Posts by Idiot Savant
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I'm betting Jack'll only crossover in the final quarter of the season/finale
According to Wikipedia, he's in it for the last three episodes.
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If God is dead then so are we - we live a short and often brutal life and to top it off it's all for nothing.
Life is what you make of it. Demanding that it have meaning beyond whatever you manage to imbue it with seems more than a little greedy.
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I'll take your word for it. But what are you doing reading the bloody thing?
Because buried near the back, well behind the objectionable Deborah Coddington piece, was an article on sedition which drew rather heavily on my blog for the background material. They got instant research; I got a free copy. Which was worth every cent I paid for it...
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Well, I think I can say that the white chocolate & strawberry tiramisu recipe in the "National Front" issue of North & South is quite edible. Though next time, I'm lifting a trick from another tirimasu recipe and sticking grated chocolate in the cream layer as well.
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It seems to me that most philosophical debate about God actually gives the whole foolish concept a lot more time than it deserves, and is actually a rather cunning trap to frame the debate in terms favorable to believers, rather like most modern election campaigns.
Pretty much. But its also a good way of teaching people about bad argumentation and logical fallacies - which might, if they are smart, help them spot similar bullshit about things which actually matter.
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FletcherB: It's a Kyoto accounting convention. As you point it, its incorrect - the carbon usually takes a lot longer to get into the atmosphere - but there are problems of provability and traceability, and the negotiators of the Kyoto rulebook decided to ignore them and adopt a "better safe than sorry" approach.
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Policy wonking on Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change is now up here
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Che: with our renewable energy resources and empty spaces waiting to be filled with tres (meaning biofuel plantations), we have the best chance inthe world to cut our emissions. The trick seems to be getting started,and convincing people that it can be done without having to return to the dark ages. The new New Zealand Energy Strategy is a big step forward on this front, but unless the government shows some spine and sets a solid target date for a 100% renewable or carbon neutral electricity system (with policy to match - emissions trading with a sinking cap will work perfectly), then its just so much hot air.
And that said, it will all be in vain if we allow forest owners to deforest with abandon, or farmers to just keep on growing cows. We're in the best situation with electricity, and the worst for agriculture (lots of it, and free range rather than kept in sheds, so we can't use the easy methods to control emissions). There don't seem to be any silver bullets on that front, but we may be able to find something through research. Otherwise, we are eventually going to have to bite the bullet and make farmers pay for their externalities too.
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Okay, what about this: but for those existing plantations, the planet and Kyoto takes a bigger hit. What recognition do they get for the benefit they already contribute?
None. The trees exist, and the carbon is already stored, so there's nothing to incentivise except the deforestation side.
This isn't a policy to reward forest-owners for having trees. Neither is it a policy to subsidise clearcut forestry, which has no effect in carbon terms (any carbon stored is nominally released on cutting; net effect zero). It is a policy to internalise carbon costs, as calculated under the Kyoto framework, and therefore relative to the 1990 baseline.
Don: deforestation counts as emissions, remember, so reducing it does actually help. As for the idea of forest sinks, I agree, it is better to reduce emissions directly. But planting trees buys us time to do that.
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If we want a land full of pine trees, should the government not be a little stronger on the carrot and not quite so heavy on the stick?
It's not a matter of "stick" - its a matter of making people pay the full cost of their activites. Cutting down trees without planting replacements imposes a cost on the planet, and (thanks to Kyoto) on the government. This is a classic case of an externality, and the classic solution is to make the person responsible pay for it.
I've finished reading the full document, and I'll do a proper post on it shortly. But the quick response is that the forest owners had better getused to paying the full cost of their activities, because they're going to be doing it one way or another.