71–80 of 85 posts
I feel like a lot of the people who push carbon taxes have little to no empathy for those who live in rural communities.
And that's a lot more people who tend to be much poorer than even the poor rural Americans.
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I know this is very hard for this forum to consider at times, but the world is not only the US, and the question about what do with coal, oil, and gas is a global, not a US problem. United States is a somewhat lucky outlier when it comes to energy production. Unfortunately, even in other currently lucky nations, the public sentiment is strongly against nuclear power. In 2013 91.6% of the energy cames from CO2 produci…
Energy != electricity. Easily, 99.9% of all energy used by humans comes from sunlight just looking at farms. Plants store a tiny percentage the ~200+watts per meter of sunlight* average over 24 hours, but if you needed to grow them indoors it would take ridiculous amounts of energy. * You can approximate that from 4 pi R ^2 as surface area of a sphere / pi * r^2 surface area of a circle. So ~25% of 1050 W/m2 of direc…
If we are concerned about reducing CO2 emissions, energy usage is the important metric, not electricity.
However, this distinction doesn't matter much here, because, as I said:
> The exact percentage, whether it's 91.5% or under 60% doesn't even matter though, what matters is that fossil fuel burning is increasing in absolute terms[1].
Also, we burn fossil fuels to heat up houses. If we want to burn less fossil fuels for that, we need to generate more electricity, but we need to do it without fossil fuels. The only available ecological technology that exists today and has enough capacity is nuclear, and nuclear production is decreasing.
We burn a lot of fossil fuels. A big part for electricity, some other part to do other things (X). A big part (not all) of X can be done electrically too, but then we need a way to generate that extra electricity without fossil fuels.
> [something about plants and fish]
True, but I don't understand the relevance.
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> I think that it's a bad thing that "multi-national corporation" has become synonymous with "bad agent" or even "evil." Until the aims of multinational corporations are aligned with the aims of society at large, they will continue to be considered untrustworthy.
In a capitalist society they are.
I don't know if you consider the existing society capitalist or not, but I can't give serious consideration to the idea that corporations even vaguely represent the aims of society. Yes, you can claim that people have aims, not societies, but people constitute societies, and the aims of 99.9% of people are not aligned with the aims of the corporations.
Exxon is probably pushing this because it will help their business. The #1 "victim" of a carbon tax is coal, which accounts for about 30% of our energy production. A carbon tax will redistribute this production to other sources, mainly natural gas (which emits 42% less carbon). Exxon does a lot of natural gas extraction, and virtually nothing with coal. Exxon is also working on carbon sequestration technology. Which…
I'm fine with Exxon benefitting from a carbon tax. They have the political clout to push a bill like this through Congress, and it benefits the country as a whole to have carbon legislation in place. Seems like a win-win to me.
I have deeply negative feelings about Exxon for misleading the public on the dangers of fossil fuel combustion while having ample knowledge of that danger (they've known for 40 years). However, I'm a pragmatist; it's more important that we take steps which will move us off carbon-generating energy sources than it is to render punishment. If Exxon happens to benefit, fine. I'd be more pleased if their executives were convicted on criminal charges and the tax was implemented due to the overwhelming will of American voters, but this is fine too.
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Energy != electricity. Easily, 99.9% of all energy used by humans comes from sunlight just looking at farms. Plants store a tiny percentage the ~200+watts per meter of sunlight* average over 24 hours, but if you needed to grow them indoors it would take ridiculous amounts of energy. * You can approximate that from 4 pi R ^2 as surface area of a sphere / pi * r^2 surface area of a circle. So ~25% of 1050 W/m2 of direc…
> Energy != electricity. If we are concerned about reducing CO2 emissions, energy usage is the important metric, not electricity. However, this distinction doesn't matter much here, because, as I said: > The exact percentage, whether it's 91.5% or under 60% doesn't even matter though, what matters is that fossil fuel burning is increasing in absolute terms[1]. Also, we burn fossil fuels to heat up houses. If we want…
Just re-stating the problem. People use fossil fuels to heat homes, but we don't generally consider passive heat gain.
China has a lot of fossil fuel use if you look at fossil fuels, but they are also a world leader in solar hot water heaters. They don't show up on most statistics, but people still enjoy the hot water. Further they cost less than 1/10th of what similar systems cost in the US and could dramatically reduce the need for home heating.
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If a corporation, especially a multi-national, benefits from a tax, I would question the benefit to society from that tax. Not to say that society would not benefit, but it does make me wonder.
That's pretty lazy reasoning. Tech companies spend a lot of time promoting STEM education. They benefit from the government teaching people those skills on the public dime. So do you reflexively question the benefit society gets from STEM education?
Um, no. I believe there's a fallacy in there somewhere but I'm not up to speed on them.
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If a corporation, especially a multi-national, benefits from a tax, I would question the benefit to society from that tax. Not to say that society would not benefit, but it does make me wonder.
Corporations are infinitely selfish and completely merciless, not evil. They're as likely to do good for good's sake as they are to do evil for evil's sake.
I feel like a lot of the people who push carbon taxes have little to no empathy for those who live in rural communities.
Can you explain why you feel that way? How would a carbon tax impact rural communities specifically?
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Have any of your car guy friends driven a Tesla? They're some of the worst-handling cars on the market today. Quick 0-60 times land them in lots of headlines, but the second you have to turn the car, it's really frustrating. My car friends fall into two camps: those who have never driven a Tesla, and those who have. The former group is optimistic and looks upon Tesla products with naked desire; the latter group has a…
I haven't found a Tesla to have bad handling. I'm not a handling expert, but during a test drive, it met my needs for handling. I'd buy a Tesla for the zero emissions and driver assistance features. The handling as-is is sufficient for me. (I don't recall any of the major automotive publications mentioning bad handling in their reviews. Do you have links to the C&D, R&T or Motor Trend reviews that mention this issue?…
Since the Tesla is a car that competes with luxury cars rather than sports cars, it falls into neither of these categories. A reviewer calling it out for poor handling will thus generate a ton of ill-will and angry comments sections from the 'who-cares' crowd, so they don't bother with it.
Here's an example of what passes for an excoriation from mainstream auto media:
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/tesla/model-s/ride
The phrasing here, combined with a lead-photo of abysmal body roll, indicates to car people that this thing handles like a boat. I've verified this myself behind the wheel.
I understand and agree that this car handles just fine for the mass majority of people, but "meets needs" is kind of a shitty bar to set for a car priced to compete with the BMW M4.
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> I think that it's a bad thing that "multi-national corporation" has become synonymous with "bad agent" or even "evil." Until the aims of multinational corporations are aligned with the aims of society at large, they will continue to be considered untrustworthy.
Society doesn't have aims, people do. Your unstated assumption that you views represent everyone else's is incorrect, and I am sure that my aims are very different from yours.