Thread: E.P.A. Expected to Regulate Carbon Dioxide

Originally Posted by Quick

I wasn't commenting on CO2 being bad or not or whether regulating CO2 in particular is a good or bad thing.

I guess I'm not sure if you're making a distinction between the people and business when you refer to the "market". I assumed you weren't. The government regulates in the short term. If it's unpopular, either specifically or the amount of regulation in general then government gets changed in the longer term.

There can be no distinction between "the people" and "business" in the market--there can be no market without both sides, it's a symbiotic (parasitic?) relationship.

As for "The government regulates in the short term..."
What?

Originally Posted by Quick

Those were examples of unpopular regulations (good or bad) that were sort of done away with by the populace. Maybe not good examples.

Every regulation is unpopular.

And you are right, of course, that occasionally rules are repealed due to popular opinion, but popular opinion is actually a pretty crappy basis for regulation--it changes pretty darned fast, even in the rare cases when there is a unified opinion. Prohibition's enactment was as much a reaction to popular sentiment as its repeal.

Originally Posted by Quick

Depends again on whether you're making a distinction between the people and business. If you make the separation then the market does regulate itself. Immediate regulation by the government may swing over or under the popular threshold but it does follow it in the longer term.

How is that? Show me one instance where popular sentiment caused the improvement of business practices WITHOUT government intervention. Did people stop buying tobacco when it was shown how dangerous it is to health? Of course not. The public is enormously resistant to government regulation even when it is clearly proven that people's lives will be BETTER because of it.

Originally Posted by Quick

This particular regulation might be good or bad and/or this level of regulation might be good or bad. People should make their opinion known.

Absolutely, people should let their opinions known--but I ask, no, I BEG, that people make their opinions informed. If you must be cynical, approach the media and the corporate world and with the same cynicism as you approach the government.

The idea that the government is simply a voice of the people is absurd. People choose leaders that they trust so that those leaders can make decisions on their behalf; but once that choice is made, the power is gone until the next election--which is as it should be. Public opinion is chaotic, uninformed and self-destructive. It is swayed by every new commercial, fad and corporate lie.

I am getting really sick of this fixation on CO2. The greenhouse gasses are the sexy thing, and the fact that we can't eat fish due to heavy metals, and a lot of local water tables are gettin' toxic with hydrocarbon leaching get ignored.

Don't forget the ever growing landfills, and the increasing bacterial and hormone load in the local waterways too. Amphibians and fish are so dosed up, they are getting sex changes and you can't go swimming without getting staph, strep or god knows what else.

Yes, let's obsess about CO2. Just don't drink the water, eat the fish or look too close at the ground you walk on.

Originally Posted by joke1176

I am getting really sick of this fixation on CO2. The greenhouse gasses are the sexy thing, and the fact that we can't eat fish due to heavy metals, and a lot of local water tables are gettin' toxic with hydrocarbon leaching get ignored.

Don't forget the ever growing landfills, and the increasing bacterial and hormone load in the local waterways too. Amphibians and fish are so dosed up, they are getting sex changes and you can't go swimming without getting staph, strep or god knows what else.

Yes, let's obsess about CO2. Just don't drink the water, eat the fish or look too close at the ground you walk on.

Have not fear! soon the planet will shake the human race off like a bad bout of pneumonia, then after a good rest while she cleans herself up, intelligent life will rise again to screw it all up ... that is the cycle of life every living organism pollutes its environment and if left alone long enough dies back when it has made the area too toxic. mankind is no different or better, sorry all you speciest.