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Triglav posted:Actually I think you'll find that regulations, rule, and law are the result of demand forces within a free market. The terms are getting muddled here. Is a free market just the state of nature which spawns institutions that regulate, pass laws, etc. or is a free market a market that exists once government and business have decided not to interfere with supply and demand through monopolies or price-fixing, with the government creating regulation to prevent monopolies and businesses pressuring governments not to interfere with supply/demand. Pretty sure by all common definitions it's the latter.
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Jun 2, 2016 22:26
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Ccs posted:The terms are getting muddled here. Is a free market just the state of nature which spawns institutions that regulate, pass laws, etc. or is a free market a market that exists once government and business have decided not to interfere with supply and demand through monopolies or price-fixing, with the government creating regulation to prevent monopolies and businesses pressuring governments not to interfere with supply/demand. Pretty sure by all common definitions it's the latter. I was conflating democracy with equilibrium, laws with rigidity, constituent desires with demand, activists with latent demand, etc, viewing voters as having bounded rationality and politicians as satisficers of their aggregate demand. I suppose the ultimate conflation is that of all things as fitness landscapes, but maybe that's too reductive.
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Jun 3, 2016 02:30
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CommieGIR posted:Really, is Megan McArdle the best you can do? Good break down. There is a decent cadre of people on twitter (Adam Johnson comes to mind) who call out people in the media for doing stupid poo poo like this regarding (usually) politically oriented topics. Need more of the same on climate and other scientific areas.
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Jun 3, 2016 18:57
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Kudaros posted:Good break down. There is a decent cadre of people on twitter (Adam Johnson comes to mind) who call out people in the media for doing stupid poo poo like this regarding (usually) politically oriented topics. Need more of the same on climate and other scientific areas. The problem is Megan is an economics person. So she naturally assumes since economic models are often extremely flawed, and therefore climate models must be equally so. She forgets that economic models are difficult to gather evidence for, whereas climate models get fresh evidence all the time. And the best part is her flip-flopping between 'Climate change is a problem' and 'Woah now, we cannot risk harming the free market with climate change prevention'
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Jun 4, 2016 00:15
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Kudaros posted:I'm not going to give all the details but it was something along the lines of "you are trying to destroy the industry which powers this nation, liberals liek (this typo was there) you must be silenced, you will be stopped, i will seek you out (exact phrasing)" Know you this, o foul pustulece, that mortal man was ne’er meant to harness the light! That the one true God has given us his rainbow-tinged coal that we might harness the electron. That he filled the very Earth with oil as black as midnight to move our chariots. That it is His will for we mortals to fill the air with warming carbon! Know you this, o wretched photon-thief, the price of your arrogance is death! That your eyes will be plucked from their home. That your lying tongue will be nailed to the roof of your mouth. That your hands, so clever in mixing Indium Tin Oxide, will be cast away. That your feet will be pulped by our hammers. That blind and mute, able to only crawl like the helpless babe you are, you will be cast into a cesspit. That I will relieve myself on your writhing form until the mercy of death takes you. Know you this, you who thinks yourself so clever in your ivory tower, that your death has come! That your severed head will be left beneath the merciless sun for a year and a day. That I will fashion a drinking vessel from your bleached skull. That I will make you virgin daughters drink the finest wine from this chalice on our wedding night. Such is the fate of all who would seek to improve the efficiency of solar panels!
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Jun 4, 2016 00:44
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CommieGIR posted:The problem is Megan is an economics person. So she naturally assumes since economic models are often extremely flawed, and therefore climate models must be equally so. Megan McArdle does not have an economics degree. She has a bachelor's in English Literature and an MBA. Which is actually pretty appropriate. Despite what even SA's own MBA megathread would have you believe, MBA's are overpaid spreadsheet jockey's who are taught to believe they are superheroes possessing perfect knowledge of any business situation, able to fly in and fix anything with their genius business plans, while also believing that the plan itself is all that matters and execution is for plebs. I'm going to go ahead and pitch Henry Mintzberg's Managers, Not MBAs, a substantial portion of which you can read for free on Google Books in case you want further details on how awful MBA education generally is. An MBA functions sort of like an anti-degree. You don't learn management. None of the actual duties and skills of a good manager—coordinating people, managing all the moving parts needed for a successful project or department, handling complete shitstorms with relative grace, etc—are actually taught. Nor, for that matter, are they even good "idea people". Note that the vast majority of successful entrepreneurs don't have MBAs, while you'd be hard-pressed to name a large company in the shitter that wasn't run into the ground in the first place, or made into a much worse disaster than it needed to be, by MBAs. (Carly Fiorina was not uniquely incompetent—she's a product of business school and came out of her graduate program believing exactly the things she was taught.) Business education, in general, is deeply amoral. I remember the final project for my operations management class, which required us to plot the optimal rate for hiring and firing working workers in a seasonal business. You could keep a steady amount of workers on hand all year round, which meant paying to store your products in the off-seasons and also paying for some combination of full-time employees or part-time employees. Or, you could hire a shitload of workers at the start of busy season, work them to the bone, then fire every drat one of them when it ended. The optimal choice, of course, was somewhere in the middle—there were several costs to track—but at no point was there any discussion that we were talking about people, that we were being taught to gently caress with people’s livelihoods, judging their precise value to the company with an Excel file. This viewpoint permeated every business course I ever took.* (Also, the ever-hostile tone every business textbook I ever read took towards government regulation.) *The only exception: business psychology, which took the radical approach that employees are human beings, and it'd be handy to actually know the best way to treat them, motivate them, manage conflicts, etc. My professor was a genuinely nice person who made their career studying discrimination in the workplace.
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Jun 4, 2016 01:50
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I think that's ultimately the biggest problem with American business right now; you have these MBA graduates that only see people as numbers and want to maximize the amount of profit you can get out of that number regardless of the harm it causes. All that matters is this quarter and my bonus right loving now. So many people in management just plain don't understand the value of a motivated employee who will bust their hump 40 hours a week and do whatever it takes to get the job done because they know the company has their back. Instead they're looking for any excuse to send anybody that's been there longer than a year to the curb because gently caress it we can replace them with somebody cheaper. Then instead of asking their employees what they want, why they hate their jobs, and what they could do to make the workplace suck they just send out memos to the effect of "you should choose to like working here! We're a community! We're a family, take care of your family!" Meanwhile the employees realize that the company treats them like disposable tools to be thrown away. Yes things like living wages, pensions, and benefits cost money. However, not having those things costs loyalty. What is being taught is "you must make as much profit as possible regardless of who it hurts." Somebody that's been at a company 30 years knows the ins and outs of how it works and has a deep, intimate knowledge of the place. That's incredibly valuable but the business world is openly hostile to letting that happen these days. They want that guy but they won't invest in creating him. Everything is about short term gains. It doesn't matter that we're wrecking the environment and making everybody hate us, stocks are up this month! gently caress yeah!
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Jun 4, 2016 07:41
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Somebody that's been at a company 30 years knows the ins and outs of how it works and has a deep, intimate knowledge of the place. That's incredibly valuable but the business world is openly hostile to letting that happen these days. They want that guy but they won't invest in creating him. The entire business model of premier consulting firms like Boston Consulting Group, McKinsey, or Bain (where Mitt Romney worked, natch) is predicated on the idea that such internal knowledge is utterly worthless and only a brave knight armed with case studies and spreadsheets can slay the mighty bad business dragon. Wikipedia posted:[McKinsey & Company] developed an "up or out" policy, where consultants who are not promoted are asked to leave. McKinsey was the first management consultancy to hire recent college graduates, rather than experienced managers. These companies pay fresh MBAs $125,000 a year, plus $20,0000 signing bonuses, plus $40,000 in potential performance bonuses. None of these hires could find their rear end with two hands. (McKinsey alone made $8.3 billion in revenue in 2014. Capitalism is just and true!)
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Jun 4, 2016 09:31
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http://www.theperennialsf.com/projects-1/ Yeah, it's a hipster restaurant in San Francisco, but the details of their closed-loop system offer some insight into soil carbon sequestration and aquaculture farming. It's worth a look.
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Jun 5, 2016 21:13
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quote:When the smog plaguing Los Angeles reached distressing levels in the early 1950s, the city hired Arie Haagen-Smit to study the cause. Not only was Haagen-Smit a scientist specializing in airborne microscopic chemicals, he was also angry about the state of the city's air. His work swiftly determined that the culprit was oil. http://insideclimatenews.org/news/05062016/oil-industry-clean-air-fight-smog-los-angeles-dress-rehearsal-climate-change-denial-exxon
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Jun 7, 2016 19:28
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http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/can-an-algae-powered-lamp-quench-our-thirst-for-energy-3509307/?no-istquote:But how much of a difference maker can these goopy little marine organisms be? I mean no one’s ever heard of a lamp saving the world. Well, the fact is that microalgae is incredibly efficient at removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, about 150 to 200 times more than trees. Basically, an algae lamp can remove as much CO2 in one year as a tree would in its lifetime.
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Jun 9, 2016 18:47
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http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/09/co2-turned-into-stone-in-iceland-in-climate-change-breakthroughquote:The new research pumped CO2 into the volcanic rock under Iceland and sped up a natural process where the basalts react with the gas to form carbonate minerals, which make up limestone. The researchers were amazed by how fast all the gas turned into a solid – just two years, compared to the hundreds or thousands of years that had been predicted.
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Jun 10, 2016 20:40
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Wanderer posted:http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/09/co2-turned-into-stone-in-iceland-in-climate-change-breakthrough We better get to it then because https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/06/07/atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-just-reached-a-huge-record-high/ quote:The average carbon dioxide concentration in May was 407.7 parts per million, or ppm, which is how molecules in the atmosphere are measured. In May, for every 1 million molecules in the air, 407.7 of them were carbon dioxide. This was a 3.76 ppm increase since May 2015, and the largest year over year increase on record. http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2016/0608/Big-melt-Arctic-sea-ice-hits-record-lows quote:The average area of sea ice atop the Arctic Ocean last month was just 4.63 million square miles, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. That beats the prior May record (from 2004) by more than 200,000 square miles, and is well over 500,000 square miles below the average for the month.
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Jun 10, 2016 20:52
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Wanderer posted:http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/09/co2-turned-into-stone-in-iceland-in-climate-change-breakthrough It's interesting how when faced with monumental challenges, humanity finds new and exciting ways to tackle them. Almost as if we're good at it.
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Jun 10, 2016 21:01
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Arkane posted:It's interesting how when faced with monumental challenges, humanity finds new and exciting ways to tackle them. Almost as if we're good at it. We only need JohnnySavs fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jun 10, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 21:17
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Arkane posted:It's interesting how when faced with monumental challenges, humanity finds new and exciting ways to tackle them. Almost as if we're good at it. Let's see, you are on Step 8 of the Climate Change denialist ladder.
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Jun 10, 2016 21:27
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I just try to share links I come across about new discoveries or potentially good news, that's all. Otherwise this thread reads like a suicide note.Wakko posted:We better get to it then because Yeah, we keep running into these really unfortunate reinforcing circumstances on top of everything else. First it was trying to deal with climate change while the economy's intermittently making GBS threads itself, and now we're trying to reduce carbon emissions in an El Nino year.
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Jun 10, 2016 21:50
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The paper on the co2 bacteria is finally published and Ars has a write up. Unsurprisingly it isn't as fawning as the embargo-breaking blog post, but still very interesting and cool: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/mixed-catalyst-bacterial-system-gives-photosynthesis-a-run-for-its-money/
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Jun 10, 2016 22:12
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JohnnySavs posted:We only need Without actually running the figures, I wonder if these plants can even break even on CO2, with the 25 tonnes of water per tonne of sequestered CO2 that's needed - seawater has not been tested yet, so whether "free" seawater can be used is unknown - and this is without even mentioning the cost of separating CO2 from air and transporting it, drilling boreholes, and the pumping. Those "3.67 million" hypothetically-scaled-up plants might need to be 100 million in reality (if they even break even on CO2, that is). Trabisnikof posted:The paper on the co2 bacteria is finally published and Ars has a write up. Unsurprisingly it isn't as fawning as the embargo-breaking blog post, but still very interesting and cool: "More efficient than photosynthesis" is cool, but once you have your carbon in bacterial form, it still has to go somewhere - you can't just dump the bacteria in the sea or down a hole, as they will be consumed by other organisms and turn back into CO2 or methane. If the biomass is or will be converted to biofuel, then CO2 is still not coming out of the air. [not attacking you here btw]
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Jun 10, 2016 23:06
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JohnnySavs posted:We only need
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Jun 11, 2016 17:13
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Odonata posted:Oddly aggressive, awesome poem  Any good sources on the lifecycle of natural gas plants, including the fracking aspect?
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Jun 13, 2016 15:09
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Kudaros posted:
Do you mean a life cycle analysis of the emissions of a plant or the actual capital lifecycle of the plant (construction, o&m, decommissioning)?
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Jun 13, 2016 15:56
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Thanks to that El Niño, northeastern peach farmers lost 90% of their crop 
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Jun 13, 2016 22:30
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First mammal species wiped out by human-induced climate changequote:Human-caused climate change appears to have driven the Great Barrier Reef’s only endemic mammal species into the history books, with the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rodent that lives on a tiny island in the eastern Torres Strait, being completely wiped-out from its only known location. Making a little progress every day!
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Jun 14, 2016 16:59
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Stop being alarmist. Bramble Cay melomys have always solved their problems with innovation and technology.
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Jun 15, 2016 11:50
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Speaking of innovation and technology, I'm looking at Ford's annual sustainability report right now, and while there's a lot of emphasis on electrification and application of fuel cells/alternative fuels, we still plan to be selling ICE's into the 2030's. This is as part of a plan to "meet consumer demand while also helping to stabilize atmospheric CO2 at 450 ppm." Personally I find it deeply ironic that the company probably most responsible for historic emissions now enthusiastically pats itself on the back for being a "green manufacturer", and I wish we'd go all-electric. Regardless though, I wonder what the reaction to failure will be? If the extreme jump in CO2 this year were to hold steady (and I hope/expect that it won't) 450 ppm arrives summer 2028, how are we going to manage that? What possible proposals can people come up with to keep justifying what we're doing? Car Hater fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Jun 15, 2016 |
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Jun 15, 2016 13:42
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"gently caress you; got mine" mentality has been working well so far. Still waiting on Arkane to tell me what great technological innovation is going to save south Pacific islands from going under.
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Jun 15, 2016 15:55
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Potato Salad posted:"gently caress you; got mine" mentality has been working well so far. Stage 8 of Climate Change denial: "Well, climate change is happening, but we can fix it, so its not a big deal"
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Jun 15, 2016 16:27
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CommieGIR posted:Stage 8 of Climate Change denial: "Well, climate change is happening, but we can fix it, so its not a big deal" I'd rather people believe that than wail about how it is pointless to even try.
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Jun 15, 2016 16:35
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Trabisnikof posted:I'd rather people believe that than wail about how it is pointless to even try. Yes and why wouldn't it be true?
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Jun 15, 2016 16:44
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I'm not sure we can fix it, but I'm sure if we spend enough trillions of dollars on big-rear end sea walls most major cities can make it out okay.* It'd only be the largest engineering project ever undertaken by mankind! *Except for Florida, which is totally hosed because it has no real bedrock; the entire state is porous.
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Jun 15, 2016 17:46
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Wakko posted:First mammal species wiped out by human-induced climate change It's just a rat. Nobody cares about rats.
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Jun 15, 2016 17:49
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It was just a rat.
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Jun 15, 2016 19:22
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Freakazoid_ posted:It's just a rat. Nobody cares about rats. Time for someone to learn about the foooooood chaaaaaaiiinnn.
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Jun 15, 2016 19:51
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CommieGIR posted:Time for someone to learn about the foooooood chaaaaaaiiinnn. What food chain? The island's underwater - it's just a raft of toxic blue-green algae clinging onto the rotting trunks of sunken palm trees now. Perhaps it's simpler that way.
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Jun 15, 2016 19:58
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Trabisnikof posted:I'd rather people believe that than wail about how it is pointless to even try. From a lot of people, though, it's "Yeah, the climate is changing, but it is pointless to try anything but a purely-free-market approach."
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Jun 15, 2016 20:31
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Freakazoid_ posted:It's just a rat. Nobody cares about rats. In my mind, this is less about a rat dying and more about land getting swallowed by the loving ocean.
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Jun 15, 2016 20:35
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Potato Salad posted:From a lot of people, though, it's "Yeah, the climate is changing, but it is pointless to try anything but a purely-free-market approach." Yeah but that's as much non-sense as saying "we can't address climate change without destroying capitalism." Not even the people having lunch at the Petroleum Club of Houston think Aramco, Gasprom, or CNPC operates under a purely-free-market system.
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Jun 15, 2016 20:38
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Trabisnikof posted:Do you mean a life cycle analysis of the emissions of a plant or the actual capital lifecycle of the plant (construction, o&m, decommissioning)? Emissions cycle from supply to production point, sorry. Although I guess the capital lifecycle is kind of interesting too.
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Jun 16, 2016 16:02
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Curvature of Earth posted:I'm not sure we can fix it, but I'm sure if we spend enough trillions of dollars on big-rear end sea walls most major cities can make it out okay.* It'd only be the largest engineering project ever undertaken by mankind! FYI this has the added benefit of protecting us from Kaiju attacks.
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