The Green New Deal

[Belz...]

No, definitely not, that's pretty clear now.

Since the overreaction was caused by the nuclear plant problems, I don't think it's unreasonable to put those deaths in the category of "nuclear". But that risk is still low, and we should keep in mind that it was from an overreaction, not from radiation, and hopefully we won't overreact again next time.

Zig, that's way too reasonable. Sounds like we're going to have to agree, here. That's just... weird!

 

[Armitage72]

I could be on board with nuclear power but only if it was owned and operated by the public. The Navy has the safest and most reliable nuclear program out there and if nuclear power plants were run in the same way, I think it would be fine.

Physicist and science fiction writer Robert Forward once claimed that the key to developing new and better energy sources was to have the projects run by engineers who were specifically working to create power plants rather than scientists doing general research. As I recall, the essay in question was talking about antimatter production, and was phenomenally unrealistically optimistic about how close we are to the technology, but the idea seems sound in principle.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

It isnt city folk that did that. Unless you mean rich bankers and corporations. Them city folk?

Actually it started with the original "New Deal" by FDR as a way to drive black farmers off their land. Typical Democrat racist policy, pretend to "help" with welfare, and it actually is policy designed to destroy you. It was successful too, driving over 90% of the black farmers in the south off their land and into the ghettos where they were given even more welfare to make sure they never had a chance to improve themselves.

You can read up on it here: The Butz Stops Here: Why the Food Movement
Needs to Rethink Agricultural History

But the policy never really left and slowly over time it changed from a purposeful attempt to drive black farmers off the land and became a strategy to drive all small family farmers off their land. ESPECIALLY targeted were land owners attempting to manage the land using conservation. Hence the "get big or get out" campaigns from various political leaders after FDR.

A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz

Those policies designed to drive farmers off their land by destabilizing them financially are still in effect today, but because they have become too effective at their designed purpose, there are new policies attempting to pay for new infrastructure for small local farmers. Most of it is gone. Driven out of business by pretty much every side of the political aisle in Washington.

Local Food Promotion Program

Really annoying to have the USDA both subsidizing and regulating the rebuilding of local infrastructure and also subsidizing and regulating the destruction of all local infrastructure by financially destabilizing it at the same time!

Probably too little too late anyway. Something about a house divided that can't stand? But at least they figured out the dynamic is destroying the country from the foundation up and something must be done to reverse the trend.

Meanwhile while the foundations of civilization crumble, we still have the biggest environmental crisis known to mankind to deal with, the Anthropocene. And as it turns out the only thing we humans do at anywhere near the scale required to fix that problem is agriculture! .... But right now agriculture is the second leading cause of AGW rather than the largest mitigation strategy for AGW.

We need to change that. We do it by paying for a service and letting conservative capitalism drive the agricultural changes required, rather than trying to continue this micromanaging and welfare programs from the USDA.

Oh and why is it relevant? Because it was the New Deal that caused all this in the first place and the Green New Deal will only make it worse!

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

What part of "quote the relevant parts" was unclear?

None. I quoted my first post to you which is the relevant part.

 

[Belz...]

None. I quoted my first post to you which is the relevant part.

And that first post to me doesn't quote any part of the link. So it seems that you have, in fact, quite a problem understanding my request.

Ziggurat and myself have addressed all this. Even if we accept your figures, with caveat, they are still very low, and don't change the fact that nuclear remains the safest form of mass electricity production. I don't really accept them anyway, however, because dying from running away in panic from something that you don't need to run away from doesn't count as being killed by that thing.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

And that first post to me doesn't quote any part of the link. So it seems that you have, in fact, quite a problem understanding my request.

I'd be quoting one of the entire links. And the point is I told you that the question you are asking now was addressed in my very first post to you.

I don't really accept them anyway, however, because dying from running away in panic from something that you don't need to run away from doesn't count as being killed by that thing.

No. No. No. Much of the evacuation was necessary. In fact there is quite a large zone that is still evacuated. There is no doubt that some of the evacuation, maybe even all of it, was necessary or at least prudent.

You are really willfully ignorant here.

 

[Belz...]

I'd be quoting one of the entire links. And the point is I told you that the question you are asking now was addressed in my very first post to you.

So nothing, then.

No. No. No. Much of the evacuation was necessary. In fact there is quite a large zone that is still evacuated.

That's circular reasoning, though. How do we know it was necessary? Well, it was evacuated, wasn't it?

Do you have ANY actual argument to make that addresses what I've told you? Stop playing the learned and exasperated party. Your links have been addressed. What else have you got?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

That's circular reasoning, though. How do we know it was necessary? Well, it was evacuated, wasn't it?

I'm not presenting you "reasoning", I'm presenting you with facts that are supported in the links I cited and are easily confirmed by google. They are facts that any honest person who wants to have an informed opinion should be familiar with before spouting off "no one was killed". The necessity of most, if not all, of the original evacuation and the current evacuation is not seriously in doubt. Only the duration is questioned.

 

[Belz...]

I'm not presenting you "reasoning", I'm presenting you with facts that are supported in the links I cited and are easily confirmed by google. They are facts that any honest person who wants to have an informed opinion should be familiar with before spouting off "no one was killed".

"It was necessary" is not a fact. It's a reasoning. One that depends on a demonstration you've not made. All of your argument depends on whether the evacuation was largely necessary. Only then can you reasonably claim that the deaths during evacuation can be counted as a result of the Fukushima disaster. So far you've not done so. Insisting that it's obvious doesn't cut it; it only highlights the possibility that you're simply arguing backwards from your conclusion.

The plant itself didn't kill anybody even when the worst case scenario actually happened. You have to add deaths from running away from it (again, which you've not established as necessary, only insisting that it was and that anybody who disagrees is dishonest) in order to make your case that someone died as a result of the incident.

And it STILL doesn't change the fact that nuclear is the safest mass electricity production technology.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Well, Fukushima , like many parts of Europe to this day, have a problem with radioactive boars - because they are the land bio-accumulators on land from mushrooms, etc.
Boar meat is a traditional food stock that has become unavailable.
The question is: what kind of sea creatures are the bio-accumulators that will, in decades to come, become hazardous as a food source because of Fukushima ?

Because of these extremely long-term effects, nuclear power is just not something investors want to be burdened with.

 

[Belz...]

Because of these extremely long-term effects, nuclear power is just not something investors want to be burdened with.

Then we're screwed, because there are no alternatives. Solar is not bad, but it isn't anywhere near what we need for our energy consumption, requires a **** load of rare earth, and is a pain to install and maintain, among other things. The other alternatives are worse, and batteries still don't cut it.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

I could be on board with nuclear power but only if it was owned and operated by the public. The Navy has the safest and most reliable nuclear program out there and if nuclear power plants were run in the same way, I think it would be fine.

Interesting. I always assumed that comparing Navy reactors to commercial electrical reactors was a bad comparison because I assumed a single ship would be using a very small reactor not comparable to generating reactors. But I just looked a few up and find they can be 100MW plus which seems comparable to me. So I wonder if this is more practical than I thought.

How much do Navy reactors cost to operate?

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Then we're screwed, because there are no alternatives. Solar is not bad, but it isn't anywhere near what we need for our energy consumption, requires a **** load of rare earth, and is a pain to install and maintain, among other things. The other alternatives are worse, and batteries still don't cut it.

No Belz, we are not screwed necessarily. I am actually in favor of Nuclear where appropriate. But it is not required to reverse AGW.

AGW is fundamentally a problem with the carbon cycle, and we have two sides to that cycle. Energy is important, but equally important is the sequestration back into the soil.

Once you realize we can actually change agricultural methods to sequester somewhere in the range of 7.5 - 30.0 billion tonnes of CO2e per year AND that's just arable cropland...not even counting the controversial rehabilitation of desertified land Allan Savory talked about in his famous TedTalk (which is even larger BTW), then you realize we don't need to eliminate all fossil fuels use immediately. We can balance the carbon cycle with far more moderate reductions in fossil fuels.

Nuclear energy is beneficial for many reasons, but it is no more a silver bullet than any other mitigation method. To make this work we need a balanced approach from all sides that balances the carbon cycle. That is the only thing that has any chances to work.

 

[Belz...]

No Belz, we are not screwed necessarily. I am actually in favor of Nuclear where appropriate. But it is not required to reverse AGW.

Of course not. We could, alternatively, kill 90% of all humans and largely solve the problem.

AGW is fundamentally a problem with the carbon cycle, and we have two sides to that cycle. Energy is important, but equally important is the sequestration back into the soil.

Absolutely, we can do that too, but you still have to lower your carbon production at some point.

Nuclear energy is beneficial for many reasons, but it is no more a silver bullet than any other mitigation method.

I'd never claim that it is. That it's our best bet doesn't mean it's flawless. Flawless would be a He3-He3 fusion reactor, but we're prety damned far away from that.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Absolutely, we can do that too, but you still have to lower your carbon production at some point.

Why? I mean why do we need to lower it beyond what we can already with other renewables and natural gas?

 

[Belz...]

Why? I mean why do we need to lower it beyond what we can already with other renewables and natural gas?

Are you asking me why we should stop pumping poisonous greenhouse gases into our atmosphere? Because 1) if we lower the output, we don't need to constantly pull it back from the atmosphere and 2) these ressources that put out CO2 aren't renewable; in fact, they're not very plentiful at all.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

It took decades of government subsidized research and production to make wind and solar competitive.
It will take another one or three decades to design and build safer, cheaper and better nuclear reactors - and I'm all for spending billions on this project.
But what is currently fission technology isn't worth building.

 

[Belz...]

It took decades of government subsidized research and production to make wind and solar competitive.
It will take another one or three decades to design and build safer, cheaper and better nuclear reactors - and I'm all for spending billions on this project.
But what is currently fission technology isn't worth building.

Could you expand on that rather than repeat it? By every metric that makes any sense, nuclear is still safer than the alternatives.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Are you asking me why we should stop pumping poisonous greenhouse gases into our atmosphere? Because 1) if we lower the output, we don't need to constantly pull it back from the atmosphere and 2) these ressources that put out CO2 aren't renewable; in fact, they're not very plentiful at all.

But we do need to constantly pull it back from the atmosphere. And I am pretty sure we don't want to pull it all the way back to where it causes another glaciation event.

So why do we need to eliminate 100% fossil fuel emissions, when simply lowering emissions and increasing sequestration has the capability to balance the carbon cycle at this "sweet spot" of not too hot and not too cold? (about a degree lower than now)

 

[Belz...]

But we do need to constantly pull it back from the atmosphere.

Yes but only so much as we put out. As if, if we were in 1750, we wouldn't need to have this conversation.

And I am pretty sure we don't want to pull it all the way back to where it causes another glaciation event.

Careful. You never know how silly we can get.

So why do we need to eliminate 100% fossil fuel emissions, when simply lowering emissions and increasing sequestration has the capability to balance the carbon cycle at this "sweet spot" of not too hot and not too cold? (about a degree lower than now)

Who said anything about eliminating 100% of CO2 emissions? I only talked about reducing it by a large amount.