Environmentalism and Climate Change

[Minimalist]

[Tiberius]

Therefore, Producers should do as much as possible to lower the amount of damage they do to the environment.

Of course, that's largely horseshit and major energy companies dump prodigious amounts of shit into the environment and then hire "scientists" to say that man has no effect on the environment.

Do you reckon any people who know/care about the environment use those energy companies? Precisely my point. Companies that don't take measures to protect the environment are blacklisted by a number of consumers.

exactly how does "free" market make the factories of china churning out toasters and Ipads for America pay for the inundation of Bangladesh?

China isn't a free market. The topic was about free-market environmentalism; it can't be applied to a country where the free market doesn't exist.

[The Grand Nudger]

Oh if only the masses could afford to do so/monopolies weren't enforced.

[KichigaiNeko]

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TAKING PROPERTY RIGHTS SERIOUSLY: THE CASE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

No takers?

Well let me break it down for you then. This paper was written by a libertarian lawyer that specializes in environmental law. In it he makes a free market environmentalism case for a carbon tax based on property rights. It’s a thought that would send most of the self-proclaimed libertarian Americans that I have talked to into an instant rage. They would be wrong though because they don’t really understand the system they advocate for.

Here is how it works. Under the libertarian idea of property rights people that own property are entitled to compensation from those that damage their property. Anthropogenic global warming is real and is mainly caused by the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Unless something is done to mitigate the effects of AGW it is going to cause the climate of our planet to change. Temperatures are going to increase. Sea levels are going to rise. Some areas are going to become drier than they have been for thousands of years.

These changes are going to damage the property of many people. Coastal areas will be inundated. Productive farmland will become too dry to farm profitably. People in the affected areas will be entitled to compensation from those responsible for the damage to their property. i.e. us. The worst of the damage is going to be far enough in the future that we, i.e. those most responsible for the damage, aren’t going to be around to take responsibility for our actions. Therefore we should be putting money aside to compensate those whose property will be damaged by our actions.

We need to provide the means for people living in Bangladesh and Virginia Beach to buy new property when theirs is inundated. We need to provide the means for Rhythm’s ten times great grandchildren to buy a new tomato farm in Canada after Northern Kentucky becomes too dry for them to make a living there. A carbon tax is the logical way to accomplish this. Make the people responsible for putting excessive levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere take responsibility for their actions by paying for them. That’s how the ideal of free market environmentalism is supposed to work.

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[popeyespappy]

Australian Carbon Tax is supposedly "revenue neutral".... I am probably missing something but I fail to understand how this may help in 3-6 generations from now with compensation claims.

If understand the term revenue neutral correctly it won’t. To me revenue neutral means your government is spending all the revenue generated through carbon taxes as they are collected. In order for those funds to be available to compensate those whose property is damaged by AGW your government would have to be saving at least some portion of the funds until later.

[KichigaiNeko]

Australian Carbon Tax is supposedly "revenue neutral".... I am probably missing something but I fail to understand how this may help in 3-6 generations from now with compensation claims.

If understand the term revenue neutral correctly it won’t. To me revenue neutral means your government is spending all the revenue generated through carbon taxes as they are collected. In order for those funds to be available to compensate those whose property is damaged by AGW your government would have to be saving at least some portion of the funds until later.

Oh good ...thanks pappy. I thought I had that right...so then begs the question...

"If ALL revenue is to be returned to the people, facilitating a revenue neutral tax; the WHY the Fuck HAVE a tax at all?"

This is something that Aussies are grappling with and the psycho-pomp, spin doctoring is not making it any easier. And AFTER ALL that...I think 2 Billion is being REFUNDED to those industries that will pollute the most and be hurt the worst from this Tax...this is not a tax this is making bureaucracy!!

So you WILL forgive me my cynical scepticism regarding taxes and AGW mitigation??

[popeyespappy]

I don’t blame you for your cynical skepticism about taxes and AGW mitigation Kichi. After all, your country’s and the rest of world’s policies along those lines are half assed at best. I don’t know if Australia’s carbon tax policies are enough to cause any real difference on a local scale, but they will amount to practically nothing on a global scale unless the rest of us decide to play too. Despite that you and Badger are receiving benefits from those policies already. The solar panels on your new home, that I assume were purchased with the help of government incentives, have cut your annual electric utility bills to less than what I am going to pay on utilities for my 50 year old home in Alabama in August alone. I doubt that is enough to make up the difference in what you pay overall for increased energy cost. When energy costs increase the cost of pretty much everything else goes up too. But the point made by that paper was you and I need to pay for the financial losses future generations are going to suffer due to our actions. It didn’t say we should break even on that proposal.

As far as the paper itself goes I don’t personally agree with libertarian economic policy. History tells us that the idea industry will do the right thing regarding people or the environment of its own free will is ridiculous. So is the reasoning that if a giant multinational corporation fucks someone they can be sued and everything will be better. If you doubt that just ask the residents of Love Canal. If you can find any that haven’t died yet.

In my opinion carbon taxes could be an effective policy in the battle against AGW. That doesn’t mean they would be painless though. In order to be effective they are going to have to be high enough to make the price of alternative energy sources competitive with fossil fuels. There can be no boom in alternative energy jobs until alternative energy becomes cost competitive.

Funds raised through carbon taxes should be expended in a variety of ways. It should be used to finance research, provide incentives, and yes some of it should be put aside to provide compensation to future victims of AGW. I like incentives that encourage individuals to become more energy independent. It would make a long term difference if most of the population reduced their dependence on fossil fuels as much as you and Zen have at your home by installing solar panels. On the other hand incentives for energy producers should be limited to funds used to lower CO2 output. Carbon tax based incentives for energy producers should only be provided for things like development of alternative energy production or reducing the amount of CO2 released by fossil fuel plants.

None of this means I believe carbon taxes are the only or even the best answer for the problems AGW is going to cause in the future. Only that I think they could be part of an effective overall policy if implemented properly. What I do know though is that policy needs to be determined based on evidence as opposed to an ideological agenda.

[Darth]

Love canal is actually something I've heard of. I was under the impression that they were using it as a waste disposal site (though government had dumped waste there as well), and didn't want to sell it to the government in the first place. The government then builds schools/ allows schools and homes to be built on it's new land, for which it took responsibility. This is from memory though, I could be 100% wrong on this one.

Really kichi? They are refunding the biggest polluters? But that would defeat the entire fucking purpose of the new fucking tax, and the only effect would be more bureaucracy as you said... fucking hell.

[KichigaiNeko]

All true pappy. I DO find it amazing that our government would CUT/ STOP rebating householders when they install PV cells and have that energy fed back to the grid. This is not suitable for ALL those in the Northern-hemisphere but fuck me dead this IS Australia! The amount of sunshine we get here can power the globe!! IF our government WAS serious and just not corporation-bashing-bullies they would take those $$ raised and feed it back into an established program. Oh it just burns me up at the lost opportunities and great ideas poorly executed by our current government. (They are a major embarasment firstly our PM tries to tell the Eurozone HOW to manage it's finances and then our Treasurer goes and INSULTS New Jersey and it's people! Talk about foot in mouth disease!!)

As for wind farms, they really need to be sited properly to be profitable. Like PV cells they have a huge manufacturing footprint that if they are not profitable then they ADD to the problem of pollution. The whole system is fucked and has degenerated into a mud-slinging match between various demographics who have no other interest than furthering their private (group's) agendas, thanks to the cherry picking of the science that is currently available. Is it any wonder that Mr & Mrs..(etc) Average Punter is just sick to death of the whole thing and can't be bothered??

@Stue...I have not heard of 'Love Canal' but there are many estates here in OZ that have been and still are being built on-top of Hazardous waste dumps. Our Olympic Park is one of them.

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http://youtu.be/lRPQSxp25z4

Hey Min, just copy an paste the Youtube URL For some godly reason it won't work if you try to use the insert dropdown menu.

[popeyespappy]

Love canal is actually something I've heard of. I was under the impression that they were using it as a waste disposal site (though government had dumped waste there as well), and didn't want to sell it to the government in the first place. The government then builds schools/ allows schools and homes to be built on it's new land, for which it took responsibility. This is from memory though, I could be 100% wrong on this one.

Really kichi? They are refunding the biggest polluters? But that would defeat the entire fucking purpose of the new fucking tax, and the only effect would be more bureaucracy as you said... fucking hell.

Yes Love Canal was a massive failure of government. Hooker chemical disclosed that the site was used as a toxic waste dump when they sold the property to the school board for $1, and the school board went ahead and built an elementary school on it anyway. However, Hooker Chemical knew what they were doing when they used the site for a dump. They knew the waste they were burying there was dangerous. They had other more expensive means of safely disposing of their waste available but went ahead and buried it onsite based on an economic decision. They were held liable for that decision, but that didn't really help the dozens of children born with birth defects due to exposure to the chemicals Hooker buried. This is what I am talking about when I say industry can't be trusted to make decisions based on anything but the bottom line.