Only 18 percent of survey respondents strongly believe that climate change is real, human-caused and harmful.
Yes you read that correctly, it is all in this article on the Nature Conservancy webpage. And that goes along with what was discovered in June this year by the newspapers UK Guardian and Observer, which reported that:
The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans – and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem…
The Nature Conservancy story citing 18 percent, is citing the American Climate Values Survey (ACVS), conducted by the consulting group EcoAmerica It also found that political party affiliation is the single largest indicator as to whether people see climate change as a threat.
It seems it is all political, as there are some other fascinating tidbits. For example:
- Convinced it’s happening: 54 percent of Republicans, 90 percent of Democrats.
- Think that weather has gotten more severe: 44 percent of Republicans; 77 percent of Democrats.
- Noticed the climate changing: 54 percent of Republicans; 84 percent of Democrats.
- Trust Al Gore when he talks about global warming: 22 percent of Republicans; 71 percent of Democrats.
- Trust environmentalists who talk about global warming: 38 percent of Republicans; 71 percent of Democrats.
- Trust anyone who talks about global warming: 39 percent of Republicans; 75 percent of Democrats.
h/t to Tom Nelson
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Question: How does stealing my employer’s money benefit my family?
A man once said “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
Wealth is not created from the bottom up. If it were, Cuba should be the wealthiest country on the planet; lots of “spreading of the wealth” over there. What makes anyone think a Soviet style economy in this country will work any better than it did in…..the Soviet Union? Alas, maybe it is because the correct individual hasn’t been in power yet, like a man in an empty suit who thinks he has the right to take from those according to their ability and give to those according to their need?
Many thanks to Mr Philip (09:34:52) for the link to the ACVS’s report. What an interesting document it is.
As I suspected, the questions they asked do not even pretend to be neutral. They conflate global warming and pollution, promote all things labelled (by them) as “green” to be beneficial, isolate oil and gas companies for criticism and presume global warming to be (i) a fact, (ii) caused by human activity and (iii) controllable by human activity.
There is no evidence from that report of the survey being anything other than an attempt to get answers to suit their preconceptions. This is hardly surprising, the tag-line under the organisation’s name on the title page is “Moving Toward a Tipping Point”.
Yet still they did not get the answers they wanted.
“I believe in lower taxes for the common person” Pamela
Then she goes into a riff on how spreading the wealth is obviously good for the economy. Maybe, to a point, once in a while. But as a permanent thing, taking money from successful people and giving it to people who don’t work for it grinds down the incentive to work.
I used to listen to a show on NPR by this guy who lived in Hungary under communism. He said that he and his friends, who were all intellectuals, took jobs as street sweepers, since they paid the same as any other job, and the jobs left them with plenty of time for their art, or writing, or cafe discussions. This was an enormous waste of human capital. Eventually, they were all so poor they overthrew their govt.
It removes the incentive to find better, more productive jobs that are worth more to the society as a whole. Then the society gets poorer. Not tomorrow, but year by year, it gets poorer. Go to Europe sometime and really look around.
You show me the first society that ever became successful through “trickle up” What will really be created is inflation. Wait and you will see. This stuff has all been tried, and it has never worked anywhere. I remember Jimmy Carter. I am betting you don’t, since you are spouting all the same ideas that got us 18% mortgage rates, economic stagnation, unemployment rates around 10%, stuff you can’t even imagine if you weren’t there. This is why I always laugh when Democrats say “This is the worst economy in 50 years.”
When we had all those horrific economic numbers above, we had a Democratic pres, Jimmy Carter, a filibuster proof 60 Democratic votes in the Senate and the Democrats ran the House. And we had a lot of people in govt who believed these ideas you are peddling.
Re Paul Maynard’s: “Enough venting. Apologies.”
Paul, vent all you like. It is nice to see that there are like minded folks in the UK. From what I read in UK papers and hear on BBC world news here in the states, one might think you were all in the AGW (and associated nonsense) bag.
Just wondering if you understand, moptop, that the greatest single threat to American prosperity, stability, and freedom is the national debt?
The largest portion of that debt was incurred under your “conservative” pals — Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. “Conservatives” hate big government and taxes, on principal, except in their grown-up moments. Such as September 12, 2001, when most people with an ounce of maturity understood that a strong federal government that could protect its people was a necessity.
Such as September 2, 2005, when we saw what had happened to New Orleans, and what was happening there still.
Such as right now, today, when we see the depth to which our economy has sunk under “conservative” governance and “oversight.”
By the way, your “conservative” government has not managed to find or kill Osama bin Laden, and the war in Afghanistan has been hideously mismanaged, to wage a war of non-necessity in Iraq.
Steering the economy away from the shoals we’re on will cost money. Winning the war in Afghanistan, and bringing bin Laden to justice, will cost money. Paying down the national debt will cost money.
The ONLY source of that money is taxes. Mark my words: Obama will be hoodwinked to some extent by Gore, and I’ll fight against it as I’m able. But he will also succeed in Afghanistan where Bush has failed, do something about New Orleans, pull the U.S. back from the brink of economic collapse, and pay down the national debt.
Whether your like it or not.
John D.
Pseudoscience is based on belief, that’s why AGW is belief based.
Yet still they did not get the answers they wanted.
Har! Har!
Sharp pen . . .
Just wondering if you understand, moptop, that the greatest single threat to American prosperity, stability, and freedom is the national debt?
On the other hand, most nations of the world would kill to have a mere 9 months’ worth of GDP in debt. And much of that is borrowed at VERY low interest rates, at that, an extremely important consideration.
Sure, it’s a problem, but we have had much worse and no doubt will have worse in the future.
Here is what creates jobs. Demand for stuff. And if you have money in your pocket, you will go out and buy more stuff. This seems so simple.
Partly, yes, partly. But the main way one gets that money in one’s pocket is that someone invests in a business and pays one to produce said goods (organize the sales, keep the books, etc.), thus both creating demand AND putting the money in your pocket. (As a teacher, your economic role is to enable the young to become capable of holding those jobs. Teachers have roles other than merely economic, of course.)
Without the investment and production, the money in your pocket is worthless. Rand was wrong about paper money. First, precious metals fluctuate, often wildly. Second, paper money is a sacred contract representing the concentration of valuable productive effort. Inflation affects both silver and gold. It’s all about money supply vs. available goods. You work, and as a result, you are given a paper (or purely electronic) contract (i.e., money) for your worthy efforts, to be redeemed now or in the future.
But it’s not the money itself that provides jobs. It was jobs that created that money in the first place–and endowed it with value.
It seems to me that the discussion about taxes and pay has got people talking at cross-purposes, often agreeing with each other although they might think they are disagreeing.
I suspect all those who have taken part in that debate would agree with the following: (i) income taxes imposed on low incomes should not so high that they discourage people choosing to work rather than rely on welfare or charity, (ii) there are certain things that only government can do and which must be paid for by tax (such as the army, navy, air force, police), (iii) government should not waste money, (iv) income taxes on higher incomes should not be so high as to be a disincentive to enterprise and (v) we all have different talents which command different levels of remuneration.
The debate is about the balance between these various factors (and, no doubt, many others).
The single biggest problem is the amount taken out of everybody’s pay cheque by difference between the amount government raises through tax and the amount it spends on beneficial works. Three main factors contribute to this.
First, central government (whether federal or state) is not an efficient means of spending money because the money has to go through so many layers before it it spent on something worthwhile. This bureaucratic maze is, for the most part, unavoidable because Washington cannot directly administer a project in Arizona; it must delegate the administration or it must fly its own people down there and house them; either scenario adds cost. Equally, the state Capital cannot directly administer a project in an outlying town without spending more money than it would spend administering the same project on its doorstep.
Secondly, government was elected on a platform, part of which was certain pet programmes. There might or might not be of any real benefit but they must be carried through for perfectly sound political reasons – their supporters will expect them and their opponents will damn them if they renege on an election promise. They are often hugely expensive.
Thirdly, government gets the blame when things go wrong, so it feels the need to micro-manage as much as it can get its hands on. This, again, is an inevitable consequence of democratic government in a 24-hour news society – particularly now that the web has added to the ways in which we can discuss, air and hone our opinions.
Until there is a public mood to restrict government expenditure and government micro-management, the problem will remain.
This just in:
Global warming is destroying Thoreau’s Walden Gardens!!!
How does one prove that the damage is due to global warming?
Never? Lets go back prior to Carter. The settlement of the west: Gold rush time. Miners had cold hard cash in their pockets. Not a lot. But enough. And they worked pretty damned hard at getting it. But then they needed to buy stuff in order to keep working pretty damned hard to get more cash. Demand for stuff went up. Shops were opened. Shops couldn’t keep inventory on the shelf. More inventory was ordered. Stores were expanded and more clerks were employed. Money flowed. Wealth was created. Trickle up. In fact, if the government would get out of the way of the lower wage earner, we could whip this ol’ economy into shape in no time. Tell you what, you let us know which ones of those corporate owners who don’t want our money, and we will respect that by not giving it to them. The common person has a history of providing for those who want to buy stuff. We’ll give it to those people. Been there, done that.
Now let’s focus on your thoughts related to “taking from successful people and giving it to people who don’t work for it”. Big business and rich individuals got a tax break under the Bush admin. This tax break was not balanced by a tax increase somewhere else and it didn’t spure the economy because there were better less risky places to put the windfall. No jobs were created, and besides, demand for goods continued to slide because no one had a bit of cash in the pocket to buy goods. To make matters worse, Bush then began spending money he no longer had and didn’t balance his checkbook. Do I have this right? Now that’s good fiscal policy. Boy, I really want to continue with that program. Not.
Let’s try giving a tax break to the other end this time around. I promise we will give it right back to you instead of putting it away in less risky places. I can pretty much predict that when tax breaks are given to the lower wage earners, nearly all that money will flow right back through the economy almost immediately. However, when it is given to the upper layer, that money gets salted away in dividends and tax-sheltered 401k plans. Why? Because the upper layer has enough extra cash on hand to buy the stuff they need PLUS salt quite a bit away. The lower wage earner does not. So the common person’s tax break will go right back into the general economy which is serviced by small businesses. Who create the lion’s share of new jobs. And keeps the ol’ US of A ticker going. Just like it did out west.
This is so easy to understand I don’t see why people don’t get it.
Ooops. Here’s the link.
Your top tax payers are far fewer in number so the money in their pockets won’t stimulate the economy because there just aren’t enough of them.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying, but not that. The top 1% pay 40% of federal income tax revenue. (It was only 23% in 1986 and 33% in 2002.) The top 10% pay well over two thirds. They invest huge amounts (directly or indirectly) in the production of goods and services, and hire many, many millions to do so (and keep track of it all).
Most of the non-top taxpayers are supported by the structure created by the top taxpayers.
Big business and rich individuals got a tax break under the Bush admin. This tax break was not balanced by a tax increase somewhere else and it didn’t spure the economy because there were better less risky places to put the windfall. No jobs were created, and besides, demand for goods continued to slide because no one had a bit of cash in the pocket to buy goods. To make matters worse, Bush then began spending money he no longer had and didn’t balance his checkbook. Do I have this right?
Aak! Not right! (Not that I blame you. You have been flat-out lied to with AGW-style perversity. Allow me to explain.)
According to Senate Democrat figures (indexed for inflation), income/cap gains tax revenues dropped 22% from 2000 to 2003. The top tax rate was reduced from 39.6% to 38.6%, a mere 2.6% cut. To blame the drop in revenues on the Bush tax cuts, you have to show me how a 2.6% cut resulted in 22% less revenue!
The fact is that the revenue turnaround came in the last half of 2003. That’s when the capital gains tax rate was cut by 25% (from 20% to 15%, and 5% across the board for lower brackets). There was such a roaring recovery that the “loss” in revenues was made up for in a mere six months!
And that was when jobs began to recover (by the millions) with a lower unemployment rate than under Clinton.
The last part of the “tax cuts for the rich” came in 2006, when the top rate was cut from 37.6% to 35%, a full 7% cut. Did revenues drop 7%? Heck no! Revenues exploded–a whopping 27% gain over 2005! Why did this happen? Because tax rates are so high, they are KILLING production. And to lower them increases productivity so much that revenues go up rather than down. That is the basis of the Laffer Curve.
If taxes are too low, a tax cut reduces revenues. But if tax rates are too high, a tax cut INCREASES revenues. This utter nonsensical rot about “paying” for tax cuts when the tax rates are already so high is far more absurd than CO2 positive feedback theory.
I believe that the tax imbalance is part and parcel of the trickle down theory. Large businesses are paying more and more of the tax burden because we have fewer smaller businesses in operation paying any taxes. But lowering taxes for larger businesses will not fix that. Small businesses haven’t been able to stay afloat because no one is buying. Therefore there are fewer small businesses paying taxes. There are also fewer wage earners paying taxes or buying stuff. So if you want to balance who is paying taxes, re-open smaller businesses. And they will do that on their own if people have money to give them.
Basic economics calculate that producing lots of lower priced goods and services for the majority of spenders (who earn wages below $250,000) is a more stable economic system then producing expensive goods for the few. The tax breaks should be given to smaller businesses and lower wage earners. If you do that, we will keep our end of the bargain and bring better balance to who is paying taxes.
I believe that the tax imbalance is part and parcel of the trickle down theory.
There is technical word for “trickle-down economics”. That word is “economics”.
But lowering taxes for larger businesses will not fix that
Yes it will. And when businesses are taxed less, they produce more and sell more–at lower prices. Producer and consumer split the difference. More trickle-down.
Small businesses haven’t been able to stay afloat because no one is buying.
They must be. (They employ over two thirds of the workforce.) But yes, some are in trouble (and so are big businesses, too–look at the auto industry).
Yes, I agree with you–cut their taxes, too. More goods produced, more money to workers. Then they can cut prices and folks will buy. Just the same as with big businesses. And revenues will INcrease, not decrease. We have GOT to stop strangling the golden goose!
And don’t knock those luxury items; they are almost always produced by the middle class. Look at the micro-middle class disaster when Clinton put the 10% luxury tax on yachts. The rich just bought ’em from Europe and the middle-class US yacht-building industry was flattened.
Remember, Reagan cut the top rate from 70% to 28%, and all rates across the board. And by 1988, revenues were UP 28% (factoring in inflation) and 18% (throwing in population increase). Business exploded to the extent that both the employment rate AND the UNemployment rate were going up simultaneously (20 million new jobs were created)!
This is not liberal vs. conservative. It’s just a matter of what works best.
A cold snap has sent temperatures plummeting across Spain and brought some heavy snowfall with it. In Madrid and Barcelona, flights have been grounded and train services disrupted. Here, cattle can be seen plodding along a snowy road in the Pyrenees, where motorists have been forced to fit snow chains to their cars.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7695975.stm
The north east of Scotland has had its first significant snowfall of the winter, causing icy conditions on many roads but it has not deterred some people from going out and enjoying the wintry conditions in Aviemore and Inverness.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7695806.stm
Winter? Summer ended four weeks ago.
Bobby Lane, I just don’t place much value in the belief of the average man when it come to such complex phenomena as global climate, considering what conundrums belief in much simpler matters has brought us. And Louis Hissink, are you implying that one or the “other side” has a monopoly on “Belief”? If so, I guess I believe you are in error!
Again and probably forever, hopefully agnostic,
John D.
Or economics!
In New South Wales, record cold temperatures brought snow and hail to the Blue Mountains, near Sydney.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7683876.stm
BTW, as usual, FatBigot has the issues framed very well indeed. We may or may not agree on the precise levels, but we agree on the parameters.
In your discussions you are not taking into account the VAT type taxes, particularly on food and primary need items. Those proportionately are payed by the poor.
As for the future, I have to call up metaphysics and start OOOHHMing:” Let the Thames and the Hudson Bay freeze this winter”. That would put a stop on anybody’s carbon program.
😉
No, we’re not. (But we don’t tax grocery food over here.)
VAT is, by nature, “regressive”. I don’t think we should tax anything (except for use, and only if the gummint has to do the maintenance. Such as tolls. Or perhaps a gas tax with revenues earmarked exclusively for road and bridge repair)
My simple-simon solution for taxes is:
No VAT (with above exceptions).
No corporate tax (except if public costs are incurred, and only to the extent of said costs).
No income tax for the first $30,000 of income (or so, indexed to inflation). 20% (or so) for any amount over that. I.e, semi-flat with someone earning 30k paying zip in taxes and someone earning 60k paying 6 grand, someone earning 120k paying 18 grand, etc. In otherwords, the more you earn, the higher overall percentage you pay.
Capital gains to be taxed at half the rate of income (it’s a risk).
No deductions except for kids and medical. (Losses, Amortization, etc., applicable.) Let the economy handle demand!
Then jump back and watch productivity and revenues erupt. (But be quick or you’ll be buried in swag!)
As for the future, I have to call up metaphysics and start OOOHHMing:” Let the Thames and the Hudson Bay freeze this winter”. That would put a stop on anybody’s carbon program.
On a sailing ship to nowhere, leaving any place
If the summer change to winter, yours is no, yours is no disgrace
Tom in Florida said
“The only government money is OPM, other people’s money. The things you get for “free” and the payment help the government engages in are paid for by someone else. Someone who first has to earn that money so the government can take it away and give it to people like you. But then, everyone who is on the receiving end of “government money” ignores this and will always vote for those who promise it.
I’m a top level Tax payer in the UK so I earned that money. Rather than the money going away and paying for nuclear submarines or similar some has finally come back to give me direct benefit in reducing my home bills for the next few years. So this for me is “for free” or a bonus might be better.
Ironically I work for a US bank here in the UK and thanks to the socialist actions of your own current government my job is somewhat safer and I can continue to pay taxes. In effect the US bailout of the US banks is helping us in the UK insulate our attics. Nice, thanks.
Climate Heretic said
“So you bought a new car and went from well below the EU standard to above it and seem to think that is a well spent sterling? How much did your payments go up on the new car, how much more is the insurance?
So now tell the truth, how much did it cost to insulate? The Gov program is a rebate is it not? So you had to pay out of pocket.
My payments went up zero as I paid cash. My insurance went down from £750 per year to £250. My servicing went from £1000-1200 to probably about £100-200. My car break down is subsidised from £120 down to £60.
I’ve already told you the truth how much it cost to insulate… zero. 0 . Zilch. Nadda. All paid for by the council. I’d send you the bill as proof but there is none.
Regards
Andy
evanjones has, as usual, a number of sensible things to say, but it’s critical to note that the proper defense of free markets is not, as he intimates, that they “work best.” That’s a utilitarian argument which, as we’ve witnessed these past 100 years, cannot withstand the onslaught of neo-Marxist and Keynesian attacks. I know of know serious socialist today, for instance, who denies the incontrovertible productive superiority of laissez-faire capitalism over socialism, and yet capitalism — i.e. the free market — is nonetheless explicitly rejected on moral grounds.
It’s no coincidence, therefore, that it is upon moral grounds that the proper defense of free markets rests: specifically, in the fact that the free market is an extension of the inalienable right to life and property. “Exchange,” said Adam Smith, “is political economy. It is society itself…. [For] man has a natural tendency to truck, barter, and exchange.”
And in the words of Fredrick Bastiat:
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place…. Law is the organization of the natural right to legitimate self-defense, it is the substitution of collective force for individual forces, to act in the sphere in which they have the right to act, to do what they have the right to do: to guarantee security of person, liberty, and property rights, to cause justice to reign over all (Bastiat, The Law, 1848).
Never forget: Money is property.
In this way, compulsory taxation is a very obvious and very direct infringement upon the inalienable moral right to property. Property is defined as “Not only money and other tangible things of value, it also includes any intangible right considered as a source or element of income or wealth. The right and interest which a man has in lands and chattels to the exclusion of others. It is the right to enjoy and to dispose of certain things in the most absolute manner as he pleases, provided he makes no use of them prohibited by law.”
I emphasize the phrase “enjoy and dispose” because the right to property is not merely the right to a material object (although it is that too): it is first and foremost the right to an action — i.e. the right to produce.
Are humans free to produce, or not? Does each human possess the natural and inalienable right to all the material items she produces?
The answer to both questions is yes.
And that is the way in which the proper defense of free markets is moral, not practical. No person or governmental bureaucracy may rightly expropriate what is rightly ours.
Quoting a breathtakingly erudite fellow named Wilhelm von Humboldt, friend of Goethe:
Any State interference in private affairs, where there is no reference to violence done to individual rights, should be absolutely condemned. To provide for the security of its citizens, the state must prohibit or restrict such actions, relating directly to the agents only, as imply in their consequences the infringement of others’ rights, or encroach on their freedom of property without their consent or against their will. Beyond this, every limitation of personal freedom lies outside the limits of state action (Wilhelm von Humboldt, The Limits of State Action, 1791).
As a Spaniard living in Oxfordshire, England, I am wondering where all this Global Warming people talk about is; we are freezing our balls here! Last night was the first time it snowed in October since 1974.