Posts by Paul Campbell
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Well one example if you like is the US federal tax system where marginal rates go up to 33% then drop back to 28% somewhere near $200k+ - their idea is that the 33% hump fills in the lower progressive rates below $100k effectively giving a flat tax for the rich and a progressive one for the poor (er, not so rich) - of course the US has so many tax avoidance boondoggles that this is all kind of moot
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probably worth noting the recent IEEE spectrum issue on the singularity - lots of good stuff in there on the off chance you were hoping to upload soon
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"The driest thinker condemned by the wettest urge." - poetry I tell you
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I have a similar approach to junk patents - "would you be proud to explain it to Edison" - sadly only 2 of mine honestly pass that test
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yup - Kyoto is IMHO all about not making it worse - what we really need to start doing is pumping carbon (any carbon) back under the ground - want a radical thought? stop recycling newsprint, start throwing it in landfills, same with plastic bags, don't burn old wood landfill it
We actually want to raise the value of sequestered carbon to encourage making more of it - this will also raise housing and newsprint costs but it will also encourage people to grow more trees and raise the value of sequestered carbon in the form of houses
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Mathew you're right in one sense - but the Kyoto stuff works because carbon is carbon - the atoms of carbon from oil reserves are exactly the same as those from grass - it's OK to release N units of carbon over here if you have the credits from some one who fixed N units over there.
So people growing pasture ought to be able claim credits for the carbon they are fixing (but not for example for that contained in fertiliser or feed from elsewhere).
That all works if it's all CO2 - methane's a much worse global warmer (quick web search gives 20 times - lets just assume that number for this example) than CO2.
So if you're fixing CO2 but releasing it as CH4 then for every unit you release you probably need to purchase 19 units of carbon credits to add to the 1 credit you got for your fixing of 1 unit of CO2
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Of course what we all really want to know is - "how does this relate to the price of blocks of cheese?"
The Greens really want the dairy farmers to be spending some of their new found wealth cleaning up their environmental act - pushing them from both ends is not IMHO a smart move even if it is populist and able to get the media's attention
(Mind you the alternative is for the Greens to be pushing the oil companies to drop their prices - I bet the seemingly hour long ad that Shell have just started running pisses them off)
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Shep: all that study really says is SMOKING is bad - what does it say about brownies? (I'd guess 'fattening' rather than cancer)
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I'll go further - I think that zero-tolerance is DANGEROUS because if we tell our kids "all drugs are evil" and they go and try a few that aren't they aren't going to believe us when we go on about the truly evil ones (like tobacco and P) - probably the best thing we can do is to keep our kid's trust and keep talking to them - not convince them we're full of shit.
That also makes it easier to make nuanced arguments like "it's OK to drink until you're a little silly but remember it takes a while to kick in ,so stop before you have too much, because by the time you notice it will be too late and you wont have any fun" - this sort of message might not register the first time (they're teenagers they actually often have to make mistakes to learn) but it's the sort of life lesson you want them to learn and if they're still listening then the first time they don't have any fun you get to repeat it and hopefully it will sink in
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("do you hear that IRD? I paid for that research trip to the US out of my own money .... it wasn't a holiday honest")