“Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by newhaul

and you really believe the propaganda don't ya.

Ok lets remove all petroleum based electric power generation from your beloved Canada for 1 week in January . Now how many tens of thousands of people do you think would die from the cold because of no electric to heat their homes or apartments

It IS possible to be critical (or supportive) about energy policy without being ridiculous about it. Just sayin'.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

It IS possible to be critical (or supportive) about energy policy without being ridiculous about it. Just sayin'.

its called being a realist about it . We need fossil fuels to preserve the human way of life at the current population levels . And that's not a coefficient that will change.

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/han-che...al-oil-and-gas

The article does not define the nature of what it considers a subsidy.

For example many countries do not tax expenditures on development activities and allow the cost of the expenditures to be subtracted from post development profits for tax purposes. The AGW/CC zealots like to define this as subsidies whereas it is the same as the tax treatment of say tomato sauce producers.

A real subsidy is when you tax coal fired electricity consumers in order to pay so called "renewable" energy producers for electricity they don't produce in order to be able to say renewables are now price competitive with fossil fuel powered electricity production.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/han-che...al-oil-and-gas

Another "System 1" analysis? I don't think we have any disagreement over ending corporate subsidies in general. On the contrary, there's rare consensus on that one across the political divide. Implementing it is another story, of course, and mired in the usual politics.

I could have missed it in your link to the NRDC article, but I didn't find any specifics on what constitutes "subsidies" to the fossil fuel industry, and nothing about oil cos. receiving favorable treatment over other industries. It doesn't mean they don't, only that you you've made these assertions before without supporting them with specifics. Not that you're the type to simply assume the truth of what you read & hear from partisan sources without any questioning.

I also looked here and here, but only found the same references to "subsidies" and "tax breaks" without defining what they were. In this article, however, I found criticisms about the US govt not charging oil cos. enough in royalties for exploration and extraction on public lands. A valid criticism, but the same policies that have always been in place for other industries, for e.g. ranching.

A more thoughtful "System 2" analysis might result in a recognition that low energy prices reduce the cost of everything from nondiscretionary commuting to & from the workplace, to the price of food, clothing, electricity, heat, and other basic staples of modern life. Not everyone believes, like you do, that the alleged long-term negative impacts of AGW outweigh the human costs of making cheap fossil fuels artificially expensive, especially when even some environmentalists have begun questioning the efficacy and negative impact of renewables. In fact, and since you seem to believe you have a monopoly on "morality," there are those who question the morality of relegating millions of people in the developing world back into poverty for the sake of saving the planet from the evils of CO2. It's that pesky good & bad/right & wrong thing again.

I'm certainly aware of direct subsidies to the ethanol industry as part of these huge handouts of taxpayer money to the ag sector. Some of these serve as price supports and thus get phased out automatically when the price of certain crops reach a sustainable level. I'm just not aware of similar such benefits for the oil & gas cos., so maybe you can inform us on exactly what the NRDC is referring to. If it mostly comes down to favorable tax incentives, then we could probably agree that the tax code is ripe for reform. But such inequities apply across the board as far as I know, and I'm honestly not sure if the FF industry is singled out for favorable treatment. Is this not your assertion?

[stevensuf]

Originally Posted by Singularity

In general I think this corruption talk is self-servingly fanciful while...I think also relatable to much current scientific angst.

2,000 years ago the critic said that all a population wants is it's bread and circus. It seems that when people get diabetes and the road starts falling apart (or the debt payment gets too high) that they like to form groups to tar and feather the bakers and carnival barkers--not liking to admit that it is they in the masses who were complicit in demanding calories and entertainment in the first place. It's not like the bakers and barkers are conspiring in dark rooms smoking cigars planning this stuff. It's ordinary people's demands that they're satisfying. Scott Adams (Dilbert guy) pointed this out during the 2007 crash (certain others did too).

Who is more corrupt: the politicians and friends who skim the system to line their own pockets creating an economic system known to be non-sustainable for thousands of years, or the masses who demand such systems regardless of the consequences to the future generation? People don't like to answer this question. When times get tough they like to focus attention on locusts, floods covering the earth, comets, genetic purity, etc...and now invisible gasses. Time are tough when there's a problem with the bread/circus supply.

To me...this is the synchronicity at work. Nothing cosmic/magical, just observable patterns in history that fluctuate like the seasons for plainly visible reasons. I guess synchronicity is associated with Eastern philosophy, but the economic system-social strife/existential crisis thing is spelled out in Western religion holy books. YMMV...

When money is only paper or zeros and ones on a computer, how can you have a market crash due to low monetary supplies , other than an orchestrated one.

The 2007 crash, like others, was an orchestrated event . We stop the printing press. no more new money.


Before we had the boom, caused by the printing presses being run on overtime, lend money to anyone, put loads of new money on the market. Then , when the time suits us, we cut the supply, everything collapses and we buy low, we get more control, we don't care about money, we make it from nothing, we care about control and power. that's what we lust after.


Someone else on this thread mentioned cold fusion and complained of the money being wasted, well I am pretty sure it works, but hey free energy and a controlled capitalist dictatorship don't go hand in hand.


Anyone with a volt meter and a capacitor can find free limitless energy, discharge the capacitor,. then measure the voltage..... hint.... Casimir effect.


Its so corrupt, most people have no idea how bad it is.

[RaymondR]

Having worked in the oil industry for many years I can assure you that governments seldom let any opportunity to tax go by.

It is not unusual for the cost of putting a gallon of gas into your tank to 50%-70% taxes.

The risk profile can also be pretty horrendous considering the obscene amounts of money required to explore for and develop hydrocarbon resources and there is always the risk of nationalization hanging over the investment.

Then there's the human cost. The people who go out to find and develop the stuff run a very high risk of serious injury or death in very unpleasant manners and the alcoholic harvest of the industry is pretty high.

It's a finite resource no matter how ingenious the proponents of the trade become. With 9 or so billion of us all wanting the living standards and mobility of westerners and increasingly Asian folks liquid and gaseous fossil fuels will run out or become excessively expensive in younger folks life times so we are going to have to make the change to alternatives anyway.

Nuclear electric is probably the most likely contender for our future energy needs. Unfortunately because of the activities of various trouble makers within western societies we will probably end up buying the technology for safe nuclear from certain Asian nations at a premium.

Peer review is a vital part of the scientific process as it has evolved. However, as is the case with many of the activities fundamental to the rise of western civilization, it has been subjected to corrupting influences, one of the most egregious of which has been the "politically correct" movement which is tending to ill effect many of societies perceptions.

We have an ongoing case in Australia regarding a physics professor who was fired from him position for raising hell about the poor quality of much of the science publishing in respect of the Great Barrier Reef, most of which was peer reviewed prior to publication. This is a clear case of the politically correct versus the scientifically or factually correct and it should not be tolerated.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by newhaul

... Ok lets remove all petroleum based electric power generation from your beloved Canada for 1 week in January . Now how many tens of thousands of people do you think would die from the cold because of no electric to heat their homes or apartments

According to UN Environment: “Every year, governments spend between US$160 and US$400 billion as fossil fuel subsidies for the production and use of coal, oil and gas. Payments to consumers, companies, tax breaks or other fiscal incentives are some of the ways governments subsidize fossil fuels, moving ever farther away from meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
In contrast, the total financial support to renewable energy amounts to US$121 billion.”
➥ https://www.unenvironment.org/news-a...fuel-subsidies

The (L-E) linked article is an NRDC report (press release) summarizing their “G7 Fossil Fuel Subsidy Scorecard” (Policy Brief) that begins:
“Government support for coal, oil and gas in the G7 countries totals over $100 billion a year. This support for the production and consumption of oil, gas and coal not only wastes taxpayer money, it also runs counter to the pledges (SDG 7) of the G7 nations to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025 ...”

Nowhere does anyone suggest we abruptly “remove all petroleum based electric power generation”. The program is one of gradual (though the quicker, the better) TRANSITION from fossil fuel based energy production TOWARDS a cleaner, more sustainable renewable energy system.

NRDC = Natural Resources Defense Council, a non-profit international environmental advocacy group. Founded in 1970, the NRDC had 2.4 million members in 2015, with online activities nationwide, and a staff of about 500 lawyers, scientists and other policy experts. It seeks to influence federal and state environmental and other agencies, the Congress and state legislatures, and the courts to reduce global warming, limit pollution, and generally conserve energy and increase sustainability of commerce and manufacturing.

NRDC - ODI “G7 Fossil Fuel Subsidy Scorecard”
➥ https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk...ents/12222.pdf

SDG-7: Affordable and clean energy ➥ https://www.unenvironment.org/explor...-matter/goal-7

As to “how many tens of thousands of people do you think would die from the cold because of no (petro’ based) electric to heat” - NOT MANY (of course, I wouldn’t want to be one of those that do).


According to Natural Resources Canada:
66% of Canada’s electricity comes from renewable sources and 81% from non-GHG emitting sources.
Canada is the world’s second largest producer of hydroelectricity,
Canada exports nearly 11% of the electricity it generates to the United States. There are 34 active major international transmission lines connecting Canada to the U.S.
➥ https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/energy/facts/electricity/20068

Almost half (47%) of Canadian households use natural gas as their main heating fuel, while 37% used electricity. A further 9% used oil, 6% used wood or wood pellets and 1% used propane.
Natural gas usage is predominant in Ontario and Western Canada, while households in Quebec use primarily electricity. Households in the Atlantic provinces are heated primarily with oil, electricity and wood or wood pellets.
➥ https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/...artie1-eng.htm

[GordMay]

I must say that I really appreciate some of the recent nuanced & informed commentary, that this diversion (from the original topic) has generated. Thanks, in particular (though not exclusively) to Exile, Singularity, transmitterdan, & RaymondR.

Originally Posted by Exile

... I could have missed it in your link to the NRDC article, but I didn't find any specifics on what constitutes "subsidies" to the fossil fuel industry ...

“In its Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, the World Trade Organization (WTO) defines a subsidy as (paraphrased): any financial contribution by a government, or agent of a government, that is recipient-specific and confers a benefit on its recipients in comparison to other market participants (WTO, 1994: section 1.1). This definition has been accepted by the 164 WTO Member States including all G7 countries, and includes the following subsidy categories:
a. direct transfer of funds (e.g. budgetary transfers, grants, loans and equity infusion), and potential direct transfers of funds or liabilities (e.g. loan guarantees), below market value
b. government revenue that is otherwise due, foregone or not collected (e.g. fiscal incentives such as tax expenditures)
c. government provision of goods or services other than general infrastructure, or purchase of goods, below market valued. income or price support”
Look under “DEFINITIONS” (page 4)
➥ https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk...ents/12222.pdf

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Exile

... The upside to the regulatory policies of the Canadian patent board are obvious for consumers. The potential downside is it lessens the incentive for pharma cos. to expend the capital to research & introduce new drugs and/or improve existing ones. So, as in most complex areas, it requires a well considered balancing.

Originally Posted by GordMay

Indeed. As always, the devil is in the details.

Another example of the complexities of drug development, pricing, & availability.

2 young Canadian brothers, a life-threatening disease — and the harsh reality of drug prices
Two young brothers with cystic fibrosis (CF) — each struggling with the same life-threatening disease. But only one of them is getting treated with a breakthrough drug.
Andre Larocque, 8, got lucky. He was picked for a clinical trial that gives him access to a new CF drug for free. It's called Symdeko.
His younger brother, Joshua, 6, might benefit from a similar version of the drug already on the market, called Orkambi. But he can't have it because it costs $250,000 a year.
Like insulin, these drugs are based on a Canadian breakthrough by publicly funded scientists. In 1989, scientists at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto made medical history when they were part of a team that discovered the cystic fibrosis gene.
Much more ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/cysti...ment-1.5132294

[Singularity]

Originally Posted by stevensuf

When money is only paper or zeros and ones on a computer, how can you have a market crash due to low monetary supplies , other than an orchestrated one.

To answer your question how a crash works, the answer is simple: a run on the banks. Too many people at one time losing faith in the orchestrated system asking to get their money out at the same time. Respectfully, your supposition that crashes are orchestrated has things backwards...what is orchestrated is the consent to the fiat system when times are good. It's when people walk away from the orchestra performance that a crash happens.

The 2007 crash, like others, was an orchestrated event . We stop the printing press. no more new money.

A printing press cannot print if there are no more trees available to make pulp for paper. If you've sitting outside the printer's office waiting for the day's offering and you are given nothing...it's easy to assume that the printer has turned off the press so that he doesn't have to work. It's fanciful to think that there's an unlimited amount of pulp available and/or that others manipulate pulp production or something. I mean when does the paranoid analysis stop?

Before we had the boom, caused by the printing presses being run on overtime, lend money to anyone, put loads of new money on the market.

Agreed. And who complained back then? Who complains that we're driving on roads that our grandkids are going to have to pay for? Don't see much talk about this.

Then , when the time suits us, we cut the supply, everything collapses and we buy low, we get more control, we don't care about money, we make it from nothing, we care about control and power. that's what we lust after.

This isn't the temporal nature of things...at least not with respect to the 1920s crash and the last 30 years. In both instances manipulation in the years preceding the crash demonstrated the market manipulation you describe...BUT it is during/after the crash when things get re-distributed. It's only the military-industrial complex of WWII that initiated new pools of rich people...it's not like anyone made it out rich after the 1920 crash because of money hoarding prior to the crash. Crashes 'lower all boats equally' (just that not everyone suffers equally).

Someone else on this thread mentioned cold fusion and complained of the money being wasted, well I am pretty sure it works, but hey free energy and a controlled capitalist dictatorship don't go hand in hand.

Anyone with a volt meter and a capacitor can find free limitless energy, discharge the capacitor,. then measure the voltage..... hint.... Casimir effect.

Its so corrupt, most people have no idea how bad it is.

One can claim corruption, secret societies, whatever as being the boogie-men of all things that we don't like, but at some point maybe one can get past that and study history from books that do not ascribe all negative events to corruption, secret societies....that supposedly let all the readers know that they are in a select group of people who know what really going on. These books/authors are just manipulating paranoid angst which is quite evident in the arguments that people make to support absolutely every perspective they have on any subject with some paranoid take on things. The shortest distance between two point is not always through a tunnel.

[RaymondR]

According to UN Environment: “Every year, governments spend between US$160 and US$400 billion as fossil fuel subsidies for the production and use of coal, oil and gas. Payments to consumers, companies, tax breaks or other fiscal incentives are some of the ways governments subsidize fossil fuels, moving ever farther away from meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
In contrast, the total financial support to renewable energy amounts to US$121 billion.”

And what will the US$121 billion become when the very small percentage of power now provided by the so called renewables replaces the dominant fraction now provided by fossil fuels?

[Singularity]

Subsidies, and oil-sector subsidies.

1) 50-100% of "subsidies" are monies that end up buying goods and services through the community. If all subsidies disappeared overnight, the economy would crash the next day. Frankly subsidies are all over the place...it's the basis of promoting different activity in the economy. Peoples' gripe with subsidies is caused by the perception that some other kids are getting more than they themselves are getting. Frankly cranks that sit around and gripe about the govt are less likely to receive subsidies not because they bite the hand that feeds them, but they just tend to engage in activities that is less useful to society from the govt perspective.

2) If one looks at the cost of military intervention to protect oil interests (which is more than fair) then one will recognize that the subsidies to the oil sector include many deaths, many injuries, a lot of PTSD with societal ramifications....all before getting into the dollars spent on weapons systems. Overall...a pretty big subsidy.

[transmitterdan]

Renewables generate about 17% of the electricity in the US. France is much higher. The evil oil state of Texas got 18% of electricity from wind and solar last year. Add in nuclear and biomass and the renewable generation in Texas is almost 40%. These figures are helped some by subsidies but so far the subsidies have not generated windfall profits for renewable generators. In Texas the grid operator likes wind and solar because they have thousands of gas fired generation plants and these can be easily turned on and off to adjust capacity to demand. Only once in the last decade did their grid get into “irons” and that was human error induced. (See how I kept this at least a little bit about cruising?)

I don’t think Texas is the most lefty state in the nation (in fact I’m sure of that) but still they see value in renewable energy. Scientific skepticism is not incompatible with a love for renewable energy sources. Renewable electricity generation makes good economic sense.

[GordMay]

Before we had the boom, caused by the printing presses being run on overtime, lend money to anyone, put loads of new money on the market.

Agreed. And who complained back then? Who complains that we're driving on roads that our grandkids are going to have to pay for? Don't see much talk about this.

I certainly get both points, but I'd have said: Our parents/grandparents paid for the roads, that our kids/grandkids will have to pay to fix.

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by GordMay

I must say that I really appreciate some of the recent nuanced & informed commentary, that this diversion (from the original topic) has generated. Thanks, in particular (though not exclusively) to Exile, Singularity, transmitterdan, & RaymondR.


“In its Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, the World Trade Organization (WTO) defines a subsidy as (paraphrased): any financial contribution by a government, or agent of a government, that is recipient-specific and confers a benefit on its recipients in comparison to other market participants (WTO, 1994: section 1.1). This definition has been accepted by the 164 WTO Member States including all G7 countries, and includes the following subsidy categories:
a. direct transfer of funds (e.g. budgetary transfers, grants, loans and equity infusion), and potential direct transfers of funds or liabilities (e.g. loan guarantees), below market value
b. government revenue that is otherwise due, foregone or not collected (e.g. fiscal incentives such as tax expenditures)
c. government provision of goods or services other than general infrastructure, or purchase of goods, below market valued. income or price support”
Look under “DEFINITIONS” (page 4)
➥ https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk...ents/12222.pdf

So if the United States chooses not to tax petrol and diesel to fund a social program, as do many countries, it constitutes a subsidy?