Our Oceans are Under Attack

New technology has very often created new prosperity.
Climate change is real. Just not human induced. BUT. Let's prepare defenses, technologies, and workarounds anyway.
I agree with all of your quote above.
But OTHER of your statements insist carbon taxes are the means to accomplish this.
Whenever I have appealed to AGWers, "What is it you specifically want to DO?' The answer invariably is "Carbon Taxes"!
That's not a plan.
It's not a plan to solve AGW.
It appears to be a wealth re-distribution plan, forever dear to socialist thinking.
M.Strong first proposed it EXACTLY for that purpose.
It's a socialist agenda from the first time it was mentioned.
An agenda to wrest control.
You don't realize how transparent you are. We do!
You don't need carbon tax to create new technologies or any other project deemed helpful.
Carbon tax centralizes control. In totalitarian hands. A disaster to individual freedoms.
Centralization is inefficient and always out of touch. Causes multiple local disasters due to ignorance and remoteness.
Carbon tax, like all tax, is government theft. Get out of my pockets. I'm entitled to what I sweat for.
Carbon tax will cause inflation across the price board. Better believe it.
Not hard to understand how increased business cost translates into price increases.
It would be disastrous to our's and other economies already struggling. Believe that TOO!
The rich can afford the higher prices, The middle class and poor can't.
You must LOVE poor people. Your "tax plan" would reduce the working class to poverty levels
No. Hell NO! No carbon taxes!
So what projects do you have in mind to fund with the ain't happening carbon taxes?
Americans are historically very generous donating money and time and energy to worthwhile projects.
You get more by asking than demanding.
IF, if you have a good cause. Make your case.
Do you HAVE any project plans? Or only a political agenda?

 

Nope. A carbon tax is not in itself the means to do anything. The idea is to generate less CO2. That means doing other things as well, so it's not as if all people want to do is create a carbon tax, and then nick off to the pub with their brains in neutral and expect magic bunnies to do everything else. Obviously that's not the case.

The thing is that business and industries have inertia, as do people's habits. They won't change unless there is an incentive for change. One obvious way to reduce CO2 emissions would be to reduce the demand for power generation. This has already happened over here. It's rather funny in a way.

What happened is that the power companies made predictions of increasing demand for power, and then built extra infrastructure on the basis of their predictions. To pay for the extra infrastructure, they started jacking up power prices. This then led consumers to find various ways of reducing their power demand to reduce their bills, via such things as buying more efficient appliances, energy saving light bulbs, installing solar panels, solar hot water systems, etc. Consumers figured that the initial cost of these things was more than offset by the power savings.

The power companies now have a problem, in that they are making less money than they planned due to the lower demand. This means they have to keep increasing their prices for each unit of power, which then makes it less attractive to consumers and encourages them to further reduce their demand, which of course is going to mean less revenue for the power companies, again.

When we did have a carbon tax here some people made a big song and dance about it being the reason for higher power prices, when in reality it was only a very small factor compared to everything else. Carbon tax is now gone, but power prices keep going up. So, all the people who claimed removing the carbon tax would fix that problem are looking rather silly.

Anyway, the point here is incentive. The existing systems (including individual consumers) will want to continue as is unless nudged in a different direction. A tax on carbon is a means of giving an incentive for change. Think of it like taxes on tobacco.

I don't know the situation in the US re tobacco, but over here taxes on it have been steadily increasing. Yes, this does raise some revenue but that is not the main aim. The main aim is to reduce the national health problems caused by tobacco. It works too. As prices go up, people smoke less. This has been clearly demonstrated by various studies. This in turn reduces the health burden on everyone, which among other things is good for the economy.

The ultimate aim is to not raise any money at all from this tax, because the ultimate aim is to cut smoking to zero. The situation with a carbon tax is similar. It's not intended to raise stacks of money. It's intended to give an incentive to change to things that produce less carbon. This will provide flow-on benefits in range of fields, including health, which have the potential to be good for the economy.

As I pointed out, this need not increase the total tax burden if your required government revenue is a fixed amount. If you can raise extra revenue from one tax, you can afford to raise less revenue from other taxes. This is basic common sense. If you have a government that wants to tax all its citizens to death they can do this with or without a carbon tax, until they get voted out. That's a separate issue, so in itself it is not a valid argument against a carbon tax.

In theory you don't need it, but as I said it comes down to incentive.

No it doesn't. Any company is till going to be free to pursue whatever research and development path they think will work. Any consumer will still be able to make their own choices about the options available to them. There is nothing inherently more totalitarian about it all.

It's still basically the same system. You will still have the same Constitution and the same freedoms. You will still be able to tell your politicians they have their heads up their butts. The mere fact that one minor aspect of the taxation system is changed will have no bearing on civil liberties.

I can tell you this for a fact, because civil liberties did not suffer at all while Australia had a carbon tax, nor have they suffered at all in other countries which have a carbon tax. You are making a mountain out of an exceptionally tiny molehill.

How about stuff like this?

Giant solar farm uses molten salt to keep power coming


(which I already posted but which you probably ignored)

or this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Australia

Just as a start, without even thinking about it much.

 

Excellent projects. You do have a pragmatic mind. You're the first AGWer that answered my challenge for credible project ideas. Good luck! Sorry I missed the molten salt project earlier.
As to the incentive, I dislike being manipulated and I'm not alone.
The USA may be more vulnerable to an internal hostile takeover than OZ.
I'm not very familiar wit your politics.
Do you have Loss of Confidence recall elections like Britain?
I forget what they're actually called.
Wish we had recalls in the US. There'd be 90% fresh faces in DC.

We don't trust the politicians or political parties here.
Well, maybe a few optimistic innocents do.
I don't want the government to ever have "permission" to involve itself in social engineering.
Carbon Tax would be a very slippery slope to enact here. Not going to allow it to start.
All 50 states have already submitted petitions to secede.
We the people, I'm one, are currently very mistrustful of big government. With cause!

And carbon tax would still be inflationary and intolerably hard on most of the citizenry.

 

Here are a few suggestions regarding a carbon tax that I've posted in the past.

Carbon Tax: How to Deal with a Sagging Economy, Tax Reform, and Climate Change in One Fell Swoop | The Energy Collective

In-Depth Analysis: How A Progressive Carbon Tax Will Fight Climate Change And Stimulate The Economy | Think Progress

A Conservative, Small-Government Strategy For Fighting Climate Change | FORBES

Our Carbon, Our Climate, Our Cash | NEW YORK TIMES

 

Other interesting articles on Carbon Taxes

Carbon Tax | Wikipedia

Why taxes on carbon pollution are essential, what’s happening now, and how you can help | Carbon Tax Center

How Carbon Tax Works | Science: How Stuff Works

Carbon Tax Facts | Australia

British Columbia's Carbon Tax

Revenue-Neutral Carbon Tax | Citizen's Climate Lobby

A Carbon Tax That America Could Live With | New York Times

Sweden's carbon-tax solution to climate change puts it top of the green list | The Guardian

 

How to reduce global warming for fun and profit | USA Today

 

A socialists perspective THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING Capitalism vs the Climate by Naomi Klein

 

ScienceDaily: Your source for the latest research news
Featured Research
from universities, journals, and other organizations

Could Tiny Diatoms Help Offset Global Warming?
Date: January 26, 2008


Source:

University of Washington


Summary:


Diatoms -- some of which are so tiny that 30 can fit across the width of a human hair -- are so numerous that they are among the key organisms taking the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the Earth's atmosphere. The shells of diatoms are so heavy that when they die in the oceans they typically sink to watery graves on the seafloor, taking carbon out of the surface waters and locking it into sediments below.

Thalassiosira pseudonana -- with a hard outer shell of silica shaped like a hatbox and marked with pores -- is 3 to 4 microns in size, making it among the smallest diatoms.

Credit: University of Washington

Diatoms -- some of which are so tiny that 30 can fit across the width of a human hair -- are so numerous that they are among the key organisms taking the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the Earth's atmosphere.


The shells of diatoms are so heavy that when they die in the oceans they typically sink to watery graves on the seafloor, taking carbon out of the surface waters and locking it into sediments below.

Scientists have reported the discovery of whole subsets of genes and proteins that govern how one species of diatom builds its shell. For oceanographers, the work might one day help them understand how thousands of different kinds of diatoms -- and their ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- might be affected by something like global climate change. Material scientists involved in the work are interested in the possibilities of manipulating the genes responsible for silica production as a way of fabricating more efficient computer chips.

Diatoms, most of which are far too tiny to see without magnification, are incredibly important in the global carbon cycle, says Thomas Mock, a University of Washington postdoctoral researcher in oceanography and lead author of the paper. During photosynthesis, diatoms turn carbon dioxide into organic carbon and, in the process, generate oxygen. They are responsible for 40 percent of the organic carbon produced in the world's oceans each year.

The new work took advantage of the genomic map of the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana published in 2004 by a team led by UW oceanography professor Virginia Armbrust, who is corresponding author of the new PNAS paper.* Thalassiosira pseudonana is encased in a hatbox-shaped shell comprised of a rigid cell wall, made mainly of silica and delicately marked with pores in patterns distinctive enough for scientists to tell it from other diatoms.

Armed with the genomic map, the researchers changed environmental conditions in laboratory cultures of Thalassiosira pseudonana, for example limiting the amount of silicon and changing the temperatures. Then researchers used what's called "whole genome expression profiling" to determine which parts of the genome were triggered to compensate.

Think of a plant on a windowsill that starts getting a lot more sunlight, Mock says. The new set of conditions will cause genes in the plant to turn on and off to help the plant acclimate to the increased light as best it can.

Scientists since the late 1990s have found only a handful of genes that influence diatom shell formation. The work with Thalassiosira pseudonana identified large, previously unknown subsets. A set of 75 genes, for example, was triggered to compensate when silicon was limited.

The researchers were surprised to find another subset of 84 genes triggered when either silicon or iron were limited, suggesting that these two pathways were somehow linked. Under low-iron conditions, the diatoms grew more slowly and genes involved in the production of the silica shell were triggered. Individual diatoms also tended to clump together under those conditions, making them even heavier and more likely to sink.

The response of thin and thick cell walls depending on the amount of iron available had been observed at sea but "no one had a clue about the molecular basis," Mock says.

Considering that 30 percent of the world's oceans are iron-poor, some scientists have suggested fertilizing such areas with iron so diatoms become more numerous and absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, thus putting the brakes on global warming. If, however, adding iron causes diatoms to change the thickness of their shells then perhaps they won't be as likely to sink and instead would remain in the upper ocean where the carbon they contain might be released back to the atmosphere as they decay or are eaten.

"Iron increases primary production by diatoms but our study adds another concern about the efficiency of iron fertilization," Mock says.

Along with helping scientists understand implications for climate change and absorption of carbon dioxide, diatoms can manipulate silica in ways that engineers can only dream about.

University of Wisconsin professor Michael Sussman, the co-corresponding author on the paper, says the new findings will help his group start manipulating the genes responsible for silica production and potentially harness them to produce lines on computer chips. This could vastly increase chip speed because diatoms are capable of producing lines much smaller than current technology allows, he says.

*This research was published recently in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Other co-authors from the University of Washington are Vaughn Iverson, Chris Berthiaume, Karie Holtermann and Colleen Durkin; from Systemix Institute is Manoj Pratim Samanta; and from University of Wisconsin are Matthew Robinson, Sandra Splinter BonDurant, Kathryn Richmond, Matthew Rodesch, Toivo Kallas, Edward Huttlin and Franceso Cerrina.

Funding for the research came from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, National Science Foundation, German Academic Exchange Service, National Institutes of Health Genomic Sciences Training Center and the University of Wisconsin.
Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by University of Washington. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080123150516.htm

More, more recent:

http://www.livescience.com/21684-geoengineering-iron-fertilization-climate.html

http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/science_nation/arcticlakes.jsp

Anything more recent?

 

I'm only interested in non carbon tax solutions.
The only way to convince me carbon tax isn't a disastrous idea, is to try it and discover everything be hunky-dory after all.
Don't trust the US government managing taxes or money.
They are HORRIBLE at it! Demonstrated dysfunctional. Look at the overspending and debt! You trust these folks?
No, no carbon tax. Too much risk if it soured, as I sincerely expect it would.

 

The molten salt project is a particularly good one, IMO, since it is basically low-tech. It doesn't require photovoltaic arrays, and relies on a fairly simple heat bank and steam turbine. This means it's less likely to f#%! up, which is always good, and should be fairly economical to produce. Generating base load power has been one of the big problems with renewables, and this seems like a great way of getting around that problem.

The other thing is that if it does go wrong, such as a salt leak, then you'd just have a big lump of salt to clean up. That's not too hard to deal with. It'd take a while to get the plant back online, largely because the thermal mass would then be working against you, but the process itself shouldn't be a big deal.

If you take the time to really look into it you'll find there are plenty of people with practical ideas, even if they are not fully developed yet. There are also stacks of utterly useless wingnuts, but they can be ignored.

I don't think anyone actually likes it. However, when bigger things are at stake it may be worth putting up with.

Try this scenario, just as a thought experiment. Let's say you get yourselves a new president in the next election. A real one this time. A righteous, God-fearing president who believes in guns, vilification of homosexuals, and nuking the Dixie Chicks if those bitches ever criticise US foreign policy again. The sort of president a man would be proud to vote for.

Now let's says this hypothetical president is pragmatic enough to believe that God helps those who help themselves, and that therefore people should have enough sense to take account of evidence and act accordingly. So, after consultation with a range of scientists and advisors he presents a proposal to you, the people.

The proposal is as follows: that it seems prudent to reduce CO2 emissions, because although the evidence may be wrong it doesn't seem to be, and because of the inertia in the climate system it is not something we can take stupid chances with. In other words, by the time the problem becomes irrefutably clear to the average mug in the street, it will be too late to stop it. This means it is necessary to act preemptively, in the interest of national security (where "security" includes not just military aspects but security of health, property values, and many other factors) and in the interest of leaving a better world to our grandchildren.

So, he suggests that what should be done is to reduce income tax across the board, in a manner equitable to everyone, to the extent that the total reduction in tax take would be $100 billion. However, by itself this would mean reducing the budget of the military, which would be bad for military security. So, to make it possible to maintain the current military budget the reduction in income tax would be balanced by a new carbon tax to make up the shortfall. This means the total tax load is unchanged, as is the size of the military and the size of the government, but people now have an incentive for positive change. In theory they wouldn't need such an incentive, but in reality we know we all will need it. People are like that.

Question: would you see this scenario as being excessively totalitarian, or as being a threat to the Constitution, or as being a threat to anything else you value deeply? If you would see it as some sort of threat, can you please explain why?

Yes, we have no confidence motions and blocking of supply available as political tactics. We also have the somewhat anachronistic Governor-General, who in practice is nothing to do with the English royal family and is purely an internal Australian matter, despite the nominal legal basis. However, these things are rarely called upon as using them frivolously is a good way to make the voters very annoyed with you. We prefer our politicians to behave themselves and just get on with the job.

 

We'd prefer our politicians behave themselves.
The president, despite current misconceptions of some high rank officials, doesn't make laws. There is no mechanism for the president to even propose new laws. Presidents job is to execute and enforce the laws created by congress, supposedly representing the will of the people.

Anyway, very few would vote for the clown you describe. Our rights, including having arms and using them to protect ourselves, isn't a matter of like or dislike. It's a natural RIGHT existing prior to governments, and the constitution prohibits US government from messing with our unalienable individual rights.
Anyway.
I've seen too much malfeasance in government to give another inch. I'm more interested in tying their hands and locking the vault! I LIKE deadlocked can't budge government. It's the best kind of government, cause they ain't doing stupid stuff when they can't do anything. The president has a veto just in case they do pass stupid stuff.
Fellow currently in oval office is very confused about his job!
No. No carbon tax. Not if I can convince folks to resist. My vote is against!
We don't need it, and it WILL cause inflation if they start it.
If you think a tiny bit of human CO2 (3.5% of atmospheric CO2) causes global warming, what do you imagine a sufficiently large carbon tax, enough to be an inhibitor, will do to prices of everything?
Practically every product in the USA moves by diesel truck.
Economic death!

 

is this the world's longest thread yet.

 

Point: I am a biologist - my first degree was in population ecology.

I disagree with your statement above.

It takes only a single exception to disprove a blanket statement as above.

Therefore, you are wrong.

PDW

 

Things contract when they cool. That is generally a true statement. Exceptions: H2O and antimony. Statement is still generally true.

I don't like being manipulated either. You cannot trust in the benevolence of the one doing the manipulating because manipulators generally are not benevolent.

 

We discussed that possibility in 2012. Here is the first discussion.

Shortly thereafter it was reported that the dead critters that were supposed to be carrying the carbon to the ocean floor weren't cooperating, and most of the captured carbon was being re-emitted back into the atmosphere within a few years.

But then some rich guy decided he'd charter a boat, load it with iron powder, and go dump it off the coast of BC to see what would happen. Not much.

By the end of the year scientists had decided that even if all conditions were perfect (and they never are) it would cost $433 to capture one tonne of CO2, which didn't compare favorably with the then carbon tax in Australia of $23 per tonne.

Guess we need to reconsider a carbon tax.