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The Forum > Article Comments > A positive response to climate change > Comments

A positive response to climate change : Comments

By Bernie Masters, published 10/10/2008

How should Australia respond to the threat of climate change and global warming? Well not by sitting on our hands ...

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Q&A

To achieve sustainability we

1. Pay people Rewards if they are frugal in their energy consumption.
2. Require the Rewards to be spent on infrastructure to generate renewables or on ways to conserve energy.
3. Create Rewards as zero interest "new money" that becomes untagged money once it is spent on energy saving or renewable energy generating infrastructure.

This "algorithm" will produce a sustainable energy society as it solves the "Tragedy of the Commons" and it can be applied to any expenditure where there is a personal benefit and a community benefit - which is most expenditure.

I am trying to persuade a government somewhere to let me conduct a trial and as part of that persuasion I put up posts in forums such as this as part of the advertising campaign for the ideas. People do not accept new ideas immediately. They automatically first reject them. Typically it takes someone about five exposures to an idea (ad campaign) for the idea to be emotionally comfortable enough to act on it.

The good news is that once a Rewards system is up and running in one place for one community expenditure it will rapidly replicate itself into other areas. The system has a positive feedback component of the more you reduce consumption the more you spend on reducing consumption.

I am confident we still have time to achieve sustainability while increasing our material well being.
Posted by Fickle Pickle, Wednesday, 29 October 2008 5:11:19 AM
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Interesting idea Fickle Pickle ... you make it sound simple.

I would not be surprised that if one day, the "almighty dollar" is replaced with a currency that reflects energy costs of production/consumption. A carbon tax through an Emissions Trading Scheme is only a precursor.

Perhaps "enviros"?
Posted by Q&A, Thursday, 30 October 2008 10:29:23 AM
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For those who need constructive elaboration, my comment alludes to a well known and empirically demonstrated phenomenon of perceptual bias. This is important, as so much of these issues is about perception over reality, and there is a lack of awareness of the ease with which agenda-driven science can be corrupted. As Mark Poynter illustrates in his article above, the key these days is to get the story out there, like at a lavish conference event in Bali, before it's even been properly scrutinized. Just get the perception out there, and let the media do the rest. It's not academic!
Posted by fungochumley, Thursday, 30 October 2008 3:28:29 PM
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Q&A

It took me a while to realise it but it is simple and it will work and enviros is a good name for it - except it works for any community expenditure and that is why I am using Rewards so that people are "happy" with the ownership outcome.

Here is the underlying idea.

Let us imagine that we have an asset. It does not matter how we came to own it but let us pretend it was given to us because we were frugal. We can now "lend" that asset by using the asset as security against a loan and we can get the loan and we can spend it. When we create a loan we create a promise to pay which we call money. As long as we only create money that is backed by an asset then we know inflation cannot occur.

So the sequence of events is - we are given an asset because we are frugal. We turn the asset into money by taking out a loan on the asset and we then spend the money. The loan is not inflationary because there is an asset backing it.

Now let us change things a little. Let us be given the money first because we are frugal but let us promise to turn the money into an asset.

We end up with ownership of an asset, there is some money in the system that is non inflationary because it represents an asset.

The only difference is that in one case we started with an asset and in the other we started with the money to build the asset. The end result is the same.
Posted by Fickle Pickle, Thursday, 30 October 2008 6:53:17 PM
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Fungo: “For those who need constructive elaboration, my comment alludes to a well known and empirically demonstrated phenomenon of perceptual bias.”

Which comment? “IDKWTFYATA”

Whose reality Fungo?

Can you honestly say the ‘deny-n-delay’ brigade don’t have an agenda?

Of course “the key these days is to get the story out there”, but I don’t see you offering any constructive comment on how this should be done.

You make veiled criticism of the UNFCCC and the IPCC process. How should they do it better? How do you think scientists should get the message out there? You damn them when they do and damn them when they don’t.

You talk of scrutiny; the IPCC assesses the science from already scrutinised research. As I tried to point out to ManBearPig (you obviously haven’t followed or understood), those from the alternate (“sic”) camp are quite prepared to trot out new and un-scrutinised research (Graham Young does this on ambit gambit from blog spots like Marohasy and Watt’s)but condemn the already peer reviewed research.

It appears the ‘deny-n-delay’ brigade (like Andrew Bolt and his agenda driven blog site) is doing exactly what you claim, he get’s stuff out there before it’s been properly scrutinised. Like you say, it’s not academic.

This piece from a neuroscientist fits well with this topic.

http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2008/10/galileo-strikes-again.html
________________

Fickle
Has merit ... unfortunately, you are probably 100 years too early for the “developed” world. OTOH, the “undeveloped” world would be intrigued – wish you well.
Posted by Q&A, Friday, 31 October 2008 10:33:58 AM
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Here is another attempt to explain it.

One of the outcomes of the credit crisis is that we all better understand how money is created. The government creates new money by giving loans to the financial institutions even though the government does not have any money to loan. That is, governments create money out of thin air. The government guarantee on bank deposits, if ever needed, means the government will create some extra money and loan it to the banks to cover the deposit withdrawals. Although the guarantee might make people feel good it means, if it is needed, we will have more money in the system than we have things to buy. This causes inflation which happens when we have too much money and not enough goods. Prices going up is symptom not a cause.

The government can solve the credit crisis - that is get some liquidity into the system or in other words get people who have money to spend it - by creating new money but making sure the new money is spent on a productive asset - such as renewable energy plants. The government can create some money and give it to the less well off. The less well off can invest it in renewables or sell the money at a discount to people who have money but are not spending it. Those people can now invest in renewable energy plants. This will increase liquidity, stop the recession and reduce greenhouse gases.
Posted by Fickle Pickle, Friday, 31 October 2008 11:07:34 AM
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