Market environmentalism

[bilby]

I don't have a 'kind of capitalism'

I saw a person walking his dog with his little pick up bag. Your snazzy car is like that dog...shitting in our environment only you imagine your car's shit is invisible and do not have to account for it.

I don't think my car is particularly snazzy; nor do I imagine that I could collect its waste products even if I wanted to, no matter what kind of bag I used

Don't feel bad. There are MILLIONS JUST LIKE YOU.

If you mean polluters, then there are billions - including you.

Really markets are about selling things. Taxes are about taking the damages from the proceeds of the damaging party. It really is not a market function....*Unless you think of the universe as one big market and everything happening there is a market thing.

I don't. As you would know, if you could contain your self-righteous rage for long enough to read the stuff I write.

You never seem to respond to what people write; which is a shame, because your passion could be helpful if it was rationally directed at the causes of the problems you despise.

Passion without understanding is just zealotry. It helps nobody, and causes more harm than good.

In this thread, I suppose it is your job to show us just how international markets can work in our environment.

Then you suppose wrong. Presumably because you still haven't bothered to read what I write before going off on an angry and misguided rant.

As usual.

What I am telling you is that environmental problems will not be dealt with in the markets we have today and it is highly unlikely that they will ever be properly dealth with by a MARKET.

Thank you, all-knowing one, for handing down your unevidenced and unsupported wisdom. I shall be sure to give a shit just as soon as you back up your belief statement with a shred of evidence.

I shall not be holding my breath.

The dog walking analogy was an attempt to make it clear that environmental problems are non point source and require aggressive remedies which markets simply cannot offer.

But all it actually achieved was to prove that you haven't understood my position at all, and have instead launched into one of your trademark attacks on the position you wish I held, because it's easier that bothering to try to understand my actual position.

The markets we have today are only aggressive in denying their own failure to deliver a decent life to all the people in a given society.

Only? No.

Everything is far more complex than you want it to be. Using red text doesn't change that. Simple answers and sweeping generalisations are usually wrong.

Your interests are far too narrow to deal with our environment and you keep talking about zealotry blind to your own zealotry.

You clearly don't read what I write; and you therefore have no insight at all into the breadth or otherwise of my interests.

All this fury mustn't be good for your blood pressure.

When the door to economic well being in slammed in too many faces, the market economy doesn't do society any favors.

That's true. But you say it as though it is in opposition to my stated position. Which means that you either can't or won't read what I say.

So why should I bother to engage further with your sad little ill-informed rants?

Such is its nature. That is not a matter of MY PASSION. It is much more a matter of the passions of men like Donald Trump and the Koch Brother, and Goldman Sachs. These people have real effects in the world.

They are big fish in the small pond that is the USA. The other 95% of the world uses the word 'market' to mean what it means, and not what American right-wing propagandists use it to mean.

You have become habituated to have an over zealous reflexive response to certain keywords used by a group that you falsely assume I give a crap about (or even hear about on a regular basis), and this renders you incapable of reading my posts and actually comprehending, much less considering, what I am actually saying.

It's really quite sad.

They are ridiculous at best, but that does nothing to attenuate their power over our society.

They have no power over my society.

Seeing what exposure to them has done to you, and to your society, that is something I am very glad about.

The U.S. right-wing are an insane aberration that has no impact on the rest of the world. They represent a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of the real world; your hatred of them may be well founded, but your obsession with them is both unhelpful and unhealthy.

Here's a hint: The majority of the world is in a third category. Your assumption that everyone either agrees entirely with everything you believe, or supports the right-wing in the USA, is deeply flawed.

 

[arkirk]

Bilby: Pay attention to the OP. You tell me how a market can help our environment. So far everything from the plastic in the Pacific gyre to global warming came from the glorious market you so love. Environmental remediation is not a market function...nuff said. If the Kochs keep paying the bills to produce non sustainable product they have plenty of effects on the environment and they won't stop till they are made to stop.

 

[bilby]

Bilby: Pay attention to the OP.

You first.

You tell me how a market can help our environment.

What have I said that makes you think I believe that? I posted four solid reasons why it cannot in any practical way.

Why do you demand that I post things, when you clearly don't read my posts?

So far everything from the plastic in the Pacific gyre to global warming came from the glorious market you so love.

Environmental remediation is not a market function...nuff said.

do you really think that your simplistic viewpoint is in anyway related to reality?

If the Kochs keep paying the bills to produce non sustainable product they have plenty of effects on the environment and they won't stop till they are made to stop.

I really don't care about your pet bogeymen. I never hear the Kochs mentioned except on this forum; they are a U.S. problem.

Kochs or not, people will stop doing stuff if it is not profitable. Making stuff unprofitable is known to be one of the most effective ways to stop it. Your position is nonsensical.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Actually, this one is simple.

When you put in the pollution tax you cut other taxes by the same amount, make it revenue neutral.

You are mixing apples and oranges. Taxes should be levied for the things society needs. If you tax carbon you are taxing to pay for the remediation of the problems carbon causes. That does not mean you get to cut taxes for education, medical and other societal needs. The carbon tax HAS NO CHANCE OF BEING REVENUE NEUTRAL WITHOUT ROBBING OTHER PROGRAMS. You talk as if taxation were just some sort of formality and the revenues being sought had no purpose so it can just be run up and down a scale to suit the MARKET.

You're assuming the money is spent on remediation. We aren't spending it on remediation now and I'm not saying to set the price at the remediation value. Rather, I'm saying to set the price with the objective of maintaining current emission levels. Once the system is switched over we have an easy means of adjusting emissions and can decide what we want to do.

 

[arkirk]

You first.

You tell me how a market can help our environment.

What have I said that makes you think I believe that? I posted four solid reasons why it cannot in any practical way.

Why do you demand that I post things, when you clearly don't read my posts?

So far everything from the plastic in the Pacific gyre to global warming came from the glorious market you so love.

Environmental remediation is not a market function...nuff said.

do you really think that your simplistic viewpoint is in anyway related to reality?

If the Kochs keep paying the bills to produce non sustainable product they have plenty of effects on the environment and they won't stop till they are made to stop.

I really don't care about your pet bogeymen. I never hear the Kochs mentioned except on this forum; they are a U.S. problem.

Kochs or not, people will stop doing stuff if it is not profitable. Making stuff unprofitable is known to be one of the most effective ways to stop it. Your position is nonsensical.

You don't know my position. Also you are ignorant of the activities of the Koch Bros. They are simply buying government. You have a lot to learn young man. I do read your posts. You read mine and even though you have no idea what I am talking about, you set about making a case for what I say being nonsense. I will be more sympathetic to your cause when you get rid of your religiously empowered royalty. Your ignorance is indeed overpowering. I have to admit to being somewhat disgusted by it. The Koch Bros. are a worldwide set of ventures. They certainly have operations in Australia.

 

[bilby]

You first. What have I said that makes you think I believe that? I posted four solid reasons why it cannot in any practical way.

Why do you demand that I post things, when you clearly don't read my posts?

So far everything from the plastic in the Pacific gyre to global warming came from the glorious market you so love.

Environmental remediation is not a market function...nuff said.

do you really think that your simplistic viewpoint is in anyway related to reality?

If the Kochs keep paying the bills to produce non sustainable product they have plenty of effects on the environment and they won't stop till they are made to stop.

I really don't care about your pet bogeymen. I never hear the Kochs mentioned except on this forum; they are a U.S. problem.

Kochs or not, people will stop doing stuff if it is not profitable. Making stuff unprofitable is known to be one of the most effective ways to stop it. Your position is nonsensical.

You don't know my position.

No, I only know what you write - which is nonsensical.

Also you are ignorant of the activities of the Koch Bros.

Yes I am. You seem to be obsessed by them; but whatever they do, they don't do it here.

They are simply buying government. You have a lot to learn young man.

As do we all. I just wish you didn't think that phrase only applies to others.

I do read your posts.

I see no evidence at all of that in your replies.

You read mine and even though you have no idea what I am talking about, you set about making a case for what I say being nonsense.

It is nonsense. That's why it is impossible for me to have any idea what you are talking about.

I will be more sympathetic to your cause when you get rid of your religiously empowered royalty.

See, that's a case in point. I am an atheist and a republican (without a capital 'R'). If you talk about me having "religiously empowered royalty", then you come across at best as deeply confused and irrational.

Your ignorance is indeed overpowering. I have to admit to being somewhat disgusted by it. The Koch Bros. are a worldwide set of ventures. They certainly have operations in Australia.

Not that I have ever encountered. We have our own set of hyper-rich parasites; I wouldn't expect you to know about Gina Rinehart, and am putting your insistence on my caring about your Koch brothers down to an unhealthy obsession on your part.

You live in a small world that you have mistaken for the entire thing, and you lose all reason when I don't fit into one of your pigeonholes, and try to put me in a box regardless, rather than reading my posts and trying to find out who I really am.

 

[arkirk]

You first. What have I said that makes you think I believe that? I posted four solid reasons why it cannot in any practical way.

Why do you demand that I post things, when you clearly don't read my posts?

So far everything from the plastic in the Pacific gyre to global warming came from the glorious market you so love.

Environmental remediation is not a market function...nuff said.

do you really think that your simplistic viewpoint is in anyway related to reality?

If the Kochs keep paying the bills to produce non sustainable product they have plenty of effects on the environment and they won't stop till they are made to stop.

I really don't care about your pet bogeymen. I never hear the Kochs mentioned except on this forum; they are a U.S. problem.

Kochs or not, people will stop doing stuff if it is not profitable. Making stuff unprofitable is known to be one of the most effective ways to stop it. Your position is nonsensical.

You don't know my position.

No, I only know what you write - which is nonsensical.

Also you are ignorant of the activities of the Koch Bros.

Yes I am. You seem to be obsessed by them; but whatever they do, they don't do it here.

They are simply buying government. You have a lot to learn young man.

As do we all. I just wish you didn't think that phrase only applies to others.

I do read your posts.

I see no evidence at all of that in your replies.

You read mine and even though you have no idea what I am talking about, you set about making a case for what I say being nonsense.

It is nonsense. That's why it is impossible for me to have any idea what you are talking about.

I will be more sympathetic to your cause when you get rid of your religiously empowered royalty.

See, that's a case in point. I am an atheist and a republican (without a capital 'R'). If you talk about me having "religiously empowered royalty", then you come across at best as deeply confused and irrational.

Your ignorance is indeed overpowering. I have to admit to being somewhat disgusted by it. The Koch Bros. are a worldwide set of ventures. They certainly have operations in Australia.

Not that I have ever encountered. We have our own set of hyper-rich parasites; I wouldn't expect you to know about Gina Rinehart, and am putting your insistence on my caring about your Koch brothers down to an unhealthy obsession on your part.

You live in a small world that you have mistaken for the entire thing, and you lose all reason when I don't fit into one of your pigeonholes, and try to put me in a box regardless, rather than reading my posts and trying to find out who I really am.

Thanks for expressing yourself. We have honest differences and I don't see them going away. I am not sorry about that and I don't apologize.