Child labor was the issue. I didn't bring it up. The initial point was that child labor would be used at some during the solar energy process. I was just replying that it was as likely that child labor would be used in the construction or decommissioning of nuclear energy plants. In fact I think the child labor issue is just a distraction that should be addressed separately from energy policy.
The Green New Deal
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Child labor was the issue. I didn't bring it up. The initial point was that child labor would be used at some during the solar energy process. I was just replying that it was as likely that child labor would be used in the construction or decommissioning of nuclear energy plants. In fact I think the child labor issue is just a distraction that should be addressed separately from energy policy.
Wayward son
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Sure some people have been. But for instance nuclear was quite popular in Ontario in the 60s and 70s and started to decline in the 80s and 90s. Not because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - most people are smart enough to understand the difference between nuclear energy and nuclear bombs. And not because of Chernobyl - people viewed that as incompetence in the Soviet system. Environmental groups in Ontario knew that it would take a shifting of views about the competence of building nuclear reactors in Ontario to shift public opinion and that is what they worked on - successfully pushing for and getting endless delays which also dramatically increased the costs. There is minimal fear of nuclear accidents among the Ontario public. Where disapproval comes from is a belief that any new plant would come online far over-budget and several years later than planned.
Still nuclear is popular in Ontario. In fact the majority of voters of all three main political parties (on the right, center, and left) support nuclear energy, and that has never really changed (despite all three of those parties opposing nuclear at times). Nuclear is far less popular in the Canadian provinces that don't have nuclear energy.
For aluminium smelters electricity can be from renewables.
For steel, recycled steel can be made in electric-arc furnaces instead of coking coal blast furnaces but this currently is only about 30% of the total.
But i think that CFPP and oil for transport are the easy first steps to replace.
Wayward son
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Where I brought up child labor was for batteries - that would need to be mass produced on an absurd scale to make solar and wind reliable. Cobalt (for which there is 8 times more of it that lithium in lithium batteries) and lead (of which 85% of global production are used in batteries) are both predominantly mined in the Congo - using child labor.
No - it is zero percent likely. The construction and decommissioning both require enormous amounts of skill and no part of either will ever consist of child labor or low paid jobs.
The only way to keep the prices of batteries down is for the mined components to be mined using child labor and or poverty wages and in the worst conditions possible. This whole green utopia is about allowing rich-world yuppies to feel great and smug about themselves as the poorest of the poor live in complete misery to enable it. I am glad that you consider that a distraction.
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Ziggurat
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And? Does that invalidate the point? No, it really doesn't.
Squeegee Beckenheim
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It does if we can't trust the video to accurately reflect reality. To pick an extreme example, if they interviewed a thousand students at an extremely conservative university and only those 7 (or however many it actually is) said that they disagreed with the proposals in the New Green Deal while all the rest said they still thought it was a good idea, what would the video actually tell us about the opinion of the average student? Nothing.
I bet you that if I had the time, inclination, and if I were actually in America, I could spend a day traipsing around a university campus and create a 5 minute video of students saying that the New Green Deal doesn't go nearly far enough. What do you think that video would prove? Would you think it had a valid point to make about the opinions of all students?
Come on, this is very basic stuff. Don't switch your critical faculties off just because the source you're posting is telling a story you want to be true.
lobosrul5
Philosopher
As far as flying goes, even reading an article that is critical of it: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/climate/airplane-pollution-global-warming.html
11% of US transportation related green house gas emissions are from airline travel. So, first off, completely eliminating it would still leave us at 89%. Secondly, the article says traveling business class is 3 times worse than going coach. Here is an easy fix: one class airline travel. And, ban private/corporate jets. Everyone can fly coach. That would probably eliminate a significant portion of air travel pollutants. The high and mighty can run elbows with the great unwashed if its so important to them to save the planet. We can then build rail at a reasonable pace. Probably makes most sense for north/south travel.
ETA: I believe we should be doing more to combat global warming, it just rubs me the wrong way when celebrities pay for carbon offsets, then fly on a private jet. If its such a big looming catastrophe, how about you go carbon negative by fyling coach?
11% of US transportation related green house gas emissions are from airline travel. So, first off, completely eliminating it would still leave us at 89%. Secondly, the article says traveling business class is 3 times worse than going coach. Here is an easy fix: one class airline travel. And, ban private/corporate jets. Everyone can fly coach. That would probably eliminate a significant portion of air travel pollutants. The high and mighty can run elbows with the great unwashed if its so important to them to save the planet. We can then build rail at a reasonable pace. Probably makes most sense for north/south travel.
ETA: I believe we should be doing more to combat global warming, it just rubs me the wrong way when celebrities pay for carbon offsets, then fly on a private jet. If its such a big looming catastrophe, how about you go carbon negative by fyling coach?
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lobosrul5
Philosopher
I'm not sure all of it requires enormous skill. You need someone to move barrels of waste on a forklift, and you need train conductors to move it to long term storage, for example. Granted, you want someone really really good at driving that fork lift, and really really good at driving a train, but its not an enormous skill.
Even better, ban coach and have everyone stand instead of sit. That way we can pack in twice as many people per plane!
lobosrul5
Philosopher
The reason i think that child labor is a distraction is not because i hate children or have some need to feel great or smug. My point is that child labor can be addresssed without
giving up on solar power or electric vehicles. For example:
1. Developing battery types that use less, or no, cobalt
2. Mining cobalt in more controlled environments than the Congo.
3. Applying pressure to large corporations who are controlling mining and also onto the companies buying the cobalt.
You mention lead. Lead is used for radiation shielding including in some constructions as lead shot to make dense concrete.
As far as the highly skilled work during the construction of nuclear power plants is concerned yes i have a high level of respect for all construction workers in all countries. But nuclear construction includes a lot of concrete works and steel work with workers both on site and offsite. It would be naive to think that the use of child labor is not going to be an issue at all. Perhaps the confusion is that I am posting about renewable energy worldwide and the solution to replacement of CFPP everywhere including rapidly growing, developing countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh not just Canada and USA.
Ziggurat
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We cannot trust the poll to accurately reflect reality. That point remains true regardless of any cherry picking in the video. Polls like this are inherently unreliable.
I'd ask you to do the same.
Delvo
Дэлво Δε&#
The expensive seat classes are where the airlines get most of the revenue they depend on. The result of eliminating them would be that either everybody else needs to pay more or the airlines just can't sustain their business.
lobosrul5
Philosopher
Yes, every seat would have to go up in price some, therefore the free market would compel more people to take trains or buses. Or so the theory goes. From what I see on domestic flights there aren't that many business class seats anyways (but ive never done an LA/SF to NYC flight), and hardly any first class. Much higher percentage on internationals.
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Squeegee Beckenheim
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You think the questions were leading? Since the article published the full text o the questions asked, can you explain how you think they're leading?
I have no dog in this fight. The post you're replying to even contains the information that I'm not American. Some people really do have a hard time understanding that concept.
You're right that we shouldn't take the poll at face value without more information on the polling methods (how they ensured a representative sampling, for example), but that's a world away from the website you posted a link to.
BTW: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-nation/
The reason i think that child labor is a distraction is not because i hate children or have some need to feel great or smug. My point is that child labor can be addresssed without
giving up on solar power or electric vehicles. For example:
1. Developing battery types that use less, or no, cobalt
2. Mining cobalt in more controlled environments than the Congo.
3. Applying pressure to large corporations who are controlling mining and also onto the companies buying the cobalt.
You mention lead. Lead is used for radiation shielding including in some constructions as lead shot to make dense concrete.
As far as the highly skilled work during the construction of nuclear power plants is concerned yes i have a high level of respect for all construction workers in all countries. But nuclear construction includes a lot of concrete works and steel work with workers both on site and offsite. It would be naive to think that the use of child labor is not going to be an issue at all. Perhaps the confusion is that I am posting about renewable energy worldwide and the solution to replacement of CFPP everywhere including rapidly growing, developing countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh not just Canada and USA.
dudalb
Penultimate Amazing
Is it true that the GND is going to get rid of all intenal combustion driven vehicals in Ten Years?
That is point blank ridiculous.
That is point blank ridiculous.
Belz...
Fiend God
That would make Toronto-Tokyo quite... interesting.
Red Baron Farms
Philosopher
I believe many are missing the most important point. I take full responsibility for this, because I failed to emphasize and communicate it.
A carbon market with verified carbon offsets specifically takes advantage of the best known economic motivator known to mankind, the capitalist free markets.
If you want somebody to do something, pay them to do it, and they will!
Right now the farm bill pays farmers to produce a glut of corn and soy in a way that causes AGW, being somewhere in the range of 10-20 % of emissions.
Sadly we are paying farmers to be a significant source of AGW and they are doing it! Society is getting what we paid for.
So right off the bat as soon as we stop paying farmers to over produce corn and soy by means of unsustainable methods causing AGW, they will stop doing it. That reduces emissions at least by 10% alone, using the conservative low end.
Then of course they still need to make a living. So this carbon market with verified carbon offsets will instead pay them to do their farming in a way that sequesters carbon in the soil.
That means restoring the tallgrass prairie ecosystems would now be more profitable than raising corn and soy! And what would any farmer with a lick of sense do? He would stop raising a glut of corn and soy, and instead replant degraded crop fields with prairie grasses. Instead of raising corn and soy to feed animals and gasoline tanks, we can raise animals on the prairie and restore the most productive terrestrial biome on the planet. One that indeed does sequester carbon in the soil at the rate of at least 5-20 tonnes CO2e/ha/yr. [1]
That means instead of socialist basic income paying people to sit on their arse, and trying to eliminate fossil fuel powered transportation 100% in 10 years, and all the other unworkable parts of the New Green Deal, we instead pay hard working farmers to balance the carbon cycle for us!
That way instead of trying to destroy the best parts of capitalism to fix AGW, we instead use this powerful aspect of capitalism to fix it!
Such a huge difference between conservative conservationists and liberal environmentalists.
A carbon market with verified carbon offsets specifically takes advantage of the best known economic motivator known to mankind, the capitalist free markets.
If you want somebody to do something, pay them to do it, and they will!
Right now the farm bill pays farmers to produce a glut of corn and soy in a way that causes AGW, being somewhere in the range of 10-20 % of emissions.
Sadly we are paying farmers to be a significant source of AGW and they are doing it! Society is getting what we paid for.
So right off the bat as soon as we stop paying farmers to over produce corn and soy by means of unsustainable methods causing AGW, they will stop doing it. That reduces emissions at least by 10% alone, using the conservative low end.
Then of course they still need to make a living. So this carbon market with verified carbon offsets will instead pay them to do their farming in a way that sequesters carbon in the soil.
That means restoring the tallgrass prairie ecosystems would now be more profitable than raising corn and soy! And what would any farmer with a lick of sense do? He would stop raising a glut of corn and soy, and instead replant degraded crop fields with prairie grasses. Instead of raising corn and soy to feed animals and gasoline tanks, we can raise animals on the prairie and restore the most productive terrestrial biome on the planet. One that indeed does sequester carbon in the soil at the rate of at least 5-20 tonnes CO2e/ha/yr. [1]
That means instead of socialist basic income paying people to sit on their arse, and trying to eliminate fossil fuel powered transportation 100% in 10 years, and all the other unworkable parts of the New Green Deal, we instead pay hard working farmers to balance the carbon cycle for us!
That way instead of trying to destroy the best parts of capitalism to fix AGW, we instead use this powerful aspect of capitalism to fix it!
Such a huge difference between conservative conservationists and liberal environmentalists.
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quadraginta
Becoming Beth
Speaking from firsthand experience, I can assure you that there is no shortage of unskilled and semi-skilled labor to be performed on a nuclear power plant construction site. Even most of the skilled positions are the same as on any other large commercial/industrial facility.
For the most part they are just large construction jobs. Not much of the work involves skills that are rare or exotic.
If the plant is being built somewhere that child labor was used for grunt work on any other large building project then it would be silly to assume that such a plant would be any different.
I've never been involved in a decommissioning, so I can't speak from firsthand. But having said that, I don't know about the actual radioactively contaminated parts, but most of such facilities aside from that are just industrial buildings. Not any different from any other.
If that gets dismantled as well there will be an abundance of unskilled labor involved. That's just the nature of demolition work.