In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
@2:18 I thought I was listening to a scene in American History X....
On the environment I really am not trying to beat a dead horse so I'll say that the Right has found ways to not oppose every environmental protection legislation attempt, and I will join in celebrating that.
But lets go ahead and move onto now. What would conservatives say are 3 of the top 10 conservative/republican proposals to either continue environmental protections or improve/expand them?
@2:18 I thought I was listening to a scene in American History X....
On the environment I really am not trying to beat a dead horse so I'll say that the Right has found ways to not oppose every environmental protection legislation attempt, and I will join in celebrating that.
But lets go ahead and move onto now. What would conservatives say are 3 of the top 10 conservative/republican proposals to either continue environmental protections or improve/expand them?
What's a 'proposal to continue environmental protections'? You want a new bill to state that you like the current law?
it's easy to manufacture some picture of improving environment when you only focus on the developed world. most of the rest of the world is lacking in basic human rights to care about the environment, because the national governments/governing elites are free to pile up pollution with no regard for the peasants.
when you export pollution it does not disappear, nor does it make the developed world innocent to the whole polluting process. rather it's just a way national level environmental protection, which at the end of the day is about securing basic rights to the environment that everyone enjoys, is eroded.
cue "but the poor peasants are still improving life by having cadmium dumped in their backyard." that kind of thinking takes the lowest possible standard of behavior as the point of comparison, rather than the possible range of action the exporting places are faced with. built into the desperation of the 'hellholes' and the 'my trash is actually charity' places are sets of political and social facts about each place.
in the hell hole, not only is there desperate poverty, but more importantly there is lack of government (here a stand-in for law making power) concern for the population. in the developed paradise, ideology like high abstract free trade that frames the exchange of toxic waste as trading between sets of preferences. it's high black comedy and enough for one to lose any sort of faith in humanity.
but yea anyway the point is by taking the poverty/desperation/legal vacuum in certain places for granted, you are of course complicit in making those places as bad as possible. just because a place has no protection for the environment of its own people does not then mean they have to have cadmium in their water. that they do is thanks to globalization as we have it.
@2:18 I thought I was listening to a scene in American History X....
On the environment I really am not trying to beat a dead horse so I'll say that the Right has found ways to not oppose every environmental protection legislation attempt, and I will join in celebrating that.
But lets go ahead and move onto now. What would conservatives say are 3 of the top 10 conservative/republican proposals to either continue environmental protections or improve/expand them?
What's a 'proposal to continue environmental protections'? You want a new bill to state that you like the current law?
Edit: not that I'm interested in your game...
Well you picked the one of three options that you didn't understand and chose to ignore the other two, so I had already presumed you weren't interested in mentioning the proposals/support of current legislation that must exist in the 21st century from a group of people, who according to some here, have been so engaged in environmental protection.
The theoretical idea behind ethanol subsidies was to put in place an industry out of nowhere that converted plants into fuel. The idea was that sooner or later the technology would switch to other more natural grass sources which are higher in fuel densidy. Then we'd have oil companies with a financial incentive to promote more underdeveloped fields and to replant them when they're harvested much like the logging industry.
Conservatives have been putting tons of money into things like the Department of natural resources which is a government agency which is financially incentive to create habitat for wild animals and improve the environment in each state. Its made fishing and hunting worlds better in Minnesota and has allowed for the introduction of new species of salt water fish to thrive in the great lakes.
Capitalist things like the DNR putting cinder blocks at the bottom of the corners of rivers to create nesting groups for fish to fight erosion is both beneficial to the public as a whole and to the department doing the world. This is the model that conservatives want to help the environment.
Things are never going to get better if you just po po the entire world and say no to everything like the sierra club does these days. The corporations arn't complex in what they do in any way. You have to accept that and work it so that they want to help you.
@2:18 I thought I was listening to a scene in American History X....
On the environment I really am not trying to beat a dead horse so I'll say that the Right has found ways to not oppose every environmental protection legislation attempt, and I will join in celebrating that.
But lets go ahead and move onto now. What would conservatives say are 3 of the top 10 conservative/republican proposals to either continue environmental protections or improve/expand them?
I can't answer for conservatives, but for libertarians I recommend Propert and Environment Research Center and the work of groups like RMEF. The best way to handle environmental concerns is through torts and contracts (e.g. property rights). The same goes for things like ESA (where conservation and expansion of population is best handled through ownership rights).
@2:18 I thought I was listening to a scene in American History X....
On the environment I really am not trying to beat a dead horse so I'll say that the Right has found ways to not oppose every environmental protection legislation attempt, and I will join in celebrating that.
But lets go ahead and move onto now. What would conservatives say are 3 of the top 10 conservative/republican proposals to either continue environmental protections or improve/expand them?
Actually, I found it incredible that the two callers don't mention the Anglo-Saxon race. I guess WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) isn't the term it used to be. In the history of American discrimination, "white" as a stand-alone term is pretty meaningless because WASPs have not been particularly kind to Irish, Germans, Italians, Catholics, or Jews either.
Too bad the callers couldn't point out that JFK's Catholicism was a much bigger campaign issue than Obama's heritage ever was (both men were superior politicians and overcame it anyways). America has substantially evolved its views on race and perhaps it has been too much at the expense of the dark history of discrimination against European groups.
On July 05 2014 01:59 kwizach wrote: I'm not sure what your point is, aksfjh. Do you agree with Simberto who quite clearly explained why JonnyBNoHo's graph did not support his statement?
Simberto was incorrect. My statement was that CO2 emissions are falling and the graph showed that.
My other statement was that the environment was getting cleaner and I showed an emissions graph to prove my point. If you look at the source, the EPA, they have on the same page an air quality index as well as data on emissions. While those are two different things, they track each other very closely. For example, from 1980 and 2012 lead emissions are down 99% and the air quality index on lead is down 91% (down being good). Because they're so closely linked, there should be no problem using one as a proxy for the other, particularly when the EPA only made the sexy graph for emissions.
You posted that graph showing CO2 emissions were declining slightly in the context of a discussion on whether or not the environment was getting cleaner. It supports Igne's point "the environment is getting dirtier more slowly" and not yours. It's a pretty sterile discussion in any case considering neither of you laid down which variables you think are relevant to assess how dirty the environment is, and which "environment" you're talking about.
The U.S. will remain the world’s biggest oil producer this year after overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia as extraction of energy from shale rock spurs the nation’s economic recovery, Bank of America Corp. said.
U.S. production of crude oil, along with liquids separated from natural gas, surpassed all other countries this year with daily output exceeding 11 million barrels in the first quarter, the bank said in a report today. The country became the world’s largest natural gas producer in 2010. The International Energy Agency said in June that the U.S. was the biggest producer of oil and natural gas liquids.
“The U.S. increase in supply is a very meaningful chunk of oil,” Francisco Blanch, the bank’s head of commodities research, said by phone from New York. “The shale boom is playing a key role in the U.S. recovery. If the U.S. didn’t have this energy supply, prices at the pump would be completely unaffordable.”
Oil extraction is soaring at shale formations in Texas and North Dakota as companies split rocks using high-pressure liquid, a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The surge in supply combined with restrictions on exporting crude is curbing the price of West Texas Intermediate, America’s oil benchmark. The U.S., the world’s largest oil consumer, still imported an average of 7.5 million barrels a day of crude in April, according to the Department of Energy’s statistical arm.
On July 05 2014 01:59 kwizach wrote: I'm not sure what your point is, aksfjh. Do you agree with Simberto who quite clearly explained why JonnyBNoHo's graph did not support his statement?
Simberto was incorrect. My statement was that CO2 emissions are falling and the graph showed that.
My other statement was that the environment was getting cleaner and I showed an emissions graph to prove my point. If you look at the source, the EPA, they have on the same page an air quality index as well as data on emissions. While those are two different things, they track each other very closely. For example, from 1980 and 2012 lead emissions are down 99% and the air quality index on lead is down 91% (down being good). Because they're so closely linked, there should be no problem using one as a proxy for the other, particularly when the EPA only made the sexy graph for emissions.
You posted that graph showing CO2 emissions were declining slightly in the context of a discussion on whether or not the environment was getting cleaner. It supports Igne's point "the environment is getting dirtier more slowly" and not yours. It's a pretty sterile discussion in any case considering neither of you laid down which variables you think are relevant to assess how dirty the environment is, and which "environment" you're talking about.
I also posted a graph on aggregate emissions, a data table on air quality, showed that forests have been regrowing and a graph of LA's smog days.
People who disagree with me have posted zero data.
DENVER (AP) — An obscure, chicken-sized bird best known for its mating dance could help determine whether Democrats or Republicans control the U.S. Senate in November.
The federal government is considering listing the greater sage grouse as an endangered species next year. Doing so could limit development, energy exploration, hunting and ranching on the 165 million acres of the bird's habitat across 11 Western states.
Apart from the potential economic disruption, which some officials in Western states discuss in tones usually reserved for natural disasters, the specter of the bird's listing is reviving the centuries-old debates about local vs. federal control and whether to develop or conserve the region's vast expanses of land.
Two Republican congressmen running for the U.S. Senate in Montana and Colorado, Steve Daines and Cory Gardner, are co-sponsoring legislation that would prevent the federal government from listing the bird for a decade as long as states try to protect it.
"Montanans want locally driven solutions," Daines said in an interview. "They don't want bureaucrats thousands of miles away in Washington, D.C., dictating what should happen."
Environmentalists and the two Democratic senators being challenged, John Walsh in Montana and Mark Udall in Colorado, oppose the idea. They say they don't want a listing, either, but that the threat of one is needed to push states to protect the bird.
"A bill like what some in the House are proposing that would delay listing the bird would actually undermine locally driven efforts," said Udall spokesman Mike Saccone.
On July 05 2014 01:59 kwizach wrote: I'm not sure what your point is, aksfjh. Do you agree with Simberto who quite clearly explained why JonnyBNoHo's graph did not support his statement?
Simberto was incorrect. My statement was that CO2 emissions are falling and the graph showed that.
My other statement was that the environment was getting cleaner and I showed an emissions graph to prove my point. If you look at the source, the EPA, they have on the same page an air quality index as well as data on emissions. While those are two different things, they track each other very closely. For example, from 1980 and 2012 lead emissions are down 99% and the air quality index on lead is down 91% (down being good). Because they're so closely linked, there should be no problem using one as a proxy for the other, particularly when the EPA only made the sexy graph for emissions.
You posted that graph showing CO2 emissions were declining slightly in the context of a discussion on whether or not the environment was getting cleaner. It supports Igne's point "the environment is getting dirtier more slowly" and not yours. It's a pretty sterile discussion in any case considering neither of you laid down which variables you think are relevant to assess how dirty the environment is, and which "environment" you're talking about.
I also posted a graph on aggregate emissions, a data table on air quality, showed that forests have been regrowing and a graph of LA's smog days.
People who disagree with me have posted zero data.
Imported lumber going up and at more than a third of national demand. You post US numbers about things with no global context. Talk about growing US forests when we import more than a third of the lumber we use ad the rainforest is being leveled to grow soy to sell to Americans.
On July 05 2014 01:59 kwizach wrote: I'm not sure what your point is, aksfjh. Do you agree with Simberto who quite clearly explained why JonnyBNoHo's graph did not support his statement?
Simberto was incorrect. My statement was that CO2 emissions are falling and the graph showed that.
My other statement was that the environment was getting cleaner and I showed an emissions graph to prove my point. If you look at the source, the EPA, they have on the same page an air quality index as well as data on emissions. While those are two different things, they track each other very closely. For example, from 1980 and 2012 lead emissions are down 99% and the air quality index on lead is down 91% (down being good). Because they're so closely linked, there should be no problem using one as a proxy for the other, particularly when the EPA only made the sexy graph for emissions.
You posted that graph showing CO2 emissions were declining slightly in the context of a discussion on whether or not the environment was getting cleaner. It supports Igne's point "the environment is getting dirtier more slowly" and not yours. It's a pretty sterile discussion in any case considering neither of you laid down which variables you think are relevant to assess how dirty the environment is, and which "environment" you're talking about.
I also posted a graph on aggregate emissions, a data table on air quality, showed that forests have been regrowing and a graph of LA's smog days.
People who disagree with me have posted zero data.
Imported lumber going up and at more than a third of national demand. You post US numbers about things with no global context. Talk about growing US forests when we import more than a third of the lumber we use ad the rainforest is being leveled to grow soy to sell to Americans.
According to your first source we mainly import from Canada:
2011 US imported 9.3 billion board feet of softwood lumber and Canada exported 8.8 billion board feed to the US. Canada's forests aren't shrinking either, so the point still stands.
On July 05 2014 01:59 kwizach wrote: I'm not sure what your point is, aksfjh. Do you agree with Simberto who quite clearly explained why JonnyBNoHo's graph did not support his statement?
Simberto was incorrect. My statement was that CO2 emissions are falling and the graph showed that.
My other statement was that the environment was getting cleaner and I showed an emissions graph to prove my point. If you look at the source, the EPA, they have on the same page an air quality index as well as data on emissions. While those are two different things, they track each other very closely. For example, from 1980 and 2012 lead emissions are down 99% and the air quality index on lead is down 91% (down being good). Because they're so closely linked, there should be no problem using one as a proxy for the other, particularly when the EPA only made the sexy graph for emissions.
You posted that graph showing CO2 emissions were declining slightly in the context of a discussion on whether or not the environment was getting cleaner. It supports Igne's point "the environment is getting dirtier more slowly" and not yours. It's a pretty sterile discussion in any case considering neither of you laid down which variables you think are relevant to assess how dirty the environment is, and which "environment" you're talking about.
I also posted a graph on aggregate emissions, a data table on air quality, showed that forests have been regrowing and a graph of LA's smog days.
People who disagree with me have posted zero data.
Imported lumber going up and at more than a third of national demand. You post US numbers about things with no global context. Talk about growing US forests when we import more than a third of the lumber we use ad the rainforest is being leveled to grow soy to sell to Americans.
According to your first source we mainly import from Canada:
The big importer is China:
Holy crap soy imports have exploded since the 90's! I hear a lot about soy being good/bad but nothing about why it's more than tripled in imports?
On July 05 2014 01:59 kwizach wrote: I'm not sure what your point is, aksfjh. Do you agree with Simberto who quite clearly explained why JonnyBNoHo's graph did not support his statement?
Simberto was incorrect. My statement was that CO2 emissions are falling and the graph showed that.
My other statement was that the environment was getting cleaner and I showed an emissions graph to prove my point. If you look at the source, the EPA, they have on the same page an air quality index as well as data on emissions. While those are two different things, they track each other very closely. For example, from 1980 and 2012 lead emissions are down 99% and the air quality index on lead is down 91% (down being good). Because they're so closely linked, there should be no problem using one as a proxy for the other, particularly when the EPA only made the sexy graph for emissions.
You posted that graph showing CO2 emissions were declining slightly in the context of a discussion on whether or not the environment was getting cleaner. It supports Igne's point "the environment is getting dirtier more slowly" and not yours. It's a pretty sterile discussion in any case considering neither of you laid down which variables you think are relevant to assess how dirty the environment is, and which "environment" you're talking about.
I also posted a graph on aggregate emissions, a data table on air quality, showed that forests have been regrowing and a graph of LA's smog days.
People who disagree with me have posted zero data.
Imported lumber going up and at more than a third of national demand. You post US numbers about things with no global context. Talk about growing US forests when we import more than a third of the lumber we use ad the rainforest is being leveled to grow soy to sell to Americans.
According to your first source we mainly import from Canada:
The big importer is China:
Holy crap soy imports have exploded since the 90's! I hear a lot about soy being good/bad but nothing about why it's more than tripled in imports?
I guess China just really likes itself some soy?
I think it has a lot to do with higher incomes leading to higher calorie diets and more protein consumption.
If I recall correctly most soy goes into animal feeding (which China probably had to ramp up extremely as they got richer over the last decade) and oil production, but I'm not completely sure.
On July 05 2014 01:59 kwizach wrote: I'm not sure what your point is, aksfjh. Do you agree with Simberto who quite clearly explained why JonnyBNoHo's graph did not support his statement?
Simberto was incorrect. My statement was that CO2 emissions are falling and the graph showed that.
My other statement was that the environment was getting cleaner and I showed an emissions graph to prove my point. If you look at the source, the EPA, they have on the same page an air quality index as well as data on emissions. While those are two different things, they track each other very closely. For example, from 1980 and 2012 lead emissions are down 99% and the air quality index on lead is down 91% (down being good). Because they're so closely linked, there should be no problem using one as a proxy for the other, particularly when the EPA only made the sexy graph for emissions.
You posted that graph showing CO2 emissions were declining slightly in the context of a discussion on whether or not the environment was getting cleaner. It supports Igne's point "the environment is getting dirtier more slowly" and not yours. It's a pretty sterile discussion in any case considering neither of you laid down which variables you think are relevant to assess how dirty the environment is, and which "environment" you're talking about.
I also posted a graph on aggregate emissions, a data table on air quality, showed that forests have been regrowing and a graph of LA's smog days.
People who disagree with me have posted zero data.
Imported lumber going up and at more than a third of national demand. You post US numbers about things with no global context. Talk about growing US forests when we import more than a third of the lumber we use ad the rainforest is being leveled to grow soy to sell to Americans.
According to your first source we mainly import from Canada:
2011 US imported 9.3 billion board feet of softwood lumber and Canada exported 8.8 billion board feed to the US. Canada's forests aren't shrinking either, so the point still stands.
Also, the US is a large soybean exporter:
The big importer is China:
Fair enough about the specifics. I was just guessing because I'm not at my computer.
America too busy growing corn for idiotic ethanol production such that Chinese are buying soybeans from Brazilians. It's not that surprising to see some limited environmental improvement in rich countries when they can get the resources cheaper from third world places.
The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) seminal study of preventable medical errors estimated as many as 98,000 people die every year at a cost of $29 billion. If the Centers for Disease Control were to include preventable medical errors as a category, these conclusions would make it the sixth leading cause of death in America.
Now that we’ve compared the risks, let’s examine how the government chooses to allocate our limited resources to combat these threats. To the least likely means of death I’ve mentioned, terrorism, the federal government devotes about $150 billion annually. On the other hand, to combat the most likely cause of death, heart disease, the government contributes only $2 billion. And just $300 million is devoted to research on the third most likely cause of death, strokes.
So looking at it another way, we spend $500 million for every death from terrorism and only $2,000 for every death resulting from strokes. That means we spend 250,000 times more per death on terrorism.
The numbers aren't precise but the pattern is evident.
What the hell is wrong with us? I don't think how colossal of a mistake going into Iraq was, can be overstated. Considering how much those top causes cost us in lives and healthcare costs, and how many of those deaths are directly related to legal substance abuse, not only does it make our substance laws look completely stupid, it illustrates how it's not just a matter of spending too much but how much, where. Also that keeping people alive/safe isn't why we are 'fighting terrorism'
well with these cause of death stuff it is highly misleading to not include years of expected life lost. a guy having a heart attack at 105 years old died because he's 105.
this fantasy of death being absolutely in need of prevention at any age is absurd and costly, not only in terms of wasted money but also because it distorts priorities.
EPT![[image loading]](http://cornandsoybeandigest.com/site-files/cornandsoybeandigest.com/files/imagecache/galleryformatter_slide_penton/gallery_images/US-soybean-domestic-use-exports.png)
![[image loading]](http://www.farm-equipment.com/wysiwyg/images/webarticles/2012_04/Global_Soybean_Imports.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/p1V0c4T.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HwwQ7fQ.jpg)
