Pope Francis' upcoming climate change encyclical 'Laudato Sii' (Praised Be)

[lynnvinc]

…Common sense and reasonable behavior are not “mitigation” strategies, nor is recycling or any other conservation practice any part of AGW. This is a basic distinction that should be insisted on. It is no more reasonable to believe that one can mitigate AGW by turning off lights than it is to believe it possible to bail out Lake Michigan with a teaspoon. There are good reasons not to waste things, energy included, but they have nothing to do with AGW.

Ender

I’m afraid that these are the only things that will mitigate AGW. Simply putting some tax on fossil fuels and everyone paying that tax without reducing their GHG emissions … that is what will NOT mitigate AGW. I and even the Pope are against Cap & Trade for that very reason – it will not help reduce AGW, but just put more money in the pockets of the oil & coal industries…bec those taxes are passed on to consumers, not paid by them.

Therefore it is imperative for people of good will to set examples and try and get others to follow, to help people of good will & concerned about life on earth to understand that we all need to do our part.

As for policies, perhaps a “fee & dividend” with public outreach to help people become energy/resource efficient/conservative and go on renewable energy when feasible would be of more help. That is a fee is put on each barrel of oil and ton of coal coming out of the ground or into port, and those funds are given back to the people as “dividends” each month to either pay the higher energy prices or invest in conservation & efficiency measure and renewable energy and really be on the road to prosperity.

As for small actions solving big problems, I keep turning back to Mother Teresa who said it doesn’t matter how much or how little you do, your love make it infinite. Based on that and St. Therese’s Littte Way of Spiritual Childhood I came up with “The Little Way of Environmental Healing”:

We are faced with enormous environmental problems that kill people, and destroy property and wildlife. Everyone needs to help solve these.

St. Therese of the Child Jesus teaches us the Little Way of Spiritual Childhood. She felt she could not perform the big mortifications of the saints. We also feel we cannot go back to a lifestyle without cars and modern conveniences.

St. Therese, though, was determined to become a saint. She read, “Whoever does not accept the kingdom of God as a little child will not enter into it.” Following this, St. Therese in childlike simplicity offered God all of her small deeds of ordinary life, and placed all her trust in God to help her scale the cliffs of perfection and avoid temptations. This is the Little Way. “Not everyone can fast, or wear hair shirts, or spend hours in prayer,” she used to say, “but everyone can love!” One thing alone is needful: all must be done for love of God.

What is needed to solve the big environmental problems is a life of many small deeds done out of love for God. We need to offer many small prayers to help us understand the problems and find solutions, and then more prayers to carry out our actions in daily life.

We need faith that our small deeds will, with God’s grace, amount to more than a meaningless drop in the bucket, letting Jesus multiply our fish & loaves; Mother Teresa said our love makes our small deeds infinite. We need hope that we will one day be rejoicing with God in heaven, so we need not be too concerned with worldly riches, comforts, and status. We need the charity of joyfully sharing God’s bounty and beauty with others around the world and in the future by helping to save the Earth.

 

[estesbob]

Wrong.

You have NO idea of all the environmental harms and how offsetting dirty, finite energy with renewable energy can help. Perhaps reading Laudato Si is a good place to start for some basic understanding on a wide range of environmental problems, many of which can be mitigated by renewable energy.

Here are some quote from LS on renewable energy:

1. "There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced, for example, substituting for fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy.
2. “Taking advantage of abundant solar energy will require the establishment of mechanisms and subsidies which allow developing countries access to technology transfer, technical assistance and financial resources, but in a way which respects their concrete situations, since “the compatibility of [infrastructures] with the context for which they have been designed is not always adequately assessed”.128 Taking advantage of abundant solar energy will require the establishment of mechanisms and
   subsidies which allow developing countries access to technology transfer, technical assistance and financial resources, but in a way which respects their concrete situations, since “the compatibility of [infrastructures] with the context for which they have been designed is not always adequately assessed”.128 The costs of this would be comparatively low, given the risks of climate change. In any event, these are primarily ethical decisions, rooted in solidarity between all peoples… In any event, these are primarily ethical decisions, rooted in solidarity between all peoples.”

---

BTW the tax-breaks for the Volt will be over in a few years…they only go up to the first 100,000 cars and they are at about 50,000 sold. With the 2016 improved model they expect the sale to go up to some 20,000 per year. So grab your Volt soon. It’s the best car on the road (tho it only seats 4 and you need a place to plug it in, so it’s not for everyone). You can spread your $7500 tax break over three years if you wish, taking $2500 off each years tax.

With all the problems in the world we are wasting money giving subsidies to people who really don’t need them and somehow those who take this money think there is something altruistic about it

 

[lynnvinc]

With all the problems in the world we are wasting money giving subsidies to people who really don’t need them and somehow those who take this money think there is something altruistic about it

Yes, we really did need those subsidies to overcome my husband’s reluctance to get a Volt and into solar panels – and even with the tax-breaks I had a very hard sell and didn’t really think I’d convince him. So yes those subsidies are needed at least in the beginning to stimulate the transition to a more life-hospitable economy and technology.

They will be ending sometime within a few years, so please don’t over-worry too much about them. Wind is now cheaper than fossil fuel energy, and solar is getting pretty much on par. There is still some resistance, though, bec these are new and unfamiliar.

Just give it a few more years, then people will be getting into these things without the tax-breaks and subsidies.

Meanwhile it might be good to end the $1billion per year in subsidies and tax-breaks to fossil fuels and give that money back to the tax-papers (see iisd.org/gsi/fossil-fuel-subsidies). I hate paying on April 15th for others to pollute and kill people.

 

[Theo520]

With all the problems in the world we are wasting money giving subsidies to people who really don’t need them and somehow those who take this money think there is something altruistic about it

Notice how hard people argue to keep their ‘free stuff’

If it’s such a conviction for these double income families, then they should show leadership and spend their own money.

 

[estesbob]

Yes, we really did need those subsidies to overcome my husband’s reluctance to get a Volt and into solar panels – and even with the tax-breaks I had a very hard sell and didn’t really think I’d convince him. So yes those subsidies are needed at least in the beginning to stimulate the transition to a more life-hospitable economy and technology.

They will be ending sometime within a few years, so please don’t over-worry too much about them. Wind is now cheaper than fossil fuel energy, and solar is getting pretty much on par. There is still some resistance, though, bec these are new and unfamiliar.

Just give it a few more years, then people will be getting into these things without the tax-breaks and subsidies.

Meanwhile it might be good to end the $1billion per year in subsidies and tax-breaks to fossil fuels and give that money back to the tax-papers (see iisd.org/gsi/fossil-fuel-subsidies). I hate paying on April 15th for others to pollute and kill people.

Oil companies don’t get subsidies. This myth is propagated by those who have not even a basic understanding about how business taxations works. Oil companies take the same depreciation on their equipment and are allowed the same business expenses as are all domestic companies. In addition oil company profits are taxed twice. Once when they earn it it andcagain but it is paid out as dividends to its stockholders.

 

[estesbob]

Notice how hard people argue to keep their ‘free stuff’

If it’s such a conviction for these double income families, then they should show leadership and spend their own money.

if solar panels and electric cars were so economical thre would be no need to give people subsidies to buy them

 

[Ender]

I’m afraid that these are the only things that will mitigate AGW.

Good intentions are no substitute for effective actions. The US uses roughly 4 thousand terawatts of energy each year. Simple efficiencies cannot significantly reduce that demand, nor can renewable sources replace any significant amount of it. There is no cheap and easy solution, and there is insufficient reason to believe we should adopt costly and ineffective measures to “mitigate” a problem that more and more seems not to exist.

Therefore it is imperative for people of good will to set examples and try and get others to follow, to help people of good will & concerned about life on earth to understand that we all need to do our part.

I wish people of good will would see the damage their proposals will cause. If they were concerned about the people living on the Earth they would not be so cavalier about adopting unnecessary, feel-good measures that will cause so much hardship while providing virtually no benefit.

As for small actions solving big problems, I keep turning back to Mother Teresa who said it doesn’t matter how much or how little you do, your love make it infinite.

There is a significant difference between what she did and what you are doing. Her actions actually benefited real people, not nearly as many who needed it, but real nonetheless. Your actions have no real impact. The energy you save does not flow to some poor person who could use it. The only concrete benefit is to make you feel good about yourself. I do what I can too, but I don’t deceive myself by thinking my actions have any global effect. The scale, the sheer amount of energy involved, seems lost on you.

Ender

 

[lynnvinc]

Good intentions are no substitute for effective actions. The US uses roughly 4 thousand terawatts of energy each year…

And if each household would reduce its fossil fuel energy use (and that includes the fossil fuel energy involved in the extraction, shipping, processing, manufacturing, wholesaling, retailing, refrigerating (if required), buying, consuming, and disposal every product, including water) by 60% the way my husband and I have done, that be a good start to reducing our nation’s GHG emissions.

And we have much more we can do to reduce.

Logistically it would take a family at least 10 years or more to get into doing all that – we’ve been at it for 25 years – so it’s best to start now.

The same goes not only for each family, but each business, government office & dept at each level of gov, school, church, etc.

It’s sort of like dieting – there is really hardly any substitute for just eating less

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Oil companies don’t get subsidies. This myth is propagated by those who have not even a basic understanding about how business taxations works. Oil companies take the same depreciation on their equipment and are allowed the same business expenses as are all domestic companies. In addition oil company profits are taxed twice. Once when they earn it it andcagain but it is paid out as dividends to its stockholders.

As a tax professional, you undoubtably know this, but oil companies do get to expense some capital equipment expenditures that other companies would have to depreciate. That amounts to a subsidy. Read more about special treatment for oil companies here.

One area where oil companies are treated the same as all other companies is that dividends paid to stockholders are taxed twice, as you said.

 

[estesbob]

As a tax professional, you undoubtably know this, but oil companies do get to expense some capital equipment expenditures that other companies would have to depreciate. That amounts to a subsidy. Read more about special treatment for oil companies here.

One area where oil companies are treated the same as all other companies is that dividends paid to stockholders are taxed twice, as you said.

Depreciation only changes when the deduction is taken They are not subsidies in any way shape or form .

 

[zz912]

As a tax professional, you undoubtably know this, but oil companies do get to expense some capital equipment expenditures that other companies would have to depreciate. That amounts to a subsidy. Read more about special treatment for oil companies here.

One area where oil companies are treated the same as all other companies is that dividends paid to stockholders are taxed twice, as you said.

Expensing all of the cost of a piece of equipment now, versus over a longer period of time isn’t a subsidy. Oil companies are allowed to expense the full amount for some activities and equipment because of the massive costs involved in setting up a new well, and the failure rates involved. Similar to drug manufacturers or software companies, they can fully expense things related to new drug or software development up until a point where it reaches viability (they have a decent idea that the new drug/software/oil well will actually return some revenue). Hundreds of millions of dollars can be invested into something that never ends up generating money.

So for tax purposes, they can expense those items fully when paid. So the oil company has paid out $1 for a new drill, they get to expense the full dollar this year, instead of expensing $0.05-0.10 every year for the next 10-20 years.

That’s not a subsidy. Subsidy implies they are actually receiving money, when they aren’t. And the people claiming they are receiving money are all too happy to give that impression to the ignorant or ill-informed who fill with rage at the thought of those evil, nasty oil companies getting truckloads of money shipped from Washington DC to their Scrooge McDuck money vaults.

 

[estesbob]

Expensing all of the cost of a piece of equipment now, versus over a longer period of time isn’t a subsidy. Oil companies are allowed to expense the full amount for some activities and equipment because of the massive costs involved in setting up a new well, and the failure rates involved. Similar to drug manufacturers or software companies, they can fully expense things related to new drug or software development up until a point where it reaches viability (they have a decent idea that the new drug/software/oil well will actually return some revenue). Hundreds of millions of dollars can be invested into something that never ends up generating money.

So for tax purposes, they can expense those items fully when paid. So the oil company has paid out $1 for a new drill, they get to expense the full dollar this year, instead of expensing $0.05-0.10 every year for the next 10-20 years.

That’s not a subsidy. Subsidy implies they are actually receiving money, when they aren’t. And the people claiming they are receiving money are all too happy to give that impression to the ignorant or ill-informed who fill with rage at the thought of those evil, nasty oil companies getting truckloads of money shipped from Washington DC to their Scrooge McDuck money vaults.

The problem is people equate tax deductions with subsidies . As you said there is a huge difference between being able to write a piece of equipment off quicker and getting money from the government for purchasing something

 

[Ridgerunner]

And if each household would reduce its fossil fuel energy use (and that includes the fossil fuel energy involved in the extraction, shipping, processing, manufacturing, wholesaling, retailing, refrigerating (if required), buying, consuming, and disposal every product, including water) by 60% the way my husband and I have done, that be a good start to reducing our nation’s GHG emissions.

But don’t you realize there’s no particular virtue in having someone else pay for one’s “mitigation”? If I did without air conditioning because I had fifty slaves fanning me and pumping water into a fountain for me, would anyone think that virtuous?

 

[Ridgerunner]

The problem is people equate tax deductions with subsidies . As you said there is a huge difference between being able to write a piece of equipment off quicker and getting money from the government for purchasing something

Everybody gets a certain amount of immediate write-off. If I went out and bought a $100,000 tractor today, I could write the whole thing off in this calendar year.

Frankly, I think depreciation is basically a loan to the government. If I buy some piece of equipment exceeding the allowable immediate deduction, it’s put on a depreciation schedule for a number of years notwithstanding that I pay the whole price today. By speading it out, the government gets, in effect, an interest-free loan for that period. That’s another way of looking at it.

 

[estesbob]

Everybody gets a certain amount of immediate write-off. If I went out and bought a $100,000 tractor today, I could write the whole thing off in this calendar year.

Frankly, I think depreciation is basically a loan to the government. If I buy some piece of equipment exceeding the allowable immediate deduction, it’s put on a depreciation schedule for a number of years notwithstanding that I pay the whole price today. By speading it out, the government gets, in effect, an interest-free loan for that period. That’s another way of looking at it.

The reason many ppeople on the left are confused about this they have the attitude that all income belongs to the government and taxes determine how much the governments money to keep . The exact opposite is the case. Anything that allows me to keep more of my own money cannot be called a subsidy.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

The problem is people equate tax deductions with subsidies . As you said there is a huge difference between being able to write a piece of equipment off quicker and getting money from the government for purchasing something

The end result of either a direct payment subsidy or a tax deduction is that money that might be in the government’s hands is in your hands. It is a benefit. Whether that benefit is realized through a check from the government or by being excused from paying some taxes you would otherwise have to pay, it is a subsidy if it is given preferentially to some people / businesses and not to others. It is just nitpicking to say a deduction is not a subsidy.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Anything that allows me to keep more of my own money cannot be called a subsidy.

That is only true if everyone else is other lines of work are also allowed to keep more of their own money. If the benefit is granted to some businesses and not to others, it is a subsidy, because it allows government to pick winners and losers.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Depreciation only changes when the deduction is taken They are not subsidies in any way shape or form .

For a business that lives and dies based on cash flow, when a deduction is taken is of extreme importance. That is why rules about what can be expensed and what must be depreciated are so strict.

 

[Theo520]

Depreciation only changes when the deduction is taken They are not subsidies in any way shape or form .

Stop raining on the parade.

Huge subsidies to oil industry is fundamental to the injustice messaging.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Oil companies are allowed to expense the full amount for some activities and equipment because of the massive costs involved in setting up a new well, and the failure rates involved. Similar to drug manufacturers or software companies, they can fully expense things related to new drug or software development up until a point where it reaches viability (they have a decent idea that the new drug/software/oil well will actually return some revenue). Hundreds of millions of dollars can be invested into something that never ends up generating money.

But the rules are different for different businesses. If I go out and buy a bunch of new computers for my software development business, I can only expense up to a certain dollar amount. After that, the capital expenditures must be depreciated. But oil companies are given, by law, special treatment. Look up these laws - specifically for the oil industry and for no one else:

1916 - intangible drilling costs write-off
1926 - depletion allowance
1974-1984 federal spending on fossil fuel research jumps 10-fold
1985 - Regan urges Congress to kill the depletion allowance, but it doesn’t happen.
1995 - Deep Water Royalty Relief Act
2005 - Energy Policy Act expands the depletion allowance

If oil companies were treated like “everyone else” there would be no need for special legislation for them. But because the government wants to be in the business of picking winners and losers, and preferentially shielding some companies for the risk of doing business, these laws exist. You might as well call them subsidies because they cost money that the oil companies do not have to pay like other companies.