A very good point in regards to the overall environment. Sort of relates to the schizophrenic nature of our system as it stands. Constant personality shifts based on special interests.

The free market is not represented as perfect, or of only having perfect participants. I think that Objectivism teaches that in a system utilizing reality based rational logic that it's understood that the human environment includes many individuals and groups that don't follow or even believe in the ethics generated from Objectivism--thus the necessity for protection of individual and natural rights and for contract dispute resolution.

But I will posit that the Free Market Capitalism is the best system to resolve issues. You must realize that the actions and reactions of all industries and companies within the bastardized and so-called capitalist system that's confounded by socialist-progressive government actually causes the examples you discuss above. Given a true free market capitalist system with protection from violence and harm from others by a government that only does that, I suspect that we would see an entirely different set of actions and reactions by business.

There is an eleven year cycle. I don't know a whole lot beyond that. I do remember hearing not long ago that there was a cycle due for a minimum in the next few years that the most recent occurrence of was in the "year without a spring" that happened not long after the Lewis & Clark expedition.

In some cases yes, but there are the cases where that is not true, specifically coal fired power plants. They have fought and bought their way around rules, and that is one of my main problems with believing that private industry will always doe the right thing. Today's management people do not have any moral sense, they will cut costs in any way someone suggests, even to the detriment of employees or the environment. Remember Love Canal? That was a company who thought they could just dump their waste (which was a common practice but really...) until it came back to haunt everyone.

I thought we just hit solar max for the 11 year cycle? And speaking of a minimum, there is precedence for factoring that in in the Maunder Minimum, which I believe lasted approx 100 years?

Thats true, and it illustrates the conumdrum all the regulations and laws have created. There is no clear point where an individuals work is seperated from their employers. I have seen this in the company I work for. They enable the creation of knowledge by giving the resources, but take full ownership. Now you have powerful companies that will poke at most new applications with a patent infringement. But this digresses....

Once The Twentieth Century Motor Company no longer existed, leaving behind no true company heirs, then what happens to the intellectual property in that sort of situation?

If one wants the intellectual property to be free and clear, in AS or in real life today, the inventor(s) has/have to fund the work himself or herself or themselves.

The free radical part is "settled science", as opposed to the global warming crap, which is only unsettled opinion. The breakdown of ozone by free radicals has been reproduced under lab conditions rather easily.

The problem is that CO2 doesn't generate enough free radicals to even be measurable. Water generates far more free radicals than CO2, albeit still not very many. Are we going to declare water as a pollutant, too?

I am familiar with your brother's company.

The solar cycle is nearing a 200+ year minimum.

There was considerable pollution coming from everywhere before it became a problem for the average citizen. i can remember LA in the late 60's with smog so bad that it etched auto and home glass. But you make a good point about CO2. When someone wants you to be frightened, you might ask why.

All regulation costs come out of the consumer's pockets. The idea that an industry will have to 'eat the cost' is nonsensical. Gasoline was a by product that was thrown away in the early days of kerosene production from oil. The market, the free market, takes care of these issues much better than any central authority rule.

Indeed! +1

Excellent points.

If you pay attention to such things you will note that every scientist, reputable or not, who has voiced any doubt of the 'Climate Change' idiocy is immediately attacked in the press by 'reputable' sources. The homework is not difficult and it is enlightening.

I wiould say there was more to that than just whether there was a BK, remember, he took off before the company went BK, when the dumbass kids took over and started their insane pay as you need it. He took the motor concept and knowledge with him, then used it later. He left his lab and prototype there, didn't Dagny find it there? But there was a point Rand was making I think that he created the knowledge himself, saying that your knowledge is yours, my point is today, that is not the way knowledge is treated. Most companies patent their knowledge and keep it, and just tell the creator "thanks". I don't really have a good fix on the morality of it, since the company employs you and so it would seem they would own yor results.

Agreed, my point of truth is that both sides are tossing claims and "science" that is bought, not learned. As others have pointed out, govt science is just as suspect. It is the tainted science that is a problem, when there are those in power who would order us to change our lives based on it.

true very true, Russias idea of nuclear cleanup is to take decommisioned submarines and dump them in the artic ocean, Norway is very pissed with them, and I just saw an article where a scientist is calling on them to remove them all before they contaminate.There is also a german submarine with 1,000 KG of mercury that was sunk off their coast, they want germany to come get it.

JB, I am not arguing your qualifications, I am just saying that there are so many variations on a theme and most are tainted with money, thus obscuring the truth. The free radical part is just a portion of the stries told. I have seen papers staing that CO2 cannot cause issue due to it's molecular weight and the refractive properties associated with it, and then another that says it is exactly that property that makes it a GH gas, because it refracts heat back instead of out. I cannot pretend to understand it, but my brotherpulls these things up, and I see his bent is towards certain chemists that have a certain view, then I go look at some of his references, and find there are others claiming they are quacks because THEY know the truth. It is so tainted with special slants that I am forced to just rely on direct observation. My direct observation says that this winter has been unusual against the last 30 years or so. Why? Maybe it's just natural variation, maybe it's related to the solar cycle, maybe its a combination of all that with our atmospheric changes mixed in. I don't know. I just pointed out my brother is in your same field, I thought maybe you might know of their company is Ky.

The countries with the least pollution are those that are most economically free. The reduction in the levels of pollution is the result of the advanced technologies developed by the economically free countries. The least economically free countries have the most pollution.

Coal was burned more efficiently without regulations. Cars would have become more efficient without the Clean Air Act and most likely this would have occurred faster because the regulations slowed down the development of new technologies.

Regarding Galt's ethics regarding ownership of the motor, had he tried to capitalize on the motor prior to the bankruptcy of The Twentieth Century Motor Company, you would have a point. He did not profit from the motor until after the motor company no longer existed, so the point is moot.

Moreover, as freedomforall pointed out recently, Crichton started writing State of Fear as if global warming was not a hoax and had to completely rewrite it when he discovered the hoax that it was.

Environmental cleanup is a luxury that capitalistic societies can afford and communist societies choose not to afford.

Al Gore's CO2 futures market helped put my company out of business. Thanks for the support, khalling.

I am such a chemist / chemical engineer. The key point is the generation of free radicals up in the atmosphere. CFC's generate them readily. Nitric oxide is a free radical species. CO2 does not generate enough free radicals to be measurable.

Nickursis, this is a field I know VERY well.

The peppered moth population change was far prior to advanced scrubbers and electrostatic precipitators available now. The coal dust is minimized through an electrostatic precipitator. I used to work in a coal chemistry group, and have taught petroleum refining multiple times.

As for McDonald's grease, one of the two small businesses that I had took such waste vegetable oil and converted it into chemicals at a profit without government subsidies until President Zero ran for president touting solar energy.

This is a field I know all too well.