Post #324,754
4/17/10 9:00:54 AM
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DeLong: After Copenhagen - What?
http://delong.typepa...00415-climate.pdf (6 page .pdf)
He pulls no punches and makes concrete proposals:
[...] We can hope.
But hope is not a plan. We should also plan.
The world was supposed to plan at Kyoto, and then again at Copenhagen. It did not. So what do we do now? I think we should do four things:
 Pour money like water into research into closed-carbon and non-carbon energy technologies in order to maximize the chance that we will get luckyÂon energy technologies at least, if not on climate sensitivity.
 Beg the rulers of China and India to properly understand their long-term interests
 Nationalize the energy industry in the United States.
 Restrict future climate negotiations to a group of sevenÂthe U.S., the E.U., Japan, China, India, Indonesia, and BrazilÂand enforce their agreement by substantial and painful trade sanctions on countries that do not accept their place in the resulting negotiated system.
[...]
#3 will likely get the most attention. I don't know if that's necessary or desirable, but the fact that the "true cost" of fossil fuel consumption isn't paid by consumers is a very big problem. (See: US military spending, excessive investment in suburbia (McMansions, strip malls, consumption), Kunstler's "happy motoring", pollution, no path toward sustainability, global climate change, economic and political support for authoritarian regimes, etc.) But coal needs to be included as well (something like 30% of us CO2 emissions are from electricity generation from coal, roughly equal to that from transportation.) We've needed something like a carbon tax for a long time.
I'm not optimistic that it'll change any minds, but it's a starting point for debate.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #324,757
4/17/10 9:07:09 AM
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good idea, we could be like russia iraq and iran nationalize
If we torture the data long enough, it will confess. (Ronald Coase, Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences, 1991)
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Post #324,768
4/17/10 7:54:10 PM
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We kind of already did #3
Not much difference between the government owning the oil companies and vice-versa.
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Why, yes, I did give up something for lent. I gave up making sense.
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Post #324,782
4/18/10 11:22:32 AM
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"McMansions"?
Wossat?
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Post #324,787
4/18/10 11:38:48 AM
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big houses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMansion
the term refers to a house with a floor area commonly over 3,000 square feet (280 m2) in size, often on a small lot (the house itself often covering a larger portion of the land than the yard than in previous construction)
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Post #324,788
4/18/10 11:40:03 AM
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Thanks.
I definitely don't have one of those, as Herr Vitale will attest.
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Post #324,802
4/18/10 1:54:40 PM
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Hmmm.
Half the definition covered, anyway.
You have no lot to speak of, but tis DEFINITELY not 3000 sqft! :)
-Mike
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania
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Post #324,789
4/18/10 11:45:55 AM
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Big houses on little plots of land
Imagine a suburb of single family homes.
You'd typically get a lawn of about 30'-40' in front, a yard of 50'-100' in back, and about 40' on each side to the walls of your neighbor's house.
The builder wants more money. He constructs a house way too big for the land. They push the front of the house a little closer to the street to give more back yard. They are very close to the neighbors, they can be 10'-20' away, window to window.
If they drop a new McMansion in an current space, it dwarfs the side houses. If they create a whole neighborhood of them, they have a very distinct pattern.
They don't spend any time out front since the front lawn is so small, they fence what they can for a bit of limited privacy, and they spend any outdoors time isolated in the back. They have enough money and space for pools (very close, no back yard if they get one), so you see a lot of those.
If you drive down the street, it feels like a fortress since the front of the houses are close, but not not meant to be inviting, they act more like a wall to an inner environment.
Very few kids on the street.
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Post #324,793
4/18/10 12:01:58 PM
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4500+ square foot houses on 1/3 acre lots (or smaller).
They're especially prominent in "in fill" developments (small patches of remaining land that are developed in mature neighborhoods).
They're oversized monstrosities that grew up before the housing bubble burst. They're usually cheaply and quickly constructed and look hideous.
E.g. http://maps.google.c...0.004361&t=h&z=18
For a microcosm of the US housing bubble, enter "grist mill woods" for the address here and look around - http://icare.fairfax...aspx?mode=ADDRESS That's the neighborhood shown in the Google map.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
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