Judicial System Upholds EPA Regulation: Greenhouse gases "Threat to human health and safety" Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT | |
Yes. Absolutely. In fact you using the word dogma pretty clearly demonstrates why i personally think you're crazy, you sling around rhetoric about small government as absolute truth regardless of evidence presented. Let me be clear, having dogma is a stupid fucking idea regardless of how nice it sounds, the world is too complicated for dogma to be in any way acceptable. Drop your dogma and start doing research. | |
So in Statesrightstopia, when the folks in Nowheresville decide to hold their Annual Mass Tire Burn, those of us downwind of them will just have to suck it?
Competitive Enterprise Institute, is that you?
"In Theory", the US could decide to pre-emptively strike at the source of domestic terrorism by nuking Rush Libaugh's house. I'm not going to lose any sleep over THAT, either.
I'm going to question if you actually believe there's any sort of governance BESIDES "remote, unresponsive, relatively unaccountable governance". And I suspect local governments might be easier to bribe than federal ones, but I haven't run the numbers. Local governments definitely won't have the economies of scale (or the priorities) to have ALL the detection stuff the EPA does, so if you live in an area that doesn't have the funding to test for uranium tailings in the well-water... TOUGH SHIT! | |
Plus, local governments would be too limited. Say, the Colorado river. It travels through a few states as far as I know. How do you organize an out-of-state investigation? How do you hold inter-state cases of pollution, poisoning etc. responsible? The kinds of issues the EPA deals with are not simply stopping at a county or state line. | |
Oi! You asked about it, so you deserve everything you get. And what else do you expect from Gorfias? Personally, if I were you, I wouldn't even bother with him. He obviously won't budge from his position, and it's just going to cause you (and me, and basically everyone else who opposes his views) more frustration. EDIT: For the record, killing off the EPA is a fucking terrible idea. Common sense should tell you why, but in case you don't know, let me just explain it real quick, and not dwell on it any further: The shit we put in our cars and machinery is far too potent to be inhaled, period, and if you think otherwise, perhaps you should do as a previous poster suggested and reroute your exhaust to come through your window, then tell the rest of us if it's "harmless" or not. | |
The EPA does not have the power to regulate a person's respiration. You are simply making up paranoid delusions at this point to justify eliminating the EPA. | |
Hope to respond asap to all. ITMT:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090621155844AAjxeKZ Isn't this thread about EPA control of green house gasses? | |
So you hate the EPA because you feel there is a remote possibility they will try to control how much people breathe over eliminating vehicular and industrial emissions.
While we're at it, do you also refuse to order drinks at restaurants because you think there's a remote possibility somebody laced it with cyanide? Or any other totally unsubstantiated paranoias we should know about? How about we get rid of the FDA while we're at it, they might be poisoning us all. My God. If you are going to continue to argue on the grounds of stuff you've made up, it isn't worth continuing this discussion. If you can't offer proof the EPA wishes to control CO2 from human respiration, then you have no ground to stand on. Back this up, or stop the shit right here. I will argue about many things, but I will not sit here and argue if you're going to sit on such tinfoil-hat notions. Also, don't tell me "but they might someday!" Yeah, and someday the ATF might decide to allow the commercial sale of nuclear missiles, or PETA might decide to take KFC as a sponsor, or Natalie Portman may grow wings and fly off to Nepal to roost in the Himalayas. Doesn't mean it even has a remote possibility of happening. And until you can offer evidence they seek to do this to humans that isn't based on speculation, assumption, or the "slippery-slope," again, you've got nothing but a tinfoil-hat. | |
Uh, yeah. Not really sure what your point is, or the point of the link, unless now we're worried about controlling greenhouse gases on fucking Venus. Seriously, you're jumping into Theater of the Absurd territory here. | |
You're worried about cyanide? Oh you poor, naive child. Fluoride. | |
Yes, but it is clearly implied, if not outright stated, that the EPA's control over greenhouse gases applies exclusively to the rather extreme production of industry, transportation, and the like. The idea that the EPA could control our breathing is a fucking fantasy. And even if they could, how would they? Would they at all? There aren't enough people in the world to even attempt to implement regulations like that, and somehow I doubt that improving emission standards on cars would be less of a net positive than stopping even millions of people from breathing. You're arguing against a fantasy. | |
Those idiots will take the entire world with them if they get too much power. The current situation in the Middle East is due in large part to the actions of a Republican government (or at least has been severely exacerbated by those dipshits). Now multiply all that by the 4 years of pent-up rage they currently have going. It isn't exactly a pretty scenario. OT: "But plants breathe in CO2 right? So therefore it's not dangerous." I really, REALLY wish I still had my "Tell that to a plant" Santorum picture... | |
You do know, with excuses, they are increasingly trying to control what you even eat. Who said something to the effect that the world wasn't going to let us go on eating what we want? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/bloomberg-soda-ban-foods_n_1587931.html
I looked. That sort of thing is mentioned, but the EPA, by this ruling, is not limited in any way. I do understand they are studying cow flatulence as well. http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-205_162-4651448.html
They don't now? Or do they go to an intervening authority. My question has always been, couldn't most of our issues be handled more locally. I think they can.
I admit, today's National Review Online www.nationalreaview.com has some heresy by Conrad Black arguing, among other things, the USA would have been better off remaining a British Colony. My world view is shaken. :-( | |
That article is really really bad, totally one sided. It should tell you why a tax on greenhouse gases from livestock have been suggested around the world (it is not just the US with the EPA). The thing about livestock, particularly cows is they produce massive amounts of methane. Methane is ~20x worst than C02 in terms of the greenhouse effect. It is estimated that livestock around the world contribute somewhere around 20% of the methane pollution and agriculture as a whole contributes 14% of the greenhouse gases. It should also tell you that it is a fast growing problem. With populations rapidly growing and the rise of developing countries demand for meat is skyrocketing. Livestock production is estimated to increase by more than 200% by 2030. It is not all doom and gloom though, scientists are working on bacteria that can prevent methane production in livestock. | |
Jonah Goldberg of NRO has written about science in this matter. He notes that even if Man Made Global Warming is, by some arguments, real, isn't it slow moving enough for science to handle? In the 1970s, when they were reporting a new Ice Age would destroy us all, there was talk of putting soot all over the ice caps to keep heat in. Maybe solar mirrors, reflecting away solar heat in the future is the way. He compared the debate to those stone age hunters running out of food. Some said, "let's eat less." Others said, "let's invent farms." I'm a "let's invent farms" kind of guy. ITMT, it would be nice for humanity to think of many new ways to feed itself. | |
Except, that has absolutely nothing to do with the EPA. The thing with Bloomberg and the thing in Massachusetts were proposed by state and local legislatures, the exact people you want to give control of emission and waste regulations to after you get rid of the EPA. | |
So you would be down with lab grown meat, but you still won't admit that dumping industrial waste in waterways is a bad thing? Your priorities are very, very mixed up. Oh, sorry about bringing up the gay people again. I just realized that was the other crazy conservative guy, not you. In fact I'm not really sure where you stand on that, come to think of it. | |
Or whole new recipes that don't even include meat, as long is it is not imposed by centralized planners.
Sure it CAN be a bad thing. Who decides what and at what amounts? Do you concede, even with the EPA in existence, there is still new pollution going on? My question: can we do without them? Is even asking crazy? I've been told, yes, even questioning centralized authority is nuts. I disagree.
I forgive you.:-) My answer may anger you anyhow, or not. Will send in private message so as not to anger the stay on topic crowd! | |
You do realize that that whole "mayor" thing in the words "Mayor Bloomberg" means he has nothing whatsoever to do with the EPA, do you not? Just because you have a knee-jerk negative response to two different parties doesn't mean they're in league for the same agenda. | |
Potentially? Yes, if we actually decided to get off our asses and do something, then maybe at some point, someone would find a way to deal with global warming. A drastic increase in renewable energy production, combined with a machine that can bind CO2 from the air into a form we can reuse? Yeah. But just about any real solution would take a concerted, world-wide effort. We're not getting that. Instead, we get people like you who say "eh, whatever, not my problem".
Err, you mean the mainstream media, right? Like, you know that back in the 70s, the vast majority of published papers on climate science were actually predicting heavy warming, rather than cooling?
Yes, but the problem is, we're in that phase where nobody's come up with the idea of farms yet, and we're still insisting on eating just as much. Not to mention that there's really no advantage to having more CO2 in the atmosphere, while eating more is generally a good thing to a certain degree, at least in the stone age it was.
Great. YOU solve the problem, and earn your Nobel Prizes. In the meanwhile, we'll work on the issue of eating less. | |
What do you mean "handle"? Do you expect SCIENCE! to build Magical Freeze Rays? Scientists are TRYING to 'handle' Anthropogenic Climate Change... by TELLING PEOPLE ABOUT IT SO THEY CAN STOP DOING THE THINGS THAT CAUSE IT. Unfortunately, Some People are doing their very best to keep everyone else from 'handling' it.
So, your strategy is "let's not change anything we're doing now, just pray for someone to come up with a miracle to save us"? Because I don't see YOU studying for a degree in climatology or applied physics...
Yes, yes it would. Now get to it. In the meantime, how about we work on not spewing QUITE so much CO2 into the atmosphere? To use an analogy almost as silly as your 'farm' one, imagine you're in a car rolling towards a cliff. While all the STOOPID HIPPIES are screaming to hit the brakes or turn, the Sensible Conservatives(tm) are saying 'no, no, let's keep going a LITTLE further... we can build a bridge if we REALLY need to." PS; And once we're over the edge of the cliff, I'm SURE I can count on you Conservatives to say "See? I TOLD you stupid libruls hitting the brakes wouldn't help!" before we hit bottom. :-P | |
Yes, there is still new pollution going on. That doesn't mean the EPA is useless. If 100% success is going to be your gauge, then by rights every part of the government and every organization in existence needs to be dismantled. I thought it was a conservative notion to fix what's been broken rather than throwing it out without even trying. And I don't know if we can do without them. That depends on if you think we can do without clean water. When industries dump waste into waterways, they aren't just killing fishes, you know. That water eventually circles down into the water table, where the vast majority of the country gets their drinking water via wells. So if you think clean water isn't important, then sure, let's get rid of them. Let the dumping commence, I've always wondered how it would feel to take a chemical shower. Once again I tell you, I don't care about the EPA. I care about what they do and what they prevent. If you can come up with a more efficient system then I'm all ears. But if all you want to do is dump it on the politicians, which as you kindly demonstrated by bringing up Bloomberg are only interested in forwarding their political games and have NO knowledge or expertise in the matter, then I'm afraid the EPA is the best we've got. Speaking of which, I take it then you've got no comment on what Bloomberg wants to do being totally unrelated to the EPA? | |
Already responded: I never wrote they are useless. I'm asking is it crazy to even ask if we can do better without them. I've been told "yes." :-(
I bring up Bloomberg to explain that, yes, there really are people who want to micro manage your life. When they are part of the EPA, they're harder to escape. True? | |
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By whom, me? When did I say that? I believe I said I was interested in results, and that if you've got a system that could work better than the EPA I'm willing to listen. But since you haven't done that yet, my money is still on the EPA.
Yeah...but it's irrelevant because they're not in the EPA. The Westboro Baptist Church thinks all US military personell should be killed. Does that change how the Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodoxy feels about them? No. They're totally different groups. They may be in similar positions as religious groups, but there is no overlap in the purposes or intentions of the groups. And again, this only works against you because of the fact that the only thing you want to change is putting the authorities of the EPA--the group which thus far has exhibited no desire to micromanage individual's lives--in the hands of the politicians who very much want to micromanage individual's lives. What you're basically saying is, "Hey, I've got this steak that I don't want anybody else to eat. It's sitting in the fridge right now, but somebody could still come and take it. So instead, I'm going to put it in the dog's food bowl." | |
I think that was Rustlin' Jimmies. As a matter of, if you will, Dogma, I want as much decentralized authority as possible. I'm just doubting the EPA is it.
I doubt it. I'm sure you could find Bloomberg's soul mates in the EPA.
If the problem is real, it may show itself so much in the next 300 years, before we run out of carbon fuels, people will have to show some concerted effort. Heck, with carbon fuel running out in the next 300 years, either 95% die or we do adapt new forms of fuel.
It was actually a socialist that said, don't give charity to the poor as it slows the revolution. Don't eat less. You're slowing down the need to work on alternatives to carbon based fuel.
Actually, he supported reflectors to send solar heat back into space. Personally, I'm hoping for solar farms to replace a lot of coal buring electric producers.
I read its already happening: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/02/us-co2-emissions-may-drop-to-1990-levels-this-year/ | |
Again, if you've got any better ideas, I'm all ears. Otherwise you'd better cancel that wrecking ball until you've got a replacement ready to go.
And until the EPA does something that micromanages people, this is just total speculation and paranoia on your part and has absolutely no grounding in reality or reason. Look, I can do it too: the conservatives want to establish a Christian theocracy in the place of our democracy, basing laws not on justice but on personal, religious values. And hey, I've got a bit of proof to go with my claim! "Faith made America strong, it can make her strong again." That's right, I forgot all about the "faith" branch of government. Yes, because that's exactly what the constitution says we should base our laws and regulations on. Faith. So come on Gorfie, gimmie a little proof. Otherwise, just please stop. For your sake more than anyone else's. It's not a bad thing to admit that you're wrong, or at the very least that you can't prove yourself right. | |
We don't give a damn about your dogmatic beliefs that smaller, decentralized authority is automatically better. Environmental issues are, in almost all cases, issues that escape boundaries we set for them. They require a centralized authority to deal with at all; decentralizing the issue just means that when Nevada throws toxins into the Colorado river, Arizona can't really do shit about it.
Great. Then prove it.
Err... What? 'Scuse me, but have you been paying attention? The "Problem" has been showing its hand for upwards of 10 years. The scientists have known about it for upwards of 30. You might as well say "If the problem of lead-based gasoline poisoning is real, it may show itself so much in the next 300 years". Never mind that, by the time we reach the point where every denialist crackpot with no fucking clue what they're talking about shuts up, the Netherlands are liable to be underwater. Never mind that the extreme weather patterns we've been experiencing for the last decade were largely predicted by climatologists beforehand on the basis of global warming. Your "skepticism" (which I REFUSE to call that, by the way) has simply meant that you are late to the party, and remain clueless.
...How does this make any sense? At all? "Hey guys, we need to find a way to deal with this problem. So let's make the problem WAY, WAY WORSE! That'll incentivize us to deal with it faster!" Never mind that the incentives (Nobel Prizes in multiple fields, being considered "the guy who saved the world", becoming incredibly rich) are all already there for anyone with understanding, and that, as such, the scientists are already working on it and we don't need to incentivize it further by making our survival as a race contingent upon it.
...Which is what is already happening. No thanks to denialists.
Again, no thanks to denialists. What Anthony Watts doesn't understand is that the primary reasons for this drop in emissions has less to do with the shale gas revolution (which is more often than not net energy negative!) and more to do with the wind and solar power revolutions. Again, no thanks to denialists like Watts. However, you know what's funny? The government isn't really helping that revolution along. See, one thing that the government often does is to support new and emerging technologies, ones that need help getting on their feet. But where's the real subsidization going? Well, it isn't to emerging "green technology". It's to big oil. To be clear on how this works: imagine if a competitor to Microsoft and Apple in the computer market came along, selling a new, revolutionary product that was just totally different from anything we'd seen before, but the startup costs were causing the firm to need to start up very slowly. Imagine if then, the government decided to give massive gobs of money not to the developing, revolutionary technology, but to the established competitors, who really, REALLY don't need the help. That's what's happening here. The fact that green energy still is doing well is just proof of the concept that green technology is the future, but the fact that we're subsidizing oil, the most profitable industry in the world, more than we're subsidizing the new, cleaner, less established technology? Jesus fuck! | |
Typical. Let's get rid of the EPA and see if things improve is all I'm asking. I hope you will care about results.
This is pretty silly. Bloomberg is hardly unique. Is anyone? Still, search EPA and Extremism and you get plenty of hits such as http://resourcefulearth.org/2012/03/19/more-regulatory-extremism-at-the-epa/ Further, that they sought to add CO2 to their list of gasses they can regulate pretty power mad.
Global warming, to the extent it exists at all, has likely saved lives over the last "10" years. More people die of cold per year than heat. http://discovermagazine.com/2007/sep/global-warming-the-great-lifesaver/
That's a big part of why I want power decentralized. | |
That's a pretty steep risk you're asking us to take, especially since you have not proposed a working model to replace the EPA.
There's a couple of problems with your theory that the EPA can regulate respiration. 1. The body does not produce carbon dioxide. In fact, 60-80% of the air you breathe out is still good. That's why CPR works. It's why submarines can stay underwater for days instead of minutes. When you breathe, it's simply a puff of air that has a slightly higher concentration of CO2.
There are many other side effects of global warming. Animal territories for example. The pine beetle of Canada is multiplying faster than natural predators or what used to be the seasonal frosts can kill it off. Consequently, the beetles are destroying huge swaths of forests. Since the oceans are getting warmer, sharks are migrating farther north. The kind that are known to attack humans. On the positive side, maybe they'll eat the cast of Jersey Shore. Armadillos are also making their way farther north in the US because of rising temperatures and a lack of natural predators. They'll be in southern Pennsylvania in a matter of years. South Carolina is already thinking of declaring hunting season on armadillos because they've become pests, their burrowing presenting a problem for farmers. It doesn't end there though. Illicit drugs like marijuana and heroin are getting stronger because the climate shift is causing them to produce more of the chemicals that make you high. Now, while I'm all for stronger weed, the idea of stronger smack is kind of terrifying. On the opposite side of the coin, those same changes also make it harder to grow grapes and barley, so I hope you don't mind beer and wine becoming scarcer and way more expensive. Some predictions say that the climate change is hastening the expansion of desert. Some predictions have Lake Mead completely drying up by 2021. So goodbye Vegas. We may have fewer hurricanes, but the ones we do get will be way more powerful. It might also fuck up global rain patterns, which is really bad for agriculture. And this one hits home for you and me, since each of us is the owner and operator of his own personal penis: an increase in kidney stones. A warmer climate results in more dehydration, which is a major cause of kidney stones. | |
I think your post is irrelevent to this point. It isn't what matters and what can be enforced but WHAT they can enforce. A rule of tyranny is that you make everything illegal, then selectively enforce what you want against whom you want.
Mostly interesting, thanks. BTW: I read deserts are shrinking and growing alternatively. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Are_deserts_growing_or_shrinking Glad you are off suspension. | |
That doesn't make any sense. It's not about what they can enforce, but what they can enforce? Besides, the EPA are not a government unto themselves. And how do you think that would be enforced at all? What court would go along with this? Do you really believe there are that many megalomaniacs in the US government or that they make up the entire staff of the EPA? | |
Have you been reading anything of campaign finance law enforcement. That alone should give you pause in allowing centralized authority make laws. | |
So you want to do away with Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court and turn everything over to the states? | |
Not everything, but anything that one can take from them that can reasonably be done elsewhere. I was angry with Obama not keeping NASA going, but even privatized Space travel may surprise me. | |
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How did I miss that? Th-
The fuck were you thinking telling me that, TLS? I hate you now! >=(
It's just a very poor choice of words for your intended meaning.
Why? Remember, we're not dealing with 50 different countries, each with their own unique cultures, governances, laws, dialects and currencies. We're dealing with 1 country with 50 provinces, each with their own slightly different sub-level laws and governances, but overall very similar laws and cultures - moreso than most would think. And in an age with both increasing telecommunications and increasing openness (seriously, the government can't keep a secret worth shit any more), the idea of small, local government continues to make less and less sense.
I really don't think the barrier for "idea being the job of the federal government" should be "only the fed can do it". It should instead be "the fed can be relied upon to do it better than the localities" or "this needs to be done universally for it to work".
...Which is funny, because as Paul Krugman pointed out, this is exactly how the USA works. States dealing with real financial issues get federal assistance (from what I hear, Texas is especially egregious in this regard), primarily from those who aren't. This mentality of "subsidizing destructive behavior" is exactly why the Eurozone is falling to pieces, while the Dollar Zone isn't. Because most of the time, you can't judge destructive behavior until it's bitten you in the ass, and with so many interconnected economies, this can be problematic. For example Spain: Spain's "destructive behavior" was not only all private sector, it was all based on AAA or AA rated liabilities! You know, those toxic assets that cost the economy trillions back in '08. How were they supposed to see that one coming, exactly? How were they supposed to prevent it?
There is, and there are a lot of variables (the causality between "small government" and "weak, poor, corrupt nation" is almost certainly not that the former causes the latter; similarly, Scandinavia is just a really nice place to be), but the idea that larger government is always bad is simply wrong.
So... back to the topic of the EPA.
Captcha: be serious now.
Jesus christ. These things are fucking sentient!