On Jul 10, 1:29 pm, "z0n0b" wrote:
"Fran" wrote in message

...
On Jul 10, 3:19 am, Bruce Richmond wrote: On Jul 8, 10:51 pm, Fran wrote:


Restore context:

Bruce Richmond asked:

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So it's not like they were asked "even if it costs you your job?" or
"even if it costs more for everything you buy?" or "even if it costs
you a lot more to heat your home?"
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I responded:

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There was no reason to ask that ... that would be push polling and it
would be based on facts not in evidence.

Would you, Bruce Richmond, oppose socialism if it meant everyone
would
be more free and a lot better off?

See what I mean by push polling?
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Bonzo commented:

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If it were anywhere near reality, of course not, but painful history
shows that it's pure fantasy on your part komrade!
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Which exactly makes my point. Bruce's proposed question was loaded, in
just the way I deliberately loaded the question on socialism. It
assumes facts not in evidence, or which would be controversial at best
-- so much so that even you noticed and wanted to challenge the
assumption underlying it.

There simply is no evidence that going with renewables as part of a
general program will destroy jobs or seriously push up energy costs.
It's merely a reprioritising of the kinds of economic activity which
people regard as viable or desirable. In the end though, if there are
indeed fewer jobs *on a world scale*, then this can only mean that the
jobs under the old regime were doing more harm than good, and that now
we are more efficiently meeting people's needs -- since fewer people
are needed to do the socially necessary work.

What's important is to specify accurately so that we can direct work
into areas that serve human need efficiently. It's likely for example
that if industry in major industrial economies had largely eliminated
coal combustion for power or petroleum combustion in transport that
jobs would be lost in the health sector as the health of the
population improved due to falling mercury, SO2, PM, ozone, declines
in road trauma etc. fewer kids would suffer from mercury poisoning.
There'd be less black lung disease as not as much coal would be
mined.

What do we do with all those unemployed health workers? We retrain
them to do something else useful. It's not as if there is a shortage
of useful things to do or the funds to pay them.

Fran