Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumHow is addressing climate change like going to war?
Forget the futile climate debate. Let's focus on driving business, political and financial leaders to act, writes Stephen Kinnock
Stephen Kinnock
Guardian Professional, Wednesday 15 January 2014 07.41 EST
The connection between human activity and global warming is now as clear and proven as the link between smoking and cancer, so let's stop this futile debate about the accuracy of the science of climate change and focus instead on building a green growth revolution.
Storms have been hitting people's homes, towns and livelihoods – and the headlines – this new year, with many saying they've seen nothing like it in decades. In September last year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its latest report, a measured and meticulous piece of work based on the contributions of thousands of experts, which concluded that the climate is changing, humans are responsible, and more extreme weather events are heading our way.
It's revealing to look back on the media chatter that the IPCC report generated, and to note how much time and energy was spent questioning its scientific credibility. This is puzzling, particularly if you benchmark the thoroughness of the IPCC's work against the sort of flimsy intelligence that formed the basis of the case for other big judgment calls that have been made in recent times (Weapons of mass destruction as the justification for the invasion of Iraq is one example).
This tells us that game-changing decisions are not taken on the basis of objectively verifiable statistics or painstakingly compiled analytics; they are, in fact, driven by a will to act. In particular, by the will to act of business and political leaders.
So, where is that leadership going to come from? ...
more at: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/government-business-finance-green-revolution
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NNadir
(33,583 posts)If one looks at the battle against climate change, one sees exactly the same.
War relies on fear and ignorance to start and to fight. This is exactly the same case in the battle of climate change.
For instance, in the fight against climate change, we have people who hate the world's largest, by far, source of climate change gas free energy, nuclear energy, despite the fact that it has saved nearly two million lives and prevented the dumping of about two years worth of dangerous fossil fuel waste.
Certainly this rates along with the decision to escalate the war in Vietnam, Napoleon's decision to invade Russia, the Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbor...etc., etc...although these war decisions will probably not kill as many people as will die because of opposition to the world's largest, by far, source of climate change gas free primary energy, nuclear energy.
The death toll from air pollution is 6 million people per year. This is the equivalent of the loss of life greater than that associated with all of World War II every decade.
Almost all of these deaths are/were unnecessary, and might have been prevented with a large scale expansion of nuclear capacity.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Example number
1.
Nuclear is a trivial contributor to global energy consumption; providing for only 1/8th the amount of carbon neutral energy that renewables account for. And that's an outdated statistic; the share of nuclear has declined since it was published and the share of renewables has risen.
2.
This falls into the category of a partial truth since it fails to perform a significant portion of the analysis required to answer the question most users (like you here) claim it is addressing; namely, which approach, distributed renewables or centralized nuclear, is a better way to eliminate carbon.
What is omitted from that analysis that would be required for it to be seen as a statement of support for nuclear power in the context you are using it is a discussion of the way nuclear power enables the preservation of the economic reward system which sustains coal fired generation.
So while the study has internal validity, it begs the question of what reductions would have been achieved if similar resources and commitment had been devoted to deploying renewable technologies.
Therefore it does not is not offer a valid argument in the discussion you are attempting to place it.
But hey, you do have allies in your antirenewable crusade:
By Ethan Howland
JANUARY 10, 2014
Who is ALEC?
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a corporate-funded conservative group that drafts model bills and policies for its legislative members to take back to their home states.
ALEC boasts nearly 2,000 state lawmakers as members, according to the group. Typically, ALEC lawmaker members introduce the group's model legislation and resolutions in their home legislatures. Identical ALEC bills sometimes pop up in different states around the country.
ALEC has turned its attention to electric utility issues in recent years. “The ever-increasing governmental control over energy supply, distribution, and use is threatening not only the nation’s prosperity but also individual liberty,” according to ALEC's 2014 Natural Resource Reserve, which lays out the group's model policies on energy, the environment and agriculture for this year....
More at: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-alec-plans-to-reshape-us-energy-policy-in-2014/213358/
ALEC documents linked in article:
Model policies on energy, environment, and agriculture
http://s3.amazonaws.com/dive_static/diveimages/ALEC_Natural-Resource-Reserve.pdf
2014 Proposed Model Bills
http://s3.amazonaws.com/dive_static/diveimages/ALEC_EEA_2013_SNPS_35_Day.pdf
NNadir
(33,583 posts)...withered minds of people who hate science on the grounds that they don't know any.
The former is a publication of the American Chemical Society, one of the world's largest organizations of scientists, and in fact, one of the oldest scientific organizations in the country.
In the most widely read publication of 2013, the one of the world's prominent climate scientists details the fact that people who really give a shit about climate change, as opposed to anti-science flakes who make rather hypocritical statements about what is and what is not "propaganda" must acknowledge that nuclear power prevented the dumping of 64 billion tons of dangerous fossil fuel waste.
Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power, Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895
The publication from Lancet which details the death of six million people per year from air pollution and every other major cause of death world wide, also makes clear how nuclear energy saves lives, by preventing the indiscriminate release of dangerous fossil fuel waste.
A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990—2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010, The Lancet, Volume 380, Issue 9859, Pages 2224 - 2260, 15 December 2012
Note that in this paper nowhere is the risk of nuclear power included, simply because compared to the other 67 factors listed, the risk of nuclear power is trivial.
None of this, of course, will stop the set of ignorant people who care not a whit about human life, nor - except in posturing - about climate change from prattling on with scare mongering stories about a "radioactive" fish, or bullshit about running away from nuclear power plants despite the fact that the industry has a 60 year history of producing energy and has not, in that entire period of more than half a century, killed as many people as the next 3 hours of air pollution will kill.
None of this will stop them from burning coal and oil and gas to hand out this shit, no matter who dies, no matter who suffers.
None of this will stop them from trashing science and scientists with their stupid obsessions.
Nevertheless, it is clear from Dr. Hansen's work and the work of the worldwide medical and health authorities too long to list in a blog post, that anti-nuke ignorance causes wide spread suffering and wide spread damage, and irrespective of the withered ethics of bourgeois brats to send Chinese (and many other) mine workers out to dig cadmium so they can dream of their solar powered electric sports cars in an oblivious haze, it's hardly "propaganda" to report science.
And none of this will prevent these types from citing one another in a vast circle of self referential internalized ignorance in mindless, essentially unreadable and silly cut and pastes.
Ignorance kills.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)And your track record of making false representations about the significance of the material you reference is as bad as any climate denier I've ever encountered.
Here's a question for you. If your premise of renewable energy being a dead end is true, why do fossil fuel interest groups routinely try to stop renewable deployment while simultaneously embracing nuclear?
By Ethan Howland
JANUARY 10, 2014
Who is ALEC?
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a corporate-funded conservative group that drafts model bills and policies for its legislative members to take back to their home states.
ALEC boasts nearly 2,000 state lawmakers as members, according to the group. Typically, ALEC lawmaker members introduce the group's model legislation and resolutions in their home legislatures. Identical ALEC bills sometimes pop up in different states around the country.
ALEC has turned its attention to electric utility issues in recent years. “The ever-increasing governmental control over energy supply, distribution, and use is threatening not only the nation’s prosperity but also individual liberty,” according to ALEC's 2014 Natural Resource Reserve, which lays out the group's model policies on energy, the environment and agriculture for this year....
More at: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-alec-plans-to-reshape-us-energy-policy-in-2014/213358/
ALEC documents linked in article:
Model policies on energy, environment, and agriculture
http://s3.amazonaws.com/dive_static/diveimages/ALEC_Natural-Resource-Reserve.pdf
2014 Proposed Model Bills
http://s3.amazonaws.com/dive_static/diveimages/ALEC_EEA_2013_SNPS_35_Day.pdf
This section provides ALEC’s principles on energy policy and model policies that address electricity generation, resource use, federal-state relations, oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, renewables, energy efficiency, and transportation fuels.
Their preamble from climate change sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Of course, by impractical visionary goals they mean renewables - fossil and nuclear are just fine. So I suppose that's why they're devoting so much energy to trying to kill off those pesky renewables - they are worried about climate change.
Both snips from: Model policies on energy, environment, and agriculture
http://s3.amazonaws.com/dive_static/diveimages/ALEC_Natural-Resource-Reserve.pdf
NNadir
(33,583 posts)I doubt there is any rational person on the face of this planet who can discern what a stupid rant about "ALEC" - what ever the hell that is - has to do with Lancet and Environmental Science and Technology.
I seriously doubt that people with their heads up their asses babbling incoherently about bizarre conspiracy theories have anything to say about climate change.
Does nuclear technology kill 6 million people a year, as air pollution does, or does it not?
I note, with disgust and contempt, despite your tortured attempt to attach nuclear to fossil fuels, that the Germans, having shut in a loony festival of ignorance their nuclear plants, their largest and most reliable source of climate change gas free energy, are building new coal plants and the French, um, aren't. They're also screwing over their own poor to finance that idiotic scheme to assuage the mindless priorities of their rich and idle classes with unworkable wind and solar schemes, thus producing the highest electricity prices in Europe after Denmark's.
In fact, the French = where power costs are almost half of German costs - are the only nation on the face of this earth that was once almost totally coal dependent to generate electricity that have totally phased it out. They did that with nuclear energy, thus saving millions of French lives, although undoubtedly French lives will be lost to the air pollution that will now be wafting out of new German coal plants.
The German decision to build new coal doesn't harm just Germans. It harms everyone on earth, every living thing.
I also, as I love to remind you, note that the big "renewables will save us" anti-nuke, Amory Lovins, is openly and proudly in the pay of the worst dangerous fossil fuel companies in the world, sort of like that paid off former Chancellor of Germany, who just couldn't wait to collect his Gazprom checks.
Famous Anti-nuke Amory Lovins describes his revenue sources:
Washington Post: Gerhardt Schroeder Accepts Gazprom Job
There is not one "renewables will save us" scammer on the face of this dying planet who gives a rat's ass about stopping dangerous fossil fuels, because without access to gas, oil and coal the expensive, toxic, and essentially useless so called "renewable energy" scam would collapse in a New York second.
The Platt's figures for German electricity in 2013 show this precisely: German Coal Extends Dominance
In fact, when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, we still have shit for brains people all over the internet screaming not about the coal and oil and gas that is powering their computers but about the nuclear energy which (happily) is powering mine as I write.
Maybe you'll next come here to announce that Platt's is a right wing conspiracy website.
There is not one nation on this planet that has ever phased out dangerous fossil fuels with the stupid, expensive, toxic and failed renewables scheme, not one, and to this day, the world's largest source of climate change gas free energy is the one that science hating anti-nukes come here to continually attack after giving lip service to giving a shit about climate change: Nuclear energy.
I'm not impressed by screaming lunatics in the anti-nuke cults pretending to give a rat's ass about climate change because - tough luck kiddie - actions speak louder than words, especially hysterical nonsense words.
Have a nice evening.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)And that points us directly back to the unremitting efforts of ALEC and your track record of making false representations about the significance of the material you reference. It truly is as bad as any climate denier I've ever encountered. You offer nothing but post after post after post of the most bizarre and transparent splits with reality.
Here's a question for you. If your premise of renewable energy being a dead end is true, why do fossil fuel interest groups routinely try to stop renewable deployment while simultaneously embracing nuclear?
By Ethan Howland
JANUARY 10, 2014
Who is ALEC?
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a corporate-funded conservative group that drafts model bills and policies for its legislative members to take back to their home states.
ALEC boasts nearly 2,000 state lawmakers as members, according to the group. Typically, ALEC lawmaker members introduce the group's model legislation and resolutions in their home legislatures. Identical ALEC bills sometimes pop up in different states around the country.
ALEC has turned its attention to electric utility issues in recent years. “The ever-increasing governmental control over energy supply, distribution, and use is threatening not only the nation’s prosperity but also individual liberty,” according to ALEC's 2014 Natural Resource Reserve, which lays out the group's model policies on energy, the environment and agriculture for this year....
More at: http://www.utilitydive.com/news/how-alec-plans-to-reshape-us-energy-policy-in-2014/213358/
ALEC documents linked in article:
Model policies on energy, environment, and agriculture
http://s3.amazonaws.com/dive_static/diveimages/ALEC_Natural-Resource-Reserve.pdf
2014 Proposed Model Bills
http://s3.amazonaws.com/dive_static/diveimages/ALEC_EEA_2013_SNPS_35_Day.pdf
This section provides ALEC’s principles on energy policy and model policies that address electricity generation, resource use, federal-state relations, oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, renewables, energy efficiency, and transportation fuels.
Their preamble from climate change sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Of course, by impractical visionary goals they mean renewables - fossil and nuclear are just fine. So I suppose that's why they're devoting so much energy to trying to kill off those pesky renewables - they are worried about climate change.
Both snips from: Model policies on energy, environment, and agriculture
http://s3.amazonaws.com/dive_static/diveimages/ALEC_Natural-Resource-Reserve.pdf
NNadir
(33,583 posts)Your continual effort to change the discussion to some paranoid CT discussion about "ALEC" - whatever it is, I'm way past looking at insipid cut and pastes from people who cannot think for themselves and simply regurgitate nonsense - is of course, an action.
However, I will note your silly comment, "Of course, by impractical visionary goals they mean renewables - fossil and nuclear are just fine."
I personally don't consider the failed, expensive, worthless and toxic solar and wind industries to be "visionary."
They may have been "visionary" in the 1950s, but in 2013, they are no such thing.
They were/are experiments, very expensive experiments, played with the entire atmosphere and the future of humanity, experiments that consumed lots of time and gave poor results: Combined these experiments, after 50 years of jaw boning do not produce 5 of the 538 exajoules humanity was consuming.
Your weak minded attempt to link nuclear and fossil is oblivious to the fact that in every place that nuclear energy has been shut in genuflections to the fear and ignorance of stupid people, the nuclear energy has been displaced by dangerous fossil fuels.
The carbon emissions of Germany to produce electricity are rising, not falling. It's widely discussed in the serious literature, including the serious scientific literature, about which anti-nukes know nothing. The carbon emissions of Japan are going through the roof, and I note, with disgust and contempt, that more people will die because of the air pollution caused by Japanese burning of dangerous fossil fuels than will die from the destruction of three nuclear reactors.
People with their heads up their asses cruising around right wing websites to justify their stupid CT theories couldn't give a rat's ass about how many people die from air pollution in Japan from electricity generation, as the continual bull from anti-nukes graphically and dramatically show.
Now, if their is some right wing websites that support nuclear power, I couldn't give a fuck. If Dick Cheney declares that the atmosphere contains oxygen, that doesn't support a delusional argument that the atmosphere is pure argon.
Rather than carry on about what you read on right wing websites, you might try to open a science book. That said, in the last ten years, while approximately 300 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide have been dumped in the atmosphere, and while approximately 60 million people died from air pollution, I have not met a single example of a single anti-nuke on this website who has ever demonstrated a single instance of scientific literacy. It's too late now.
If, in 2013, one is still locked into the faith based contempt for the science and technology of Fermi, Wigner, Seaborg, Weinberg et al, nuclear science, one is definitely hopeless and undoubtedly useless in any discussion of addressing - or at best, really, ameliorating, since so much time has been wasted - climate change.
One of the world's most prominent climate scientist knows it, even if dumb bloggers don't.
Once again:
Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power, Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895
It's been a pleasure chatting. Have a nice weekend, tooling around in your solar powered and wind powered Tesla car or whatever it is you do in your bourgeois provincial reality. I have better things to do. I'll be spending a good portion of my weekend in the libraries at Princeton reviewing some interesting phase systems connected with plutonium physical chemistry that would go over the tiny little heads of all the anti-nukes I've ever had the displeasure of confronting.
Ignorance kills.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)That's what got you kicked off Kos.