Ron Paul Revolution!!!!

[angelofdeath]

There is literally zero incentive for the free market to enact an environmentally friendly policy. None. The consumer public will never demand it to the extent that will cause a shift in the market's behavior towards the environment. It is painfully clear that the decision to change towards a sustainable lifestyle will never come out of the pure hearts of consumers who have spent decades being conditioned to a market of overconsumption and extreme resource drain. Someone or something HAS to step in and change the way things are done.

 

If the government is not the one to step in and enact this change, then tell me, who is?

 

i think you just have a faulty understanding of how markets and private property rights would address these problems.

 

for instance, we dont have a free market and absolute property rights.

lets take energy. we have the price anderson act that limits the liability of nuclear power companies. toxic waste in your back yard? tough shit! they arent liable. thanks to the gov.

 

lets look at garbage disposal. since the cost of garbage disposal is socialized or municipalized... we dont really pay the actual cost of disposal. plastic bags are a hot topic. lets assume they are very damaging to the environment. but lets also assume the average house hold essentially pays NOTHING to dispose of garbage (sure they pay taxes for garbage disposal, but these are unseen to most people and the cost is the same for everyone no matter what they throw out) it doesnt matter whether they throw out paper (more environmentally friendly than plastic) or plastic or nothing at all. they still pay the same amount. and since the municipality owns the garbage dump, they socialize the cost of disposal. where as in a free market with private trash pick up and a private waste dump... the dump owner would obviously charge you much more to dispose of the plastic bags than the paper bags or better yet, no grocery bags at all. by charging more, he reduces the amount of plastic going into the ground. so if you then fully realize that throwing away a plastic bag costs say 5$ per bag to get rid of, and a paper bag costs .20$ to get rid of, which one are you going to ask for at the grocery store? or maybe you'll just be really smart and bring your own cloth bags.

 

pollution is nothing but a trespass. someone has no right to pollute your property than you do to trespass in someone elses house. companies are not really liable for their pollution. the government has determined certain levels are fine. in american history, property rights used to be upheld. when factories were putting out horrible waste in the air... they would get sued for the trespass onto peoples property. sometime around the progressive era and the 'need' to make america an imperialist power and compete with britain to be #1, the courts started ruling against private property owners in favor of the businesses in order to defend the 'common good' which was industrialization.

you had industrialists starting to use anthracite coal which was cleaner burning instead of the dirty sulphur coal because they were liable for pollution. then you have the pittsburg lobbyists coming in getting laws passed to protect the dirty coal.

i dont think you understand the complexity of the system and how at odds everything and how there is not a free market in these matters that respects property rights.

 

given that with every regulation a government passes it creates a multitude of new problems which require further legislation to attempt to correct... i believe that relying on the government to solve environmental problems is silly and inefficient. i also believe that relying on benevolence will only get you so far. which is why we need to motivate good old fashioned human self interest as pointed out in the examples above. if a company is going to be sued by everyone for polluting, they will invest in cleaner fuels, pollution controls, etc. if you have to bear the full costs of disposing of plastic, you will not use it or use much less. instead of grocery bags made from plastic, maybe the only plastic bags that will be used would be IV bags in hospitals. but once again govt has distorted property rights and free exchange.

 

just sayin'

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

ha. it's fun to come on here when I'm drunk and troll the self-righteous libertarians who take themselves too seriously.

 

[El Mamerro]

just sayin'

 

...the same stuff we've been hearing from you for years that seem to hold no bearing on the reality of human society and behavior.

 

To humor you though, I don't see in your example exactly why a private disposal company would have an incentive to charge more for plastic bags. It takes the same amount of cost and effort to toss both in a landfill. The environmental choice MUST be the more profitable one, or else it won't happen.

 

And the whole pollution argument we've been over already. In the past, I offered the bee example, which I believe you dismissed with no convincing argument... I own a property that happens to house several bee hives that pose a threat to my family's health, so I decide to eliminate them completely. My neighbor's farm down the road all of a sudden loses its primary pollinators and suffers catastrophic losses before he realizes what happened.

 

Pollution is complex and incredibly hard to quantify for individual cases. Delving into the minutiae for every particular case would create a legal quagmire, hold the courts up, and waste a tremendous amount of money in the study and research of every specific claim. And anyways, companies get sued by everyone already, but they command incredibly powerful teams that are able to steamroll past the common man very easily and make it very undesirable and unworthy of their effort. Your approach is naive. Environmental affairs must be mostly taken care of with broad, overarching strokes, because the environment affects us all in broad, overarching ways.

 

You also clearly don't realize that pollution and environmental damage is very often intangible and offers no immediate "pain" that would cause people to react in time to stop before irreversible damage is made. People are not gonna sue a company because they're making the air brown, they'll do it years down the road when they start dying of lung cancer and the environment is already beyond repair.

 

And so I restate my case, the only way the environment will be taken care of by the market is if it's more profitable than not taking care of it. The way our society and culture is structured, not taking care of it is more profitable in the short term, therefore it will not be taken care of. People like Al Gore step up, say "oh hey let's make money by saving the environment" and people jump down his throat for it. I mean dude, wise up, cause it's either that approach, or the government. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

[cunt sauce]

this iz it

[angelofdeath]

To humor you though, I don't see in your example exactly why a private disposal company would have an incentive to charge more for plastic bags. It takes the same amount of cost and effort to toss both in a landfill. The environmental choice MUST be the more profitable one, or else it won't happen.

 

economics 101?

 

if a plastic bag does indeed impact the environment the way we are told, then obviously it is a given that it really costs more to dispose of than paper. a land owner trying to get the most use out of his private dump is going to charge more to have plastic dumped into his site. if paper will decompose and allow him to keep putting more junk in his landfill, this will be cheaper. plastic which takes up space will be more expensive to dump.

economics 101.

do you understand profits, loss, incentives, operating costs etc?

 

And the whole pollution argument we've been over already. In the past, I offered the bee example, which I believe you dismissed with no convincing argument... I own a property that happens to house several bee hives that pose a threat to my family's health, so I decide to eliminate them completely. My neighbor's farm down the road all of a sudden loses its primary pollinators and suffers catastrophic losses before he realizes what happened.

 

i dont remember a bee example. but i'll respond now.

 

the simple answer is for the farmer to put bees on his property.

these just seem like little technical problems to me. its like saying.... since bridges in the US on public roads are build through socialist funding... how will be build a bridge in a free market?

are you saying that you have no right to eliminate this pest?

do you further not approve of pest control because that den of rattle snakes on your property might be utilized by a neighbor for eating rats?

you can reductio to down to lots of things.

if we allow free markets and private property in food, we will all starve because the rich will just buy and control all the food and everyone will starve. but seems to me grocery stores are profiting off of hunger and people are profiting off of the food they are getting from them otherwise the trade wouldnt take place.

 

Pollution is complex and incredibly hard to quantify for individual cases. Delving into the minutiae for every particular case would create a legal quagmire, hold the courts up, and waste a tremendous amount of money in the study and research of every specific claim. And anyways, companies get sued by everyone already, but they command incredibly powerful teams that are able to steamroll past the common man very easily and make it very undesirable and unworthy of their effort. Your approach is naive. Environmental affairs must be mostly taken care of with broad, decisive strokes, because the environment affects us all in broad, decisive ways.

 

ah, it would create legal quagmires and hold up courts.. just like murder cases and that damn DNA and forensic evidence? given that we already have laws that forbid murder, there shouldnt be any right? if we just pass a law that forbids pollution or impact on the environment, everything will be fixed right?

 

remember that truth that every intervention creates many more problems that require further legislation. which is why we have a state that never stops growing.

take the private dump example again.

most municipal dumps forbid you to dump in very harmful things like oil paint and chemicals because they have no real price system as it operates on the socialist model. so what do we have? we have people that dump all their old paint cans in private dumpsters and on private or public property out in the woods. the dump near me only allows 2 old tires dumped per month. what happens to all the surplus tires? dumped over the side of a hill back out of the way some where.

seems like everything is working great.

whereas if we had a price system... you would just be charged a hell of a lot more to dispose of this stuff at a dump.

then we would have people saying that evil capitalist dump owners are 'gouging' the public.

although what it really means is to reduce using stuff that is harmful to the environment because it costs more to dispose of.

 

whereas if we had a free market at the dump... the tire solution would be solved the way it is solved for those in the auto repair industry. a guy comes around, you pay them 2 bucks a tire and they take them away. do they throw them in a land fill? since they profit off of recycling they resell the good used tires to used tire distributors or sell them to customers who want to buy them and put them on the car for them. they sell some to tire recyclers. they try to reuse as much as they can because it ultimately costs them a lot of money to actually have throw these tires in a dump

 

even if you do disagree with using courts as the best way of combatting trespass/pollution.... why not allow it to happen? why not support this as well as environmental legislation? why not atleast de-insulate these industries from liability and let them deal with their own liabilities?

 

 

And so I restate my case, the only way the environment will be taken care of by the market is if it's more profitable than not taking care of it. The way our society and culture is structured, not taking care of it is more profitable in the short term, therefore it will not be taken care of. People like Al Gore step up, say "oh hey let's make money by saving the environment" and people jump down his throat for it. I mean dude, wise up, cause it's either that approach, or the government. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

 

your analysis is faulty because we dont have a free market. like i said most companies are immune from alot of the liabilities. like you pointed out, big companies have lots of money invested in lobbyists and lawyers and buy legislators to allow them to basically do what they want. because our government is set up as a democracy where anyone can get what they want, instead of a government that solely exists to protect property and liberty.

 

benevolence is a horrible way to get anything done.

you have to motivate self interest.

 

why do timber companies take care of their property? they harvest timber off their tracts, re seed, take care of the plots so they can log it again in years to come. the incentive is there. since benevolence to save the environment wont work, and since state power wont work to save the environment the best way is to motivate good old fashioned evil human self interest.

according to what you are putting forth, every timber company just simply is worried about this instant right now and not anything else. so they must all be clear cutting all the property they can get their hands on and letting it rot, right?

 

another thing that is left out is the price system.

talking about natural resources.

since the 1890's they have been saying we only have 10 more years of oil. they dont take into account when you have higher prices people use less of it. price of gas goes up, people use less. then you have the government stepping in to prosecute 'price gougers' when actually these people should be commended because they are actually regulating the supply of something. if the price is high people then start trying to figure out more efficient ways to fuel their cars.

[cunt sauce]

im not going to read the whole thing, but i will attack the first thing that you said.

 

things don't really compost in landfills, they just sit there. there is a clay layer around them which prevents this from happening. they do tend to leak often though, which is when you here about battery waste getting into our groundwater yadda yadda

[El Mamerro]

I'm not gonna go point by point cause your science is faulty right from the start. The difference in time decomposition and space displacement between paper and plastic is still completely negligible to a landfill owner. Plastic will take thousands of years to decompose, treated paper will take decades (they do not properly decompose in landfills). The amount of space "liberated" by decomposing paper is negligible, and only significant after an extended period of time at which point the business could very well be obsolete. Science 101.

 

Timber companies take care of their property in as much as it allows them to operate efficiently as a business. They can and do create long-term damage to the environment that does not affect their short-term life span as businesses.

 

Self-interest regulates actions that are relevant, at the most, to <100 year lifespans, and generational transfers within that. The environment and the natural world do not operate on that schedule. People taking action in the interest of a 20yr business does not in any way translate to benefit an environment that functions on a whole other scale of time and progression. This is why we keep on making decisions that will make things REALLY shitty for people born in 2080, because whatever happens then is of no relevance whatsoever to a business/individual that is operating/living now.

 

The bee thing I posted just to show an example of why thinking property rights are the be-all-end-all solution for natural management is profoundly flawed. Sure, the farmer could put new bees in his property, but he may have ruined his soil in the collapse and not be able to get his farm running profitably again. I am not saying the first person did not have a right to get rid of the bees, only showing how making decisions purely out of self interest can generate massive unbalances in natural systems that are completely intertwined among our properties. Humans have come up with the concept of property rights in order to advance as a civil society, but that doesn't mean those principles are fundamental to the way nature works.

[angelofdeath]

being the moderate kind of guy i am AND given the controversy and claims that surround various 'settled science' AND given the claims of 'experts' the government relies on...... (they really got iraq and the ice age in the 1980's right didnt they?)

 

i'd at least ask for the several states to be in charge of various environmental measures as per the 10th amendment instead of having one huge policy across the whole country. given the track record of the government. at least allow some sort of competition to see who really knows the deal and see what really works.

 

as for the garbage example, i was dealing mainly in on paper calculations not the actual 'real' world. the real world is totally subjective to human action. obviously i dont know the exact cost of plastic bag disposal. i said...'assume plastic costs more to dispose of because it impacts the environment much more than other bags.'

 

although a 'garbologist' william rathje has found that plastic isnt bad for the environment at all. he claims its the paper that is the main problem. like yellow page books.

 

the system of private property is the ONLY way that properly allocates resources. the socialism calculation debate has been going on for a long time and the austrians have won the debate.

 

to think that a bumbling huge bureaucratic federal government, ruling the lives of 300 million diverse peoples, can some how cure the environment through socialist policies is what is profoundly flawed.

 

another problem i have with the so called environmental movement, not only do they consider dissent on their ideas equivalent to holocaust denial, they do not take human living standards into account at all. some of these people promoting overpopulation propaganda write articles literally wishing away all the worlds people then claiming then that 'things begin to look fairly good for the environment.' lets face it. nature in its raw form is nasty and cruel. humans have to impact it in some way. otherwise we would all be living in caves. literally.

 

final point:

if the socialist system of resource allocation is the best, then at least the highly collectivist countries behind the iron curtain might of been economic basket cases, but at least their environments should of been perfect, right? but wait.... seems i remember reading that smoking was forbidden on boats in various lakes in the USSR because if a lit cigarette hit the water.. it would IGNITE. hmmmm.

i know i know, we just need the right planners and everything will be right.

just like if we just elect the RIGHT president, everything will be fixed in the US. yeah. this has been working out real good for the last 200 years.

[Removed]

lets look at garbage disposal. since the cost of garbage disposal is socialized or municipalized... we dont really pay the actual cost of disposal. plastic bags are a hot topic. lets assume they are very damaging to the environment. but lets also assume the average house hold essentially pays NOTHING to dispose of garbage (sure they pay taxes for garbage disposal, but these are unseen to most people and the cost is the same for everyone no matter what they throw out) it doesnt matter whether they throw out paper (more environmentally friendly than plastic) or plastic or nothing at all. they still pay the same amount. and since the municipality owns the garbage dump, they socialize the cost of disposal. where as in a free market with private trash pick up and a private waste dump... the dump owner would obviously charge you much more to dispose of the plastic bags than the paper bags or better yet, no grocery bags at all. by charging more, he reduces the amount of plastic going into the ground. so if you then fully realize that throwing away a plastic bag costs say 5$ per bag to get rid of, and a paper bag costs .20$ to get rid of, which one are you going to ask for at the grocery store? or maybe you'll just be really smart and bring your own cloth bags.

 

 

 

I have seen you bang on about this idea a few times now. Unfortunately it would simply not work. Individuals faced with a high price to dispose of rubbish would tend towards disposing of it illegally rather than pay. In my mind a more practicable solution would be to assign a value to rubbish, like bottle collection in Germany for example, which would provide incentive to individuals to participate in a rubbish collection and recycling program. Similarly, an entirely free market solution to reducing carbon will not work because, relative to the immediate profit available, there is very little incentive to think of the long term environmental effects. What we have at the moment is a very large carrot and the rumour that a stick could be coming sometime in the future. In order for a free or even mixed solution to be effective the weighting of incentive vs disincentive needs to be relatively even for the majority of participants. Property rights and neo-liberal economics is not able to provide a balance regarding this issue.

 

 

if the socialist system of resource allocation is the best, then at least the highly collectivist countries behind the iron curtain might of been economic basket cases, but at least their environments should of been perfect, right?

I think you miss the point completely when you start to argue free market vs social economy. From an environmentalist perspective the issue is not about which rigid, and dated, ideology to stubbornly stick to in order to find a solution. It is about a pragmatic approach to solving an impending problem.

[angelofdeath]

I think you miss the point completely when you start to argue free market vs social economy. From an environmentalist perspective the issue is not about which rigid, and dated, ideology to stubbornly stick to in order to find a solution. It is about a pragmatic approach to solving an impending problem.

 

the underlying ideologies are the same. property held by the government in the name of the collective people for the 'common good.'

 

as far as 'pragmatism...' im not concerned at all with that if it is violating rights. i mean we could claim the nazi police state was 'pragmatic' in regards to its virtual elimination of street crime.

not only that, but given the poor track record of nearly everything the government has done/is doing... and given the already poor track record it has at protecting the environment, i dont trust the govt to the do job at all. the govt cant win a fight with a couple thousand untrained arabs in the middle east, cant keep drugs out of max security prison, tried to cure poverty 50 years ago and they have failed, cant secure the US's borders, it cant even run a government monopoly of mail delivery and turn a profit. last projection i heard was that the USPS is they are gonna lose 250 billion over the next 10 years.

 

but in any case, if people cant see the case for ending municipalized garbage dumps, they cant see the case for just about any other activity of a free people to engage in.

 

but being the moderate guy i am, i wouldnt be so critical of the enviro-fascism that makes up the environmental movement if they didnt do such ridiculous things. like:

 

they federalize family farms by deciding after a couple hundred years, that a small section of the acreage is actually a federally protected marsh. and then they eliminate anyone to touch it even though it has been part of the farm for decades and decades... thereby putting this farmer out of business.

 

in certain areas of the country, if an endangered species is spotted on a farm, the land is federalized. which is why the policy of the 3 S's was invented. shoot, shovel and shut up. because if word gets out, they lose their land.

 

if crazy shit like this wasnt going on... i wouldnt be so critical.

although, still at the bare minimum all that i ask is you allow the several states to decide these policies instead of the federal government and see who does the best job, then follow that example. to think that a centrally managed bureaucracy could set environmental policy and actually have it work for a country as big as the US, with 300 million people, is just insanity.

 

how many more tasks can we give this inept government and expect great results? i think its the definition of insanity to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. governments fail. no changing that.

[Decyferon]

AOD why do you give so many rights to states being run themselves rather than a central government, there is no difference, it is still the same politicians, same agendas, why break it down to a localised level when there doesn't appear to be any benefit of this?

 

I'm also of Mams thinking in that nothing will happen unless governments step up and take major action, there is no incentive for business to do anything about the environment unless it is going to mean they increase their profits, that is the bottom line, companies that pollute more should be taxed more, simple as that, penalise them for polluting or being un-green and you will soon see them doing something about it.

 

Also, I think comparing the environments of behind the iron curtain era countries is silly, both America and USSR were in a 'cold' war and were more focussed on other issues as the environment wasn't such an issues back then as it is nowadays. Also, no one is saying socialism is the answer to the environmental problem, just that governments need to step up and force change.

[lord_casek]

AOD why do you give so many rights to states being run themselves rather than a central government, there is no difference, it is still the same politicians, same agendas, why break it down to a localised level when there doesn't appear to be any benefit of this?

 

I'm also of Mams thinking in that nothing will happen unless governments step up and take major action, there is no incentive for business to do anything about the environment unless it is going to mean they increase their profits, that is the bottom line, companies that pollute more should be taxed more, simple as that, penalise them for polluting or being un-green and you will soon see them doing something about it.

 

Also, I think comparing the environments of behind the iron curtain era countries is silly, both America and USSR were in a 'cold' war and were more focussed on other issues as the environment wasn't such an issues back then as it is nowadays. Also, no one is saying socialism is the answer to the environmental problem, just that governments need to step up and force change.

 

 

Because it is intended for all the states to be a government unto themselves.

 

 

"States rights movement and the Ron Paul reality are seeds that have been planted"

 

 

NewsWithViews.com | 5, 2009

By Geoff Metcalf

"The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people. The streams of national power ought to flow from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority." --Alexander Hamilton

Apparently several U.S. States have taken the first steps to claim sovereignty under the United States Constitution 10th Amendment. You may not have seen or heard about this from the Main Stream Media, but the ripple is as real as a sunrise.

Arizona, New Hampshire, Missouri, and Washington state are in various stages of legislatively declaring their sovereignty. Several states are giving notice the Federal Government should actually abide by the terms enumerated in the U.S. Constitution. They probably won’t succeed any more than Ron Paul did, but both the states rights movement and the Ron Paul reality are seeds that have been planted…and require attention and nurturing.(full article at link)

http://www.newswithviews.com/metcalf/metcalf278.htm

[angelofdeath]

AOD why do you give so many rights to states being run themselves rather than a central government, there is no difference, it is still the same politicians, same agendas, why break it down to a localised level when there doesn't appear to be any benefit of this?

 

you are correct... all states are corrupt, whether its a local state government or a federal government.

there are two points though.:

 

the constitution demands all powers not enumerated in article 1 section 8 are left to the states

 

but more importantly... we would have 50 'solutions' to a problem instead of one. based on the hayekian notion that out of these 50 we would find the best example. hell, if we actually had a state come up with a real working model, then you could sell this to public on the national level, with a constitutional amendment of course.

 

in the end, these days, i support NO government control except protection of life liberty and property. but if i dont support decentralization it would be like not supporting tax cuts when in reality im in favor of abolition of 95% of the taxes we pay

 

Also, no one is saying socialism is the answer to the environmental problem, just that governments need to step up and force change.

 

call it what you want. most environmentalists back either a full on socialist model or a economic fascist model with a veneer of property rights and full government regulation and control. given that governments under communist control holding the means of production in the name of all the people for the common good, SHOULD according to the theories of the environmentalists have had great environments.

 

as for your other statements... you hold the marxian view of the economy, i hold an austrian view of the economy.

nuff said on that .

 

here is no incentive for business to do anything about the environment unless it is going to mean they increase their profits, that is the bottom line, companies that pollute more should be taxed more, simple as that, penalise them for polluting or being un-green and you will soon see them doing something about it.

 

but i will comment on this.

 

what is wrong with allowing people to hold businesses accountable as well? as i pointed out, governments PROTECT the so called rights of these companies to pollute AND to have given them through statute limited liability.

 

another argument can be made that it is rich countries, that is free countries with economic prosperity have better environments than other countries that are poor and under a quasi socialist rule. why? the leisure time afforded by the free market as well as the quality of life and standard of living allow people to spend more time taking care of concerns about the environment.

 

speaking from personal experience... privately held farms in an area i am familiar with are squeaky clean and environmentally friendly. if i walk from one of these properties on to the national forest, you have poisoned springs, slashed old growth timber, and trash everywhere.

just sayin.

 

in the end, i'll reiterate. to think that government can do ANYTHING the best is just setting yourself up for failure. you will be let down. as i said, if they cant keep drugs out of max security prison or catch a couple arabs in the middle east, they are NOT going to be able to save the environment for you

[Pew_Pew_Pew]

although a 'garbologist' william rathje has found that plastic isnt bad for the environment at all. he claims its the paper that is the main problem. like yellow page books.

 

I've enjoyed reading your debate. However your point about William Rathje is flawed. Plastic *IS* bad for the environment. PVC plastic leeches a chemical known to cause cancer. Not the PVC piping you're familiar with. PVC plastic is used to package everything in those hard to open clamshells. Yellow page books are collected by schools in my area, they have a contest to see how many books a classroom can collect and then they get a party or whatever. These yellow pages are then recycled.

 

Regarding your comment about the $5 to trash a plastic bag vs paper. Would the garbage man come by and sort through your garbage making sure you didn't throw away a plastic bag? How would we collect our garbage if not with a kitchen tall plastic bag during the week?

 

Seems very inefficient to work in the real world.

[angelofdeath]

I've enjoyed reading your debate. However your point about William Rathje is flawed. Plastic *IS* bad for the environment. PVC plastic leeches a chemical known to cause cancer. Not the PVC piping you're familiar with. PVC plastic is used to package everything in those hard to open clamshells. Yellow page books are collected by schools in my area, they have a contest to see how many books a classroom can collect and then they get a party or whatever. These yellow pages are then recycled.

 

Regarding your comment about the $5 to trash a plastic bag vs paper. Would the garbage man come by and sort through your garbage making sure you didn't throw away a plastic bag? How would we collect our garbage if not with a kitchen tall plastic bag during the week?

 

Seems very inefficient to work in the real world.

 

im not taking a stand on whether plastic is good or bad for the environment, i merely pointed out rathje to show that a 'garbologist' basically holds that plastic isnt as bad as people think just to sort of show the debate isnt really 'settled.' i'll leave it to the experts.

this really isnt the debate in my opinion. as the principle behind my arguments would be the same for whatever material is more harmful to the environment. it costs more to dispose of those things than things that are environmentally friendly, but due to socialized garbage collection and treatment, you dont know the actual cost of disposal.

 

a few years back i read about a teacher who had a project going on for part of the school year. it involved students for something like a half hour a day sorting garbage. putting green bottles in this bin, brown bottles in that bin, paper here, plastic there. a newspaper came out, wrote story about it. the teacher posed for the camera's, smiling, etc. the reporter decided to stick around after the students left. she talked to the janitor. the janitor proceeded to tell the reporter that they just dump all the 'sorted' garbage into one single dumpster out back when asked what the school does with the students project. the janitor went on to tell the woman that the market was saturated right now from so much chip board and recycled paper products, etc that the recycle company was charging people to pick up the paper and plastic and that they just throw it in the trash dumpster.

 

and the teacher knew this, but decided to keep the charade going. she even kept up the charade to a news outlet. the reporter confronted the teacher after school and when asked about where the trash went... she shrugged and said she 'doesnt have the heart to tell the kids.' she said the really important thing is that the kids 'feel good' about 'doing' something. this is basically the fantasy level we are dealing with.

 

as for your last comment about would the garbage man sort through your paper and trash... i'd answer that with... the market determines that. its a technical problem. since we are talking in abstracts and in example and not in actual human action, one can only guess. it could be done by weight, overall content, etc. this is like asking...'but if we allowed the free market to set prices for food and groceries, how will they be distributed and how ill people get fed?' bastiat pointed out how paris got fed and answered this very question. spontaneous market order of willing participants engaging in voluntary acts of self interest.

 

when you take scrap iron/steel to a scrap yard for instance they pay you for how much you bring in and by taking a glance at the overall structure of what you are bringing in. if you bring in a truck full of 90% brake rotors, you get top dollar for 'heavy crusher steel.' if you bring in a junk car, you get paid the junk car rate which takes into account all the plastic and non steel junk they have sort out with their machines. however the real incentive lies in what the junk yards do that take junk cars to a steel crusher. they strip the cars completely. no plastic at all, just plain steel... and of course they get twice as much money for the cars since they dont have to 'sort' the materials out.

[Decyferon]

I'm just happy to my my council tax to the local authority and let them deal with the garbage issue, I got too much going on to bother thinking about any of that crap, it doesn't interest me and if it was down to me I would just dump the lot at the tip, however I pay my council tax, the binmen empty my bins, the recyclers come orund once a week, i put all my recycling into one box, they sort it as they put it into the truck, why anyone would want to get involved in the issue anymore than that is beyond me.

[angelofdeath]

I'm just happy to my my council tax to the local authority and let them deal with the garbage issue, I got too much going on to bother thinking about any of that crap, it doesn't interest me and if it was down to me I would just dump the lot at the tip, however I pay my council tax, the binmen empty my bins, the recyclers come orund once a week, i put all my recycling into one box, they sort it as they put it into the truck, why anyone would want to get involved in the issue anymore than that is beyond me.

 

it would be no different with a free market trash pick up service. you would just have to pay the real cost of trash disposal, which it turn protects the environment.

[russell jones]

Let's cut through the straw man arguments and get to the heart of the issue AOD: there is no free market solution for global warming. Discuss.

[cunt sauce]

Let's cut through the straw man arguments and get to the heart of the issue AOD: there is no free market solution for global warming. Discuss.

 

correct there is no free market solution for global warming, but i am going to go even further...

 

there is no political answer to the degradation of our natural world. industrialized society is and always will be unsustainable because it requires the importation of resources. there needs to be a revolution of society to change this planet, not a reform of politics.

 

to hell with ron paul, obama, mcstain, bush, nader, all of them. it is all a distraction. we need to prick out the problem of society at its source. industrialized civilization.

 

 

needs to turn into

 

[Zig]

correct there is no free market solution for global warming, but i am going to go even further...

 

there is no political answer to the degradation of our natural world. industrialized society is and always will be unsustainable because it requires the importation of resources. there needs to be a revolution of society to change this planet, not a reform of politics.

 

to hell with ron paul, obama, mcstain, bush, nader, all of them. it is all a distraction. we need to prick out the problem of society at its source. industrialized civilization.

 

 

needs to turn into

 

 

yes lets de-industrialize the world, and reduce the population to save the planet... oh and humans are a virus...

 

/sarcasm

[cunt sauce]

"This civilization is killing the planet. They say that one sign of intelligence is the ability to recognize patterns. I’m gonna lay out a pattern here and let’s see if we can recognize it in less than 6,000 years. When you think of the hills and plains of Iraq, do you normally think of cedar forests so thick the sunlight never touches the ground? That’s how it was before. The first written myth of this culture is that of Gilgamesh deforesting that area to make cities. Plato complained that deforestation was drying up springs and destroying the water quality in Greece. The forests of North Africa went down to make the Phoencian and Egyptian navies. We can go north and ask, Where are the lions who were in Greece? Where are the indigenous of Europe? They’ve been massacred, or assimilated—in any case, genocide was perpetrated against them by definition because they’re no longer there.

 

If you start asking questions, the questions just keep moving back and back and back. This is a pattern that’s been going on for a long, long time. This culture has been unsustainable from the beginning. On a finite planet, you would think that we would think about that. You can’t exploit a planet and live on it too. At this stage, since there are no new frontiers to exploit, the planet’s falling apart."

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

Yo bro let's go see Avatar in 3D again!

[cunt sauce]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[cunt sauce]

I hope you're not suggesting that an increase of 1°C from the current temperature is equivalent to a increase of 33.8°F from the current temperature. That would be a crass misinterpretation.

 

 

 

 

 

No, it's the opposite. Ron Paul's approach to the environment is such, because he thinks the government shouldn't be involved in anything.

 

As much as I agree with the fact that the government is involved in too many things it shouldn't be right now, there is simply no other way to deal with the environment than to order people to get their shit together.

 

There is literally zero incentive for the free market to enact an environmentally friendly policy. None. The consumer public will never demand it to the extent that will cause a shift in the market's behavior towards the environment. It is painfully clear that the decision to change towards a sustainable lifestyle will never come out of the pure hearts of consumers who have spent decades being conditioned to a market of overconsumption and extreme resource drain. Someone or something HAS to step in and change the way things are done.

 

If the government is not the one to step in and enact this change, then tell me, who is?

i have a question for you or any other moderator willing to respond... does the company providing the electricity necessary to run 12ozprophet offer renewable sources? in my area you can pay a little bit extra for wind powered electricity and the extra tax goes towards building more wind turbines (around $5 extra a month for the average home). do you guys take advantage of this (if possible)? the reason why i ask is because a lot of people want things to change but no one is willing to do them on their own. i agree govt regulation is absolutely necessary, but the consumer makes a big difference too!

 

thanks!

[cunt sauce]

waiting... waiting

 

 

Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarm. Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms

[El Mamerro]

As far as I know, no. We have pretty much no say on the dealings behind this site, but if it was my call, I'd definitely look into it. On a personal level I can't even begin to list the number of things I've done to cut on my energy footprint and reduce waste. And yet it's still too much. As individuals dependent on an excessively wasteful culture, there are limits on how much we can scale back without dramatically affecting our ongoing lives in a negative manner. I believe it is entirely possible to live our rich, energy-hungry lives if we take a stand together as a planet and pool our best resources into cracking sustainability.

 

All I can gather from responses to the dilemma presented is the equivalent of "But... but... who knows, as long as it's not the government!". Oh wait, governments protect the right for companies to pollute. Excellent, you have pointed out one key thing we can get started on overturning. The private waste disposal example doesn't quite cut it and the reasons have been explained. Let's keep on going, what else can we do?

 

Obviously regulations are a big deal to most of you, but I don't think government intervention begins and ends with just that. What about incentives? Oh, right, those require money, which come from taxes, which you don't want to pay more of (cause you have no say on how they're doled out... but what if you did?).

 

If we have basically established that the free market cannot solve the problem (it can't act directly on it due to lack of profit incentive), and neither can the government (it can act directly, but will almost certainly do it quite badly), what is the alternative we have to go forward on? If nothing shows up, we have to choose one of the two. Until I hear a better answer, I can only side with the one with the greater possibility of enacting change.

[Decyferon]

I'm with you Mams, until business works out a way to profit from making changes to the environment for a positive then they will not do anything, governments at least have a responsibility to do something about it, whether through incentives for business or tax breaks for cleaner energy etc. It is clear it is an important issue across the world so government hands are kinda forced to do something about it.

 

Yea I'm not happy to pay more taxes for this, but I think our tax money can be spent much wiser, the amount of waste that comes from the governement process could be slimmed right down, there are too many offices within the government that essentially do the same thing, when they start cutting the beauracratic red tape and all the huge back office departments then they can focus those tax savings to the economy and environment.

[Zig]

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0414/obama-dead-heat-ron-paul/

 

personally i think ron paul would lose in an election against obama, and i'm honestly on the fence about whether or not i even want to see a ron paul presidency come to fruition because i'm sure if he ever got in office things will be a lot different from what i imagined.

[ILOTSMYBRAIN]

To be honest I'm not sure how it would play out.

 

I do think it would be very entertaining for a political nerd like myself. Two polar opposite's. Two people who can handle a debate, and have huge followings.

 

I personally think it would come down to the wire. I also doubt we would have to worry about some sort of political scandal, involving some random woman, or some drug problem.

 

It would probably be the best thing for this country, even if the man I'm pulling for loses. Wait...did that have some kind of homosexual undertone?

 

:X

[russell jones]

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0414/obama-dead-heat-ron-paul/

 

personally i think ron paul would lose in an election against obama, and i'm honestly on the fence about whether or not i even want to see a ron paul presidency come to fruition because i'm sure if he ever got in office things will be a lot different from what i imagined.

 

Paul hasn't been properly vetted. If he was, and people find out his views mean no public schools, no student loans, no environmental laws, no government regulation of any kind of industry, gold based currency, no workplace laws, no minimum wage, no overtime for 40 hour work weeks, no social security, medicare, no federal disaster assistance, etc.... I could go on and on. Once people find that out, his numbers would drop to the floor.