Breaking news: Breathing now to be regulated

[bhsup]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091207/ap_on_bi_ge/climate_epa

The announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency was clearly timed to build momentum toward an agreement at the international conference on climate change that opened Monday in Copenhagen, Denmark. It signaled the administration was prepared to push ahead for significant controls in the U.S. if Congress doesn't act first on its own.

The EPA's involvement in reducing climate-changing pollution, stems from a 2007 Supreme Court decision that declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act. But the court said the EPA would have to determine if these pollutants pose a danger to public health and welfare before it could regulate them

Yeah, go ahead and laugh. But if the government can find a way to tax and regulate anything, they will. Sure, now they'll say "what, are you crazy, we won't regulate breathing", but 20-30 years down the road...

 

[zulu9812]

Shamefully & deliberately misleading thread title? Check

Taking statements out of context? Check

Obviously has an axe to grind? Check

Is this another charge by the CFC loony brigade?

Why yes, yes it is

 

[lutzj]

It's all a secret hippie plan to make breathing evil so they have an excuse to cull all livestock and make us vegans.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

Sure, now they'll say "what, are you crazy, we won't regulate breathing", but 20-30 years down the road...

Everything's better with citations.

 

[ArneHD]

Well farting is still not regulated, so I guess you will have to wait a long time for breathing as well then? There is probably something in there that they could get you for even now under that act.

 

[zulu9812]

VRWCAgent, I've looked at some of your other posts and I have a question for you:

why are climate change deniers invariably the same people who support the USA's war of terror (sic)?

 

[bhsup]

VRWCAgent, I've looked at some of your other posts and I have a question for you:

why are climate change deniers invariably the same people who support the USA's war of terror (sic)?

Correlation is not causation... ???

 

[ParkCungHee]

Everything's better with citations.

Would you like examples to the contrary?

 

[lutzj]

VRWCAgent, I've looked at some of your other posts and I have a question for you:

why are climate change deniers invariably the same people who support the USA's war of terror (sic)?

Denying the existence of climate change =/= Recognizing that arbitrarily limiting use of fuel is silly,

 

[zulu9812]

Denying the existence of climate change =/= Recognizing that arbitrarily limiting use of fuel is silly,

If sources of fuel are limited, which they are, surely limiting use of fuel itself is inevitable? Either we limit its use now, and thus prolong our ability to use such fuel until we arrive at a technological alternative, or we use fuel as we do now, run out much quicker and find that your use of fuel has been 'limited' for good anyway.

 

[lutzj]

If sources of fuel are limited, which they are, surely limiting use of fuel itself is inevitable? Either we limit its use now, and thus prolong our ability to use such fuel until we arrive at a technological alternative, or we use fuel as we do now, run out much quicker and find that your use of fuel has been 'limited' for good anyway.

Yeah, if only we had vast reserves of coal and natural gas... Oh, wait! We do! It's just that they used to be plants so we can't burn them and "pollute" the Earth by returning them to the environment.

 

[zulu9812]

Yeah, if only we had vast reserves of coal and natural gas... Oh, wait! We do! It's just that they used to be plants so we can't burn them and "pollute" the Earth by returning them to the environment.

Oh dear.

Ignorant knuckle dragging strikes again. I'm not even gonna bother with this one any more.

 

[illram]

If we want to ground this discussion in something realistic, we can discuss the EPA's decision to make businesses emitting over 25,000 metric tons of CO2e report their emissions. Which is what the EPA recently did. OMG!!

 

[TheLastOne36]

I'll carry a tank of Swedish Oxygen whenever I got to Denmark. Don't you worry.

 

[Earthling]

VRWCAgent, I've looked at some of your other posts and I have a question for you:

why are climate change deniers invariably the same people who support the USA's war of terror (sic)?

That's probably better for PM or a different thread; I could answer that for you though. Anyway, there is certainly no risk of some sort of "tax on breathing."

 

[Bill3000]

I'm pretty sure a tax on breathing would be more important if there is a dangerously low level of oxygen as opposed to an excess level of CO2.

How much CO2 does humanity's breathing generate anyway?

 

[Harshad]

Correlation is not causation... ???

"Correlation does not imply causation" is a phrase used in science and statistics to emphasize that correlation between two variables does not automatically imply that one causes the other (though it does not remove the fact that correlation can still be a hint, whether powerful or otherwise[1][2]).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

 

[bhsup]

Science and statistics don't have a lock on the phrase. I'll use it if I choose.

 

[warpus]

Here in Canada we already pay 2 cents per cubic metre of oxygen inhaled.

The nitrogen you inhale is only taxed in Manitoba, though.

 

[Harshad]

Science and statistics don't have a lock on the phrase. I'll use it if I choose.

I didn't mean you couldn't use it, I meant that the correlation between climate change denial and support for the war on terror, while not automatically implying causation, is a powerful hint. It points you towards a conclusion.