Comment Re: the Pope and his Mythical Sky-God (Score 1) 305
I don't think these scientists are all or even mostly Catholics. They are probably mostly concerned that the Pope is well informed about the science.
Here are the folks who advise the Pope on science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Some names you may recognize: Edward Witten, Stephen Hawking, Francis Collins, Mario Molina, Maxine Singer, etc.
We're looking at an impact of shifting noon by about a minute over the course of an average human's lifespan.
Maybe not even that since leap seconds can be both inserted and removed as required depending on climatic and geological events. It could very well be a wash.
It is seemingly paradoxical, but in New York it now snows less often and they get more snowfall: http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea...
I can't comment on the cases that you take issue with because you haven't provided sources, but it is possible that an area could expect more floods and more droughts as the climate changes.
Most black market activity isn't "governed by the mafia"
I think at best you could say that some black market activity isn't governed by organized crime. Either way, we have come a long way from "Markets by definition..."
Sea levels can't rise another 550 ft, there simply isn't enough water in the ice caps.
You seem very certain about a topic that you appear to understand only superficially. You have neglected thermal expansion.
Markets do not require "governance", they can be self-governing, and frequently are.
Could you give me an example? Game theory suggests that this would fail on any large scale.
I came up with being able to get at most to about 1000ppm, which is still quite safe.
Assuming you have a good account of undiscovered repositories, which I think is probably unlikely, how do you know that 1000 ppm is quite safe? Do you have any evidence to support this claim?
if it works as we want it to after a few decades there will be little tax collected because no one is emitting carbon
I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.
Market-based solutions, by definition, do not require government intervention.
By what definition? Are you referring to barter? Any more complex market requires governance. The market based solution that I favour is a revenue neutral carbon tax. Income tax and sales tax would be reduced (which is good because why are we taxing behaviours that we want to encourage!) but the price at the pump would increase. A relatively modest RNCT was introduced in British Columbia and it seems to be working quite well.
The biggest problem with government intervention in terms of global warming is that it inhibits global economic growth
Agreed. We need to proceed with caution. We're better equipped to tackle this if we're rich. Let's plan to stay that way.
In terms of promoting energy efficiency, renewable energy, and nuclear, the market itself already has more than enough of an incentive for that, because fossil fuels are expensive and limited.
The big problem is that there is much more fossil fuel available than we can safely burn. Just waiting until we run out (or diminish stocks to the point that they become prohibitively or even relatively expensive) is not really a solution.
It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.
