Evironmental Subsidy Fails – Does Opposit of What Was Intended
April 13th, 2009
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Direct subsidies in the form of cash handouts or tax credits (which are really the same thing) can be very dangerous things. The government has a tendency to bungle things very badly and when this tendency shows up in subsidies it can be bad twice over: first actually hurting what the subsidy was supposed to help and secondly bleeding more money out of the already endebted US Treasury.
That was the case with the Synthetic Fuel Credit program of the Carter administration. It completely killed the possibility of synthetic fuel production by turning the whole industry into a big tax shelter and making coal slurry acceptable as a “coal to liquid fuel conversion” allowing for huge tax breaks and regulation exemptions for the filthy fuel. Today we can see this with ethanol, the fuel that was supposed to make things better but instead has made the cost of fuel and the enviornmental footprint of fossil fuels far worse.
Oh well…. at least it’s not as bad as the money wasted on wind power. Still, folks, this is how the government works. The less work the government does, the less stuff it gets a chance to break.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 2:41 am and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment, History, Just LAME, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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April 18th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Since bad science and worse are the currency of this blog, there is probably little point in presenting good science for discussion here. But I am going out on a limb. Why not review the research presented at the following link and comment.
http://www.panearth.org
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April 18th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Steven Earl Salmony said:
Good science = agrees with Steven Earl Salmony’s point-of-view.
Bad science = does not agree with Steven Earl Salmony
The fact of the matter is you are so wrapped up in your own ideology that you can’t properly evaluate anything of a scientific nature because you are too biased.
From your link:
“Simple mathematical models have illustrated the relationship between human carrying capacity and
population growth. In this study, food supply is proposed as the variable which best accounts for the human
carrying capacity. The logistic equation, using food supply data as a variable carrying capacity, yields
population estimates which are in accord with actual population numbers. That food supply data adequately
fits the logistic model of human population dynamics provides evidence that, consistent with ecological
notions typically applied only to nonhuman species, human population increases are a function of increased
food availability.”
So what? This was never in doubt and doesn’t provide any new information or insights on the issue of population growth beyond what Malthus found at the turn of the Ninetieth Century.
The second paper is just a rehash of the first with again nothing new to offer. Nether of these papers are wrong, they’re just pointless.
However I did note that the author made a point of thanking you personally for your encouragement.
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April 18th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Steven Earl Salmony said:
What research? Didn’t see anything on that link that represented the results of any actual research. It’s just the same Malthusian blah blah blah in a new package using the same kind of linear model that have been around forever. There’s nothing here that the discredited Meadows study did not have. The problem with the analysis that I saw on that site,other than being very crude, about the level of an undergraduate research paper, is that it is using linear exponentials and static analysis to model a chaotic and dynamic system. That and the fact that it advocates big government solutions to the problems makes it nothing more than the usual crap that’s been going around forever. There is nothing here that hasn’t been ripped to shred long ago. Look up Julian Simon, and Jerry Pournelle’s A Step Farther Out(PDF can be purchased on his website) for a better criticism of Malthusian analysis than I can do here.
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April 21st, 2009 at 7:43 pm
One question.
Are human population dynamics essentially similar to, or different from, the population dynamics of other species? If different, please explain the difference.
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April 21st, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Steven Earl Salmony said:
The difference is that we are intelligent enough to foresee the future and act accordingly. That is the reason that humans can detect the fact that the carrying capacity of a local environment is nearing its max and then take steps to modify that environment accordingly. Google up some images of terraced rice-paddies to an example of both the technique and proof of how long humanity has been doing it.
This is the error all Malthusian doomsday theories run into: Man has the capacity to change the rules en passant, other species cannot. Man can harness energy sources other species cannot, and Man can build on a scale other species cannot using materials no other species can create. Malthus never factored that in – or the talent we have for shifting from one resource-base to another. In short we are very different than the rest of the flora and fauna on this planet.
True some species can do some of the things we can do, but not the whole suite of things, and not anywhere near at the scale we can.
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April 22nd, 2009 at 1:43 am
I tend to agree with DV82XL, but I also do agree that the flip side of it is that there are societies which have a problem with a population explosion. A good example would be India. The standard of living there is quite low for many and they’re seeing a population surge that will put them ahead of China in terms of population in the near future.
It is definitely possible to have a society where population is growing faster than desirable.
The thing to consider, however, is that population tends to actually go down or at least plateau in the most advanced societies with the highest levels of education, living standards and health care.
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April 22nd, 2009 at 4:06 pm
DV82XL Says:
“True some species can do some of the things we can do, but not the whole suite of things, and not anywhere near at the scale we can.”
Perhaps there are profound implications to be found not only in the gigantic scale of absolute global human population numbers but also in the colossal scale of the global economy.
Today is Earth Day, but all that seems to matter to the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe managing the global economy are their personal conspicuous consumption, obscene hoarding and maintenance of exotic, patently unsustainable lifestyles.
Given the present scale and the fully anticipated rate of unbridled industrial expansion, globalization of humankind’s leviathan-like political economy could soon become unsustainable on a planet with the size, composition and frangible environs of Earth. At some point in space-time…. perhaps sooner rather than later…. if we keep doing precisely what we are doing now by overconsuming Earth’s limited resources, overproducing unnecessary stuff worldwide, and overpopulating our planetary home, then the children could be confronted of some sort of unimaginable threat: the collapse of human civilization and/or Earth’s ecology, the likes of which only Ozymandias has witnessed.
It is difficult for me to see how the human family moves forward to assure a good enough future for our children and coming generations if many people with clear vision, coherent minds, ethical sensibility and a capacity for intellectual honesty and moral courage do not become more vocal and clamorous now. By so doing, the deafening silence enjoined upon many too many “talking heads” in the mainstream media by an astonishingly small group of super-rich, ideologically-driven ‘benefactors’ and their cronies…. all with too much wealth, power and undeserved status…. most assuredly will be overcome.
Only our silence now regarding the chance of human over-consumption, overproduction and overpopulation activities overspreading the surface of Earth, as well as becoming patently unsustainable, can defeat the family of humanity, I believe. Silence is an actual enemy to be most feared now because of the clear and present danger elective mutism presents to future human wellbeing and environmental health.
Perhaps a day will come when our children might ask us three questions, “What did you know; when did you know it; and on what date did you begin speaking out loudly, clearly and often to save humanity, life as we know it, and the environs of the planet we are blessed to inhabit?”
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April 22nd, 2009 at 6:15 pm
drbuzz0 said:
India’s overwhelming population is often given as an excuse to justify poverty and starvation. This theory is applicable only if the State itself is poor and has no means to procure enough food for its people. India is not poor, even though 70% of Indians are. India’s defense budget for 2007-08 was 24 billion US$ for example.
Starvation and malnourishment affect about 53% of its entire population. It is the direct result of the failing administrative system in India. A malfunctioning administrative system has a direct bearing upon the living conditions of the poor.
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April 22nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
DV82XL said:
India is a classic case of big government trying to manage everything and messing everything up. The government brought improved medicine but not the means to produce the kind of economy that would support the population that the improved medicine produced, mostly because they bough into the socialist notions that prevailed in the middle of the last century. The problem was that instead of massive scale industrial projects India really need millions of little entropeneurs building their own little businesses.
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April 23rd, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Saving the Earth and life as we know it will not be difficult at the moment the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe among us, the ones possessing a lion’s share of the world’s wealth as well as bought-and-paid-for powermongers, decide to regard the Earth and its environs at least as important as the status, privileges, wealth and power which are derived from their conscious manipulation of the global economy for their and their cronies’ selfish interests.
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April 23rd, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Steven Earl Salmony said:
You’re not even trying to engage with us. That tiresome bit of demagoguery is just a pathetic attempt to drive traffic to your own page.
Because you don’t have anything else to answer what was written after your previous post do you?
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April 23rd, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Steven Earl Salmony said:
Steven,
I have a suggestion. why don’t you try living the ’sustainable’ lifestyle you advocate. You can get there in 48 hours or so.
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/03/the_world_witho.php
The difference is that you, as one of the wealthy elite westerners you purport to despise, could escape that lifestyle. The victims of the policies you and your friends advocate would not be able to. We owe a lot to those robber barons of the late Nineteenth century who gave us so much. Unlike your ilk they wanted to make life better for everybody, not pillage society for their on grandizment.
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April 23rd, 2009 at 10:32 pm
On the website Panearth there are links to some videos and other media. One of them I found especially chilling (chilling in that people agree with it in addition to anyone even thinking this) is one called “Where we went wrong”‘:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpAxV6uUxsM&feature=related
I am writing a response to it because I find the logic so repulsive and wrong. The claim is that tribal life is the best way to live. I’d like to point out that tribal societies tend to have extremely low expected lifespans and they commonly engage in tribal warfare for resources. If you look at modern tribal societies they tend to breed warlords and have a very brutal way of living.
It also claims that agriculture is a bad thing and “The easiest life of all is going out and getting What is there already” It literally claims hunter-gathering is superior to agriculture.
Jesus, anyone who believes that I challenge to go into the woods and find food. There is *some* but it ain’t easy even in the best areas of the world for living off the land. If it were so easy there wouldn’t be any problem when primative agriculture fails. Why not go tell the Irish during the potato famine “Oh just go up into the hills and grab some naturally-occurring food to eat.” There ain’t that muich there… A few eatable roots and leaves, but not much substantial.
In tribes it’s not uncommon to have infanticide of children who have disabilities or to even throw old people out to die. It sounds repugnant to us, but they live so close to death that anyone who can’t pull their own weight simply can’t be taken care of. Yes, it’s brutal, because it’s a brutal way to live.
The Brazilian Tribes that this guy thinks are the last word in great sustainable living have a life expectancy for an adult male of 42 years and they are known for killing infants with physical disabilities. Also, they have a very high incidence of diseases like Yellow Fever and Malaria that many die from – damn painful death.
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April 23rd, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Are you going to make a full post of this or should we discuss this here?
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April 24th, 2009 at 1:17 am
DV82XL said:
I am going to make a full post. Probably tomorrow late afternoon-ish (US East Coast time). I’ve been a bit busy with a project recently and that’s why posts have not been as regular as in the past but it’s winding down so I am pretty sure I’ll have time to tomorrow.
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April 24th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
I have most of the post done but I still need to proofread and edit it a little bit before posting it and right now I’m just exhausted so I’ll post it tomorrow morning
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