The Norfolk Island Experiment by canttakesky

bumpity bump

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Wednesday, November 3, 2010 5:59 PM

It's strangely fascist. IMHO, the co2 scare is a scam. They're not killing them yet though. It's just misguided liberalism. It's an experiment to see if people get really annoyed and move.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 2:38 AM

What concerns me are the responses of authorities who support such programs:

Quote:
“Widespread public acceptance, while desirable, should not be a pre-condition for a personal carbon trading scheme; the need to reduce emissions is simply too urgent,” the MPs said, before being driven off to dinner.

(Or as our own Professor Clive Hamilton, author and former Greens candidate, puts it, global warming is so “horrible” that leaders must look to “canvassing of emergency responses such as the suspension of democratic processes”.)

Or read the transcript of an interview with the Australian authority in charge of the program:

et’s go to the transcript of my interview with Egger on MTR 1377 this week, to see how he answered.

Quote:

Me: What happens to those people who overdraw their carbon emissions ...

Egger: In the first year you are just warned ... (Later) if you overspend, you’ve got to buy the units that are cashed in ...

Me: If you put this in on the mainland and you were really strict about it - you really thought the world was warming very, very dangerously and someone exceeded their rations of these carbon units - one would presume that you would make food, for example, too expensive for them to buy.

Egger: That’s right ... so if you’ve got, for example, a very fatty unhealthy food that is imported from overseas which takes a lot of carbon to develop it, then the price would go up ...

Me: What happens to a very fat family, a very irresponsibly fat family, and they’ve blown their carbon budget to the scheissenhausen and you’ve made their food terribly expensive? What about the kids? They go to breakfast and they’ve got one baked bean?

Egger: In general you’ll find that in a very fat family they are low-income earners ... so those people would actually benefit from a scheme like this because the food that they buy, the energy that they use, they don’t use as much energy as the rich anyway ...

Me: But what happens? Their ration of carbon credits runs out and you’ve made food too expensive for them to buy. What happens to them?

Egger: Again, they get money back from doing the right thing.

Me: No, but they’ve done the wrong thing. That’s why they are fat and poor. They’ve done the wrong thing, they’ve run out of their carbon credits. What are you going to do to them then, when the food’s too expensive to buy?

Egger: There are going to be personal cases like this that need to be worked out and they need to be worked out in the tax system as well as in the carbon credits system.

The author of the article summarizes it best:

Quote:
...to improve resistant humans or build for them someone else’s idea of the perfect society.

These schemes so often are too perfect for the flawed humans they supposedly serve. ...Which is where some force is required; some democracy sacrificed.

Sure, Norfolk Islanders can move or decline to participate in the program I suppose. But there isn't a dent in CO2 unless there is widespread and mandatory participation in programs like this one. Maybe this is just the first step, testing the waters of how much rebellion there would be.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 4:23 AM

Recently in Britain the Tories introduced primary voting, so that the people could pick their party's candidate before voting for them. This is fairly large part of how they won.

Labour opposed the move because there was a strong resistance from its socialist caucus, whose leader said in an interview, "But if we went to a primary system where the voters chose the candidates, no socialist would ever win."

I don't have the transcript because I just told this by a british friend over the phone who had just listened to it.

You're probably right, it's a testing ground, and they probably are not testing the program, they are trying to prove to their fellow socialists that they can pull this off. So, they'd pick the community that would have the fewest problems with it.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 12:31 PM

This is as ridiculous as laying blame to 50cc two stroke scooter engines while lookin the other way for corporate empires - just business as usual, really.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 12:37 PM

There are no fat poor people on Norfolk Island. It's a tax haven for the incredibly wealthy.

If that's how they want to live their lives, then so be it. Largely autonomous little island, self governing. Isn't that the libertarian model?

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 12:50 PM

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
It's strangely fascist. IMHO, the co2 scare is a scam. They're not killing them yet though. It's just misguided liberalism. It's an experiment to see if people get really annoyed and move.

Odd. You've always maintained that people living sustainably was a "conservative" mentality. Now you find it fascist and liberal to do so, or to encourage others to do so?

The modern definition of "socialist" is anyone who's winning an argument against a tea-bagger.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 2:00 PM

Andrew Bolt is a dolt.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 2:03 PM

Another view from the Sydney Morning Herald

Islanders lead world on personal carbon test scheme
Deborah Smith
October 27, 2010

www.The-Green-Guide.info/

NORFOLK ISLAND will introduce the world's first trial of a personal carbon trading scheme.

If successful, it could improve the health of the residents as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Garry Egger, a professor of lifestyle medicine and applied health promotion at Southern Cross University, said that addressing climate change provided an opportunity to tackle the linked problem of obesity.

''If people are not using their cars, and using their own person power instead, it will also benefit their health.''

Professor Egger's team has been awarded a $390,000 Australian Research Council grant to conduct a three-year study of the effectiveness of the scheme, which will start next year.

Norfolk Island residents will be allocated the same number of carbon units on a credit card, which they will spend whenever they buy petrol and power.

If they are frugal with non-renewable energy consumption, and walk, cycle or drive an electric car, they will be able to trade in leftover carbon credits at the carbon bank for cash at the end of a set period.

Each year the quota of carbon units will be reduced, and the price of a high carbon emission lifestyle will rise.

Although it will be a voluntary scheme, the incentive to participate was obvious, Professor Egger said: ''People can make money out of it.''

In the second year, the researchers hope to add food to the scheme, ranking products on their health cost as well as their carbon cost.

Fatty foods imported from the mainland, for example, would require more carbon units to purchase than local fresh produce.

''Over the three years we will be looking to see if there is a reduction in diabetes and obesity,'' said Professor Egger, who developed the GutBusters weight loss program for men.

He said the island provided a unique testing ground because it is small, people live a similar lifestyle to most Australians, and the goods that come in and out by plane and ship can be monitored.

About 30,000 tourists and other visitors come to the island each year and they will also be given a carbon credit card on arrival to participate in the scheme, and find out more about their carbon usage.

The Norfolk Island government is a partner in the project and the Minister for Tourism, Industry and Development, Andre Nobbs, said he was delighted it had been given the go ahead. ''The population has strong ideals and beliefs about the environment,'' he said.

Tourists would see the scheme as a ''very proactive step'', he predicted.

Professor Egger said he was disappointed that the two banks on the island had declined to participate, but he expected the scheme would provide lots of other business opportunities.

He has been invited to speak to business people at the United Nations climate change conference in Mexico in December.

The Norfolk Island trial will determine whether the approach is acceptable to people or not. If so, it could eventually be scaled up to a country level, and then world level, he said.

It's a trial, it's being monitored for 3 years and it's voluntary. Oh yeah, so fascist.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 2:06 PM

Magon

Surprisingly, the planet knows that. Actually, it was part of the point of what I just said: The socialists who had this idea can make it work on Norfolk Island, and then sell it as an idea that works. What works on Norfolk Island doesn't necessarily work in Sydney or Melbourne, which is why in the interview he says "if this spreads to the mainland."

That's not libertarian: It's social engineering.

Frem,

Yes, the co2 thing is nowhere near the threat that anyone thinks it is, but its source is overwhelmingly deforestation. The quantity of co2 produced and consumed every year by the Earth dwarfs our impact. By deforestation and desertification, we have reduced the planet's ability to consume co2. Levels will continue to climb for some time because of that. Thousands to millions of years. Right now, the change from 340 to 370ppm is not really signification, it's when it gets up to 3000-7000 that we're going to see some effect.

The number one thing we can do right now is stop deforestation and desertification. That should be where all of our efforts on co2 go to. If we can secure that, we can begin trying to reclaim land. But bear in mind, evolution does push for maximum efficiency. Even in a reforested area, we'll be luck to get 10% of the co2 consumption power of the first growth rainforest that was cut down.

Mike

Are you unable to see fascism? This is not encourage, it is force. And it does mean that the children will pay for the mistakes of their parents. Frankly, I think that's a pretty fascist idea.

If they really want to encourage better behavior with economic manipulation, there's a much simpler way to do it: Just tax the behavior.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 2:11 PM

Dreamtrove, if people think that it's a good idea, then how is there a problem? It's a voluntary scheme, if you don't like it, don't get involved. If you do, then reap the rewards. How is that a difficult or puzzling idea for you? Or is it just that you personally don't agree.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 3:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
If they really want to encourage better behavior with economic manipulation, there's a much simpler way to do it: Just tax the behavior.

Still a damn bad idea, and the whole prohibition via taxation gig makes a mockery of law and order, social compact, yadda yadda...

Subverting laws you don't like, or enforcing laws you can't pass cause you do NOT have the consent of the public, via the tax code is not only an act of tyranny, it's doomed to fail - commerce continues, and all it'll result in is more jackboots, more laws, yadda yadda...

And lets us not pretend you wouldn't have your own howling to have about THAT, if they did it.

Now, the deforestation thing, well, that leads to an interesting question itself, given that regardless of what someone who never even ASKED them might think of the property rights of folk who've lived there for a thousand years and more... do you think drawing lines on a map and calling it yours really means anything but that you have bigger weapons and armies than the guys who's turf you wanna take ?

For all the gloss of civilization, it is what it is, taking other peoples land and resources by force or threat of force.

And you know, two can play at that game - the idea of shipping a bunch of Ak-47s with detailed instructions comes to mind, it sure hell worked for the Mujas, didn't it ?

In fact, it worked so well that after they ran off the Soviets and WE decided we wanted their stuff, THEY decided those weapons worked quite well on other foreign invaders - of course the desperate irony in that the Russians are WITHOUT A DOUBT laughing up their sleeves and shipping them guns now thinkin "Oh and ain't payback SUCH a bitch!" is not whatever lost on me.

In a way, you might say teaching people to defend themselves just might be one of the primary keys to a sane society.

-Frem
I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 4:17 PM

Frem,

Hell, I've already howled on this board about the stupidest part of the whole sin tax idea: It gives the govt. a vested interest in the success of the behavior that it's ostensibly trying to curb.

On the other, it potentially can work, but it can backfire. Oh, screw it, I don't even want to post any of this to the board. Don't want to give anyone any ideas.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 4:56 PM

Quote:
Are you unable to see fascism? This is not encourage, it is force. And it does mean that the children will pay for the mistakes of their parents. Frankly, I think that's a pretty fascist idea.

I'm not "unable to see fascism"; I'm just unable to see it in a voluntary pilot program that people voluntarily participate in, or not.

The modern definition of "socialist" is anyone who's winning an argument against a tea-bagger.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 5:51 PM

Well, Mikey, there IS the point that when a Government issues a "voluntary" program, it almost inevitably does not remain that way.

In fact I kept a set of letters regarding some of my medical coverage and participation in a certain HMO - over the course of five months it went from "suggested" to "voluntary" to "mandatory"...

And was quickly followed by one of the events which gave me such a bad rep with doctors that they get me stoned on percocet before even trying to take my vitals (being in chronic pain, I don't necessarily bitch too much about this...).

Some nimrod refused to refer things to an ortho specialist and flatly told me it was cause of financial reasons - and made the mistake of telling me this AFTER he closed the door.
Which ended with him being slammed into the wall more than a foot off the ground with my hand around his neck (your arms get REAL strong when they do the work of legs, mind) and describing in explicit, medical detail what was about to HAPPEN to him - lets just say I got that referral, ok ?

But yeah, I know ALL about "voluntary", when the Government starts sayin it - so there is indeed cause for concern there.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 6:27 PM

Good point, Frem.

Oh, and I never did thank you for the link. I got it. And, I *got* it. :) Thanks for that - he's a smart-ass after my own heart!

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Thursday, November 4, 2010 7:25 PM

You all really have some hell of a paranoia about governments. Governments, businesses, collectives, individuals...all have the potential to do bad stuff, but that doesn't mean that everything they do is 100% bad.

I'd also like to point out once again that Norfolk Island is the kind of place that a lot of you hold up as ideal...a small collection of people who are largely self governing and self regulating.

Norfolk Island is the only non-mainland Australian territory to have achieved self-governance.

All seats are held by independent candidates. Norfolk Island has yet to embrace party politics.
Local ordinances and acts apply on the island, where most laws are based on the Australian legal system. Australian common law applies when not covered by either Australian or Norfolk Island law. Suffrage is universal at age eighteen.

if they want to implement some form of trial into making their beautiful island more sustainable, then I say more power to them. Just because that miserale alarmist Andrew Bolt finds yet another reason to bleat on about his contempt for any attempts at sustainability, doesn't make it a bad idea. In fact, can I go live there please.

Just another little interesting snippet, amongst the residents of Norfolk Island are the descendants of the mutineers of the Bounty and their Tahitian wives, moved from Pitcairn Island in the mid 19th C.

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Friday, November 5, 2010 3:39 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
You all really have some hell of a paranoia about governments. Governments, businesses, collectives, individuals...all have the potential to do bad stuff, but that doesn't mean that everything they do is 100% bad.

But of all those things, govts, businesses, collectives, individuals, governments alone have a monopoly on force--they are the only ones with THE gun, as it were. Whatever they do, they do by force, with very little accountability for the use of force. This use of force makes govt more dangerous than any of the other entities.

Businesses are doubly dangerous if they rent the government's force to squash competitors or otherwise promote their practices. But it comes down to force.

It is nice and well that THIS experiment is voluntary. But again, what I am concerned about is the attitudes of those who support this experiment, that the freedom of individuals MUST be subservient to the public interests of the GW issue. This says to me that if the experiment succeeds, there is some likelihood that the next experiment will NOT be voluntary.

It makes us a smootch concerned, that's all.

-----
"What would Optimus Prime do?"
- sign at Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

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Friday, November 5, 2010 3:41 AM

Magon

The question is not are you paranoid, but are you paranoid *enough*.

Frem, know what you mean, My HMO last year said that I was being restricted to 12 visits/year, which I couldn't do because I have monthly checkups meaning no optional visits to any doctor. I just got a letter saying the my number of visits was being "raised" from 12 to 10. Nice little orwellian doublespeak.

So, rationing of healthcare has already commenced.

Mike,

Also, it's worth noting that incrementalism is key to just about every NWO strategy. Someone here on the board detailed how the one child policy in china had changed over a 20 year period from a suggestion to a limitation on public assistance to eventually being full force law.

It's the same logic that makes people say NAFTA is one world govt. If everything you do, you do in incremental steps, they when you take one step in a direction, people are going to be analyzing the final destination of that journey, not just your one step.

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Friday, November 5, 2010 2:00 PM

That incrementalism idea can be disproved in so many situations. Not every government implemented/assisted policy leds to fascism, just like having universal healthcare does not lead to socilaism. Sometimes, there remains something imbetween that doesn't lead to extremism.

Extremism thrives on ignorance and fearmongering, in my view, far more that imcrementalism. Which one do you think appears more commonly in the US right now?

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Friday, November 5, 2010 2:23 PM

Magon, let me ask you something.

Should this program spread into widespread mandatory implementation over all Australia, would you oppose it or support it?

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Friday, November 5, 2010 5:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
That incrementalism idea can be disproved in so many situations. Not every government implemented/assisted policy leds to fascism, just like having universal healthcare does not lead to socilaism. Sometimes, there remains something imbetween that doesn't lead to extremism.

Extremism thrives on ignorance and fearmongering, in my view, far more that imcrementalism. Which one do you think appears more commonly in the US right now?

Incrementalism. By far. You've been watching too much TV. I don't know if you've been to america lately, but I don't see a lot of extremism. I might not be around this weekend because me and my tea party jewish friends have a muslim wedding to go to and of course I'm not making this up, I'd have to be Pirate News to make something like that up. Okay, we have a few extremists, but it's not like someone lost a football match because the ref is a wanker and called it for the other team when he should have... Oh no! Everybody run!

Seriously, even a tea party rally is pretty sedate. The most extreme thing going on right now is chaos in Detroit, and that's not because of anyone's personal beliefs.

Some of these little socialist "experiments" can get pretty scary. There was one about ten years back in NY where they decided to start sterilizing the poor. They still take their children away, because poverty is considered child abuse...

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Friday, November 5, 2010 6:11 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

What if people LIKE the idea and want to implement it? Does that make it totalitarianism?

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Friday, November 5, 2010 11:56 PM

Oh yes, people all over the world can only implement ideas approved by the American Christiam Right. If you don't agree, they will make war on you until you brace their ideas of freedom.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 5:36 AM

Looked into this, while I think the idea not perhaps as viable as expressed, this is apparently a fairly small place, and the folk who LIVE there (who seem to be, as Magons said, fairly autonomous) either agree with the decision to try this, or find it tolerable enough not to make an issue of it - and more than anything else, it seems something of an attempt to see how they can reduce their own ecological impact ON WHERE THEY LIVE...

So, the underneath the seeming ridiculousness of it on the surface, it's not a that bad an idea, since the folk who live there mutually consented to this of their own free will and are basing it on one of the two simple concepts which define sensible action in this thing -
1. Don't trash your living space.
2. Waste not, want not.

I mean, if this were a tiny minority ramming it down the throat of an unwilling majority (which is sadly, Magons, about 95% of what american politics is, so forgive their perceptions if you will, it's all they really know...) I would consider it in a far different light than a general consensus of the community.

And in the end, it's THEIR community, and if that is how they wanna run it, what is this to me ?

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 9:33 AM

Frem,

Sure, ideally, but what if it's not? I mean, if I wanted to test bad policy, I could pick some gated community upstate like Chautauqua that would be completely unaffected because everyone is wealthy. I could then say "See, New York State, it works" And then they could force it on the city.

Same happens in reverse. I frequently visit Obama's neighborhood, which is technically woodlawn, but really hyde park, it's right on the border. My parents used to live across the street and park their car in the Obama's garage (It wasn't the Obama's then) Anyway, the point is I know a lot of people in the neighborhood, which is a black neighborhood, but very far from poor.

To the people there, the cost of having to buy their own health insurance, or pay a fine of $750 a head is nothing. People there pay half a million for a town house, or a quarter million for a condo, and then a thousand a month assessment. The doorman was sending all 11 of his kids through college. So, point being, what seems like nothing to Obama would crush people around here, financially. The bill itself was tested in Massachusetts where it didn't have serious problems for the same reason.

So yes, in general, I agree, a community should have the collective liberty to assign its own rules however bizarre they may be to the outside, but CTTS has two points here:

1) Do the people on Norfolk Island like the policy? It doesn't sound like they voted for it.

2) Is it the testing ground for a cap and trade policy that could do far worse than devastate the mainland, economically.

Also, it's worth nothing that cap and trade is a derivatives scheme which is the basis for a mad power grab for one world currency, so you can bet that the globalists would heavily subsidize anyone's plan that would make it look feasible to the world.

The more I think about it, maybe we should see how much they're willing to pay

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 10:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
What if people LIKE the idea and want to implement it? Does that make it totalitarianism?

No, IF the only people who have to live under it are the ones who like it.

If people who don't like it have to obey those who do, there is oppression involved.

If their choices are to love it or leave it, there is a bit more oppression.

If they are not allowed to leave, the more restriction there is to leaving, the oppressive the program becomes.

Totalitarianism describes a state of extreme oppression, where there is almost no wiggle room or route for "opting" out.

For a cap and trade program to truly work, you really need totalitarianism in the program. After all, if you can opt out, how effective can that be toward reducing CO2 production?

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 10:21 AM

How come people are so into personal responsibility, just until they actually have to be personally responsible?

And why do people who value freedom so highly get so upset when other people make choices that impact nothing but their own lives and neighborhoods? (Or lifestyles or spouses or bodies.)

These people want to do this. Get off their backs and leave them alone.

As far as it becoming some kind of big fascist whole-country program: as long as it applied to corporations as well, and as long as the limits don't become unreasonably tight unreasonably quickly, I think it's a good idea. Like making people pay for water in CA, when they go past some limit. This shit is necessary, because we live in a closed system with limited resources.

And the last thing that confuses me: How is your right to be completely wasteful with energy more important than the next generation's right to have a planet that isn't trashed?

-----------------------------------------------
hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 12:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
These people want to do this. Get off their backs and leave them alone.

Nobody has criticized the Norfolk Islanders. Criticism was leveled at the experimenters, in particular, their attitudes about social engineering.

Quote:
This shit is necessary, because we live in a closed system with limited resources.

Yes, this type of attitude. It concerns some of us whenever someone says oppression is necessary.

Moreover, there is no cap and trade with water rationing, as far as I know. Cap and trade is like Catholic indulgences--it means ultimately, poor people suffer.

Quote:
How is your right to be completely wasteful with energy more important than the next generation's right to have a planet that isn't trashed?

The debate lies in the definitions of "wasteful" and "trashed." There is a legitimate debate there, regardless of attempts to quash it.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 12:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:

And the last thing that confuses me: How is your right to be completely wasteful with energy more important than the next generation's right to have a planet that isn't trashed?

Strange logic, isn't it!

I guess one of the difficult things is to balance the idea of personal liberty with protecting your environment. If some factory is pouring pollution into a waterway which is shared, it isn't going to work if you let the factory continue to do it just because consumers don't give a shit and they are making a profit. You need to have some way of preventing the factory from doing it. Legislation is one way, and I know a way hated by many here - not me personally in these cases. Incentives is another way, and it appears that is how the Norfolk Island scheme is run.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 1:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
These people want to do this. Get off their backs and leave them alone.

Nobody has criticized the Norfolk Islanders. Criticism was leveled at the experimenters, in particular, their attitudes about social engineering.

First, it sounds like the Norfolk Islanders *are* the experimenters, because they want to do it.

Second: I call foul on throwing around the phrase "social engineering", just like folks throw in the word "socialist" whenever they want cast something in a bad light.

Quote:
Quote:
This shit is necessary, because we live in a closed system with limited resources.

Yes, this type of attitude. It concerns some of us whenever someone says oppression is necessary.

Excuse me, who exactly is oppressing you?

So then you do believe that anything short of you being as absolutely wasteful as you want is oppression? You believe you are born with an inherent right to use up all the resources that this society makes available to you, and you have absolutely no responsibility for taking care of the society in return?

Interesting.

Quote:
Moreover, there is no cap and trade with water rationing, as far as I know. Cap and trade is like Catholic indulgences--it means ultimately, poor people suffer.

Sounds to me like poor people might make out better with this plan. They don't have the big wasteful houses and big wasteful SUVs. Wealth makes waste.

And let me guess what you'll say: but the poor people can't just suddenly buy a Prius so they can meet the limits. Dude - why do you automatically assume that these "cap and trade" limits would IMMEDIATELY be imposed at levels where everyone would have to buy all new everything? Why can't you allow that these limits might in fact be brought into place in a *reasonable* way? Especially on such a small scale and in a voluntary study?

Perhaps because you hate the idea to start with, so you automatically assume all the worst about it, turning into something diabolical which it is not.

It's kind of like conservatives saying that gay marriage will immediately lead to men marrying horses.

Really?

Quote:
Quote:
How is your right to be completely wasteful with energy more important than the next generation's right to have a planet that isn't trashed?

The debate lies in the definitions of "wasteful" and "trashed." There is a legitimate debate there, regardless of attempts to quash it.

You seem to be the one quashing any possible argument that this might not be a bad idea. If it looks at all like "social engineering", and if your imagination can turn into some future big bad evil, then it must be stopped now.

How about considering that someday soon we may have no choice but to ration our energy use, and so experiments like this, carried out by willing participants, would a damned good idea? If that day ever comes, we need something to build on, some idea of what works fairly and what doesn't.

What you seem to be arguing, that we not allow anything remotely like this experiment to happen EVER, is the surest way to lead us into all that "socialist fascism" you're so afraid of. Now is exactly the time to put some effort into figuring what system of limited energy use works and what doesn't. We have the luxury of time and wiggle-room for mistakes, and as of now we can make it optional.

Or would you rather jump in blindly when oil's running low and costs $500 a barrel?

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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 1:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Legislation is one way, and I know a way hated by many here - not me personally in these cases. Incentives is another way, and it appears that is how the Norfolk Island scheme is run.

I like the idea of incentives, as I live in a neighborhood full of big fucking mansions. OK, Mr, Wall Street. You want to heat that sucker all winter, and drive your SUV that seats 12 into the city every day? You gotta buy energy credits from me with my little tiny apt and my 1 mile work commute.

Bad for poor people, my stinky left foot!

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hmm-burble-blah, blah-blah-blah, take a left

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 1:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by mal4prez:
What you seem to be arguing, that we not allow anything remotely like this experiment to happen EVER, ...

No. I have never said anything remotely like that.

Then I just remembered you were the one who kept on misconstruing everything I said, with a certain measure of hostility no less, back when we were talking about Ruddiman's book.

Right. History of communication impasse. Cease communication.

Have a nice day.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 2:08 PM

Yeah, and you still don't seem to get that saying I'm supporting oppression when I don't agree with you is your own brand of hostility. Maybe it is just communication failure, but I got a whole lot of "this is evil oppression evil social engineering it must be stopped!" out your posts in this thread.

And don't even get me started on that silly Ruddiman thing! Good lord.

But again, it's a shame. I really do want to understand how it's such a bad idea to plan for future societal problems. But then, I probably wouldn't be able to understand.

Take care.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 2:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
If some factory is pouring pollution into a waterway which is shared, ....

But what if said "pollution" is something that is as common and ubiquitous as water vapor. Or CO2. Something every human and most animals produce every time they breathe?

There are 2 issues here.

1. How does one define "pollution" for the purposes of legislation? This question is NOT about pollution vs personal liberty, but WHAT pollution is, and how high the standards should be for the evidence before abrogating personal liberty. It is more complicated than branding the opposing position as selfish libertines who have no sense of social responsibility.

2. The thrust of this thread is not about opposing the voluntary Norfolk experiment, but voicing concern about the ATTITUDES of those who support suspensions of democracy for urgent social agendas--attitudes demonstrated in their quotations and interviews, NOT in the Norfolk experiment itself, OK? Those attitudes suggest that authorities are likely to want to expand this to an involuntary program. As I said, reminds me of Miranda, what with ATTITUDES of wanting to make people better against their will.

Oh BTW, you never answered my question, Magon. Would you support an involuntary, mandatory expansion of the Norfolk program over all of Australia?

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 2:19 PM

CTTS is spot on. This is not about a society deciding to be responsible, it's about a group of busybodies making an example by experimenting on them, for the purpose of later pushing the policy elsewhere. Nothing indicates that this idea originated on Norfolk Island and is approved by everyone there. in fact it seems all too obvious that neither is the case, and we certainly know exactly where the policy originated, this the tax is a mainstay of the IMF/World Bank poliy agenda for the next century: international taxation and one world currency.

And he/she is spot on about one other thing here: poor people will suffer.

As for the supposed issue of human co2 production, I can guarantee you this is a scientific non-issue. Our co2 increase, while far from disastrous, is almost entirely caused by our widespread deforestation and desertification, and anyone can due the math and prove this correct.

Also, frem, I get your point that there are two sides to every story, every society has it's own rights to set it's own rules, and equally important that no one should feel this is a pile on Magon fest, but I would draw your attention to the interview where, I assume, CTTS is interviewing and points out, and the policy maker confirms that yes, this policy would intentionally harm children for the mistakes of their parents. I think thats a fairly salient point.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 4:26 PM

Meh, if it's their island, and they're willing to play along, I honestly fail to see where we got anything to say about it.

Look, I know the reflexive backlash towards anything resembling restrictive/disagreeable/foolish/what-have-you "Rules" better prolly than any of you, since I seem to be the local Anarchists favorite little cat herder, and you have very little concept of how much a headache that can be.

But that seems to be crossin folks wires here a bit, cause the salient point is that if the community is in wholesale agreement with a policy, we should butt the hell out of it regardless of what our opinion on the matter is - save the whinging for whem someone tries to force it upon you.

Also, as they said, an experiment - one I don't think will work, and for sure you'll have one or more twerps who try and maybe even succeed in cheating the system, but why not wait to see the results before passing judgement ?

Mal4 raised the interesting point in that such a program may well backfire on the folks behind it if they do have nefarious intentions, by allowing those who make an attempt to live more sustainably, or are too damn poor to have much of an impact, could very well turn it round and use it to put the screws to the very folk perhaps using it to plan their own enrichment, what karmatic justice that might be, eh ?

Of course, we *know* such a program wouldn't work in the states cause of the inevitable loopholes and exemptions and bullshit which would creep in, the same way the tax code hits the poor brutally to feed the rich...

But that island appears to be a pretty closed community, and does no harm to *US* by toying with a policy they're as a group consenting to.

So I say watch and wait.

If naught else, learn where the weak points are in case someone someday DOES try to force the issue here.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 4:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
What if people LIKE the idea and want to implement it? Does that make it totalitarianism?

No, IF the only people who have to live under it are the ones who like it.

If people who don't like it have to obey those who do, there is oppression involved.

If their choices are to love it or leave it, there is a bit more oppression.

If they are not allowed to leave, the more restriction there is to leaving, the oppressive the program becomes.

Totalitarianism describes a state of extreme oppression, where there is almost no wiggle room or route for "opting" out.

For a cap and trade program to truly work, you really need totalitarianism in the program. After all, if you can opt out, how effective can that be toward reducing CO2 production?

This sounds very much like you view clean water, clean air, and any anti-pollution standards as "totalitarian" in nature.

After all, if *I* don't believe that dumping my used motor oil down the storm drain has a negative impact on the environment (and I can't say I've ever personally witnessed any such impact*), then who's to say that I shouldn't just dump all my used oil down the storm drain?

And if I want to burn chemical waste on my property and pollute the air, wouldn't it be totalitarian of my neighbors to try to stop me? What if I want to dump that waste in the reservoir?

Sure, you'll say those are different, because they have a direct impact on my neighbors and the community - but if the evidence about climate change is correct, then don't the actions of those who don't participate have a negative impact on those who ARE trying to reduce their impact on the environment?

The modern definition of "socialist" is anyone who's winning an argument against a tea-bagger.

AURaptor's Greatest Hits:

Friday, September 24, 2010
I hate Obama's America. You're damn right about that.

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
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Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 8:31 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I think in about 15 years the Norfolk experiment will look like pathetically little, way too late. And NOBODY will be able to "opt out" of the consequences of global climate change.

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Saturday, November 6, 2010 8:39 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"And then they could force it on the city."

Who is this 'they'? The people of the gated community could force it on NYS? The people of Norfolk could force it on Australia?

It seems to me that for people who live in democracies (and the US, Australia, and other countries are still that, lazy and uninvolved or informed and diligent as the voters may be) 'they' are us - for better or worse.

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Sunday, November 7, 2010 4:23 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
but if the evidence about climate change is correct,...

That's a big IF. The fact is, the evidence about climate change is debated and disputed.

I say we continue to investigate and research the evidence before resorting to legislation.

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Sunday, November 7, 2010 5:04 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

CTS: the only people "debating" the fact of global climate change are people with an overwhelming ideological bent. There are several basic irreducible observations which are known to physicists, meteorlogists and climatologists around the world:

1) Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide's capacity to transmit visible light and absorb infrared is a well-known, laboratory-proven fact of physics. The principle of quantitative infrared heating of carbon dioxide is even used to measure carbon dioxide... we have three such instruments in the lab called NDIRs. Feel free to look it up if you don't believe me. Unless you think that we'll jump into some sort of parallel universe where carbon dioxide suddenly changes its fundamental absorption characteristics, that is not about to change.

2) The amount of carbon dioxide has increased significantly since industrialization. We measure carbon dioxide fairly frequently (once a month at least) while we do other testing. The concentration of CO2 increased even in my career... I'm not talking hundreds of years, just a few decades. This measurement and observation has been reproduced objective scientists around the world for decades.

3) Put observations (1) and (2) together, and an increase in air temperature is inevitable. There may be mitigating conditions: the absorption of carbon dioxide into the oceans (which BTW is changing ocean pH measurably) or the lofting of more water into the air and increased cloud formation. Nonetheless, these two robust and repeatable observations, when combined by simple logic (If carbon dioxide in the air absorbs infrared and carbon dioxide increases, then temperature will increase) will create a calculable warming in the air column which contains the CO2.

4) The world is warming significantly. Ice fields and glaciers which have existed for millions of years... long before homo sapiens even evolved on the scene... are being dribbled away. Million-year-old methane is being released from tundras. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent. Curiously, this just "happens" to coincide with the increase in carbon dioxide and in line with models.

Only hidebound ideologues ... and there are quite a few in the world ... would be able to cover their eyes and plug their ears so as not to see reality. If you look at human history, you will find that people are capable of great stupidity and will self-annihilate to preserve dysfunctional mental models: requiring blood sacrifices to bring the rain, building great pyramids to send the pharaoh into the afterlife, or sacrificing of people the world over in the worship of money.

"Individualism" or "liberty" are also mental models. If they prevent you from seeing what is literally right in front of your face... well, you may choose to be blind deaf and dumb to reality, but I don't.

Like my hubby says: A billion flies eat shit. I choose not to be one of them. What about you?

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Sunday, November 7, 2010 5:06 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
but if the evidence about climate change is correct,...

That's a big IF. The fact is, the evidence about climate change is debated and disputed.

I say we continue to investigate and research the evidence before resorting to legislation.

Granted. And I really didn't mean my response to you to sound harsh, but in re-reading it, it came across as much more assaultive than I intended. I was responding in general to the tone of several posters here, not just you; I just picked yours as the one I hit "Reply" to. Definitely not personal, by any means.

I can understand where you're coming from - I personally hate the homeowners' associations because of their totalitarian measures. But if I don't want to belong to one, I can simply not move into that area. It would really grind my gears to have such a situation foisted on me if I'd been living in the same house for 20 years or so, and THEN the (newer) residents in the area decided to vote in an HOA.

So yeah, there are definitely two sides to it, and I can see points on both.

The modern definition of "socialist" is anyone who's winning an argument against a tea-bagger.

AURaptor's Greatest Hits:

Friday, September 24, 2010
I hate Obama's America. You're damn right about that.

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.

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Sunday, November 7, 2010 5:46 AM

KANEMAN

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
but if the evidence about climate change is correct,...

That's a big IF. The fact is, the evidence about climate change is debated and disputed.

I say we continue to investigate and research the evidence before resorting to legislation.

Granted. And I really didn't mean my response to you to sound harsh, but in re-reading it, it came across as much more assaultive than I intended. I was responding in general to the tone of several posters here, not just you; I just picked yours as the one I hit "Reply" to. Definitely not personal, by any means.

I can understand where you're coming from - I personally hate the homeowners' associations because of their totalitarian measures. But if I don't want to belong to one, I can simply not move into that area. It would really grind my gears to have such a situation foisted on me if I'd been living in the same house for 20 years or so, and THEN the (newer) residents in the area decided to vote in an HOA.

So yeah, there are definitely two sides to it, and I can see points on both.

The modern definition of "socialist" is anyone who's winning an argument against a tea-bagger.

AURaptor's Greatest Hits:

Friday, September 24, 2010
I hate Obama's America. You're damn right about that.

Friday, May 28, 2010 - 18:26 To President Obama:
Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar.
Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.
... go fuck yourself, Mr. President.

Bullshit, your brain is incapable of seeing two points. Your mind is a "simple" singularity. You are stuck on stupid, stupid.

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Sunday, November 7, 2010 6:18 AM

Sig

Correlation doesn't prove causality.

1) The co2 production and consumption each year by the life forms of the earth dwarfs human production

2) Any increase in co2 levels will lead to an increase in co2 consumption by organisms in a stable ecosystem.

3) ergo, logically, it is our destruction of the ecosystem, not our production of the co2 which is causing the rise in co2.

4) Even given that, the rise in co2 alone is far from sufficient to account for the rise in global mean temperature.

5) The lost of the transpiration convection cycle and the associated wind current changes *do* give us enough data to account for the increase in temperature.

That said, I'm far more concerned with the destruction that is done by humans in their efforts to acquire fossil fuels than what they did with them once they have them.

I'm even more concerned with the lost of first growth forest cover, as reforestation, even when it works, will not restore biodiversity, and creates a carbon sink about 1/10th the size of the one it is attempting to replace.

On the issue of Cap and Trade, the other side has a point: If the neocons/neolibs are allowed to set up their own global taxation derviative scheme which is what this is, and where it came from, then the rest of this will be moot.

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Sunday, November 7, 2010 8:47 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

It is an irreducible fact that CO2 absorbs heat (what SignyM refers to as infrared).

It is an irreducible fact that CO2 levels have gone up.

Given those facts, it is an inescapable logical conclusion that more heat will be absorbed by the atmosphere (rather than be radiated out into space), hence, the planet will warm up.

And indeed, by all direct and surrogate measures, CO2 has gone up considerably, and the planet has warmed.

Further, while natural CO2 production and absorption are large numbers, they are in balance - equilibrium - over geologic time, unless disturbed by an outside force. While large scale fossil fuel burning and CO2 creation started with the industrial revolution, large scale environmental destruction - the destruction of the Amazon and the forests of the Himalayas for example - only happened recently, within the last 3 decades at the most. But CO2 increases started before then. It's a mistake to assign a cause to an effect that precedes it!

BTW, solar radiation has been constant over the last 3 decades.

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Sunday, November 7, 2010 8:49 AM

Sig, you and I have rehashed this to death. I am hesitant to engage again, but I will say this.

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
CTS: the only people "debating" the fact of global climate change are people with an overwhelming ideological bent.

No.

Perhaps there is a preponderance of conservatives and libertarians amongst the vocal skeptic community, just as there is a preponderance of liberals in the GW community. This bias in demographics doesn't not invalidate the arguments in either camp. You can't dismiss a debate entirely just because you assign some unfavorable characteristic to ALL the people on the other side of the argument.

1. Certainly, some people debate GW with ideological arguments. But there are plenty of scientists who debate GW without bringing in ideology. It would be disingenuous to assert that ALL the following people have an "overwhelming ideological bent." (To begin with, I have a hard time imagining that even YOU would have had the time to research the political ideologies of EVERY scientist dissenter.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstrea
m_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming

2 Context matters, but ultimately, scientists evaluate evidence on their own merits. It doesn't matter what religion or party or race the scientist belongs to. That is the beauty of the objectivity in science. At least, that is how the objectivity in science is SUPPOSED to work, whenever science is not in bed with political policy.

3. Moreover, the "fact of global climate change" actually consists of several distinct hypotheses, with varying levels of agreement per hypothesis. It is not so black and white as "GW is a fact."

Remember the "science" in climate science. Scientists don't use words like "facts." They talk about observations, hypotheses, experiments, and theories--all of which are subject to debate. Otherwise, it is called "religion."

Quote:
1) Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.

Under certain conditions, yes. Better to say, CO2 CAN BE a greenhouse gas.

Quote:
2) The amount of carbon dioxide has increased significantly since industrialization.

Even this has been debated. As Mal4Prez would point out, there are those who think it has increased significantly since agriculture. And there are those who think it has not increased at all(e.g. Ernst Beck). There are still those who think ice core proxies provide a false low for pre-industrialized levels. (e.g. http://warwickhughes.com/icecore/) There are those who challenge the Keeling curve; they do know that Mauna Loa is an active volcano, and CO2 is a volcanic gas right? ;)

The point is, there IS a debate, based on how one measures and defines the "amount of carbon dioxide."

Quote:
Put observations (1) and (2) together, and an increase in air temperature is inevitable.

Oversimplification. Conditions for (1) have to be met. Evidence for (2) has to be stronger.

Then there is the question of significance. CO2 is 0.039% of the atmosphere. If it increased from 0.039% to 0.042%, will that make a significant increase in global temperatures?

Quote:
4) The world is warming significantly.

Parts of the world are warming significantly. Other parts, not so much. The methodologies used in climate modeling for summarizing warming on a global scale are also debated.

Here is the take-away: there exists a legitimate debate about GW in the scientific community.

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Sunday, November 7, 2010 9:01 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
That said, I'm far more concerned with the destruction that is done by humans in their efforts to acquire fossil fuels than what they did with them once they have them.

I'm even more concerned with the lost of first growth forest cover, as reforestation, even when it works, will not restore biodiversity, and creates a carbon sink about 1/10th the size of the one it is attempting to replace.

I'm with you on this.

-----
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts.”
-- Richard Feynman (Physicist, 1918-1988)

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Sunday, November 7, 2010 9:04 AM