Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Climate Change and Environmental Issues Thank God for GW

In all fairness, there wasn't the science back then to know the effects of such action. It was the mere invention of turning fossil fuel into energy that could drive vehicles that was so cool back then.

As an aside, in my neck-of-the-woods, mercury was used in mining gold back in the mid-1800s. The miners back then used mercury from the side of a nearby mountain. Now we have a problem where mercury is leaching into a nearby creek - every time it rains - from that old mercury mine - still today 150 years later. Chinook salmon use that creek to spawn.

It's only due to science that we know that fossil fuels are not good for the environment and we know that mercury is not good for ecosystems and will kill a human if ingested in large amounts.

Then don't eat quicksilver with your fish or drink quicksilver with your water. Every individual has the ability to make the decision on his own. Free individuals don't need some "scientist" with a bunch of "facts" and a "theory" or Statists with their regulations and punishments to make decisions.

Ma R:

Should I stop waiting for an answer?

Given that free individuals are all knowing regarding every, single, issue, and potential hazard, of their lives - this is true.

you can stop waiting for an answer

preface your remarks with an argument that corporations will make money because of global climate change and MR will join the band wagon and doesn't even have to see the data or conclusions

Correct. It is the responsibility of each individual to assess the risks and profits of each of their actions - not the Collectivist nanny state.

Which would require said individual to be all knowing...

...because it's their responsibility to know everything about anything and anything going wrong was their responsibility to know.

Seems that flipping a coin, 'heads or tails', is a lot faster than making a risk assessment analysis. Otherwise, free individuals would drown in having to perform constant assessments which would result in not having enough time to go to work and keep the capitalist economy humming in order to remain a free individual...

...or better yet, pay someone to perform risk assessments for said free individual which would serve a dual purpose: Trickle-down economy AND keeping the capitalistic economy humming...

Now, there's a win-win!

The world is only as complicated as you make it. Maximize return on investment as quickly as possible - sometimes, derogatorily, branded as "greed" and "instant gratification". It is solid Capitalism.

The year is 1867. You are in the fur and meat packing businesses. You have identified ready markets for bison pelts. You can earn a 10% return at quantities of 30 units per month which you can acquire through trade with the indigenous population but 73% at quantities of 3,000 per month.

Being a solid capitalist, you engage your own hunting teams to find the herds, slaughter and skin them en masse and leave the stripped hides on the prairie. 10 years later you are out of business because you maximized your return and eliminated your market by destroying the raw material.

You shift your business strategy logging in Michigan. You discover that you can greatly improve your return by driving railroads deep into the Michigan timber lands. Your returns indeed rise exponentially until you have logged all the timber lands with the capacity to support ongoing railroad operations and then the bottom falls out of your market because you maximized your return and eliminated your market by destroying the raw material.

You moved your logging operation to the Pacific Northwest. You did very well until all the old growth timber had been exhausted and you discovered that it was cheaper to import timber from other countries than to replant the forests you had destroyed.

Seems to be a pattern here; this solid capitalism thing that keeps maximizing return seems not to be a highly sustainable strategy.