Larcenous Designs

...is that Pennsylvania is FREEZING right now. Seriously. 30-degree night-time temperatures. Today looks to be a little bit more sunny, but I'm not getting my hopes up. And this in the middle of May.

At least the cat is warm, and doesn't seem to mind me typing with her in my lap.

To perhaps interject a smidgen of useful information here, the weather may be in for stranger changes in the future. While even Senator McCain is admitting global warming exists, his plans for dealing with it are limited in the extreme. Of course, he starts by shifting blame to India, China, and developing nations. Now, developing nations ARE a contributor to global warming, but primarily because they attempt to mimic first world standards using their available resources. But McCain fails to mention that the U.S. is still guilty of a majority of the world's carbon emissions.

And then, without fail, he re-uses an old attempt to control emissions through the use of 'pollution vouchers.' The idea here is this: each factory that releases large amounts of carbon dioxide is allowed a certain amount of pollution per year. If they exceed this amount, the corporation that owns the factory pays a fine. If they manage to release LESS than the allowed amount, they can sell the balance of their portion to another factory or corporation. In theory, if everyone plays along, you have a pre-determined amount of pollution released each year, which will hopefully be progressively lowered over time.

In practice, however, this tactic rarely produces the desired results. Retrofitting factories with the proper cracking equipment is expensive (you need a giant filter---huge---coated in platinum), and owing to corporate interests in the government, the fines for exceeding your limits are generally set fairly low. The result is that most companies decide to pollute anyway, since that's the most economical decision. So it looks good on paper, gets the votes, and then does nothing. Phaw.

Not that I have a better suggestion. It just irks me to see stupid bids for the environmentalist vote.

Also, I should note that I'm neither a scientist, nor informed enough about McCain's politics to know if there might be more to his plans than just the above.  My naturally cynical self doubts it, however.

Back to the regularly scheduled game design blogging soon---I just had to rant for a moment.

Blessed be,
~Nathan