1. Via Chug, what does Kindle bandwidth cost?
2. Did John Taylor forget about compound interest?
3. Survey article on the economic effects of climate change.
4. Double suicide.
5. Rewards for weight loss don't work; would penalties for failure do better?
Most important among the missing impacts are the indirect effects of climate change on economic development; large-scale biodiversity loss; low-probability, high-impact scenarios; the impact of climate change on violent conflict;
What about the possible indirect impacts of climate-change policy measures? Supporters talk blithely about a 2 or 3% impact as if there would be no important changes other than a negligible, across-the-board loss of income. But at the same time they talk about enacting measures to reconfigure living patterns away from suburbs and private automobiles and toward density and mass-transit. And there is a belief that, in order to prevent industries from moving to the low-cost carbon countries, there would need to be a system of carbon tariffs. Are there no low-probability, high-impact negative scenarios inherent in these measures? A wholesale move away from single-family housing leading to a decades long housing slump (along with, obviously, continued contractions in the auto industry)? Or carbon tariffs leading to beggar-thy-neighbor trade wars leading to real wars (that one’s not even that much of a long shot–it’s happened before within living memory). Are these sorts of high-impact scenarios being factored into the equation?
As someone involved in WhisperNet, I can tell you that the Kindle bandwidth doesn’t cost the provider anything, unless a spike of Kindle downloads happens to occur consistently at the busy period of a sector/cell site/switching center. Beware anyone who tells you the cost of anything in $/MB, as it is bound to be misleading.
I dont think Taylor forgot about compound interest. His point was that to return to a 40% debt to GDP ratio, we would have to have 10% inflation for 10 years. This would, of course more than double GDP in nominal terms, but dont forget that the debt is growing too, so I interpreted this 10% x 10 as being what was necessaruy to more than double GDP even as debt increased by 50%.
John Dewey wrote: “Humans across the globe are not going to accept the curtailment of economic growth the greenies are trying to force on us.”
Sorry, but we greenies are trying to force anything on you, but merely trying to move you in an orderly fashion to a rational world that is sustainable.
If you think people like me are causing the problems, I welcome you to stop by here in NH and see if you can find the oil I’m stealing from the US oil fields to force you to depend on ever more oil imports which seem to require ever more wars to protect, but even at that are headed back to $100 a barrel. Or the water that Westerners have come to think is their divine right.
I’m 60, my parents lived to about 80, so for me climate change impact has about the same cost as peak oil will cost. Unless you are near my age or older, you will be suffering the costs I’ve contributed to that will fall on the people a generation younger than I. I wanted to see Jimmy Carter’s energy security plans be carried out because I believe I would have benefited even more that I did from the JFK/LBJ policies that provided the foundation for nearly all my computer career. But in a democracy, consuming capital instead of creating capital was the Reaganomic we can have it all policy that won.
When Carter left office, Alaska oil was soon to flow to help fuel investment in sustainable capital. Now the high cost of oil will slash GDP growth and no amount of drill baby drill is going to cut the price of oil, and you will still need to suffer the cost of building energy producing capital.
You can blame me if you want for Texas not producing the 25% of oil consumption it once did, but that won’t increase Texas oil production no matter how many holes are drilled. 80% of US territory is in private hands, so if the US can become energy independent by drill baby drill, then without access to Federal lands, the US can become 80% energy independent. Start drilling.
Then come see me and lay down on the ground and pound and kick the ground and scream about how we greenies are denying you the oil you deserve. It should be fun.
Man is approaching the natural limits of the earth we live on. The signs are everywhere if you bother to look. I see them over my lifetime. I’ve seem fantastic changes in my 60 years and remember my dad telling of the changes he was over his 80. But many changes are very disheartening like the collapse of fisheries. I remember Jacques Cousteau talking in the 60s about the vast oceans feeding the populations of the world. Those oceans were just too small for four billion people, but now we’re well on the way to seven billion.
We greenies are going to force any curtailment on you, but nature sure will. We are trying to convince you to open your eyes and see the oncoming train of nature’s limits, so you can step off the tracks.
mulp,
We’re just about the same age, so I’ve lived through all the same government interventions you have. My view of those same policies is certainly different than yours.
I’ve been environmentally conscious since the 60′s. But I do not buy into either catastrophic global warming or the doomsday scenarios projected by peak oil alarmists. I’m not arguing that the globe hasn’t warmed or that it will not continue the gradual warming of the past century. I’m not arguing that oil will remain cheap. But, like Reagan did, I have total faith in man’s ability to adapt while continuing economic growth.
You personally may not be forcing your alarmist policies on me. But the unfounded fears promoted by greenies and the media are certainly having that effect. 15% of my gasoline taxes and 1% of my sales taxes currently subsidize toy trains which accomplish nothing. The cost of my personal vehicle will certainly rise due to ridiculous CAFE fuel standards. My standard of living will certainly drop if you alarmists are successful in passing a cap and trade bill.
Greenies are not evil. Just incredibly naive, as they continue to be fooled by charlatans such as Al Gore.
Um, Mulp, they are still responding to incentives. It’s just that the incentives of a salivating mouth & a full belly are stronger than the other incentives. The incentives involved are acting whether you happen to catalog them or not.
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