Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumJay Inslee on Why He's Dropping Out of the 2020 White House Race
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/jay-inslee-on-why-hes-dropping-out-of-the-2020-race.htmlThe Democratic field no longer has a climate candidate. Washington governor Jay Inslee, who made global warming the centerpiece of his long-shot campaign for the presidency, announced Wednesday evening that he was dropping out of the race, facing the prospect that CNN might stage a forum on climate change for Democratic candidates for which Inslee himself would fail to qualify.
The governor didnt need to run on climate change alone hes a well-liked governor in a thriving state, with an enviable liberal record on job creation, economic growth, minimum-wage increases, and family-leave policy that seemed, in theory at least, to offer a powerful case study in how Democrats could move forward on climate change while accomplishing everything else they might want. But while his six-part climate policy may become the road map for a future Democratic administration, it isnt going to be his, and, at the moment when Democratic voters tell pollsters they are unprecedentedly concerned about the environment (naming climate change as a top-tier issue in many state polls), they arent going to be nominating the one candidate who really prioritized it. Earlier Wednesday, we talked to him about what happened.
First, I just wanted to congratulate you on the incredibly principled and important campaign youve run. Its so important that Im personally pretty distressed and disheartened that its ending. How are you feeling?
Well, Im not going to end up in the White House, which was the goal. But there have been several things that have been accomplished. Number one, we made a governing document on clean energy and the environment for the United States. Now that document is going to be open sourced, and Im going to call on the other candidates to be more committed to the issue. I think you saw on the campaign trail that other candidates had to respond to our clarity and vision, and I think it was an accomplishment to get the other candidates to raise their ambitions. Going forward, Ill be just as vocal about that.
I think we have set the stage for a genuine debate about climate change, in one form or another. We have the two forums coming up, and Im hoping that there will be a proper debate, too that will be voted on soon, and it was not going to take place otherwise. And I think it was significant achievement to get this on the countrys radar screen that was an accomplishment, too.
snip
sorry to see him go, I so liked him, but he never caught fire
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,280 posts)It would be cool if he were appointed to EPA or Interior in the next administration.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Celerity
(42,666 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
samnsara
(17,570 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
StevieM
(10,499 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Celerity
(42,666 posts)with a shot for September. Steyer needs one more 2% poll, Gabbard needs two.
All the ones who fail for September can still make the October one too. The September qualified automatically make the October debate.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
RDANGELO
(3,430 posts)He would be great as the next EPA administrator.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
zentrum
(9,865 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
oasis
(49,152 posts)Hopefully, we haven't heard the last from him.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
evertonfc
(1,713 posts)I'm undecided and love all our candidates but a year ago I was hoping we would see someone outside the Washington establishment to take on Trump. Seems like we get the same, recycled politicians.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Dagstead Bumwood
(3,528 posts)Kudos to him for helping sound the alarm and raise the discourse about climate change. What I wouldn't give to have someone like him as my governor instead of the twit Ohio is stuck with.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
50 Shades Of Blue
(9,777 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
calimary
(80,700 posts)He was my top choice.
The climate crisis actually keeps me up at night.
I look at my baby granddaughter and fear for her future - what kind of planet will she inherit? Will it even be livable by the time her generation takes charge?
I am 50 shades of blue this evening.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
NNadir
(33,368 posts)...I was unimpressed because his "solutions" have been shown to be unworkable by experiment.
I do hope he will continue to press the issue in terms of it being an issue, but the technological approach most of us on the left endorse, and on which he based his campaign, hasn't worked, isn't working and won't work.
Solar and wind energy are not clean, and they are not sustainable.
He's a well meaning guy though, quite likable, and we all wish him well, I'm sure.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Persondem
(1,936 posts)How about some links to research that supports your opinions?
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Celerity
(42,666 posts)The have a lot of brilliant articles articles and postings on climate change and EROEI.
cheers
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
NNadir
(33,368 posts)...repeating the same thing over and over and over and over and expecting a different result.
I'm not selling anything. I'm near the end of my life and I am positively disgusted, D-I-S-G-U-S-T-E-D, with what my generation has done to all future generations.
Some of it of course, has been denial on the right, but here on the left we're hopelessly engaged in wishful thinking and selective attention.
You can read my journal or if you're really interested, you can do what I did, and spend 30 years reading on the subject of the science of energy and the environment and make up your own mind, just like I did.
Solar and wind will not cut it, because of the simple physical fact that the energy to mass ratio is too low.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Princetonian
(1,501 posts)NNadir (23,089 posts)
24. My journal is full of links to the primary scientific literature, as opposed to blogs...
...repeating the same thing over and over and over and over and expecting a different result.
I'm not selling anything. I'm near the end of my life and I am positively disgusted, D-I-S-G-U-S-T-E-D, with what my generation has done to all future generations.
Some of it of course, has been denial on the right, but here on the left we're hopelessly engaged in wishful thinking and selective attention.
You can read my journal or if you're really interested, you can do what I did, and spend 30 years reading on the subject of the science of energy and the environment and make up your own mind, just like I did.
Solar and wind will not cut it, because of the simple physical fact that the energy to mass ratio is too low.
Ideally, fusion energy would be used but there is no way to harness it right now.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Persondem
(1,936 posts)The articles on the current page involved a sargassum bloom, China's HFC emissions, SO2 carbon capture and a CO2 capture resin. None of those articles support your anti-solar, anti-renewables statements, though I did see in your associated comments that you state renewables are not all they are cracked up to be. As you have ~500 or so journal entries spread across 60 pages I am not about to spend my time digging through such a compendium in order to find the pertinent articles.
Let me comment on one of your issues with wind energy - I saw in one of your journal entries that you state that coal needs to be used to make steel. Yep, exactly right. The trade off though is what is worse ... If it takes X amount of coal to make the steel that goes into making let's say 1000 wind turbines and those wind turbines function for 20-25 years. I am certain that the the coal used to make the wind turbines will be far less (orders of magnitude) than the coal used to generate the equivalent amount of energy that those wind turbines will generate over their lifespan.
If you would like to point out a few of the research based articles in your journal or elsewhere that explain potential negative aspects of renewable energy, I would be glad to read them.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
NNadir
(33,368 posts)...on energy I sometimes refer people to a post I wrote several years ago on another website, some of which is technical, and some of which concerns issues in morality and ethics as they involve energy.
(Thanks for your interest, by the way.)
It's somewhat dated, a little long, and I have changed my ideas on several minor technical points, and some of the links to references may have died, but it's the best single overview I've written.
It is here: Current Energy Demand; Ethical Energy Demand; Depleted Uranium and the Centuries to Come.
I wrote two other posts on that website, maintained by a fine Australian climate scientist. I planned 5, posted two, wrote one more but did not post it, and never got to the 5th.
It dates to late 2014. In what I call "climate time" it's 10.59 ppm, since in the week ending December 28, 2014, the reading at the Mauna Loa CO2 observatory for the concentration of this dangerous fossil fuel waste was 399.65 ppm, and in the week ending August 11, 2019, it was 410.12 ppm. (The figures are updated every Sunday morning, and generally lag two weeks, we are approaching the annual minimum.) No one now living will ever see a figure of under 400 ppm again.
Which brings me to my largest criticism of this unconscionable, expensive scam: It doesn't work.
Here are some links and comments that repeatedly show up in my journal entries, given that you do not, quite justifiably, have time to wade through their desultory points.
We have spent two trillion dollars, in the last ten years alone, more than the GDP of India, a nation with well over a billion people, on solar and wind for no result: This information is here, in the UNEP Frankfurt School Report, issued each year: Global Trends In Renewable Energy Investment, 2018
Here is the result of this pixilated and worthless expenditure:
In this century, world energy demand grew by 164.83 exajoules to 584.95 exajoules.
In this century, world gas demand grew by 43.38 exajoules to 130.08 exajoules.
In this century, the use of petroleum grew by 32.03 exajoules to 185.68 exajoules.
In this century, the use of coal grew by 60.25 exajoules to 157.01 exajoules.
In this century, the solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy on which people so cheerfully have bet the entire planetary atmosphere, stealing the future from all future generations, grew by 8.12 exajoules to 10.63 exajoules.
10.63 exajoules is under 2% of the world energy demand.
This a little bit more than one third of what nuclear energy has consistently produced for decades in an environment in a climate of hostility and ignorance generated by people who know almost nothing about energy and the environment and who think links to lazy websites, created by equally ignorant people, are "proof" enough.
2018 Edition of the World Energy Outlook Table 1.1 Page 38 (I have converted MTOE in the original table to the SI unit exajoules in this text.)
As far as wind is concerned whether it is "better than nothing," in my opinion it isn't. It involves taking pristine wildernesses, both land and aquatic, and converting them into industrial parks serviced by trucks and barges.
There is in the environmental scientific literature, hundreds of thousands of papers on the subject of "LCA" - Life Cycle Analysis. If wind involved only steel, that would be one thing, but careful analysis shows that it is dependent on many other things which are also not sustainable. There is also the matter of time; specifically the lifetime of these facilities.
I have carefully analyzed the data on the Danish Energy Agency's website, which lists every wind turbine they have ever built, and posted the data here and elsewhere several times. They last, on average, less than 20 years, before more trucks and/or barges are needed to haul them away, or worse, let them rot an a massive scale. There one such post on my analytical results from this comprehensive database of Danish wind turbines put out by the Energy Agency of that offshore oil and gas drilling hellhole, Denmark: Total Energy Production, Capacity Utilization of Danish Wind Turbines Over 30 Years Old. It contains an internal link to another post referring to this database: Average Lifetime of Danish Wind Turbines, as of February 2018.
In that post is this text:
I'm amused to report that the average lifetime of failed wind turbines has in fact, increased. It is now 17 years and 240 days. The longest lived turbine made it to 35 years and 240 days, a 22 kw unit commissioned on January 9 1981 and decommissioned on September 6, 2016.
Of the 3,232 decommissioned turbines, 3 others made it to 35 years, and 14 more than 30 years.
Of course, there are some that never operated at all, and 157 that operated ten or less years.
This data suggests that every 20 years or so, on average, the entire wind industry will need to be replaced. After half a century of cheering for it, wild eyed delusional cheering for it, cheering so loud that the entire planetary atmosphere was bet on it at the expense of all future generations should the bet not come in, the wind industry has yet to produce 10 of the 587 exajoules of energy humanity was consuming each year as of 2016, according to the IEA's World Energy Outlook.
And then there is the issue of ecosystems. All avian ecosystems are threatened. I am an environmentalist and these things matter to me. Here is a post here that I've touches on this point: Bats in the Anthropocene. Here's another written here: A Minor Problem For Sound Science of the Effect of Offshore Windfarms on Seabirds: There Isn't Any. The latter link contains a link to a wonderful book I have in my electronic library called "Why Birds Matter." We do not even remotely understand how much of our lives, our food supply and other things beyond aesthetics, though aesthetics are not to be trivialized, depends on the avian ecosystem, yet we are perfectly willing to blunder into its destruction mindlessly and aggressively for no result and declare ourselves "green" in the process.
This is ethically wrong.
Thanks again, for your sincere interest. If you have any further questions, I would be pleased to answer them.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
PatrickforO
(14,516 posts)Symposium in Denver, Colorado. Xcel Energy, one of the main energy utilities in my state, has committed to being 80% carbon free by 2035 and 100% carbon free by 2050. Here is their statement: https://www.xcelenergy.com/staticfiles/xe/PDF/Xcel%20Energy%20Carbon%20Report%20-%20Feb%202019.pdf
As to solar and wind energy not being clean, I'm assuming you're referring to the manufacturing process to create the wind turbines and the solar panels. Because by themselves, once built, wind turbines and solar panels are clean and both wind and solar energy are inexhaustible and sustainable. The manufacturing processes can and will be refined, but we cannot hesitate because they haven't been absolutely perfected yet. When something like this hits the market, numerous people will be working diligently to improve the technology, make it cleaner and more effective.
In the meantime, Governor Polis has issued an executive order, which uses nearly $70 million dollars Colorado was awarded in a settlement with Volkswagen, to support the goal of having more than 900,000 electric vehicles in use in Colorado by 2030. Polis wants Colorado to reach 100% renewable energy by 2030, which is quite ambitious. The auto guys are pushing back but behind the scenes but Xcel and others have developed charging technology that can be installed in homes, and more charging stations are being put on roads and highways. There is huge economic opportunity building and maintaining these stations. Xcel estimates the cost of the powering stations will be roughly half of what you pay for gas right now (they are using $2.80/gallon price point).
Right now, to put Polis' goal in perspective, there are currently just over 1.1 million plug-in electric cars in the entire US. Now, when you consider that auto manufacturers are gearing up to produce electric cars, and the total US market is 276 million vehicles, the opportunities for electric-car infrastructure are huge. Plug-in stations, batteries, energy storage facilities, and so on.
I guess when I look at your comment I think on Obama's warning to us not to make the perfect the enemy of the good. He was right then, and the admonition stands today.
I left that symposium proud to live in Colorado.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
NNadir
(33,368 posts)...where no one now living will ever again see carbon dioxide concentrations below 410 ppm at the Mauna Loa observatory.
The electric car, for one thing is a thermodynamic and ethical obscenity, because of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
A battery is a device that wastes energy.
I'm tired of all this wishful thinking that we can sustain a bourgeois hell forever by making statements about "by year XXXX."
I'm an old man. I grew up hearing "by 2000."
It didn't happen. It isn't happening. It won't happen. It is extremely contemptuous of all future generations to blithely assume that future generations will be able to do what we have been unwilling to do ourselves.
Those generations will have to clean up not only the atmosphere, but also all the bourgeois junk we left claiming we were "green."
I've studied the lifetime of wind turbines based on the comprehensive database provided by Denmark, listing all of the wind turbines they ever built. You are aware, aren't you, that the average wind turbine built in 2019 will be landfill "by 2037" and that almost all of them will need to be replaced?
No?
Look into it. While you're looking into it, look out steel is made, and equally important how concrete is made, how aluminum is made, and why, after three years, the performance of wind turbines begins to degrade as they shed plastic.
I don't buy a word of it. It's not "good," as opposed to imperfect. It's a disaster.
We hit a 415 ppm high this year and we're still looking at polls by people fed a line of marketing horseshit to say 100% renewable energy.
I was told here, that in agreeing with this scientific paper, in one of the most prestigious scientific journals there is, I was engaged in offering a "right wing talking point." Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar.
I wasn't. I was just hearing a repeat of what I already knew from doing serious research.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
PatrickforO
(14,516 posts)7.4 billion people so only 100 million are left in the whole world like the stella in Georgia says? Is that it?
Go back to small tribal societies separated by vast distances?
Get rid of all technology and go back to living communally in simple shelters and caves?
I'm an old guy too. But don't ask me to relinquish hope because I never will.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
NNadir
(33,368 posts)A luddite is a person who believes we need to kill off 7.3 billion people (generally not including the luddite proposing the same) because technology sucks, and we need to "go back to living communally in simple shelters and caves?"
A reactionary is a person who thinks we need to go back to sometime when everything was "great" as the bizarre locution, "Make America Great Again."
In general, much of rhetoric from those identifying with the political left, as I do myself, with qualifications, focuses on these two extreme possibilities to the exclusion of all others.
In many posts around the internet, I repeatedly say something along these lines with respect to so called "renewable energy" which I identify as reactionary:
At the dawn of the 19th century the world had about one billion people living on it and yet people hold the reactionary view that we can go back there and should go back there.
The effort will kill what is left of the planet, since it is very unlikely that billions of people will commit suicide because of their concern for the environment. So called "renewable energy" is mass intensive; there is not enough metal or the coal to refine it (or places to put coal waste) to make it sustainable.
This does not mean that there is no solution.
People don't like to hear what I say, because they're trained like Pavlov's dogs to abuse ignorantly the words "waste" and "danger" and "accident" by selectively applying them to the technologies for which the impact of these words is smallest.
This post, which I published elsewhere on the internet, is somewhat dated, but it integrates (with multiple references, the majority of which are to the primary scientific literatur)e what I think might work (but probably won't because of fear and ignorance) my views on energy, poverty, as well as my views on human dignity and human rights as they apply to energy and the environment:
Current Energy Demand, Ethical Energy Demand, Depleted Uranium, and the Centuries to Come
I have changed some of the small (largely technical) details of my thinking, but this post best reflects my personal views on the largest scale of what should be done.
Note that these ideas neither involve being a luddite or a reactionary. I believe a better future is possible, and I put my hopes in this wonderful generation coming of age, since it is clear that my generation is too invested in ignorance and consumption and cowardice to do what can be done.
There are, I argue, potentially viable engineering approaches to addressing this crisis, barely at the edge of feasibility, but probably feasible all the same. They are not simple, not easy, not "cheap" but they have a solid basis, having been discovered by the very best minds of the 20th century in times when intelligence and science mattered.
The difficult part of all of it is not technical, but social, and represent the question of whether humanity at this point is willing and able to "think anew." Right now, in this dark age, pessimistically, it doesn't seem so, but these kids coming into the world are an impressive bunch, and possibly will prove to be a great generation, as all generations coldly and indifferently screwed by their parents necessarily are.
The solution is to embrace high energy to mass ratios, because the mass we use is the real issue.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
PatrickforO
(14,516 posts)I do not pretend to understand much of physics. I do understand you propose to use depleted uranium and thorium to create fission reactors to fuel us for at least 220 years without seeking any other sources of energy. Further, I understand your enthusiasm for the millennial generation, as I share it.
As to capitalism, I disagree. Lust for power and lust for wealth are the two greatest illusions we face. Only by mitigating the excesses of capitalism with strong regulation can we keep citizens safe.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
PatrickforO
(14,516 posts)What are your solutions?
Because I know things are getting bad, and will get far worse before they get better, even if we get rid of capitalism completely and completely organize ourselves around human need.
But what would you have us do?
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
NNadir
(33,368 posts)This is an issue of science, and here I am not including political "science," or for that matter economic "science."
The problem with climate change is that people talk about everything but science (and the related practice called engineering) in addressing it.
Another problem is the question of who determines what human need is.
I have had it up to my eyeballs, maybe to the top of my bald white man head with hearing how humans need this or need that. One thing I've heard - and it strikes me as absurd - is that we need cars, even though billions of people have led useful and important lives without owning or even being in a car.
I am a political liberal, but of the old school, I am a Roosevelt Democrat, specifically an Eleanor Roosevelt Democrat.
This means that I endorse the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed by the UN in 1948, more respected in breach than practice, to which energy is related, with respect to Article 25, section 1, which reads:
I covered my thinking around this very basic concept, as I just noted in another post in this thread, here on another website, based in Australia:
Current Energy Demand, Ethical Energy Demand, Depleted Uranium, and the Centuries to Come
I note that the reason I support Elizabeth Warren is not that she is even remotely close to embracing the ideas I stated in this post. The reason I support her is because of her clear history of being able to change her mind, based on facts.
This is the only path to a sustainable future, leaders who can change their minds based on facts.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
PatrickforO
(14,516 posts)I am not a physical scientist or a life scientist, so forgive. My background is in counseling, and lately in economics. Funny story - I was chatting with my Uncle Rob, who was a senior VP and later President of a midsize corp that made rubber products, one day, and I expressed some thought or another that had been advanced by a psychologist.
He looked glumly at me, and slowly inhaled. He said, "Pat, I'd like for you to help me understand how psychology is a science."
Fun guy. I still went into counseling. And later into economics - the dismal science.
Anyway, please do pardon my ignorance. I've been reading some of your stuff, which when it gets technical, is difficult for me to understand.
Here's my question:
You suggest that we can use depleted uranium in nuclear plants using a fission process, and further that there is enough of this resource to meet all energy needs for approximately 200 years without sourcing any others. So no coal mines, no sideways drilling, no oil, natural gas, solar, or wind turbines. Just this fission using depleted uranium.
OK, so I'm not a 'no nuke' guy, really, but I do have some concerns. I was in Russia in 2003 and went to Saratov, which is on the Volga R. about 200 miles north of what was Stalingrad. I met some people there who told me that when Chernobyl exploded more than 350,000 people died, and there was orange rain for about a month. Now, Saratov is about 600 miles as the crow flies from Kiev. Then we look at what happened in Japan, and now the most recent accident in Russia.
So...how can we be comfortably certain the new fission plants would not have these accidents?
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
NNadir
(33,368 posts)...I posted reference to this article, in the journal Nature written largely by social scientists on the subject of critical thinking: Key concepts for making informed choices.
I refer to you this point made in the article about poor thinking:
Being in Russia and hearing from some person "who told me that when Chernobyl exploded more than 350,000 people died, and there was orange rain for about a month. Now, Saratov is about 600 miles as the crow flies from Kiev. Then we look at what happened in Japan, and now the most recent accident in Russia," is anecdotal by its very nature.
If I take a plane to Kiev and then drive a tourist bus out to Chernobyl - people do this - this does not make me an expert on how many people died.
You do realize that the Chernobyl event is one of the most widely studied energy events in the world, don't you?
Now, I am personally sick, tired, and disgusted about the selective attention paid to Chernobyl and Fukushima because it is obscene.
Here's why: Seven million people die every year from air pollution. This isn't something that someone who has obviously not counted bodies and is throwing around numbers over the fence, offering an anecdote, is asserting, but is rather a fact.
The reference is here, from one of the most prestigious health science journals in the world, Lancet, a survey of all causes of death and disability from environmental and lifestyle risks: Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 19902015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015 (Lancet 2016; 388: 1659724) One can easily locate in this open sourced document compiled by an international consortium of medical and scientific professionals how many people die from causes related to air pollution, particulates, ozone, etc.
This particular paper, unlike the previous 2012 paper on the same subject, with very similar numbers, is open sourced. Anyone can read it, but no one seems to do so.
This means 19,000 people roughly died today from air pollution. Because no one is interested in these daily continuous deaths without stop resulting not from an accident, but from the normal operations of combustion figures does not imply that they do not matter. 19,000 people will die tomorrow, and the day after that and the day after that because people don't do anything reasonable because of something they heard about Chernobyl or Fukushima or some other such fool thing.
Let's assume, just to look at the absurdity of this selective attention to this wrong and grotesquely inflated number for Chernobyl deaths, in fact, let's almost triple it and say that 1,000,000 people died from Chernobyl, pure nonsense, but illustrative of the criminality of raising the Chernobyl boogie man every time saving the world with nuclear energy is mentioned.
Again, seven million people per year works out to 19,000 a day. 1,000,000 divided by 19,000 is roughly 56.6 days to equal 1,000,000 pretend dead from Chernobyl. Chernobyl took place in 1986 however, 33 years ago. Thus 1,000,000 amounts to an average of 33,300 deaths per year, which is about a day and a half of what air pollution kills every day had the nuclear event at Chernobyl had killed 1,000,000 people (which it didn't), about 1.5 days of what dangerous fossil fuel waste is killing continuously without stop.
The claim made by people hauling out this crap about Chernobyl, Fukushima blah, blah, blah, blah...is that a single death from radiation is worse than tens of thousands of deaths, millions of deaths because it involves radiation.
Where is the ethical basis for this nonsense claim?
Is it right, just, or ethical to claim that every other form of energy can kill in vast numbers if nuclear energy is not perfect, not without risk?
Nuclear energy need not be perfect or without risk to be vastly superior to everything else. It only needs to be vastly superior to everything else, which it is.
Aircraft have killed more people than nuclear energy, cars have killed more people than nuclear energy, fatty foods have killed more people than nuclear energy, because that figure you heard is nonsense, pure nonsense.
Yet we do not ban cars when they crash, nor aircraft, nor Whoppers from Burger King. We don't fling anecdotes around about them about how dangerous they are, when all of them are clearly and unambiguously more dangerous than nuclear energy.
Now this is not something I heard because I took a flight to Russia: It's something I read and frequently reference that is published in one of the journals of the American Chemical Society, one of the world's oldest and largest scientific organizations in the world, an organization of which I have been a member for decades. It too is open sourced:
Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 48894895)
It is a widely cited and read paper, having now, according to Google Scholar, 177 citations.
An excerpt:
One of the authors, Jim Hansen, is a world leading authority on climate change. In the paper is given references for the actual likely death toll for Chernobyl.
I'm sorry to be so angry, but I am exhausted by these appeals to fear and ignorance. Nuclear energy saves lives. This selective attention is criminal since air pollution is not the only way dangerous fossil fuels kill. Climate change will increasingly incur a larger death toll.
Have a nice weekend.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
PatrickforO
(14,516 posts)I've read his documents on climate change.
Here are the links:
https://jayinslee.com/issues/evergreen-economy/text/Inslee-Evergreen-Economy-Plan.pdf
https://www.jayinslee.com/issues/100clean/text/Inslee_100CleanPlan_2_1.pdf
The first one is the more detailed one.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
BlueStater
(7,596 posts)Wow, that's a new record for me.
Why the two-term, successful governor of one of the most populated states in the country, who had an extremely vital message, was a "long-shot" but a mayor of small town in Indiana and a failed Senate candidate are not I have no goddamn clue.
Every cycle just seems to get worse and worse and worse. Maybe one day I'll actually end up with a presidential nominee I'll be excited to vote for, but I sincerely doubt it will be in 2020.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
ancianita
(35,813 posts)don't even care about what excuses people give.
Objectively, for the record and on the merits, there's no more accomplished candidate legislatively, and no better executive, than Inslee.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Celerity
(42,666 posts)They both had unique stories and Buttigieg is an extraordinarily gifted person, plus the first 'major' openly LGBTQ POTUS candidate. Beto was famous for the Texas race, and also he is a compelling speaker and a fresh face too.
The only candidates who are not 'long-shots' as of this exact moment are the top 3. Harris has fallen back down to around Pete level.
Inslee got lost in the 25 (25 was the highest at one time, 27 'legit' en toto (if you count Messam and Sestak) person field.
I agree that elected, sitting (especially sitting) Governors and Senators should have automatically be in the debates (as they are the highest statewide elected politicians), and the criteria should have been much higher.
The ones who had no right being in the debates (and some of these never made it anyway) IMHO are:
and lets call it a 3% in 4 polls cut off from the beginning for the first round of debates in plus auto-in for sitting (or retired/defeated within 2 years, so the 2016 elections) Senators and Governors (NOT House Members as they are not statewide elected, unless they are from a tiny state (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming) and we do not have any of those running)
these 13 would be out (for now, and only Steyer could (doubtful atm) make it later (plus he wasn't even running until recently)
Richard Ojeda (the first to drop out)
Eric Swalwell
Mike Gravel
Andrew Yang
Marianne Williamson
Joe Sestak
Tim Ryan
Seth Moulton
Wayne Messam
Tulsi Gabbard
John Delaney
Bill de Blasio
Tom Steyer
that leaves 14
7 in first debates night 1
say (balancing here for polling and diversity at all levels)
Biden
Warren
Booker
Beto
Inslee
Bennet
Gillibrand
7 on night 2
Sanders
Harris
Buttigieg
Klobuchar
Bullock
Castro
Hickenlooper
For the second round (3% in 4 polls and now no auto in for Governors/Senators not at 2% in 4 polls so bye-bye Hickenlooper, Gillibrand)
you would probably end up with (as some like Bullock (who would have been in the first debate of 7 and 7) and Inslee would gain a point or 2 from less competition)
these 12 (and do 2 nights again and mix it up)
night 1
Warren
Buttigieg
Booker
Inslee
Klobuchar
Castro
night 2
Biden
Sanders
Harris
Bullock
Beto
Bennet
3rd round 5% in 4 polls and NO auto-in if not at 3% in 4 polls
would probably leave
these 5
Warren
Buttigieg
Biden
Sanders
Harris
for sure
and the others with a fighting chance ( I really think the ones to benefit here and possible make round 3 would be Inslee (who would have probably NOT dropped out) and Bullock)
certainly those 5, and probably a couple others are the clear front-runners
that 3rd round can be a LONG, one group debate, let them all have each other
4th round (October) the same criteria as the 3rd debates (and you can still qualify if you missed the 3rd round)
5th round (money time)
6% in 6 polls, no auto-in for Senators/Governors at all if not at 4% in 6 polls (I cannot, due to complete re-do in the previous 4 rounds, say with accuracy who would make this cut)
that would have been a fairer way to do it IMHO, and gotten rid of the lesser ones quickly, whilst giving truly legit big hitter Governors like Inslee and Bullock a fair shake to at least make it to 3 or 4 real, non-clogged debates
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Byronic
(504 posts)Actual accomplishments and experience has meant very little this time round.
Governors seem to be out of fashion.
Inslee, Hickenlooper (and probably soon to be, Bullock) have made little to no impression on voters.
Perhaps it is the climate of the day, perhaps it was the fault of the candidates, but I find it terribly sad.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
JI7
(89,182 posts)and being a governor along with other elected offices should be enough to get on the debate stage.
but candidates had to focus wayyy too much on trying to get the number of donors needed to qualify for debates and then hoping they can get somewhere in the polls.
Jay Inslee is actually up there with Biden in terms of experience, qualifications etc. he was in Congress so he has dealt with national issues, and a successful governor which is a huge plus to be president. but lacking national name recognition made it more difficult to raise money which he had to spend too much time on rather than listening and talking to voters.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
IrishEyes
(3,275 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Recursion
(56,582 posts)And I hope his message continues in the pimaries.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
samnsara
(17,570 posts)..but he got climate change into the discussion and now hes back here keeping our state great!
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Garrett78
(10,721 posts)It's not as though the other candidates were ever going to ignore the issue of climate change, or that our eventual nominee would appoint climate change deniers to run the EPA.
Anyway, Inslee dropping out should signal to at least a dozen other candidates that it's time to drop out. How can Seth Moulton or John Delaney or Tim Ryan think it's a good use of resources to continue running?
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided