Discussion: airplane travel and ecological conscience

Motor gasoline isn't really taxed in the United States.

I guess the 38.7 cents a gallon I just payed this afternoon is imaginary. Granted it's way less than what they tax elsewhere, but it's still real.

I drive a lot - about 25,000 miles a year. I'm not sure there's a way around that if you're serious about training and racing and live in the midwest (where travel to training and most meets can only be reasonably accomplished by car). Carpooling helps, but would really help would be an affordable electric car. Still waiting on that one.

# Posted 2007-02-01 06:52:23

jjcote:

I drive even more, just shy of 40000 miles for the most recent fiscal year, and 1145 gallons (for a one-person household). Most of it is commuting, because I live so far from where I work, in part because real estate is so expensive near where I work, and in part because I prefer living in a rural area. It's too far to bicycle, and the train takes too long (because it's an indirect route). More telecommuting would help, and my client is also talking about moving the office closer to where I live. But I certainly don't have a small footprint.

# Posted 2007-02-01 07:01:45
ebuckley:	Goes to show what some in the green movement are finally coming around to: big cities are good for the environment. Less land used, less energy used, less waste produced. Living out in the sticks may feel AOWN, but it generally does a lot more damage to the environment.

# Posted 2007-02-01 07:30:28

It is true that North Americans do not pay the true cost of gasoline if one includes the externalities and the fact that most of the industry in subsidized throughout it's extraction/production/distribution cycles. And, in regards to cities, any group of people living outside their lands capabilities to support the population (ecological footprint) would be considered not sustainable. But the reverse is somewhat the problem ebuckley commented on - those that have the land but put large fences around it to exclude its usage from others (our right we argue). Can't think of too many other species that purposefully do such actions.

Also, to go further on the city debate. The perceived impacts we have on cities is deemed lesser than in pristine environments due to the fact the cities are already impacted environments. A parallel is the camping hierarchy; camp in the designated impacted areas set aside for camping; then completely virgin areas; then lastly the semi-impacted areas. The latter two are based on that we'll leave the virgin areas virgin when we depart and that we'll eventually turn that semi-impacted area in to a fully impacted area.

# Posted 2007-02-01 08:18:19

I'm not sure if it's still true, but I recall in the mid-80's (when the US population was around 250 million) that a serious study of the matter concluded that the US could completely eliminate our dependence on foreign energy sources if everybody could be convinced to live in New Jersey except for farmers, who could feed the whole population from just Texas. The rest of the country could just go back to being wild.

Of course, nobody was seriously suggesting this as a course of policy (I mean, really, New Jersey?), but the point is that very large populations can be supported by relatively small areas if the proper infrastructure/technology exists and that the resulting situation is far less impacting and generally more healthy than spreading people out.

# Posted 2007-02-01 12:38:11

bubo:

To show the difference between heavily taxed European gasoline and the prices you pay:

US ~$2.00 per gallon (tax: ~20%, ~40c)
Sweden ~10.00 SEK ($1.44) per litre (tax: ~71%, ~7.09 SEK, ~$1.02)

1 gallon = 3.78 litres, $1.00 = 6,95 SEK
makes the Swedish price $5.44 per gallon (tax: ~$3.86)

Info about the current US gas prices and taxes was taken from here.

Whatever these numbers show I guess we´re still lucky in some way since we don´t have to deal with the driving distances you have to get to an orienteering meet - and usually flying is no alternative either.

# Posted 2007-02-01 12:53:29

The real problem, though, is that reducing one's CO2 a bit is nice, but not really addressing the problem. What's needed is a ten-fold or hundred-fold reduction. I read the results of a UND study that determined that manmade emissions of CO2 were 140 times that of all the land-based volcanos combined. (Other emissions were also compared.)

What is needed to achieve a meaningful impact is a replacement of energy sources. Wind rather than coal, electric cars (using wind or solar power) rather than gasoline or diesel.

As Eric points out, electric cars cost twice what similar gasoline cars do, and it's true that wind costs a third more than coal (plus the cost of dealing with its variability (pumped storage; grid improvements)). But the world economy came through a doubling of petroleum prices with barely a flicker. (And what's the cost of being stuck in Iraq? :P)

It would take 30 years I suspect to fully change over...but how many decades until Middle East peace :-) ? (And since the difference between a mile of ice over North America and none has been 180ppm to 280ppm for every ice age in the last half million years, maybe being at 380ppm, heading for 480ppm before we can come to a stop, concern about ice sheets at not so very different latitudes seems reasonable.) Sorry, evolved into more of a rant than originally intended.

# Posted 2007-02-01 14:21:23
blairtrewin:	As a point of comparison, Australian petrol tax is something like A$0.38/litre (US$1.12/gallon) - well above American levels but well below European. (Average price here in the cities is around A$1.10/litre - US$3.25/gallon).

# Posted 2007-02-01 20:05:25
mindsweeper:	Wow, that's a lot of numbers. I guess what I had in mind when I saw the subject of this post is that - given the relatively low number of orienteerers in the vast country where I live, I end up doing a large amount of flying to attend larger meets. I do feel bad about the environmental impact of this.

# Posted 2007-02-01 23:05:45
Sergey:	Real solution is in trees :) More CO2 - just plant more trees. More trees - more interesting places to orienteer :) I think I already fulfilled my part in tree planting but would add more in coming years. Urbanization destroys trees so all back to rural style of life!

# Posted 2007-02-01 23:13:38
feet:	Ummm... I think that's a kind of simplistic analysis there, Sergey.

# Posted 2007-02-01 23:15:58

jjcote:

No, rural life destroys trees, because you have to chop them down to make room for houses. Urban life preserves trees, because people live in a compact area and leave the forests alone. In my rural yard, I whack trees on a routine basis, the seedlings that sprout from the acorns dropped by my giant oak that start growing in the lawn. (The oak itself undoubtedly does suck up some of the CO2 that I generate, for what that's worth.)

# Posted 2007-02-01 23:45:19

z-man:

I 'love' polar bears, too bad they won't be around in not so distant future.
I like what California does, though It could be too little to late at this point, but who knows I may be wrong.
It looks like until Economic Factors outweight the urgency to change the ways we do/make/use/waste things, most people won't budge.
I do my best to save what's isn't lost yet, I changed all bulbs, bought low emission car (wish it was a hybrid or even better electric one, but I can't afford to pay for failure of those hi-tech parts), threw away old appliances, recycled my old laptop and other e-waste, perhaps will install a solar pannel on the the roof one day and am thinking of getting rid of oil heating equipment as well.
But as I said, the urgency isn't in the air yet, especially when our goverment fools around with sientific reports to hide the truth from "unaware" public.
Perhaps untill something like "Katrina" wipes out Bush's and other "folks" ranches and houses, I don't see things change a lot in the near future, but then again this could be blamed on a terrorist act and that we need more troops in Middle East because of that.

# Posted 2007-02-02 00:38:34

Things change when enough people decide they need changing. It may not be much longer. (I hope.)

By the way, if you're worried about hybrid batteries needing replacement (a $2000-3000 hit), as of a year ago, Toyota claimed that they'd never replaced a single battery, except due to the car being in an accident. So, the batteries seem to be lasting pretty well...the first Priuses were in the late 90s I believe. (I haven't heard whether they have since replaced any.)

# Posted 2007-02-02 01:23:28
z-man:	Well, here some bits on hybrids.

# Posted 2007-02-02 04:25:03
Sergey:	I don't analyze - I do what my father told me: "Build a house, raise a child, plant a tree". The later should be more like "plant trees". Urban areas are tree-less concrete slabs that stole land from forests. Back to rural life and planting lots of trees among houses!

# Posted 2007-02-02 06:03:37

I'm a skeptic when it comes to economics or technology being where the answers will come from. I'll add before continuing that I'm an environmental engineer who is involved in the residential geothermal field (10 years of contaminated sites work prior to that) - so I've heard the science. Or more to the matter, I've heard that the best minds can't even forecast a sustainable society for us (western standards). I've seen that any energy source (green or otherwise) is used to increase our extraction rates (consumption) elsewhere. Diminishing returns or increased pricing (as per the market system) do not work either - we just find a way to extract in such a manner that prices are affordable until the item is just gone (Atlantic Cod Fishery is an example).

Social systems are hopefully what will save us, and I wish I knew what this would be. Societal peer pressure? Political leadership? International organizations being able to operate their mandate?

I definitely hope to be proven wrong.

And to add, a mature forest is a carbon-neutral system.

I feel like a grump now...but I guess I'm just trying to clear some of the "smoke" on the issues.

# Posted 2007-02-02 06:05:14

Do the math, Sergey. If everybody tried to live in a rural area, there would be no rural areas. The only hope is to cram as many people as practicable into a small space and leave some of what's left over to nature.

As to the solar/coal economics, I've very close (but not quite there yet) to being willing to bite the bullet on that. I could get my house off the grid (which is mostly coal powered) if I was willing to accept a 70-80% increase in electric costs. An affordable electric car would push me over the edge.

Hybrids are NOT the answer. They get their electricity from burning gasoline - no net gain there. I had a 1988 Geo Metro that got 65 miles to the gallon. 20 years and $10,000 of hybrid technology later I'm supposed to be impressed with 50?

# Posted 2007-02-02 07:34:46
mindsweeper:	I agree, but primarily for this reason. Hybrid technology could theoretically give European cars even better gas mileage too. Since some of you seem to like numbers, here's another interesting page.

# Posted 2007-02-02 08:00:40

blairtrewin:

From the figures I've seen, the main effect of hybrids is that they cut fuel consumption levels in the city to roughly those achieved on the open road. This means that if you do most or all of your driving on the open road, a hybrid will have similar fuel consumption to a similarly-sized conventional vechicle - it's in city driving that they really come into their own.

I don't use my car much during the week (most of my commuting is by either bicycle or train) - most of its mileage comes from going to events at weekends. I average about 18,000 km/year, but in the summer (when there are few or no events outside Melbourne) I'm often in the 500-1000km/month range.

# Posted 2007-02-02 11:47:49
JimBaker:	A pricing system that worked...emissions trading schemes in the US, which reduced air pollution dramatically. Of course, legislative solutions work too...banning DDT that is credited for returning eagles throughout the lower 48, after being largely gone in my youth.

# Posted 2007-02-02 17:50:01

feet:

urthbuoy said:
Diminishing returns or increased pricing (as per the market system) do not work either - we just find a way to extract in such a manner that prices are affordable until the item is just gone (Atlantic Cod Fishery is an example).
1. It is of course false that correctly set taxes (or permits, though taxes are probably preferred here) can't solve the problem (tax gas at $200/gallon and emissions will fall). The question of whether the appropriate level of taxes are politically implementable is another question.
2. It's not axiomatic that even if the planet does get 'trashed', a la cod fisheries, that this isn't the right thing to do. Whether it is or not is a function of people's preferences and the costs of emissions abatement.

For example, it seems like the biggest worry for some people is whether they can ski. That has a value to them. The question is whether that value is enough, in economic terms, to justify emissions reductions.

(Similarly, it's also not obvious that banning DDT was justified to save the golden eagle, unless enough people cared either about the golden eagle per se, or about other things the golden eagle helped with, or about other things DDT did to the ecosystem. DDT had a lot of positives too - tropical insect-borne diseases are pretty much eradicated from the US South - and you could argue that the death of all the golden eagles would have been a small price to pay for that.)

In other words, the argument at its most basic is between two different worldviews - one, that sustainability is a good and even necessary thing in its own right, and the more economic view that sustainability represents a reduction of consumption today in exchange for better living conditions for far future generations.

Under the first, it's obvious that we need to cut emissions.

Under the second, it is a quantitative argument, for which the current favorite answer, that in the Stern report, recommends a tax at the levels I mentioned above.

Many economists find the Stern report geared to produce alarmist numbers, in that he uses a discount rate of 0.1% per year (roughly, a unit of consumption in the year 2300 is still worth 75% of what one now is worth; more precisely this is in utility terms rather than consumption, but it's approximately right). You can make the answer come out completely differently by assuming something closer to the more usual 2-3% rates shorter-term studies use (with 2%, a unit of consumption in 2300 is worth only 0.2%, rather than 75%, of what it is worth today; with 3%, the corresponding figure is 0.01%).

That is, in this framework, the key question is 'how much of a cost are we prepared to put up with in order to increase the living standards of (far) future generations?' And if the answer is 'not that much', then we shouldn't bother with reducing emissions much, even if that leads to the planet being uninhabitable in a few hundred years.

# Posted 2007-02-02 19:06:45
Hammer:	IPCC AR4 HOT! off the presses http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

# Posted 2007-02-02 20:06:03
feet:	My previous post assumes that anthropogenic climate change is occurring; the question is whether it's worth bothering to do anything about it. Or at least, anything much.

# Posted 2007-02-02 21:03:32
z-man:	I like the way public gets informed about what the heck is happening out there. " Global warming is 'likely' due to humans" or "90% chance that global warming is because of humans." despite numerous sientific data collected over extensive period of time that suggests just that. It's like, yes I broke it, and now I am just trying to convince myselft that it's indeed broken because of me.

# Posted 2007-02-02 21:05:25

Hammer:

Feet wrote:
>how much of a cost are we prepared to put up with

I haven't taken economics since Grade 12 (and I certainly didn't go to MIT) but doesn't using less energy cost less?

re: living standards. Hmm, so how many people die each year in the US due to coal burning? A good way to improve living standards is to adopt cleaner energy. Oh and if 90% of the World's climatologists say that there is a human influence on climate then thats good enough for me. I'm pretty certain if 90% of the World's economists said that you should buy stock A or B or sell currency C or D the lay public would do it.

# Posted 2007-02-02 21:16:09
chitownclark:	How many orienteers come to meets alone in their own vehicle? Chicago's public transportation system has always been extensive. For the past dozen years I've patiently produced instructions about using this system to get to our O meets. But to my knowledge, no other orienteer has ever chosen to use this system to get to a meet.

# Posted 2007-02-02 21:24:44

feet:

Again, I'm not disputing that there is with extremely high probability human-caused climate change. To an economist, one key piece of evidence is that even people motivated to find evidence pointing the other way (eg, the current US administration) can't really do it. (Not my argument.)

Of course, using less energy costs less. However, the reductions in carbon emissions required to mitigate climate change significantly are large enough that simply reducing waste is certainly not enough, even if everyone does, and you will never get everyone participating at least at current energy prices. Also, one person's waste is another person's enjoyed consumption (I personally heat my house to 56F but others definitely prefer 74F - is that waste? I don't drive a Hummer, but some would prefer to do so - is that waste? I would prefer not to have to coordinate my travel to O meets with other people, so I can go when I want and how I want - is that waste? Who gets to say?)

Once you are beyond eliminating some waste, the next emission reduction has to come either from shifting energy production technologies, or changing lifestyles. People like their current lifestyles, which is why they chose them, so doing this has a cost. And shifting energy production technologies also has a cost (how big it is is an empirical question that I don't know the answer to). That cost either takes the form of reduced consumption now directly, or of consumption foregone in exchange for investment in alternative technologies, and/or of extra capital investment in reducing emissions, or... - but there is a cost. And the question is 'is it worth it?', or rather, 'how much emission reduction is worth it?'

The coal-burning particulate pollution issue is a side-issue that suggests coal specifically should be taxed for this reason; I don't dispute that. (I argued in my first post of this thread in favor of a carbon tax, fwiw; but I am not arguing in favor of 'sustainability' or 'reducing my carbon footprint', which are not concepts that make much sense to me.)

Also, just to be clear: I'm not setting myself up as an expert here: climate change economics is definitely not my field, and nor is climatology.

# Posted 2007-02-02 21:25:13
Sergey:	I just wonder how this CO2 can be recaptured. I know of only one economically viable mechanism - re-forestation. May be there are others?

# Posted 2007-02-02 21:27:14
boyle:	chitownclark, Why is it that O racers won't use the transit system? I've noticed the same lack of transit use here in Ottawa where we hold a series of summer evening meets in city parks.

# Posted 2007-02-02 21:28:37

feet:

Well, I personally don't use it since it takes longer, is less reliable and less convenient in terms of scheduling, and doesn't cost enough less to make any real difference to me. And where this isn't true, I do use transit (eg,
- when I was a student, so that I cared more about the difference in cost,
- when in Boston so that driving was less efficient,
- when in some European countries where driving is relatively more expensive than in the US and the transit system functions better
- even in the US, in cases when transit is actually efficient (usually, downtown to/from airports is the only case that satisfies this in my experience).

# Posted 2007-02-02 21:34:02
superwes1000:	how about taxing oil and gas industry profits at 50% - today there would have been an additional $45 billion to put to good use.

# Posted 2007-02-02 21:36:24
superwes1000:	oh, and this just in - global warming is totally for real, check out this irrefutable evidence. totally for real

# Posted 2007-02-02 22:06:59

My paradigm is that economics is purely a human construct. One in which nature could give a $%#! so to speak. Basically, we are limited by the laws of nature, and we sometimes pretend otherwise.

It does have tools in which we could use as leverage points to "green" us up, but more often than not it is used as a decision making tool by politicians to defend business as usual - and it sells.

And I recall hearing that if our world's population wished to currently be sustainable our standard of living would be on par with Poland's. This leads to one of four likely futures in which "walls are built". Or those with the power live behind them, while those without live with most of the consequences.

One sad thought, is the human species does not have the power to change. It could be shown the future to 100% certainty (like a smoker being shown their lungs) and we don't, as a species, have the wisdom (we do have the intelligence) to change.

# Posted 2007-02-02 22:22:29

chitownclark:

Why is it that O racers won't use the transit system? I've noticed the same lack of transit use here in Ottawa

boyle: I believe it is inertia...and addiction. As urthbuoy points out, its kinda like smoking: smokers know its not good in the long run, it's expensive and dirty, yet they continue to smoke. If I had a car, I'm sure I'd be driving to meets every week too.

But once having sold my car, giddy with the sense of adventure, I walked over to the bus stop in my O gear...and got on. And found that I liked it, despite the waits for connections. When I leave the house, I know that I'll be reading my book within 5 minutes. There's something akin to orienteering in the challenge of finding the best route to a distant suburban location without the use of a car.

# Posted 2007-02-02 23:03:28
j-man:	If 90% of the World's economists said that you should buy stock A or B or sell currency C or D I would know which stocks and currencies to short.

# Posted 2007-02-02 23:42:42
Swampfox:	I'm guessing it's more likely that 90% of the lay public couldn't name an economist by name even if their carbon emissions depended on it.

# Posted 2007-02-02 23:48:16
feet:	I would never take public transit in O gear. Under any circumstances.

# Posted 2007-02-02 23:56:27
j-man:	Baltero never takes public transit not in O gear. Under any circumstances.

# Posted 2007-02-03 00:34:38
GregBalter:	I confess, I have done it: but always with stile (DVOA or US Team tops:) I also do not believe that global warming is bad, caused by humans or not, surely the civilization will pay the price for it one way or another: it just the matter of adaptation and survival.

# Posted 2007-02-03 03:26:22
Kiki:	IPCC AR4 HOT! off the presses Haven't read the whole thing yet, but I must say the figures are very pretty. I've heard that W likes picture books, so maybe he'll look at these?

# Posted 2007-02-03 05:06:15
chitownclark:	I particularly like the color scheme on p. 19 - Projections on Surface Temperature Changes. In 2020 the world is painted with greens and pale yellows indicating surface temperature changes in fractions of a degree. But by 2090 the globe has become all crimsons, dark reds and blacks, reflecting sudden extreme temperature increases...a real hell-hole

# Posted 2007-02-03 06:03:29

unpronunciation:

Feet, your argument appears to reduce the consequences of global warming to impacts on lifestyle choices (e.g. whether Swampfox will have to move to Nunavut in order to get his attack badger fixes). That would appear to be somewhat shortsighted. Furthermore, by your argument, it should be fine for me to chuck my rubbish out the window of my flat - it won't affect me, after all. Yet such behaviour is generally agreed to be antisocial.

# Posted 2007-02-03 07:20:27
GregBalter:	I think attack badgers will love global warming, they will get bigger and meaner, eventually growing to the size of tyrannosaurs and dominate the Earth as such creatures did millions of ears ago, than the circle will be complete and nobody will talk about global warming - they will wait for another Ice Age, hiding in caves.

# Posted 2007-02-03 08:23:31
jmm:	feet wrote: ".... I am not arguing in favor of 'sustainability' or reducing my carbon footprint', which are not concepts that make much sense to me." Are you not a professor of economics with a PhD from MIT? The concept of sustainability does not make much sense to you? I think we really are in trouble.

# Posted 2007-02-03 09:00:14
urthbuoy:	In honor of this likely being the largest discussion based solely on a title, I'd like to propose the term "rudy" discussion to describe such a phenomenon. I imagine this being in the style of a coffeehouse discussion amongst some local actors, "Antelope and attack badgers! Discuss amongst yourselves and report back."

# Posted 2007-02-03 19:26:52

Rudy, with all due respect, when I talk about being "serious about training and racing in the midwest", I'm referring to someone who spends a lot more time working technique in the forest than you do.

As you well know, I do ride my bike to woods workouts and local races from time to time. However, if I did that for all my woods training, there's no way I'd get in 250 hours per year off road (and I wouldn't get any training on our best maps). Trading terrain/trail running for cycling is a fine compromise if you don't care about results, but if you're "serious" about being fast in the woods, it's not a smart play.

# Posted 2007-02-03 20:13:38

feet:

OK, let me rephrase slightly. The concept of 'sustainability' makes sense to me, but it isn't clear it's a good thing. (What do I care if the planet is uninhabitable in 2100? I'll be dead then. And I bet many out of the large fraction of the world's population living on less than $1/day care even less than I do.) The Earth is just a resource for us to use up.

What I meant to say (and didn't, at least not clearly) is that I don't see any reason why I personally should reduce my emissions simply because of sustainability. In particular, what the 'carbon footprint' concept is actually used for is to persuade people to cut their energy consumption more than they otherwise would want to, given energy prices. This makes little sense to me. One of the things that money gets you is the right to consume more of lots of things, and energy is one of those things. A fine way to organize society. It's only right and proper that the founders of Google get to fly around on their own personal 767 - they earned that right.

Now, it is true that my using more energy does affect other people in the future through climate change. So future generations would be better off if using energy was taxed more, since this would slow down climate change. If we care about future generations, then we should vote for carbon taxes. Now, I personally actually do care a bit about this, so I would be happy to vote for carbon taxes higher than the level in the US ($13-15/1000 flight miles seems about right to me, actually). (I would also vote for much higher gas taxes, but the reason is basically unrelated to global warming - it's because extra driving has costs of congestion and higher accident rates which are largely unpriced and dwarf the global warming costs. I would be better off if other people drove less, so I'd be happy to tax driving more, even if that means I also drive less.) The ultimate question is whether most people care. If they do, then we should reduce emissions, until the benefit from reducing emissions is matched by the cost in reduced living standards.

djalkiri, the difference with the trash defenestration example is that if I do that, I will pay for it (for example, the apartment complex will kick me out). So I don't do it. Plus the cost to me of putting the trash out properly is very small. In the carbon case, the cost to me of not flying so much is much larger. So I still do it.

# Posted 2007-02-04 01:07:52

Kiki:

I think that's the first time I've seen someone use the word 'defenestration' without trying really hard to find a way to make it fit the context.

On track with the real discussion, feet, you talk about sustainability only in how it affects future generations. But many of the same kinds of effects that we'll see in 2100 will be present, albeit to a lesser degree, over the coming decades. Is sustainability for our own retirement a different matter?

# Posted 2007-02-04 01:48:21

feet:

To some extent, in that we are alive now and so will be alive then and enjoying life then, so definitely better not to screw things up completely in the short run. But even a world that warms 6 degrees C by 2100 is probably still pretty good to live in until I die, say in 2040 or 2050.

So it all boils down* to how much you either value preserving the Earth for its own sake, or value the lives of future generations. And I'll be honest - economics really doesn't have much to say about either of these, except that it's hard for me to see why future generations are valued as highly in the calculations as you need to do to get any serious carbon reduction to be worthwhile. After all, if things go well, then future generations will be richer than us and able to deal with global warming themselves. And if they don't, well, they'll never be born, and I don't care much about the welfare of people that will never exist...

Oh yeah, and it's hard to square caring for the future survival of the Earth for its own sake with people's actual behavior most of the time. So I think we can rule that one out too.

* Pun only kinda intended.

# Posted 2007-02-04 01:52:03

blegg:

Wow. Earth as a resource to be used up. Rich people earned the right to be wasteful. Who cares about the earth in 2100?

These ideas are abhorrent to me, but they do seem to be accepted by a large segment of society. Perhaps this explains why lots of people mistrust our economic structure, and also why people feel they are wasting their lives at work. The economy is efficient, but what does it optimize?

Sustainability may not make sense monetarily, but does ethically. I think most sustainability practices can be derived from the moral responsibility to provide future generations with a world equal to or better than what we currently have. Actions which irreversibly damage the environment (species extinction) or defer major problems to future generations (CO2 emissions) are unsustainable. Arguments for neglecting sustainability to maintain standards of living are legitimate, but they feel weak in America, where excess consumption is rampant.

Flying or driving to orienteering events is a real moral dilemma for me. I defiantly see the irony in driving to be outdoors in nature. It's difficult to justify any recreational activity in a context of sustainability, but I hope that I spend my working hours doing enough good to earn the right. (ethically, not economically)

# Posted 2007-02-04 02:29:57

jmm:

feet wrote:

"(What do I care if the planet is uninhabitable in 2100? I'll be dead then..."

"To some extent, in that we are alive now and so will be alive then and enjoying life then, so definitely better not to screw things up completely in the short run. But even a world that warms 6 degrees C by 2100 is probably still pretty good to live in until I die, say in 2040 or 2050."

I used to have some hope that economists were not complete idiots with at least some grasp of reality, but I think that your comments here have eliminated any hope that I had for the sanity of your particular profession. I personally hope that you are not planning on having any children, who in case you haven't realized, will be living in the world that you leave after you die. Biologically speaking, you should at least have some compassion for your own offspring, since they would be carrying your genes, that presumably, you would like to see passed on.

# Posted 2007-02-04 02:32:24
jjcote:	Could I minimize my environmental impact by simply dying as soon as possible? Of course, that wouldn't leave a better world for my descendants, seeing as how I don't have any.

# Posted 2007-02-04 02:48:46
urthbuoy:	jmm - The Golden Rule is you can attack the idea but not the person. It is most likely we all share the same values, but it is how we prioritize those values that leads to debate (such as this).

# Posted 2007-02-04 03:06:19

I wouldn't be quite so sure that you won't be alive in 2100. Computational hardware will exist by 2020 that can outperform the human brain. Software generally lags hardware by 10-15 years, so somewhere in the 2030's, the idea of "porting" a person to an artificial host will be a problem that is actively pursued. If you live 10-15 years beyond that, it will almost certainly be a reality.

Whether or not that's a good idea is a completely different discussion, but economists (or anybody else who engages in long-term planning) who fail to realize that the whole paradigm of life expectancy is about to get turned on its ear are missing the big picture.

# Posted 2007-02-04 03:54:50
jmm:	I probably got a little bit too riled up, so sorry about that.

# Posted 2007-02-04 04:01:37

mikeminium:

Ebuckley points out the problem of needing to drive to get to suitable training areas. A couple of our big problems in North America are:
1. Infrastructure is designed to be car friendly but not pedestrian/bike friendly.
2. Our current private property/land use rights greatly limit the amount of available terrain.

As I type this, I can look out the window at a hundred or so acres of woods and fields. (about 40 ha for our metric cousins). But, if I go there to run/train, I could get shot or prosecuted. That hasn't 100% deterred me, but I don't go there often and certainly not during hunting seasons.

I live within 5 miles (8 km) of several orienteering maps, but walking or biking there requires using busy roads with narrow berms. Of course, cutting through the afforementioned woods and the fields beyond them would save a little distance and most of the worst roads (as well as offering additional training).

In the short term, we probably aren't going to make much progress on passing land access laws like those of some northern European countries (eg you can cross any woods & camp one night before seeking the owner's permission to stay longer), but we can certainly join bicycling groups and others in advocating for more pedestrian and bike friendly road systems.

# Posted 2007-02-04 07:06:49

Hammer:

Feet wrote:
>economics really doesn't have much to say about either of these.

And with that I would say is where traditional economics has failed. It does not take into consideration the depreciation value of the goods and services provided by the environment. Take the Exxon Valdez disaster for example. If Exxon were required to pay for the environmental damage that was done to the goods and services that the environment provided that were lost due to the oil spill (rather than just the clean up) then they would have likely gone bankrupt (and ironically wouldn't have been able to fund all those climate change
skeptics and deniars for the last 15 years). Anyway, I recall the true amount in environmental service depreciation/degradation for Exxon Valdez was in the $60 billion range when environmental economics was applied. Interestingly the insurance industry has been very quick to realize the economic implications of global warming.

# Posted 2007-02-04 17:46:53

randy:

The economy is efficient, but what does it optimize?

CEO compensation, of course. You are working for the man, who has now "earned" the right to not care about his fellow men, even tho without which, his lifestyle wouldn't exist. I question the notion that the market is efficient at establishing wages (presently), but also think (ironically) that it might even be more brutal were it allowed free reign to be truly "efficient".

Biologically speaking, you should at least have some compassion for your own offspring, since they would be carrying your genes, that presumably, you would like to see passed on.

The phenotype has no incentive to care about anything. Only the genotype (theoretically) does. Genotypes who build phenotypes who care (either about their offspring or future unborn strangers), or build phenotypes who can survive in Venus-like conditions 100 years from now will in theory survive provided the above conditions they built for happen to become (or are) relavent.

(And please don't flame my genotype's phenotype, I don't think these notions are controversial among serious evolutionary biolgists, tho just like the 10% who deny anthropogenic climate change, I'm sure there are dissenters).

Of course, genotypes may have incentive to build phenotypes who can badger other phenotypes into caring about them or "society", and are probably doing well to build phenotypes who call others "antisocial" when they do not. They may even have incentive to build phenotypes who are willing to pay tribute to feudal or CEO lords, because doing so may be a better wager than mass-striking and letting society run amok to "the jungle". Who knows, but if the metric is pure headcount, the feudal system seems to be working out a bit better than "the jungle".

Now, it would be nice to tie this to either the present thread or orienteering, but alas it is not to be. At least I'll do my part in preventing the tragedy of the commons and not tie it to or mention attack badgers in any way.

# Posted 2007-02-04 18:03:00

feet:

Hammer wrote:
>It does not take into consideration the depreciation value of the goods and services provided by the environment.

Apologies for leaving in the middle of all this - ironically enough, I had to go home because of heavy snow and a warning of whiteout conditions.

This is wrong. Environmental economics is economics. Environmental services are largely unpriced, or at least underpriced, and therefore wasted. Oil spills are one example, and global warming is another. However, they _should_ be priced, and the vast majority of economists would agree with this. I haven't said anything to the contrary.

In fact, you are making my point for me: there should be a price to pollute ($60 billion, you say, should be the price of spilling oil in Alaska in Exxon Valdez amounts; $85/ton, says the Stern report, should be the price of emitting carbon dioxide). And if you pay it, you should get to pollute if you want to. From this it follows that if you have the cash, you'll pollute more. I have no problem with this.

What I said economics didn't have any way to put a price on is the intrinsic value of something. Does the Alaskan environment matter only because it provides environmental services, or does it matter in addition for its own sake? The first is traditional economics; the second isn't.

# Posted 2007-02-04 18:29:30

feet:

blegg wrote:

> Sustainability may not make sense monetarily, but does ethically.

I made some fairly inflammatory statements above that are a bit distracting from the real point I'm trying to make. So let me state things differently.

1. Carbon emissions have negative consequences for society that are not currently priced. Therefore the price of carbon should be higher. This is not much of an ethical statement because a higher carbon tax would make almost everyone better off.

2. How high the carbon tax should be is exactly an ethical question. The reason is because most of the $85/ton currently recommended comes from a) valuing future generations much more than we currently do (if we value them as much as Stern does then in order to be consistent we should also be saving very large fractions of our incomes in order to hand these over to our children, but we do not in fact do this; why we should treat our environmental legacy differently is an ethical question), and b) it is an ethical question whether we should value the environment _for its own sake_, beyond the value of the services it provides.

Because it is an ethical question, economics will not give you the answer to it. What economics will do is tell you how to implement whatever answer you want at least cost. (Short answer: a carbon tax.)

3. I made the inflammatory statements (in particular, the 'Earth is just a resource to be used up' one) above not because I actually believe them wholeheartedly myself, but to make the point that if you find these statements objectionable, then this is a problem you cannot solve by yourself. If you reduce your flying, then you just make it cheaper for people who do not care much about carbon emissions to increase theirs. Net effect on emissions: not much. Whereas if we increase the carbon tax, everyone will decrease their flying, and more importantly, the total amount of flying will decrease. This is what prices are for. The part that makes no sense to me is the 'guilt' thing about 'reducing my carbon footprint'. Reducing total consumption to amount A does not mean dividing A by the world population, n, and rationing everyone to consume A/n. People do not like rationing. Instead, increase the carbon tax until aggregate consumption equals A, and let the economy sort out how to split it among people.

The only way I can make sense of the 'reducing my footprint' concept at an individual level is that if you care deeply about carbon emissions, you might want to show others how you can live a decent life even while consuming less energy.

4. I do not see a way around paying people who do things society values a lot (like investment banking or tax law - since almost nobody actually enjoys doing these things, we have to get them by paying people a lot for them). And then in a free market, these people can buy what they want. The only way to stop them using a lot of energy and buying a lot of energy-intensive goods is to increase the price of energy. But even then, in a free society, you will not be able to prevent others (Brin and Page with their 767) from spending on what they want. And nor should you. Why do you get to decide?

5. More personally, I used 150kWh of electricity in the last two months and drove about 400 miles in that time. I heat my house to 56F at night, 50F during the day, and I choose to live in a 3 room apartment so as not to have to heat (or clean) more of a house. So, is it or isn't it ethical for me to fly? And why do you get to make the decision for me? Shouldn't we just increase the price and let me decide?

# Posted 2007-02-04 22:20:40

jmm:

Well, that looks like it is pretty ethical behaviour on your part. Maybe you don't bite the heads off kittens after all. You can fly to any orienteering meets that you want to and not feel guilty about it (not that it is my decision, as you point out). However, I am free to criticize if I want. If one didn't do those nice energy conserving things, then I would say that it in my opinion, it would not be ethical for one to fly to participate in unnecessary recreational activities and I would then freely point out such selfishness (not that my opinion should affect your or anyone's decision in such a case).

# Posted 2007-02-04 23:09:19

I much appreciate this discussion - it's nice to get some "meat" in the arguments. Here, for example, is the shallow level of depth presented in my local paper - and if you can figure out what he's arguing for you get bonus points. Feel free to tear in to one of our local editors (editor@kamloopsthisweek.com).

Kamloops This Week
http://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/
Doubleday Canada Limited
By JIM HARRISON
Feb 04 2007

We might as well move the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight.

The worlds scientists are out with a report declaring global warming has reached the point where were all going to hell in a handbasket and the blame is being placed squarely on the shoulders of mankind and his penchant for pollution.

Unless we all make radical changes, they warn, the planet is doomed.

These are collectively among the brightest minds around, but despite the conclusions by the International Panel on Climate Change, there remain reluctant believers.

Any fool can see theres something afoot and the Earth is warming.

But whether all of it can be laid at the feet of mankind remains debatable.

This planet has undergone serious weather change before, and for far longer than homo sapiens have been around.

The point is these are educated opinions.

But scientists and their conclusions have frequently been wrong over the years.

The real problem is that people buy into their hypotheses, and drive their politicians to taking action, even though they have no idea what the outcome will be.

This phobia to limit CO2 emissions and cut down on greenhouse gases threatens to trigger decisions that divert huge resources from more productive areas all without any guarantee were accomplishing anything positive.

Kyoto is a popular catchword, but until there is demonstrated and a proven benefit to what it hopes to accomplish, and unless there is genuine buy-in by all of the worlds nations, it becomes little more than a good name for a dog.

# Posted 2007-02-05 00:33:33
Hammer:	Sounds like the Kamloops editor was listening to Stephen Harper 2-3 years ago (heck 2-3 months ago).

# Posted 2007-02-05 01:48:37

unpronunciation:

Feet, as you say, there's often a difference between an individual's stated preferences and revealed preferences (e.g. someone says they want to save the planet but they drive a car that gets 18 miles to the gallon and heat their house to 75F). We can't always conclude from the discrepency that revealed preferences are more accurate. Ignorance plays a role too. For example, if you ask your average parent if they want the best for their child, then they say "yes, of course." But people still cram their houses full of pesticides, they let their babies watch TV for hours on end, and so on. Does that mean that they don't actually care more about their kids than about not having to swat the occasional cockroach?

# Posted 2007-02-05 02:17:54

jmm:

After having calmed down somewhat after a nice relaxing ski (which I hypocritically drove 30 km to get to), I'll apoligize to my fellow training logging colleague for some of my earlier unfounded comments (Though, making provactive statements, one should expect a provactive response).

I have no problem with the idea of a carbon tax and in fact would probably vote for one as well, but I don't think that anything of that sort will ever be implemented until the point at which wasteful energy consumption becomes as socially unnaceptable of a behaviour as, say, cigarette smoking is. This is the reason why I disagree with the idea that people should not be made to feel guilty for their excess energy use (and the carbon emissions, etc. that this causes).

By way of analogy, let us suppose that we are able to calculate all the external costs to society of smoking cigarettes, and then we add that to the cost of a pack of Marlboro's and call it the "cancer tax". If I am willing to pay the cancer tax, does this then absolve me of any further responsibility for the consequences of my habit, since I have now paid the market price for my antisocial behaviour? Does this give me the right to smoke when I want, where I want, and how I want? If I was a smoker, would everyone here be ok with it if I was sitting next to them at a restaurant, took a long drag on my king size Belvedere, turned around a blew the smoke right in there faces? Theoretically, since I have paid my cancer tax, people should be ok with it, since I have already paid the market cost for my behaviour through the cancer tax. However, I don't think any reasonable person here would be ok with it, since we have for the most part decided that this is an unnaceptable behaviour. Until excess energy consumption becomes equally unnaccetable, nothing will be done about it. The emissions from the tailpipe of one's Hummer need to become like blowing cigarette smoke in one's face before a carbon tax will ever be implemented.

On another note, the question of calculating the value of A (total annual energy use) that is sustainable in the long-term is a difficult question, but it has nothing to do with the "price" that we put on energy, though I suppose, "price" could be used as an incentive to get people to use less of it, which I suppose is the purpose of the carbon tax, which probably will never be implemented without guilt.

However, I digress, if we assume that A comes from purely biological sources, then the long-term value of A that is sustainable is A=NPP (net primary productivity, or the rate at which all ecosystems on earth accumulate energy, mainly through photosynthesis but some also through chemosynthesis by the organisms at deep-sea vents, minus energy lost to respiration by said plants, but also heterotrophic organisms like humans that have to obtain their carbon from eating other organisms). Recall that the economy is contained within the ecosystem, as any ecologist will tell you, and not the other way around. Currently, humans already use a disturbingly high proportion of the earth's terrestrial NPP. Also recall that fossil fuels are nothing more than a storehouse of the results of millenia of photosynthesis. If we decide to run the economy on things like biodiesel, ethanol, etc., we can attempt increase the earth's NPP and therefore A through more intensive agricultural practices (which have their own consequences), or to usurp more NPP for our own purposes (which also has consequences), but the total sum of the earth's biological productivity will always be the upper limit for A, and hence the upper limit for the size of any economy based purely upon biological energy. Of course, we can also increase A by obtaining energy from inorganic sources, like photovoltaics, wind, nuclear, etc., but these have consequences and limits as well.

On another note, I don't think that a planet where we are running an A=NPP economy would be very conducive to good orienteering, unless you like running through endless fields of switchgrass.

# Posted 2007-02-05 03:14:22

Yukon King:

we must hit ourselves as a society with both taxes AND guilt, and pronto - otherwise our society is down the tubes as the warming oceans rise over the coastal cities, interesting new weather patterns lambast both our less-developed nations & our... insurance companies in North America, and so on. And it is just OUR society that will go down the tubes along with some other particularly elegant local biomic (I made that word up) expressions such as the polar bears on their fading arctic ice. The biomes themselves will flow and change and adapt to pretty much whatever we do, making up new & fabulous lifeforms which I am thrilled just to imagine. I am in awe of the energy and thought of the posters on this thread, and like them am both excited & fearful to see if our collective energy & thought as a race or society will be enough to pull it off in time. Being in my mid-forties, I think I will probably make it off the planet before things get really horrid in a worst-case scenario (yay! I hate suffering, especially my own!), but in the meantime I do my best to figure out the best things to do in my daily life to help ease our society away from the aforementioned worstcase scenario, sometimes by reading informed & passionate discussions like these. You go, you orienteers!! (and good on you JMM for a gracious apology, orienteers are so civilized.)

# Posted 2007-02-05 16:58:59

chitownclark:

And good on feet, for helping me at least, crystalize my thinking, with his non-pc analysis. The subject of Global Warming has received far too much politically correct hand-wringing; it's nice to see a spade called a spade:

...the key question is 'how much of a cost are we prepared to put up with in order to increase the living standards of (far) future generations?' And if the answer is 'not that much', then we shouldn't bother with reducing emissions much, even if that leads to the planet being uninhabitable in a few hundred years...

# Posted 2007-02-05 20:32:37
jmm:	And so as a result, chitown, what are your views now?

# Posted 2007-02-05 20:34:25

Yukon King:

uninhabitable for humans, that is, remember the flexible biomes that gave rise to us will cheerfully find other exquisite experiments to place into the strange new environments we leave behind.
To be biologically philosophical -
One of our uniquenesses (made that word up too) as a species is our moral sense, so to meander wildly off with one of Socrates' ideas, morality could be called the purpose of our species - thus a vital question could be SHOULD we reduce emissions etc ? One COULD frame our moral "game" up as a simple us-vs.-future-generations scenario (followed by, "well, screw them")...but then it's not so challenging a game, is it? ;-)

# Posted 2007-02-05 20:49:00

Kiki:

And it is just OUR society that will go down the tubes along with some other particularly elegant local biomic (I made that word up) expressions such as the polar bears on their fading arctic ice.

Not so fast. While the magnitude of the changes we're seeing are not geologically unprecedented, the rate of change most certainly is. Many species can not adapt fast enough and in fact those critters would have to expand their range 50 times faster than normal to keep up with global climate change. A 6th major mass extinction is on the horizon - some predict 50% of all species by 2150. This isn't just a big deal if you love to cuddle with cute, furry mammals. Biodiversity affects the health of our own habitat and food sources.

Basically, it does all come down to us, but we're not the only ones affected.

# Posted 2007-02-05 21:10:09

A quick Google search came up fruitless, but this seems to beg the question, "Is there any good adaptable carpool software out there?". Rather than the countless e-mails it takes to arrange such things, it would be nice if each host site had a small spreedsheet/database? of sorts for their events. An addition to an electronic registration process? Maybe clubs could even turn it in to a bit of a competition? It's a small step, but a step nonetheless.

This stems from a new resolution to bike/carpool to all my local club events this year.

# Posted 2007-02-05 21:30:33
tonyf:	Whew. Sorry I missed this thread until Jim Henderson emailed me. For a personal view of all this and much more, check out http://www.ecoshift.net

# Posted 2007-02-06 00:38:47

Wyatt:

Good reading. While there have been many interesting posts on this thread, I'd like to specifically thank feet for his many thoughtfully written arguments and replies. There are a number of smart people on this thread, and I think you've helped provide a broader context on this subject for many of the folks here than we've been exposed to before. Hopefully this thread's readers have also learned a bit about how economics can be used to help compare certain aspects of our behavior, and how economic tools can help make ethics based decisions be implemented in a way that actually has some long term effects.

Personally, I've only recently come out of the climate-change-skeptic camp. I heard some arguments about 10 years ago that helped may stay skeptical, but I finally did a little research on my own, and found that most of those arguments don't seem very solid. So I do buy into the prediction that the CO2 levels are going to rise for a while, and the earth's going to get hotter.

While I'm not well versed on the background, extapolating from data up until now, to predictions of what will happen out 50 to 200 years seems to me to be a bit of over-confidence in our ability to predict things. Over my short lifetime, I've seen predictions that the Ozone hole would be nearly world-wide by now (even with the large scale replacement of CFCs with HCDCs, the hole was supposed to worse to 50+ years.) Plus I've seen the leading dietary nemesis of long-term health shift from salt, to red meat to fat to carbs.

Back subject, my main problem with current global warming thoughts isn't even related to the unpredictability of the world. Let's presume that expectations we'll be up about 5C by 2100 are right, and even that by 2200, the species of the planet will be rapdily disappearing in their diversity, because they can't adapt well. (And, let's presume ethically, that this is a bad thing that we want to prevent. ;) )

Even if so, let's say all moderte-to-rich nations (say those with median incomes of $5k & up) were actually willing to take a 10% immediate hit in all of their incomes to implement a massive rollback of greenhouse gas emissions. (I think this, BTW, is exceedly unlikely, but let's pretend we convince ourselves to do this.)

Then what? As the nations of the world that agree to do this go on reducing emissions, countries like China and India will go on their merry way, increasing their emissions, along with a bunch of the rest of the world. Plus even among 'rich' nations, many are corrupt enough that "cheating" of the limits would likely ensue.

So after 20, or 50 years, what would be the net result on the earth's course of climate change? I doubt it would be very much - maybe we could push off the deadlines for whatever doomsday we care about by 10 or 20 years, but could we really reverse things. I doubt it...

End result is that whatever cost _we_ ('rich countries') are willing to pay to reverse or forestall climate change, I think since our end product will be highly unsatisfying - we could spend a huge amount of effort, and end up with very little change the course of the world's climate.

Gotta meeting... later...

# Posted 2007-02-06 01:03:39

Swampfox:

I was quite skeptical for the longest time too. At some point a few years back, I decided that personally for me the evidence had become overwhelming and indisputable. Once that happens, you better be able to change your mind.

On a strictly anecdotal, unscientific level, probably just about anyone who's been skiing XC since the late 70s knows in their bones something different has been going on, and that we're not in Kansas anymore.

# Posted 2007-02-06 01:13:47

Wyatt,

I think economics would be the big sword that compliant countries would wield against non-compliant countries. France has already made some comments towards the US, that unless they jump on board the EU will be putting taxes on products from them. Now whether or not France speaks for the EU remains to be seen, but the idea is that through the carbon emissions program, non-compliant countries can expect to strong-armed once enough players are on board.

We should make an effort no matter the outcome, if only to show that we have it in us as a species to rise to such demands.

# Posted 2007-02-06 01:40:39
jjcote:	...if only to show that we have it in us as a species... In order to show whom? Is there an audience?

# Posted 2007-02-06 01:57:16
j-man:	A lot of these are redolent of an argumentum ad baculum.

# Posted 2007-02-06 01:58:24

then we should reduce emissions, until the benefit from reducing emissions is matched by the cost in reduced living standards

This phrase caught my eye.

I'm always bothered that the choice is so commonly phrased as environmental benefits versus living standards. If one doubts that environmental quality is a factor in living standards, then look where the rich homes are, and where the poor ones are. Not many people, even fervent anti-environmentalists, building their starter palace next to a coal fired power plant or mine tailings (curiously, given the vehemence of some anti-eco sentiment).

If the stable sea levels and a certain number of goods are seen as more desirable than a somewhat higher number of goods, then choosing the former would lead to higher standard of living, and better economic output, by definition. After all, what counts as the "utility" that economists talk about? Why, whatever we choose to want. Even a walk in the grass is utility.

The free market, and its efficiency, has achieved such mythos that it's common to talk as though whatever the economy currently results in is what people want. But the Tragedy of the Commons was not that no one valued the commons (quite the opposite). Rather, it was that laissez-faire did not yield good results with them. One solution was private property...no commons. Another was regulation, which we see in the many remaining commons of today...pooper-scooper laws, driving regs, etc. Many things we will likely forever share (air, groundwater, sunlight and hence most energy, the rule of law, rights of way), so there need to be means of dealing with inherently common assets and interests. And that's not some outside concern separate from economics and the economy...that is economics and the economy.

Just some thoughts.

# Posted 2007-02-06 02:23:30

Yukon King:

oh, so cool, jjcote, I was just gonna write back to Cristina and that is kind of part of what I was gonna write.
Cristina, you totally rock! Yes, there is something (subtlely? overtly?) repellent about what I wrote re "only our society" going Kaput. But from the point of view of what I might (shamefully) anthropomorphize as the Serene Presence, there is no difference between saying goodbye to (1) a microscopic nematode being chomped by a predator nematode in the soil of my potted geranium (2) a billion nematodes lost (3) our society (4) the beautiful polar bears(5) a baby whale being slowly & bloodily chomped by sharks ( (6) a huge chunk of an ecosystem destroyed by fire (large mammals, including myself, being destroyed by fire is a bugaboo of mine) (7) slow or fast mass extinctions caused by us or by a meteorite. And so on. No difference. No values attached anywhere. We attach values.
The Serene Presence may be the afore-mentioned biomes (like super-eco-systems), infinitely "cruel" (see above myriad deaths), infinitely "forgiving" (see myriad ecosystem-expansions past present and future), serenely indifferent to any individual creature or species, utterly indiifferent to our society, to our values, our morality, our struggles.
Or the Serene Presence may be the silent beauty of the silicates of our planet that will endure after all the flailing DNA settles back into inorganic-ness.
In any case, this "audience" is undeniably present in our world and because of its existence, I can KIND of say, whatever the outcome of our struggle, it's gonna be OK, cuz either the biomes or the granite is still gonna be here. Sometimes I believe that and I am comforted in a nirvana-self-immolating kinda way. (I think that is the point you were overall objecting to, C, that I was stating I was (kinda-sometimes) willing to let just the macro-biome-level stuff exist & screw the species, eco-systems etc) BUT at the same time, it is abhorrent to me too ! - as a western thinker and feeler locked in the samsara which I so love, I DON'T want to let it all go to granite !! I DO value things like species, and lattes, and international peace. And so do you all. So draw yer lines folks (wherever you like), and fight the long battle of our species against the reassuring but uncomfortingly cold beauty of the infinitely adaptable biome, just cuz you can. (that's yer "audience" - granite. Yikes!)
Now I shall brew some fine tea from Murchies & reread this entire thread & then walk the puppy. Again.

# Posted 2007-02-06 02:25:50

jmm:

"As the nations of the world that agree to do this go on reducing emissions, countries like China and India will go on their merry way, increasing their emissions, along with a bunch of the rest of the world. Plus even among 'rich' nations, many are corrupt enough that "cheating" of the limits would likely ensue."

This, of course, assumes that the source fuel (ie fossil fuels) causing the emissions is in unlimited supply. Or, in the case of an economy running on ethanol, that the water used to irrigate the fuel crops or the nutrients that they draw from the soil are in unlimited supply. Or, in the case of an economy running on solar energy, that the raw materials used to manufacture the photovoltaic cells is in unlimited supply. None of these are in fact in unlimited supply. Eventually, a limit is reached for all of them. I can see how economic (dis)incentives could be used to slow the rate at which those limits are reached, but I don't see how they could change the fact that such limits do actually exist. Having finally looked into it a little (which I should have done before opening my mouth earlier), is this idea of limits included in the economic models for this? With the exception of the factors accounting for some rather hopeful "technological change" that seems to eliminate the limits, I can't see that it is. I would assume this should be important, since I can see some of these limits becoming important before the differences in the discount rate become very important. For example, there are many people who feel that the point at which 50% of all oil reserves have been extracted (ie the point at which shrinking oil supply can longer meet growing oil demand) has in fact already been reached.

# Posted 2007-02-06 02:28:13
Sergey:	Start with small things like plant 5-10 trees in your backyard to start trapping carbon in the form of wood. You may even make some money on generated wood as oil/gas reserves would be depleted in about 50 years :) Another prediction (suh).

# Posted 2007-02-06 02:53:24
Sergey:	Though, resources of methane are almost limitless so no worry about CH based fuels. By the way, "the sudden release of large amounts of natural gas from methane clathrate deposits has been hypothesized as a cause of past and possibly future climate changes. Events possibly linked in this way are the Permian-Triassic extinction event, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum."

# Posted 2007-02-06 03:35:25