GT2211 wrote:

NineOneFour wrote:

GT2211 wrote:

NineOneFour wrote:
In the states, carbon trading was initially proposed by conservative to avoid a carbon tax.

I don't see how in hell a carbon trading system helps reduce climate change, but I'm all ears.

Because they generally come with a cap for emissions since there is a limited amount of permits.

So, what's to stop Exxon from blowing through the cap?

That the market price for permits us far cheaper than the penalties associated with not buying them.

California has just got theirs up and running. I believe they are working jointly with Quebec too. The penalties are pretty harsh.
http://m.acc.com/legalresources/quickco ... CTR.cfm#CE

$25,000 penalty? That's so low it may as well be $0. None of these monster corporations are going to care.

NineOneFour wrote:

GT2211 wrote:

NineOneFour wrote:

GT2211 wrote:
Because they generally come with a cap for emissions since there is a limited amount of permits.

So, what's to stop Exxon from blowing through the cap?

That the market price for permits us far cheaper than the penalties associated with not buying them.

California has just got theirs up and running. I believe they are working jointly with Quebec too. The penalties are pretty harsh.
http://m.acc.com/legalresources/quickco ... CTR.cfm#CE

$25,000 penalty? That's so low it may as well be $0. None of these monster corporations are going to care.

It's 25k per allowance every 45 days. So it would be about 200k a year for each allowance. If you blow through it we are talking about being thousands of allowances short.

Whereas you can just purchase them at auctions for around $14/ton.

GT2211 wrote:

NineOneFour wrote:

GT2211 wrote:

NineOneFour wrote:

So, what's to stop Exxon from blowing through the cap?

That the market price for permits us far cheaper than the penalties associated with not buying them.

California has just got theirs up and running. I believe they are working jointly with Quebec too. The penalties are pretty harsh.
http://m.acc.com/legalresources/quickco ... CTR.cfm#CE

$25,000 penalty? That's so low it may as well be $0. None of these monster corporations are going to care.

It's 25k per allowance every 45 days. So it would be about 200k a year for each allowance. If you blow through it we are talking about being thousands of allowances short.

Whereas you can just purchase them at auctions for around $14/ton.

Yeah, if there's none to purchase because if the cap? Doesn't work. And 200k a year is chump change.

This is a fucking farce.

NineOneFour wrote:

GT2211 wrote:

NineOneFour wrote:

GT2211 wrote:
That the market price for permits us far cheaper than the penalties associated with not buying them.

California has just got theirs up and running. I believe they are working jointly with Quebec too. The penalties are pretty harsh.
http://m.acc.com/legalresources/quickco ... CTR.cfm#CE

$25,000 penalty? That's so low it may as well be $0. None of these monster corporations are going to care.

It's 25k per allowance every 45 days. So it would be about 200k a year for each allowance. If you blow through it we are talking about being thousands of allowances short.

Whereas you can just purchase them at auctions for around $14/ton.

Yeah, if there's none to purchase because if the cap? Doesn't work.

Bollocks. While CA has plans to deal with emergency situations, they haven't been and likely won't be needed. There is a pretty robust secondary market where people buy and sell these allowances.

And 200k a year is chump change.

That is per ton. Exxon emits roughly 3 million tons per year in CA.

This is a fucking farce.

The farce here has been your attempts to criticize and dismiss a program despite not having a clue how it actually works.

So what prevents Exxon from building plants in Gambia and circumventing California's law?

*crickets*

Anyone got anything else?

I mean, come on, if capitalism is workable, tell me how it combats climate change.

NineOneFour wrote:So what prevents Exxon from building plants in Gambia and circumventing California's law?

This is rhetorical question right?

NineOneFour wrote:*crickets*

Anyone got anything else?

I mean, come on, if capitalism is workable, tell me how it combats climate change.

Capitalism is economic system and as such it has no ambition to combat anything but to create profit.

tuco wrote:

NineOneFour wrote:So what prevents Exxon from building plants in Gambia and circumventing California's law?

This is rhetorical question right?

No, the point is that I cannot see how a carbon trading scheme works.

NineOneFour wrote:*crickets*

Anyone got anything else?

I mean, come on, if capitalism is workable, tell me how it combats climate change.

Capitalism is economic system and as such it has no ambition to combat anything but to create profit.

That's really my point. If we continue to rely on capitalism, we're screwed.

Or do you have an alternative solution that preserves capitalism in some form? Seriously, tell me, I'm all ears!

NineOneFour wrote:

tuco wrote:

NineOneFour wrote:So what prevents Exxon from building plants in Gambia and circumventing California's law?

This is rhetorical question right?

No, the point is that I cannot see how a carbon trading scheme works.

NineOneFour wrote:*crickets*

Anyone got anything else?

I mean, come on, if capitalism is workable, tell me how it combats climate change.

Capitalism is economic system and as such it has no ambition to combat anything but to create profit.

That's really my point. If we continue to rely on capitalism, we're screwed.

Or do you have an alternative solution that preserves capitalism in some form? Seriously, tell me, I'm all ears!

Well, it was mentioned in another thread:

The solutions – a top income tax rate of up to 80%, effective inheritance tax, proper property taxes and, because the issue is global, a global wealth tax – are currently inconceivable.

- http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... as-piketty

Global problems require global solutions. Now, who resists global policies/administration in the name of national security, sovereignty or independence?

For the rest, we've been there before:

tuco wrote:To describe what such a complex system as global capitalism represents is nearly impossible and in this sense it is hard to present any coherent position, left or right.

There are opinions, coming from people who are considered on the left of current political spectrum and who in past were considered on the right side for their criticism of Soviet socialism, noting that the so-called globalization produces pressures to preform while competing on global market. While there is not much wrong with performance in principle, when combined with economic growth as one of the utmost measures of human values, it can happen the whole process becomes dehumanizing. After all, humans are not robots in a strict sense.

Value and understanding of economic growth, which is measured in GDP and which symbolizes "well-being", often lacks other proportions, especially those hard to measure and enumerate. For example: A business man is someone who employs others, creates values, contributes to GDP, while a homeless woman is someone who does not work, creates smell, and contributes to bother. Throw in ecological footprint, impact on prolonging life to ages beyond control of current medicine, or participation on a financial crisis, and who owns what or who contributes what becomes more than fuzzy.

From here the position would be that there is no alternative to what is impossible to describe. If there was, and someone knew it that someone could hold power and rule, but since there is not, exercising plurality when it comes to particular issues is the sensible solution.

tuco wrote:

NineOneFour wrote:*crickets*

Anyone got anything else?

I mean, come on, if capitalism is workable, tell me how it combats climate change.

Capitalism is economic system and as such it has no ambition to combat anything but to create profit.

Capitalism's profit seeking motive isn't because it's an economic system though. Economics is about the distribution of resources and there's no reason why you couldn't have an economic system that has sustainability and efficiency as its systemic goals. It could even be done with a market based system, although I think traditional markets could be massively improved upon with modern technology, - perhaps use a system of non-transferable votes in the market instead of money to create a bottom-up sort of command economy. - But anyway, -

The reason capitalism struggles to adapt to climate change is its fundamental basis , - which isn't markets, - but rather the legal right to ownership of (potentially unlimited) property and the legal right to profit (again potentially without limit) from that ownership through any sort of trade that hasn't been specifically prohibited. It creates both an incentive for endless and increasing growth in trade and unsustainable consumption regardless of its real necessity or of the finite nature of the world's resources, and gives a sort of perceived separation and relief from responsibility of the owners profiting and the destructive work that is done for their benefit, - making it all rather short sighted.

It has no built in mechanism for sustainability so even if the majority of people see sustainability as a necessary goal, capitalism allows anyone who disagrees, or who simply overlooks their part in the problem, to fuck it up for everyone. Unless of course you have government intervention which can attempt to patch up a broken system. But since governments can be so heavily influenced by large quantities of capital, and those with the largest capital tend to be the ones least concerned by the exploitative harm they cause, it really needs a huge percentage with strong political will before anything gets done. And all that can be done within a capitalist system is bureaucratic patchwork, an endless struggle of rules, red tape, loopholes and lobbying, rather than the systemic change that is really needed.

Yes and now we going to debate definitions.

Tell me how it (capitalism) combats climate change? The answer is: Capitalism is economic system which is not concerned with climate change.

On what is socialism, Andrew Simms in Cancel the Apocalypse (bought in a wonderful bookshop next to Platform 9 3/4) comments:

There is a kind of inverse political correctness that prevents growth being debated properly. The left associates growth with poverty reduction, the right sees it as the route to progress and individual wealth accumulation. Point out its limitations and you pull off the impressive trick of branding yourself an enemy both of private profit and of public enhancement. One apparently progressive group of left - leaning economists I attend has resisted every suggestion to discuss this issue.

p26

tuco wrote:Yes and now we going to debate definitions.

Tell me how it (capitalism) combats climate change? The answer is: Capitalism is economic system which is not concerned with climate change.

Capitalism is a system where the ruling class is the capitalist class. The function of capitalism is to serve the interests of the capitalist class. What is the interests of the capitalist class? Profit, which comes before the planet. Only in a dream will the capitalists put the planet before profit. The best case scenario is that they put the planet into the equation but the tilt will always be in favour of profit before the planet.

http://www.marxist.com/global-warming-m ... ective.htm

The discovery of ‘tipping points’ places a time limit on the socialist transformation of society, in order to prevent runaway global warming...It is clear that the capitalist class and the interests they defend are not capable of any serious action against climate change.

For environmental issues to be addressed, the development of society must be planned. However, we cannot plan what we do not control, and we cannot control what we do not own. For example, how could we even begin to build a sustainable supply of energy when the electricity industry, mines, and water companies are privately owned, operating solely to make profit? These businesses must be brought into public ownership, and operated democratically. But in and of itself, public ownership of utilities industries would not solve the problem – after all, in the post war period in Britain all of these industries were nationalised. In order to direct investment, private ownership must be eliminated in the banking, insurance and financial sectors. This would allow the proper level of investment in new technology, the development of agriculture, and the development of long term planning. Only then would society’s resources be able to be consciously planned, for the benefit of all.

To get an idea how cynical the capitalists are:

http://www.marxist.com/the-great-game-in-the-arctic.htm

Climate change, melting icecaps and new opportunities for access to valuable resources have reawakened a struggle for power in the Arctic. The Great powers are jockeying for control of the region.

The whole “Great Game” in the Arctic is being played without the slightest consideration for human life and the environment...Capitalism is not about the environmental and human needs. It is about profits and “spheres of interest”. So it was, so it is and so it will ever be, until this system is abolished and replaced by an International, Socialist Federation.

It's best that we keep the capitalists in check then, isn't it? Hence the call for a framework of regulatory oversight and taxation that ensures they pay a fair price for the environmental damage they do.

Matt_B wrote:It's best that we keep the capitalists in check then, isn't it? Hence the call for a framework of regulatory oversight and taxation that ensures they pay a fair price for the environmental damage they do.

Unfortunately that is a utopian dream. If "Left" governments that have come to power around the world, such as Iceland, France, Denmark, to name a few, have been forced to carry out the dictates of the capitalists - austerity - then it is a utopian dream to suggest that we can keep the capitalists in check when it comes to destruction of the environment. Considering "Left" governments have been unable to prevent destruction of the Welfare State, the same is and will be the case for the environment.

We cannot trust the capitalists with the environment. To do so, considering the risks of not doing enough to fight global warming, is utterly insane. I agree with the article I posted that "For environmental issues to be addressed, the development of society must be planned."

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... -nsa-prism

The capitalists do have a plan when it comes to the environment. Err, not with the environment, but the reaction of the population to the effects of the environment. Read the full article to get an idea what the capitalists have in store. The rise of the mass surveillance and police state which I have previously commented on is linked to the effects of economic and environmental deterioration on populations; predictions of instability have produced plans to ensure stability.

The Pentagon knows that environmental, economic and other crises could provoke widespread public anger toward government and corporations in coming years. The revelations on the NSA's global surveillance programmes are just the latest indication that as business as usual creates instability at home and abroad, and as disillusionment with the status quo escalates, Western publics are being increasingly viewed as potential enemies that must be policed by the state.

The fight for socialism, my friend, is far more than a fight for an egalitarian society. It is a fight to prevent the nastier effects of global warming through a planned economy. It is also a fight to safeguard our democratic rights, however limited they exist in society, which are at risk. It is a fight for sanity.

minininja wrote:

tuco wrote:

NineOneFour wrote:*crickets*

Anyone got anything else?

I mean, come on, if capitalism is workable, tell me how it combats climate change.

Capitalism is economic system and as such it has no ambition to combat anything but to create profit.

Capitalism's profit seeking motive isn't because it's an economic system though. Economics is about the distribution of resources and there's no reason why you couldn't have an economic system that has sustainability and efficiency as its systemic goals. It could even be done with a market based system, although I think traditional markets could be massively improved upon with modern technology, - perhaps use a system of non-transferable votes in the market instead of money to create a bottom-up sort of command economy. - But anyway, -

The reason capitalism struggles to adapt to climate change is its fundamental basis , - which isn't markets, - but rather the legal right to ownership of (potentially unlimited) property and the legal right to profit (again potentially without limit) from that ownership through any sort of trade that hasn't been specifically prohibited. It creates both an incentive for endless and increasing growth in trade and unsustainable consumption regardless of its real necessity or of the finite nature of the world's resources, and gives a sort of perceived separation and relief from responsibility of the owners profiting and the destructive work that is done for their benefit, - making it all rather short sighted.

It has no built in mechanism for sustainability so even if the majority of people see sustainability as a necessary goal, capitalism allows anyone who disagrees, or who simply overlooks their part in the problem, to fuck it up for everyone. Unless of course you have government intervention which can attempt to patch up a broken system. But since governments can be so heavily influenced by large quantities of capital, and those with the largest capital tend to be the ones least concerned by the exploitative harm they cause, it really needs a huge percentage with strong political will before anything gets done. And all that can be done within a capitalist system is bureaucratic patchwork, an endless struggle of rules, red tape, loopholes and lobbying, rather than the systemic change that is really needed.

Yes, thank you, that's precisely my objection to using capitalism to combat climate change.

tuco wrote:Yes and now we going to debate definitions.

Tell me how it (capitalism) combats climate change? The answer is: Capitalism is economic system which is not concerned with climate change.

Oh, joy, another "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" critique.

Matt_B wrote:It's best that we keep the capitalists in check then, isn't it? Hence the call for a framework of regulatory oversight and taxation that ensures they pay a fair price for the environmental damage they do.

The problem I have with this is that if you do not expropriate their current wealth (which is basically socialist), they have more than enough resources to move their polluting industries to a third world nation, and essentially BUY said third world nation, and even if that nation had a framework of regulatory oversight and taxation, they would be able to alter it, or ignore it.

In my previous example of Exxon moving operations to The Gambia, my personal solution would be to socialize Exxon and eliminate the threat entirely.

I'm not necessarily arguing that the entire global economy has to be socialized. But stopping short of nationalizing polluting industries (and those industries that stand to make a profit off of and therefore give open support to polluting industries, such as companies like Goldman Sachs), I don't see how this can work effectively.

Indeed

Capitalism has no built in mechanism for sustainability

vs

Capitalism is not concerned with climate change

joy.