Next NASA Chief Nominee Doesn’t Believe in Climate Change

Oh come on, speaking of straw...

Sure, immoral/unethical people exist and nothing precludes them from being politicians or public workers.

Our government is far more powerful than any corporation and thus the damage that can be done by unethical people much greater. Do you think our government (and different administrations) haven't concealed or omitted information from the public?

But I totally agree regarding lobbying... i think that's a big problem.

Glad someone got it

 

I haven't heard anyone suggest we stop paying for roads, utilities and public schools! Perhaps you were just giving us an example of progressive hyperbole.

One thing you refuse to admit is that government overspending and inefficiency is going to degrade our quality of life here much faster than CC or GW, or the next ice age .....if we ever get back around to that.

I have worked in the corporate world for 29 years. It just blows my mind how big government (both parties) wonks seem to be immune to basic laws of ethics and budgetary finance. You just don't ever get tired of dreaming up new ways to spend the money I work hard for! ..and then accuse me of being greedy, or not wanting roads or sewage when I protest the nearly 50% of my EARNED income that is taken away against my will. (Gunpoint or not).

In my professional world, we have now been in over 8 years of financial shock. Cutting cost, recoiling investment and dialing back unproductive areas of our business. When can we expect our government to learn to live within a real budget for a change?

Back on topic..

Maybe people like me would be a little more open minded about spending more money on improving our environment if we did not feel like our politicians were spending a high percentage of our tax revenue on wasteful misguided pork barrel BS to pandor to their constituents.

..and btw, I spent 6hrs Friday, and another 4 on Saturday out cleaning up garbage and waste blown into our local rivers by Irma. So don't try to act like progressive environmentalist are the only ones who care about cleaning up our planet.

 

Emphasis mine.

As I've said before, what the money is spent on is irrelevant to the primary purpose of a Pigovian tax. Revenue and how that is spent is secondary.

You haven't understood it.

I am? Huh. You obviously know me better than I do myself.

 

Point of this thread is climate change, with people, you included, propagating that we need to do something, to stop believing in corporate lies about dirty technology and orient ourselves with renewable sources, aka new technologies and new infrastructure. You're saying that we should tax dirty technologies or invest in clean ones, is that correct? Which then means we would not have Pigovian tax, but as you said it, fiscally motivated tax.
I don't know you, I know what you wrote here.

 

It seems as if either I'm very unclear, or someone is somewhat lacking in the "reading for comprehension" department.

Dirty technology is almost always cheaper than clean technology. It's cheaper to dump your crud in the nearest river than to build a wastewater treatment plant. It's cheaper to send your flue gases up the stack than to install an acid gas scrubber, an electrostatic precipitator and perhaps a CO2 capture unit. If you dump your crud in the nearest river or send your flue gases up the stack, you're pushing the externalities cost on someone else. An emission tax - or fine - levels the field by putting a cost on those externalities so that those who build clean technology can compete on an even field.

It has nothing to do with a belief in technology as the solution. It's capitalism, albeit more of John Maynard Keynes' type than of Milton Friedman's type.

 

I think this is the core of the disagreement. The fact is that this statement is plain wrong. Climate change is going to screw up your quality of life much much faster than the (agreed) governmental overspend. In the last 30 years or so the money spent by governments globally has increased mainly due to spending on social welfare. The pressure on this will increase due to climate change and in so doing add to the financial problem rather than relieve it.

Whatever the faults of your or my governments and no matter how much they misspend or misappropriate funds, no matter how much they spend on things that do not fit with your (or my) political agenda the huge costs of cleaning up the environment and combating the effects of climate change will dwarf any current failings. Irma, for example is costed at around $300Bn. Sure we have always had hurricanes but the increased frequency and intensity means at least some of the cost must be apportioned accordingly. How much is the cost of flood defence for all the cities affected by rising sea levels?

I do agree that governments tend to be bad at controlling their budgets and often fail in their objectives with significant sums of money, but this is not a reason to fail to act. Renewable technologies and low carbon technologies bring with them the prospect of new jobs and new business opportunities. Just as electric trains replace diesel trains replace coal powered steam trains the world moves on. The secret is to move on with it. The UK used to build the world's steam trains. Now we import the electric trains we use or partially build the finished train with components from overseas in companies owned by foreign investors. We let that happen because we failed as a country to understand that things don't carry on the same way for ever.

Climate change is happening. Ignore it and lose. Or see the opportunities as well as the downside.

 

@chrisch
This is where you depart from science in favor of opinion.

Will Irma have a huge economic impact on Florida? Sure. Of course Irma was a huge storm, but you can't possible predict or prove that damage is worse that the previous century, or the unknown outcome had humans become extinct 500 years ago. There are just too many random factors involved. Even if we accept the most popular forecast for AGM, I still believe political economic forces are a far greater threat to human life over the next 200 years.

Look at the economic / political tragedies of just the last 125 years. Millions killed by facists ,nazis, communists, and genocides of other various themes. Look at plagues etc. Then consider how close Greece came to imploding from economic malpractice. I see the USA as haveing a sort of unique landscape with 50 semi independent governments. Of our "blue" states, many are in dire peril economically. CA, IL, NY, MI are all leading the race to financial ruin. Specifically, IL is in an economic death spiral, with the highest migration of their tax base leaving the state. And the state government unable to cure their addiction to overspending, just goes back the cookie jar every year and raises taxes to solve their shortfall.

Greece came very close to raiding every citizens personall bank accounts to stave off financial ruin a few years back. Ultimatly, Greece got bailed out by the EU, Puerto Rico got bailed out financially, and now will again get help for Irma. People expect that California and Illinois will eventually get bailed out by the other ~40 states ...for the greater good. But who will be there to bail out the USA when this financial avalanche finally collapses? Climate in the USA is so volatile right now over stupid sh1t, I think my fears are justified that we are not to far from a very ugly outcome.

Sorry for the doom and gloom. But I do really believe we cannot just take for granted the economic stability of the USA or the EU. Altough I tend to remain skeptical on many key points of AGW/CC, I would never ignore sound conservation or sustainability efforts that make good economic sense.

Should our government invest in solar and other technologies? Perhaps. But it needs to be de politicized and accountable to ethical and financial scrutiny. Think SpaceX verses NASA. (Haha.. tied it back to topic)

 

No doom and gloom - I would pretty much agree with you.

Sure, but it isn't just about investment or government spending. A large part of it is also that governments make decisions that favour their paymasters. It is no secret that Obama had a lot of oil money behind his campaign, just as the Bush duo came from that background. I read with interest about the Californian solar issue and the $240m someone posted had been lost. Interestingly Exxon Mobil spend more than that in PR trying to prove AGW isn't real.

There is a huge business opportunity from renewable and low carbon energy and the Chinese are making the most of it.

 

I don't disagree.

Maybe they can invent something useful and we can just steal the technology. It has worked well for them over the years.

 

The Japanese/HongKongese/Korean gambit? Problem is, that's just a stepping stone on the path to developing your own technology industry. And it only works if you're behind in the race. Are the US lagging that badly already? Aren't you the leader of the free world?