What is cap and trade? How does carbon taxing help the economy and the environment?

[Danoftouni]

p.s. Sad how protecting the environment has virtually become a "Left wing" activity, wtf is wrong with looking after our only F@£$% planet.?

[EconMilitia]

It is unclear that "protecting" and "looking after" means "to tax" and "to build mammoth bureaucracy." To reiterate our findings, no repeatable experiments were found which showed the change in temperature based on change in gases. That they reflect heat is well understood, though the relative impact of the gases on mean temperature is something for which we could never find decent experimental data.

That means it's unclear we're doing anything more than feel-good stuff.

[47f0]

1) All data is "manipulated". Sorry about that, but as a statistical model developer, all data is not good data and adjustments are always made.

2) Dr. Crichton passed in '08 - not '05. I suspect you're as loose with your other "facts". FWIW, Dr. Crichton believed in a number of goofy things, like spoon-bending. A great writer, but not a great skeptical mind.

3) Seen any acid rain lately? No? It's because of a sulfur cap and trade, which, BTW, didn't ruin us, and was even profitable.

[Danoftouni]

FYI, "Climate scientists (i.e. East anglia Uni.) at the centre of the row over stolen e-mails acted with integrity and made no attempt to manipulate their research on global temperatures, an external inquiry has found."

='(

[EconMilitia]

@Danoftouni , where did you find this quote? I'd enjoy reading the entire piece. The phrases "acted with integrity" and "made no attempt to manipulate" sound suspect to me. In both reviewing the emails and reviewing the state of the debate when this episode was released, the best I heard was that their actions did not violate scientific ethics. That's a far cry from acting with integrity, though.

[Danoftouni]

@EconMilitia google "east anglia university cleared" and its a times online article, jsut to note Right wing crazies like sarah Palin are a source of extreme lulz for us europeans. And there is a major consensus among scientists:

[Danoftouni]

@Danoftouni Much of the "anti global warming movement" in America is funded by oil companies, hmmm i wonder why?..... Ever watched a film called "Great global warming swindle", if not you should then watch it, then google [Great global warming swindle, disproved], and that is supposed to be a collection of evidence against the theory..

[bittergunowner12]

Exactly, how about conservation and wildlife restoration as methods of enviromental protection?

[EconMilitia]

I'll be honest, none of the Citizen Economists is particularly smart about conservation methods. Usually, we do research on current data, but we've got lots of in-house expertise. On this stuff, we had to research the underlying principles.

I understand the economic underpinnings of carbon taxation; what's the consumer cost and what are the benefits to conservation? I genuinely don't know.