New climate change goals to cost Germany €310 billion

The single biggest most idiotic thing currently going on in Germany.. Meanwhile China and India breed like rats and want to consume like Americans...

Global warming is a global problem.. Making me pay more for energy when the rest of the world does what it wants is just preposterous... The gov't is already WAY too into my pockets.. At what point do working Germans - the ones who pay for this whole system to somehow work - throw their arms up and have a fxxxing revolution?.. The state here is out of freakin' control...

The dumbest thing specifically is the absolutely dumb-headed - as in, frankly retarded, 2+2=5 kind of dumb - drive to get rid of nuclear power - the most efficient, cheapest source of energy there is - and oh yeah, it doesn't contribute to global warming.. But hey, let's outsource it to Poland..

How can there be so many intelligent people in this country, yet they're all somehow so dumb when it comes to energy policy?? Must be another instance of left-wing subversion, succesfully making people believe that 2+2 does in fact = 5...

How people can possibly listen to the likes of that horrible lizard-faced Green party blond bitch(name escapes me at the moment..) and other former terrorists is beyond me..

Oh yawn. Every country will be making such commitments in Copenhagen, or at least most will. Your approach seems to be "Well Timbuktu won't be cutting their emissions so why should we", which isn't a particularly altruistic standpoint.

Ask away, it's no secret, just drop the childish "cult" nonsense; climate change is accepted scientific and political theory.

Altruism..

Had a lesson with a manager/engineer from an alternative energy company this morning.., and we talked about all this. I asked lots of questions, trying to get his take on things, and the discussion ended up at a pretty weird place: it boiled down to, are you optimistic about the future, or pessimistic?

Altruistic I am not. Why? Human nature.. Studied history.. Observe things around me.. If you think we'll make it 20 years withoug massive upheavals related to dwindling resources, well, I've got some seaside property to sell you for a Schnäppschen in Missouri... If you tend to the pessimistic side of things, as I do - then it's hard not to imagine a world in 20 years where there will probably have been MAJOR upheavals connected with resources, and ultimately all of Germany's efforts - all OUR money pumped into making windmill company managers rich(have taught them too..), will have been wasted.. We should be allowed to keep our money and do with it as we please. What we have here is the gov't - infiltrated by Green mentality superstition.. - telling us what to do - AND taking our money to do it..

In any event, his company will make (assuming everything works out..) biodiesel from trees. It will all be transported - by diesel-burning trucks of course - to Hamburg, and dumped into Shell refineries. In the end , a HUGE amount of energy, money, and effort will have been invested - to produce this stuff, transport it to Hamburg, and ultimately make up less than %1 of the Diesel fuel used in Germany..

His argument is that well, somebody needs to start doing these things. Fair enough.. But ultimately, this company will habe been subsidized by the gov't - i.e. our tax money - in the form of mimimum green fuel additive requirements.. EVEN THOUGH in the end it probably consumes MORE extra energy than it saves.

Same with wind.. Incredibly inefficient.. Lots of energy required to manufacture, transport, and install.. Then oh yeah sometimes there's no wind..

The list goes on.. Nuclear outsourcing to Poland.. Brussels telling us what kind of lightbulbs to use..

I just got a letter from the Stadtwerke telling us that our power bill will be going up. Again.. And precisely because of all this bone-headed pie-in-the-sky green mumbo-jumbo.. I'd much rather keep it, and I don't know, save it for retirement.. Cuz that gov't plan ain't gonna work either..

http://www.humantruth.info/altruism.html

+

http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111niet.html

....or too much.

Ah, a website with the word "truth" in the title.

Speaking of "truth", it's only a matter of time before this thread gets swamped with right-wing Americans who all know that climate change is a myth designed to raise taxes, so I'll flounce out of this thread and leave the vocal minority to get angry amongst themselves.

Well firstly it's worth mentioning that places like China and India are now getting involved with their own subsidy programs (i.e. taxing their citizens). In fact the Chinese plan to be bigger in renewables than Germany.

Essentially the current program is a transfer of money from taxpayers to those who have put panels on their roof.

Conclusion: Use low tax rates to install panels on your roof. Then the other suckas will be paying YOU.

The solar panel thing is yet another example of how dumb all of this is.. The gov't gives people money to have panels. The people sell the energy produced back on to the grid - then buy energy from the grid at a lower price.. I've heard this happened in the GDR with eggs, apples, etc.. Absurd.. It's ultimately wasteful..

I don't doubt global warming at all.. If it's been scientifically proven, and I have no reason to doubt that it hasn't, then OK - there we are..

The problem is what to do next. And I'm not thrilled about being in Germany when Germany somehow thinks it can afford to be the global vanguard in some mushy-brained drive to "save the world" or whatever...

Actually, the first link above lists quite a few things I don't particularly agree with. But it does show that "altruism" is not as simple a term or concept as is generally assumed..

The second link, with texts from Nietzsche, just shows how I think altruism - and human nature - is most intelligently comprehended.. I don't want to be a coffee-shop name-throwing pseudo-intellectual geek, but for me Nietzsche is the source to turn to for understanding human nature.. And as I mentioned above, this whole energy thing, and the future of it, have very much to do with human nature - as does everything of course...

Good point about too much wind as well btw HEM. In that case we get to shut down base-load coal plants.. - LOSING/WASTING even more energy...

And Dan Hessen, I've also taught consultants from Vattenfall and other big energy firms over the years.. I've talked about this stuff a lot.. As of 4-5 years ago, China had 500+ inefficient, dirty coal-burning power plants either in the design or construction phase.. Yeah, they'll "go green" aftet their Three Gorges Damn project is finished... Ha ha.. I - being a pessimist and all.. - can well imagine that whatever lipservice China has paid to "going green" has been just that - lipservice with a view to somehow profiting from it.. Like the whole retarded bio food industry...

Nobody's out to be "altruistic" - but to make a profit, to win in the fundamental drive to compete and succeed that underpins every thing we do.. It's all about competition. And China promising to "go green" is just a smart step by them to achieve their ends..

Even if "going green" is a big crock of poopy.

Hahaha... Still can not believe we are having this debate whether climate change exists... I guess it is easier to be naive then to try and the generally scientific accepted science behind climate change.

Also, this attitude of, "well they are not not making an effort then why should we?" is just pathetic... mainly because the western world is to blame for the increased rate of climate change thus to far..., ahh stuff it!.. lets just be able to spend OUR money on s**t we don't really need or want!... Pathetic!

And really! this old argument on how much it cost to manufacture wind turbines and how inefficient they are is really, really old! Please tell me the operational life time of wind turbines? and maintenance cost vs. power output.... don't forget that all important FACT ... OVER TIME!???

Of course the Chinese plan to profit from it.

Improved conclusion: Use low tax environment to put panels on your roof. Receive cash transfer from other taxpayers to your account. Use proceeds to buy shares in downstream Chinese solar players. ->Profit

Am I the only one here that thinks that is the most messed up statement imaginable? So Americans are the only ones that should be allowed to drive aro…[/quote]'Pseudo-intellectual-geek'. You said it. If you don't understand philosophical theorems, (as you clearly don't) my advice would be, don't pretend to. Nihilism is a pathetic teenage response to the problems the world throws at us, you should be old enough to know better..

p.s: Nietzsche ended his days talking to a horse.

One, nowhere did I mention anything about Americans or gas guzzlers.. I do however think the German, more socialist leaning way of dealing with these issues tramples on individual liberty(and on my bank account.. - which, being a free-lancer, I'm perhaps a bit more sensitive about than contract employees..)

Secondly, as to the second part of your school-yard level attack.., more Nietzsche is EXACTLY what's needed here - i.e. a big dose of reality(the whole point of Nietzsch afaic..), and less pie-in-the-sky idealism(something he was particularly good at picking apart - which is the only reason I brought him up..)

You can also spare the lecturing about his last hours..(who's being a pseudo-intellectual geek now?) To those simplistic enough to assume that his going crazy and hugging a horse at the end of his sane life somehow detracts from everything he wrote - well, it's widely thought he had some kind of degenerative brain disease, perhaps stemming from syphillis. To spell that out for the simpler of mind among us - he didn't go crazy because he was wrong about everything he'd ever written...

YOU are the one here operating on some sophomoric intellectual level, assuming such a simplistic spectrum of opinions... Against paying high energy prices to subsidize inefficient "green" energy at massive cost, and outsourcing nuclear power to the likes of Poland(and a long line of REAL dumb outcomes of misled idealism) ??? MUST be a Republican....

I'm sick of reading the bigoted shite that you post, so I really don't care if you think i'm attacking you.

Read Schopenhauer i…[/quote]Your use of the word 'inefficient' shows; in a nutshell your level of ignorance on this subject. Burning fossil fuels is inefficient, polluting, and unsustainable. Current projections for the world's remaining oil reserves are at around 2050. So what will the Luddites among us do when that oil runs out? Sit around rubbing bits of wood together I imagine..

My point is....(drumroll..), we'll do whatever we do in either case - whether we pay high inflated wasteful energy prices now for inefficient windmills, or if we don't.. We'll be at the same place in 50 years regardless.

And I don't give a crap what you're sick of.. I'm sick of head-in-the-clouds liberals with no foot on the ground like you. Who then come up with poppycock policies to suck away my hard-earned income..

(Schopenhauer.. Seriously... Just can't stay away from trying to out-"pseudo-intellectualize" me, can you? Ppfff...)

The great unspoken is that none of the DCF analysis on one's solar panel home installation factor in the involuntary jacked-up utility rates you've already been paying over the past few years. This often stretches the payback periods often exceding the warranty on the silicon solar cells you install. Plus, you've carved a few more holes in the roof for the support structure, so you may save a bit on electricity but eventualy end up with an otherwise unnessary EUR 90,000 roof repair when the rain leaks in.The Germans are wise to the fact that their involuntary feed-in tariff subsidies are flowing to the Chinese downstream providers, so that gravy train is likely to end soon. Another alternate conculsion: Insulate up, screw in low-consumption lightbulbs that make life look better (or, well, at least like a 1970s old man's barber shop after dark), preserve your 1950s-era roof and then use the money you've saved to buy shares in downstream chinese solar players as they involuntarily tax 1.3 billion people versus 82 million in Germany.

Drive through the East Bay pass to Livermore and look at all those rusty windmills cluttering up the hillside. Someone got a tax break back in the late 1970s/early 1980s that enabled him to buy an Atari, a Betamax deck and a Datsun 280-Z. Edit: A young college-freshman-aged Expaticus appears momentarily at :20 on this related commercial.

I'm not a 'liberal', that pejorative, simplistic term only applies to the U.S and it's pathetic 'us and them' mentality. I'm a socialist, and as a socialist, my response to your whining about paying taxes, is: what are you going to spend your money on when the world is wallowing in cataclysmic ? A life raft?

When the times comes - and it's coming one way or the other - yeah, sure... If I didn't have to pay so much for energy now, I could save and maybe end up with a life-raft equipped with a built-in bar and flat-screen TV and a few machine guns to ward off the ex-"socialists" swimming around not understanding where the state has gone to and why it's not there to take care of them..

But why should I pay to make windmill construction company owners rich now? And fulfill the fanaticism of misguided Green party lunacy..

China builds coal fired power plants at a rate of one a month, and here in Europe we match their efforts with windmills

do you think it cancels out?

At least as a socialist and environmentalist... I will NOT need to try and explain why to my children, when given the chance I opted to do nothing...!

You don't have to

You dont have to make the coal power plant owners rich either.... you dont have to make anyone rich!

You have the option of producing your own energy and heck even earning from it.

I feel like people are so shocked by the sudden freedom thats being offered in terms of energy choices that they start saying strange things....

As for India and China... well well well... how things change huh? The same western powers that invaded these countries and dried out their resources now have to whine about how these poor people are exploiting the climate and leading wasteful lives...

You do realise that the poor countries do not have a different developmental path as an option, dont you?

Unless America and Europe dont change, the world doesnt stand a chance. The US knows this and will dilly dally for as long as its ignorance/arrogance will allow it to.

And no one is saying we should go ahead and build millions of windfarms and nuclear power plants and what not.

Its time to QUESTION every energy decision we make, for a change. Its possible that hydro power plants are actually net emitters of GHGs , that nuclear power plants do not save CO2 over their entire lifetime, that biofuels will cause more harm than good... therefore, we need to question!

and to those who are angry that others are telling them what to do, what bulbs to use, what cars to drive.. well .. get used to it.

The joy ride is over and its back to reality now.

Most of the old rich farts (all politicians included) will be dead before the worst effects of climate change hit... we youngsters will have to deal with the they're leaving behind. Thanks for nothing.

No, thanks for a pretty comfortable - and frankly interesting - lifestyle.. A lifestyle we'll end up fighting wars to preserve. Human nature led to its development, and human nature will fight to keep it. Which has been my opinion from the beginning: it's all leading to one place - war.

You'll be telling us you're waiting for the rapture next. Your attitude sucks.

Please..

That's like saying history sucks.

Or yeah..., reality.

Since this thread is (as normal) becoming politically charged, here is another angle to see the issue from:

currently we depend from countries such as Saudi Arabia (for oil) or Russia (for gas).

They vary from being plain dictatorship to very imperfect democracies, so I think the less cash they get the better it is.

Plus, I have no doubt that when things will get tough (peak oil or political confrontations) they will shut down the supplies.

Glad to see Germany taking such a leading role. The cost quoted seems like a small price to pay. Ironically many in other western countries are behaving like "Good Germans":

http://www.selfdestructivebastards.com/2009/11/don-be-good-german.html

If anybody out there has considers they have any common sense maybe they should ask themselves a couple of questions. If scientists are correct ,and there was an ice age 10,000 years ago, how come we are not up to our arses in snow right now? Could it be that the planet warmed up again without any help from human beings?

Why is the roman warming period 2000 years ago not mentioned on the U.N. report on climate change that all this fuss is about? Why is the medieval warming period not mentioned, you know, when the colonizing Vikings named Greenland ,Greenland, because it was green and farmable for a couple of hundred years? Why is the European mini ice age between the mid 1500's and the mid 1800's also not mentioned? Could it be because it blows their special interest graphs out of the water? (See historical facts in the link below)

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/little_ice_age.html

Why are 30,000 yes 30,000 scientists considering suing Al Gore for falsehoods in his presentations if the majority scientific opinion on climate change is already in? Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHW7KR33IQ

Could it be that the carbon tax is a fraud to enrich the globalist, now out in the open, NEW WORLD ORDER at our expense?

Why were the worlds CO2 levels 3 times higher at other times in our planets history long before the industrial revolution according to ice core samples? If you are still applying common sense to these questions you might like to pick up some more fact from the next link.

http://vids.rationalveracity.com/v/948,the-great-global-warming-swindle-extras.html

Let's all stop freaking out, settle down and use the brain we have evolved.

We have major pollution problems on the planet right now, mainly from chemical and electro polluters. These are issues we can address and pursue but unless any of you have figured out a

way to stop sun activity then let?s call this human cause of global warming scam what it is . Another monster ripoff!!! If your common sense also leads you to this conclusion, after viewing these links, then do the world a favour and impart that knowledge to all your friends and associates..

Ain't that the truth. Global warming or not getting off gas and oil is the smart way to go long term. But humans aren't very good looking long term. We need energy and we will eventually run out of oil. Sure makes sense to try and utilise the oil we have as best we can for future generations and an economy that is less oil dependant will one day have a competitive advantage.

For a very long time I was convinced that humans are having a massive effect on Global Warming.

I am now at a position where i am not convinced about anything and would like to leave all possibilities open. The language began to change and Global Warming is no longer referred to as such, but now as Climate Change... so that leaves open cooling and warming and every other effect as would be expected.

Perhaps a more in depth examination of the provisions of the upcoming "cap and trade" discussions in Copenhagen are in order.

I don't trust these liars and theives to build a system of trading based on environmental assets.

The CRU (Climate Research Unit) at Hadley was recently "hacked" and the contents disseminated... The CRU at Hadley apparently had a relatively decisive role in our current "Climate Change" consensus... when the contents of these emails and documents are examined it could possible open up the floor to a few questions...

Link...

Worth having a look at.

My opinion is not yet set in stone... my questions, however seem to increasing.