Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Yep. My motivation as well. We've been letting Zilch get away with Godwin nonsense forever, on all issues. It seems to have become part of the site's culture. At least on this thread many are answering some of the serious questions put to them. This conversation is not pure Godwin. I'll applaud everyone who is asking and answering real questions.

I'm going to try to mellow out for a bit. It's not good for me to stay too mad too long. Anyway, if you get a bit winded, if we're under WWE 'rules,' I'm in your corner hanging onto the tag rope.

Thanks, Bob.

I think I'm talked out on the Godwin stuff. Now I need to look at the spiral arm theory again....

Originally Posted by Finch

Hmmm, yes, quite interesting. In order to even begin to address the question, we have to understand just how deeply the government is involved in energy policy. If you believe (as I do) that the US military's primary current role is enforcement of US energy policy (or resource policy in general), then its intervention is simply massive, as in a trillion dollars a year.

So, step 1: eliminate the US military. Completely. 100%. Transfer all existing hardware to the various states. Demobilize all US soldiers worldwide.

That action alone (well, once the demob is complete) would reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by a huge amount, probably a larger amount than the entire reduction target for the Kyoto treaty.

Just to clarify, are you speaking of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the actual energy consumption of the US military -- all the tanks, humvees, aircraft, ships, supply trucks, helicopters, etc.?

Or is it more a political domino effect?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

You talk about economically optimum levels, and then use as your baseline comparison the price of gasoline? Do you recognize the absurdity of that? Gasoline has got to be one of the most economically-distorted of all the goods out there.

Not really see below.

There's the price of military interventions; the price of propping up middle-eastern dictators; the subsidies and taxes all up and down the chain of production and distribution; the constant efforts to regulate the at-pump price for political reasons

It is the possibility of variation in the price of gasoline that can affect a choice of efficiency. If the gas price going forward remained unchanged at current levels (~$2.3/gallon) then I could easily decide not to spend the extra money on a hybrid. It is the possibility that the gasoline price could rise (which increases the savings obtained with the hybrid and increases its resale value) that makes one even consider a hybrid.

The variation in price of gasoline has very little to do with the cost of producing gasoline. Taxes on gasoline are small and either fixed or proportional and so do not affect the variability. Therefore they have little effect on my choice of efficiency. What matters, overwhelmingly, is the price of oil.

The price of oil is set by a market that takes everything you mentioned, and more, into account.

to say nothing of the (since we're basing our discussions on the assumption that it exists) costs associated with contributing to the rise in global temperatures.

You're right here, the oil market doesn't take this into account--because climate change is an externality, remember?.

Neither you, nor I, nor anybody else has even the slightest idea what the true cost is of a gallon of gas. Your hybrid-car calculations are vapors.

Actually I have good-enough idea. A reasonably good estimate for the price of gasoline in Michigan is P/38 + 0.7, where P is the price of a barrel of oil. It's not perfect, but good enough for my purposes.

Gasoline has its own market and so rallies and corrections occur as well, such as after Katrina. But for calculations made on averages, these fluctations average out, leaving the oil price effect as the dominant factor.

My decision not to get a hybrid is simply an economic forecast that oil prices will not average a greater than $125/bbl for as long as I own my present car. I believe it is going to be correct.

"True cost" is a largely (though not completely) meaningless concept. It is what John X has been arguing for years, that the stock market is going to fall precipitiously any time now because actual prices are far above their "true value". Gold bugs love to assert that the dollar is overvalued and a horrible reckoning is due and so forth.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Not under the legal-limitation-of-liability that now holds sway. But the reality is that even those things now 'externalities' are in fact direct consequences of the actions taken in pursuit of goods. And to the extent that they represent harms done to people, those harms also come as a direct result of those actions. The cost of remediating or making whole those harmed is therefore a cost of those actions.

That is economic reality. An action imposes a cost.

The reason it has no effect now is that the current system protects people from suffering the full liability for their actions.

This is nonsense. Legal limited liability does not prevent people from suing over climate change. Lawsuits against corporations can result in changing the behavior of the corporation (e.g. Dow Corning).

But it doesn't get the business-doers any closer to taking into account the actual costs of their actions. All it does is arbitrarily shift the bar a little bit. And one would have to assume that businesses who pay their carbon taxes would in doing so be legally shielded from liability in the event that the calculations on GW were a bit off and Tuvalu still ends up going underwater?

I make no such assumption. If Tuvalu goes underwater, they can still sue.

By taking away all of the shields and buffers that they are currently given. It'd be a start...

I don't see that. If Tuvalu goes underwater they can sue. Why should whether or not legal limited liability exists matter?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Well Zilch mostly applies his Godwinning to his own side with all that Bush sucks stuff.

True enough. Oh, he has done his share of classic Godwin Maneuver, but he has recently become fond of... The "Reverse Godwin?" The "BS Maneuver"?

The result is much the same. The BS Maneuver usually alleges that a serious discussion of an issue is just a partisan attack. It moves the conversation away from discussion of issue and fact to partisan bile. It is a smear on the motives of Bush's critic, an ad-hominem attack.

I do think it prudent to move the conversation away from ritual partisan bickering to discussion of the issues. The BS Maneuver and Godwin Garbage are just rituals that allow people to make themselves angry and wallow in their own righteous (or sometimes lefteous) wrath.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

... I do think it prudent to move the conversation away from ritual partisan bickering to discussion of the issues. The BS Maneuver and Godwin Garbage are just rituals that allow people to make themselves angry and wallow in their own righteous (or sometimes lefteous) wrath.

I agree, but contrary to your experience, I find this board keeps that behavior pretty well in check. Have you felt the need of a moderator? I haven't. Most of the bickering is low level stuff, or so scripted it can be ignored on sight.

But I've been to a few boards that have a diverse following, and they are often extremely petty - far more than this one.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Just to clarify, are you speaking of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the actual energy consumption of the US military -- all the tanks, humvees, aircraft, ships, supply trucks, helicopters, etc.?

Or is it more a political domino effect?

Both. The actual energy consumption of the military is huge, but the waste is even bigger. As I said, a trillion dollars could buy a lot of solar panels. Or basic research.

Originally Posted by Finch

Hmmm, yes, quite interesting. In order to even begin to address the question, we have to understand just how deeply the government is involved in energy policy. If you believe (as I do) that the US military's primary current role is enforcement of US energy policy (or resource policy in general), then its intervention is simply massive, as in a trillion dollars a year.

So, step 1: eliminate the US military. Completely. 100%. Transfer all existing hardware to the various states. Demobilize all US soldiers worldwide.

That action alone (well, once the demob is complete) would reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by a huge amount, probably a larger amount than the entire reduction target for the Kyoto treaty.

I might propose moderation in the above. Reduce the army to a skeleton army of sergeants, with an emphasis on training everybody to be able to train up a larger force should there be a need. This is close to the traditional role of the US Army.

The Marine Corps might be reduced, but keep its role as a highly mobile elite force. There will be peacekeeping and deterrence missions. Look at the degree to which Europe is able and willing to contribute to said missions. We should have a similar capability, and allocate a similar fraction of the GNP to it.

The Navy and Air Force between them ought to be able to prevent anyone who might seriously consider crossing the Atlantic or Pacific and being a threat. They might also maintain some nuclear deterrence. We could have that capability with a much smaller force. I would note that carrier groups are expensive, and are a forward projecting offensive force.

I'm not sure of the National Guard. Part of me says to stop the federal subsidy of Guard units, and with it the ability for the federal government to call them up. Legally, the National Guard is a federal standing army, not fifty state armies raised with permission of Congress. (States cannot raise regular armies without federal permission.) We could let the states pay for what the states think they need. On the other hand, having a dual purpose force ready to respond to either domestic or foreign conflicts is somewhat efficient. I do think, however, that it would be a large mistake to continue to tap reserve units for sustained use. The reserves should be sent abroad briefly in rare emergencies. The reserves should be reserves, not front line units.

I also see there being a need for security during the 4T. I might be very enthusiastic about a vast reduction of forces in the 1T, depending on how the 4T ends. It is not clear, however, that this is the right moment to gut the military.

But I am intrigued by the proposed ecological effects of cutting the military. Does anyone know off hand how much of the nation's use of fossil fuels is military? The conjecture that it is a large amount feels right, but can someone throw up a real number?

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

The BS Maneuver usually alleges that a serious discussion of an issue is just a partisan attack. It moves the conversation away from discussion of issue and fact to partisan bile. It is a smear on the motives of Bush's critic, an ad-hominem attack.

The technique only works with people who think highly of the one being slandered. Today that group has shrunk to just Zilch and his fellow travelers. To everyone else, when zilch says Bush sucks, they will tend to agree.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I agree, but contrary to your experience, I find this board keeps that behavior pretty well in check. Have you felt the need of a moderator? I haven't. Most of the bickering is low level stuff, or so scripted it can be ignored on sight.

Most of the time, I'm with you, I agree. In this particular thread, the Godwin slanders of the motives of the environmentalists and 'invisible stars' pseudo-science were dominating the conversation. I felt a need to address the slanders and lies in order to create an environment where we could talk the issue.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

But I've been to a few boards that have a diverse following, and they are often extremely petty - far more than this one.

I've seen different approaches. Some boards just enable a good number of regulars as moderators. People get one warning, then they are gone. It works without being too much work for any individual. I've seen this approach work on several hobby sites. On a site that involves politics, you would have to choose moderators very carefully or it would become censorship. I can see why people want to avoid it.

I visit one football site with an 'Assclown Assylum.' A certain degree of taunting and bragging is expected in sports sites, but if one goes too far, one is locked into a playpen subforum that the adults quietly ignore. The moderators quite often put up a poll asking such questions as, "Should we assclown Peyton18?" Yes, the word 'assclown' can be used as a verb.

On this forum, so long as the conversation isn't dominated by the assclowns, there might not be any need for active moderation. The conversation in this thread has become more issue oriented of late. I'm content for the moment. I just don't know how long it will be before people slide back, and Hitler again raises his moustached head, or at least a poorly drawn picure of Hitler is raised on a stick.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

The technique only works with people who think highly of the one being slandered. Today that group has shrunk to just Zilch and his fellow travelers. To everyone else, when zilch says Bush sucks, they will tend to agree.

In my opinion, on this thread, we had too many people using slander rather than talking issues. Agreed, I can filter out Zilch pretty easy these days. In this particular thread, ignoring the slander wasn't a sufficient response.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I might propose moderation in the above. Reduce the army to a skeleton army of sergeants, with an emphasis on training everybody to be able to train up a larger force should there be a need. This is close to the traditional role of the US Army.

Sounds like a reasonable approach, worthy of discussion. But the burden of proof is on anybody who argues to maintain the military, in any form, to justify that enormous expense. "There's going to be lots of fighting in the 4T" doesn't cut it.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

But I am intrigued by the proposed ecological effects of cutting the military. Does anyone know off hand how much of the nation's use of fossil fuels is military? The conjecture that it is a large amount feels right, but can someone throw up a real number?

Hard numbers are very difficult to obtain (Nat'l Security yadda yadda), but a rough estimate is about 100k bbl/d for domestic military uses, and another 200k bbl/d for overseas operations. That's less than 2% of US domestic consumption (~17M bbl/d), but the ecological footprint of the military is all out of proportion to this.

As an example, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US began closing some bases in Germany, and the German government was eager to buy the very valuable land -- until they found that it was utterly uninhabitable. Not just unexploded ordnance, but DU, lead, mercury, dioxin and millions of gallons of motor oil were dumped directly on the ground. (The US bases were even worse than the Russians', who apparently had less money to waste.)

So, even if it takes another generation to end the US military occupation of the world, it will take even longer to mitigate its toxic effects.

If I may offer the following capsule summary of what, in essence, both Finch and Justin are suggesting:

The government gives certain subsidies, both direct and indirect, to hold down the price of fossil fuels. These subsidies encourage the burning of fossil fuels, discourage efforts to replace them with greener forms of energy or to improve efficiency by artificially lowering the cost to the consumer of fossil fuels and making them a more attractive alternative than they would otherwise be, and so tend to increase overall fossil fuel consumption and to delay market responses that might provide a solution.

This is undeniably true. Eliminating direct fossil fuel subsidies, while pulling our military forces back from efforts to secure the foreign oil supply, would result in sharp increases in the price of oil and spur efforts to correct the problem.

The question then becomes whether this step would be enough by itself, or would other steps be required. I'll leave that question open to others for now although I do have some thoughts on it.

Originally Posted by Finch

Sounds like a reasonable approach, worthy of discussion. But the burden of proof is on anybody who argues to maintain the military, in any form, to justify that enormous expense. "There's going to be lots of fighting in the 4T" doesn't cut it.

I am not sure the hawks will agree with your burden of proof assessment. The major lesson of the last crisis was that one could not appease autocratic military powers. If one does not engage when the problem is easily solvable, one has to launch an all out effort, expensive in both blood and dollars. This lesson will be hard to unlearn, and frankly isn't without its wisdom.

I while ago, I posted a bunch of mission statements. Seems time to post them again. What are our missions?

1. Imperialism. We must have troops near the oil. It is cost effective to invade and create puppet governments and economic zones of influence.
2. Preemptive unilateral invasion in self defense. No nation that we do not like is not allowed to have weapons of mass destruction.
3. Cultural imperialism. Democracy is the best form of government. We must launch preemptive unilateral invasions of those nations with inferior governments.
4. Remove dictators. Some bad guys are just too evil to leave in power.
5. Peacekeeping. When almost stable legitimate governments wish to stop 4GW and 5GW from spreading anarchy, external aid can be provided.
6. National deterrence. Discourage and protect against threats to the 50 states.
7. International deterrence. Defend democracies in places like South Korea and Taiwan.

Now, should you want to pull out a big red marker and cross out 1 through 4, I'm with you. I believe some capability to perform peacekeeping would be prudent, but our share of the burden should be no greater than that accepted by other continental sized nations or alliances such as the European Union, Russia and China. I'm seeing increasing spirals of violence. There will be problems this 4T. You can't dismiss them all that lightly. We can talk about that one. It would not take a lot to achieve #6, national deterrence, but let's not totally ignore it. Finally, I'm wide open to talk about Cold War style deterrence in places like South Korea and Taiwan.

If we could agree on needs, we could talk about downsizing. Of course, getting agreement on the missions won't be easy.

Bob, let me suggest in the interest of keeping this thread on target that we (I pretty much agree with your position) simply say to Finch, "We agree that the military can and should be downsized and some of its missions revoked. As relates to global warming, we agree that oil imperialism should not be one of those missions."

It would be easy to get distracted arguing about whether to downsize the military altogether out of existence, but he's got a point at least about the direction.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I might propose moderation in the above...[snip details]

I'd be on board with a mere moderation, too. The bigger the better, but any positive steps would be worthwhile.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

The question then becomes whether this step would be enough by itself, or would other steps be required. I'll leave that question open to others for now although I do have some thoughts on it.

Thank you for the encapsulation. Frankly, I'd have to give all the credit on the military idea to Finch -- I would have shot right past that one.

As for whether it would do the trick? Well.. now we get to edging back up against the science question. Since we're assuming for the sake of the argument that the science is settled on the issue of the anthropogenic nature of GW, we must also be assumed to have a pretty good grasp on the scopes of the effects of the various inputs and mediators. That being the case, it would be a fairly trivial exercise to answer the question, "when have we done enough"; below a certain level, the natural biofeedback mechanisms would be able to cope. We'd either get to that level in one step, or need to take further ones.

Of course, if it was that well understood, a properly-functioning tort system would take care of the remaining necessary incentives to get the level down to biofeedback-manageable. A true, concrete GW-related cost could be associated with most every action and the system would settle to a generally-acceptable level.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Bob, let me suggest in the interest of keeping this thread on target that we (I pretty much agree with your position) simply say to Finch, "We agree that the military can and should be downsized and some of its missions revoked. As relates to global warming, we agree that oil imperialism should not be one of those missions."

It would be easy to get distracted arguing about whether to downsize the military altogether out of existence, but he's got a point at least about the direction.

I agree that the military can and should be downsized and some of its missions revoked. As relates to global warming, I agree that oil imperialism should not be one of those missions.

I'll look for an opportunity to talk about the military missions, but on some other thread.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

I agree that the military can and should be downsized and some of its missions revoked. As relates to global warming, I agree that oil imperialism should not be one of those missions.

The thing is, this is a good idea even if we don't posit global warming. Why tie the two together?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Thank you for the encapsulation. Frankly, I'd have to give all the credit on the military idea to Finch -- I would have shot right past that one.

As for whether it would do the trick? Well.. now we get to edging back up against the science question. Since we're assuming for the sake of the argument that the science is settled on the issue of the anthropogenic nature of GW, we must also be assumed to have a pretty good grasp on the scopes of the effects of the various inputs and mediators. That being the case, it would be a fairly trivial exercise to answer the question, "when have we done enough"; below a certain level, the natural biofeedback mechanisms would be able to cope. We'd either get to that level in one step, or need to take further ones.

Hmm... I haven't tried to do the research, but just remembering few quotes from earlier on in the thread...

Originally Posted by Mikebert

The direct effect of CO2 is rather small, a bit over 1 C for a doubling of CO2 level. If other factors are larger, then its effect could be swamped out.

Originally Posted by Finch

Hard numbers are very difficult to obtain (Nat'l Security yadda yadda), but a rough estimate is about 100k bbl/d for domestic military uses, and another 200k bbl/d for overseas operations. That's less than 2% of US domestic consumption (~17M bbl/d), but the ecological footprint of the military is all out of proportion to this.

If we have a 0.6 degree problem to date, we have to half the CO2 for 1 degree of effect, and we are talking about removing 2% of US consumption...

I'll have to ask Mikebert and Finch to confirm that the numbers they provided above are the appropriate ones, but it looks like the military contribution is not going to be anywhere near enough on its own.

This doesn't mean it can't be a good start.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

The government gives certain subsidies, both direct and indirect, to hold down the price of fossil fuels. These subsidies encourage the burning of fossil fuels, discourage efforts to replace them with greener forms of energy or to improve efficiency by artificially lowering the cost to the consumer of fossil fuels and making them a more attractive alternative than they would otherwise be, and so tend to increase overall fossil fuel consumption and to delay market responses that might provide a solution.

Could you specify which direct subsidies you are talking about?

while pulling our military forces back from efforts to secure the foreign oil supply.

Our most recent attempt to use military forces to secure the oil supply has resulted in a rather steep rise in the price of oil. It is unlcear what the impact of a US withdrawal from the Mideast would be on oil prices (after the short term surprise rally).

What evidence is there that US foreign policy in the Mideast actually keeps oil prices low?

Originally Posted by Justin '77

I'd be on board with a mere moderation, too. The bigger the better, but any positive steps would be worthwhile.

I agree with large cuts too. As I mentioned on another thread, I have now bought into the libertarian view of US military entanglements as espoused at Antiwar.com. (I used to be in the Realist/Hamiltonian school).

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

If we have a 0.6 degree problem to date, we have to half the CO2 for 1 degree of effect....

The effect is logarithmic.

Temperature effect = lambda x 1.44 x base forcing x ln(C/Cb)

Lamba is the responsivity of temeprature to an increase in radiative forcing. For plain black body lambda is 0.21. For a gray body fitting Earth's overall radiative properties lambda is 0.3. If the rise in CO2 produces positive feedback the labda is greater then 0.3. If the rise in CO2 produces negative feedback then lambda is less than 0.3.

The base forcing is the effect of a doubling in CO2 level on the radiation recived by the Earth's surface do to the greenhouse effect. It is obtained from radiation-balance models on the mixture of greenhouse gases in the atmopshere. The best estimate for this value is 3.8 W/m2.

At present we have has 100 ppm of CO2 increase from a 280 ppm value in pre-industrial times For this increase we get:

Temp effect = 5.5 x lambda x ln(380/280) = 1.7 x lamda degrees.

THe UN estimates lambda at 0.5. The grey body value of 0.3 gives the direct effect (assuming no feedbacks). This gives about 0.5 to 0.8 degrees of rise since say 1800.

If we look at just the ranges from 1960 when CO2 was 315 ppm we get 0.3-0.5 degrees for the recent warming due to CO2.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Thank you for the encapsulation. Frankly, I'd have to give all the credit on the military idea to Finch -- I would have shot right past that one.

Me, too. That was part of why I said he boggles the mind sometimes. The other part is because he took it to such an extreme.

As for whether it would do the trick? Well.. now we get to edging back up against the science question.

Let me explain what I mean by "do the trick." We are going to see global warming for a while no matter what we do. No amount of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is going to prevent some catastrophic climate change requiring adjustments in lifestyle and emergency management efforts. Wish it would, but it won't. So in that sense, nothing is going to "do the trick."

The point from here is to minimize the damage done and ensure to prevent it from being an ongoing, ever-worsening spiral of disaster. To do that, I believe it's necessary to reduce our species' net greenhouse contribution to near zero. Probably it's not necessary to reduce it literally to zero; the planet has compensation mechanisms. But let's set zero as the target.

By "net" greenhouse contribution, I mean to recognize that we breathe in oxygen and breathe out CO2; every animal does this. Also, we burn stuff to keep warm and do other things; before coal and oil we burned wood. But all of this only puts CO2 back into the air that was first taken out of it by plants either eaten by us, eaten by animals that we eat, or burned as fuel. It's all part of the normal carbon cycle. It's an increase but not a net increase. Fossil fuels are a special case, carbon stored up over millions of years that's being put back into the cycle in very quick time (geologically speaking). That plus deforestation is the anthropogenic source of global warming.

If there are other sources of global warming sufficient to trivialize the anthropogenic causes (which I think is nonsense, but we're not talking the science yet, only the politics), then that won't help us. But we're assuming, ad arguentam, that that isn't so.

So what I mean by "do the trick" is to completely (or nearly completely) divorce our energy economy from fossil fuels, and stop deforestation. I want to see if there are ways we can do that without infringing personal liberty, at least not any more than is already being done.

So back to the question. Certainly if we stop subsidizing fossil fuels in the ways we do, that will make other energy sources (including improved efficiency) more attractive compared to fossil fuels and encourage the needed changes. Can we count on market forces to do the whole deed once the government stops applying counter-incentives?

If so, obviously there can be no political objections from libertarians to the idea. I am not entirely convinced that it's quite that rosy, though. It might be necessary to apply some artificial incentives in the other direction, through carbon taxes or through subsidizing efficiency and alternate energy, or both. Clearly, this would be less attractive to a hard-core libertarian, although I would have no problem with it. But at least it would be no MORE objectionable than the current regime. (For what that's worth.)

So there are two layers of questions.

1) Can we count on market forces to propel a complete (or near-complete) switch from fossil fuels in a reasonable time frame if we merely remove the current direct and indirect subsidies that are impeding the process?

2) If not, can market forces do the job with a little help from government incentives?

If both of those questions are answered "no," then we're into some uglier territory, and facing draconian measures like an outright ban on fossil-fuel burning, or even energy rationing.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

So there are two layers of questions.

1) Can we count on market forces to propel a complete (or near-complete) switch from fossil fuels in a reasonable time frame if we merely remove the current direct and indirect subsidies that are impeding the process?

No. As you know, fossil fuels are an extremely attractive source of energy compared to just about everything else.

2) If not, can market forces do the job with a little help from government incentives?

I don't see why not.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

The thing is, this is a good idea even if we don't posit global warming. Why tie the two together?

For the sake of The Thread, and for us poor literal-minded ISTJ's who see those trees all too well.