The modest carbon tax in British Columbia has cut emissions in that province by 16% while emissions grew in the rest of Canada by 3% (a rate that likely would have grown higher still if Ontario and Quebec weren't also working to reduce emissions). A carbon tax, by itself, might not reach a 50% reduction, but it could spur changes in consumer behavior. For instance, now that gas prices have fallen again, sales of SUVs are increasing again after declining during our last period of high prices. That's probably a missed opportunity to reduce emissions.

Without a carbon tax, the United States is aiming at (and currently looks like it will hit) a target of 20% below 2005 levels. If a carbon tax had been added to the policy, the United States might have been able to hit 40% below 2005 levels, which is not that far from 50%.

Frankly, I doubt you understand politics. Despite your claims the parties are different entities although with very similar goals (power and control). In some areas, the policies of the parties are indistinguishable because they are appealing to same people for funding and trying to get same people to vote for them. Both parties need a majority of votes to win so they are by necessity fighting over the same people in the American center.

Frankly, in the current American system, large differences are not sustainable because if the difference loses votes, it will be abandoned and if it gains votes it will be copied or mirrored by the other party. The American system, whether by design or by accident, generates nearly identical parties.

It's not that the parties are the same organization, because they clearly are not, it's that the American political system is so poorly designed that serving the people brings few benefits when compared to playing internal politics for advantages and begging money from sponsors to fund election campagins.

Maybe I should have clipped the quote shorter, to make my meaning clearer. I was making an observation that every organization tries to claim power because it's human nature to seek power. Virtually everyone is part of "those who want to consolidate power in their own hands". While people seek power for different reasons, some good, some bad, there are very few people who want to be powerless.

So by my reading of Dredd's claims that makes all organizations the same. I have to admit that does make for a very simple world view, which is perfect for those with very simple minds.

Oh, but it has in a few places, most of them last less than a year before they are destroyed by a neighbour or internal struggles. Although, I hear that the government of Honduras is fond of libertarianism, and it's working out quite well, if you are either rich and can afford your own private army, or have your own guns and want to work in a private army...

That pretty much describes every organization everywhere in every country and every time period.

I guess you must be anti-science too, since you are denouncing the people who are skeptical of the skeptics...

So why are you attacking the people who are skeptical of the self-proclaimed skeptics?

Here is a graph showing human factors versus natural factors over the last 50-65 years. By themselves, the natural factors would have the earth cooling, which it has actually been doing since the end of the last ice age. So global warming is actually slightly more than 100% anthropogenic.

You could read the report

for yourself or you can look at a pretty graph that summarizes the findings.

What can we do about it if so?

There are a variety of strategies that we could try but the simplest, easiest, and cheapest solution is to apply a price to carbon emissions. Any economist can tell you that charging for emissions will reduce them.

Very little, many of the economies with carbon emission taxes are outperforming their neighbours, who don't have emission taxes.

Generally speaking, estimates of adaptation costs that have them running around 2-4 times as much as mitigation are considered to be low-balling the costs.

The libertarians (among others) are very, very scared of having an honest discussion about those issues, which is why they continually attempt to deny that climate change exists or has an anthropogenic cause. That is why we keep having the same moronic debate about whether climate change is real. We can talk about what we're going to do about it, when half of the people are listening to professional liars who are paid to sideline that debate for their sponsors, who are pretty happy with the status quo and afraid of change.

Why? Why should you be allowed to endanger the health of your fellow citizens and their families?

Reasonable precautions to prevent epidemics seems like "promoting the general welfare" which is the very foundation of government.

Just like a $5 dollar discount coupon has no effect, since I still have to pay the rest of the bill?

The rate of medical exemptions is reasonable stable and small, and as long as the rate of people who had special exemptions was similarly low it was an acceptable risk, however, thanks to vaccine paranoia and the frauds who peddle it, the rate of unvaccinated children with special exemptions has rise dramatically, and no longer falls into "acceptable risk". So the exemptions are going away, and the parents of these children will have to find a different way to be ignorant and dangerous.

Libertarianism.

You have to be very careful with Penn and Teller, they have a strong libertarian bent and they seem to frequently fail when researching issues that involve their politics. I wouldn't trust them on issues like second hand smoke that they are likely to view as "government interference". It tends to make them derp out and present a weak one-sided case as if there were no valid counter-arguments. Personally, I stopped watching "Bullshit" after a few too many political shows where they left me disappointed with their half-assed, one-sided, "facts".

S. Petry could be the poster child for the Dunning Kruger effect.

By spending $5 on something, you would be telling Valve that you're a paying customer and not a freeloader who's actively working to destroy their system?

However, with your rant you are telling me that you're a paranoid drama queen.

But I may be biased, because this will cost me nothing because I have already paid more than $5 to buy some cheap games during the summer and winter sales. I would imagine that for the vast majority of Steam's customers it will also cost them nothing because they are actually customers and have spent some money with Steam at some point in the past. You represent a corner case, a rare exception, a freeloader who legitimately (by your claim) uses Steam's services without ever paying Valve anything.

I've seen this claim before (probably from you), but I'm don't know what game you bought that you think entitles you to permanent and unlimited access to all the services of Steam in perpetuity.