Dealing with Climate Change---Not Only Good Ethics, But Good Business

[Nithavela]

Not the earth. Just human civilisation.

 

[Nithavela]

The dumping problem is supposed to be monitored by the EPA, but the EPA is not doing their job. It is just a billion dollar industry that does more for the Democratic Party than for the environment.

It is a bloated bureaucracy that needs to be deflated, and brought back to what it was set up for in the first place, monitoring dumping, which it does little of now.
Fifty employees could do that easily.

You really think that fifty people could keep tabs on the waste disposal processes of all american corporations?

Well, perhaps if a few more regulations fly out of the window...

 

[Hammster]

To make money.

Going green costs money. Recycling can be expensive; dumping is cheap.

Everything businesses do costs money. That’s why they have a CDB line in the budget.

 

[Fantine]

If there are no regulations to prevent BP oil spills in the Gulf, for example, the penalties they pay when it happens MUST equal the real cost. Cleaning up your messes is free market, too.

 

[Nithavela]

If there are no regulations to prevent BP oil spills in the Gulf, for example, the penalties they pay when it happens MUST equal the real cost. Cleaning up your messes is free market, too.

Pfft, they'd just donate 1 million to the ruling party and get away scot free.

 

[elliott95]

If there are no regulations to prevent BP oil spills in the Gulf, for example, the penalties they pay when it happens MUST equal the real cost. Cleaning up your messes is free market, too.

Milton Friedman would agree with you on that. The penalties would come from having to pay the ones damaged by environmental degradation. There are courts that are there to ensure that. Bureaucracy is redundant in that regard. Moreover, bureaucracy serves bureaucracy as its first and primary concern.

 

[Allandavid]

We have been ...what... for some time now?

In a position to control climate....obviously.

 

[Fantine]

Under the law, BP was only required to pay a small fraction of damages, perhaps 25%.

 

[Allandavid]

LOL. "Humans Make Hurricanes Worse"
Good lord.

The data is there for you to inspect. I can understand why some of you wouldn’t want to, however...

 

[elliott95]

In a position to control climate....obviously.

It wasn't obvious to me what you were trying to say.
Certainly the last 150 years have influenced climate, according to most scientists at any rate. That is different than saying that 150 years have been about controlling climate. Climate, and specific climatic events, in particular, are very much outside of our control.
And it is not obvious that anything that we can do right now is going to have much effect on reversing the trend of climate change. Models set up inputting huge changes in behavior on our behalf on a global scale, predict miniscule changes to the reduction of mean temperatures. Popular scientist commentators and global warming activists like David Suzuki acknowledge this, whilst hoping that some future discovery may be the ticket.
Which is fair enough, but there is a vast difference between hoping that at some future date we may control climate, and stating that we are in a position to control climate now.

Second it is not obvious that "we" can control climate, because there is no "we" in the first place. Individual nations and individual people act according to their own priorities, and those priorities severely contradict with one another. There is no such thing as a global community working together as one. There is no "we".

 

[Peter1000]

Which party runs EPA?

Or not... which will serve EPA just fine.

EPA chief Pruitt met with many corporate execs. Then he made decisions in their favor.[/QUOTE]

Which party runs EPA?

Thankfully now it is the Republicans. When the Dems had the controls, they were using the department as their lackeys to accomplish Dem stuff. Some of that translated into protecting the environment, much of the bloated bureaucracy was used except to harass and regulate business until our whole economy was in trouble.

EPA needs to do what it needs to do to stop dumping. If a business is dumping stop it. But don't cut out the heart of America to accomplish your goals. And you don't need 5 people to take first class seats and a limousine to a business to fine it for dumping. Find a cost effective way to resolve the dumping problem. How bout that, solve the problem so the business can continue to supply products and jobs for our country. It seems all the EPA wants to crush business, they are anti business. EPA is not for America. Trump is changing that.

 

[Allandavid]

It wasn't obvious to me what you were trying to say.
Certainly the last 150 years have influenced climate, according to most scientists at any rate. That is different than saying that 150 years have been about controlling climate. Climate, and specific climatic events, in particular, are very much outside of our control.
And it is not obvious that anything that we can do right now is going to have much effect on reversing the trend of climate change. Models set up inputting huge changes in behavior on our behalf on a global scale, predict miniscule changes to the reduction of mean temperatures. Popular scientist commentators and global warming activists like David Suzuki acknowledge this, whilst hoping that some future discovery may be the ticket.
Which is fair enough, but there is a vast difference between hoping that at some future date we may control climate, and stating that we are in a position to control climate now.

Second it is not obvious that "we" can control climate, because there is no "we" in the first place. Individual nations and individual people act according to their own priorities, and those priorities severely contradict with one another. There is no such thing as a global community working together as one. There is no "we".

There is a “we” most definitely in the sense that we all share in the planet and it’s resources and we have all played a part in the overall effect of raising global temperatures.

That is a control. I said control, not absolute control. You run your car with the choke out and you are controlling how poorly your engine will run, even though you have no influence on, say, the suspension...

 

[Ringo84]

The EPA is one of the most bloated and unnecessary entities in all of government. The faster it's dismantled, the better.

Right! Who needs clean air and water? What's good for private industry has to be good for all of us!
Ringo

 

[Goonie]

Right! Who needs clean air and water? What's good for private industry has to be good for all of us!
Ringo

Indeed! I’ve heard mercury and lead in drinking water does wonders for digestion!

 

[elliott95]

There is a “we” most definitely in the sense that we all share in the planet and it’s resources and we have all played a part in the overall effect of raising global temperatures.

That is a control. I said control, not absolute control. You run your car with the choke out and you are controlling how poorly your engine will run, even though you have no influence on say the suspension...

'We' implies that there is a 'we' who can control things. There isn't.

As individuals, we all can reduce, reuse and recycle, and things like that. This is all very good.

But this is not going to bring down the temperature over the next two hundred years to any appreciable degree. We, as individuals, do not exercise that kind of control.

 

[Allandavid]

'We' implies that there is a 'we' who can control things. There isn't.

Which is why we have these things called 'governments'. And its why those governments come together to form agreements. You need this explained to you...?

 

[elliott95]

Which is why we have these things called 'governments'. And its why those governments come together to form agreements. You need this explained to you...?

I think now that the sarcasm is coming out, this will be my last post to you.
Governments so far have acted in their own self-interest in the signing of any of these agreements, and nothing of any import has come of them. China and developing nations are given a pass, and the first world industrial country that had the greater success with carbon emissions under the last major accord ironically was the one that never signed on. It had something to do with a recession.
We have governments acting in their own self-interests, and bureaucracies putting on lavish meetings to discuss how best to reduce.
But I repeat. We will just have to agree to disagree.
Good-bye

 

[Fantine]

China has invested far more money and manpower on solar and wind energy than the U.S. has in the past few years. They have also purchased 300,000 electric cars. They are becoming leaders in the manufacture of solar panels and windmills, and will soon become a leader in electric cars as well.

As Fareed Zakaria said today, "
China Enters 21st Century, U.S. Goes Back to 19th."
No wonder why they're poised to overtake us as an economic superpower.

 

[szechuan]

We have governments acting in their own self-interests, and bureaucracies putting on lavish meetings to discuss how best to reduce.

Under the Trump administration, they don't care about Reducing pollution.

But this is not going to bring down the temperature over the next two hundred years to any appreciable degree. We, as individuals, do not exercise that kind of control.

Actually we can, China and many countries have already.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

So what you're saying is that libertarianism needs to get beyond thunderdome?

I think most of the people who identify as libertarian or libertarian-leaning (as I would identify myself) have gotten beyond thunderdome. However, there is a number of the "anarcho-capitalists" in our midst that still advocate these unrealistic ideas.