Nothing personal, but saying people are wealthy and "are attempting to do something about global warming", so by nature they have a larger carbon footprint makes you're walking around with your head in the sand. Bigger house? Their own jet? LOL c'mon effing ridiculous. They do not need these things, could easily do away with them, but won't because they are spineless and figure we should bear their burdens.
Most of our history? What period of history are we talking about and why not all of our history? Are you looking at a period of civilization or the whole history of the planet included?
The period of civilization. According to most archeological evidence human civilization started well after the end of the last ice age. Even while there have been some variation like the Medieval Warming period and Little Ice Age there hasn't been much of a major sustained deviation in average global temperature. While over the history of the planet there has been many huge variations our civilization wasn't around to experience those.
This is funny. It explains his 6% votes in the Iowa caucus, given he was lauded as a serious candidate by many news outlets. It's probably China.
Stop with the scheming and planning. I get that you think you're saving the world, whatever, just leave me and my wallet alone. Go buy stock in some windmill company if you want to support wind energy. Nothing like a crisis to amass power and control. The end of the human race, doesn't get any more alarmist than that. "We must...." fill in the blank
Huntsman could crush Obama in an election - too bad he'll never win the primary. I'd be ok with Huntsman as president, so long as Republicans don't control the Senate and House as well.
I think that small showing has more to do with his relative lack of name recognition and that his campaign is fairly new. Note also the statements brought up in this thread were made after the Iowa Straw Poll.
I don't know enough about Huntsman to seriously consider him, especially over Obama. From what little I know of him so far though I would take him over the rest of the Republican field.
Then you leave my health and the health of future generations alone, and clean up your pollution, and move away from fossil fuels.
A new inspiring GOP bumper sticker! You and your family can put that on your car that doesn't have airbags or seatbelts as you drive on the road you built with your own ****ing hands! Have fun!
Did GWB leave my wallet alone when occupying Iraq? Why teabaggers act like they only ones paying taxes?
The thing is though, it balances out the budget. Actually, your wallet gains if you're a taxpayer. Cap and trade or a Pigovian tax would raise revenue, and the cost of research and small clean energy subsidies are more than offset by that increased revenue, and cutting oil and bio-fuel subsidies (which would save many billions). In fact, this is a viable deficit reduction strategy. Really, at this point, the only reason why you fear a plan like this is because of raw fear. I can't help you if you think that everyone who wants something done in this political system is, in your mind, a dangerous tyrant of some sort. Though, in my mind, Greenies would seem rather harmless compared to the "law and order" people who want to imprison everyone for lifestyle choices, or the neo-cons who want to blow up half the world to save it, or the "libertarians" who would rather private enterprise control the country than the government liable to them...personal opinion, of course. As for fear and alarmist tendencies, global warming or really just the trend of over-consumption will be the only thing that can stop humankind. In the 1950s, based on the Malthusian curve, almost half of the world would have starved or gone through severe food shortages. I could have said the exact same thing as I am saying now---"the end of the human race" and etc., but I suppose to be technical, it would have been the "end of half of the human race who would starve to death or die fighting over food, and the other protected half that would not care". Of course, this was all theory, as it is now, but theory that was well-researched and certified. It remained theory because of the work of Borlaug, who if you research him, may have saved more human lives than anyone else...ever. It behooves us to support science and engineering both through the educational system, and through national organizations so that we can find another Borlaug. Borlaug saved upwards of a billion lives with his Green Revolution, it's not too much of an alarmist statement to seek another one of his kind, is it?
Every economist (from the right to the left) embraces the idea of externalities. In the case of carbon emissions those are costs associated with producing a good that are passed on to you and me. In other words we're subsidizing the cost of running someone else's car or factory since we're stuck breathing the crappy air someone else produced. It is akin to the guy who pollutes in a river and then the guy downstream has to deal with the polluted water. The cost (in this case carbon emissions) has to be reconciled by the producer rather than dumped on everyone else for free. That's not saving the world, that's economics. So in the end, you can either tax emissions or do a cap and trade (free market) approach. Reagan instituted cap and trade for sulfur dioxide and it worked just fine (or have you complained about that too?) Your cynicism of everything that the government does is borderline delusional. Even right wing economists at UChicago would consider you nuts.
sorry if I missed the sarcasm, but on a wealth to % belief ratio it is downright pitiful. More wealth = better education, more knowledge. You don't have people believing that the devil causes diseases rather than pathogens or that opium heals wounds like in poor countries. The fact that despite all that there are significantly more ignorant people here is sad.
This might be relavent. It's about the H1B visa, but he mentions the sorry state of our education protaining to science and who we're import brains to make up for it. The down side is that they go home and start up their own hi-tech business'. <iframe width="560" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NK0Y9j_CGgM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
