You seem to think that the Prime Minister is god.

In fact there is little he can do. Sure Liberals or Tories could impose real constraints on emissions at the time when noone else is moving a finger. The result would be that our economy becomes uncompetitive and the government would be voted out of power.

Our only hope is high oil prices. If we have high oil prices for a while, alternative technologies will become economically feasible and new ones will be developed and implemented.

test

That’s a mighty strong argument you put forward, balbulican, particularly that smoking is highly relevant to the question being discussed.

Still, it’s a huge step forward from “My Blahg” progressives, whose strongest argument on any subject is:

“You are a Jew and we hate Jewish lawers - http://myblahg.com/?p=1471#comments“

balbulican,

I got your point first time round, thank you very much. It is still irrelevant. I never said that corporations don’t have interests of their shareholders at heart or that all environmental concerns should be left to the market.

We are dealing with a specific and very important issue of global warming. My point is that there is no way any democratically elected government could do much about global warming.

You see, even much vaunted Kyoto does not solve the problem at all. It may delay it by a couple of years, but does not solve it. The fact that most countries don’t do anything about Kyoto is almost irrelevant. In any case the only countries that are meeting Kyoto are developing countries, which had no restrictions imposed on them or countries which had greenhouse gas emissions reduce due to market changes. This includes the UK where Thatcher’s policies killed coal power generation and moved business from manufacturing to services prior to Kyoto or Russia where emissions reduced because of Perestroyka + a number of countries with stagnant economies.

What we need is a real dramatic change. That can only be induced by new or existing technology replacing carbon-based fuels. In real rather than Utopian world these technologies will only be introduced on a significant scale if they are competitive.

As for reference to My Blahg… Aren’t they “progressives” as well?

Yes, I thought you probably did get my point. You may define it as irrelevant to your argument if you want…I’m making a broader point.

On Kyoto: I don’t know anyone who argued that Kyoto would “solve” all climate change issues. Its actual impact has not been measured. Its main value, to me, was simply that it provided a process blueprint and template for future international and multilateral collaboration on environmental protection and remediation issues. I found the hysteria on both sides of the fence silly: assertions that the collapse of Kyoto would doom our planet are just as stupid as assertions that its implementation would doom our economy, or that the accord was a giant international anti-American conspiracy. I get tired of shrill idiots after a while, whatever their flavour.

Kyoto did not, of course, preclude the development of new technologies, and indeed their development would contribute to the achievement of Kyoto goals. However, the fondness for new techology at the expense of regulation smacks just a bit of corporate self interest…tax credits for research, patents on proprietory technology, tax incentives for retooling all add to bottom lines, so we’ll go for that, but don’t ask us to do anything that would impede our revenue generation or profits…

As for you explanation of the reference to my Blagh…I don’t really know how “they” would characterize themselves, but Robert is a member of the Progressive bloggers, and would presumably define himself as “progressive”.

So your point is that you consider us a step up from someone on a blog whose owner characterizes it as progressive. Gee, thanks. Like I said, I consider you a step up from several blogging tories. And the point is….?? (I just KNOW you’re going somewhere with this…)

All part of our conspiracy to bring about the collapse of Western Civilization.

And I see that the bill is going to committee, and also note that Layton does have a private member’s bill on the floor for environmental matters. Let’s see if the working non-Conservative majority in Parliament can achieve something. If they can’t, proponents of proportional representation might as well give up.

So your point is that you consider us a step up from someone on a blog whose owner characterizes it as progressive. Gee, thanks. Like I said, I consider you a step up from several blogging tories. And the point is….?? (I just KNOW you’re going somewhere with this…)

Not really. It’s just that having spent a little time on My Blahg, I am genuinly and pleasantly surprised that one can have a reasonably long discussion on a progressive blog without the “progressive” side resorting to racism and anti-Semitism.

So you are advocating spending what I guess you consider to be small change and in any case someone else’s money for something that even you agree isn’t going to achieve anything other than “provide a framework”?

Where did I say anything about either “small change” or “frameworks”, I did offer the suggestion of spending on public transit infrastructure, coupled with a gas tax increase to encourage people to use it, with exceptions for industry dependent on gasoline.

“Sigh. Now how did I just KNOW that your preferred real solution to greenhouse gas levels would involve paying even more money to oil companies? ”

Eh? Where did I say that? If it were up to me there would be no oil companies. The reason we need expensive oil is so that we can create a viable alternative and kill off fossil fuels.

“I don’t suppose you see any irony at all in congratulating us on our avoidance of stereotyping as you stereotype a whole class of bloggers?”

You have to forgive me. As I say I spent too much time at My Blahg. It’s not exactly “stereotyping” that is the problem outthere.