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But, given I dont have that opportunity and its illegal to just install solar panels and use them whenever I want to, I continue to rely on NV Energy for my electricity. Too Bad.
There was an ice age that ended 10,000 years ago. At that time there was ice a mile thick over what is now New York state. The polar bears didn't hunt on the ice in northern Canada because it never melted back then. Will the current warming trend continue until all the ice has melted? We don't know. The earth has been without any permanent ice before. Will we all die? We don't know. If we hang around long enough until the sun swells into a red giant swallowing the earth then we will.
Let's bring the question back to what if we do know is it morally right to then control people and how they respond to the problem? Never! Let people be free to make mistakes, correct them if they can and figure out what they want to do. Some will make the wrong choice. Allowing them to do so will also allow those who will logically discover what is best and those that follow that will build and succeed and survive.
We should work on quantifying the costs of global warming. I understand they're large but not "catastrophic.". I think they're only catastrophic if people just kept trying to grow crops in places where the climate lends itself to other crops or ignore rising water instead of building barriers. Obviously any modelling of the costs should include the fact that people can respond rationally to a changing world. The models should also include the less common examples of increased value such as arctic lands becoming arable.
It's a "catastrophic crisis" to the same extent the national debt is. The debt definitely has costs, but I don't believe models that say people will not make the hard choices once there's an immediate debt crisis. In both cases I expect people to wait for the immediate minicrisis and then take corrective action.
"I republished this letter,"
I think it's great the newspaper publishes letters to the editor. It sounds so quaint. I never thought I'd say it but I miss the days when the newspaper was the primary print medium with editors as a gatekeeper who published dissenting ideas as long as they were presented clearly and respectfully
Secondly, government doesnt do anything right, so I doubt that would be any different in this case.
Thirdly, in the next 50 years if sea levels rise, thats enough time for people to slowly move to higher ground and away from the effects of climate changes.
Fourthly, increased CO2 actually increases plant life and the growing season and the production of oxygen.
I think the thing that is the most telling is that all of these "studies" assume that it is human events which are to blame while they ignore the single biggest influencer of climate: the Sun. To me, any study which focuses on minutiae while excluding the major factors is invalid from the beginning.
The second thing that really puts me off about these self-proclaimed experts is that they've already invented at least two other climatological catastrophes which utterly failed to come about: global cooling (the 1970's) and acid raid deforestation (1980's). All before they hyped global "warming" in the 1990's and now the more nebulous "climate change" of the 2010's. It's the boy who cried wolf over and over and over again.
PROGRAM SOUR
C ============
C
C
C FOR THE AMMONIA-CARBON DIOXIDE-WATER SYSTEM USING THE EDWARDS,
C MAURER, NEWMAN AND PRAUSNITZ PITZER ACTIVITY COEFFICIENT
C CALCULATION METHOD AND THE NAKAMURA ET AL. METHOD TO CALCULATE
C FUGACITY COEFFICIENTS. THE SYSTEM HAS THIRTEEN UNKNOWNS:
C MOLES OF WATER, SIX IONIC MOLALITIES, TWO AQUEOUS MOLECULE
C MOLALITIES, THREE VAPOR MOLE FRACTIONS AND TOTAL MOLES OF VAPOR.
C
At what temperature and pressure is this phase change occurring?
Liquid Phase Molalities and Activity Coefficients:
Ionic strength = 0.112365E+02 molal
H2O 0.492487E+02 AW 0.918976E+00
Hion 0.134369E-07 AH 0.977538E+00
OHion 0.723011E-05 AOH 0.915178E+00
NH3aq 0.514195E+00 ANH3 0.891992E+00
NH4ion 0.925273E+01 ANH4 0.126924E+00
CO2aq 0.128607E-01 ACO2 0.997687E+00
CO3ion 0.198375E+01 ACO3 0.130500E-02
HCO3ion 0.493293E+01 AHCO3 0.951841E-01
NH2CO2ion 0.352293E+00 ANH2CO2 0.729538E+00
Vapor Phase Mole Fractions and Fugacity Coefficients:
yH2O 0.181711E+00 fH2O 0.992995E+00
yNH3 0.323162E-01 fNH3 0.996795E+00
yCO2 0.785973E+00 fCO2 0.996863E+00
Total vapor 0.68644 moles
Note: The spacing didn't reproduce very well from the original (ASCII format) output file - in the original output file, the above table is nicely laid out. But, you should be able to still read it.
"Yes,"
It must be in the gaseous phase but in solution with water. CO2 doesn't exist in the liquid phase at standard pressure. In solution its equilibrium point has it mostly bubbling out into normal air at sea level.
x(i+1) = x(i) - f(x(i)) / f'(x(i)), where "i" is the iteration index and f' is the first-order derivative of the function, f. In multi-variable form, the unknown "x" and the function "f" become vectors, and instead of dividing by the derivative, you multiply the inverse of the Jacobian matrix by the "f" vector (so it is a matrix inversion problem for each iteration). The Jacobian matrix elements are the partial derivatives of each of the functions with respect to each of the "x" variables, so J(i,j) = df(i)/dx(j).
This chemistry is outside my area too, but my impression is chemical reactions involving CO2 predominate in the Earth's atmosphere over physical reactions, e.g. the equilibria between the atmospheric pressure and CO2 dissolved in water. I suspect the equilibrium between plant life consuming CO2 and aerobic respiration producing CO2 predominates. Human activities releasing carbon + energy that was stored over hundreds of millions of years of sun shining is tipping the balance, causing atmospheric CO2 concentrations to be in the low 400 ppm instead being in the 300 ppm range. I don't understand the details of how this fits into the cycle of glacial maxima and minima, but I accept the science that human activities are big part of the increase and that it will likely have costly effects.
BTW, the periphery of our areas overlap. I encountered CO2 measurement when I was working on a project that measured the ratio of isotopes of C in CO2 for medical purposes. The mechanics of isotopes is probably more your area.
It reminds me of a talk I heard on LENR, where they said there may be processes that release energy from moving between of non-radioactive isotopes Ni. It sounds too go to be true.
This is simply making stuff up, making up stuff that we wish were true. It has no basis in reality. We might has well be discussing whether the world is only a few thousand years old. It's making stuff up from whole cloth.
I think that is one reason socialists don't want history taught as it should be, with facts etc.
I'm happy to hear other views, but we need to know what they are. Will the person downvoting this post an alternative view?
Yes. Any way that the money could touch their hands in cash form and then get handed over would be good. Numbers on a paystub aren't enough.
I also think the amount you pay should increase the very next week after a new policy initiative. Whether it's intervening in Syria, a new program to help children, a law for longer prison sentences for criminals, more research for cancer, people would start paying immediately.
That's an interesting idea, but it would be chaos to implement. It's hard enough for the government to get the tax tables right one time per year - trying to constantly adjust them after major policy adjustments would be nuts.
Now, another thing I have thought of is that the individual states should be apportioned a share of the total bill according to the total number of representatives they have serving in Congress (a minimum of three: two Senators + one Congressman). The House must originate all spending bills and often is controlled by the most populous states. So let them be responsible for forking out the most money to pay for the bills they pass! And tie the apportionment directly to the actual spending which took place during the year - not what they "budget".
I'm also in favor of a Constitutional Amendment which would put the costs of all Representatives' salaries and benefits (and that of their staffers) back on the States whom they represent. I really could care less if a Senator from California makes a million per year while a Senator from Idaho makes $50K - as long as their own states are paying the bills. It would also mean that their books are subject to audit by their State authorities. I think that the elected branch of government should be paid for by the people they represent rather than out of coffers they directly control.
I think this would shift the burden from states currently funding the government, those with finance, biotech, to the states with assembly, agricultural, and extraction industries. I can't imagine the latter accepting more of the tax burden. They are more receptive to promises of more government benefits and simplistic narratives that blame their problems on people who are different and the industries paying the taxes funding their benefits. They pay zero income taxes, except for payroll taxes, but they somehow imagine they are paying taxes.
Sometimes I wish the finance and tech areas were separate from the rest of the country and each could do its own thing. I think a better solution is the minimal central government the founders of the country created, but it a small central gov't been long forgotten. In my fantasy, urban and rural teenagers would train together in well-regulated militia with weapons and tools they keep and own personally. They don't have to agree on anything except the broad principles in the Constitution.
I don't know why this would make any difference to be honest. The principle is the same as that forming the basis for the House of Representatives: that if a funding bill must originate from the House of the People, then the People ought to be responsible for paying their own individual share of those burdens - regardless their industry or occupation. As a side effect, this would also make those States who artificially prop themselves up with immigrant labor have to pay more as a result.
"I think a better solution is the minimal central government the founders of the country created, but it a small central gov't been long forgotten. In my fantasy, ..."
I echo your dream. My fantasy world similarly consists of an almost imperceptible government where the President has a cabinet of only two or three people and private enterprise runs the nation - not the lobbyists. And all because from grade school days children are taught and grow up under principles of self-government and responsibility rather than self-entitlement and victimhood.
I agree with all of this. I also think how the money is paid makes a difference. Money is an abstraction. Numbers on a page to represent money are a further abstraction. Even for numerically sophisticated people, they would respond more if they recieved their pay in a stack of $100 bills or gold coins, and then they had to hand them over to someone else. The reality of what's happening would be viscerally clear.
I have read a bunch of articles about people unhappy with that tax cut because it modified the withholding tables. They are paying less in taxes overall, and the witholding tables are more accurate so their employer only withholds an accurate estimates of their taxes. Despite paying less, these people are saying they were counting on a refund, and it's thrown them off. I don't think they'd make this foolish mistake in accounting if they got paid in a stack of coins and handed over various bits of the stack for withholding, their half of Medicare/SS, and state withholding. It would be even better if they saw the employer hand over its share to Medicare/SS, SUTA, and FUTA,. Even an financially unsophisticated employee would think, "they could just hand me that SUTA/FUTA money and I could put in the bank or in a safe in case I lose my job."
Indeed, and they were warned repeatedly. Even though I rarely watch the news, I saw mention many times while the change was happening that the point of this was to give the taxpayer more money at paycheck time, but that it would result in lower refunds at tax time. Goes to show, they believe the news that they want to believe, and ignore what is uncomfortable.
I saw mention on another forum of a woman who booked a cruise which would be paid for with her tax refund. Her refund turned out to be $45 instead of the thousands she was anticipating, and she mentioned several times she was 1) a single mother 2) had already booked the cruise and 3) would lose her down payment if she didn't go on with it. It quickly became apparent she was actually asking for a handout - to go on a cruise! Equally clear was that she had no savings, but just "had" to go on this cruise because she promised her parents she would - who it turns out ALSO were counting on a tax refund and were similarly caught short, and also had no savings.
It just boggles the mind. I don't think we live in the same world as some people do.
Yes. I can't get my mind around it. Maybe some of them can't understand why I don't eat healthful and go easier on some of my other unhealthful habits.
I think they're undisciplined with money, and the will have money problems no matter what. A change in the withholding tables is not their core problem.
I know. I'm generally optimistic, but in this case I think there's real danger of sharply increased socialism for these reasons:
a) return on on equity is rising while the price of labor stagnates
b) fiscal deficit sets us up for a crisis that will allow politicians to take actions they couldn't take during good times
c) technology is changing things, making some people open to gov't slowing down or managing the change.
d) socialism is currently being sold as a package deal with protecting the environment.
Socialism will not actually help with these problems. The arguments are not correct, but they may sway citizens who are only causal followers of policy.