, and they certainly don't have much opportunity to influence those operations beyond the scope of their own employment. Why would we expect passive investors to be in a better position to 'know what they're getting into' than the company's own employees? 

Once again, you're describing the current situation where a legal and shareholder framework for communicating vital information to shareholders does not yet exist.  In a world without limited liability it could be as simple as new disclosures in the financial statements with facts-on-the-ground verified by the auditors.  Or it could be an entirely new structure of share ownership that would sound foreign to us today (in the current environment of limited liability), but which would satisfy the risk/reward profile of free market investors.  So you're wrong about it being a bad idea.  It's a great idea for every shareholder to be an activist shareholder who is actively watching the actions of management, or perhaps has their proxies watching management.  Maybe the mutual fund morphs into a shareholder assurance/insurance entity ... who knows?  All manner of innovations are possible in the free market.

9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

Further, do you envision passive shareholder liability to be joint and several? Do you think it should be proportional to ownership share? Case in point, if I own stock in McDonald's and somebody decides to sue me because they get badly burned by McDonald's excessively hot coffee, am I liable for the entire extent of the damages or do I only owe the value of my stock divided by the entire McDonald's market capitalization?

I think they would have to be jointly and severally liable because not all shareholders will have the same net worth, and the plaintiff(s) will have the right to receive compensation up to the full assets and income of all shareholders.  If they were only jointly liable that might provide shelter for all shareholders who have more assets than the poorest shareholder - which wouldn't work too well.  Plus, jointly & severally is a harsher liability for the shareholder, so the stakes are higher for them, thus the stakes are higher for management.   In an environment like that, I think you would be hard pressed to find an investor who doesn't know what they are getting into... and I bet shareholder agreements that outline all relevant liabilities, responsibilities,  insurance covenants, and limited shareholder indemnification would become the norm.

9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

These principles apply beyond stock bought through exchanges, too. If for example, I give my brother $5k to help him start an ice cream truck business in exchange for some equity, do you think I should be on the hook for damages if he accidentally runs a school bus off the road and is sued for millions? Seems to me like that kind of system would prevent just about anyone from investing in any business.

Yes, you would absolutely be liable as part-owner, although this example doesn't really involve shares... or any presumption of limited liability really... I mean, you are part owner with your brother in an ice cream truck and you don't have liability insurance?  Like - what did you think was going to happen the first time he runs into somebody?  I think the key point you are missing is insurance and how the cost of insurance serves as a disincentive for people to engage in risky activities or risky investments.  I think it would be more accurate to say that investing in an *uninsurable* business would be a hard sell to all but the most desperate investors.

9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

This would be especially devastating for businesses with only moderate ROI expectations. For example, I might be able to justify this kind of risk exposure on a 5k investment if it was a tech startup that had the potential to earn millions, but the risk/reward calculation will never come out in favor of investment under these conditions for smaller ROI ventures like restaurants, anything brick and mortar, services like plumbing/electricians/contrators, or just about any small general proprietorship and partnership operation

But there's no limited liability for sole proprietors or general partners today - yet those entities exist by the thousands.  You even brought up the concept of piercing the corporate veil, which can happen with LLC's and closely held corporations - yet those entities exist by the thousands today.  And you can rest assured that hardly any of them have the risk/reward profile of a tech start up.  So how come they exist today if according to your argument above the very idea should be unappealing to investors?  The answer is insurance.  Conversely; I bet there a multitude of examples where small-time investors thought about investing in something, looked into the risks, checked with the insurance company, and decided not to invest.  Happens every day, and that's part of what makes the free market so awesome.

9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

which would be the only kind of corporate structure left once all liability-limiting vehicles have been eliminated per your design.

My design doesn't necessarily imagine the elimination of corporations, only that the shareholders are personally liable.  I leave it up to investors and companies to decide what ownership structure meets their mutual needs.  It's just that without limited liability, they will need to pay special attention to high-risk activities that could result in class action suits with a large number of plaintiffs.

9 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

 but thanks for the thought exercise either way.

Always happy to oblige, and thanks to you for bringing up objections/problems for me to answer.

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On 9/13/2021 at 4:54 PM, Armacing said:

It works like this:  You buy land and your property line extends to the middle of the river where it meets another property owner.  That means you own river-front land and all of the benefits that come with it, namely:  flowing water along one side of your property.  As an owner of river-front property you have the ability to enjoy that water:  swim it it, draw from it for agriculture, fish in it, etc.  But the person downstream has the same rights, so anything you do that prevents them from enjoying their use of the river causes a dispute to arise.  That dispute will be settled in court on a case-by-case basis.  Over time accepted usage practices will be identified and adherence to these "commonly accepted practices" will become pre-conditions for insurance policies to remain in effect.  As a consequence, a person who engages in activities related to the river that are outside of practices allowed by their insurance policy will open themselves up to liabilities not covered by personal liability insurance.  Given that pollution (or diversion) affects all parties downstream, you might say that one wrong move would open the proverbial floodgates of litigation.

What you've described sounds pretty much exactly how common civil law has developed, except you're choosing to codify norms and promote consistency/predictability via insurance policy terms instead of through legislation. I'm not sure what exactly that accomplishes besides introducing a new middle man into the mix who can sell a bunch of new insurance policies. Can you give an example that shows a situation in which current law would lead to a worse/unjust result, while the system you describe would lead to a better, more just outcome?

On 9/13/2021 at 4:54 PM, Armacing said:

All good questions for a jury, but I don't think anyone should be limited from bringing legal action against someone who is broadcasting EM radiation onto their property without permission.   What about all those crazy tinfoil hat people who think the radio waves are controlling their minds?  Shouldn't they have their day in court?   The law doesn't guarantee the success of any single business model or new technology, only that life, liberty, and private property will be protected.  All non-violent disputes arising with the free society will either be solved via mutual agreement of the parties involved or a trial.

Those crazy tin foil hat people are currently free to file any and all the lawsuits they please, but I think it's very important that those lawsuits meet certain minimal criteria in order for the case to proceed past the filing in order to prevent abuse of the court system. Currently, for a lawsuit to proceed past the initial filing, the plaintiff is going to have to show that there is a legitimate cause of action that the court has power to address and that there has been verifiable harm that resulted from the cause of action. Without those minimal criteria, the court system could turn into a circus pretty easily and shift all the power to those with enough money to fight a legal war of attrition.

Let's take your example of suing over electromagnetic radiation to it's logical extremes: Let's say I get really into astronomy and decide that I don't want any light from my neighbors' houses entering my property. Unfortunately, those neighbors don't comply with my requests, so I take them to court.

Under the current system, my neighbor's attorney might point to a local light pollution ordinance, then show that I've failed to allege the emittance of light exceeding that threshold, at which point my case will be dismissed. If there's no such local ordinance, then my neighbor's attorney might show previous cases in which judges ruled that any property-line-crossing light that results from a property owner's right to reasonably light their own property does not constitute a redressable harm acknowledged by the court system. One way or another, the case is getting quickly quashed, and should I choose to continue filing similar suits despite having each action tossed, my attorneys are likely to face some form of retribution that would put an end to my nuisance lawsuits for good.

Under your system, are you proposing to allow the case to go all the way to a jury? If it does go to a jury and even if I lose, is there anything that prevents me from filing suits against all my neighbors the next night and repeating the process over and over again until my neighbors relent and give in or until I happen to find a jury of 12 sympathetic stargazers and/or lightphobics? 

On 9/13/2021 at 4:54 PM, Armacing said:

Well, first of all, CO2 is not a pollutant:  It's a natural constituent of the Earth's atmosphere and every animal exhales CO2. 

I put CO2 in quotes to avoid that pushback, but alas.

To counter your points, I'll note that water isn't poison, for example, but if you drink too much of it you will die. Similarly, water is a natural constituent of our air/land, but excess quantities in the form of hurricanes and floods can certainly have devastating impacts on the habitability of a given place.

More importantly, it was my understanding that you were promoting what you believe to be a system that is better suited to environmental protection than the current system, but if your system doesn't or can't identify excess CO2  as an environmental problem, then that's kind of a non-starter from my perspective in terms of being an improvement.

On 9/13/2021 at 4:54 PM, Armacing said:

You're making my point for me here.  The very fact that they don't know what they're investing in is a symptom of the problem - it's caused by limited liability.  They don't know because they don't have to know, because not knowing now doesn't carry any risk.  Once limited liability is gone and people start losing their house for being shareholders in a high-risk company, you better believe they will know.  Mutual funds might become a thing of the past like lead pipes or asbestos.

I'm open to the possibility that the world might be a better place if limited liability as a means of shielding investors had never been conceived, and if mutual funds had never existed, etc. I have not idea what that world would truly look like and what unintended benefits and detriments would accompany it. 

But why do you think it's a good thing that somebody might lose their house for being a shareholder in a high risk company. To be clear, I understand that you believe this to be the best way of providing oversight to insure the companies that one is invested in is not exposing itself to "too much" liability. But what is "too much"? Do you also think it would be a good thing that somebody might lose their house for being a shareholder in a low risk company? What about somebody who loses their house by being a shareholder in a it-seemed-like-a-no-risk company? In your system, it seems clear that those outcomes would be inevitable too, but there is no moral hazard example to be made out of these latter two lower-risk investors. Are they then just collateral damage whose only effect on the market will be to serve as a cautionary tale and stifle investment? What is gained to justify these losses?

On 9/13/2021 at 4:54 PM, Armacing said:

Once again, you're describing the current situation where a legal and shareholder framework for communicating vital information to shareholders does not yet exist.  In a world without limited liability it could be as simple as new disclosures in the financial statements with facts-on-the-ground verified by the auditors.  Or it could be an entirely new structure of share ownership that would sound foreign to us today (in the current environment of limited liability), but which would satisfy the risk/reward profile of free market investors.  So you're wrong about it being a bad idea.  It's a great idea for every shareholder to be an activist shareholder who is actively watching the actions of management, or perhaps has their proxies watching management.  Maybe the mutual fund morphs into a shareholder assurance/insurance entity ... who knows?  All manner of innovations are possible in the free market.

It gets a bit trickier to discuss this stuff when we have to include some kind of communication framework that doesn't yet exist in order to make the equation add up, but I am curious about the first possibility you mentioned and what you are imagining will compel companies to adopt new disclosure and auditing processes? Also, who do you envision paying for and conducting the audits? 

I do like the idea of and can see benefits to every shareholder being an activist shareholder, but I also think it is a much better theoretical concept than a practical one. There are between 3 and 0 people at any given company that know literally everything that's going on at the company where they work day in and day out, so there's no amount of communication that will enable shareholders to have a complete understanding of their daily risk exposure. Further, this whole framework could put an end to actual activist investing, since would-be-activist investors would have to expose themselves to the very risk they seek to eliminate in order to attempt spur reform from within the company.

On 9/13/2021 at 4:54 PM, Armacing said:

I think they would have to be jointly and severally liable because not all shareholders will have the same net worth, and the plaintiff(s) will have the right to receive compensation up to the full assets and income of all shareholders.  If they were only jointly liable that might provide shelter for all shareholders who have more assets than the poorest shareholder - which wouldn't work too well.  Plus, jointly & severally is a harsher liability for the shareholder, so the stakes are higher for them, thus the stakes are higher for management.   In an environment like that, I think you would be hard pressed to find an investor who doesn't know what they are getting into... and I bet shareholder agreements that outline all relevant liabilities, responsibilities,  insurance covenants, and limited shareholder indemnification would become the norm.

It just seems to me like there's a major flaw in the whole idea that investors will 'know what they're getting into' if their houses are on the line. Even if I'm a cybersecurity expert myself, there's no amount of information that I will be able to attain about Bank of America's cybersecurity set up that can help me make a meaningful determination of their risk exposure to getting their mainframe hacked. So if I own one share of Bank of America stock, what sense does it make me conceivably on the hook for a multimillion dollar breach of customer data, even if only in theory? Even if I'm well versed in actuarial science, current Iowa tort law and local social strife, it seems unlikely that I'll be able to identify the racist pattern with which one of the State Farm reps in the downtown Cedar Rapids branch is denying claims and thereby exposing the company to untold punitive damages, so what sense does it make that I could potentially be held liable? No amount of communication can bridge those gaps or eliminate those risks, so why punish passive investors who were in the worst position of all parties involved to identify and minimize those risks. 

On 9/13/2021 at 4:54 PM, Armacing said:

Yes, you would absolutely be liable as part-owner, although this example doesn't really involve shares... or any presumption of limited liability really... I mean, you are part owner with your brother in an ice cream truck and you don't have liability insurance?  Like - what did you think was going to happen the first time he runs into somebody?  I think the key point you are missing is insurance and how the cost of insurance serves as a disincentive for people to engage in risky activities or risky investments.  I think it would be more accurate to say that investing in an *uninsurable* business would be a hard sell to all but the most desperate investors.

I think by focusing on business structure and insurance, you may have missed my point, which was that even a very low risk investment (like 5k for something trivial like an ice cream truck) could potentially lead to negative outcomes that are grossly disproportionate to the potential reward.  Without limited liability, I would never invest in a venture like this because it doesn't matter how responsible my brother is - it's always possible that he commits some act of negligence that negates the liability policy and could leave me on the hook for thousands of times more money than the investment could have ever earned. The risk could never be justified and money for these kinds of investments would all but dry up entirely.

On 9/13/2021 at 4:54 PM, Armacing said:

But there's no limited liability for sole proprietors or general partners today - yet those entities exist by the thousands.  You even brought up the concept of piercing the corporate veil, which can happen with LLC's and closely held corporations - yet those entities exist by the thousands today.  And you can rest assured that hardly any of them have the risk/reward profile of a tech start up.  So how come they exist today if according to your argument above the very idea should be unappealing to investors?  The answer is insurance.  Conversely; I bet there a multitude of examples where small-time investors thought about investing in something, looked into the risks, checked with the insurance company, and decided not to invest.  Happens every day, and that's part of what makes the free market so awesome.

This might be a good time for a fact check, but I would guess that most sole proprietors and general partnerships don't have much outside investment. More importantly, the risk/reward ratio is what makes these kinds of vehicles so popular for small businesses and family operations given the potential tax savings they provide and the relatively small amount of assets they own that could potentially be at risk in the first place (especially since many jurisdiction protect homes from bankruptcy). Also, the relatively small scope of operation for most sole proprietors and general partnerships makes it much easier to insure against liabilities that are likely to be encountered in the scope of business, but one of the main factors at play here is that these kinds of businesses are typically owner/operated, so these kind of operators can tolerate these risks because they're the ones in the best position to minimize it as well as to be held accountable if and when they fall short and to benefit directly from the reward when they don't. Resting liability on the shoulders of those in the best position to minimize it is goal.

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On 8/29/2021 at 4:37 PM, Armacing said:

but they consistently fail to call out China's disproportional share of global emissions.  Why??

Because we in the West can't do anything about it other than encourage them to change their ways. Those of us who support low carbon electricity generation have a hard enough fight here at home moving us away from fossil fuels - so we focus on what we can influence, and shy away from what we cannot. Clean up our own house first etc...

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On 9/17/2021 at 11:57 AM, Rockatansky said:

Because we in the West can't do anything about it other than encourage them to change their ways. Those of us who support low carbon electricity generation have a hard enough fight here at home moving us away from fossil fuels - so we focus on what we can influence, and shy away from what we cannot. Clean up our own house first etc...

So you must not be that worried about Carbon Dioxide then, right?  Because if you fail to speak up about the largest source of Carbon Dioxide because you have limited influence, then to me it is obvious you don't really see a threat in CO2.  To me it just looks like you're promoting your political/economic agenda.  If you really thought the fate of the world hinged on limiting CO2 emissions, then you would be coming up with ways to stop China even without their cooperation - for the sake of the world (from your perspective).

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On 9/17/2021 at 12:02 PM, Rockatansky said:

Since CO2 in excess can have a significant harmful effect on the environment it is, by definition, a pollutant.

How would you define "excess"?  As recently as 50 Million years ago CO2 levels were 2.5 times what they are today, but if you listen to some hysterical pseudo-science people in the media today they say such a level of CO2 would be catastrophic.  Yet, the fossil record tells us the environment was doing just fine 50 million years ago with plenty of life.  If you go back further like 400 million years ago CO2 levels were 5 times what they are today, and the fossil record tells us the earth was teaming with life - and new life forms were expanding and evolving rapidly on land (rapidly over geologic time scales, of course).

I don't know if you've ever heard the term "runaway greenhouse effect", but you should be made aware that during times of much higher CO2 the earth did not experience a runaway greenhouse effect because of the various negative-feedback loops associated with the earth's environment.  Put simply:  Many lifeforms on earth use Carbon and Carbon-containing compounds and the more available it is, the more those lifeforms flourish.

Now, if you want to talk about harmful pollutants that would not otherwise occur in nature and are created by humans as a result of industrial processes, then I'm right there with you saying those pollutants should be eliminated.  But this whole obsession with CO2 is nothing more than a new-age religion/political philosophy.  The CO2-as-a-pollutant concept is designed to cast the widest possible net of human activities so the arbiters of what is "green" feel empowered to comment about the largest number of human activities.  It's not about saving the planet from destruction; it's about power and money.

I think you will be hard pressed to find a person who truly believes humans are capable of extracting enough carbon dioxide from the earth's crust to create a runaway greenhouse effect like the planet Venus (which is often given as an example).  Suffice it to say that the differences between Earth and Venus are a lot more significant than just the % of CO2 in the atmosphere.   Venus is much closer to the sun and the atmosphere is 90-times as thick.  Venus has no magnetic field and it's rotational period is so slow that one day on Venus is longer than one year on Venus.  Venus has no oceans and appears to have experienced catastrophic volcanism in the past.  Yet the mechanics of the volcanism are still not understood, with some scientists theorizing there were large-scale re-surfacing events in the relatively recent geologic past.  As you know, the ultimate source of CO2 in the atmosphere of rocky planets is volcanic activity, and the same is true for earth.

Or stated another way:  So much of the carbon dioxide that was once in the atmosphere is irretrievably locked into the earth's crust that it would be impossible (not to mention highly un-profitable from an economic standpoint) to convert it back into atmospheric CO2.  The only force on our planet capable of creating that much CO2 would be the planet itself in the form of a mass-volcanism event.  And I'm not even talking about a Super-volcano like Yellowstone because that has happened multiple times and life is still here.  I'm talking about Deccan Traps times 10 or something like that, but even in that scenario you're more likely to freeze due to excess SO2 than you are to burn up due to excess CO2.

 

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On 9/21/2021 at 10:41 AM, Armacing said:

So you must not be that worried about Carbon Dioxide then, right?  Because if you fail to speak up about the largest source of Carbon Dioxide because you have limited influence, then to me it is obvious you don't really see a threat in CO2.  To me it just looks like you're promoting your political/economic agenda.  If you really thought the fate of the world hinged on limiting CO2 emissions, then you would be coming up with ways to stop China even without their cooperation - for the sake of the world (from your perspective).

I find you rhetoric both unnecessarily aggressive and unconvincing. Your constant and purposeful misrepresentation leads me to believe you are inflexible in thought and looking for a fight.  I choose to no longer participate. Bye. 

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On 9/15/2021 at 1:00 PM, ruraljuror said:

What you've described sounds pretty much exactly how common civil law has developed, except you're choosing to codify norms and promote consistency/predictability via insurance policy terms instead of through legislation. I'm not sure what exactly that accomplishes besides introducing a new middle man into the mix who can sell a bunch of new insurance policies. Can you give an example that shows a situation in which current law would lead to a worse/unjust result, while the system you describe would lead to a better, more just outcome?

The examples would be the thousands of cases where industries release the "EPA approved amount" of a material into the environment and those living in the communities around the emissions source have no legal recourse due to the safe harbor of the regulation.  How about the example of W.R. Grace mentioned in this article ?  That company still exists today as a publicly traded company (although I think they are in the process of a leveraged buy-out because I own some shares of it and I got a proxy statement recently).  They were able to avoid a big chunk of their asbestos pollution liability through the bankruptcy process, but I'm saying that after the company runs out of funds and the insurance coverage has been exhausted, the plaintiffs should be allowed to go after the shareholders to make up the difference.  Justice will be served when the problem has been solved and the injured parties have been compensated.  It's obvious the current system doesn't do that.

On 9/15/2021 at 1:00 PM, ruraljuror said:

Those crazy tin foil hat people are currently free to file any and all the lawsuits they please, but I think it's very important that those lawsuits meet certain minimal criteria in order for the case to proceed past the filing in order to prevent abuse of the court system. Currently, for a lawsuit to proceed past the initial filing, the plaintiff is going to have to show that there is a legitimate cause of action that the court has power to address and that there has been verifiable harm that resulted from the cause of action.

Yes, all of those controls are good and would remain in place.  They would have to provide evidence of the radiative pollution on their property.  As to how the court could address whether there is verifiable harm in the case of electro-magnetic radiation, all the plaintiff would have to do is show they were operating an electronic device on their land that was interfered with by the pollutive source of EM radiation.  The legal solution could be as simple as a small monetary compensation or as drastic as total elimination of the EMR source.

On 9/15/2021 at 1:00 PM, ruraljuror said:

Let's take your example of suing over electromagnetic radiation to it's logical extremes: Let's say I get really into astronomy and decide that I don't want any light from my neighbors' houses entering my property. Unfortunately, those neighbors don't comply with my requests, so I take them to court.

Under the current system, my neighbor's attorney might point to a local light pollution ordinance, then show that I've failed to allege the emittance of light exceeding that threshold, at which point my case will be dismissed. If there's no such local ordinance, then my neighbor's attorney might show previous cases in which judges ruled that any property-line-crossing light that results from a property owner's right to reasonably light their own property does not constitute a redressable harm acknowledged by the court system. One way or another, the case is getting quickly quashed, and should I choose to continue filing similar suits despite having each action tossed, my attorneys are likely to face some form of retribution that would put an end to my nuisance lawsuits for good.

Under your system, are you proposing to allow the case to go all the way to a jury? If it does go to a jury and even if I lose, is there anything that prevents me from filing suits against all my neighbors the next night and repeating the process over and over again until my neighbors relent and give in or until I happen to find a jury of 12 sympathetic stargazers and/or lightphobics? 

Man, this is a good example... so much to work with here!

First I would say that in a free society there is no local light pollution ordinance, so we proceed to scenario #2 right away.  Showing previous case law might be a good defense, so no problems there from a private property standpoint.  If, however, that defense is not successful, the jury (or judge) might find that a little compensation is in order if the offending party continues to shine light across the property line.   At that point it might become obvious to the light-shiner that simply blocking the light as requested by the neighbor would have been a lot less trouble.  The ultimate goal here is to keep this kind of dispute out of the court system and such a finding (involving compensation) might serve as a reminder to the public that cooperation and resolving small disputes are best handled among themselves... and as a reminder that the integrity of property lines will be upheld in a court of law.

As far as multiple frivolous civil suits:  Doesn't that problem exist today in the current system?  Yet there are ways to deal with it as you pointed out in your comment about nuisance lawsuits and "vexatious litigators".

On 9/15/2021 at 1:00 PM, ruraljuror said:

I put CO2 in quotes to avoid that pushback, but alas.

To counter your points, I'll note that water isn't poison, for example, but if you drink too much of it you will die. Similarly, water is a natural constituent of our air/land, but excess quantities in the form of hurricanes and floods can certainly have devastating impacts on the habitability of a given place.  More importantly, it was my understanding that you were promoting what you believe to be a system that is better suited to environmental protection than the current system, but if your system doesn't or can't identify excess CO2  as an environmental problem, then that's kind of a non-starter from my perspective in terms of being an improvement.

I will refer you to my detailed exploration of the concept of "Excess" CO2 in my response to Rockatansky above.   Please note that if there is an industrial facility that actually is emitting detectable and harmful levels of CO2 that are affecting a neighboring property, then I'm all for that neighboring party bringing legal action against the polluter.  However, I think you're referencing the whole "global warming" religion above and that's a different story because it involves people far removed from the source of the pollution that have no way of detecting extra CO2 besides what is normally in the atmosphere.

Further exploration of the concept of "Excess CO2":  It seems that people with a vested interest in selling "green" technology have selected a point in relatively recent history as the "normal" amount of CO2.  But such an outlook is as arbitrary as it is myopic.  If one endeavors to discuss matters of global importance such as the composition of the atmosphere and its impact on life, one must look at the entire geologic history of the planet and understand its evolution.  True story: I have actually seen headlines like "CO2 levels now at highest in human history".   Talk about delusions of grandeur!!  Human history is so short as to be a blip on the earth's geologic timeline.  The highest *anything* during human history is a data point of one when viewed on the timescale of this planet where major events are measured in millions of years.

I feel  that we can't move the ball down the field any further (sports metaphor) unless I address head-on the current political/philosophical landscape related to "global warming".  So here goes... 

After it became obvious that communism/socialism/central planning was a failed endeavor, authoritarians needed a new way to convince the public to give up their freedom in exchange for perceived security.  It was obvious due to historical events that giving up freedom and taking from the rich to give to the poor came with serious economic and societal consequences.  But what if there was a way to make the public believe that those consequences *must* be suffered through for a greater purpose?  Conveniently, the Christian religion was on the down-swing, and a general anti-establishment sentiment was growing in the populous due to the fascist alliance between big business and big government.  As the population rejected institutional religion they regressed to previous forms of religion seen in humanity throughout the ages, namely the worship of nature.  (I'm kind of sweeping through the 1960's & 1970's in this part). 

The anti-war movement merged with the "green" movement to form a political and philosophical opposition to the judeo-christian traditionalists who supported the military-industrial complex.  Therefore the Green movement became both a religion and a political movement, which comes with certain advantages.  For example:  If you disagree with a political philosophy you merely have a difference of opinion, but if you disagree with a religion then you are a heretic (modern term is "climate denier").  Another example:  In a religion everyday mundane activities take on outsized importance like wearing a certain type of hat.  Objectively speaking the act of wearing a hat is of little consequence, but to the believer they are closer to God, and closer to Godliness.   Correspondingly, sorting out cardboard for recycling does nothing to save the environment, but the act of sorting makes the green religion adherent feel as if they are personally saving the world with their actions.

Now, as with all religions there must be both tangible real-world benefits, and also prophesies that simply require faith to believe in.   I would argue that raising awareness about harmful inorganic pollution is a major benefit of the green movement and essentially represents the solid "core values" of the movement that pretty much everyone can get behind.  But the whole CO2-runaway-greenhouse prophesy is where the green philosophy crosses the threshold into mysticism.  In that religion every person is either saving or destroying the planet, and since the very act of living (breathing) creates CO2, according to this religion humans are actually a burden upon the earth, rather than part of it.  In essence, the green movement has become a doomsday cult that is focused on averting the apocalypse, and the only way to achieve that is political domination of their opponents and a curtailment of non-believer's freedom via the employment of authoritarian power through the government.

Taken to the extreme, one could argue that it's actually a suicide-doomsday cult because of the belief among adherents is that there are "too many humans on the planet".  I have seen articles about people getting sterilized so they can't reproduce in order to save the planet from the malign effects of human habitation.  I don't know of an example where a person killed themselves to save the environment... but prediction:  We will see that.

Another interesting feature of this religion is the place that science holds.  In this religion scientists are the saints and prophets as long as they tell the masses what they want to hear (i.e., that their actions are of global importance and the apocalypse draws nigh).  Of course, any scientist who disagrees is ostracized (excommunicated, as it were) and vilified as an apostate.  There are even false prophets like Al Gore who made dramatic predictions about the near future that ultimately turned out to not come to pass.  Since that time, most prophets stick to vague predictions about some point in the future, and the preferred rhetoric has shifted from "global warming" to "climate change" so as to avoid any embarrassment in case the climate actually cools or particular predictions turn out to be wrong.  Indeed, the inherent genius of the term "climate change" is that it allows green-believers to assign outsized importance to otherwise normal variations in weather patterns.  Now every hurricane is an affirmation of their beliefs and proof they they are living in the "end times".  What's that?  A drought in California?  Stand tall holy warriors of climate change, now is your time to step up and save the world before it's too late!  What's that you say?  Droughts were longer and worse in California thousands of years ago?  Never mind that!  It's worse today because we humans have the power to save or kill the planet!!

Another interesting feature is how businesses (including existing "evil" corporations) saw the money-making potential of this new religion early on and capitalized on it.  The idea that they didn't actually need to compete with others as long as their product was required by law and their competitor's product was outlawed because it was "destroying the planet" was too good to resist.  I mean, isn't that the gold standard in marketing where you can make consumers believe that buying the competition's product is destroying the world but buying your product is saving the world?  The environmental-industrial complex rivals the military-industrial complex in some ways, but is unique in that rather than being a matter of pragmatic necessity (as military is), green industry carries the force of religion rooted in delusions of grandeur and mass hysteria.

And now coming back full circle to the place of socialist/communist philosophy in the current green movement.  On of the key tenants of the green movement is that rich people are to blame and poor people are the victims.   However, it should be noted that only rich people associated with the military-industrial complex and the coal/oil/gas industries in particular are to blame.  I find it interesting that the green philosophy allows for people to become rich so long as they are engaged in businesses that promote and benefit from green-related endeavors.  Elon Musk is one of their heroes, yet he received loans from the government financed by taxes taken from working middle-class folks.  And the price of electric cars were subsidized by tax credits, which were ultimately financed by everyday people who were too poor to afford the high-priced cars produced by Tesla.  So you have a scenario of the poor subsidizing the rich, but the poor love it because according to the religion Musk is doing God's work by saving the planet. (Note: personally I like Musk, just using him as an example).  And let's not forget the environmental damage done by all of the mining and refining to get Lithium, Nickel, Cobalt, Cadmium, Copper etc. that go into the electric vehicle - yet these sins are forgiven because the cause is righteous.

So what if the solar panels raise the temperature more than CO2?  So what if the wind turbines and solar-thermal plants kill a bunch of birds - why, those are merely burnt offerings to appease the Gods and forestall the apocalypse.  Let's use cardboard straws to keep all that plastic out of the ocean!  What's that?  You say most of that plastic comes from Asia?  Never mind that!  I'm doing my part to delay the environmental apocalypse by one more millisecond, and I'll be damned if my efforts are minimized by inconvenient geo-political realities.   On the other hand, what if there's a drought in the *desert*?  Oh the horror!  This is a historic event without precedent, and it's definitely because of human activity... and that means you need to vote for my political candidate... so they can outlaw certain products based on their environmental impact... and replace them with other products of *different* environmental impact... which happen to be more expensive... but that just means people need more help from the government to afford these new expensive products... so let's tax the rich and finance these new industries to keep them affordable for the poor.  Viola!  The sublime nexus between socialism and environmentalism.  And if this higher cost of living causes people to have fewer children... why, that's just icing on the cake because the ultimate cause of the earth's problem is humans.

Hopefully you could tell when I flopped between describing the green religion and mocking it... things got a little jumbled but I think the point came through in the writing.   I'll respond to the rest of your response in a different post.

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1 hour ago, Armacing said:

The examples would be the thousands of cases where industries release the "EPA approved amount" of a material into the environment and those living in the communities around the emissions source have no legal recourse due to the safe harbor of the regulation. 

If there are no safe harbor regulatory thresholds, then how can I drive a non-electric car or cook on an outdoor grill without emitting pollutants that I could potentially be held legally liable for? Given the joint and several nature of the liability as you've defined it, and given the evidentiary standard you've defined which requires only that you prove that I indeed did emit such pollutants and that those pollutants did affect the property of others, am I then potentially liable for damages caused by pollution anywhere in the US if not anywhere around the globe just by cooking some burgers on charcoal barbecue in my backyard? How does the system you're imagining preclude these kinds of results?

1 hour ago, Armacing said:

How about the example of W.R. Grace mentioned in this article ?  That company still exists today as a publicly traded company (although I think they are in the process of a leveraged buy-out because I own some shares of it and I got a proxy statement recently).  They were able to avoid a big chunk of their asbestos pollution liability through the bankruptcy process, but I'm saying that after the company runs out of funds and the insurance coverage has been exhausted, the plaintiffs should be allowed to go after the shareholders to make up the difference.  Justice will be served when the problem has been solved and the injured parties have been compensated.  It's obvious the current system doesn't do that.

Aren't the plaintiffs left in the exact same boat if/when the shareholders run out of money and/or declare personal bankruptcy, as well? If more remuneration equals more justice, so be it, but I'm not sure what will really be accomplished by swapping the financial ruin of one innocent party for the financial ruin of another innocent party other than astronomically higher legal expenditures.

Also, it's becoming less clear to me if your primary goal is greater plaintiff justice or if the primary goal is a punitive stick that will force investors to more actively regulate companies with which they invest? If the goal is more justice, to employ a gambler's analogy, this deal seems like a push where you still owe the vigorish (insurance premiums and attorney's fees) at best, and if the goal is greater investor oversight and regulation of the companies in which they invest, do you not then think that the most likely way investors will pursue such oversight and regulation is through governance by voting for it at the ballot box? We'd be right back where we are - where we started.

Quote

Man, this is a good example... so much to work with here!

First I would say that in a free society there is no local light pollution ordinance, so we proceed to scenario #2 right away.  Showing previous case law might be a good defense, so no problems there from a private property standpoint.  If, however, that defense is not successful, the jury (or judge) might find that a little compensation is in order if the offending party continues to shine light across the property line.   At that point it might become obvious to the light-shiner that simply blocking the light as requested by the neighbor would have been a lot less trouble.  The ultimate goal here is to keep this kind of dispute out of the court system and such a finding (involving compensation) might serve as a reminder to the public that cooperation and resolving small disputes are best handled among themselves... and as a reminder that the integrity of property lines will be upheld in a court of law.

I think you're missing the point here. Light will inevitably cross property lines. I live miles from downtown but the light from skyscrapers not only crosses my property lines, it also enters through my windows and into my home even when the shades are drawn. If I find a judge and/or jury that decides a little compensation in order, there potentially would be a large enough class to launch a class action suit and black out downtown, not to mention the city's exposure as a result of streetlights all over town.

What's the downside to clearing up this mess with a simple light pollution ordinance instead of potentially wasting literally everyone's money and time in court? How does increased risk of nuisance lawsuits with less predictable outcomes make a society any more free?

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On 9/21/2021 at 11:48 AM, Armacing said:

How would you define "excess"?  As recently as 50 Million years ago CO2 levels were 2.5 times what they are today, but if you listen to some hysterical pseudo-science people in the media today they say such a level of CO2 would be catastrophic.  Yet, the fossil record tells us the environment was doing just fine 50 million years ago with plenty of life.  If you go back further like 400 million years ago CO2 levels were 5 times what they are today, and the fossil record tells us the earth was teaming with life - and new life forms were expanding and evolving rapidly on land (rapidly over geologic time scales, of course).

I don't know if you've ever heard the term "runaway greenhouse effect", but you should be made aware that during times of much higher CO2 the earth did not experience a runaway greenhouse effect because of the various negative-feedback loops associated with the earth's environment.  Put simply:  Many lifeforms on earth use Carbon and Carbon-containing compounds and the more available it is, the more those lifeforms flourish.

Now, if you want to talk about harmful pollutants that would not otherwise occur in nature and are created by humans as a result of industrial processes, then I'm right there with you saying those pollutants should be eliminated.  But this whole obsession with CO2 is nothing more than a new-age religion/political philosophy.  The CO2-as-a-pollutant concept is designed to cast the widest possible net of human activities so the arbiters of what is "green" feel empowered to comment about the largest number of human activities.  It's not about saving the planet from destruction; it's about power and money.

I think you will be hard pressed to find a person who truly believes humans are capable of extracting enough carbon dioxide from the earth's crust to create a runaway greenhouse effect like the planet Venus (which is often given as an example).  Suffice it to say that the differences between Earth and Venus are a lot more significant than just the % of CO2 in the atmosphere.   Venus is much closer to the sun and the atmosphere is 90-times as thick.  Venus has no magnetic field and it's rotational period is so slow that one day on Venus is longer than one year on Venus.  Venus has no oceans and appears to have experienced catastrophic volcanism in the past.  Yet the mechanics of the volcanism are still not understood, with some scientists theorizing there were large-scale re-surfacing events in the relatively recent geologic past.  As you know, the ultimate source of CO2 in the atmosphere of rocky planets is volcanic activity, and the same is true for earth.

Or stated another way:  So much of the carbon dioxide that was once in the atmosphere is irretrievably locked into the earth's crust that it would be impossible (not to mention highly un-profitable from an economic standpoint) to convert it back into atmospheric CO2.  The only force on our planet capable of creating that much CO2 would be the planet itself in the form of a mass-volcanism event.  And I'm not even talking about a Super-volcano like Yellowstone because that has happened multiple times and life is still here.  I'm talking about Deccan Traps times 10 or something like that, but even in that scenario you're more likely to freeze due to excess SO2 than you are to burn up due to excess CO2.

 

These arguments about Venus and the composition of the Earth's atmosphere 50mm-400mm years ago would make sense if the goal of reducing CO2 emissions were simply to preserve life on earth in general, but I hope it's clear that the goal is to preserve human life. Even more specifically the goal is to minimize the human death and suffering that will inevitably result from climate migrations, food shortages, adverse weather events, economic contraction, and other negative consequences that will make the world less habitable for human life as we know it. 

Life on Earth will almost certainly survive anthropogenic climate change. In fact some human life will almost certainly survive, as well - the amount and condition of that human life is what's in question here. But one way or another the amount of C02 that humans are generating is unsustainable, so ideally I think we'd all like to limit the casualties that will accompany that transition whether it is self-imposed on our own terms or ultimately forced upon us by nature, right? 

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1 hour ago, ruraljuror said:

These arguments about Venus and the composition of the Earth's atmosphere 50mm-400mm years ago would make sense if the goal of reducing CO2 emissions were simply to preserve life on earth in general, but I hope it's clear that the goal is to preserve human life. Even more specifically the goal is to minimize the human death and suffering that will inevitably result from climate migrations, food shortages, adverse weather events, economic contraction, and other negative consequences that will make the world less habitable for human life as we know it. 

Life on Earth will almost certainly survive anthropogenic climate change. In fact some human life will almost certainly survive, as well - the amount and condition of that human life is what's in question here. But one way or another the amount of C02 that humans are generating is unsustainable, so ideally I think we'd all like to limit the casualties that will accompany that transition whether it is self-imposed on our own terms or ultimately forced upon us by nature, right? 

Humans can keep emitting CO2 right up to the point where the run out of things to burn, then it will become unsustainable.  Until that time it is completely sustainable and the earth has the capacity to deal with that CO2 in the same way it always has.  The composition of the atmosphere has been greatly affected by the lifeforms on the earth's surface over the eons and humans are no exception that phenomenon.  Let's say you're right and humans manage to emit enough CO2 so that the environmental effects are deleterious to human life - would that not become a negative feedback loop for human life on earth?  You choose to focus on the anthropogenic aspect of the earth's ecosystem as if humans are separate and removed from the environment rather than living in it and changing it.

When it comes to humans and their relationship to the weather, they have endured ice ages and medieval warm periods and maunder minimums and all the rest.   The planet itself and even the sun are capable of altering the climate drastically and you probably already know that scientists don't know what caused any of the recent ice ages.  Focusing on the anthropogenic nature of the problem with climate:  The earth becomes more productive agriculturally with warmer temps and more C02 - however human life is threatened by ice ages.  If our species is in the business of attempting to manipulate the climate (not saying we should be), we would be pumping out more CO2 than we are now to ensure a warm future.  According to this article we may have inadvertently prevented an ice age that would have claimed many millions of human lives... I'm not sure we have enough data to conclude that, but it does raise an interesting thought experiment.

I tend to think the effect on humans along with how much of the change in climate over the years is due to humans is greatly over-estimated for political reasons.  Take a look at this article where they estimate 83 million deaths due to global warming.  They don't even say how those deaths happen, although they do correctly point out they are a result of political decisions.  The image caption talks about people who don't have air condition or are homeless, but I would argue back those people were oppressed and impoverished by their government, which made them vulnerable.  They reference a  predicted change of climate 70 years into the future, but the prediction is based on past observations.  Notice they reference the change in temperature since the start of the industrial revolution, but it has already been widely acknowledged that we didn't have access to accurate world-wide temperatures until the 1960's with the launch of weather satellites.  Any data before that time was highly localized, subject to measurement inaccuracy, and failed to take into account the changing landscape at measurement locations due to human construction.  Measuring the average temperature of the planet is no easy task, and we really didn't have the technology to do it until quite recently.   Thus our atmospheric data set is too limited to make any long-term conclusions from and we need to focus on the geologic record.

Has the planet gotten warmer since humans started keeping accurate records?  Probably.  How much was due to human activity?  Certainly not all of it.  The medieval warm period remains somewhat of a mystery but one theory involves increased solar activity and decreased volcanic activity, or perhaps ocean currents.  We certainly experience the effect of ocean currents today with El Nino and La Nina, and those weren't really described by science until around the time of the industrial revolution.  The point is the earth's climate and environment are a lot more complex than the % of CO2 in the atmosphere, but discussing that complexity does not make for good political talking points.

In that article about 83 million deaths they argue for the need to create and trade in "carbon credits", which is basically a tax paid for energy generation.  I ask you - if emitting CO2 spells certain doom, why would governments continue to allow it and simply put a tax on it?  Is it presumed that people will not pay the tax?  Is it presumed people will be too poor to pay the tax?  It's worth pointing out that the prescribed solution is not a moratorium on CO2 emissions, but merely the creation of a new Wall Street-style asset class that is mandated by the government and traded by investors.   Notice how the graph portrays per-capita CO2 emissions instead of total annual CO2 - as if the earth cared how much CO2 per person was emitted before deciding to warm up.  That graph is all the proof you need to know that the media is carrying water for China on this issue because all that matters is total emissions and China is by far in the lead.  Yet showing that would immediately cause the reader to ask : "Hey, why should everything I buy become more expensive due to carbon credits when China is way worse and they don't have to suffer through that?".  Remember that the Paris Climate Accords allow China to continue to produce more CO2 every year for the foreseeable future - and every other country agreed to that.  Does that sound to you like they are worried about 83 million deaths?

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1 hour ago, Armacing said:

The composition of the atmosphere has been greatly affected by the lifeforms on the earth's surface over the eons and humans are no exception that phenomenon. 

This is a true statement, but it completely ignores the scale of the impact that humans have had on the environment.  Has there ever been another species on the planet that has had 5% as much of an impact on the chemical composition of the atmosphere as humanity? Correct me if I'm wrong of course, but it seems to me like your argument here is pretty hollow.

 

1 hour ago, Armacing said:

Let's say you're right and humans manage to emit enough CO2 so that the environmental effects are deleterious to human life - would that not become a negative feedback loop for human life on earth?  You choose to focus on the anthropogenic aspect of the earth's ecosystem as if humans are separate and removed from the environment rather than living in it and changing it.

Yes, there would be a negative feedback loop and I am totally comfortable framing humanity as a part of the environment that is living in it and changing it. No complaint here except that it completely ignores what I said in my last post about the goal being to minimize human suffering and death. A negative feedback loop like what you describe would be a very painful thing for humanity to experience.

 

1 hour ago, Armacing said:

When it comes to humans and their relationship to the weather, they have endured ice ages and medieval warm periods and maunder minimums and all the rest.   

You're ignoring the minimization of death and suffering again. 

 

1 hour ago, Armacing said:

The planet itself and even the sun are capable of altering the climate drastically and you probably already know that scientists don't know what caused any of the recent ice ages.  Focusing on the anthropogenic nature of the problem with climate:  The earth becomes more productive agriculturally with warmer temps and more C02 - however human life is threatened by ice ages.  If our species is in the business of attempting to manipulate the climate (not saying we should be), we would be pumping out more CO2 than we are now to ensure a warm future.  According to this article we may have inadvertently prevented an ice age that would have claimed many millions of human lives... I'm not sure we have enough data to conclude that, but it does raise an interesting thought experiment.

Eventually the sun will consume the earth. Of course, a Texas sized asteroid could hit us before then and render that issue moot. Then again, perhaps a super volcano apocalypse will beat the asteroid to the punch. 

Just because there are many, many natural ways that humanity might come to an end, would we not still want to avoid ways that humanity might come to an end as a result of human causes if possible? Just because the Milky Way will eventually get sucked into a black hole doesn't meant that we shouldn't try to avoid a nuclear holocaust in the short term, right? 

Further, lets say that it was a natural cause like a Texas-sized asteroid that was going to end humanity. Would we not do everything in our power to try to stop it? What if there were only a 10% chance that the asteroid was going to hit Earth? Would we not want to be prepared for the worse even with the odds in our favor despite the fact that humanity had no responsibility in creating the asteroid in the first place? 

And yes it's true, agriculture does much better in warmer climates than it's going to do in an ice age, but I'm not sure how that's relevant. If the evidence indicated that human behavior was leading us into the next ice age, I'd certainly advocate maybe we ought to adjust that behavior in order to avoid an ice age, as well.

I've also read that C02 emissions may have kept us out of the cyclical ice age we were due for, to which if true I say 'cheers to first couple stages of the Industrial Revolution for unknowingly doing us a major solid', but again I'm not sure how this is relevant to our current pickle. Maybe the Ice Age would have been worse than the worst case scenario of the Warming outcomes that humanity might experience instead, but if we have the opportunity now to avoid those worst case scenario warming outcomes nonetheless, then it's pretty clearly a moral imperative to do so.

1 hour ago, Armacing said:

I tend to think the effect on humans along with how much of the change in climate over the years is due to humans is greatly over-estimated for political reasons.  Take a look at this article where they estimate 83 million deaths due to global warming.  They don't even say how those deaths happen, although they do correctly point out they are a result of political decisions.  The image caption talks about people who don't have air condition or are homeless, but I would argue back those people were oppressed and impoverished by their government, which made them vulnerable. 

Why is it relevant that the government impoverished the people? I assume that you're not advocating for the government to provide air conditioning to everyone in order to correct the mistake, right?

Further, is poverty not the natural state that we're all born into absent any laws on the books about estate and succession?

1 hour ago, Armacing said:

They reference a  predicted change of climate 70 years into the future, but the prediction is based on past observations.  Notice they reference the change in temperature since the start of the industrial revolution, but it has already been widely acknowledged that we didn't have access to accurate world-wide temperatures until the 1960's with the launch of weather satellites.  Any data before that time was highly localized, subject to measurement inaccuracy, and failed to take into account the changing landscape at measurement locations due to human construction.  Measuring the average temperature of the planet is no easy task, and we really didn't have the technology to do it until quite recently.   Thus our atmospheric data set is too limited to make any long-term conclusions from and we need to focus on the geologic record.

I've been hearing a lot of data sufficiency arguments these days (mostly about vaccine efficacy) but I have a really hard time believing those promoting such arguments hold this kind of data standard to anything outside of popular opinions that conflict with their own ideologies.

Alas, you're right of course that the data set is limited. You're also right that predictions are based on past observations, as are most if not all good predictions, though it's worth noting that these predictions also tend to take into account a wide range of future conditions that may arise in order to flesh out the modeling. 

At this point, however, a lot of smart people have spent their entire careers analyzing the limited, imperfect data that we have available, and they have then taken into account historic conditions and extrapolated a likely range of future conditions in order to make the most educated guess possible, and as it turns out, those scientists have come to a near 100% consensus on more than a few of these issues. 

What makes you think your assessment of the data sufficiency is more appropriate than the assessment of the people who spend their lives testing and defending their findings and assertions?

1 hour ago, Armacing said:

Has the planet gotten warmer since humans started keeping accurate records?  Probably.  How much was due to human activity?  Certainly not all of it.  The medieval warm period remains somewhat of a mystery but one theory involves increased solar activity and decreased volcanic activity, or perhaps ocean currents.  We certainly experience the effect of ocean currents today with El Nino and La Nina, and those weren't really described by science until around the time of the industrial revolution.  The point is the earth's climate and environment are a lot more complex than the % of CO2 in the atmosphere, but discussing that complexity does not make for good political talking points.

Again, everything you say here is accurate as far as I'm aware. Are you under the impression that the scientists referenced above don't take into account complexities in the earth's environment beyond C02 percentage? If so, you might be surprised how complex some of the modeling has become these days. 

 

1 hour ago, Armacing said:

In that article about 83 million deaths they argue for the need to create and trade in "carbon credits", which is basically a tax paid for energy generation.  I ask you - if emitting CO2 spells certain doom, why would governments continue to allow it and simply put a tax on it?  Is it presumed that people will not pay the tax?  Is it presumed people will be too poor to pay the tax?  It's worth pointing out that the prescribed solution is not a moratorium on CO2 emissions, but merely the creation of a new Wall Street-style asset class that is mandated by the government and traded by investors.   Notice how the graph portrays per-capita CO2 emissions instead of total annual CO2 - as if the earth cared how much CO2 per person was emitted before deciding to warm up.  That graph is all the proof you need to know that the media is carrying water for China on this issue because all that matters is total emissions and China is by far in the lead.  Yet showing that would immediately cause the reader to ask : "Hey, why should everything I buy become more expensive due to carbon credits when China is way worse and they don't have to suffer through that?".  Remember that the Paris Climate Accords allow China to continue to produce more CO2 every year for the foreseeable future - and every other country agreed to that.  Does that sound to you like they are worried about 83 million deaths?

I'm a bit at a loss here with you decrying the carbon tax system. As with Obamacare before it, the whole carbon tax structure was created to appease those who claimed they would only support market-based solutions. 

And I'm not sure why you keep referencing what China does as though that's something the US, UN, or signers of the Paris Climate Accord can control. Assuming that you're not advocating for invading China and crushing their industry (which we incidentally are major beneficiaries of, as has been pointed out to you by others in this thread) thereby forcing them to lower their emissions, then the best possible way for us to influence China's emissions is to 'clean up our own house' first as @Rockatansky said, and by developing clean energy technology that's effective and cheap enough that makes dirtier technology inefficient and obsolete, by comparison. Win/Win.

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8 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

 

This is a true statement, but it completely ignores the scale of the impact that humans have had on the environment.  Has there ever been another species on the planet that has had 5% as much of an impact on the chemical composition of the atmosphere as humanity? Correct me if I'm wrong of course, but it seems to me like your argument here is pretty hollow.

Ever heard of the Azolla Event?  That's one species theorized to be responsible for all of the recent ice ages.

8 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

Yes, there would be a negative feedback loop and I am totally comfortable framing humanity as a part of the environment that is living in it and changing it. No complaint here except that it completely ignores what I said in my last post about the goal being to minimize human suffering and death. A negative feedback loop like what you describe would be a very painful thing for humanity to experience.

And I suppose living under an authoritarian green regime is not "very painful" for the poorest members of society who are bound to bear the cost reducing carbon emissions?

8 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

You're ignoring the minimization of death and suffering again. 

Just like you're ignoring the death and suffering caused by the proposed solutions to the "climate problem".

8 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

Just because there are many, many natural ways that humanity might come to an end, would we not still want to avoid ways that humanity might come to an end as a result of human causes if possible? 

That's what I'm trying to do by arguing against the global-warming philosophy.  This is a human-induced political catastrophe that has the potential to unnecessarily raise the cost of living and lower the standard of living for millions of people, all while a select few well connected people benefit politically and financially.  This is crony-capitalism writ large in the name of science;  an overt move towards collectivism and authoritarianism billed as salvation from a prophesied apocalypse. 

8 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

Further, lets say that it was a natural cause like a Texas-sized asteroid that was going to end humanity. Would we not do everything in our power to try to stop it? What if there were only a 10% chance that the asteroid was going to hit Earth? Would we not want to be prepared for the worse even with the odds in our favor despite the fact that humanity had no responsibility in creating the asteroid in the first place? 

It should be voluntary whether or not you contribute to the anti-asteroid effort.  Some religious whackos have been waiting for that asteroid to hitearth their whole lives, and we shouldn't force them to contribute to destroying it if they don't want to.

8 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

And yes it's true, agriculture does much better in warmer climates than it's going to do in an ice age, but I'm not sure how that's relevant. 

It's only relevant when you realize the normal state of the earth's climate during the Pleistocene epoch is to be in an ice age.

8 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

I've also read that C02 emissions may have kept us out of the cyclical ice age we were due for, to which if true I say 'cheers to first couple stages of the Industrial Revolution for unknowingly doing us a major solid again, but I'm not sure how this is relevant to our current pickle. Maybe the Ice Age would have been worse than the worst case scenario of the Warming outcomes that humanity might experience instead, but if we have the opportunity now to avoid those worst case scenario outcomes nonetheless, then it's pretty clearly a moral imperative to do so.

So do you concede the possibility that continuing to produce CO2 to forestall the next ice age may in fact be our "opportunity to avoid those worst case scenario outcomes"?

8 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

Why is it relevant that the government impoverished the people? I assume that you're not advocating for the government to provide air conditioning to everyone in order to correct the mistake, right?  Further, is poverty not the natural state that we're all born into absent any laws on the books about estate and succession?

This is just an interesting side note about the picture shown - homeless people with no air conditioning in a shelter.  The irony is that the article prescribes government intervention to save the people without acknowledging that it was government intervention that put those people in that situation to begin with.   As to your other comment, it doesn't really matter what you're born into as long as you're allowed to work hard and become rich.

8 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

At this point, however, a lot of smart people have spent their entire careers analyzing the limited, imperfect data that we have available, and they have then taken into account historic conditions and extrapolated a likely range of future conditions in order to make the most educated guess possible, and as it turns out, those scientists have come to a near 100% consensus on more than a few of these issues. 

There are dissenters among climate scientists but they are vilified for not agreeing with the consensus.  What is the dissenting opinion?  As Tom Cruise would ask, what is the minority report?   

8 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

What makes you think your assessment of the data sufficiency is more appropriate than the assessment of the people who spend their lives testing and defending their findings and assertions?  Again, everything you say here is accurate as far as I'm aware. Are you under the impression that the scientists referenced above don't take into account complexities in the earth's environment beyond C02 percentage? If so, you might be surprised how complex some of the modeling has become these days. 

I'm proposing that those scientists have various biases and conflicts of interest - that they are human as well an it's not easy to make a living when you're a researcher.  So they research where the money is and they get a grant from some entity (political, business, etc.) that has a vested interest in promoting the concept of climate apocalypse, and that is the research that gets done.  There's no money in exploring why C02 won't mean disaster, and the scientific finding of "nothing will happen" or "we don't know" doesn't have that news-bite worthy pizzazz that the finding "the world will end" or "83 million will die" has.  So they give the customer what they want and are rewarded if they do so.

8 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

I'm a bit at a loss here with you decrying the carbon tax system. As with Obamacare before it, the whole carbon tax structure was created to appease those who claimed they would only support market-based solutions. 

The carbon credit system is not "market-based", that's just a corruption of the term "market".  Markets are voluntary and spontaneous by nature, but the carbon credit system is anything but voluntary.

8 minutes ago, ruraljuror said:

And I'm not sure why you keep referencing what China does as though that's something the US, UN, or signers of the Paris Climate Accord can control. Assuming that you're not advocating for invading China and crushing their industry (which we incidentally are major beneficiaries of, as has been pointed out to you by others in this thread) thereby forcing them to lower their emissions, then the best possible way for us to influence China's emissions is to 'clean up our own house' first as @Rockatansky said, and by developing clean energy technology that's effective and cheap enough that makes dirtier technology inefficient and obsolete. 

I don't see how destroying our own economy convinces china to destroy their economy.  If anything it serves as a cautionary tale.  My point is if those in attendance truly believed in a CO2-induced-apocalypse, then why did they agree to a plan that asks a few small countries to drastically limit their CO2 (like Denmark, for example), but allows China to increase their CO2 by an amount that far exceeds the reductions suffered by other countries?  Why even have an agreement if the end result is still death by CO2?  The whole thing was a farce and an obvious political ploy to consolidate power in the government and subsidize a bunch of green industries that well connected people believed they would profit from.  In the case of Denmark, they thought "Hey, we will pay more for energy, but the money we make from selling windmills to these other suckers will more than make up for it".

If not invading China, you should at least be advocating for boycotting China in favor of buying goods form countries that actually lower their CO2 output - if you believe in that sort of thing.

 

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On 9/15/2021 at 1:00 PM, ruraljuror said:

I'm open to the possibility that the world might be a better place if limited liability as a means of shielding investors had never been conceived, and if mutual funds had never existed, etc. I have not idea what that world would truly look like and what unintended benefits and detriments would accompany it. 

Well it's good you're open to the idea!  Why not vote libertarian next time and let's see what happens? :tw_lol:

On 9/15/2021 at 1:00 PM, ruraljuror said:

But why do you think it's a good thing that somebody might lose their house for being a shareholder in a high risk company. To be clear, I understand that you believe this to be the best way of providing oversight to insure the companies that one is invested in is not exposing itself to "too much" liability. But what is "too much"? Do you also think it would be a good thing that somebody might lose their house for being a shareholder in a low risk company? What about somebody who loses their house by being a shareholder in a it-seemed-like-a-no-risk company? In your system, it seems clear that those outcomes would be inevitable too, but there is no moral hazard example to be made out of these latter two lower-risk investors. Are they then just collateral damage whose only effect on the market will be to serve as a cautionary tale and stifle investment? What is gained to justify these losses?

I hope nobody loses their house, I'm just looking for the incentive for people to take responsibility for their investments, and for those who are harmed by corporate activities to receive just compensation.  Of course there will be some people who do suffer loss, but the hope is that would be minimized by the market's own ability to price risk into assets.  In addition to just compensation for injured parties, I theorize we would also see increased economic dynamism by moving away from inflexible regulation to case-by-case resolutions of problems.  Also, we should see a decrease in corruption because there would be no incentive for businesses to lobby and bribe regulators because there is nothing the regulators can do to help or hurt the business.  Would that corruption shift to judicial corruption?  I tend to doubt that - my observation is that the judicial branch of our legal system seems to have more integrity (in general) than the administrative side.  But I could be wrong on that point so I'm open to exploration of that assumption.

On 9/15/2021 at 1:00 PM, ruraljuror said:

It gets a bit trickier to discuss this stuff when we have to include some kind of communication framework that doesn't yet exist in order to make the equation add up, but I am curious about the first possibility you mentioned and what you are imagining will compel companies to adopt new disclosure and auditing processes? Also, who do you envision paying for and conducting the audits? 

The corporations will pay for the audits, same as today.  As to who is making them do it:  Insurance? Banks? Stock Exchanges as a condition for being listed?  All of those parties would have a vested interest in communicating and mitigating risks.

On 9/15/2021 at 1:00 PM, ruraljuror said:

I do like the idea of and can see benefits to every shareholder being an activist shareholder, but I also think it is a much better theoretical concept than a practical one. There are between 3 and 0 people at any given company that know literally everything that's going on at the company where they work day in and day out, so there's no amount of communication that will enable shareholders to have a complete understanding of their daily risk exposure. Further, this whole framework could put an end to actual activist investing, since would-be-activist investors would have to expose themselves to the very risk they seek to eliminate in order to attempt spur reform from within the company.

For a given corporation you probably don't need to know about the 1 million little risks, you probably need to only know about the top 5 or 10 big risks.  Market mechanisms will allow professionals to identify and disclose those risks, just as business risks today are disclosed in the MD&A.

On 9/15/2021 at 1:00 PM, ruraljuror said:

 No amount of communication can bridge those gaps or eliminate those risks, so why punish passive investors who were in the worst position of all parties involved to identify and minimize those risks. 

That's the situation today because they don't need to know... But in the future system I'm proposing, investors would not be left in the dark for the reasons mentioned above.

On 9/15/2021 at 1:00 PM, ruraljuror said:

I think by focusing on business structure and insurance, you may have missed my point, which was that even a very low risk investment (like 5k for something trivial like an ice cream truck) could potentially lead to negative outcomes that are grossly disproportionate to the potential reward.  Without limited liability, I would never invest in a venture like this because it doesn't matter how responsible my brother is - it's always possible that he commits some act of negligence that negates the liability policy and could leave me on the hook for thousands of times more money than the investment could have ever earned. The risk could never be justified and money for these kinds of investments would all but dry up entirely.

But that's how it is today.  People make small investments, become entangled in businesses that are uninsured, then a catastrophe happens and they lose their personal assets in excess of their original investment.  Yet people still take those risks.  You seem to be painting a picture that the only way investment is even possible is if there is some guarantee of limited liability, which is simply not true.  A great many people choose to make risky investments, and that is their right as investors.

On 9/15/2021 at 1:00 PM, ruraljuror said:

 Also, the relatively small scope of operation for most sole proprietors and general partnerships makes it much easier to insure against liabilities that are likely to be encountered in the scope of business, but one of the main factors at play here is that these kinds of businesses are typically owner/operated, so these kind of operators can tolerate these risks because they're the ones in the best position to minimize it as well as to be held accountable if and when they fall short and to benefit directly from the reward when they don't. Resting liability on the shoulders of those in the best position to minimize it is goal.

That's what I'm trying to do because investors are in the best position to minimize the risk.  Investors elect the board, which chooses management, which controls the risk.  Management just does what they are told.  The board sets the direction, and if the shareholders are unhappy, the board will take action.  But regardless of whether the risk is minimized or not, the owners of that company, whether sole proprietors or shareholders, need to pay for any injuries caused by their company that are not covered by insurance or the assets of the company.

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15 hours ago, Armacing said:

Ever heard of the Azolla Event?  That's one species theorized to be responsible for all of the recent ice ages.

I haven't heard of the Azolla Event.

Before diving in, I'm curious how you think the data sufficiency and breadth/quality of the research surrounding this Azolla event compares to the data sufficiency and breadth/quality of research on anthropogenic climate change. You know, just to make sure that you're applying the same scrutiny so we can talk apples to apples here.

15 hours ago, Armacing said:

And I suppose living under an authoritarian green regime is not "very painful" for the poorest members of society who are bound to bear the cost reducing carbon emissions?

Can you give me an example of what living under an authoritarian green regime looks like? As I'm sure you're aware, there are a lot of authoritarian regimes already in power in the world as well as a lot of authoritarian movements that are gaining steam, but none of them seem to be using environmental justice as their means of gaining or retaining power. Religious exploitation, stoking racial/class divisions,  and voter suppression tend to be the dominant tactics of which I'm aware, but correct me if I'm wrong of course. 

But you're right that living under an authoritarian rules is painful for the poorest members of society. For example, rich Texan women will have no problem flying out of state to get an abortion and covering their tracks, while the poor women of Texas in need of an abortion will be the ones who suffer.

I'll also note that "who is bound to bear the cost of reducing carbon decisions" is a political problem, not to be conflated with excess atmospheric CO2 as it relates to the habitability of earth for humans, which is a physics problem. As a contemporary corollary, the unvaccinated COVID denier views the virus through the prism of a political problem at first, but it's usually not until right before they're intubated that they realize that physics was the real problem all along. It's never too late to correct a mistake, until it's too late to correct a mistake.

15 hours ago, Armacing said:

Just like you're ignoring the death and suffering caused by the proposed solutions to the "climate problem".

I'm doing no such thing. I have no doubt that transitioning to an environmentally sustainable economic system will cause some human suffering. The issue is whether we do our best to proactively make that transition in a way that will minimize said suffering, or if we'll reactively just let the cards fall where they may and let nature implement the suffering on what will most likely be a much larger scale. 

Even if we accept your argument as true that it's sustainable for humans to continue emitting CO2 right up to "where the run out of things to burn," you're still implicitly acknowledging that we're going to have to transition away from fossil fuels eventually. We live on a finite planet, with finite fossil fuel (or any material for that matter) resources - an economic structure that relies on continuous growth and unlimited non-reusable resources will eventually collapse. The only question is, again, if we control the transition or if we wait until all the resources are gone before we come to terms with the reality of this pretty irrefutable premise. Seems to me that he better option is pretty clearly using those remaining resources in order to make the transition to a more sustainable way of life much less painful for everyone.

15 hours ago, Armacing said:

It should be voluntary whether or not you contribute to the anti-asteroid effort.  Some religious whackos have been waiting for that asteroid to hitearth their whole lives, and we shouldn't force them to contribute to destroying it if they don't want to.

Sure, voluntary in the sense that they don't have to proactively do anything, and they'd be free and welcome to protest against their tax dollars being used to support the Armageddon space crew's mission as well, but the US, for one, is free to allocate those tax dollars in support of a mission intended to enable the continued existence of the US, as well.

15 hours ago, Armacing said:

It's only relevant when you realize the normal state of the earth's climate during the Pleistocene epoch is to be in an ice age.

Why are we talking about pre-human eras again? I though we dismissed this already.

15 hours ago, Armacing said:

So do you concede the possibility that continuing to produce CO2 to forestall the next ice age may in fact be our "opportunity to avoid those worst case scenario outcomes"?

Of course it's possible! We may have dodged a serious bullet here. 

It's also possible that smoking two packs of cigarettes a day while visiting Congo and staying enveloped in a cloud of smoke kept some ill-advised safari tourist from catching malaria. We'll never know. But in either case, continuing to smoke those two packs a day is much more likely to end is life prematurely than it is to extend his life again by pure happenstance. 

15 hours ago, Armacing said:

This is just an interesting side note about the picture shown - homeless people with no air conditioning in a shelter.  The irony is that the article prescribes government intervention to save the people without acknowledging that it was government intervention that put those people in that situation to begin with.   As to your other comment, it doesn't really matter what you're born into as long as you're allowed to work hard and become rich.

Why do you think there are poor people who live in countries where there isn't much government intervention? Why were there 'poor' people in places before government even existed?

And it does matter whether or not poverty is human's natural state, because it kind of undermines your ability to scapegoat government for all the ills of the world. Government has created plenty of problems, but it's solved more. If that weren't the case, then not only would we be living in the dark ages, but we likely wouldn't even know that the dark ages (or any other age) ever happened. 

15 hours ago, Armacing said:

There are dissenters among climate scientists but they are vilified for not agreeing with the consensus.  What is the dissenting opinion?  As Tom Cruise would ask, what is the minority report?   

It used to be commonly repeated that 97% of climate scientists concurred with the consensus on anthropogenic climate science, but that wasn't technically true.  In actuality, it was 97% of peer reviewed/published research on the subject (at whatever time that 97% figure was distilled) supported the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis. You should go check out the other 3% of papers if you want to see the minority report, but what you'll find is most if not all of them have been retracted or could not be repeated or contained mistakes that have now been corrected by the research teams. I think checking into this stuff would be enlightening and a great use of your time.

There are still disputes among climate scientists, of course, but they almost exclusively seem to revolve around issues of what changes to expect, to what degree, when they will occur.  The issues that you're stuck on are largely settled at this point - of course they could still be wrong, but then again so could you, right? This is where credibility, expertise, and a little humility can be very helpful.

15 hours ago, Armacing said:

I'm proposing that those scientists have various biases and conflicts of interest - that they are human as well an it's not easy to make a living when you're a researcher.  So they research where the money is and they get a grant from some entity (political, business, etc.) that has a vested interest in promoting the concept of climate apocalypse, and that is the research that gets done.  There's no money in exploring why C02 won't mean disaster, and the scientific finding of "nothing will happen" or "we don't know" doesn't have that news-bite worthy pizzazz that the finding "the world will end" or "83 million will die" has.  So they give the customer what they want and are rewarded if they do so.

Of course scientists have biases and various conflicts of interest, but you're mistaken to think that there's no money to be made in doing research aimed at disproving or at least undermining the credibility of the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis. There have been no shortage of fossil fuel backed think tanks and research teams trying to muddy the waters on the issue for several decades now.

My favorite example, of course, is Richard Muller who was a physics professor and climate skeptic who was hired by one of the Koch Brother foundations in order to disprove climate change. The very process of conducting that research, however, completely changed his mind on the issue - after which he said: "I now believe that there has been significant warming for the last 260 years...The clear evidence... is that essentially all of that is caused by humans."

15 hours ago, Armacing said:

The carbon credit system is not "market-based", that's just a corruption of the term "market".  Markets are voluntary and spontaneous by nature, but the carbon credit system is anything but voluntary.

Fair enough. I don't particularly like it either, but it was designed with the intent to appease those who prefer market-based solutions. Some people have a hard time acknowledging problems for which their ideology provides no effective solutions so they essentially put blinders on. As a result, other people are in effect are incentivized to try and frame the solution in a more palatable way in order to help some within the former group of people come to terms at the very least that there is in fact a problem that must be addressed. Recognizing and identifying the problem is a necessary first step to solving it, so here we are, with imperfect, compromised solutions as always.

15 hours ago, Armacing said:

I don't see how destroying our own economy convinces china to destroy their economy.  If anything it serves as a cautionary tale.  My point is if those in attendance truly believed in a CO2-induced-apocalypse, then why did they agree to a plan that asks a few small countries to drastically limit their CO2 (like Denmark, for example), but allows China to increase their CO2 by an amount that far exceeds the reductions suffered by other countries?  Why even have an agreement if the end result is still death by CO2?  The whole thing was a farce and an obvious political ploy to consolidate power in the government and subsidize a bunch of green industries that well connected people believed they would profit from.  In the case of Denmark, they thought "Hey, we will pay more for energy, but the money we make from selling windmills to these other suckers will more than make up for it".

I can't keep track. Is there some global authoritarian green regime that's going to crush us all under its boot or is there an ineffectual international body that can't even get China under control  and sets unenforceable benchmarks that will lead to doom even if met? Is this not a bit contradictory, or am I missing something?

I would think that you would be on board with attempting to make the transition away from fossil fuels a gradual process that will minimize negative economic impacts. As with the carbon tax, these policies are crafted to be compromise with people who share your way of thinking, but it's almost as if you resent having your position taken into account. It's confusing to me.

But you're of course right that plenty of people who are "well connected " will profit the shift to greener technologies. That said, plenty of "well connected" people are currently profiting from fossil fuels, so I'm not sure what the relevant point is here with regard to climate change. This seems like a crony capitalism issue, not a science issue, or even a political issue exclusive to green technologies.

15 hours ago, Armacing said:

If not invading China, you should at least be advocating for boycotting China in favor of buying goods form countries that actually lower their CO2 output - if you believe in that sort of thing.

 

I prefer to buy American! 

And I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "If not invading China"  - but it sort of seems like you want to invade China, which is not a great idea, but I'm honestly afraid to try to talk you out of it for fear that you'll dig in and that I'm going to be back here making the argument as to why nuclear war is a bad thing this afternoon, which I'd really like to avoid.

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2 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

I haven't heard of the Azolla Event.  Before diving in, I'm curious how you think the data sufficiency and breadth/quality of the research surrounding this Azolla event compares to the data sufficiency and breadth/quality of research on anthropogenic climate change. You know, just to make sure that you're applying the same scrutiny so we can talk apples to apples here.

To clarify, I'm not casting doubt on the methods and calculations used by climate researchers.  I'm sure they are doing the best that they can with limited data, but you seem to be pitching the idea that scientists can take an insufficient data set and massage it into an "agreed upon" data set, which then becomes the basis for a conclusion, which then becomes a political movement that (coincidentally) involves a lot of taxing and no real reduction on C02 production (globally).  Does this not seem wrong to you.

I say go ahead and take a look at the Azolla event because if you trust the scientists about global warming you will trust them about Azolla.  Perhaps humans are the earth's answer to Azolla?  We're here to undo the nasty bit of work done by that stupid aquatic fern.

2 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

Can you give me an example of what living under an authoritarian green regime looks like? As I'm sure you're aware, there are a lot of authoritarian regimes already in power in the world as well as a lot of authoritarian movements that are gaining steam, but none of them seem to be using environmental justice as their means of gaining or retaining power. Religious exploitation, stoking racial/class divisions,  and voter suppression tend to be the dominant tactics of which I'm aware, but correct me if I'm wrong of course. 

I will ignore the term "environmental justice" because I get what your question really is... As for an example of green authoritarianism, take a look at what's happening in the UK now.  The government shut down their coal power plants (most of them) via the carbon credits system because of the carbon trading system, but now the cost of power is way up.   Yet the clean energy sources they have are not reliable in terms of continued power output during all weather conditions, so they have to supplement by guying energy from Europe (especially France and it's nuclear power).  So you have an authoritarian government that is not allowing the market to offer all forms of energy generation and let consumers choose, and the result is a more vulnerable electrical grid, higher costs, and a lower standard of living for its citizens.  To add insult to injury, any reduction in CO2 pollution achieved by this state of affairs was more than offset by China's increase in emissions, so the UK's little plan to save the world has already failed miserably.  And the UK does not serve as an example to the world because their transition was so ill conceived that it merely serves as a cautionary tale to other nations about the perils of interfering in the energy market.  Raising the cost of energy raises the cost of everything, which makes life harder for everyone, but especially the poor.

2 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

I'll also note that "who is bound to bear the cost of reducing carbon decisions" is a political problem, not to be conflated with excess atmospheric CO2 as it relates to the habitability of earth for humans, which is a physics problem.

I thought you already accepted the idea that the earth will still be habitable for humans even at max CO2... did you not accept that concept?

3 hours ago, ruraljuror said:

 I have no doubt that transitioning to an environmentally sustainable economic system will cause some human suffering. The issue is whether we do our best to proactively make that transition in a way that will minimize said suffering, or if we'll reactively just let the cards fall where they may and let nature implement the suffering on what will most likely be a much larger scale. 

Burning fossil fuels in such a way that C02 is the only emission is environmentally sustainable.  CO2 is used by the environment, it's part of the environment.  It's not toxic to any living creatures (in atmospheric concentrations).  Your whole argument hinges on the unproven assumption that humans are able to produce enough CO2 to create an environmental catastrophe and I just don't see it.  What's the disaster?  Melting glaciers?  Rising sea levels?  All that has happened during the time of human inhabitance on earth and we're still here.  It will happen again, and go the other way with an ice age as well.  CO2 levels rise and fall naturally and there's nothing you can do to stop it.  We, as a species need to be adaptable and raise up the standard of living for all people on earth so they have the physical resources to deal with whatever nature throws at them.  And you can't build material wealth by destroying wealth with inefficiency - which is what all the CO2-boogeyman laws are doing.

Instead of trying to control the climate, which is a failed endeavor from the start, let's build up strong economies with the maximum amount of wealth so the resources to react to disasters are there when we need them.   What's the difference between disaster response in Myanmar v/s Florida?  The storms are the same, but one has years of suffering and hardship and the other rebuilds quickly.  The difference is wealth, but you don't seem concerned by the massive destruction of wealth caused by these anti-global-warming laws.  That's a major oversight on your part because the destruction of wealth and the perpetuation of poverty threatens human existence more than changing temperatures do.

The other thing we need to do is eliminate the barriers to movement for humans around the globe.  All governments need to make it easy, cheap, and efficient for people to move to different countries legally and obtain citizenship without too much difficulty.  To enter the US and become a citizen should be as simple as booking a flight and signing your name to a citizenship roster and "Boom", you're an American... And it should be the same for every other country around the world.  Freedom to move as the climate changes will be essential to making sure we have the people where we need them to both move away from adverse climactic conditions and take advantage of new favorable climactic conditions.  Furthermore, Antarctica needs to be opened up to civilian settlement with a treaty arrangement similar to Svalbard where people from any country can come and work visa-free.

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

Why are we talking about pre-human eras again? I though we dismissed this already.

The Pleistocene is not a pre-human era, it ended 11,000 years ago.  Humans have been around longer than that.

But we are also discussing the environment on a global scale and discussing the natural evolution of the environment based on the actions of organisms living on the surface.  I do not agree with the idea of ignoring what geology teaches us about the ancient atmosphere in pre-human eras because it is most instructive when calibrating our reaction to alarmist claims.

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

Of course it's possible! We may have dodged a serious bullet here.   It's also possible that smoking two packs of cigarettes a day while visiting Congo and staying enveloped in a cloud of smoke kept some ill-advised safari tourist from catching malaria. We'll never know. But in either case, continuing to smoke those two packs a day is much more likely to end is life prematurely than it is to extend his life again by pure happenstance. 

Then if we don't really know whether more CO2 is hurting or helping, why are some people so determined to impose their authoritarian political will on others in the name of "saving the world"?

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

Why do you think there are poor people who live in countries where there isn't much government intervention? Why were there 'poor' people in places before government even existed?

In human society there is always government.  Sometimes it's a tribal council, sometimes it's a witchdoctor, sometimes it's a village elder.  Wherever the natural human inclination for innovation is restricted by "tradition" or "restriction" or "regulation" or "taboo" - you name it - the inability to try new things and do something that other people don't like results in cultural stagnation, which is economic stagnation,  and the perpetuation of poverty.

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

And it does matter whether or not poverty is human's natural state, because it kind of undermines your ability to scapegoat government for all the ills of the world. Government has created plenty of problems, but it's solved more. If that weren't the case, then not only would we be living in the dark ages, but we likely wouldn't even know that the dark ages (or any other age) ever happened. 

I would argue that poverty is not humankind's natural state.  We always look for ways to make life easier and raise the standard of living.

Also, I would argue that you fail to distinguish between governments that protect people from violence and governments that proactively inflict violence upon peaceful citizens.  The difference is huge and the implications of that difference are paramount.  Do you want to go live in North Korea?  They have a very "active" government that is very "involved" in helping their people live correctly.  Are you tempted?

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

There are still disputes among climate scientists, of course, but they almost exclusively seem to revolve around issues of what changes to expect, to what degree, when they will occur.  The issues that you're stuck on are largely settled at this point - of course they could still be wrong, but then again so could you, right? This is where credibility, expertise, and a little humility can be very helpful.

The scientist's predictions about how the climate will change (whether caused by humans or not) are tantamount to saying:  I think we will get rain in the future.  Anybody could predict the earth's climate will change over the near or long term and be correct.  The only incorrect prediction would be to say that the climate will not change.  I don't take issue with predictions of changing climate per se.  The only thing I take issue with are (A) predictions of a runaway greenhouse effect that will render the planet uninhabitable, and (B) The idea that everyone on earth needs to submit to socialism and authoritarianism as a means of controlling the climate.

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

Of course scientists have biases and various conflicts of interest, but you're mistaken to think that there's no money to be made in doing research aimed at disproving or at least undermining the credibility of the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis. There have been no shortage of fossil fuel backed think tanks and research teams trying to muddy the waters on the issue for several decades now.

Well you kind of made my point for me though... whenever someone comes to a conclusion that doesn't affirm the belief system of the green religion, that party is accused of "muddying the waters" on a question that must be accepted unconditionally as a point of faith.

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

My favorite example, of course, is Richard Muller who was a physics professor and climate skeptic who was hired by one of the Koch Brother foundations in order to disprove climate change. The very process of conducting that research, however, completely changed his mind on the issue - after which he said: "I now believe that there has been significant warming for the last 260 years...The clear evidence... is that essentially all of that is caused by humans."

Someone got to him! :tw_tounge_wink:

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

Fair enough. I don't particularly like it either, but it was designed with the intent to appease those who prefer market-based solutions. Some people have a hard time acknowledging problems for which their ideology provides no effective solutions so they essentially put blinders on. As a result, other people are in effect are incentivized to try and frame the solution in a more palatable way in order to help some within the former group of people come to terms at the very least that there is in fact a problem that must be addressed. Recognizing and identifying the problem is a necessary first step to solving it, so here we are, with imperfect, compromised solutions as always.

I don't think this is an example of economically-agnostic environmentalists trying to spruce up their doomsday/suicide cult for mass consumption.  I think a more accurate characterization of Carbon Credits would be a bunch of crony-capitalists who high-jacked the religious fervor of the greenies and convinced them to lobby the government to create a new tax, which is framed as an asset that can be traded.  It's just another way of forcing the public to invest in markets similar to the 401K or the IRA.  As long as the public is pouring their money into some kind of market (willingly with stocks or unwillingly with carbon credits), then Wall Street is happy.

Going back to the environmentalists - their stance on economics is clear:  Strongly socialist or communist.  That's why I don't think they're behind the carbon credits scam, and if you told them today carbon credits are gone and instead there are simply hard limits on CO2 emissions beyond which people go to jail, they would be thrilled by that news.  

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

I can't keep track. Is there some global authoritarian green regime that's going to crush us all under its boot or is there an ineffectual international body that can't even get China under control  and sets unenforceable benchmarks that will lead to doom even if met? Is this not a bit contradictory, or am I missing something?

Not contradictory - they are one in the same.  They will let China pollute because money and power is their goal.  They use the impending environmental apocalypse as the motivation for the public to submit to authoritarianism and vote away their freedoms, but they don't actually believe that apocalypse will come to pass.

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

I would think that you would be on board with attempting to make the transition away from fossil fuels a gradual process that will minimize negative economic impacts. As with the carbon tax, these policies are crafted to be compromise with people who share your way of thinking, but it's almost as if you resent having your position taken into account. It's confusing to me.

Speaking of my position on the issue:  I'm against government regulation.  So how is more government regulation "crafted to be a compromise with people [like me]"?  There is no magic in a "gradual" transition away from fossil fuels.  Define gradual.  Maybe over the course of 2 or 3 generations is gradual.  The targets set by these treaties are just a few decades in the future.  I wouldn't call that gradual.   No, I prefer to let the market price drive the move away from fossil fuels.  As they become more scarce, alternative sources of energy will take over.

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

But you're of course right that plenty of people who are "well connected " will profit the shift to greener technologies. That said, plenty of "well connected" people are currently profiting from fossil fuels, so I'm not sure what the relevant point is here with regard to climate change. This seems like a crony capitalism issue, not a science issue, or even a political issue exclusive to green technologies.

The key difference being that fossil fuels and the whole oil industry arose in a free market based on voluntary exchange, whereas the green economy has arisen by government mandate, taxes, and subsidies, which is to say it came about through violence.  However, if we leave that aspect and just look at the economics, we see the green industry represents a destruction of wealth due to inefficiency, an a great opportunity cost in the form of lost profits due to mandates, subsidies, market distortions, etc.

You ask is it crony capitalism or science or politics:  Yes - it is all of those things and that's what I tried to point out in my discussion of the green religion.  It's actually more than that:  It's a social movement, it's a religion, it's a neo-communist revolution, it's a witch-hunt, etc.  To me, it's one of the most interesting social phenomenon happening today, but also not unique when viewed in the context of other religious/socialist movements that have come before it.

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

I prefer to buy American! 

Oh really?  Why?

On 9/24/2021 at 10:27 AM, ruraljuror said:

And I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "If not invading China"  - but it sort of seems like you want to invade China, which is not a great idea, but I'm honestly afraid to try to talk you out of it for fear that you'll dig in and that I'm going to be back here making the argument as to why nuclear war is a bad thing this afternoon, which I'd really like to avoid.

You are the one who wants to *stop* China, you just don't know how to do it.  There's a big difference (rhetorically) between trying to "buy American" and "boycotting China because of their pollution".  Which camp do you fall into?

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23 hours ago, Armacing said:

To clarify, I'm not casting doubt on the methods and calculations used by climate researchers.  I'm sure they are doing the best that they can with limited data, but you seem to be pitching the idea that scientists can take an insufficient data set and massage it into an "agreed upon" data set, which then becomes the basis for a conclusion, which then becomes a political movement that (coincidentally) involves a lot of taxing and no real reduction on C02 production (globally).  Does this not seem wrong to you.

You've cast doubt directly on the conflicts of interest and financial and professional motivations of climate researches. How is that not questioning methodology? You think their methodology was sound but they flipped the bias switch before stating the conclusions derived from said methodology? That seems like a pretty fine hair to split.

To your latter point, we've already discussed that the US (or even the UN) can't control the emissions of all of the countries on Earth, but we can clean up our own house first and potentially define a sustainable path forward. It's fine if you don't agree with that strategy, but there's no reason to pretend like you're not aware of the goal or the constraints in meeting that goal. 

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I will ignore the term "environmental justice" because I get what your question really is... As for an example of green authoritarianism, take a look at what's happening in the UK now.  The government shut down their coal power plants (most of them) via the carbon credits system because of the carbon trading system, but now the cost of power is way up.   Yet the clean energy sources they have are not reliable in terms of continued power output during all weather conditions, so they have to supplement by guying energy from Europe (especially France and it's nuclear power).  So you have an authoritarian government that is not allowing the market to offer all forms of energy generation and let consumers choose, and the result is a more vulnerable electrical grid, higher costs, and a lower standard of living for its citizens.  To add insult to injury, any reduction in CO2 pollution achieved by this state of affairs was more than offset by China's increase in emissions, so the UK's little plan to save the world has already failed miserably.  And the UK does not serve as an example to the world because their transition was so ill conceived that it merely serves as a cautionary tale to other nations about the perils of interfering in the energy market.  Raising the cost of energy raises the cost of everything, which makes life harder for everyone, but especially the poor.

Governments all over the world already disallow many forms of energy generation. For a couple examples that run the spectrum, burning certain types of trash is pretty commonly forbidden, not to mention home-use nuclear reactors. Hell, windmills are outlawed in plenty of places. Your point here doesn't register. 

I'm also a little taken aback for a staunch anti-authoritarian to rely on consumer energy choice in the UK as your best example of green tyranny. It's not particularly compelling to me to say the least. How far down on the list of authoritarian abuses that occur daily around the world would you put this example? Would it make the top 100? I'm genuinely curious. 

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I thought you already accepted the idea that the earth will still be habitable for humans even at max CO2... did you not accept that concept?'

Sure, I have accepted that the earth will likely still be habitable for some humans at "max C02" - the question is how many humans will the earth be able to sustain, what quality of life those humans will have, whether any semblance of civilization will remain intact, and how much suffering and death will occur as humanity seeks equilibrium with its new environment. 

I'm confident you understand this distinction, so I'm not sure what the confusion is here.

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Burning fossil fuels in such a way that C02 is the only emission is environmentally sustainable.  CO2 is used by the environment, it's part of the environment.  It's not toxic to any living creatures (in atmospheric concentrations).  Your whole argument hinges on the unproven assumption that humans are able to produce enough CO2 to create an environmental catastrophe and I just don't see it.  What's the disaster?  Melting glaciers?  Rising sea levels?  All that has happened during the time of human inhabitance on earth and we're still here.  It will happen again, and go the other way with an ice age as well.  CO2 levels rise and fall naturally and there's nothing you can do to stop it.  We, as a species need to be adaptable and raise up the standard of living for all people on earth so they have the physical resources to deal with whatever nature throws at them.  And you can't build material wealth by destroying wealth with inefficiency - which is what all the CO2-boogeyman laws are doing.

There are a lot of resources available to you to explain the science surrounding these issues. The climate scientists who have studied this stuff throughout their careers have addressed all of your questions and concerns many, many times, and have taken the trouble to write down their answers in books/papers/videos/reports/articles/podcasts/blog posts/memes - pretty much whatever form of media your prefer to consume. If you'd like to do more research, I'd be happy to point you to some resources that might be helpful, but I don't think I'm going to be able to condense all of these ideas into a few paragraphs that will change your mind if you're unwilling to put the time in yourself.

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Instead of trying to control the climate, which is a failed endeavor from the start, let's build up strong economies with the maximum amount of wealth so the resources to react to disasters are there when we need them.   What's the difference between disaster response in Myanmar v/s Florida?  The storms are the same, but one has years of suffering and hardship and the other rebuilds quickly.  The difference is wealth, but you don't seem concerned by the massive destruction of wealth caused by these anti-global-warming laws.  That's a major oversight on your part because the destruction of wealth and the perpetuation of poverty threatens human existence more than changing temperatures do.

You make multiple conclusions in this paragraph for which you have no support. Let me turn the tables around for you so you can see it more clearly: There is likely to be a far greater destruction of wealth from climate change than from any climate abatement policies.

I'll also note that transitioning to green technologies enables the creation of wealth to a far greater degree than any climate apocalypse opportunism. How much wealth do you think is destroyed by extreme weather events and climate migration already? The tab is racking up as we speak.

I'll also note that reducing negative climate impacts that result from humans changing the chemical composition of our environment is not the same thing as "controlling the climate" just as an aside, and I think it's also worth noting that maximizing wealth is not a goal on equal moral footing with minimizing human suffering. That made me a little sad.

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The other thing we need to do is eliminate the barriers to movement for humans around the globe.  All governments need to make it easy, cheap, and efficient for people to move to different countries legally and obtain citizenship without too much difficulty.  To enter the US and become a citizen should be as simple as booking a flight and signing your name to a citizenship roster and "Boom", you're an American... And it should be the same for every other country around the world.  Freedom to move as the climate changes will be essential to making sure we have the people where we need them to both move away from adverse climactic conditions and take advantage of new favorable climactic conditions.  Furthermore, Antarctica needs to be opened up to civilian settlement with a treaty arrangement similar to Svalbard where people from any country can come and work visa-free.

Do you think this is a realistic plan? If not, why waste time bringing it up?

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The Pleistocene is not a pre-human era, it ended 11,000 years ago.  Humans have been around longer than that.

Humans with brains resembling modern people were only around for about the last 3.5% of the Pleistocene. I'm also curious about exactly how many humans were around back then? - just as one measure of how many people the earth at that point was able to sustain.

More importantly, human civilization as we know it didn't come around until well after the Pleistocene, so, once again, this whole line of logic appears to be entirely irrelevant to this discussion, so you're going to have to connect the dots for me if there's a cogent point to be made here.

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But we are also discussing the environment on a global scale and discussing the natural evolution of the environment based on the actions of organisms living on the surface.  I do not agree with the idea of ignoring what geology teaches us about the ancient atmosphere in pre-human eras because it is most instructive when calibrating our reaction to alarmist claims.

Our civilization is optimized to operate within certain environmental conditions representing the conditions during which that civilization was organized and began to flourish. What's the value in discussing environmental conditions that occurred before that civilization existed? We don't know what our agricultural system will look like in ancient atmospheric and soil conditions, because there was no agriculture in those conditions. We can, however, use science and the best available data to forecast how our agricultural systems will fare in those conditions, and it doesn't look particularly promising for us. I'm not sure how else to drive this point home more clearly.

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Then if we don't really know whether more CO2 is hurting or helping, why are some people so determined to impose their authoritarian political will on others in the name of "saving the world"?

We don't really "know" much of anything, but the flaw in your logic is believing said uncertainty then means that both "helping" and "hurting" outcomes are therefore similarly likely.

Just about all the evidence points in the direction that more C02 is hurting us. Your dispute with that evidence and those analyzing it in no way means that whether or not C02 is hurting or helping the world are equally supported premises. Far from it.

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In human society there is always government.  Sometimes it's a tribal council, sometimes it's a witchdoctor, sometimes it's a village elder.  Wherever the natural human inclination for innovation is restricted by "tradition" or "restriction" or "regulation" or "taboo" - you name it - the inability to try new things and do something that other people don't like results in cultural stagnation, which is economic stagnation,  and the perpetuation of poverty.

I would argue that poverty is not humankind's natural state.  We always look for ways to make life easier and raise the standard of living.

The argument that poverty is humanity's natural state is an argument most commonly used in defense of capitalism and free markets, actually, if that colors your perspective.

To flesh out the idea, imagine a baby that is born in the woods and then immediately abandoned. Doesn't get much more impoverished than that.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make by noting that 'We always look for ways to make life easier and raise the standard of living" - I've got no problem with that assertion - but that doesn't change the fact that we are all born with no guarantee of wealth or access to resources of any sort. 

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Also, I would argue that you fail to distinguish between governments that protect people from violence and governments that proactively inflict violence upon peaceful citizens.  The difference is huge and the implications of that difference are paramount.  Do you want to go live in North Korea?  They have a very "active" government that is very "involved" in helping their people live correctly.  Are you tempted?

Can you give me an example of a government that only protects people from violence?

And I'm sure you're aware that the straw man you're spinning here by conflating "active" government with North Korean tyranny is ridiculous to put it kindly. This is trolling, and you're better than that. 

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The scientist's predictions about how the climate will change (whether caused by humans or not) are tantamount to saying:  I think we will get rain in the future. 

It seems like you're being deliberately dense again. If you want to have a rational discussion, I'm clearly onboard, but obviously this is a gross mischaracterization of the situation. 

The climate has and will continue to change for reasons unrelated to humans. That's a given and has nothing to do with changes to the climate specifically causes by humans.

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Anybody could predict the earth's climate will change over the near or long term and be correct.  The only incorrect prediction would be to say that the climate will not change.  I don't take issue with predictions of changing climate per se.  The only thing I take issue with are (A) predictions of a runaway greenhouse effect that will render the planet uninhabitable, and (B) The idea that everyone on earth needs to submit to socialism and authoritarianism as a means of controlling the climate.

Seems to me that you take issue with the predictions in part (A) because you fear part (B) and think that an acceptance of (A) will lead to (B). I think we probably could have both saved ourselves a lot of typing if we were clear about that upfront.

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Well you kind of made my point for me though... whenever someone comes to a conclusion that doesn't affirm the belief system of the green religion, that party is accused of "muddying the waters" on a question that must be accepted unconditionally as a point of faith.

It's not a point of faith - it's the overwhelming consensus of the people with the best data who have made studying these issues their lives' work. 

I would love nothing more than for a research group to be able to show that all the other scientists are wrong and that we could triple our C02 emissions with no negative impacts to the habitability of earth for humanity. Next best would be for a research group to conclusively prove that the impact of humans on atmospheric composition is negligible. This would be earth shatteringly good news and would undoubtedly lead a huge windfall of cash for the researchers. 

If the best science and research came to an overwhelming consensus on these points, my perspective on these issues would turn on a dime. Only one of is wrapping our arguments in ideology and faith, here, and it's not me.

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Someone got to him! :tw_tounge_wink:

Or....

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I don't think this is an example of economically-agnostic environmentalists trying to spruce up their doomsday/suicide cult for mass consumption.  I think a more accurate characterization of Carbon Credits would be a bunch of crony-capitalists who high-jacked the religious fervor of the greenies and convinced them to lobby the government to create a new tax, which is framed as an asset that can be traded.  It's just another way of forcing the public to invest in markets similar to the 401K or the IRA.  As long as the public is pouring their money into some kind of market (willingly with stocks or unwillingly with carbon credits), then Wall Street is happy.

Going back to the environmentalists - their stance on economics is clear:  Strongly socialist or communist.  That's why I don't think they're behind the carbon credits scam, and if you told them today carbon credits are gone and instead there are simply hard limits on CO2 emissions beyond which people go to jail, they would be thrilled by that news.  

Not contradictory - they are one in the same.  They will let China pollute because money and power is their goal.  They use the impending environmental apocalypse as the motivation for the public to submit to authoritarianism and vote away their freedoms, but they don't actually believe that apocalypse will come to pass.

Speaking of my position on the issue:  I'm against government regulation.  So how is more government regulation "crafted to be a compromise with people [like me]"?  There is no magic in a "gradual" transition away from fossil fuels.  Define gradual.  Maybe over the course of 2 or 3 generations is gradual.  The targets set by these treaties are just a few decades in the future.  I wouldn't call that gradual.   No, I prefer to let the market price drive the move away from fossil fuels.  As they become more scarce, alternative sources of energy will take over.

The key difference being that fossil fuels and the whole oil industry arose in a free market based on voluntary exchange, whereas the green economy has arisen by government mandate, taxes, and subsidies, which is to say it came about through violence.  However, if we leave that aspect and just look at the economics, we see the green industry represents a destruction of wealth due to inefficiency, an a great opportunity cost in the form of lost profits due to mandates, subsidies, market distortions, etc.

You ask is it crony capitalism or science or politics:  Yes - it is all of those things and that's what I tried to point out in my discussion of the green religion.  It's actually more than that:  It's a social movement, it's a religion, it's a neo-communist revolution, it's a witch-hunt, etc.  To me, it's one of the most interesting social phenomenon happening today, but also not unique when viewed in the context of other religious/socialist movements that have come before it.

I'm not sure that you're saying anything new here that you haven't said before, though correct me if there's a new point in here that's worth addressing.

 I will note that you have written the word religion several times in just these few short paragraphs, and in the neighborhood of 30 times on this page alone.

I understand your desire to characterize these issues in terms of religion and politics because of that (A) to (B) association that scares you (as noted above), but, again, what we have here is a physics problem, and you can't contextualize your way around that one in order to argue on more favorable terrain. 

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Oh really?  Why?

You are the one who wants to *stop* China, you just don't know how to do it.  There's a big difference (rhetorically) between trying to "buy American" and "boycotting China because of their pollution".  Which camp do you fall into?

I'm not trying to *stop* China at all. In fact, stopping China's C02 emissions would not solve the problem on its own, so I'm not sure why you think that's the only appropriate place to start. Further, as others have already pointed out to you, part of the reason for China's outsized pollution output are the fact that China is producing a disproportionate amount of goods for the rest of the world to consume, the blame for which obviously shouldn't  be placed exclusively on China's shoulders. If anything, the greater culpability should fall on the demand side of the equation, not the supply side, right?

More generally, while I understand that it's comforting to view the world in black and white, doing so doesn't remove the complexities of the underlying issues, it just enables the person with a binary perspective to feel more confident and assured in their position, untenable or otherwise. But what good is being confident if you not only have to ignore (or worse) proactively attempt to refute the best available evidence and analysis in order to pretend that the problem doesn't exist, because to admit that the problem is real would reveal the shortcomings of the political ideology that's clearly become a big part of your identity and a source of comfort? 

For me, the fact that I don't yet know what the best solution to the climate crisis will be does not require that I reject the possibility that the problem exists outright. I'm not even positive that there is or will be viable solution, or even if it's a good idea to think of this problem in terms of 'a solution' as opposed to a long list of actions that may or may not be taken and may or may not help (e.g. vaping, and nicorette, and patches are all means of attempting to quit smoking, but smoking fewer cigarettes a day is also certainly an option for decreasing the harm caused by smoking, and none of these potential actions address the underlying nicotine addiction or the potential lung damage that's already occurred). Pretending the problem doesn't exist, however, is just a head-in-the-sand mentality that gets us nowhere.

I have hope for technological solutions, and I have hope that there will be unknown negative feedback cycles that could bail us out, and I have hope that the science and resulting predictions are wrong. But hope in these instances isn't much better than just keeping your fingers crossed, so what I like to do to be proactive is to limit my own personal contribution to the problem, support leaders and businesses that acknowledge the problem as well, as well as occasionally trying to painstakingly lead a few strangers on the internet toward the light in the meantime. Amen.

Edited by ruraljuror
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On 9/23/2021 at 12:21 PM, ruraljuror said:

If there are no safe harbor regulatory thresholds, then how can I drive a non-electric car or cook on an outdoor grill without emitting pollutants that I could potentially be held legally liable for? Given the joint and several nature of the liability as you've defined it, and given the evidentiary standard you've defined which requires only that you prove that I indeed did emit such pollutants and that those pollutants did affect the property of others, am I then potentially liable for damages caused by pollution anywhere in the US if not anywhere around the globe just by cooking some burgers on charcoal barbecue in my backyard? How does the system you're imagining preclude these kinds of results?

Can you smell burgers cooking around the globe?  I think you're taking this concept to illogical extremes because today there is no safe harbor regulatory threshold on the smell of your grill, and in today's environment your neighbor could try to take legal action against you because of the smell of your grill.   So it's not like I'm re-defining the entire legal system with what I'm describing.  What I am saying is that if your neighbor happens to be a large factory, you can take legal action against that company if they send noxious pollution over the border... I'm surprised you are against that concept considering your stance against CO2.

On 9/23/2021 at 12:21 PM, ruraljuror said:

Aren't the plaintiffs left in the exact same boat if/when the shareholders run out of money and/or declare personal bankruptcy, as well? If more remuneration equals more justice, so be it, but I'm not sure what will really be accomplished by swapping the financial ruin of one innocent party for the financial ruin of another innocent party other than astronomically higher legal expenditures.

The idea is that the resources of the corporation will be depleted first, but then liability will switch to the shareholders if money is still owed.  It's not swapping financial ruin, it's expanding financial ruin.   Yes, more remuneration equals more justice... the inverse would be absurd:  How could less remuneration equal more justice?

On 9/23/2021 at 12:21 PM, ruraljuror said:

Also, it's becoming less clear to me if your primary goal is greater plaintiff justice or if the primary goal is a punitive stick that will force investors to more actively regulate companies with which they invest? 

Aren't those two issues one-and-the-same?  The means by which pollution is reduced is greater investor involvement in order to avoid massive pay-outs to plantiffs.  The goal is to reduce or prevent pollution before it happens, and if a few imprudent polluters throw caution to the wind, they will be severely depleted of finances and serve as a warning to other (smarter) would-be polluters.

On 9/23/2021 at 12:21 PM, ruraljuror said:

If the goal is more justice, to employ a gambler's analogy, this deal seems like a push where you still owe the vigorish (insurance premiums and attorney's fees) at best, and if the goal is greater investor oversight and regulation of the companies in which they invest, do you not then think that the most likely way investors will pursue such oversight and regulation is through governance by voting for it at the ballot box? We'd be right back where we are - where we started.

In terms of going the government-as-regulator route, in that regard I'm depending on the constitution and judiciary to protect freedom from over-regulation.

On 9/23/2021 at 12:21 PM, ruraljuror said:

I think you're missing the point here. Light will inevitably cross property lines. I live miles from downtown but the light from skyscrapers not only crosses my property lines, it also enters through my windows and into my home even when the shades are drawn. If I find a judge and/or jury that decides a little compensation in order, there potentially would be a large enough class to launch a class action suit and black out downtown, not to mention the city's exposure as a result of streetlights all over town.

Seems to me you would have to have been aware of the light before you bought the property - a fact that pretty much precludes a claim on your part because you bought the property "as is".  Now if someone mounts a green laser on top of the 505 building and aims it into your bedroom window: That is a new development and I would argue you have a right to take legal action.  Similar concept if someone installs a new cell phone tower right next to hour house that wasn't there when you bought the property.

On 9/23/2021 at 12:21 PM, ruraljuror said:

What's the downside to clearing up this mess with a simple light pollution ordinance instead of potentially wasting literally everyone's money and time in court? How does increased risk of nuisance lawsuits with less predictable outcomes make a society any more free?

Because there would be probably thousands of cases where someone adds much brighter lights but nobody complains about that.  Imagine a scenario where a person decides they need a lot more illumination in their yard.  In this scenario the neighbors are actually appreciative because it increases the security of their yards as well - at no cost to them.   Then imagine a person who lives several doors down thinks the new lighting scheme looks "out of context" and complains to the city codes department about light pollution.  Here we have a long-nosed busy-body who has a regulation they can use to restrict the rights of someone else, but in a court of law they would have no standing because their property is so far removed from the light pollution as to be completely unaffected.

In my system, only the aggrieved parties that are *directly affected* by the problem have legal standing to complain.  Everyone else has no say, so they just have to shut up and live with things they don't like the look of but are not directly affected by.

Another example:  I love astronomy and all the lights in my neighborhood mean I can't get a good view of distant objects from my back yard.  Is that my problem or my neighborhood's problem?  Answer:  It's my problem and if I really care that much about it I need to buy land out in the middle of nowhere that I can use for night sky viewing.  What if I'm too poor to buy that land?  Then I just have to accept my poverty and settle for viewing whatever I can from my backyard.

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1 hour ago, Armacing said:

Can you smell burgers cooking around the globe?  I think you're taking this concept to illogical extremes because today there is no safe harbor regulatory threshold on the smell of your grill, and in today's environment your neighbor could try to take legal action against you because of the smell of your grill.   So it's not like I'm re-defining the entire legal system with what I'm describing.  What I am saying is that if your neighbor happens to be a large factory, you can take legal action against that company if they send noxious pollution over the border... I'm surprised you are against that concept considering your stance against CO2.

What I'm trying to convey with these examples is that there are some major problems with some of your proposed changes to the legal system. In the previous example with the river pollutants, you specifically removed causation and damages as elements that are necessary to move forward with a lawsuit, and my example with the cheeseburgers here is intended to highlight that there are unintended consequences to allowing viable legal claims based solely on an unwanted substance crossing a property line (whether that unwanted substance is noxious factory pollution, C02, skyscraper light, or burning cheeseburger particles). 

According to your framework as I understood it, all a plaintiff has to prove in order to have a viable legal claim is that the defendant put some unwanted substance into the air/water and now that substance is on the plaintiff's property.  The issues of causation (proving whether it was actually the defendant's unwanted substance that ended up on the plaintiff's property or somebody else's unwanted substance) and damages (what definable harm resulted from the unwanted substance entering the plaintiff's property) were not necessary. Therefore, if my neighbor sometimes grills burgers and there are grilled-burger particles on my property, then I've got a viable suit against my neighbor. That's a problem, because if there are no grounds to dismiss these suits for failure to make a cognizable legal claim, then there's nothing to stop a one neighbor from bankrupting another based on any number of pretexts, whether it's burger smoke, a flood light, or noisy dog, etc.

The real key to this discussion, however, is your statement that I bolded above, which I'll quote here as well: "So it's not like I'm re-defining the entire legal system with what I'm describing."

You may not be re-defining the entire legal system, but you are attempting to redefine some of parts of it, and there's no good way for me (or anyone else you're discussing this stuff with) to know (or keep track of for that matter) which parts of the current system you're intending to keep and which parts you're eliminating. More importantly still, however, is the realpolitik Pandora's box that you're opening here. 

Let's assume for a moment that you've conceived in your own mind a far better legal/economic/political system that creates a perfectly free market exactly as you've defined it. What happens next? What do you do with that perfectly conceived system? How could you ever bring this perfectly conceived system from your mind to the real world? 

Even if you became the leader of a vast group of successful political candidates who share your general ideologies and were swept into office across the US with veto and filibuster-proof majorities at every level of government,  can you imagine, even then, how much disagreement there would be about which parts of the current legal system are getting redefined and which are not? In every system of government, disagreements are common and compromises must be made, even in one-party states. Unless you and you alone get to make these decisions as some kind of god emperor, the free market as you've defined it will never exist. 

So what are we talking about then? In effect, you have crafted a whole system of beliefs that can never really be put to the test and can therefore never really be challenged, but to what end? It's certainly an interesting thought exercise which I've enjoyed, but it seems like you're taking it a lot farther than that.

1 hour ago, Armacing said:

The idea is that the resources of the corporation will be depleted first, but then liability will switch to the shareholders if money is still owed.  It's not swapping financial ruin, it's expanding financial ruin.   Yes, more remuneration equals more justice... the inverse would be absurd:  How could less remuneration equal more justice?

You're defining justice to exclude passive investors. I've explained at length why I think that passive investors should not be liable for corporate actions - you may not agree with my rationale but there's no point in pretending like I haven't made that clear. 

1 hour ago, Armacing said:

Seems to me you would have to have been aware of the light before you bought the property - a fact that pretty much precludes a claim on your part because you bought the property "as is".  Now if someone mounts a green laser on top of the 505 building and aims it into your bedroom window: That is a new development and I would argue you have a right to take legal action.  Similar concept if someone installs a new cell phone tower right next to hour house that wasn't there when you bought the property.

Because there would be probably thousands of cases where someone adds much brighter lights but nobody complains about that.  Imagine a scenario where a person decides they need a lot more illumination in their yard.  In this scenario the neighbors are actually appreciative because it increases the security of their yards as well - at no cost to them.   Then imagine a person who lives several doors down thinks the new lighting scheme looks "out of context" and complains to the city codes department about light pollution.  Here we have a long-nosed busy-body who has a regulation they can use to restrict the rights of someone else, but in a court of law they would have no standing because their property is so far removed from the light pollution as to be completely unaffected.

In my system, only the aggrieved parties that are *directly affected* by the problem have legal standing to complain.  Everyone else has no say, so they just have to shut up and live with things they don't like the look of but are not directly affected by.

Another example:  I love astronomy and all the lights in my neighborhood mean I can't get a good view of distant objects from my back yard.  Is that my problem or my neighborhood's problem?  Answer:  It's my problem and if I really care that much about it I need to buy land out in the middle of nowhere that I can use for night sky viewing.  What if I'm too poor to buy that land?  Then I just have to accept my poverty and settle for viewing whatever I can from my backyard.

You've previously stated that electromagnetic radiation crossing property lines is a viable cause of action. Now it seems you want to grandfather in preexisting light sources as some form of easement (I guess this is one of the aspects of the current legal system you're going to keep?) but even that framing doesn't help your argument much. As I know you're aware from your participation here on UP, there are new skyscrapers going up every day, therefore new sources of light that could potentially "directly affect" anyone in a several mile radius.

From a practical standpoint, however, I'm way less worried about the skyscraper light class action suits than I am about the nuisance neighbor. In your final example, you state your belief that "It's your problem" if you get into astronomy and want to use your telescope in the back yard, but not everyone is going to agree with you, right? There are likely to be some astronomy buffs out there who want to make it their neighbor's problem instead, and if electromagnetic radiation like floodlights crossing property lines is a viable cause of action, then what's to stop them from filing a new suit every single night? They may get literally nothing in damages, but if they're rich enough relative to their neighbors, then what could stop them from effectively blacking out their neighborhood on a nightly basis if they wanted to? Inquiring minds want to know.

To be clear, I'm genuinely curious what kind of solutions you have in mind to these issues I raise. That's what makes your thought experiment interesting to parse through as an outsider who obviously wasn't involved in designing the system as you've conceived it.

That said, it seems like you have a knee-jerk reaction to any problems I see with 'your system' that causes you to reject my objection out of hand before you've really considered it. It would seem to me that the beauty of making up a whole legal and political system in your head is that it's easy to make adjustments and correct mistakes to it without having to jump through any of the procedural hoops or make the compromises that would be required if you took these ideas out of the abstract and into reality. What's the downside? Just food for thought.

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