Zip Napalm wrote:I'm going to turn on all the lights in the house, let the cars run in the driveway and grill something using charcoal(preferably red meat).

ShumaGorath wrote:Its amusing to watch the conservative response to such a publicity stunt. Its hilariously childish.

Zip Napalm wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:Its amusing to watch the conservative response to such a publicity stunt. Its hilariously childish.

It isn't a "conservative response".
It's just normal people mocking a pointless publicity stunt.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Zip Napalm wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:Its amusing to watch the conservative response to such a publicity stunt. Its hilariously childish.

It isn't a "conservative response".
It's just normal people mocking a pointless publicity stunt.

There's a difference between mocking and knocking over your plate because your mom asked you to put it in the sink.

ShumaGorath wrote:Its amusing to watch the conservative response to such a publicity stunt. Its hilariously childish.

Frazzled wrote:I see, so the argument is, because manufacturing is already leaving this isn't an issue?

Frazzled wrote:
How would it help the environment, if the manufacturing is done overseas in areas with even less environmental regulation than here? Its still air pollution/global warming/whatever the excuse is.

dogma wrote:

The notion that overseas manufacturing is unregulated is preposterous. China has some of the most stringent environmental regulations in the world, and India is moving in that direction as a result of the atrocious air quality in places like New Delhi. They've both realized that it doesn't matter how productive their people are if they can't survive without huge consumer markets to provide them with food, medical care, and possession.

Frazzled wrote:
If you believe that I have abridge to sell you. YRules on books are irrelevant. Rules as enforced are completely different. Look at Mexico. Some of the most stringent regulations, yet worst pollution on the continent.

Frazzled wrote:
I should note, reasonable people can disagree on the environment and methods to protect. But crap like "turn your lights off for an hour" is just mocha latte sipping hippy hugger college boy nonsense. Wow, I think I just channelled Richard Nixon, oh wait one more bit we can't let those nattering naybobs get a hold of this country. erp there, its gone now.

(I hope people realize I'm just having fun here-except the nattering naybobs of course, thats completely serious )

dogma wrote:The Chinese executed 2 men because they allowed contaminated milk to be distributed.

If you believe that I have abridge to sell you. YRules on books are irrelevant. Rules as enforced are completely different. Look at Mexico. Some of the most stringent regulations, yet worst pollution on the continent.

I should note, reasonable people can disagree on the environment and methods to protect. But crap like "turn your lights off for an hour" is just mocha latte sipping hippy hugger college boy nonsense. Wow, I think I just channelled Richard Nixon, oh wait one more bit we can't let those nattering naybobs get a hold of this country. erp there, its gone now.

Are you really comparing Mexico's government to China's? The Chinese executed 2 men because they allowed contaminated milk to be distributed. The Mexicans can't even control the drug trade.

ShumaGorath wrote:
I agree its stupid, but it's like quitting smoking. You need to work up the courage to do it first. Maybe resisting a single cigarette gives you the fortitude to do it later. You can't begin to conserve cold turkey, people don't have the willpower. Something so simple as turning off a few extra lights in your home is beyond the scope of millions of people, if you can get them into the "spirit" of helping it can help them change their daily habits as well.

Frazzled wrote:Saving power only goes so far. Save 20% of your total energy consumption? Big deal energy usage has been growing 3% annually.

Frazzled wrote:
And to Shuma. You don't have a clue about me. But I bet you don't actually work for a living in the private sector, do you?

What does that have to do with your knowledge of China, or South America?

And to Shuma. You don't have a clue about me. But I bet you don't actually work for a living in the private sector, do you?

Saving power only goes so far. Save 20% of your total energy consumption? Big deal energy usage has been growing 3% annually.

Wolfstan wrote:
At the end of the day, it's not just the US (just a big and easily seen target), it's the world corporations who are to blame, they all look at profits in the short time, not the long time. Investment 20 years ago could now be seeing huge returns, but no they had to take the easy route to keep investors happy and therefore we will suffer for that shortsightedness, whilst the rich buggers can afford to move to the expensive safe areas.

Wolfstan wrote: It's the same with oil, if your politicians weren't getting so much back handers from the industry you could of been leading the way with fusion power. Yes it would of cost a hell of a lot to research, but once achieved you could of patented the bloody process off to the rest of the world.

dogma wrote:The notion that overseas manufacturing is unregulated is preposterous. China has some of the most stringent environmental regulations in the world, and India is moving in that direction as a result of the atrocious air quality in places like New Delhi. They've both realized that it doesn't matter how productive their people are if they can't survive without huge consumer markets to provide them with food, medical care, and possession.

Frazzled wrote:I should note, reasonable people can disagree on the environment and methods to protect. But crap like "turn your lights off for an hour" is just mocha latte sipping hippy hugger college boy nonsense. Wow, I think I just channelled Richard Nixon, oh wait one more bit we can't let those nattering naybobs get a hold of this country. erp there, its gone now.

(I hope people realize I'm just having fun here-except the nattering naybobs of course, thats completely serious )

sebster wrote:
China also has some of the strongest anti-piracy regulations, but there is a big difference between having a law and having the ability and political will to enforce it. The issue here boils down to the same basic situation as with so many Chinese issues; Chinese bureacracy is inefficient and very corrupt.

dogma wrote:

sebster wrote:
China also has some of the strongest anti-piracy regulations, but there is a big difference between having a law and having the ability and political will to enforce it. The issue here boils down to the same basic situation as with so many Chinese issues; Chinese bureacracy is inefficient and very corrupt.

True enough. But as I mentioned to our resident Texan: China executed 2 people over (yes, this is a bad pun) spilled milk. When it comes to things which anger their citizens the state takes matters very seriously.

dogma wrote:

sebster wrote:
China also has some of the strongest anti-piracy regulations, but there is a big difference between having a law and having the ability and political will to enforce it. The issue here boils down to the same basic situation as with so many Chinese issues; Chinese bureacracy is inefficient and very corrupt.

True enough. But as I mentioned to our resident Texan: China executed 2 people over (yes, this is a bad pun) spilled milk. When it comes to things which anger their citizens the state takes matters very seriously.

No they executed two people because tens of thousands were sickened and IIRC hundreds died. So what, they are still shipping toys here with lead paint on them. They are still burning bad coal and building coal plants by the bushel. They're still basing thousands of missiles across the strait from Taiwan. They're still killing people in Tibet. They're still supporting the nightmare of North Korea. Your faith in the new Fascist power, which is what they have become, is misplaced.

ShumaGorath wrote:


:edit: As an aside, weren't you playing the worlds smallest violin for innocent people held in guantanamo a few threads back? I'm not sure how you're trying to hold the human rights high ground here.

Cap and Trade War
Team Obama floats a carbon tariff.Article

One of President Obama's applause lines is that his climate tax policies will create new green jobs "that can't be outsourced." But if that's true, why is his main energy adviser floating a new carbon tariff on imports? Welcome to the coming cap and trade war.


APEnergy Secretary Steven Chu made the protectionist point during an underreported House hearing this month, when he said tariffs and other trade barriers could be used as a "weapon" to force countries like China and India into cutting their own CO2 emissions. "If other countries don't impose a cost on carbon, then we will be at a disadvantage," he said. So a cap-and-trade policy won't be cost-free after all. Apparently Mr. Chu did not get the White House memo about obfuscating the impact of the Administration's anticarbon policies.

The Chinese certainly heard Mr. Chu, with Xie Zhenhua, a top economic minister, immediately responding that such a policy would be a "disaster" and "an excuse to impose trade restrictions." Beijing's reaction shows that as a means of coercing international cooperation, climate tariffs are worse than pointless. China and India are never going to endanger their own economic growth -- and the chance to lift hundreds of millions out of poverty -- merely to placate the climate neuroses of affluent Americans in Silicon Valley or Cambridge, Massachusetts. And they certainly won't do it under the threat of a tariff ultimatum.

But give Mr. Chu credit for candor. He had previously told the New York Times that "The concern about cap and trade in today's economic climate is that a lot of money might flow to developing countries in a way that might not be completely politically sellable." He is admitting that one byproduct of cap and trade is "leakage," by which investment and jobs are driven to nations that have looser or nonexistent climate regimes and therefore lower costs. At greatest risk are carbon-heavy industries such as steel, aluminum, paper, cement and chemicals that are sensitive to trade and where business is won and lost on the basis of pennies per unit of product. But the damage could strike almost any industry when energy prices "necessarily skyrocket," as Mr. Obama put it last year.

So in addition to all the other economic harm, a cap-and-trade tax will make foreign companies more competitive while eroding market share for U.S. businesses. The most harm will accrue to the very U.S. manufacturing and heavy-industry jobs that Democrats and unions claim to want to keep inside the U.S. A cap-and-tax plan would be the greatest outsourcing boon in history. And it may even increase CO2 emissions overall, because the developing nations where businesses are likely to relocate -- if they don't simply close -- tend to use energy less efficiently than does the U.S.

Meanwhile, carbon trade barriers would almost certainly violate U.S. obligations in the World Trade Organization. Since carbon energy cuts across so many industries, a tariff would presumably have to hit tens of thousands of products. Any restriction the U.S. imposes on imports can also just as easily be turned around and imposed on U.S. exports, whatever their carbon content.

Run-of-the-mill protectionism is already adopting a deeper shade of green. In January, the president of the European Commission said he may slap tariffs on goods from the U.S. and other non-Kyoto Protocol nations to protect European business. After Mr. Chu's comments, the U.S. steel lobby began calling for sanctions against Chinese steelmakers if Beijing doesn't commit to its own carbon limits, knowing full well that it won't. Look for more businesses to claim green virtue to justify special-interest pleading, a la the 54-cent U.S. tariff on foreign ethanol.

Democrats are already careless about trade -- i.e., the Mexican trucking spat, the "Buy America" provisions in the stimulus, and blocking the Colombia and South Korea free-trade pacts. Now cap and nontrade may lead to a retreat from the open global markets that have done so much to boost economic growth and innovation. The closer we get to the cap-and-trade dreams of Mr. Obama and Congress, the more dangerous they look.

Terrorists have no rights.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Terrorists have no rights.

Soo.... No matter what they have or haven't done they have no rights and you shed no tear for them. Your ability to at once criticize chinas human rights issue then say that everyone captured is a terrorist and deserves what they get despite no proof, utter secrecy, and the release of quite a few innocents so far is confusing at best and frightening at worst. There's a reason trials exist, its to prevent innocents from getting caught in things like years of torture and imprisonment for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As for the cap and trade policies, yes. The whole point is to impose the needed restrictions at home first, and if nations like china and india don't comply the western world will impose trade tariffs on them, essentially charging them what they would have otherwise charged themselves and making it equally uneconomical to not to green. I've said it every time I've mentioned these policies so far. Lets not be coy here, this is about coercing china into adopting policies that it could but uninfluenced likely wouldn't adopt itself. China has the economic muscle to impose cap and trade with relative ease and a deep well of money to invest in doing so with little impact on itself. Imposing cap and trade over the western markets (the markets that buy chinese goods) then imposing carbon tarrifs would have two effects. It would either bring manufacturing homes back to the western nations, or it would cause the eastern ones to go green.


Free trade without regulation is a race to the bottom. Compete with third world slave labor and chinese deregulation and you're just sprinting towards a third world lifestyle for your own country. Cap and trade may accelerate job flight, but not doing so doesn't prevent it. We can not prevent it because its simply more cost effective to ship these jobs to markets that have no health, workers rights, or payment laws. It will never not be. Carbon trade is a strongarm method of both improving planetary emissions standards and reducing job flight through trade tariffs.



The mills aren't coming back. Our steel industry has been dying for a while now, we have no paper industry, our automotive industry is dying the death it deserves for not being able to keep up with MORE expensive foreign outfits like germany and japan, and our chemical industries have been shipping offshores for decades due to less stringent safety and environmental laws. Manufacturing isn't the only form of job there is. It's just the easiest to hand over to foreign untrained slave work.

The last time we had a trade war in the middle of a recession it became The Great Depression. Which actually corresponds with the proposed budget. Oh