As a parting gift, I grant to you a thread wherein hopefully new user thegoldenrul will explain to us his theories on chemtrails.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhsAemn1pKU

He's been collecting some Groundbreaking Intel.

At best, we may have finally brought back our little buddy salisburyboy.

4/17/2013 7:29:43 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberbullying

4/17/2013 8:41:07 AM

Chemtrails are the term used to describe a declassified government program known as Geoengineering which uses a myriad of different technologies to manipulate the weather, alter the electromagnetic atmosphere for telecommunications purposes and to, according to those who perpetrate this, reflect sunlight so as to combat "global warming."

These aren't MY theories, but rather admitted declassified programs that have been going on since at least world war II.

Weathermodification.com - a company who specializes in cloud seeding and weather modification:
http://www.weathermodification.com/

List of Weather modification clients:
http://www.weathermodification.com/projects.php#projects

Citations: UN Weather Modification Convention & Treaty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_modification#1977_UN_Environmental_Modification_Convention

Cloud Seeding to induce rain & other weather:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding

Stanford teaches classes on geoengineering:
http://gcep.stanford.edu/research/geoengineering.html

4/17/2013 12:09:50 PM

you posted a video of chemtrails in NC though, so you do believe that contrails from commercial jets are chemicals being spread

4/17/2013 12:12:07 PM

There are contrails (condensation trails) which do appear behind jets in certain atmospheric conditions.

But then there are chemical sprays that are specifically designed to release compounds into the atmosphere....

There is a difference between the two. It's not a matter of belief, but a matter of distinction and understanding about the two phenomena.

4/17/2013 12:14:02 PM

See guys, he believes in chemtrails! Quick, marginalize him before any worthwhile discussion occurs!

4/17/2013 12:18:04 PM

lol...I believe in them like a god!! He's a believer!!!

4/17/2013 12:18:43 PM

^^ he posted a video of contrails as evidence of chemtrails

what is the non-marginalizing response to that?

4/17/2013 12:23:50 PM

Quote :

"Chemtrails are the term used to describe a declassified government program known as Geoengineering which uses a myriad of different technologies to manipulate the weather, alter the electromagnetic atmosphere for telecommunications purposes and to, according to those who perpetrate this, reflect sunlight so as to combat "global warming.""

I am actually in favor of this, which is, a program of mitigating warming by releasing aerosols into the upper atmosphere. Commercial flights would almost never be high enough altitude FWIW, the entire point of Sulfur Dixoide proposals is that you take advantage of the extremely high resonance time at those altitudes, which corresponds to less acid rain. Yes, it still results in acid rain, but what matters is the amount of cooling we can get per the amount of damage.

Even if you were going to do it with commercial flights, you would limit it to the highest altitude flight portions, which are no where near the airports and cities where contrails are reported. It would probably happen over the ocean and real scientists would be able to detect it.

Doing this could stop the increase in temperature of the Earth, but a more balanced approach is to slow the increase. It also needs to be weighed against the other options in an open economy, which is exactly why we need a price on Carbon. We also need a price on temperature, ocean acidity, and all the components of negative externalities.

I watched the "What are they spraying" documentary. You don't need to have my background to discredit it, all you have to do is keep watching and wait for the next 10 minutes of the film to contradict the last 10 minutes.

4/17/2013 12:27:54 PM

You think we should put a price on carbon? As in carbon dioxide or just carbon?

4/17/2013 12:33:06 PM

Quote :

"See guys, he believes in chemtrails! Quick, marginalize him before any worthwhile discussion occurs!"

you keep saying things like this. why don't you try to add something that will produce a "worthwhile discussion"?

4/17/2013 12:39:56 PM

^^ Of course, a price on CO2 in the atmosphere. I think the terminology of just 'carbon' is used because if you remove it from the atmosphere it likely isn't CO2 anymore. That is, you could get paid by the number of Carbon atoms you sequester, if that was your business.

4/17/2013 1:12:14 PM

^

So, just to be clear, you want to assign a price to the gas that humans and all life everywhere exhale? How does one pay the price on this? Is it a selective tax on some people but not others? Or would this mean a global tax on every single person so we all collectively pay for the concentration of C02 in the atmosphere?

Just trying to understand your position.

4/17/2013 1:15:49 PM

haha wow.

I'd think this guy was a giant troll, if it weren't for public meeting minutes showing his name.

It's amazing how people who no technical knowledge or expertise or understanding at all think they get technical subjects.

I guess this is the nature of the bell curve though.

4/17/2013 1:21:50 PM

How do you know I have no technical knowledge or understanding? And on what subject do I not have said knowledge or understanding? Forgetting for a moment what a vague comment you made I am sure some would agree I do demonstrate some technical knowledge and understanding.

What have I said which would indicate otherwise?

I'm a real person who has lived in the triangle my entire life, and I really doubt you would say such a thing if you met me in person and were able to have a conversation with me. You'd probably learn something.

4/17/2013 1:36:23 PM

CEMS on every nostril and mouth

4/17/2013 1:37:32 PM

Quote :

"So, just to be clear, you want to assign a price to the gas that humans and all life everywhere exhale? How does one pay the price on this? Is it a selective tax on some people but not others? Or would this mean a global tax on every single person so we all collectively pay for the concentration of C02 in the atmosphere?"

The highest prices for Carbon reasonably discussed are on the order of $75 / ton of CO2. For a human made of flesh, the approximately 1 kg of CO2 exhaled would amount to around 8 cents per day, or $28 per year.

Sure, you could tax that although it would almost certainly be pointless since almost all proposed uses of the revenue are for effectively progressive purposes, with many people proposing that it should just go out as a check to every citizen. Other people will probably yell and scream that respiration emissions don't make sense to tax. I'm not as compassionate. They make as much sense from a material-flow standpoint to tax as biofuels do. Or roughly so, it depends on farming practices.

Of course, the respiration point is irrelevant because most poor Americans can't afford to either stop breathing or driving to work. The point is that, even for low prices of carbon, we have dozens of valid technological solutions ready to go. Without the concept of a price on carbon, we have no way to pay for them. The tax revenue wouldn't even need to directly pay for solar plants, for instance. Instead, taxing the fossil fuel plants will make an economic niche for the solar plants. Then if we managed to not murder each other for a full generation, we will have made the transition to carbon-free energy and our species can continue living without destroying the biosphere.

[Edited on April 17, 2013 at 2:04 PM. Reason : ]

4/17/2013 2:02:19 PM

Quote :

"I'm a real person who has lived in the triangle my entire life"

Except for the 4 years you were at UNCW learning about film studies and psychology?

4/17/2013 2:34:20 PM

Yep

4/17/2013 3:33:25 PM

He lives in Durham and drinks well water

[Edited on April 17, 2013 at 3:34 PM. Reason : in parkwood apparently]

4/17/2013 3:33:37 PM

Mr.Frog,

Do plants inhale C02 when they respire?

[Edited on April 17, 2013 at 3:38 PM. Reason : typo]

4/17/2013 3:37:52 PM

Plants don't inhale

4/17/2013 3:41:32 PM

^^ Indeed they do, just as their leaves or plant matter decay and releases CO2 back into the atmosphere when they die.

4/17/2013 3:55:14 PM

Exactly why I'm totally confused why anyone is so afraid of C02. Seems like a pretty natural part of the life cycle and thus not a threat to anyone whatsoever.

I think we need to take care of the earth which does include deployment of new energy technologies (which we already have, but aren't using), however it seems self evident that taxing C02 is akin to taxing life altogether.

But I guess if you're of the persuasion that there are "too many people on the planet," and we should tax respiration... then the ideology makes a lot of sense. It only makes sense to destroy life in order to save the biosphere.

[Edited on April 17, 2013 at 4:11 PM. Reason : typo]

4/17/2013 4:09:31 PM

The universe is big compared to the biosphere. The Carbon we emit came from the ground, it was not in the biosphere. It was likely from ancient seabeds lined with dead organic material, but these molecules have not been an active part of life for millions of years.

If biology is a feather, then geology is a mallet. Changes in the physical boundaries of life on Earth can, and do, wreck havoc on life and cause mass extinctions.

No one even advocates for per-industrial levels of anything. We don't want 250 ppm of CO2. I'm not worried about 350, or even 450 ppm. I'm worried about 750 ppm, and possibly higher. Our extraction abilities are improving to keep pace with the economy, and there is enough Carbon in the crust of the Earth to wreck the planet many times over. If I'm lucky, I'll probably survive until maybe 2070, and perfectly credible scenarios will put us around 750 ppm at that time.

If you divide out all of our CO2 emissions up to 2010 by the entire landmass of Earth, you get something like 2 kg per every square meter. Cycle? What cycle? Where do you think that goes? In order for plants to absorb everything we put in the atmosphere, the ground level of the entire Earth would literally have to increase visibly.

4/17/2013 4:43:05 PM

"CO2 is natural, it can't possibly be bad"

4/17/2013 4:57:19 PM

fluoride is natural, but that dude really really hates fluoride

[Edited on April 17, 2013 at 5:15 PM. Reason : like... really hates]

4/17/2013 5:14:50 PM

For fuck's sake, it is CO2, not C02. Moron.

4/17/2013 5:15:08 PM

just a lil' FYI, it's called "CO2" with the letter O (it stands for Oxygen)

I'm looking at you, thegoldenrul


^^Don't resort to the "it's natural so it's safe" argument, I mean arsenic and ricin are all-natural too

[Edited on April 17, 2013 at 5:17 PM. Reason : ^what he said

4/17/2013 5:16:28 PM

i think my point went sailing past you

4/17/2013 6:13:29 PM

^^^ I0I

4/17/2013 6:17:35 PM

|-(o)-|

         (-o-)

    |-(o)-|

tie fighters

4/17/2013 7:11:03 PM

forgot this

)-(o)-(

4/17/2013 7:12:51 PM

Quote :

"The universe is big compared to the biosphere. The Carbon we emit came from the ground, it was not in the biosphere. It was likely from ancient seabeds lined with dead organic material, but these molecules have not been an active part of life for millions of years. If biology is a feather, then geology is a mallet. Changes in the physical boundaries of life on Earth can, and do, wreck havoc on life and cause mass extinctions. No one even advocates for per-industrial levels of anything. We don't want 250 ppm of CO2. I'm not worried about 350, or even 450 ppm. I'm worried about 750 ppm, and possibly higher. Our extraction abilities are improving to keep pace with the economy, and there is enough Carbon in the crust of the Earth to wreck the planet many times over. If I'm lucky, I'll probably survive until maybe 2070, and perfectly credible scenarios will put us around 750 ppm at that time. If you divide out all of our CO2 emissions up to 2010 by the entire landmass of Earth, you get something like 2 kg per every square meter. Cycle? What cycle? Where do you think that goes? In order for plants to absorb everything we put in the atmosphere, the ground level of the entire Earth would literally have to increase visibly."

So if I understand the position:

mrfrog wants to use global economic sanctions (carbon tax) NOW on every man, woman & child on earth in order to engineer how much total carbon dioxide exists in the atmosphere. Why? out of fear of a future theoretical global catastrophe that might happen because 750ppm of C02 will cause the earth to reach some breaking point he has projected in a classroom whereby the earth will shake all of humanity & creation off of its surface.

Nevermind where mrfrog got the dictatorial economic authority to tax such a thing, he would use it to levy a tax on all business every where (carbon tax). In essence his global tax scheme would create REAL poverty the very next day by lowering the standard of living for everyone, which we know in a totally untheoretical & factual sense causes the death of men women and children.
Starvation causes death.
Poverty causes death.

By putting a price on a gas part of the life cycle on earth mrfrogs central economic planning would literally be used to kill humans now, to prevent them from possibly being killed later... all in the name of saving the earth!

I'm glad you're not and won't ever be in charge.

[Edited on April 17, 2013 at 7:51 PM. Reason : typo]

4/17/2013 7:51:09 PM

Quote :

"forgot this )-(o)-("

chubby tie fighter!

Quote :

"Nevermind where mrfrog got the dictatorial economic authority to tax such a thing"

This problem was solved in 1996. The authority is national governments. It's the same as every academic discussion of environmental externalities. Any program is inherently voluntary, although other nations maintain their own authority to impose tariffs if a trade partner isn't making an equivalent effort. And they should! I don't want the US to lose jobs because to China because we take better care of the environment than them (although we do currently). The fact that this is a global issue doesn't even change that.

Quote :

"would use it to levy a tax on all business every where (carbon tax)"

We already tax fossil fuels. We tax gas to pay for roads. The accounting is dramatically easier than you give it credit for. Energy commodities are traded in bulk and they would be taxed in bulk. The machinery already exists. Regulators already have their nose in every ounce of oil and natural gas that goes to market.

I had my own skepticism about the use of a Carbon tax, as opposed to just doing the gas tax. I've conceded that the former is better, because you have to say what you mean. This is why I hate the opposition to the Keystone XL. You can't fight a global issue like this fuel-by-fuel, project-by-project. We need to tax Natural Gas, and oil, and coal, and anything else that contributes to changing the greenhouse properties of the atmosphere. There's no way to do this unless you have a clear and widely understood rule-making process. Thus, a price on Carbon.

Quote :

" In essence his global tax scheme would create REAL poverty the very next day by lowering the standard of living for everyone, which we know in a totally untheoretical & factual sense causes the death of men women and children. "

I actually pretty fully ascribe to Bjørn Lomborg's positions. Not what he was saying in 2007, but what he is saying in 2012. He is a skeptic in the truest sense, I mean selling books arguing against that global conspiracy is what he does. The argument you just tried to make is what he spent a career making.

He supports a price on Carbon.

He's not in favor of a big one, but he agrees with the basic principle. In essence, it's an optimist position. He supposes that at a price way lower than what we entertain today, people will figure out some way to innovate to fix global warming. That's perfectly fine, he could be right.

In the end, a price on Carbon is the only way to have the discussion. Frankly, aggressive subsidies of renewable energies is politically impossible, particularly in the US. That's why the parameters of the discussion have to be set. If we can't agree on the basic principle of a price on Carbon, then we will never ever be able to address the problem. The question is if you believe it's a problem, period. If you do, what can you possibly see as a reasonable course of action if a Carbon tax isn't? I've tried to answer that question, and I can't.

We could see disaster at the hands of the alarmists. You have to have market mechanisms, and if you're protesting pipelines, while at the same time not taxing the consumption of fossil fuels in any way then that will lead to disaster. Ultimately, it just increases the profit margins of the oil companies that don't have to deal with that resistance. The reason we have that opposition, which amounts to nearly economic terrorism, is because we can't get the cohesion across for the simple thing. I don't even care what we decide the price on Carbon is.

Global warming could destroy us, but pretty much because of our ideological fragmentation. Imagine a world 10 years after I'm dead in 2080. If no action had ever been agreed upon to address global warming (which is hasn't, this was Copenhagen), then the severity of geo-engineering crash programs that might happen is terrifying. People on both sides are unhelpful, I'm starting to see that more often. But people like Lomborg who have genuinely tried to have a honest but skeptical discussion have come to the same kind of conclusion I have.

4/17/2013 8:43:59 PM

i'm still curious what the non-marginalizing response is to youtube contrail videos

4/18/2013 7:46:23 AM

it gets harder to ignore when you have intelligent friends of your own who bought into it.

Sometimes I find conspiracy theorists adorable. Particularly the Glen Beck type. It's very easy to be a non-cute wacko. All of them come down to over-blow strawmen. They see what their opponents say as a part of a larger agenda, and the characterizations grow and grow. Sooner or later, they imagine those political opponents in secret meetings planning the wold takeover.

4/18/2013 8:49:18 AM

Quote :

" ^^ he posted a video of contrails as evidence of chemtrails what is the non-marginalizing response to that? "

Haha

[Edited on April 18, 2013 at 9:38 AM. Reason : ]

4/18/2013 9:37:59 AM

maybe we can keep HOOPS MALONE's spirit alive and use this thread to post conspiracy theories?

I just saw this link in cc. This guy ais 100% positive that the marathon bombing was staged and double-amputee guy was an actor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bYIso97pBE&feature=youtu.be

4/21/2013 9:57:25 PM

4/21/2013 9:59:46 PM

Welp, mrfrog is back here to argue with himself. Or maybe with the invisible Bjorn.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323735604578436283452099120.html

Quote :

"Most economists agree that a carbon tax equal to the damage caused by CO2 would, in principle, be sound. But according to the biggest meta-study of 311 published estimates, the most likely damage cost of CO2 is about $5 per ton. Thus, a higher price (as the EU attempted, or as California and Australia are now seeing) wastes resources."

This is perfectly valid.

Quote :

"A carbon tax—which, indirectly, is exactly what the cap-and-trade system tries to impose—only makes sense in a global setting. The EU (and the other cap-and-trade systems in Australia, South Korea and California) likely "leaks" a large part of its much-touted national emission cuts. The EU has reduced its national emissions since 1990 by 12%—but increased its imported emissions almost exactly as much."

Also totally true, but the non-global nature can be compensated for. Tariffs are necessary when a trading partner is demonstrably undercutting your environmental standards. If they're only trashing their own environment we might chalk it up to spilled milk, but climate change is a truly global environmental issue.

By not participating in cap-and-trade, the US is effectively taking advantage of the EU's economy... to an extent. Like I was saying, a stronger statement could be made for China. Bjorn also makes decent points about gaming the system with third world nations.

[Edited on April 22, 2013 at 11:40 AM. Reason : ]

4/22/2013 11:39:38 AM

Quote :

"Like I was saying, a stronger statement could be made for China"

Why? China is implementing a preliminary trading program in several of its provinces and is supposed to have a nation wide program by 2015. They are even in discussions with Australia on creating a trading partnership.

It remains to be seen how effective their program will be at actually reducing carbon emissions, but currently I think it's fair to say that China has done more to reduce carbon emissions than the US. The US is slowly isolating itself on this issue; our politicians love to blame other countries for dragging their feet on carbon, but the fact is we are the primary country attempting to delay any progress.

4/22/2013 12:07:51 PM

If the system goes global China's starting block is behind that of the US, the EU, or just about any major economic power for that matter. There's no way around this. How the rules are written around that is subject to the will of our politicians. There's no right or wrong way to do that.

The initial entrenchment was a centerpiece of much of Kyoto and other agreements. The logic is that if you start at X emissions, then you're not penalized for staying there, only rewarded for going lower.

Economically, this accomplishes the intent. The task of emissions reduction is only dependent on the price differential. The starting points are irrelevant.

Quote :

"I think it's fair to say that China has done more to reduce carbon emissions than the US"

I think that is fair to say in a number of respects. They've put lots of capital in renewables, efficiency, conservation, and a massively aggressive nuclear program. China has the most to lose from global pricing of CO2, so these make sense.

In our defense, there have been state and local attempts at a carbon credit market. Of course, without the weight of law these are fairly meaningless.

Our utilities are already bracing for a price on Carbon. If you listen to the executives, they know what's up and see the strategic problem with investment in carbon-intensive plants. The only ones who don't see the writing on the wall are our politicians.

4/22/2013 12:47:57 PM