Cost of Global Warming

[HydrogenBond]

The latest fad about global warming is connected to Carbon footprint. There is pea-brain storming in the works to shrink this foot print with taxes, unless one can buy offsets, then you can make your foot print as big as you want.

 

When I use electricity for lights, for example, my electricity and lights burn clean and don't give off carbon emissions. One may say, although electricity is clean at the level of the comsumer, at the beginning of the process greenhouse gases are emitted. That is true, but included in the price of my electricity is already the cost of greenouse gases.

 

In other words, if the government was to add a 10% tax to the utilities companies for greenhouse gases, these companies will not take that out of their profits, i.e., altruism. They will pass that cost onto consumer with higher rates. All the environmental adjustments over the pass 20 years are in the current rates while profits are staying more less at the same level. The proposed tax on the consumer amounts to a double tax so the ultilities can maintain profit.

 

The way the illusion works is the assumption that we are a demand side economy. In reality, our economy is based on supply side. The supply side creates the demand and not the other way around. For example, a group of people don't gather around and say it would be nice if we had smokey burgurs cooked over smokey applewood fires. One person among them, who is altruistic says, OK, I will make you smokey burgurs to meets this demand.

 

The way the process works in reality is an entrepreneur develops a tasky smokey burger and brings it to market. Through marketing manipulation, such as advertising, he creates demand for a new product, where once there was no demand. If the EPA decided to limited his smoke emissions, that cost is passed on to the consumer. The polution tax is included in the price of the higher priced smokey burger. The supply side started the problem by creating a demand, where it did not exist, now the demand is responsible and has to pay the price, twice? What this amounts to is the supply side shears the pea-brained sheep first and then Uncle Sam shears them the second time. The whole global warming altruism is the vaseline to make what should be felt as painful, feel good.

 

I terms of real life example, SUV's were not created out of demand for a large gas guzzling vehicle. It was created at the supply side to increase market share and profits for the stock holders. Now the consumers is the evil one ready for their second shearing.

 

Let us assume the global warming vaseline works and enough people are willing to grab their ankles so it become law, do you honestly think all that extra tax will all go to R&D for alternative energy and polution abatement? It is already earmarked for pork barrel. If the sheep want to be sheered, because it feel good, they should at least insist all the revenue becomes ear marked for alternative energy and polution R&D, with a tar and feather clause to be inforced if polititians attempt to divert the money for pet projects.

[Buffy]

So its never your fault eh, Hydro?

 

"They *made* me buy a Hummer! Its not my fault that it gets crummy mileage! Blame the Marketing Managers! I can't help myself!"

 

You're conveniently leaving out the fact that carbon taxes are in general being structured like a market. Yes, the government imposes a tax, but if it weren't for the fact that conservative governments who are in the pockets of industry had not allowed monopolies to form that resist entry into the markets, there would be smart entrepreneurs who produce cleaner power, subject to less or no tax whose power would then win over the market because it was *cheaper* not because its "green". Governments want to do this because unlike corporations who are slaves to this quarter's profit margins, Governments are voted in by people who want their grandchildren to be able to live in a world that is not in upheaval due to long-term problems like global warming or scarcity of oil. That's exactly what governments are good for.

 

Governments exploiting capitalism for the good of the people,

Buffy

[HydrogenBond]

Supply side economics uses advertising to create demand where it may not have existed before. Part of that pitch often involves using images of being more important, sexy, healthy, pretty, happy, envied, etc.. This was the pitch needed to manipulated people to buy the hummer, inspite of all the environmental downside.

 

In the current political climate the hummer create an internal opposition in the owner. On the one hand, it uses too much fuel and has a large carbon footrpint. But on the other hand, it makes you feel sexy, happy, envied, important, etc. just like it says on TV. The scales are not tipped in the beneficial direction due to opposing push due to advertising.

 

So here is the solution proposed. Let us use tough love and help break that hummer addiction. The treatment will involve lancing that large bump on the butt (wallet). But the advertisers, who created the addiciton, are free to go in the opposite direction. Maybe they need to tax advertising that tries to create demand for things that are not enviro-safe and give tax credit to advertising products that are green. The goal is to motivate the supply side to lead demand in the right direction.

[pgrmdave]

HB - you're missing the fact that there was demand: to feel more powerful, sexier, happier, more important...That demand is there already, and companies simply try to tap into that demand.

[Buffy]

Supply side economics uses advertising to create demand where it may not have existed before. ...This was the pitch needed to manipulated people to buy the hummer, inspite of all the environmental downside.

First law of Marketing: No matter how much you spend on advertising, you can't get people to buy what they don't want.

 

Or, You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

 

Or, You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

 

Etc.

 

Honest. I'm a professional.

 

People buy Hummer's to fill a very specific need: Have something bigger and better than the Joneses. Its Adam Smith at his very best: pure capitalist desire for greater status. People don't need advertising to want this. Its ingrained. I as a marketer just *take advantage* of that innate desire to buy *my* gashog rather than the other guys.

 

No matter how hard I try, if people decide they don't want it any more, I can't change their minds, and I will drive my company out of business if I build stuff they won't buy.

 

Even Liberal-Enviros aren't stupid enough to just run out and get whatever advertisers tell them to buy.

So here is the solution proposed. Let us use tough love and help break that hummer addiction....Maybe they need to tax advertising that tries to create demand for things that are not enviro-safe and give tax credit to advertising products that are green. The goal is to motivate the supply side to lead demand in the right direction.

That's commie liberal tax-and-spend thinking. If you believe that's the solution, well, just go vote for that immoral John Edwards guy who wants to take *your* money and spend it on some pointless "save the earth" idea like increasing gas mileage or avoiding the mother of all recessions when Peak Oil really hits.

 

Look, the oil companies and the auto manufacturers know what's best for us, and its stupid not to just trust them. If these were really good ideas, they'd just do them on their own because they care about the long-term health of society far more than this quarter's profits: there's never any justification for government intervention.

 

Spending the kids clean air and water,

Buffy

[InfiniteNow]

Here's 6 minutes of Damned Funny and doubly disturbing. Disable popup, turn on speakers:

 

 

Comedy Central: Daily Show: Jones - Apocalypse How?

[InfiniteNow]

The war on Earth tastes like feet.

 

Man V. Earth: The Wreckoning.

 

After all we've done for the Earth, Mother Nature, is just an ungrateful whore.

 

Comedy Central: Daily Show: Bee - Man V. Earth: The Wreckoning

[Boerseun]

First law of Marketing: No matter how much you spend on advertising, you can't get people to buy what they don't want.

'Course you can. That's where the art in advertising comes in! Creating an artificial need for a useless product is *exactly* what marketing is about!

 

Think about it for a second:

 

Why buy a Jeep Wrangler? It's a pointless vehicle. It's a crummy drive, doesn't have a lockable loadbox, incredibly heavy on juice, crap accelleration, harsh and noisey ride, limited seating, etc. There really is no point to this vehicle, yet they sell millions of them through clever marketing and creating a mystical aura of toughness and testosterone around it.

 

I can sell you a two-pronged timiwhootchit with fur and a lockable wookie if I can create an aura around it. Paste pictures all over the show of people very much like your neighbours who own two-pronged timiwhootchits who look happier for owning it, and you're sold. Unless you're in marketing yourself, and cynical enough to see it for what it is. But I don't agree with your first law, though... Like I said, undermining the first law is what advertising is all about! (I'm also in advertising, by the way...:) )

 

I think there's a lot of truth to what HB has to say in this thread...

 

Putting the 'sexy' in dyslexia,

Boerseun

[Buffy]

First law of Marketing: No matter how much you spend on advertising, you can't get people to buy what they don't want.

'Course you can. That's where the art in advertising comes in! Creating an artificial need for a useless product is *exactly* what marketing is about!

You didn't read my quote carefully enough. You can get people to buy stuff they don't *care about* by giving them a reason to want it, but you can't get them to buy stuff that they *don't want*. That's different!

 

The important point here is that people have *always* liked large cars. Look at the Bulgemobiles that were popular all the way from the first engine big enough from something that could push that much steel all the way up until the gas crisis hit. Even then, people bought small cars because they felt they *had* to because gas got so expensive. That in combination with the other built in desire to be better off than your neighbor leads directly to gigantic SUVs...as long as the gas is cheap.

 

Saying that its all the fault of greedy car execs and their cynical Republican cronies is hogwash!

 

This case is easy, but you can point to just about anything that sells, and I can show you why people *want* it. Marketing is just the "vaseline" that points out the connection between the product and the need.

 

My favorite of course is the Pet Rock: All you need to do to explain this is look back at your most recent shopping expedition for the holidays or a birthday: most people have an *agonizing* time trying to figure out what to buy someone for a present. The Pet Rock made that problem *easy*...well for about six months and then everyone had several. But it came from a very basic *want*.

 

I want chocolate,

Buffy

[InfiniteNow]

The way the process works in reality is an entrepreneur develops a tasky smokey burger and brings it to market. Through marketing manipulation, such as advertising, he creates demand for a new product, where once there was no demand.

Furthering Buffy's contention, I feel HB is working off of a false premise. In the quote above, the demand was already there (people get hungry and people also like tasty foods) and the entrepeneur simply focussed that demand and tried to exploit it for personal gain. He didn't use "marketing manipulation" and advertising to "create" it. Hence,

 

Saying that its all the fault of greedy car execs and their cynical Republican cronies is hogwash!

 

Per the discussion at hand, there is existing "demand" for our ability to survive, and there is an awareness that this is highly related to the health of the planet.

[Michaelangelica]

Every year, insurance rates soar from mounting "natural" catastrophes, obscuring the fact that the planet's coasts are increasingly uninsurable.

 

Insurance underlies the building and construction trades. If those rates skyrocket, that system must keel over. Once people lose faith in the institution of insurance — because insurance can't be made to pay in climate-crisis conditions — we'll find ourselves living in a Planet of Slums.

Seed: 2009 Will Be a Year of Panic

[Flying Binghi]

Via Seed: 2009 Will Be a Year of Panic

 

...unfortunately, it's part of the human condition to believe and invest in things that are demonstrably not true. (like AGW and carbon credits)

 

The climate. People still behave as if it's okay. ... The climate is in terrible shape; something's gone wrong with the sky. The bone-chilling implications haven't soaked into the populace, even though Al Gore put together a PowerPoint about it that won him a Nobel. Al was soft-peddling the problem.

 

It's become an item of fundamentalist faith to maintain that the climate crisis is a weird leftist hoax.... (Al Gore, the one hundred million dollar man, is a 'leftist' ....)

 

Michaelangelica, thats a fairly doom laden article you found there. I guess Bruce Sterling is just doing a bit of advertising for his forthcoming novel.

[InfiniteNow]

Ridicule is not a valid form of argument, Flying Binghi.

[Michaelangelica]

Michaelangelica, thats a fairly doom laden article you found there.

Yes,it is!

Yanks are very fond of Armageddon/Apocalypse stories. I think a mis-reading of the Mayan calendar has the next End-of-the World date as 2012.

 

The thing is I found that article scary because he sounded so reasoned and reasonable.

We STILL don't know the extent of the company/bank/economy/bad debts/refinancing collapses due to the Laissez-faire Yank financial system.

 

When they start their new Obama version of capitalism they should just put big buckets of money $$$ all down Wall Street with a sign on each:-"Take what you think is a fair thing."

That would be a big improvement on their present system that has ruined so many lives all over the world.

[Flying Binghi]

Ridicule is not a valid form of argument, Flying Binghi.

 

Agreed InfiniteNow :confused: ....except when Al's mentioned :)

 

 

 

That would be a big improvement on their present system that has ruined so many lives all over the world.

 

Yes, its a worry ... perhaps a subject for a different thread title (i'll stay away, i have enuf trouble following Oz money)

 

My position on this "Cost of Global Warming" thread is the title should be changed to, Cost of Global Warming Hysteria

[Flying Binghi]

Michaelangelica, this paper by Joanne Nova touchs on some issues you put previously -

 

Carbon Credits: Another Corrupt Currency?

 

(extract from summary)

Carbon credits are a form of fiat currency, yet as calls for carbon trading grow,

ironically, another fiat currency collapses—destroying life savings, wiping out jobs,

and taking down historic institutions overnight. Fiat money has a long history of

failure, corruption and fraud. The inevitable booms, busts and inflation act as an

invisible tax, transferring wealth from people who work and save to speculators,

middle men, and crooks. The US dollar—sovereign issue of a great capitalist,

democratic nation—is on life support. So far at least eight hundred billion dollars has

been created from thin air to stop the banking system from crashing.

 

Meanwhile, global warming alarmists are asking us to create another fiat currency,

this time based on hot air. Large multinational conglomerates are already pouring

billions into exchanges and derivatives in anticipation of carbon trading. There are

‘options’ to buy credits in the future.

 

There’s no longer any evidence that carbon matters much to our climate; and in the

unlikely event that carbon might matter, the benefits of trading carbon don’t add up.

If the US adopted Obama’s strict 80% reduction in emissions tomorrow, thus

transforming the main energy source used by Americans since Columbus1, the

savings in carbon merely delay the claimed warmer-Armageddon by six years.

 

Currencies based on nothing are powerful tools that have reshaped civilizations. But

they draw out the darkest elements of human nature. We open this Pandora’s Box

with trepidation. Is the risk worth the benefit?

 

Full paper via -

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/corrupt_currency.pdf

 

JoNova can be found here - Global Warming | JoNova

 

(my bold)

[JMJones0424]

I think global warming is a scheme by which Canadians and Russians are seeking to replace the US as the world's breadbasket.

 

Seriously though, the above reference misses a few points

Carbon credits are a form of fiat currency, yet as calls for carbon trading grow,

ironically, another fiat currency collapses—destroying life savings, wiping out jobs,

and taking down historic institutions overnight. Fiat money has a long history of

failure, corruption and fraud. The inevitable booms, busts and inflation act as an

invisible tax, transferring wealth from people who work and save to speculators,

middle men, and crooks.

 

All currency is fiat. Even precious metals. If we lived on a planet with abundant gold and scarce copper, we would be making wires from gold and storing copper bricks. If you can't eat it, build with it, or wipe your rear with it, it's fiat. You are accepting something for trade in the expectation of future return.

 

There’s no longer any evidence that carbon matters much to our climate; and in the unlikely event that carbon might matter, the benefits of trading carbon don’t add up. If the US adopted Obama’s strict 80% reduction in emissions tomorrow, thus transforming the main energy source used by Americans since Columbus1, the savings in carbon merely delay the claimed warmer-Armageddon by six years.

 

I'd like to see that evidence in a peer reviewed journal. Also, if you're speeding headlong towards a brick wall, the first step is to slow down.

 

Currencies based on nothing are powerful tools that have reshaped civilizations. But they draw out the darkest elements of human nature. We open this Pandora’s Box with trepidation. Is the risk worth the benefit?

 

Currencies based on nothing don't exist. Currencies have to be based on something, that is usually faith and perception of value, which are of course subject to many different factors. In the absence of currency, you have bartering. How would a computer programmer barter his services to all the people that produce the goods he needs? How would the farmer store all the perishable goods he produces seasonally in order to trade for what he needs.

 

Currency, while not perfect, is fundamental to the efficiencies of the modern economy, and should not be written off so lightly. When someone does, it brings into doubt all of their other claims as being equally unreasonable.