For some reason, the majority of governments seem to think they need to royally screw up electricity pricing and destroy the market for innovation in power delivery. All logic says that the more electricity I draw, the less I should pay per watt (because it costs less to provide the power to me), but my State government forces the pricing to go the other way to compel me to conserve even where conservation is counter-productive and inefficient.

It places other comically silly perverse incentives on me as well, I could go on for many paragraphs. By pushing prices artificially low for the majority of users, they actually disincentivize conservation. It is completely ass backwards. And when the weather is extreme, my prices actually go *down* (on the logic that I "need" more electricity), incentivizing me to shift my demand specifically to the times when it's the most expensive to service.

While our government subsidizes things like solar panels a little bit (and we all know that such interventions are questionable as the market would probably find the equilibrium at the same price), my point is that it is doable, profitable, and efficient, so where there is no government, there will be inverstors.

And I also want to point out that it is that little village alone that took the initiative. I believe in a libertarian society residential communities will be comparable to those small villages of today.

@OP seriously, though, a libertarian society would address global warming like this:

http://inhabitat.com/german-village-produces-321-more-energy-than-it-needs/

Batteries are heavy, and include a huge 'sunk' energy cost in their production.  They also don't last very long relative to the steel block combustion engine.  They contain huge amounts of poisons that would contanimate any area that a major accident occurred.  They are relatively slow, and have very limited ranges and long 'refueling' times.  Even many 'green' leaning inventors have acknowleged the problems with electric transport, which is why the Revopower Wheel was invented.  Pity it never made it to mass production, I would have bought one straight away.  There is no substitute for the energy density of petrol.

Mostly matters of physics and economics, not matters of technology.  Electric vehicles will become commonplace as soon as the economics of peak oil force the issue, and then people get accustomed to the particular inconviences that electric transport presents.

Perhaps we could have, but again, there isn't a lot of further research to be done.  Again, we know how to build thorium cycle reactors, and we did it fourty years ago, but we just don't.  The infrastructure, as you noted, exists for the refinement and production of uranium fuel rods, because of the military's desire for plutonium.  We no longer need any more of that, and really need a lot less than we have, but the infrastructure exists.  So uranium fuel cycle reactors not only have a precedent, they have an economicly mature nationwide/worldwide supply chain.  An equivilent supply chain for thorium reactors would have to be built up from scratch, which can be done if we had the political will, but it seems that no one but India has any such will.

No contest there, but it's not really your's to decide.

True equal rights under the "law" (common law or natural law, like how the term was intended when the framers spoke the term.)  No special rights for historicly oppressed groups, no identity politics.  As a parent, I am responsible for the quality of their education and their health care, and no one else gets to intervene in my decisions. (excepting, perhaps, the child) 

Ironic, since the truth is the reverse.

But that's not what would have happened. We'd have built dozens more crappy reactors like the ones at Fukushima. And the resources devoted to electric cars wouldn't have gone to developing the more sophisticated computers and basic research that is making *good* electric cars possible.

The reason we can design such great nuclear reactors and electric cars today is not because of all the research into electric cars and nuclear reactors we've done. It's because we have (or at least *had*) a prosperous economy with good basic research, so we can do *everything* better.

When these things will really work, the profit motive will direct money into them. If you have to push to get money into them, it's strong evidence you're trying to do it wrong. You don't know if solar is right. You don't know if hydrogen is right. You don't know if thorium is right. Central planning will always tend to move resources to less productive uses because the information to make the right decisions simply does not exist without an open market.

We don't want to equalize the chances. If your children get an equal chance regardless of what you do, why bother to do much for them? If you want excellence, you have to try as hard as you can *NOT* to do anything that tends to even things out.

I don't know enough about IQ tests to go along with this.

I did.

Yet another non-economist spewing out ignorant opinions on macroeconomics, based on nothing but his personal microeconomic experience and anecdotal evidence.

Then the author going, "oooh listen to that guy, what he is saying must be true, I mean he is RICH after all".

The arguments presented are so crude and simplistic that even Krugman could point out flaws in them.

In fairness, the article is right about one thing: The indiscriminate spending it advocates would create jobs of SOME sort.  But if the author had even a minimum of economic literacy he would know that indiscriminate job creation is not the POINT.  

The point, and the big challenge of economic policy,  is the creation of useful, productive jobs.

Rich people invest, and investment creates jobs. Employees need to be worth the capital to be hired, but ultimately the investment creates the jobs ergo rich create jobs.

the electric car was invented before the internal combustion engine driven car.  The electric one lost due to real physical disadvantages and economic realities that persist to the present day.  So your assumptions are demonstratablely wrong.  We also know how to build thorium reactors, we just don't.

The SUV has a valid use case.  It's not significantly different than a minivan, nor are they less efficient; and they can be used as a small truck as well.

We can't.  The best we can do is to present a level playing field and hope that the law of averages will permit these talented types to rise to their potential.

Yes, it really does matter. If it's a century off, we'll probably manage it all wrong if we try to manage it now. The longer we can wait to deal with the problem, the more prosperous we'll be when we deal with it and the better the technology we'll have to address it with. Also, the more science we'll know, so our chances of screwing it up will be lower. (Imagine if we invested tens of billions into electric cars and trillions into nuclear power in the 70s because we were told we only had 20 years of oil left.)

The difference between this simplistic silliness and reality is why this kind of reasoning is complete nonsense. It's not about driving SUVs, it's about growing global economies so that we have the resources and understanding to deal with big problems the best way possible.

Every reduction in human population is one less ticket in the lottery for the next Einstein or Beethoven. The stakes are as high as they can be.

I used "tends"... so my ass is covered. It'd be interesting to group them based on government type and chart it. It looks like they used public and expert "perception".

FUCK YOU BITCHES! DENMARK IS ON TOP(where i live), of the least corrupt! and we are having a red government(socialists+social liberals+stuff, im not really into danish politics).

I think dictatorships/monarchies tend to be the most corrupt. How do people attempt to measure corruption? I am sure at least one sociologist has tried.

Agreed, then the question is: which type of society lends itself to more corruption?

And Germany is not socialist country, what are you people talking about?

If you look closely at the european countries you can see that the ones with the socialist governmants are already bankrupt: Greece, Spain, Portugal. The exception is Italy, where you have right wing government. On the other side you have right wing governments in countries like Germany and France, that are saving the PIIGS (mostly socialists).

Also take a look at eastern and western germany after WW2. They were the same country, the same people. Then they split it into west and east. The west becomes capitalist and the east becomes socialist country. After a few decades, the west is rich, and the east is having food shortages. Perfect example.

And another more recent one. Slovenia vs. Slovakia. Slovenia was years ahead of Slovakia, but they have had socialist government for 20 years now. Slovakia made some right-wing reforms, like uniform tax rate, privatization of government owned compaies. Today the difference between these two countries is very small, and I expect Slovakia to surpass Slovenia in the near future.

Ok...did you even read these? In essence, they all seem go against your narrative.

Also "socialistic nightmare with lazy citizens and zero innovation" is a straw man. Is that directed towards me?

Third, according to different sources income inequality and poverty rates (the fundamental bad stuff) have been on the rise in germany:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/45/25/41525346.pdf

I have no idea how the stats get played with in Europe, so I can't tell what is true or not easily.

I am not against socialism. You should really just explain to me why you think it is working out so well for Germany and not other European countries rather than just linking me to what some journalista wrote up.

Real scientists are always sceptics, but nor am I very sceptical that climate change exists.  The climate is always changing.  The part that is sceptical is the role of human activity in the matter.  Is humanity to blame for the catastrophy that has been known as the 'Medieval Warm Period'?  What about the 'Littile Ice Age'?  As a professional meterologist, certainly you studied these historic periods of relatively rapid changes in worldwide climate?  In either case, it took about a century to change at the inflection points.  We're beyond a century since the dawn of the Industrial Age (age of oil), and the most credible of negative 'worst case' models take another century to rise global temps to a point that the poles actually do melt.  The melting of said poles doesn't even necessarily imply a net negative impact upon humanity or life in general, since this also implies the associated expansion of agricultural land in the northern latitides, the increase in growing seasons in all lower latitudes and the productive increases that can be expected from increases in ambiant CO2 available to agricultural plantlife.  That's not even considering the vast energy savings in winter heating among the entire population beyond the 75th parrallel.  The official records concerning the MWP imply that we crossed the average global temps in 1990's, but last I checked wine vineyards are still not viable in Northern Britian like they were for 400 years during the MWP.  If anyone is growing wine grapes in Scotland without a glasshouse and we still have economicly viable fossil fuels left, I might have something to worry about, but I doubt it.  I've literally seen wealthy people buy lakefront property around the Great Lakes on the potential that global warming would make such areas more valuable for their grandchildren.  There are always things that real people can do to mitigate the risks of change.

Food shortages, as a result from climate change, isn't a credible threat.  Far more likely is the rapid expansion of agriculture for the above noted reasons.  Whoever tells you such things is trying to scare you, or are simply scared themselves.  As a trained meterologist, I think that you know this is so on some deep, rational level.  Food shortages in places where food is already difficult to grow, now that can get worse.  Fresh water sources could become a real issue with an expanding population and expanding agricultureal base, since is already is (but not as a consequence of climate change, but poor resource management with an expanding population).  This is, ironicly, one of the reasons that I choose to live in this city of Louisville, Kentucky.  I live 26 feet over the top of one of the largest replenishing known in the US.  I have both the legal, and pyisical, capability of driving a wellpoint in my own backyard if I choose to do so.

Define 'close enough'.  I live 8.5 miles form work.


ironicly, public transport isn't normally going to reduce your carbon footprint by any non-neglible degree in most US cities.  New York or LA, yes.  Cincinnati or Indianapolis, no.  The reason for this is because public transport must run whether or not you are using it, public transit's average ridership is too low to compete with a modern compact car.  Such public transit might make you feel good about it, but it exists as a transit subsidy for the poor; and no other reason is historicly or scientificly accurate.

Anarcho-capitalism allots for alienable rights?

One example:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systembolaget