Limiting energy supply will indeed impact the economy, it will reward inventiveness and energy efficiency, now anyone who can come up with an energy cheap way of doing something will find it easier to make a profit... Whether that means in your own home or your car... And yes european and japanese cars HAVE been leading in fuel efficiency for decades. Why? Because their governments implemented policies to reduce foreign imported oil use, Why? Because that was in their national interest.

Is it different in America? Sure! Larger initial supply and the willingness to support un-democratic regimes abroad, and when those regimes decide to ignore american interests a willingness to change them.

The free market rewards increased consumption even when it is not healthy. Limited resources need to be used more inventively. This may be a subtle point, but i hope it is as apolitical as anything else.

Thanks Orathaic!

And let me say that Fasces YouTube link here tells a very important truth. So true that it shouldn't need to be put to music and propagandistic devices.
One would wish that every routine "Welfare versus Capitalism - activist" should see it and try to get it into his head.
But how far shall and can Capitalism/Welfare go?

Rather time to start asking this now... instead of your 19th century issues about how to boost production and consumption by trade and division of labour.

I may have a nit of two more to pick.

Socalled 'carbon cap and trade' is in fact an imaginary market (but then money itself is imagined to have value - being imaginary doesn't mean it is not useful) this solution is something of a compromise, allowing a central body regulate total emmissions without having a centrally organised command economy - it lets the total carbon emmissions be capped while allow companies trade their individual carbon credits.

Sounds great and in theory it is (just like free markets) in practice there are many failings of this system, partly due to the difficulty of measuring the emmissions of any given company.

That does not mean A) its not worth trying to cap emmission NOR B) creating a market to manage such a cut is a bad system.

The fact that it isn't perfect and humans are capable of finding loopholes is just an example of human ingenuity/inventiveness - for just about the same reason we find multis on webdip - humans will always find whatever loophole they cam exploit.

In any system without a cap that means increasing demand - even if unhealty - along with decreasing cost of supply. In this all corporations are complicite. They ALL benefit from increased demand, they are just fighting for market share... But they are all trying to increase your spending.

The video is good. It's not about party politics. It's about most people being duped by the zeitgeist

I support cap and trade, if the goal of combating climate change in cutting carbon.

Cutting carbon is not the best way to combat climate change

Cutting carbon...lol Amazing that people still buy that bogus argument.

Look up some real data and you will find that carbon levels LAG global temper changes, not lead...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/

<Let's see if anyone reads...> <Waiting to be villified again..>

"And let me say that Fasces YouTube link here tells a very important truth. So true that it shouldn't need to be put to music and propagandistic devices.
One would wish that every routine "Welfare versus Capitalism - activist" should see it and try to get it into his head.
But how far shall and can Capitalism/Welfare go?

Rather time to start asking this now... instead of your 19th century issues about how to boost production and consumption by trade and division of labour. "
I agree, the free market has advantages, but only to a certain extent. If we can adequatly provide for all, we should.

That being said, I don't think its fair to take away from the rich with super high taxes, to do so.

@Krellin: I completly agree, hence why I said:
"f the goal of combating climate change in cutting carbon.

Cutting carbon is not the best way to combat climate change "

http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm

Or there is this....what are we to do...

Regardless...the truth is man-made contributions are miniscule, carbon levels in atmospheric gases are astronomically small, and either way (since science lays on **both** sides of the argument) it is meaningless.

It is the *sun*...the big ball of burning gas...that determines the earth's temperature predominantly...

<poke...poke poke...>

@Fasces -- No...my point is "fighting climate change" is the *real* bogus argument, unless you have found a way to cause the Sun to burn at a steady state without flares, etc. You can not "fight" climate change.

":If we can adequatly provide for all, we should."

Why should we "adequately provide for ALL" whatever happened to being responsible for yourself? As it turns out, in a free market society, the best way to be responsible for yourself is to cooperate and pool resources...*voluntarily*...and in such as way as to maximize your reward. Give-outs programs and forced "equality" never produce the best or the most.

I recently referenced an NPR story on "Community Gardening"....turns out that when people don't *have* to work...but can till pick the vegetables...*nobody* works except for a dedicated few. I.e. the system fails. It tends to thrive when they divide the land, divide responsibility, and thus meat out rewards based upon personal gain for personal work.

The truth is that no one knows the truth. Both sides site this fact or that, this study, that theory as if they are gospel. This has become a political football which means that we have become incapable of determining what actually is going on and of taking any action that may be required. I, for my part, hope that global warming is not man made because if it isn't we're all fucked.

@Krellin: The fact is we have cut holes in the ozen layer allowed for more sunlight to get in, you are right to say carbon has little to do with it.

People often say things like "I am a socialist by heart. It's a beautiful dream, but it doesn't function". I don't find the dream so beautiful.
I'd rather say something to the opposite..

You right-wingers, freedom-champions... I sympathize with you at heart, your "responsibility" and "voluntarism" thing but... it is all very dreamy...

I bet you're all proletarians... like myself... in a welfare-society... american/european-style. It means you are born to a world where everything around you is already OWNED, socially shaped and organized.

How do you use your responsibility? I suppose you take a job? Is that your big responsibility thing? You take a job, doing whatever... the fact that you get payed for it, is the thing that means that you have taken "responsibility".

But you don't take any responsibility for what that job is doing or what should be or needs be done.

Confess: In the welfare society we remain children to the grave. Especially if we "take our responsibility" and *do what we are told*

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100505-science-environment-ozone-hole-25-years/

Ozone hole? You mean you want to talk about another naturally occurring event that has nothing to do with mankind?

Hey....anyone paying ANY attention to China? In particular, their *massive* industrial revolution that kinda puts ours to shame...all pretty much without pollution controls. Should the ozone layer be gone by now with China's pollution output? Shouldn't the earth be baked to a crisp?

I'm just sayin'....funny how it is *only* US industrial output that seems to bother anyone...

http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~cchieh/cact/applychem/ozone.html

How is ozone made....photon hits oxygen molecule....long story short, the less blocking the sunlight, the more sunlgiht gets through to....*produce ozone*. It's cyclical. It's a controlled feedback system, for you engineers out there. And 9gasp) it also is tied to the energy output of *ding ding ding* the Sun.

"http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100505-science-environment-ozone-hole-25-years/"
I guess we learn something new every once in a while.

OK, cten, thanks. I thought that might be what you were referring to. Thing is, that happened in the range of 70-90 years ago. I would say it's hard to argue that it will have been responsible for destroying America, if and when America is destroyed.

Ideologies have done more to blind mankind then they ever have to reveal the truth. They are poor excuses for the inability or unwillingness the think for yourself. The greedy consumption of soundbites spewed forth as truth in an awful parody of righteousness. "They are going to destroy America!" they cry as if their certainty born of servile minds bears any real weight.

Krellin well done. You changed the topic. I'm not going to address climate change here.

It's a funny old world when both Europeans and Americans look across the Atlantic and take great satisfaction from saying "Thank God we're not them"...

A genuinely interesting video. Very well made, and containing quite a few good points. That moving away from fossil fuels will hurt the economy a great deal in the short term is an unpleasent fact that the green movement have in a large part shamefully ignored instead of tackling head on like they used to. The lunacy of shutting down heavily polluting industries in the West only to have them transfer East is also something that doesn't get enough attention.

It's just a shame they lumped it in with a load of climate change denial crap and pointless Euro bashing. Still, compared to arguments such as "don't vote for Obama because he's a foriegner in disguise" its something of an improvement.

@Octavious "That moving away from fossil fuels will hurt the economy a great deal in the short term is an unpleasent fact that the green movement have in a large part shamefully ignored"

They haven't "ignored" it....they simply ***do not have an answer***.....i.e. NON-fossil fuels can not, in anyone's imagination, replace fossil fuel. Period. End of discussion.

@ krellin

They used to have an answer. They used to be quite open about saying "we're just going to have to lower our living standards". That was back when they were mostly made up of ex-hippies and generally unpopular. Somewhere along the line they decided instead to talk a load of bollocks about new jobs in the Green Economy and a wave of Green entrepreneurship that would kick start all manner of things that people think need kick starting. A bit of truth in it, to be sure, but not enough to come close to canceling out the bad that comes from losing cheap energy.

Oh, and non fossil fuels will replace fossil fuels at some stage. It just won't be as soon as the Green lobby want.

@krellin "They haven't "ignored" it....they simply ***do not have an answer***.....i.e. NON-fossil fuels can not, in anyone's imagination, replace fossil fuel. Period. End of discussion."

You clearly underestimate my imagination.

There is more than enough energy, harnassing it is the difficult bit. Imagine how to harnass even a fraction of the sun's energy. (by the way, the sun drives the wind and the water cycles, thus hydro and wind power are harnassing power from the sun)

What percentage is lost when operating solar power towers? Considering the rather minimal design and material costs...

If I wanted America to fail ........
......... I'd leave it in the hands of free marketeers who learnt about business reading 'Economics for Idiots' because their truly is a minority of ignorant morons that believe the answer to all the complex problems facing the world and the USA today will somehow be resolved by cheap fossil fuels and ignoriing environmentally sustainable govt policies.
The US has had cheap fuel for years prior to the current economic downturn but still run up a multi-trillion dollar debt.
No, the problems facing the US are much simpler than this.
The govt don't collect enough tax revenues to pay their spending
They are globally uncompetitive in regard to counties like China and the desire for cheap goods and clothes and cars and electronics has decimated the US economy.
No need to complicate the problem with total nonsense
If you want to grow the economy re-distribute money and wealth from the rich to the poor and start making things again .....simples !!

"Krellin well done. You changed the topic. I'm not going to address climate change here. "
Climate change in this topic prior to Krellins posts on climate change:
"Socalled 'carbon cap and trade' is in fact an imaginary market"-Ora
"Cutting carbon is not the best way to combat climate change"-Fasces
"Cutting carbon...lol Amazing that people still buy that bogus argument."-Krellin

You started the climate change debate...

ignoring environmentally sustainable corporate policies.
ignoring financially sustainable policies.

@Fasces - i was commenting that the claim that 'imaginery market' are a bad thing is counter to everything the free marketeers believe in (ie that the market will solve every problem)

You basically disagreed by debating the point of what is the best way to combat climate change.

And Krellin attacked the premise - that we need to combat climate change - ignoring the arguement made in the video, the arguement made by me and you over what is the best economic policy to address issue.

@Orthaic....In your "imagination" Scotty can say "Beam me up" and someone disappears and reappears somewhere else. Fantasy worlds OFTEN deny reality. I could give a shit about your imagination.

But....if you want to speculate:
1. there is a HELL of a lot more fossil fuel than the scare-tactic, anti-industrial leftists want you to believe
2. The earth is **still** producing oil....I mean....why would it NOT be???

You are a moron if you say you limited imagination is better than my realistic imagination.