And this is why I've always said that it's better to do nothing at all.

"We must do something.
This is something.
We must do it."

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

Yes, the “we must do something!” mindset is very widespread. The effects seem almost an afterthought. That seems to be attitude; provided we are *doing something*, provided we try, the climate gods will be satisfied. If we do nothing however, we will incur their wrath, and face the end of days.

I do believe that the emissions reduction laws of the 1980s and 1990s were extremely successful and the resulting technology made cars better for all. When I say it's better to do nothing at all that is me being cynical. However, when it comes to combatting CO2 I believe the only way to reduce emissions is to increase efficiency. Building new generation sources is not improving efficiency.

Trouble is you make stuff more efficient and people use more of it. LED house lighting for a trivial (in context) example. Also 2-3 tonne commuter vehicles.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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Quote (TugBoatEng)

I do believe that the emissions reduction laws of the 1980s and 1990s were extremely successful and the resulting technology made cars better for all. When I say it's better to do nothing at all that is me being cynical

I'm right with you. I believe that there is a lot of regulation that has moved us towards greater efficiency. Some of it was even "aspirational" like the emission reduction laws of the 80's and 90's.

But, the great point of this thread is that there are many things that we've done that merely SHIFT the CO2 production elsewhere where they don't have the CO2 reduction laws that we do. Then we end up INCREASING the net CO2 for a given product because we have to ship it around the world to get to the consumer.

So, we end up hurting our economy AND make the total CO2 emissions worse!

I'd be in favor of Tariffs related to a country's CO2 emissions. Maybe a country's civil rights, woman's rights issues as well. We should be passing laws that use our country's economic power to encourage other countries to act in a way we approve of.

I guess when you get to be President (or whatever) you can try to those policies into effect.
and probably cripple your economy at the same time .. just a guess.

I think a fundamental problem is that we treat the biosphere as a zero cost dumping ground. Sometime in the near future we'll be dumping the ISS into the atmosphere (and possibly ocean). sigh.

"Wir hoffen, dass dieses Mal alles gut gehen wird!"
General Paulus, Nov 1942, outside Stalingrad after the launch of Operation Uranus.

Quote (rb1957)

and probably cripple your economy at the same time .. just a guess.

Well, any policy that is as impactful as I suggested would have to be phased in over time.

Essentially, we'd just putting a tax on countries that don't play by the same rules as us. I'm all for the concept of this type of "sin taxes". You figure out what is bad and you discourage it with your taxation. Alcohol and tobacco have a negative impact on society. Therefore, we tax those products heavily.

What we're doing now is trying (and failing!) to determine what is "beneficial" and then subsidizing that. We just don't really understand what's beneficial. When you tax something that's bad, the market looks for alternate items to improve overall efficiency.

Take a look at whale blubber. What was it 60 years ago that we outlawed items with whale blubber to be used in consumer products in the US. The market found ways around it. Now our shampoo, conditioner and various cosmetics use alternate oils and we are not the least bit worse off because of it. What I'm proposing is a lot less intrusive than this. Just slight penalties on this that we know are bad.

Realistically, over time, the government will see this as a source of revenue (like alcohol or tobacco taxes) and increase them. But, the hope is that this will be slow and the market will have adjusted by then.