on just about every aspect of our lives so what can be done to combat carbon pollution and save our planet two a good first step would be to introduce a carbon tax and force companies to pay for the carbon that they're dumping into our skies all debate washington over national carbon taxes gone nowhere across the globe other countries are realize the environmental and economic benefits of a carbon tax one of those countries is ireland and joining me now from dublin to talk more about ireland's experience with a carbon tax is a man ryan former minister of energy and communications of ireland and now the head of the green party ireland mr ryan welcome thank you very much indeed good to talk to you thanks for joining us what motivated carbon to create a carbon tax and how did you go about doing it. it took a long time i guess we were looking at it from the late ninety's and it took almost ten years before it was introduced in two thousand and ten and maybe not time it was useful in some way we got a lot of economic analysis done to show that if you introduce those and you use the

revenues to reduce labor taxes and to protect people against fuel poverty and invest in new green energy systems that actually it does your economy good it gives you a net gain to the economy it raises activity cuts down the expense of imports of fossil fuels as well as cutting out the carbon so we were in government two thousand and seven two thousand and eleven and it was one of our kind of key commitments to try and deliver i was glad that we were able to do and i suppose glad as well just to see it working and you know if the world didn't come to an end it wasn't an easy thing to do politically but the figures for ireland i think show an example that you can actually start cursing out the carbon and your economy still holds up and we went through a difficult period in our county but but the actual green economy has done well and i think it's a lesson for the rest the world not you know we're and we're a good people say doc a scandinavian countries they're always doing the right thing maybe aren't as a nice example because we're perfect sinners as well but the same time we were able

to do it and it worked how does the irish carbon tax work. we have the advantage of the spores were an island and it was fairly simple to introduce it in the sense that you put we put it at the point of entry so as as an oil ship comes into the into the port of corcoran supported dublin our culture it comes into sharp shannon river we're able to put the tax at the point of entry and that's a big advantage because you cut out the expense of collecting it and it kind of trick astrue the rest of the economic system so you put it on the order tanker coming in or you put it on the code the code shipment. and that is applied in a myriad of different ways it's not a huge tax signal it accounts now for about one percent of our overall tax revenue but it's a signal that it's one of if you put it in as one of several signals it starts to have that effect and even there you don't expect you know in improving your energy efficient in your homes or improving industries energy efficiency when they see a carbon tax in place people know that they can vest in alternatives that actually

cut out the use of fossil fuels so that's a big advantage we had is that was able to be fairly easily introduced at the point of entry it applied on on every aspect of transport he's saying. you can have it trickle through the economy enough way. and and his reason be easy to to collect if you were to translate ireland's carbon tax into. dollars or euros per tonne of carbon and they did do you know if you have a sense of or or even an exact number for what that would be and how micro yet again carbon taxes you know a little bit. roughly twenty five dollars a ton twenty five twenty euros a tonne whatever the current exchange rate is so and we originally set it up by force to mirror the european union has another way of pricing carbon called emissions trading scheme we've set it up to mountain mirror that thousand that

price that exists across europe now the emissions trading scheme of things fall into a very low price but our carbon prices stayed. saying stop consistency that you you know it's twenty euros a tonic whatever different application that applies it raises about four hundred million euros in tax revenue and in terms of iran's going through a different economic situation so we needed to balance our budget and the carbon tax i suppose provided about twelve percent of the just meant we needed to make on the tax side so we were fortunate in some ways in the revenue situation was very difficult and we were able to apply the carbon tax to help on that side but the real benefit is the signal that gives to investment in other areas and i suppose in ireland we've had bad ben if i mean we are firstly we're a very exposed ninety percent of our energy is imported fossil fuels so we need to cut it i was and what we've seen in the last five years is we've doubled our amount of our new but energy supplies we saw a twenty five percent improvement in the efficiency of new irish cards and so that

those sort of signals and there was another in the car tax side we did some other measures around car tax to kind of have that happen i suppose the message the public one is it's not popular it's not easy to introduce it but every new irish car going into the to buy gasoline is spending twenty five percent less than i would have been had we not sent those sort of price signals so it's not easy to introduce you know no one should should underestimate the difficulty but the benefit for the consumer is even if through those signals you can cut out the wasteful use of energy that everyone saving money in it more than covers the cost of the carbon tax in the first place now there's irish carbon taxes first proposed by the irish green party which you're the head of right now what how do other political parties react to it have you found any interesting coalitions or alliances with parties that you might not think of as typically being concerned about global climate change or the cost of carbon. i think we have the advantage

here in that there was broader complete consensus around the transition towards a clean energy future that maybe it seems to exist in the states and i'll be honest i don't think it's easy to introduce this if it's turned into a left versus right or by republican versus democrat issue i think a key way of getting it getting it through is actually getting bipartisan agreement and i suppose if i was giving advice to the states where it is a current issue you know we know the budget negotiations you have ahead of you still isn't resolved surely it's one of the measures that actually could get some sort of bipartisanship support because in a sense it's leaving it to the free market to decide what sort of technology phosphorus solutions you want to develop putting a price on carbon actually leaves the freedom of the market to actually work out plus the best way of doing that rather than a whole myriad of different government interventions so i think we were fortunate here where we introduced it that there was reasonable broad support for it i mean people play politics with the to a certain extent but we were able to introduce it because we could build stuff sort

of deal across the house and i think that needs to happen elsewhere otherwise it becomes a political football and people scoring points and to be honest the public opposition then it's a real problem so i think the first precursor to getting some sort of agreement is getting some sort of deal with parties different sides of the house and then i think once you have that then you're you're you're one tenth of the way they're aiming ryan thanks so much for being with us tonight. thank you dude. let's get geeky on getting in a good workout most athletes runners and gym rats know about it in the wall is the point to which your body is so exhausted that you can't continue to function whether you're out the field or in the gym but new research suggests that hitting the wall may be the perfect example of mind over matter and that exhaustion may be

all in your head researchers at the university of kent in england wanted to figure out if mentally pumping yourself up and encouraging yourself during a workout could help fight off the effects of exhaustion so they turn to a group of twenty four healthy and physically active men and women and ask them to ride on the stationary bike until they just couldn't ride anymore the researchers took physical measurements of the study members before asking each one to ride on the stationary bike and and until they hit the wall as the study members rode on the bike researchers memory measured their heart rates their pedal power their overall pace and the researchers kept track of their facial muscle movement and grimaces which are signs of physical exhaustion and they repeatedly asked the bikers how hard the exercise was on a scale of one to ten after each bikers measurements and initial reaction size was recorded the group was divided into two one group of bikers was told to continue the normal exercise routine for the next two weeks while the other group was

coached in using self talk during exercise learning how to positively talk to yourself about your workout during your workout it's positive talking clear phrases like you know well keep up the good work i'm feeling good this is making me feel better i can get through this after two weeks both groups return to the lab to take another round of exercise tests and the bikers who had learned self talk used it during their tests while those who hadn't did. researchers found that the group of bikers who had talked of themselves pedaled much longer before becoming tired but in their first rides and reported that the exercise felt easier even though the objective measurements their heart rates their facial expressions they remained the same from the first exercise test meaning that the second biking unexercised has was actually just as hard as the first one it just didn't seem that way to them sam well mark aura senior author of the study said that the results indicated that

quote motivational small talk improves in durance performance compared to not using he went on to say that it's very possible that physical exhaustion develops primarily in the head so next time you head to the gym or go for a run think some happy thoughts and you may run right past that wall this applies in the real world by the way to this whole idea of coming up with affirmations is one time tested back in the eighteen under it's there was a frenchwoman. a really courageous something they had a long name at the end who came up with this what became an international fad where people would say to themselves five ten fifteen twenty times a day every day in every way i am getting better and better and better and it works if you can to actually talk yourself into things called bristol wrote a brilliant book called the magic of believing and he told the story about a fellow that he knew who was had more to drink the need actually intended to who

stood and looked him self in the mirror and said i am sober you are sober enough you are so and actually did how people can talk themselves into being successful. magical believed by claude bristol. to. praise the lord looking for a new hobby why not give valid gentle knitting a try you know that gentle needy still confused a let performance artist casey jenkins who uses badger maybe as part of her show to explain. i'm spending twenty days. old that i've been set in my john and me every day. skein over the wound say that it will travel from the same town and

a ticket up inside me and i pull out the thread and then meet the colemans wouldn't pay the performance if i were a guy a cop out my menstrual cycle on that. limb i'm menstruating and make snipping a hell of a lot. of the will is. that kind of yank. it sort of slightly uncomfortable sometimes arousing sometimes when at least now you know how grandma makes those fancy holiday sweaters for free.

i would rather questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find my show larry king now right here on r.g.p. question for. crosstalk

rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want. so sometimes you know what you know and sometimes you know what you don't know and sometimes as the fires and the others as they rethink you know it's wrong and i don't think you're wrong or if you were you were right in the spirit you were all just saying things that sure of your money really mean you know what is wrong is it's christmas time so santa clause is on everyone's mind once again thanks to meghan kelly said it has been a topic of conversation for more than the usual reasons this year fox news host unleashed a firestorm of controversy earlier this month when she said our show that father christmas is definitely one. in slate they have a piece in santa claus should not be a white man anymore and when i saw this headline i kind of laughed and i saw this is so ridiculous yet another person claiming it's racist to have

a white santa you know and by the way for all you kids watching at home santa just is white but this person is just arguing that maybe we should we should also have a black santa but you know santa is what he is. in the days since savage gate the media has spent countless hours analyzing kelly's comments some pundits have come to her defense agreements as white others have attacked or point out that the real saint nick a fourth century christian religious icon is actually turkish all politics aside though the whole maggie and kelly set of santa clause can controversy raises some interesting question i mean why do we associate a christian holiday with a jolly fat man who lives at the north pole and what's that flying reindeer stuff all about joining me now from new paltz new york to help answer our santa questions as psychologist author of the center for symbolic studies dr steven larson dr larson welcome back pay to merry christmas hey stephen merry christmas let's start

with the basics where does the idea of santa clause come from. well you know it's a scene critic idea it's an ancient norse scandinavian kind of team that permeates norway sweden iceland finland parts of russia the baltic countries and saint nick is a wonderful kind of figure you're correct that he is his christian version is connected with the fourth century christian saint nicholas but this joey fat man i believe is really a kind of a transformation of the primordial showman. how so and i mean shamans from that part of the of the world. well the showman in the ancient circle. traditions the sherman is the ancient wonder worker is the guy miller's whether you've been naughty or nice he is the one who knows all your secrets he very often

dresses in a row sometimes he appears with the a staff and. he is associated with the reindeer or the caribou in the monica. there's a very interesting what about word of the flying reindeer. will you know until i laughed and laughed when i first read this in an siberian anthropological text because there's a funny story about that so burying sherman rely upon and loosen own genetic plant called the am and need to risk area to mushroom it's a mushroom and it's a mushroom that has santa claus's it's a red mushroom with white spots on it and it's like santa is perennial costume colors and the shamans go flying when they ingest that ceremonial mushroom and i found out of the caribou the reindeer of the northern country also eat the m.

and even was scarier now one of the things about us to poisonous mushroom so one of the ways that you can have a high effect without getting poisoned is that you. drink the urine of another shopman who has taken the hit so to speak for you and so sr shum and pee in a glass jar and they can give to drink eight apprentice shermans but the caribou also know the same thing so they eat each other's yellow snow the shamans eat the caribou as yellow snow the caribou eat the shermans yellow snow so they all get high without getting poisoned while somebody whoever is first seen the snow mushroom is getting poisoned with. it but they survive after after a while the body gets used to it ok god hits the liver i think it's and it's really bad so while the whole idea of bad santa this that and the various cultures

were said is characterized as as kind of a nastier creepy guy. i sense some pictures along with the bad the bad santa there i don't know what. really i want to right now already showing some yeah this is a sad with the horns i can't see the missed call that krampus and you know the idea of santa as a being that is able to inexhaustibly give gifts and good cheer and joey in this in the holiday season that's quite an amazing thing but in many of those cultures there are or ways in which the children aren't so good all year long so they have to kind of have a figure that could punish them or you know a traditionally in germany and holland coal was put in the stockings of bad children they were threatened with their sometimes sent peers with war fish helpers sometimes their black elk was called black petes and so the idea that santa is

white some of his helpers are people of color i suppose you'd call them politically correctly and they grab the bad children only put them in a bag and santa carries them away or tortures them so he's a is a kind of a negative figures also called the christmas so so-called sinterklaas and he appears also with a beautiful sleigh and being pulled usually by a reindeer. geez it's amazing the. racism that has slipped into this is the reason the dutch call terry. is that holland where they've got the. sad news this is. actually i saw in one piece his helpers his his black helpers were characterized as as his slaves. yeah this is a track back to the time when when that part of our world was involved in the slave trade of course. you know so it's just

a sort of the same as those black ceramic statues of people have on their lawns holding a lantern can only make sure that everybody can see that it is going on show you're a person of substance if you have slaves. now send it. self is a mysterious character that harbors around the north pole and i want to just call attention to the idea that the whole is the axis money the axis of the world and he's got all these magical helpers that these dwarves and elves you know help him make the goodies all year long and then he knows if you've been naughty or nice and he can fly all over the place and he's like a showman he can make them so small he can make himself large down the chimney he goes and you know he rewards the good and punishes them. is there or is there a connection between saturn and gandalf the wizard from the war of the rings series well very interesting that you should ask the name gandalf comes from the

thirteenth century icelandic it is and it means wise old elf which is exactly what santa is called so gandalf was a wise elf and it's kind of interesting now that as people are watching these talking movies and particularly the second part of the hobbit this coming out again else is really a pivotal figure he is the the guy who knows the secret plot that is going on in force he knows that there is an evil force named so ron and so ron is like the krampus are and he's like his counterpart the evil guy just the same way as the devil is the counterpart of of god or of jesus christ so the so they get off and these these are the hodson the elves and all this stuff this is all grounded in ancient mythology it's not something that jr tolkien just patched out of his brain. well it's magical because tolkien didn't make it up from scratch it's

magical because it existed for a long long time and tolkien was very very convinced that the anglo-saxon imagination was the equal. to kill to commit your nation you know you find in. english folklore a mixture of from the earth theory and traditions you know the map and the welsh and irish and scottish lore but tolkien wanted to make sure that the norse mythology got in there and he was even went out of his way to do that for example the names of all the wars in tolkien are found in snorri still listens thirteenth century icelandic it is now these all all these cultures you're describing are the northern european and russian eastern they're all northern northern cultures is that because the days get really really short there i mean is there some analog to santa claus and christmas in equitorial cultures for example you know there isn't

one and maybe that's the percent is condemned to be wait forever they don't have an equivalent figure that i know of i could be. you know they certainly have schama ignorant about it they do have showman's but there is a whole belt of shamanism that is really around the arctic circle and anthropologists have half in jest and i have seriously said that it's because everybody in the northern hemisphere is because of the long nights in the short days in the winter time is a little bit deranged and well when i lived in germany one of them one of the local psychiatrist actually from mine said that. the old tradition was they would see the days getting shorter and shorter shorter people start to panic around december twenty third and the priest would find a giant tree on a highest hill like that sucker on fire and say i'm ignoring ignite the sun and then you know the next day the days are getting longer going to go he did it again

and make him you know they had a priest for another year and that's why they had their calendar stones you know like you know. stonehenge so they'd know when that day was coming so that they could is that this is the. region of the christmas tree people of had seasonal epictetus words for a long long time and that's why you have a festival of lights starting on the shortest day of the year december twentieth or december twenty first thank god however for electricity because up until this time everybody used to put candles on tinder dry evergreen trees and villages whole villages would burn down on christmas day because everybody is having a festival of lights on that's pretty incredible stephen with just thirty seconds or any final thoughts on on christmas some things we should know about. well you know it is it is wonderful to give a kind of an affirmation to the generosity of spirit that goes along with this

holiday and to celebrate the children and the animals and it really does amalgamate with christ child. the symbolism and the wisemen of the shepherds coming in the beasts around the manger i think it's a wonderful addition to the northern traditions of santa claus and now we've got a a wonderful hybrid syncretic tradition you know stephen dr stephen larson merry christmas to you and robin and i'm watching you and weaves and sean and all your wonderful staff their talents always a pleasure talking to all our elves thank you steve and now i know everything you know about christmas and santa claus is right.

technology innovation all the developments from around russia. that's huge you're covered. the the pledge it was a terrible mistake now i'm very hard to make going to let you get along here there's a lot lot that never had sex with her make their lives let's call it was. just say. listen the i'm

. living. a. i've got a quote for you. that's pretty tough. stay with substory. let's give this guy like you would smear the guys that are working for the people most issues in the mainstream media are working for each other bribe writers vision. problems. they've had rather.

most of the new alert animation scripts scare me a little but. there is breaking news tonight and they are continuing to follow the breaking news. the alexander family cry here's a. great thing that had read dark and a quart of water on the ground. is a story made for a movie is playing out in real life.

today on larry king the anchorman cast is back steve carell paul rudd and christina applegate you can't imagine how much fun it was to go to work every day. and laugh until you cry every day i'm hoping when the movie comes out that steve will still just go around with me and talk about you become a much bigger person star than you were when this was made and a bigger person. having money i did and i did not get it. is james mars than getting good idea that's the job of the job it's not knowing your lines or showing up on time or it's don't break when we'll get something unexpected plus we're told is going to be an intimate three is there a tall one.