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Comment Re: Strictly speaking... (Score 1) 417

I understand your position. It is not, however, the mainstream position for GOP voters, in my experience.

As far as survival goes, I don't think that much is in doubt, but it doesn't take an extinction event to make it extremely uncomfortable to us as a species, and set our progress back by decades (if we end up spending all resources fighting the effects of climate change - think mass relocations of population and associated industry, having to establish agriculture from grounds up in new places as old ones become Dust Bowl 2.0 etc; and then we'd still need to figure out some way to keep pumping CO2 out eventually - all this may well leave us nothing for actual development). The longer we keep pretending that nothing is happening, the more it'll hurt.

Comment Re: Strictly speaking... (Score 1) 417

Do you own an automobile, eat meat, use air conditioning, take heated showers, travel by air, or use a clothes drier? If the answer to any one of those questions is yes.....

Every single one of them is "yes" (and I commute over 30 miles daily, so I contribute more to that then most - though I'm considering getting a Leaf eventually to offset that). But see, I don't disagree with you that we can't have nice things. I don't think we should or need to "downscale" our civilization. We should just be more responsible about paying for all that stuff.

What I hate about the right-wing "AGW skeptic" movement isn't that it doesn't want to do something - it's that it doesn't want to do anything! It basically keeps arguing that nothing bad is happening, or if it is then it doesn't matter anyway, and we can just enjoy the ride exactly as we are, and not lift a finger. It's like the economic policy of two parties in reverse, applied to climate and environment - an utter, willful ignorance of the fact that you can't just spend-spend-spend and pretend you will never have to pay it all back.

Comment Re: Strictly speaking... (Score 1) 417

Then we are fucked through and through. The developing countries first, because they don't have the tech and the money to deal with the consequences, and then the rest because it will take a while for "peak AGW".

One point though. What I was suggesting is not quite the same as carbon tax. Carbon tax is not particularly popular because there's very little transparency in what it is actually for. It is usually advertised more as a deterrent for polluting, than as a means to fund the fix. And where it's the latter, most of the funding goes into solar etc, which is, shall we say, contentious. Nuclear is very different - we already know how to do it at scale and for a reasonable cost, we just need the capital investment money and the willpower.

Comment Re: Strictly speaking... (Score 1) 417

Again, I'm a realist, and I just don't see that happening. We live in a democracy, and "I'm going to raise your taxes!" is not a recipe for electoral success.

It depends on how it is sold. Obama was elected twice, after all.

If people can be made to understand that all the cheap transportation and other goodies they get from hydrocarbons today are only cheap because they're accruing a massive debt that they will have to pay eventually (and the longer it is deferred, the more interest there will be on it), then hopefully we can make it politically viable. It's already not all that contentious among Democrats, and that is half the country already. It might take longer for "free market magically solves everything" crowd on the right, but eventually the costs will simply become too obvious already to ignore (unfortunately we'll have some more of that accumulated interest by then).

If we aren't willing to pay for it in any way at all, well, then it sucks to be us.

Are you going to deny them development at gunpoint? Because that's what it would take.

If the choice is between their development and ruining the entire ecosystem worldwide, then yes, absolutely. It is unfair in a sense that we used up an unfair share of this resource by virtue of discovering it first and exploiting it for longer, and it could be counterbalanced by e.g. funding nuclear and fusion (and solar and wind where it makes sense) in those developing countries on our dime, so that they can skip past the fossil-fuel-powered industrial revolution stage.

Comment Re: Strictly speaking... (Score 1) 417

I agree on nuclear, and would also extend it to fusion. But thing is, it won't happen without massive, government-backed investments. And given that it is a solution to the problem every single one of us using carbon-based fuels is contributing, it's only fair that we all shoulder the financial burden of making it happen. This means taxing gas and all electricity produced from hydrocarbons extensively, and pouring those funds into safe nuclear and fusion research & engineering.

Comment Re: Strictly speaking... (Score 1) 417

Because most people aren't assholes? Build me an electric car which meets my daily needs that I can afford and I'll buy it. Offer me carbon neutral electricity that I can afford and I'll buy it.

Well yes, when given between two options that have equal cost, but one of which is somehow otherwise better to those around you, most people would choose that latter option. But when people have to pay for "not being assholes", the balance changes a lot. It doesn't actually take all that much to push someone into the "fuck you, I don't have to pay for this so I won't territory. And it doesn't even take money, just some convenience.

You won't really ever get green replacements that cost less (or even the same) and offer more. Hydrocarbons are just too damn convenient on all counts. The only reason to do anything else is because of those accumulated environmental issues, which people find convenient to ignore, or which they don't think they will be paying for later (but someone else will). So really, that whole "cost less" angle is misleading - they don't really cost less at all, it's just that you can borrow at a very low rate today, and then default when it comes to paying (and leave your kids or grandkids with the bill).

Comment Re:Please.... (Score 1) 489

The law doesn't merely require the person to have a warrant for rape. It requires him to be an imminent danger. So for example, if he has just committed a rape, and is being chased by an officer, the officer can reasonably assume that the person is an imminent danger. But if it is a traffic stop and the guy starts running because he has an outstanding warrant, that doesn't work that way.

Even then, it's very hard to argue "imminent danger" when the suspect running away is known not to be armed.

These laws aren't used anywhere as often as you'd expect, anyway. In most cases, cops get away not because of them, but because they claim that the suspect was attacking them when they shot him, and the juries tend to believe them. This is exactly what happened in this case, too, except that we've got the video showing that the cop lied (and other cops have covered up).

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