I found much to smirk in regarding this climate change fanatic’s support of nuclear energy.
[quote]It is nothing short of insane
that politicians around the world, under pressure from populations subjected to decades of anti-nuclear fearmongering by people who call themselves greens, are raising our collective risk of catastrophic climate change
in order to eliminate the safest power source ever invented.
More people die each day from coal pollution than have been killed by nuclear power in 50 years of operation, and that is even before factoring in the impact on global warming. That such populist irrationality should guide public policy
in so many countries – and on such an important issue as energy – is nothing short of a disaster.
All is not yet lost. 2030 is a long way away, and as Japan watches its heavy industry shut down and relocate offshore due to rising energy costs and supply shortages, there may be a rethink. France may decide to keep its nuclear stations as it watches Germany’s much vaunted dash for solar dissolve in a cloud of coal smoke. But ultimately energy policy must be responsive to public opinion, and as long as people across the world get it so wrong
on nuclear risk and continue to ignore the real and rising risks
of climate change, the planet is in very serious trouble
.[/quote]
Not only that, opposition to nuclear has predominately been focused on weapons, unsafe storage / shipment of waste and the environmental effects of uranium mining - uranium has a nasty habit of being found in the middle of national parks and Aboriginal sacred sites.
Science is of only modest value in determining public policy, especially regarding inherently-dangerous technologies. Take a less contentious issue - cars, for instance. We can use ‘scientific’ methods to measure or estimate the number of deaths and injuries they cause, the various economic and environmental costs, and their benefits. But then what? At some point we have to make a judgement call and decide that X deaths and injuries are “worth” economic benefit Y. There is no direct equivalence between the two - we just make one up, based on our present cultural assumptions.
Likewise with nuclear power. When discussing whether a new 1GWe nuclear power station is “worthwhile”, people might talk about the effective price of electricity relative to (say) gas generation, or the output of greenhouse gases. These are not points of science, but of human importance: for example, there is an underlying assumption that CO2 emission is an important (as in, top-3 important) parameter. There’s another assumption that the extra 1GW capacity is required. It’s rare that anybody ever says “is there another way of getting the benefits we want without generating 1GW of electricity?”. When they do, they’re dismissed as cranks or communists who want to stifle economic growth. Yet this is usually the first question an engineer would ask: is this component, design, or assembly even necessary?
Unfortunately, the world is not run by engineers, it’s run by marketing drones, who take it as axiomatic that more stuff is always better than less stuff.
I didn’t say it was of no value. But at some point you have to stop talking about science and start talking about human values. You can say “well, these are the facts [science], and now what does that mean for us?”. When it was discovered that the earth revolved around the sun, people could have just shrugged and said “meh”. But, for some reason, some of them thought it was of major import that the earth shouldn’t revolve around the sun, and made an almighty fuss about it. People had to make some philosophical adjustments to cope with the idea.
With CC, we have some pretty solid science that tells us the climate is changing, and why. That tells us nothing about what we should do. We have to first decide what sort of world we want to live in; then we can act. Science tells us whether our actions are likely to get us from here to there, which is a big improvement over medieval superstition. But it doesn’t explicitly give us the how. I think CC offers an opportunity to dump some stupid technology and make the world a nicer place to live in. If you think it’s an opportunity to reduce the population and get some photogenic deserts, I can’t really argue with that, at least not with science. A similar error occurs when people pay too much attention to economists. Economic theory gives you a rough idea of the possible outcome of economic actions. It doesn’t tell you which of those outcomes are desirable.
In the case of nuclear technology, we have an additional problem: scientific data on accident rates and the consequences are not useful, partly because there is so little of it, and partly because accidents (of all types) are invariably caused by human screw-ups. Similarly with waste disposal methods, where science/technology can tell us which methods are likely to actually work, but where humans will usually choose the one they think they can get away with.
Your points are valid ones, however (and there is always that, isn’t there?)
Who do you think is more religiously fanatical about the climate change issue?
As the Economist noted in its very excellent editorial (or rather totally excellent editorial), IF the issue is a 2 degree C one, then no big deal, and GIVEN that it appears that this is NOW the more probable outcome, how we approach climate change issues changes drastically.
As I have always believed and stated, the issue has been overblown, and like the Economist, I call for a tempered, well thought out approach. Most of the hysteria and alarm has proved far too emotional and irrational for me. Hence my contempt. Now that the world is coming to its senses, and funding is being cut to ridiculous “awareness raising” efforts, and the media is approaching the issue more sanely, I am increasingly less motivated to engage on this subject. We will survive. Technology will improve. We have not even factored that into the equation. AND, yes, there will be disasters just like there always have been disasters and we will have to deal with them.
Xeno got there before me . Seriously, fred, what with all the rofling and the slathering, “religiously fanatical” doesn’t even start to cover it.
The Economist is a rag. I subscribed for about five years. After a while, I started to actually understand what they were going on about, and realised 80% of it was twaddle: kids out of journalism school with an A-level in economics who’d scanned wikipedia and were suddenly experts on climate change, industrial policy, technology, you name it. Even the articles clearly written by competent economists were just laughable when they strayed off-topic. You should try reading Jeff Sachs’ books. He’s obviously an extremely smart guy, makes some good points and good suggestions, and well-meaning I’m sure; but some of his comments on farming and land management are so simplistic, naive and (sometimes) just plain wrong that it’s clear he’s never so much as grown a herb garden on his windowsill. And this guy is advising the UN on how to create a new green revolution, just on the basis of having a PhD in economics. It’s like hiring an expert on root-knot nematodes to run the central bank.
Yeah, you don’t though fred. You call for sitting on our hands and doing nothing at all, while the big boys who run the show carry on raping the planet up the ass, while laughing their heads off at the idea that some people think it’ll all work out fine in the end.
Actually, some of the optimistic forecasts rely on unobtainium to make it all work. As I’ve said before, this is the wrong approach. We have plenty of workable, tried-and-tested solutions to common problems right now. We don’t need “improved” technology. It was pretty damn good 20 years ago already.
Sure. But, again, it would be smart to arrange things so that disasters don’t have such large impacts. Like, WTF is up with Americans building their houses out of balsawood in dense conglomerations and then complaining when this year’s tornado leaves a huge mess. Just like last year’s tornado. And the one before that. This isn’t a failure of technology as such. It’s just common-or-garden human stupidity.
The issue is a 2 degree one? 2 degrees is already a certainty, that is for sure - but a way-point, not an end-point. 2 degrees is simply the temperature everyone agrees we shouldn’t let the world get hotter than, but with the course we are on now, there is little hope things will stop there.
[quote]To read this graph select the year reductions of global carbon emissions will start on the x-axis and how fast they will decrease on the y-axis. The intersection point tells the peak temperature that we’ll get [2]. (See the original paper for the equations [1].)
For example, if we start immediately in 2013 reducing global carbon emissions by 2.5% per year we can still reach a peak temperature rise of 2°C. If we don’t start until 2020, cuts will have to be 3.2% per year to get to the same endpoint. If we wait until 2032 cuts would have to be twice as large: 6.4% per year. And remember that is 6.4% per year every year until we reach zero carbon emitted per year. Although the graph shows 10% reduction rates, cuts of more than 5% per year are considered to be economically very unfeasible.
Where are we now?
The site trillionthtonne reports cumulative global carbon emissions from human activities. Today (April 2013) we’ve reached 568.9 Gigatonnes and the site predicts we’ll reach one trillion tonnes in 2041.
If we wait until 2041, we’d have to cut emissions to zero instantaneously, essentially a U-turn at full speed, to reach the 2 °C target. The figure shows this is truly the critical decade if we want to stay under 2 °C without an economically drastic whiplash of 5% decrease in emission per year.
Global emissions increased by 3% in 2011 [4] and show no sign of slowing. In order to reach our 2 °C target, emissions must decrease by 3% per year starting in 2020. If emissions don’t start going down dramatically by 2027, the 2°C goal will be impossible. The longer we wait the hotter we’ll get. And the faster we’ll have to run to get where we want to go.[/quote]
Now before you accuse me of a “circular argument” in using my preferred (certainly not only) source, I suggest you actually look up the term and find out why you’re totally mis-using it.
Major speech from Obama on climate change and energy. Finley, you will like this part:
[quote]Today I’m calling for an end of public financing for new coal plants overseas, unless they deploy carbon capture technologies, or there’s no other viable way for the poorest countries to generate electricity. (Applause.) And I urge other countries to join this effort. And I’m directing my administration to launch negotiations toward global free trade in environmental goods and services, including clean energy technology, to help more countries skip past the dirty phase of development and join a global, low-carbon economy.
They don’t have to repeat all the same mistakes that we’ve made.[/quote]
Was O reading Forumosa?
Though to be fair, I believe fred considers the earth to be a cube.
Having to try to function during summer in Taiwan with what temperatures are like ~now~, I can echo this sentiment. That said, an end-point of 2 degrees is already in the rear-view mirror and rapidly vanishing behind us, sad to say. See my response to Fred, above.
I believe part of the reason people are so incredibly numb to this issue is that the numbers seem small. 2 degrees? 4 degrees? 6 degrees? Come on, that’s nothing! What they fail to understand is that during the last glacial maximum - when North America looked and felt basically like Antarctica - the Earth’s average temperature was as only a few degrees cooler (can’t dig up the exact number quickly) than it was in the mid-twentieth century!
Very interesting … problem is, though, it’s just fine words at the moment. If I understand correctly, it now has to be framed in legalese and passed through the senate, where various vested interests will tag on their pork-barrel riders in exchange for their acquiescence. Then eventually it’ll be voted down anyway. As you were, boys.
The most interesting part is this:
Which, contrary to Mr Smith’s usual stance, implies that dirty energy (not green initiatives) is regularly given a leg-up courtesy of the public purse.
More likely, I think, that he simply hasn’t seen enough evidence. And remember, there are gravitational anomalies that clearly indicate that the planet isn’t a perfect sphere! Aha! Gotcha! Eternal vigilance; and skepticism - that’s what’s required, lest They pull the wool over our eyes.
And wait for it… once this is hyped and huge… I expect a presidential signature on another project… let’s stay tuned… I assure you that Fred Smith will be VERY happy. :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
Wait for it. The discussions are ongoing. The studies have been completed. I expect a major announcement soon and YES I will be laughing AT you, not WITH you.
. Seriously, fred, what with all the rofling and the slathering, “religiously fanatical” doesn’t even start to cover it.
