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Did Putin help Trump to prevent climate change action?

Mac77 said:
I think subsidies and forcing alternative energy on consumers is what the fight is all about

Because there are no conservative laws in the works prohibiting alternatve energy energy or electric cars
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Did you even read the rest of my post?
 
Surface Detail said:
I'm not in favour of subsides either; it's not the government's job to pick winners. What the government should be doing is taxing negative externalities (aka Pigovian tax) so as to place an appropriate cost on the damage caused to the environment by the use of fossil fuels. If this were done, then alternative energy and electric cars could compete on a level playing field.
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Renewable Energy, what is the cost?

By Andy May A key question to think about, do renewable fuels decrease fossil fuel use, or do they increase it? What are the costs of using renewable energy? The sun and wind are free, does that make wind and solar power free? Biofuels require power to plant crops, make fertilizer and spread it, harvest…

March 13, 2017 in Green tech.

Lomborg: Californians are paying ridiculous subsidies for electric cars

Guest post by Bjørn Lomborg I’ve said electric cars get subsidized too much. Turns out I was wrong. In California, they are subsidized ridiculously too much. Tesla gets $45,000 for each car it sells in state and federal subsidies. The Tesla S starts at $69,000, so about 40% of its total cost is subsidies (Tesla…

May 12, 2013 in Government idiocy.



The social cost of carbon regulations hurt the poor, and ignore benefits

Anti-fossil fuel SCC relies on garbage models, ignores carbon benefits and hurts the poor Foreword: The Social Cost of Carbon is a key foundation for numerous Obama-era energy policies, regulations and programs. Climate alarm activists insist the SCC is rooted in solid science and economics, but it is actually little more than Garbage In-Garbage Out…

1 week ago March 18, 2017 in social cost of carbon.
 
Surface Detail said:
Did you even read the rest of my post?
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I did and the idea of taxing consumers who use fossil fuels is not good

Its as if progressive teddy roosevelt decided gasoline tractors were the wave of the future and shot all the mules to encourage farmers to switch
 
Mac77 said:
I did and the idea of taxing consumers who use fossil fuels is not good

Its as if progressive teddy roosevelt decided gasoline tractors were the wave of the future and shot all the mules to encourage farmers to switch
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That's a stupid analogy. I'm not advocating the confiscation of anything, merely taxation to compensate for negative externalities. We already do that to a certain extent in Europe, with the result that fossil fuel consumption is much lower than in the US.
 
Surface Detail said:
That's a stupid analogy.

I'm not advocating the confiscation of anything, merely taxation to compensate for negative externalities. We already do that to a certain extent in Europe, with the result that fossil fuel consumption is much lower than in the US.
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Its a non serious analogy, but not far removed from the attitude of many environmentalists

You are stlll punishing consumers for using a form of energy that progressives disapprove of
 
Mac77 said:
Its a non serious analogy, but not far removed from the attitude of many environmentalists

You are stlll punishing consumers for using a form of energy that progressives disapprove of
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It's not punishing anyone. It's implementing the principle of your freedom ending where my nose begins. We have laws that prevent people from dumping their garbage in the street, so I don't see what's so bad about making people pay for dumping their harmful emissions in the air.
 
Surface Detail said:
It's not punishing anyone. It's implementing the principle of your freedom ending where my nose begins. We have laws that prevent people from dumping their garbage in the street, so I don't see what's so bad about making people pay for dumping their harmful emissions in the air.
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First, you would have to demonstrate harm.
 
Surface Detail said:
There's speculation in this week's New Scientist that one of Putin's main reasons for allegedly helping to engineer the election of Trump may have been his and his party's man-made climate change denial. A major drive towards the development and use of renewable energy sources and energy conservation could have spelt disaster for a Russian economy dependent on exports of gas and oil, so it is very much in Russia's interest to sabotage any moves in this direction. And, of course, Russia is a country that may actually benefit from a warming climate.

Does anyone else think this is a possible or likely scenario? Are the useful idiots on the right, rather than the left, of the political divide these days?
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Considering how dependent on natural gas Russia's economy is, and considering how all but certain it is that the Kremlin meddled in our election, yes, I can definitely see this as being possible.
 
Surface Detail said:
It's not punishing anyone. It's implementing the principle of your freedom ending where my nose begins. We have laws that prevent people from dumping their garbage in the street, so I don't see what's so bad about making people pay for dumping their harmful emissions in the air.
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Of course you a punishing consumers for making choices that you consider harmful to the environment by making them pay extra for fossil energy

Withiout fossil fuel humans would still be gathering wild fruit and tilling the soil with sticks while dying by age 30

So the alleged harm of fossil fuel is more than offset by the good it does
 
Surface Detail said:
I am one of your English friends :)

The high fuel taxes apply only to fossil fuels. Electric cars, for example, pay no fuel taxes. As a result, the use of electric cars is increasing rapidly here, albeit from a low base. If taxes on petrol (US: gas) and diesel were lowered, electric cars would become much less attractive.
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I suspect the fuel taxes currently apply to all hydrocarbon fuels, weather made from fossil sources or not.
You say electric cars pay no fuel tax, but there are likely some sort of taxes applied to the electric rates that charge the car.
The problem with artificially inflating the price of competing technology through taxation,
is the the taxing entity, becomes resistant to reducing the revenue stream.
 
Surface Detail said:
There's speculation in this week's New Scientist that one of Putin's main reasons for allegedly helping to engineer the election of Trump may have been his and his party's man-made climate change denial. A major drive towards the development and use of renewable energy sources and energy conservation could have spelt disaster for a Russian economy dependent on exports of gas and oil, so it is very much in Russia's interest to sabotage any moves in this direction. And, of course, Russia is a country that may actually benefit from a warming climate.

Does anyone else think this is a possible or likely scenario? Are the useful idiots on the right, rather than the left, of the political divide these days?
Click to expand...

Have anything better than speculation?
 
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