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Energy Secretary Steven Chu defends light bulb standards as GOP seeks repeal

Misterveritis said:
If you live in a sewer vote with your feet and move. I have heard of no river fires in many decades.
CO2 is a great example of governments over reaching. Since all or nearly every living thing exhales carbon dioxide then the government has the right to control everything. once you go down the road of ceding your rights to a busybody bureaucrat it is only a matter of time before you are not free any longer.

I do not know the answer. Would you say that Cleveland and it surrounding areas have been run by liberal democrats or by conservative republicans?
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Please don't call my home a sewer. We could all find plenty of fault with the great state of Alabama. Lets be civil here.

As far as voting with my feet, sorry I don't give up that easy.

For reference, the CLE area is primarily democrats within the city limits and inner suburbs. The outer ring suburbs and surrounding congressional districts are generally very red.
 
Misterveritis said:
You really think it is as simple as that? Awesome.
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As far as your suggestion that it might be the sun, yes. What evidence do you have to prove the scientists are wrong???
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satnightpoly said:
Please don't call my home a sewer. We could all find plenty of fault with the great state of Alabama. Lets be civil here.

As far as voting with my feet, sorry I don't give up that easy.

For reference, the CLE area is primarily democrats within the city limits and inner suburbs. The outer ring suburbs and surrounding congressional districts are generally very red.
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LOL. You described a river ablaze with pollutants, not me.

I am pretty thick skinned about Alabama. Before I moved here and discovered just how good it is to live here I had many misconceptions. I have lived all over the world. I prefer Huntsville-Madison to the rest of them.
 
satnightpoly said:
How can you actually say we have created a clean environment. You are simply ignoring the facts for your own base ends. I'm from Cleveland, and if you haven't heard we had a river catch on fire a few times thanks to the layer of pollution on top. We live on one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, but we are advised to only eat our local fish a few times a month because of chemical contamination.

As far as global warming and pollution not being connected, get real. CO2 is a pollutant as well, CFC's are pollutants. These are just terms and pollutants are anything introduced to an environment that has a negative effect.
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Scientific facts don't seem to carry a lot of weight with the science denier crowd.
 
Catawba said:
As far as your suggestion that it might be the sun, yes. What evidence do you have to prove the scientists are wrong??
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Why would I let you suck me into a worthless debate? We each know the other's positions. You are not going to change my opinion. Nor will I change yours.
 
Catawba said:
Scientific facts don't seem to carry a lot of weight with the science denier crowd.
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Science is only relevant here, usually, to partisan hacks and only when it aligns with the hack's political view point. You see, science which disagrees is dismissed as "junk science", therefore it's used as a tool by tools mostly.
 
Henrin said:
Which is coming from...?
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Your previous posts trying to justify irresponsible waste of energy despite the effects on our health and environment.
 
1Perry said:
And that same area is thriving today. For those not in the know, the area that caught fire (in the 1960's) is just a stones throw from the Rock and Roll HOF and new Aquarium.

Sport fishing is thriving on Lake Erie. I couldn't beging to guess how many Perch I've ate out of the lake.
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Thanks to government regulations.................
 
Catawba said:
Thanks to government regulations.................
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People demanded the water front get cleaned up so they could use it. Many are still pissed at the corrupt local politicians pissing away millions as opposed to trying to further develop the water front.
 
Misterveritis said:
Why would I let you suck me into a worthless debate? We each know the other's positions. You are not going to change my opinion. Nor will I change yours.
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I see.....you've got absolutely nothing to disprove the sun's measurements by scientists. Just wanted to make sure that was clear. Carry on.
 
1Perry said:
A lot of work and expense to re-create what $2.00 worth of regular bulbs once did.
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nope, incandescent floods are not that cheap....and the damn things are HOT....outside the heat isn't an issue, but indoors?
 
Ockham said:
Science is only relevant here, usually, to partisan hacks and only when it aligns with the hack's political view point. You see, science which disagrees is dismissed as "junk science", therefore it's used as a tool by tools mostly.
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What science that disagrees??? There hasn't been a scientific body of national or international standing that has held a dissenting view of AGW since 2007.
 
1Perry said:
People demanded the water front get cleaned up so they could use it. Many are still pissed at the corrupt local politicians pissing away millions as opposed to trying to further develop the water front.
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You are co-mingling two different problems, the unregulated pollution that occurs without government intervention and corporate influence of politicians. Both need to be addressed.
 
Catawba said:
What science that disagrees???
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Any... for example GW scientists.

Catawba said:
There hasn't been a scientific body of national or international standing that has held a dissenting view of AGW since 2007.
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National or international standing only huh? And all those without national or international standing aren't included right.... or is it they're included only if they agree with the national or international standing groups.... :lol:
 
Ockham said:
Science is only relevant here, usually, to partisan hacks and only when it aligns with the hack's political view point. You see, science which disagrees is dismissed as "junk science", therefore it's used as a tool by tools mostly.
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a bloggers view on the issue won't carry as much weight as a study done by a group of scientists, usually, but then you have to look at the scientists hired by the tobacco companies to convince us that smoking doens't cause cancer..heart disease, or even bad breath....
 
UtahBill said:
a bloggers view on the issue won't carry as much weight as a study done by a group of scientists, usually, but then you have to look at the scientists hired by the tobacco companies to convince us that smoking doens't cause cancer..heart disease, or even bad breath....
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Good point. Scientists can be bought - even National and International ones that are part of groups and with lots of letters after their names.
 
UtahBill said:
nope, incandescent floods are not that cheap....and the damn things are HOT....outside the heat isn't an issue, but indoors?
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Sorry, I misread. I got the curlies confused with you then noting you had floods.
 
Catawba said:
You are co-mingling two different problems, the unregulated pollution that occurs without government intervention and corporate influence of politicians. Both need to be addressed.
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The people demanded the changes, not the corrupt politicians.
 
Ockham said:
Any... for example GW scientists.

National or international standing only huh? And all those without national or international standing aren't included right.... or is it they're included only if they agree with the national or international standing groups.... :lol:
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"97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming."

If you had a heart problem, would you go with the 97% of experts that said you needed an operation, or the 3% who said it was no problem, you'll be just fine?
 
1Perry said:
The people demanded the changes, not the corrupt politicians.
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And did the companies stop polluting before the regulatory requirement to do so?
 
1Perry said:
I no longer have any desire to discuss AGW as there being any chance whatsoever of the U.S. signing on to carbon credits or any other scheme is non existant but I will note. Nice unbiased site.
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I'm glad you noted the studies by (Oreskes 2004), and (Doran 2009) as references to back up the consensus of experts I quoted.
 
Misterveritis said:
How do you decide anything for yourself? Everything is an externality (to use your word). The market is nothing more than you deciding for you and me deciding for me. If you, for real of goofy reasons, decide that buying a one dollar light bulb will lead to the destruction of the ecosystem, then you are free to seek out the ten dollar light bulb with mercury in it that, in your world view will do no harm. You will choose. And if many of you choose then the market will allocate resources toward products that you will actually buy.

No other mechanism is as effective, efficient nor provides as much good for so many people ans a free market made up of people acting in their self interest.
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Ok, lets just go over the basics. What an externality is is a cost or benefit from something a company or person does that they don't pay or get. There are negative externalities and positive externalities. A negative externality is a cost that a company foists on others, a positive externality is a benefit that the company gives others that it can't charge for. In short, externalities are the things that the market doesn't take account of.

An example of a negative externality would be a corporation that is manufacturing widgets. It has two options for how to make the widget. One process costs $10, but involves dumping waste in the lake. That waste causes $10 worth of damage to fishermen, property values around the lake and water treatment plant costs. So really it is costing $20 for every widget they make, even though the company only pays $10. The other option is a process where they could make it for $15, but not dump waste in the lake. Left to it's own devices, the company will just do the $10 process, but that is actually the less efficient way to make the widgets. So, government has to step in. It can either forbid dumping waste in the lake or it can make the company pay $10 per widget to pay for cleaning it up, which has the same effect.

A positive externality is, for example, a shipping company decides they need a lighthouse on a particular rock. That benefits all the other shipping companies too, but there is no way to make them chip in, so the company that builds the lighthouse is unable to recoup the whole benefit of their work.

Every economist alive, going all the way back to Adam Smith himself, has agreed that government needs to regulate externalities. Otherwise it is just inefficient. The market doesn't account for them in any way, so the market just acts like they don't exist.
 
Catawba said:
Less waste by consumer = less pollution of the environment that we all depend on. Seems like a direct responsibility to me.
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Of course, environmentalists do not live by this creed. Stop it!!
 
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