Re: AMD's well may be running dry
- From: "Dr. Dweeb" <spam@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 13:17:30 +0100
JF Mezei wrote:
Andrew wrote:
Of course most environmental scientists now think that Kyoto is to
little too late hence the EU's unilateral agreement to implement more
stringent targets than required by Kyoto.
Refusing to sign Kyoto today because you feel it isn't enough is like
refusing to buy a PC today because you know that in a couple of months,
they'll release a newer, faster PC.
Kyoto provides a framework that allows countries to start acting
today. And *ANY* reduction (or slowed growth) delays the sigificantly
negative impacts such as flooding of manhattan by many years.
It is a bit like a huge asteroid on a collision course with earth.
The sooner you can start to change it course, the less you need to nudge
ot so
it will avoid earth.
Kyoto has also provided a focus/metric to measure performance.
Canada's actual performance has been dismal for instance (mostly
because of the oil sands processing in Alberta). And in Europe, they
realised that they needed much stronger legistlation to get things really
done.
Nevertheless, even in Canada (but especially in europe) there have
been many positive improvements at the town or regional level. There
have been many trials of various stuff that have proven effective. There
have been many
building systems and designs that have been tested, some proving very
effective, others not so effective. And this is providing a knowledge base
to help in
reaching the goals.
There isn't going to be a magic bullet that solves the issue. It will
be a large number of small initiatives that each make their small
contribution which will end up providing a large enough reduction.
What is really needed is a per capita CO2 emission target adjusted
for latitude (to take into account heating costs for survival in
winter). And you also need a "fossil fuel added tax" similar to a VAT to
help for fair
accounting.
What is needed is real science instead of "climatologists" postulating
cause-effect and then trying to prove it, and having failed, using the
political process to sell the idea anyway.
When you drill for oil, you sell the oil with a fossil fuel tax on it.
The refiner buys oil to be refined and buys oil to fuel the refining
process. The refined product is sold with a tax that combines both.
The steel maker buys refined oil and pays that fossil fuel tax. When
it sells the steel to the car manufacturer, it includes that fossil fuel
tax.
The car manufacturer then also buys oil to fuel its car assembly
plants and the fossil fuel taxes from all the products that go into the
car are combined.
When the car is sold, the owner ends up paying for the total carbon
footprint that was used to manufacture the car. The beauty of this is that
if
that car is exported to another country, it is the person in the
other country that inherits the responsability for the car's carbon
footprint and it affects that country's per capita carbon footprint.
(just discussing manufacture it, not
use).
Similarly, when someone buys fuel at a petrol station to power
his/her car, they pay the end carbon tax on the refined fuel (just
like the steel maker did). But being the end user, they can't deduct
it and it goes against that country's per capita CO2 consumption.
Lets assume for a minute that the USA had a positive trade balance,
and generated 25% of the world's pollution. Americans citizens should
not be penalised for the carbon emissions generated when producing widgets
that are exported to canada, mexico or anywhere else. It is the
importers that should be penalised.
But a company that is highly inefficient and which consumes a lot of
oil to produce a widget will not be as competitive as one which is far
more
efficient since the more efficient one will have a smaller carbon tax
attached to the product.
There would have to be some exceptions such as companies that
sequester oil products (plastics, vaseline, lubricants etc). Those do
not get burned so they should get a refund on the carbon tax for the
amount of fuel they sequester (but still pay the carbon tax generated
when the raw oil was refined before being delivered to them).
.
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