Why do conservatives hate Obama so?

[moda0306]

Moda,

I donate to the nature conservancy and am all for doing what is possible to reduce pollution within reasonable constraints BUTwithout fucking up other areas.  If  you increase regulation and "help the environment" while hurting the economy, putting more people out of work, you are doing net harm, unless the environment is more important then people (which is true of many environmentalists, but not I think you). 

Unintended harm AKA "unexpected consequences" is the elephant in the room in many progressive "remedies", and for some the harm is intended since it helps transform society in ways they find desireable. 

have you seen the ridiculous fossil fuel consumption of Americans? ... but I'd rather see them downgrade to a Trailblazer if it will take the edge of the problem that global warming could become.

If someone invents a way to get cheap unlimited pollutionless power, which does not effect the earth's temperature, would you be happy?  No one would have to downgrade.  Not for you, but as I said, I think for many causing the downgrade is the real goal, and anything else the means to accomplist that goal.    I started to say i agree with you about american's  ridiculous fossil fuel consumption, but then I realized that who cares.  If you're going to wish people were different I can think of a lot of other changes e.g. being more caring to other people, I would wish over using less energy.  WHy does it bother you that people use lots of energy?

Unintended consequences is a problem.  IMO, the potential for unknown/unpleasant consequences is FAR more extreme by allowing continued growth of burning fossil fuels rather than some carbon taxes.

We don't have to "put people out of work" by raising energy costs.  Our lack of employment at this time isn't an energy problem... it's an aggregate demand problem.  All sorts of evidence supports this, from lack of inflation, to low private-interest-rates.


I would be absolutely ecstatic if someone invented a way to get cheap, unlimited, pollution-less power.  I don't think it is wrong but for the hedonistic nature of the gains, and the catastrophic potential of the losses of the CURRENT trend of our consumption of energy on burning fossil fuels.  If someone invented cold fusion, burn all the "water" you want!

This probably would be the single most awesome thing I could have laid witness to since my short time in human civilization next to the Internet.  In fact I get a little bit embarrassingly giddy just thinking about the possibilities.

I know I cant change anyone's mind.  When I debate in arenas like this, it is in an interesting debate of government action, not actually trying to change an individual's mind (other than maybe budging a few folks on the forum... just for fun), much less enough of them to make a difference.  I know I can't control others that well.  But government can modify incentives.  And that DOES change people's minds about how to behave.

[Pointedstick]

All that tech is awesome IMO.  Imagine how much more common it would be, and therefore advanced it would be, if we had more motivation to use it.  It's all about incentives.

The point is, moda, that people have more of an incentive to use that tech today compared to a decade or two ago when it was less than half as efficient or worse. And they'll have even more of an incentive in the near future when they'll be able to buy SEER 40 AC units, heat pumps with average COP of 4.5, electric cars with 400 mile ranges and 10 minute charge times, and when they can power all of these gizmos with site-produced electricity from our $0.50/watt-installed-cost PV arrays.

I totally agree with you on the subject of incentives, but I believe the marketplace is currently showing us how it's done: make the price low and the functionality good, and people will buy it. If you argue that the government had a hand in any of this, I'll simply respond that that proves that the carrot method works better than the stick.

[moda0306]

PS,

Anything the government does to loan money to companies that pushes down the risk of them pursuing technology, or to tax/regulate companies to push up the price of gas/coal/etc (or made it more clean), has helped push new technology... as it always does.  As Desert said... bureaucrats and engineers.

I'm not giving "credit" to the government, other than it helps set the rules of the game such that there is not a race to the bottom.  It would be like giving credit to the "NHL rulemakers" rather than the hockey players themselves for such an exciting game (I love watching hockey) to give government credit.  And I think that's how a lot of conservatives and libertarians see all liberals.  A lot of liberals actually think the private sector kicks ass... it's just got to be given the right rules to follow for the game to work. 

Thus, simply allowing externalities to go UN-measured is never going to push this technology, unless people are really, truly acting out of the kindness of their own hearts by buying things more efficiently when fossil fuels are super cheap and clearly the better alternative from a personal budget standpoint.... Well some people do... They're called liberals  .


(kidding on that last part.  I know plenty of all political stripes that are all over the map on how they REALLY contribute to conservation)

[moda0306]

All that tech is awesome IMO.  Imagine how much more common it would be, and therefore advanced it would be, if we had more motivation to use it.  It's all about incentives.

The point is, moda, that people have more of an incentive to use that tech today compared to a decade or two ago when it was less than half as efficient or worse. And they'll have even more of an incentive in the near future when they'll be able to buy SEER 40 AC units, heat pumps with average COP of 4.5, electric cars with 400 mile ranges and 10 minute charge times, and when they can power all of these gizmos with site-produced electricity from our $0.50/watt-installed-cost PV arrays.

I totally agree with you on the subject of incentives, but I believe the marketplace is currently showing us how it's done: make the price low and the functionality good, and people will buy it. If you argue that the government had a hand in any of this, I'll simply respond that that proves that the carrot method works better than the stick.

A government had a hand in the current low price of solar, but it wasn't ours ... it was the PRC.  They drove the solar manufacturing boom in China, dramatically reducing the cost of solar panels.  U.S. panel production equipment manufacturers helped, but without the artificial demand thrown at the market by the Chinese, the prices would not have plunged like they have.  I don't have a problem with all this ... I'm getting closer to jumping on the PV bandwagon.  But it's not realistic to think that "the market" drove the reality we have today.

Bureaucrats and engineers, baby!!!  A match made in hell to give us heaven on earth...

[Pointedstick]

A government had a hand in the current low price of solar, but it wasn't ours ... it was the PRC.  They drove the solar manufacturing boom in China, dramatically reducing the cost of solar panels.  U.S. panel production equipment manufacturers helped, but without the artificial demand thrown at the market by the Chinese, the prices would not have plunged like they have.  I don't have a problem with all this ... I'm getting closer to jumping on the PV bandwagon.  But it's not realistic to think that "the market" drove the reality we have today.

Ah but now that my original point on the subject of solar PV has been refuted, don't you see how that supports my secondary point? The government of China proved how it could do a better job encouraging uptake of that technology by subsidizing innovation (carrot) rather than taxing the consequences of doing something else (stick). If the U.S. government absolutely has to get involved in matters such as these, I would much prefer the same approach of subsidizing innovation rather than taxing the status quo.

[moda0306]

Well "carrot" economics usually works better politically and psychologically than "stick" economics.  Perhaps my behavioral economist side needs a bit more work.  It definitely is the most "expansionary" way to do things.

Government backed loans for entrepreneurs vs high taxes on people's utility bills? 

Yeah methinks you are right!


Careful though, PS... you're coming dangerously close to advocating that the government subsidize green energy!

[moda0306]

A government had a hand in the current low price of solar, but it wasn't ours ... it was the PRC.  They drove the solar manufacturing boom in China, dramatically reducing the cost of solar panels.  U.S. panel production equipment manufacturers helped, but without the artificial demand thrown at the market by the Chinese, the prices would not have plunged like they have.  I don't have a problem with all this ... I'm getting closer to jumping on the PV bandwagon.  But it's not realistic to think that "the market" drove the reality we have today.

Ah but now that my original point on the subject of solar PV has been refuted, don't you see how that supports my secondary point? The government of China proved how it could do a better job encouraging uptake of that technology by subsidizing innovation (carrot) rather than taxing the consequences of doing something else (stick). If the U.S. government absolutely has to get involved in matters such as these, I would much prefer the same approach of subsidizing innovation rather than taxing the status quo.

PS, I totally agree.  And it pains me to think that the PRC's government is more efficient that ours! 

As an aside (maybe), I'm a carrot, not a stick guy.  Sticks don't motivate. 

The reason I am kind of a stick guy is because it more accurately addresses the problem (in theory).

A tax, theoretically, is almost the perfect response to an externality.  Let the market adjust around it.  Rather than have the government picking which companies or energy forms get to win the game, just make sure fossil fuels get beat up enough for entrepreneurs to come in and develop technology for alternatives.

However, it doesn't work well in reality, especially during a recession, where expansionary policies are what we need.


Further, though, if these sorts of expansionary "experiments" of government activism can work (and have worked, IMO), perhaps we shouldn't be so damn scared of government either 1) enacting in some counter-cyclical infrastructure projects, and 2) pushing forward new emerging technologies that demand some truly asinine investment and risk-taking for private institutions.

Just maybe .

[moda0306]

Bureaucrats, engineers, land-barons, and care-takers.


I expanded the balance.  We've got plenty of all of them in the States

[Benko]

If you want to get gov't to help along green energy you do what Jerry Pournelle suggested for space flight i.e. award prizes.  For space it might be:

to the company that keeps a man on the moon safe for 1 year and 1 day and safely returns them to earth they get (insert large amount of money).  Zero until that is completed.  Reward results.

Vs Solyandra.    Real world results as opposed to good intentions.  This goes against certain tendencies, but I gather this actually did happen at least once in the history of spaceflight. 

[Pointedstick]

Careful though, PS... you're coming dangerously close to advocating that the government subsidize green energy!

It wound be horrible if PS jumped on the government-subsidization train at the very moment I jumped onto the anarchist train.  Damn the luck. 

I am only a theoretical anarchist. In matters involving reality, I tend to be a brutal, ruthless pragmatist. So, for example, while I do not support government involvement in energy, if we have to have it, I prefer carrots to sticks. Because, as moda even admitted, sticks don't actually work. Even the ideal situation is that the market "adjusts around" it, necessitating a bigger stick to attempt to accomplish the original goal, until eventually one of those sticks is big enough to destroy the thing it hits. Oops.

Carrots, man. Carrots.

[img width=500]http://www.peppersofkeywest.com/v/vspfi ... _sauce.jpg[/img]

Don't those just look delicious? Don't you think you'd prefer them to this:

[img width=500]http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Gua ... -t-006.jpg[/img]

[Benko]

2.  There was concensus that e.g. the sun and all the planets revolved around the earth, etc. 

3. There is no settled science on anything, ever.  That is how science works.  One can always discover something tomorrow which invalides all you think you know about something.  read/re-read Black Swan.

I agree.  How is this relevant?  Are you saying we should not bother to understand anything because today's discoveries will be disproven eventually anyway?

Of course I'm not saying we should not bother to understand anything.  Better understanding of climate is what is needed i.e. more research.  But saying "the science is settled" or there is consensus as justification for following a certain course is silly.  On the other hand, if you have a model of climate and you can say, yes I can input the conditions of the earth in e.g. 1800 or 1200 and the model correctly gives me the climate conditions of the earth today, then you have a model which actually works and can be used.  But we are not there.  The nature of models i.e. representations of any system is that people set them up to try to represent/understand certain systems and then start treating the model as reality (believing theory over reality is a recurring theme, but that is another discussion).  And if it does not give the expected result to fudge/brute force the model to give the expected result.  Historically it has been both warmer and colder than it is now and we don't understand why:

"none of the climate models that predict the climate for a hundred years from now have any explanation of the Viking Warm or the 1400—1800 Little Ice Age. Indeed they don’t really account for the period in which annual average temperature fell after 1960 to after 1980."

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmano ... -and-iraq/



"Is the peer review system perfect?  No.  Of course not.  But it is the best system we have for sorting through technical arguments"

True but it still generates New England Journal of Medicine articles 2/3 of which are shit.  Perhaps the articles in climate science are better. 

"Nor do I understand the mindset that hates Obama because there is federally-funded climate science research."

I'm not even sure what this refers to, nor do I let anything climate related change my opinion of him. 

[Benko]

I'm not saying the science is settled. But, despite what some media outlets might tell you, there is consensus among people who have researched the issue that increasing atmospheric CO2 has led to warming. Yes, that consensus was arrived at by biased humans, just like every single consensus about the natural world in the history of man. Might that consensus change, or be refined, over time? Most certainly. It is the way of things.

However, I don't understand your objection to using such a consensus among informed people to justify a course of action (bolded above). Why is this silly? This happens every day in all walks of life. Are you saying you want decisions to be made without investigating an issue? Seat of the pants for everything? Or are you saying you want 100% agreement from everyone for all decisions?

I just can't shake the feeling that a large majority of people who claim that "the science isn't settled" instead disagree with the remedies, but, for some reason, don't want to own up to this. I could be wrong, of course.

i agree with you point about the nature of science and how it is always open to new data and refinement. My objection is definitely with the remedies/course of action, my trust of the people and the consensus is deeply shaken by the fudging that has been done, but even more so by the fact that the remedies are identical to the remedies proposed for global cooling in the 70's... the goal (the course of action/remedies) existed before the problem... i don't understand how anyone can be aware of this and not be profoundly skeptical and take an "i am not sure" position on man made warming..

TennPA,

1.  simon is very articulate and makes many of the points I would.

How could I possibly believe that e.g. the pipeline is a good idea?  All the liberals swear it is not.  (I need a better example, but point being uniformity of belief of baised people does not equal reality)

2.  "there is  consensus among people who have researched the issue that increasing atmospheric CO2 has led to warming"
No there is not.  You need to broaden your reading to include people without the progressive agenda.  And I've provided a link with a coupla basic questions that no one can answer.

3.  Obviously one is limited to science available and has to make decisions based on what one knows NOW. But the degree of proof required to treat a wart or a hangnail is one thing.  It is quite another to propose drastic measures which will harm the economy, which cannot work because most of the planet will not go along anyway, and which may very well make things worse if we are really entering a cooling phase (which is equally possible according to many). 

Unless you can damn well explain the "pause" of the last many years in "warming" and you have 5 papers proving what is going on to explain this, you're asking for trouble.

4.  And yes, there is the long track record of backing things which work better in theory than reality.

[moda0306]

Benko,

Of course it won't work if the rest of the world doesn't go along. That's why wacky liberals are promoting an international treaty-like solution. And since we burn fossil fuels like it's our job, we aren't really in a position to point fingers around the world.

If there is NO consensus then make that your argument, rather than trying to poke holes in consensus science. I have seen that the VAST majority I climate scientists believe in man-caused global warming. What other perspective should we have?  Listen to some random guy's argument and dissect his work like we know ANYTHING about how to sift through it as non-scientists?  If there is no consensus, please tell me where you're getting your numbers. If there is a consensus, but it is a bad one, please tell me why we should believe the 2% of climate scientists that don't believe in global warming.

There is no "pause."  1998 and 2005 were exceptionally hot years. That is all. The trend still exists. This has been easily refuted dozens of times but conservative zombie arguments still stumble along looking for more brains to consume.

[Benko]

Moda,

There are basic rules for showing any model of anything works e.g. you input starting conditions e.g. temp at any time in history and the model tells you what temp is now.  There is no model that does that.  It is that simple.  It has been warmer than now and colder than now during remote periods in history and no one and no model can explain this.  None of the models has been validated is a way of saying this. 

If you google climate change skeptic you'll find credentialed people who disagree with their arguments. 

And sorry but it has not gotten warmer in last 20 years..  That is a fact.

[Pointedstick]

I don't understand why on the subject of climate change conservatives focus on the weak argument that it's not happening, rather than the strong arguments that:

1) even the scientists who believe it's happening don't think there is anything we can do to roll it back at this point
2) all of the proposed solutions are politically impossible in the USA
3) all of the proposed solutions that could be implemented in the USA are politically impossible abroad, rendering them pointless due to globalization
4) all of the proposed solutions hurt poor people the most

[moda0306]

Ok so we can forget for a second as to whether GW is man-made.  We've got a debate as to whether it is warming at all... I'll take this debate...

[moda0306]

Why don't we fire up this global warming debate from the start. 

I hate to have to do this but conservatives bounce around so much with global warming that it is hard to see what their arguments actually consist of... So I'm gonna do what I did to Kshartle and ask you guys to break this whole thing down into the following pieces

Is the Earth warming?


If so, what are the potential affects of that warming?  Melting ice caps?  Strange weather patterns?  Methane released into the air?


If there are some potentially catastrophic effects to GW, is it caused heavily by human activity?


If so, is there anything that governments/people of the world can do about it?


And the last one.... If there ISN'T evidence of all these things, how on earth did 97% of climate scientists get it all wrong?  Corruption?  Stupidity?

If we are going to start with "there is no global warming," then 1) state that as your argument, and 2) ADMIT YOU ARE WRONG if proven wrong. And we will move on to the next thing that your political beliefs and lifestyle preferences are probably affecting your objectivity on.



Here is my my evidence, albeit limited, that the earth is warming:

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/why- ... cade-15788


So basically I put forth that there is a 97% consensus based on evidence presented in these pages that the earth is warming (and that it's man-made, but we can get to that later).

Further, the reason it hasn't warmed much in the last 10 years has a theory behind it. Perhaps you think it is garbage science that the ocean is absorbing a lot of the heat, but even if it's a flawed theory, it's simply a slow-down in the general warming trend.

personally i am very firmly in the i don't know camp.
is there warming? is it man made? is there a consensus? if there is warming, will the effects be the disaster they are claimed to be? "i don't know" is my answer to all of those questions... and given the whole, The (political) solution came before the problem aspect of the thing, i am not sure i ever will..

the way i see it there is just to much money, politics, influence and corruption, to have any kind of certainty.
i tend to have faith in hard science's ability to take measurements and would normally believe we were/are warming if they said so... but under the circumstances even those are put into doubt.

i am surprised that so many people are so firm in their "yes there is warming" or the "no there is not warming" beliefs, when there is so much evidence to support being undecided and skeptical..

[Benko]

A.  Let me ask some questions on a more basic level:

Are you saying:

1.  There is  a validated model which predicts climate?  or

2.  Look here, the graph keeps going up, so it will keep going up in the future? (not saying there is not a period where warming has ceased, just trying to understand at a very basic level what is being said).


1 above wOuld be science if such a model existed.  But there is no validated model i.e. there is no model that exists that you can start with conditions of 1900 and have the model ACCURATELY predict temp of today.

So any predictions are just theory WITHOUT validation.  Theories may be likely or unlikely.  But it is not proven fact.

 
. 

[Mountaineer]

the global warming cure reminds me of a snake oil pitch. The cure comes first, the sales pitch is, that it will fix any problem...

step right up step right up
global cooling ? war? crime? income inequality? poverty? excessive prosperity?
we have your cure..
why its the most amazing, mystifying, absolutely economically petrifying, one fix cures all solution to every global problem..
with just the smallest sip you will reduce liberty, prosperity and economic mobility. with the utmost of agility..
get some today..
producer punishing, crony rewarding, (side effects may include some rioting and hoarding)...
representative government getting you down? have no fear... global governance is here...
you think this cure failed in Russia and for kim jong.. well i will have you know, they just took it wrong!..
the most unbelievable, inconceivable, cure in the world and it now fixes global warming as well...

You definitely have a "calling" and a talent to meet that call.  After you finish up with the snake oil sales pitch, perhaps you can compose and publish the glowing comments that are on the back of wine bottles. 

... Mountaineer

[Mountaineer]

Why don't we fire up this global warming debate from the start. 

I hate to have to do this but conservatives bounce around so much with global warming that it is hard to see what their arguments actually consist of... So I'm gonna do what I did to Kshartle and ask you guys to break this whole thing down into the following pieces

Is the Earth warming?  TIME FRAME PLEASE


If so, what are the potential affects of that warming?  Melting ice caps?  Strange weather patterns?  Methane released into the air?  DO YOU MEAN THAT ARE DIFFERENT THAN PREVIOUS WARMING PERIODS?


If there are some potentially catastrophic effects to GW, is it caused heavily by human activity?  ANY HUMAN ACTIVITY?  ALL HUMAN ACTIVITY?  WHAT IS YOUR SPECIFIC QUESTION?


If so, is there anything that governments/people of the world can do about it?  WHY DON'T YOU PHRASE QUESTIONS SO THAT A RISK/BENEFIT ANALYSIS ANSWER IS MORE LIKELY ALONG WITH A DISCUSSION OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES FOR THE VARIOUS ANALYSES?


And the last one.... If there ISN'T evidence of all these things, how on earth did 97% of climate scientists get it all wrong?  Corruption?  Stupidity?  GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT?  I ONCE READ A REPORT THAT SAID IF WE WISHED TO DO AN ACCCURATE 1 DAY WEATHER FORECAST WE WOULD NEED TO HAVE SENSORS IN EVERY CUBIC FOOT OF ATMOSPHERE ON THE ENTIRE EARTH.  NOW, A FIFTY OR HUNDRED YEAR FORECAST, I DON'T EVEN THINK YOU COULD BUILD A BIG ENOUGH COMPUTER TO PROCESS THE DATA (MY OPINION).

If we are going to start with "there is no global warming," then 1) state that as your argument, and 2) ADMIT YOU ARE WRONG if proven wrong. And we will move on to the next thing that your political beliefs and lifestyle preferences are probably affecting your objectivity on.



Here is my my evidence, albeit limited, that the earth is warming:

http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/why- ... cade-15788


So basically I put forth that there is a 97% consensus based on evidence presented in these pages that the earth is warming (and that it's man-made, but we can get to that later).

Further, the reason it hasn't warmed much in the last 10 years has a theory behind it. Perhaps you think it is garbage science that the ocean is absorbing a lot of the heat, but even if it's a flawed theory, it's simply a slow-down in the general warming trend.

... Mountaineer

[doodle]

I admire your spirit Moda. However facts don't matter to humans. No amount of data is going to get these people here to reassess their feelings on this issue. As for me....I'm not 100 percent sure that global warming exists, but I understand risk mitigation in investment and I think it wise to apply this strategy to other areas of life as well. That is what is so frustrating to me. We shouldn't have to prove global warming exists to make the argument that investment in cleaner forms of energy is the best way to go.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas ... _backfire/

Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters — the people making decisions about how the country runs — aren’t blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.

“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,”? says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire”? — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.”?

[Benko]

How about the simple question:

Why should anyone believe any remedies proposed have less disasterous "unintended consequences" than every other remedy proposed by the same people?

[doodle]

The university of michigan study highlights to me the importance of maintaining doubt throughout your entire life. I think a lot of times people take strong stances regarding issues and back themselves into a corner. This makes it very difficult to look objectively at new information and reassess ones position. I think it is better to stay open regarding these issues and say that "my position is based upon the information that I have been exposed to at this time, but I am not attached to this position and I'm completely open to change".

[Benko]

How about the simple question:

Why should anyone believe any remedies proposed have less disasterous "unintended consequences" than every other remedy proposed by the same people?

Once again, making my point.

Analogy ain't proof.  I addressed your questions in prior posts.

[moda0306]

Benko,

Thanks for proving my point that conservatives love to bounce around on the topic of global warming.

Why should we trust a market of polluters that aren't willing to face the wrongs that they may be doing?

Why trust anything?


Unless you're an anarchist, you trust some role to government and advocate forcing others at the point of a gun.

The most universally agreed-upon roles of government is to defend against force (murder, theft, assault, fraud, etc).  Pollution is theft. I'm not exactly asking governments to take on the role of forcing your children to get gay-married to a Muslim, here.