An interesting article Chris, but I wonder if it doesn't all boil down to a matter of being clever at telling lies effectively? The Howard government was masterly in using word like 'choice' (as in WorkChoice and funding private schools) when the reality was the very opposite.

The 2007 election demonstrated, however, that eventually people get to see the reality behind the linguistic spin.

Perhaps the author should develop "ordinary language that conveys a clear and precise meaning." And get a dictionary - "econometrics" is "the branch of economics concerned with the use of mathematical methods ... in describing economics systems" (Concise Oxford), or more broadly a statistical technique for better understanding economic relationships. A tool, not "a system that serves market forces."

I think the author could have just said I dont like the timber industry or conservatives and just left it at that!
Suprise suprise just because smart people like her go on and on and on it will not make the arguments any more compelling.
Babble on and people switch off and you will find the more occassions that you babble the quicker people turn off.
By the by in the last few years we lost two million acres of "Native" forests because greenies convinced politicians to stop the forests Department from burning off undergrowth. How did they do that? Even more amazing is the fact the blame was not sheeted home to them! Now of course we are back to sensible practice.

1.
"It is a widespread fallacy that skillful advertising can talk the consumers into buying everything that the advertiser wants them to buy... If this were true, success or failure in business would depend on the mode of advertising only. However, nobody believes that any kind of advertising would have succeeded in making the candlemakers hold the field against the electric bulb, the horsedrivers against the motorcars, the goose quill against the steel pen and later against the fountain pen."
Ludwig von Mises

2.
The idea of 'sustainability' hardly qualifies as rational discourse. It is more in the realm of religious mania, totalitarian fantasy. The underlying idea is that we are all going to die because we face an impending ecological catastrophe. The paradise is a stasis in which all economic problems are permanently solved. Natural scarcity has been abolished, by dint of government - which is presumed to be all-knowing, all-capable and all-good - forcibly re-arranging property titles for the greater good. Unfortunately, large numbers of people may have to die while the government plays god with everyone else's right to the fuels that supply food, shelter, and clothing. The new religion requires human sacrifice, but the economic ignorance of its adherents is such that they won't recognise the connection between them banning productive activity on the one hand, and the resulting human deaths on the other.

Diocletian, some comments from my critique of a 2003 Queensland Government paper on economic growth which referred to “sustainable” economic growth without defining the term.

The issue arises from the proven economic concept that an extra unit added to any production process will have a marginal return less than that of the preceding unit, with the return tending to zero. With such diminishing returns, economic growth would also tend to zero, which is observably not the case. “Endogenous growth theory” developed since 1986 seeks to explain how growth can be sustained in the face of the theory of diminishing returns.

The QG paper states that economic growth based on increasing inputs “has attracted criticism because it is considered unsustainable.” It is true that some forms of input-driven growth have limits (e.g. a shift of workers from low-productivity agriculture to high-productivity manufacturing), but that does not mean that they are not worthwhile. Growth based on increased workforce participation will also have limits in terms of numbers employed, but the human capital embodied in each worker can be increased. Capital inputs are not inherently finite. The confusion of the Queensland paper’s approach to sustainability is indicated by the statement that “Sustainable economic growth provides the foundation to support the further development of the State’s industries and regions”. What on earth does that mean?

One concept of “sustainability” in connection with economic growth tends to convey that the form of economic growth should not be at the expense of future generations, whether in reducing their ability to maintain similar rates of growth or in severely damaging the environment so as to irremediably damage their quality of life. The concept is very nebulous and seems to imply that, although the world has made great gains over the last 250 years from innovation and technological advance at an increasing pace, it will be unable to do so in future.

The main purpose of my paper was to show, in the light of EGT, Schumpeter and empirical evidence, the kind of policies which support sustained economic growth.

Keep posting!

“The idea of 'sustainability' hardly qualifies as rational discourse. It is more in the realm of religious mania, totalitarian fantasy.”

Omygoodness Diocletian! What aaare you saying!

I’d love to know just what your interpretation of sustainability is….or what you think might happen if we don’t learn to live sustainably.

There is no bigger misunderstanding or deliberate misuse than that of the word; ‘growth’.

The use of ‘growth’ by politicians, economists, business people, media, etc, as being of unquestionable necessity to the maintenance of a healthy economy and society is appalling and extremely damaging to our future.

The concept of sustainability has pretty much taken hold. And anyone with more than three active brain cells who stops and thinks about how this sits with ever-continuing growth, realises the huge conflict.

And yet the worship of growth remains entrenched.

We never hear of the separation of good growth and bad growth. Good growth being technological developments that improve productivity and energy efficiency and divert us away from non-renewable energy use and onto a renewable energy platform, and which reduce pollution and other environmental impacts, etc. Bad growth being human expansion in terms of ever-more people and ever-more humanised landscapes and pressure on non renewable and potentially renewable resources, and increasing per-capita consumption.

The latter sits fairly and squarely hidden away within the umbrella of growth, as espoused by our illustrious governments at all levels. By and large, the general community remains completely duped by this; believing that, although their inner commonsense tells them otherwise, this expansionist aspect of growth is necessary and is somehow not damaging to our future wellbeing.

Anyone who gives half a hoot about the environment, sustainability and all that stuff, can see the absurdity in the Queensland Government’s (and numerous other governments) espousal of sustainable economic growth.

So it's high time that the whole community cottoned onto the enormous sophistry or blatant and deliberate misuse of language centred on that word ‘growth’

The concept of sustainabililty is so flawed on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to begin.

I will tell you why I think so, but first can I ask you to set out the basic claim. It’s something like this, right?

‘We are not only growing in population, but the standard of living is also growing. It is self-evident logic that you can’t have infinite growth on a finite base. This makes for a use of resources that is not sustainable. If we keep it up, we’ll run out of resources. We have already reached the peak of availability of fuel energy. We’ll pollute the planet, degrade our common resources, and extinguish other species. We will rob future generations of the right to live as we have lived. We need to manage our resources sustainably – a steady state in which we preserve ecological diversity, provide decently and equitably for all human beings, and at the same time leave enough for future generations to live as well as we. The world is enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.’

Is that about it? Do I have it aright? Anything you want to add to the argument that I have missed

Diocletian, I don’t know about this;

“The world is enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”

I reckon we’ve probably exceeded the human population whereby the world can support even a half-decent quality of life for us all in an ongoing manner.

But otherwise what you’ve outlined sounds pretty right. So please, do tell why you think that the idea of sustainability hardly qualifies as rational discourse.

I like the suggestion earlier in this thread that we need to distinguish between good growth and bad growth. I am a beginner at the most elementary level of understanding economics so excuse my naivety. Growth, such as "the economy grew at 3% last year" means that the various proxies used to measure growth indicated that there were 3% more money-type transactions than the year before. It could mean that there was 3% more production of goods and services, or it could mean that of the goods and services typical of an economy 3% more were formalised through the exchange of money. If I cut my lawn, and my neighbour cuts his lawn, all is well. If I cut his lawn and he pays me, and then I used that money to pay him to cut my lawn, then the economy would have "grown" by those amounts - but no real change in production has occured. I wonder how much of modern economic growth could be some kind of artefact of the progression in the commercialisation of activities rather than actual increase in productivity. There could also be a lot of good growth that has little resources downside: such as a lot more musical instrument playing, delight in learning, historical research, psychotherapy, and cognitive science - to touch base with the article that started this thread.

good comment fencepost>>wonder how much of modern economic growth could be some kind of artefact of the progression in the commercialisation of activities rather than actual increase in productivity.<<

earlier you mentioned 3%'growth',that growth is based on inflation[inflation is the measure of how much our monetay supply got inflated by[or how much our money got stolen through the tax[non tax]called inflation[inflation now only means how much more you need to pay for the same thing]

see that one pound'sterling[promising to pay'bearer'in TRUE silver coin[became fiat currency and nickle coin][but going by the price IN SILVER,your house is still worth the same[in sterling silver]its just in this fiat paper,the supply of paper has yet again]been increased

govt thinks it is too clever[by removing factors that cause the theft[sorry inflation;tax]to be revealed[thus underlying inflation [true inflation[runs about 8 percent]the real[true]theft is much bigger than we know

[govt gave the right to issue'paper'to the worlds bankers[who run the federal reserve's of the world,they actually swap'paper'between each other to manipulate'exchange'rates

[but THEY CONTROL it[unaudited]forEVER,they'issue'it at whim to creditise their mates to steal the real economy[real assets]while we pay intrest on paper[only they control]

its their job to see a lot of good growth potential has little resources[and worthless'securities get underwritten by our super[and our income tax

[income tax didnt egsist till the banks stole the fed,because govts spent it all on making war[cause wars make money]THUS a'big'war is planned to'help'us out of this banker induced collapse as well

[see while our lending creates the money[BUT no one creates the money to repay the intrest[thus this boom and bust]till the next war[this bust is so big they really need a world war[thus the stuff we saw recently in georgia and india[and possably a reason for this latest incursion on the palisteins[to get the arabs[next wednesday]to do something to excuse ww3

jesus upset the'money-changers'[and now we by their'own'deeds all know why]URSURY is the tool of satan's minions[the banking/war buisness cartel]ps wages from mowing lawns is wage[not income]

but govt gets so much'income'from'fools'paying tax on'wages';no one got the inclination[nor]heart to tell the working'serfs'their wages are constuitutionally tax-free

I believe that as soon as the reasoning behind sustainability is examined, it crumbles.

The original hypothesis is that we face a problem that cannot be solved by consensual means. If it could, there would be no issue. We could just abolish all environmental policies, and leave it to society’s mechanism for consensual decision-making about the use of resources: the market.

But that is explicitly what the advocates of sustainability don’t want. The idea is that we need government to 'tackle' the problem.

Since private property and individual freedom are not to be the basis of decisions about resources, there are two possibilities. Either government can have total control over all decisions that affect the environment, and therefore all economic decisions. Or government can have partial control, leaving some fields to the operation of liberty.

If government has total control, it will necessarily abolish economic calculation, which depends on prices, which depend on markets, which depend on private property. Abolishing economic calculation will abolish the ability to compare the inputs of action with the outputs. This will abolish the means of knowing whether we are using more natural resources than less compared to the outcome of a given action. The result must necessarily be environmental destruction and destruction of human life on a vast scale. This result in theory is what happened last time such total control was tried in practice.

But if government has only partial control, the part of human action that is uncontrolled by the Grand Plan will keep mucking it up – that’s the original problem, remember? Ex hypothesi it must be assumed that the continuing problem is the existence of private property and human freedom. Each intervention must fail and that failure will be the pretext for more extensive and intensive government interventions, which in turn must fail for the same reasons. Thus the situation must approach closer and closer to totalitarian control, which not only can’t succeed in practice, it is impossible even in theory.

At best, the attempt must be self-defeating, and far far more anti-social and environmentally destructive than the original problem.

That’s a pretty good overview Fencepost. There are also things that should be 100% on the negative side of the charter that are added to the positive side of economic growth calculations, such as financial turnover produced as a result of car accidents or smoking-related illness.

The other great flaw with economic growth is that high population growth has the effect of producing continuously increasing economic growth, all else being equal….and this economic growth is touted as being of a benefit to us all when it is in fact just providing more and more of the same standard of living for the increasing population that is creating it.

There might be some advantages for the whole community due to economies of scale, but there are also disadvantages due to the over utilisation of infrastructure and services.

Overall, using economic growth or Gross Domestic Product as indicators of our national and average personal wellbeing is terribly misleading.

Politicians know this….or at least those with half a brain do. So what’s really going on here? Are they deliberately framing language in a misleading manner by perverting or at least never clarifying the meaning of growth and a few other key words? Or are they doing this subconsciously? Or a bit of both from different people?

“I believe that as soon as the reasoning behind sustainability is examined, it crumbles.”

Diocletian, the reasoning behind it is very basic. It seems as though you are making it out to be a whole lot more complex than it is.

At any rate, do you think it would be the right thing to not strive to achieve a sustainable society….and to just go on living in a highly unsustainable manner? That of course would mean that we would all either have to face a breakdown of society and/or undertake huge energy and resource consumption reductions and greatly simplify our lives.

You seem to be saying that we shouldn’t even be attempting to address sustainability issues….or even entertain any rational discussion on the matter… because the term is somewhat hard to define or is used in different sense by different people and that some people have framed their language in such a way as to present quite a different meaning to the word sustainability.

Let’s not worry about the nitty gritty of definitions or of perversions of the meaning of some words by those with vested interests in continuing on our highly unsustainable path. The concept is rock solid. And the need to address it is of the utmost urgency.

"It seems as though you are making it out to be a whole lot more complex than it is."

The other possibility is that you have not realised how complex it is.

You do realise you're talking about the entire human economy, and the entire world ecology?

If it's not so complex, perhaps you could list the steps that would be necessary to ensure ecological sustainability?

Nothing you have said has either established your argument or refuted mine.

“Nothing you have said has either established your argument or refuted mine”

Diocletian, the very fact that you gave a rather detailed and well-considered explanation (which I fail to comprehend I’m afraid) of problems that you perceive with addressing sustainability, sits at stark odds with your assertion that “the idea of 'sustainability' hardly qualifies as rational discourse”.

I mean, of course it needs serious and detailed discussion. It is just about the most important thing facing humanity isn’t it? Even if it is enormously complex, that is no reason to ignore it. Surely I don’t need to establish an argument to corroborate this.

“…perhaps you could list the steps that would be necessary to ensure ecological sustainability”

Well, we’ve established the basic principles. So now what we need is a government that is willing to take them on as its primary platform. In order for that to happen, we need a populace that will vote in such a government and support them all the way. And in order to get the public to really take up the cause of achieving a sustainable society, we need scientists, politicians, journalists and various other commentators to really start pushing the urgency of not outgrowing our resource base.

As things get tougher, I think that this will suddenly accelerate, in much the same way as the climate change issue has, after some years of simmering away in the background.

Then when the majority of ordinary people and politicians are onside, great things can happen very quickly….especially when the future is looking bleak if we don’t change our wicked ways fast.

In some ways it is happening now. Advances in fuel efficiency and alternative energy use are progressing quite quickly. But in other ways we are pushing against sustainability very strongly, not least with our enormous rate of immigration and worship of continuous growth.

Other countries will do this at the same time. The whole world will change quite fast. However, it won’t be enough to avoid major upheavals. But after experiencing economic and social catastrophes, we will redouble our efforts.

from
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9405-encyclopedia-of-all-human-gene-mutations-planned.html

About 100,000[human;gene-mutations]have been discovered,but this total represents[only]about 5% of the predicted total number of mutations>>>>[so please explain where are the benifitial ones predicted by evolution]seems to me evolution is about bad/mutations killing its genus off]

>>Genetic Mutations Offer Insights on Human'evolution'single"letter"changes[in the'3-billion-letter transcript']that makes up each-person's-genome.Every individual carries tens of thousands of these variations.{LOL}Some do not change the"words"that are the genes;some change a word but not its meaning;and some change the meaning in a way that can be beneficial or harmful

Each person's collection of these'changes'called"single nucleotide polymorphisms,or SNPs)contributes to his/her individuality.People with a common ancestry,however,tend to have similar collections of SNPs(pronounced"snips").

Genetic Mutations Offer'Insights'on Human Diversity/Genetic Mix Along the Ethnic Divide"There is no single gene,no single DNA marker,that would distinguish one population from another,"Myers said.Instead,[he said,"it is a pattern,like']a bar code with thousands[billions]of lines on it,"that allows researchers to tease apart the fine points of'relatedness'among populations...

..With such diverse and abundant starting material,[900]the researchers were able to sketch a picture of ethnicity far more detailed than previously known....>>thus clearly its about supporting racism[based on-a invalid EVOLUTION theory]

<<"Each group carried only a subset of the genetic variation from its ancestral population...there is a loss of genetic diversity with the distance from Africa,.."Rosenberg said>>so we are DE-volving![so where the increase of'genomic-material'come from[as evolution claims?.

>Carlos D.Bustamante of Cornell University and his colleagues measured SNPs in 20 European Americans and 15 African/Americans.They found that the'average'person carries at least 2,000 SNPs that change the meaning of a genetic"word."However, in the European/Americans, a larger proportion of those changes were'likely'to be unhealthy or unfavorable.>>>lol<<The reasons for this curious finding are not fully known,although there are theories.>>lol

The chief explanation is that the ancestors of'Europeans'(and most white/Americans)suffered repeated population"bottlenecks"in which their'numbers'crashed as result of epidemics,environmental catastrophes..and genocide.Each time that happened,the population lost a lot of its genetic/diversity'simply'because a lot of people died.[lol]

The survivors,like their ancestors,carried a certain random collection of..deleterious SNPs--genes that caused disease or increased the risk of disease...LOL

But if they were potentially bad,why weren't they flushed out by natural selection?>>LOL

continued at
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2411&page=0
human evolution-where to next?]

Ludwig

What you are saying assumes what is in issue, both:
1. whether sustainability is a problem in fact, and
2. whether the policy responses proposed will make the situation better not worse.

Assuming what is in issue means the argument is circular, which means it’s not logical.

You might think that the sustainability problem is so obvious that it goes without saying. If it’s obvious, it should be easy to prove. But you haven’t done that yet.

I’m sorry I didn’t express my idea about policy responses so that you comprehended it. The idea is simple. In order for our actions to be ecologically sustainable, we need a way of knowing that we are not wasting natural resources.

For example, if we’re going to fund the planting of a tree, we need to know that we’re not cutting down three trees to provide the funds; and similarly with all other production activities. Most humans now live by very long, complex production methods involving the co-operation of many people who don’t know each other, for example the making of a tractor – there’s the metal, the rubber, the fuel and so on. So how are we going to know whether we’re wasting natural resources in a given productive activity or not?

The very least we are going to need is a method of figuring out whether the inputs of an action are less than the outputs, or not. That is economic calculation: figuring whether the costs of an action are greater than the benefits.

Total government control would mean the abolition of economic calculation, because it depends on private property, which is what would be abolished to achieve total government control. This means that production activities will be much more environmentally destructive than they are now.

But less than total government control will leave us with the original problem – that people’s uncontrolled freedom to use natural resources is not sustainable.

So we still haven’t identified what government could *do* to ensure sustainability, consistent with not causing the deaths of large numbers of people

Suppose the populace voted in the government and gave it full power to do whatever it took to ensure sustainability.

You are assuming that the problem of how to produce food, shelter and clothing for the human population will just be solved unproblematically after we have summoned up the political will to empower government to fix the sustainability problem.

But the sustainability problem involves a need to control human action that uses natural resources – which is virtually all human action.

You are not considering the possibility that government is not capable of solving the problem because it’s too big and complex. Even if we mounted an armed guard on each person 24/7, government still doesn’t have, and cannot ever get the knowledge it would need to manage the world economy *and* the world ecology, which is what it would need.

But if I am wrong, then what is the knowledge that government would need? Please answer specifically, don’t just refer to absent authority. You still have not listed the steps that would be necessary to ensure ecological sustainability.

You just assume that governments must know what to do.

They don’t.

Just as you don’t know what to do to manage the whole world, and just as government is not magic, so they don’t know what they would need to do to feed, clothe and shelter the population, let alone to do that *and* ensure ecological sustainability.

And that is to assume you have established the original problem, which you haven’t

you are quite correct diocletian,we should be putting up specific meaning on what we expect govt to do[and not do]so in this spirit i offer a few suggestions in the field of logging

a tree has thousands of leaves[each leaf makes/converts oxigen[to cut the tree down you need to pay for all the carbon that[that]releases as well as plant back into the system the appropriate leaves[currently the leaf deficite of thousands of leaves is'fixed'by planting a 6 leaf seedling

but look at what else we lost with the tree

its roots brought up[and transpired, into our atmosphere vast quantities of water[its root may be hundreds of feet down[cutting off the tree from the root, causes damage to the unseen water table unseen

[why cant the branches of the tree be grafted back onto the root?

thing is the tree will[could be made to regrow]yet more than half [70 percent?}of it is simply burned[alternativly,we should alocate coups to individuals[who are individually responsable for the carbon debt,cutting'their'trees down created

also we arnt fully recycling[but in the 70's there was a fad[you might remember it[of paper clothing, now that wasnt viable because the paper was wood pulp[hemp paper can easilly be washed, its BANK-note quality[and once used can be recycled[but here is the kicker,

if one quater of the area logged last year alone[was planted with'hemp'that will meet all our paper needs;no more wood chip depleting old growth and the logging companies getting the murdered for-rest[land]for free[that provides an income for the coup owner[and provides excelent ground cover[and/plus carbon capture]

plus the seeds alone have 5000 other uses[making everything from plastic to icecream,[oil;you can eat]as well as paper/fibre;clothing building material etc

anyhow im finished with this debate

i guess we will have to wait longer for sanity to return[hemp is the tree of life[rev 22]but who would have believed the fruits of the tree of life [growing on the darling[the river of life]run's not to 12[one each month[but hundreds each month]30,000 per year

indeed'set my people free'[drug war'victims'of conscience,and i will explain what they are

Diocletian, give me a few days and I'll give you a full response. I'm travelling around at the moment and just quickly stopping in at internet cafes.

I'll just say this; in order for you to substantiate your claim that sustainability hardly qualifies as rational discourse, you need to very strongly indicate that the alternative is better. The alternative is to not even attempt to address sustainability.

Now of course that is not a better thing. We simply MUST address this issue.

But yes, you are right - there is the potential for making things even worse if we don't address the issues properly.

The main problem here is the same thing that I see happening with climate change - we are addressing the issues in a piffling manner, thus placating the concerns of many worried people while essentially allowing the same old polluting habits to continue, just with a bit of a green tinge. A bit of a reduction in GHG emissions could ultimately be a lot worse for us, as it will serve to stretch out the high emissions period and could lead to a bigger crash event.

But even with the quite considerable potential of worsening the situation by addressing sustainaiblity in the same sort of way, we have to try. We can't do nothing.

An interesting piece but I'm still chucking over the idea that the US party represented by Bill "I did not have sexual relations with that women" Clinton did not know how to frame language.

The article would have had more meaning if it was not trying to portray reframing language as a liberal/conservative initiative.

Both sides do it and have done it for a long time both here and in the USA.

R0bert

Ludwig

“in order for you to substantiate your claim that sustainability hardly qualifies as rational discourse, you need to very strongly indicate that the alternative is better.”

No I don’t. Whether an idea is rational has nothing to do with the practical alternatives. If I say “bees make milk, and cows make honey, so therefore we should buy furniture from a camel”, that is not logical, right? Whether it is logical comes down to the internal relations of ideas. It’s got nothing to do with whether the other furniture-buying alternatives seem better.

“The alternative is to not even attempt to address sustainability.”

Yes, that is a logical alternative.

“Now of course that is not a better thing. We simply MUST address this issue.”

That’s the issue. That’s what you need to prove. If you simply assume it, the argument is circular, which means it’s not rational.

“But yes, you are right - there is the potential for making things even worse if we don't address the issues properly.”

Yes. For example, if we cut fuel energy use by fifty percent without being able to substitute for it, hundreds of millions of people will die. This is not a joke. There is a distinct possibility that “doing something” may be worse than not doing something about it. That’s the whole point.

“But even with the quite considerable potential of worsening the situation by addressing sustainaiblity in the same sort of way, we have to try.”

No we don’t.

“We can't do nothing.”

Yes we can.

This assumes (a) that you have established the problem in the first place, which you haven’t, and (b) that you have established that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, which you haven’t.

Now your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to prove that ecological sustainability is a problem that justifies using force - the law - but in making your argument, you're not allowed to assume what is in issue, okay? You've got to prove it without assuming it as a premise.

dio [that deserves its own topic] but lets try anyhow,you said quote<<This assumes[a)that you have established the problem in the first place,which you haven’t,>>

the problem seems to me that govt wants more tax money to prop up capitalism with more bail outs

their solution is to sell us on glabal warming [that became global cooling[due to the sun not co-operating and having two huge sunspot non events over the last two years[causing little ninio] and snow in north america[and expanding poles[yet the polar bears are supposed to be drowing [but all that ice, how come ?, because the climate change comes from the sun[putting more energy[heat into the planet in one day than all our fossil energy can in a year

>>and (b) that you have established that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages,which you haven’t.>> ok lets be honest the capitalists need this tax to rebuild industry ,but i say stuff em [time the elites began paying taxes[see the poor pay the carbon tax[the poluters get free permits to polute] then big buisness applies fot the tax to do buisness as usual]

>>Now your mission,should you choose to accept it, is to prove that ecological sustainability is a problem that justifies using force - the law - but in making your argument,you're not allowed to assume what is in issue,okay?

You've got to prove it without assuming it as a premise.>>

huh? but it is a premise
the science dont stack up
how does carbon tax stop methane[and polution by micro particulate emited by petro chemical [or the benzine put into our pertochemical as a lead replacement[both causing our cancers, assisted by MICRO waves emited by our mobile phones giving us cancers, in the thyroid and brains?

One Under God

The US government is not bailing out capitalism, they are bailing out specific companies, at the expense of everyone else in the country. They are violating the property rights of the entire population in an attempt to bail out a system of central economic planning of the economy, based on trying to force interest rates below the market rate, for reasons of 'social justice'. It is a mistake to call this by the name of capitalism. It is anti-capitalist, and whether you call it socialism or fascism you need to understand that the only thing that can protect us against this kind of legal scamming and political favouritism is private property, individual freedom, sound money and little or no taxation or government - real capitalism. The attempt to centrally plan the economy, or even a part of it, must fail because it violates economic laws that it is simply not open to governments to repeal, no matter how much vanity or force they bring to bear .

As for sustainability being the premise, that's fine, but the premise has to be proved in its own right. The conclusion of an argument can't be assumed as a premise, otherwise it's not logical.

By the way, your style is very hard to comprehend. All those square brackets don't do much for clarity.

dio i will try to modify, i agree with most of what you say, but would like to add some things,this colapse was set up post 911..

[there were bailouts then ,that set this one up]..and 911 was mainly about shutting down the enron trial..[its 'evidence' was all in building 7] as well as a few billion's of gold that simply 'disappeared'] ..a busche was in charge of security in the buildings [brought down by thermite planted during renovations]

but back to the credit crisis

there were 800 billion of bad mortgauges[but these were leveraged into 50 trillion of insured underwritten 'securities'..thus the insurance went bust..[also turned into securities are things like a hydro sceme way up north[i forget its name][a tiny country;less than one million..

[anyhow many govts [state'govts too got sucked into this securitisation sceme [estimaTES SAY up to 5 QUADRILLION]total

the second wave is meeting margin calls [something the bail out has allowed to delay]but watch the credit market keep tightening up[we are presumed to see the banks consolidating up the smaller players; up to one third will shut shop this year[reportedly]

i know qld govt lost heaps

anyhow i agree the very selective resque..[favoured those who used to work for them..[who now disperse the aid] the 800,billion has been leveraged into 3 trillion so far, wonderfull power owning the fed[by the 12 banks running it audit free..[its not govt and not public;result no audit

all these numbers..[but a mere 800 billion only is blamable upon the poor[their mortgauges insuror's should have covered them..[it was the market who did the big vile stuff]

as long as we value paper ,we are assured that in the end time thats all that will be left to eat

cheers

Diocletian, you wrote;

“What you are saying assumes what is in issue, both:

1. whether sustainability is a problem in fact, and

2. whether the policy responses proposed will make the situation better not worse.”

The first point – most definitely. The second point – the assumption is that it absolutely has to be addressed. Implicit in that is the belief that addressing it will improve the situation, but there is the possibility of making it worse, which we all have to be very mindful of, and thus make sure that our approach is a good one.

“You might think that the sustainability problem is so obvious that it goes without saying. If it’s obvious, it should be easy to prove. But you haven’t done that yet.”

And I don’t intend to. Is there anyone who thinks that on global or national scales that failing to live sustainably and thus continuing to run down our resource base and quality of environment is a good idea or an acceptable strategy, or anything less than an appalling way of running our social and economic paradigms? No.

In all my discussions on OLO over the last three years and various other media for twenty years, I haven’t struck anyone who has come straight out and poo-pooed sustainability. Not even the most rampant rednecks and pro-expansionists attack the basic philosophy.

Why you feel the need for it to be proven or strongly substantiated is very perplexing.

continued

“ …how are we going to know whether we’re wasting natural resources in a given productive activity or not?”

It is not just about the efficient use of resources, it is also very much about the ever-increasing demand from ever-increasing population and the desire for higher rate of per-capita consumption in order to increase quality of life, amongst huge populations such as China and India.

“The very least we are going to need is a method of figuring out whether the inputs of an action are less than the outputs…”

We don’t need intricate calculations. We can see what is happening without them.

“Total government control would mean the abolition of economic calculation.”

Why do you say this? Who’s talking about total government control? It is not about government dictating lines of action to the people, it is about getting the populace of whole countries predominantly onside with the need for certain actions and outcomes.

Of course it will be hard…..and very easy to essentially do nothing, with just a bit of tinkering around the edges, until we all suffer very greatly from our inaction.

But we don’t have the option of doing absolutely nothing. The awareness of the sustainability problem is out there and rapidly gaining momentum. Governments and whole societies ARE doing stuff. This will continue to increase. No government in any country where this momentum is taking hold has the option of doing nothing. If they try, they’ll soon be booted out or pressured into some form of action.

Such negativity Diocletian! Your whole premise is that it is too hard and therefore we shouldn’t bother trying….or at least not until intricate calculations have proven the need for sustainability. Am I right in this interpretation?

You seem to be quite misfocussed. Why not put your mental energies into how we can best achieve a sustainable future instead of insisting that the bleeding obvious needs proof before any actions should be taken?

haste makes waste?

The Greenhouse Gas
That Nobody Knew

When industry began using NF3 in high-tech manufacturing, it was hailed as a way to fight global warming.

But new research shows that this gas has 17,000 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide and is rapidly increasing in the atmosphere – and that's turning an environmental success story into a public relations disaster.
by richard conniff

Hypothetical question: You’re heartsick about global warming, so you’ve just paid $25,000 to put a solar system on the roof of your home.

How do you respond to news that it was manufactured with a chemical that is 17,000 times stronger than carbon dioxide as a cause of global warming?

It may sound like somebody’s idea of a bad joke. But last month, a study from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography reported that nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), with a global warming potential of 17,000, is now present in the atmosphere at four times the expected level and rapidly rising.

Use of NF3 is currently booming, for products from computer chips and flats-screen LCDs to thin-film solar photovoltaics, an economical and increasingly popular solar power format.

Moreover, the Kyoto Protocol, which limits a half-dozen greenhouse gases, does not cover NF3. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change now lists it among five major new greenhouse gases likely to be included in the next phase of global warming regulation, after 2012.

And while that may be reassuring, it also suggests the complicated character of the global warming problem.

In fact, NF3 had become popular largely as a way to reduce global warming. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began actively UC Irvine researchers noted that NF3 is one of the most potent greenhouse gases known and persists in the atmosphere for 550 years.

encouraging use of NF3 in the 1990s, as the best solution to a widespread problem in making the components for everything from cell phones to laptop computers.

article in full here
http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2085