WSJ: "nuclear power" is "GOP analogue to Democratic wind turbines and solar panels"

[kristopher]

Just Don't Call It a Climate Bill
John Kerry rearranges cap and tax—and hopes no one notices.

Despite the most creative rhetoric this side of ObamaCare, voters have figured out that "cap and trade" involves artificial carbon rationing and vast new energy taxes. So the main goal of John Kerry and Joe Lieberman has been attempting to disguise these truths in the climate bill they released to much fanfare last week.

The bill was nine months in gestation once it became clear that the version the House passed last summer—which one of five Democrats opposed—was doomed in the Senate. Yet no one should mistake Kerry-Lieberman for a new approach.

...The bill sets a 2020 target for reducing CO2 emissions by 17% from 2005 levels, and 83% by 2050, the same as the House. Of course, please don't say this has anything to do with global warming. "We don't want to mix messages here," Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said on Earth Day. "I'm all for protecting the Earth, but this is about energy independence."

...Messrs. Kerry and Lieberman hope to peel off a few Republicans with sweeteners like more offshore drilling and royalty-sharing for coastal states. Given the Gulf oil leak, liberals may not accept even this fillip. The bill would also subsidize loan guarantees to expand nuclear power, which is the GOP analogue to Democratic wind turbines and solar panels. ...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703339304575240353420875226.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

[meegbear]

1. Republicans and liberals ...

good ole WSJ

[damntexdem]

2. No, the GOP analogue would be the BP oil gusher.

After all, Three Mile Island is so passe. ;-)

[NNadir]

3. You mean I have to define myself according to what the WSJ says?

Maybe the Wall Street Journal thinks that Glenn Seaborg and Hans Bethe were Republicans.

The Wall Street Journal seems to be engaging in wishful thinking, which must mean that they are anti-nukes themselves.

[kristopher]

5. No, your values define you.

You keep trying to pretend that you are environmentally motivated when it is obvious that is a facade to promote nuclear power. You have given everyone more than enough knowledge to evaluate what values you place a high priority on, and in spite of the lip service it is pretty clear what those values are.

[NNadir]

13. Let me get this straight. A car CULTist who opposes the world's largest, by far, source of climate

change gas free energy is here to lecture people on what is and is not an environmentalist.

This comes from the same guy who declares the dunderhead Amory Lovins an environmentalist.

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Amory+B.+Lovins">Famous Anti-nuke Amory Lovins describes his revenue sources:

Mr. Lovins’s other clients have included Accenture, Allstate, AMD, Anglo American, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Baxter, Borg-Warner, BP, HP Bulmer, Carrier, Chevron, Ciba-Geigy, CLSA, ConocoPhillips, Corning, Dow, Equitable, GM, HP, Invensys, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Motorola, Norsk Hydro, Petrobras, Prudential, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shearson Lehman Amex, STMicroelectronics, Sun Oil, Suncor, Texas Instruments, UBS, Unilever, Westinghouse, Xerox, major developers, and over 100 energy utilities. His public-sector clients have included the OECD, the UN, and RFF; the Australian, Canadian, Dutch, German, and Italian governments; 13 states; Congress, and the U.S. Energy and Defense Departments.

Do you know what Lovins pals at BP, um, "Beyond Petroleum" are up to today?

Let me say this once again, in case you missed it in the first 4,181 times that I expressed contempt for people who hate the science of Seaborg, Chadwick, Meitner, Bohr, and Einstein because it's over their tiny little heads: There is NOT ONE delusional anti-nuke who is NOT an apologist for the dangerous fossil fuel industry, NOT ONE who thinks that climate change will wait until some putative future in 2050 populated by lollipops and wind systems.

Bull. Climate change is now. You just don't give a fuck.

No wonder you sit here quoting the Wall Street Journal as wisdom.

We'll just add the twisted definition what is and is not an environmentalist to the oblivious delusional doublespeak of the anti-nuke faith.

I favor banning dangerous fossil fuels commencing with an immediate phase out. You don't.

Have a nice doublespeak evening, Anglo American boy.

[kristopher]

16. Poor little feller just ain't got a clue...

The best way to address climate change is NOT nuclear energy.



That you deny this is a clear demonstration that your "environmental values" are pure bunk; as is your continued criticism of Lovins.

Amory Lovins, a MacArthur Fellow and consultant physicist, is among the world’s leading innovators in energy and its links with resources, security, development and the environment. He has advised energy and many other industries for more than three decades, as well as the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense. A former Oxford don, Amory Lovins advises major firms and governments worldwide and has briefed 19 heads of state.

Lovins’ work focuses on transforming hydrocarbon, automobile, real estate, electricity, water, semiconductor, and several other sectors toward advanced resource productivity. Amory Lovins co-founded and is Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute, an independent, market-oriented, entrepreneurial, nonprofit, nonpartisan think-and-do tank, that creates abundance by design. RMI has served or been invited by more than 80 Fortune 500 firms, redesigning more than $30 billion worth of facilities in 29 sectors, with much of its path-finding work involving advanced resource productivity (typically with expanding returns to investment) and innovative business strategies.

Amory has held several visiting academic chairs, most recently as MAP/Ming Professor in Stanford’s School of Engineering, offering the university’s first course on advanced energy efficiency. He has also authored or co-authored hundreds of papers and twenty-nine books including: Small Is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical Resources the Right Size - an Economist “book of the year” blending financial economics with electrical engineering, and the Pentagon co-sponsored Winning the Oil Endgame, a roadmap for eliminating U.S. oil use by the 2040s, led by business for profit.

His work in over 50 countries has been recognized by the “Alternative Nobel,” Blue Planet, Volvo, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, Goff Smith, and Mitchell Prizes, the Benjamin Franklin and Happold Medals, ten honorary doctorates, honorary membership of the American Institute of Architects, Foreign Membership of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, honorary Senior Fellowship of the Design Futures Council, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Jean Meyer, Time Hero for the Planet, Time International Hero of the Environment, Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Leadership, and World Technology Awards.

The Wall Street Journal named Amory Lovins one of thirty-nine people worldwide "most likely to change the course of business.” Newsweek has praised him as "one of the Western world's most influential energy thinkers" and Car magazine ranked him the “twenty-second most powerful person in the global automotive industry.”

[NNadir]

17. Lovins is a physicist? In your dreams BP boy. The WALL STREET JOURNAL named....

Lovins "one of thirty nine people to change the world?" Thanks for quoting your Murdoch owned fellow dunderhead journals.

The Wall Street Journal?

So now we are all supposed to applaud a newspaper that actually moved to the left when Rupert Murdoch bought it?

I know that anti-nukes are insufferably dumb and credulous, but really...

Lovins is funded by BP; it says so right on his own fucking website. The "change" he is making is precisely the one that the anti-nukes work so fucking hard for in their entrenched and virulent ignorance: The permanent entrenchment until the last methane molecule is burned, the last rock shattered, the last body of water oil soaked.

That's why they love him at the Wall Street Journal, your latest oracle.

The Wall Street Journal also applauded George W. Bush, who put another "heckuva job" horseshit handler in charge of fucking up cities along the Gulf of Mexico. No wonder they're waxing romantic about "heckuva job" Lovins. There isn't a right wing company not on Lovins list of funding companies.

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Amory+B.+Lovins">Famous Anti-nuke Amory Lovins describes his revenue sources:

Mr. Lovins’s other clients have included Accenture, Allstate, AMD, Anglo American, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Baxter, Borg-Warner, BP, HP Bulmer, Carrier, Chevron, Ciba-Geigy, CLSA, ConocoPhillips, Corning, Dow, Equitable, GM, HP, Invensys, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Motorola, Norsk Hydro, Petrobras, Prudential, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shearson Lehman Amex, STMicroelectronics, Sun Oil, Suncor, Texas Instruments, UBS, Unilever, Westinghouse, Xerox, major developers, and over 100 energy utilities. His public-sector clients have included the OECD, the UN, and RFF; the Australian, Canadian, Dutch, German, and Italian governments; 13 states; Congress, and the U.S. Energy and Defense Departments.

Lower down it talks about Lovins addressing the Hoover and Brookings Institutions.

What a surprise.

As for physics...

An anti-nuke discussing who and who is not a physicist is like Pat Robertson discussing who and who is not a biologist.

Lovins is a physicist? Chalk is cheese?

Of course, after all these years of "solar will save us" talk, we shouldn't be surprised at how delusional anti-nukes can get, but this is a new high.

Keep smoking. Why do you think they call it dope?

[kristopher]

19. Poor little feller...

... he's a diehard rep for the NUCLEAR INDUSTRY and he criticizes his betters for trying to make other industries more energy efficient? What's wrong with that picture? I mean, he wants to associate Lovins with Murdock because of their focus on Lovine, but he WSJ piece was published before 2000, long before Murdock entered the picture.

30 Minute Lovins podcast from Stanford's Social Innovation Conversations Series: http://sic.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3274.html

Since the oil crisis of the 1970s, Amory Lovins has been advising corporate and world leaders on how to save and create substitutions for fossil fuels. In this audio lecture, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, Lovins details how, by 2040, the United States can reduce its need for oil altogether. This effort, he argues, can be led by business for profit.

Lovins offers specifics and metrics that demonstrate, through a combination of increased energy efficiency and the use of biofuels, how various business sectors can create savings, profits, and jobs. He makes materials, design, and production recommendations for how to increase fuel efficiency while creating better, safer, more technologically advanced, and ultimately less expensive cars and homes. He also discusses how various large companies' efforts to reduce carbon emissions and increase energy efficiency are leading to higher net profits.

Trained as an experimental physicist, Amory Lovins rose to prominence during the oil crises of the 1970s, when he challenged conventional supply-side dogma by urging that the United States instead follow a “soft energy path.” His controversial recommendations were eventually accepted by the energy industry, and his book, Soft Energy Paths: Toward a Durable Peace (1977), went on to inspire a generation of decision makers.

Lovins has briefed 16 heads of state, given expert testimony in eight countries, held several visiting academic chairs, and authored or coauthored 28 books and hundreds of papers. He has also consulted for many industries and governments worldwide, and received numerous major awards and honorary degrees. The Wall Street Journal’s Centennial Issue named him among the 39 people in the world most likely to change the course of business in the 1990s, and Car named him the 22nd most powerful person in the global car industry.

With Hunter Lovins, he founded Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a Colorado-based resource policy think tank, in 1982. He continues to serve as CEO of the nonprofit institute, whose staff research and consult in a variety of fields. Under the Lovins’ leadership, RMI launched three pioneering enterprises: E SOURCE, now a $10-million for-profit electric-efficiency information service (founded in 1986 as COMPETITEK) and sold to the Financial Times group in 1999; Hypercar, Inc., an automotive startup (1998); and the Natural Capitalism Practice (1999).

http://sic.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3274.html

Also see:
Jared Diamond NYTimes “Will Big Business Save the Earth?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06diamond.html


In case you're wondering, "conventional supply-side dogma" is the heartbeat of the nuclear power industry. As can be seen by the inarticulate rants of our fried nnads, that industry HATES Lovins and blames him for all their woes. It is a classic "shoot the messenger" response.

[ixion]

4. Shows that they don't know what the hell they're talking about

alternative energy isn't limited to wind turbines and solar panels. There are all sorts of ways to produce energy from the natural resources around us WITHOUT burning fossil fuels.

But, hey, leave it to the WSJ to over-simplify the issue and miss the point.

[kristopher]

6. Nuclear power is a Right Wing darling.

Drill baby drill, build more coal plants and if that doesn't work then build more nuclear plants.

- Republican party line.

[ixion]

7. Yes, but their analogy is incorrect

as I pointed out.

[kristopher]

8. Analogy?

How is that an analogy? They stated the traditional party positions on energy very succinctly.

[ixion]

10. hmmmm... what part of the word "analogue" is unclear?

:shrug:

[kristopher]

11. No part...

It is the application of "analogy" to the text I'm having trouble understanding.

ETA:
What specifically is wrong with their comparison between support for nuclear energy as a Republican position and support for wind and solar as a Dem position?

[Duchess]

12. It is specifically wrong because it isn't really true

Some Democrats support nuclear and some Republicans support wind/solar.

How can nuclear be a purely Republican position when a Democratic president has shown support for nuclear power?

This isn't a black and white issue...there is a lot of gray in the realm of energy policy.

I'll just post this graph and get it out of the way early. I know you will post it eventually anyway.

[kristopher]

15. Trying to rewrite history?

Republican energt policy: Drill baby drill, burn more coal and if they can't then they want to build more nuclear power plants. Even the WSJ takes it as a given.

BTW, good graphic.

[Dead_Parrot]

22. Like that famously right-wing Finnish government, I suppose. nt

[bananas]

34. Just like abortion, gay rights, school prayer, etc, nuclear energy is an extremely partisan issue

There are some conservative Democrats, and some liberal Republicans, but by and large these are extremely partisan issues, just like nuclear energy.

[bananas]

35. and the death penalty - another partisan issue

"Dems want to scrap death penalty in California"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4390459

[ixion]

18. well....

a) Because it's simply not that black and white. As another poster mentioned, there is ample support amongst DLC dems for nuclear power.

b) As I mentioned, alternative energy is NOT limited to wind and solar. There are numerous ways of extracting energy from natural processes that doesn't require the burning of a finite resource. Wave power and geothermal, to name just two, are very promising means of alternative energy extraction.

The bottom line is that this is a 'framed' analogy, over-simplified and untrue.

[Nederland]

20. You need to learn...

...that with Kristopher everything is black and white. If you disagree with him about anything, you are not only wrong, you are also the enemy, a Republican, a right wing wacko, etc.

[kristopher]

21. Riiiight....

Our resident climate denier, ahem, excuse me, "climate skeptic" is once more trying to rewrite history and provide support for the nuclear lobby on DU**:

CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. Oct. 16-18, 2009. N=1,038 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

“To address the country’s energy needs, would you support or oppose action by the federal government to ?” (Half Sample)



"Increase coal mining"
Support 52, Oppose 45, Unsure 3

"Build more nuclear power plants"
Support 52, Oppose 46, Unsure 2

"Increase oil and gas drilling"
Support 64, Oppose 33, Unsure 3



"Develop more solar and wind power"
Support 91, Oppose 8, Unsure 1




"Develop electric car technology"
Support 82, Oppose 17, Unsure 2

"Require more energy conservation by businesses and industries"
Support 78, Oppose 20, Unsure 2

"Require more energy conservation by consumers like yourself"
Support 73, Oppose 25, Unsure 3

"Require car manufacturers to improve the fuel-efficiency of vehicles sold in this country"
Support 85, Oppose 14, Unsure 1

Asked of those who support building more nuclear power plants:
"Would you favor or oppose building a nuclear power plant within 50 miles of your home?"
Favor 66, Oppose 33

**That isn't a reference to you ixion. If you don't like they way they use "analogous" that is your preference; I don't need to understand your objection.

[Nederland]

24. Thanks for the reminder Kristopher

I had forgotten about the fact that you claimed that I was a AGW denier. How's your search to find proof going? :rofl:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=245608&mesg_id=245783

See ixion? This is a classic example of how the mind of Kristopher works. If you disagree with him about anything, even to the smallest degree, you immediately get labelled as the enemy and called a Republican. Remember how George Bush lambasted John Kerry in the 2004 election for having a "nuanced" positions on a variety of issues?

Well, Kristopher is just like George Bush.

See how I did that? I took a fairly minor thing and blew it totally out of proportion and equated Kristopher with George Bush. Totally unfair and totally unwarranted, because I don't for a minute think that Kristopher is anything like George Bush. I just thought it would be fun for him to see how it looks from the other side...

[kristopher]

25. There is no difference between a "climate denier" and a "climate skeptic"

They are two sides of the same coin, retreating lines in the sand crafted by right-wing think tanks to stop action on DEALING with climate change by eliminating fossil fuels and the centralized energy system built around them.

Conclusion
Environmental skepticism presents itself as "speaking truth to power" through contrarian claims they say objectively "debunk" the myths of the environmental movement and environmental science. Yet, the analysis of this literature indicates that environmental skepticism is specifically issued from a conservative ideology supported by a coherent conservative countermovement opposed to environmentalism. This positions the bias of skeptic knowledge claims, and while environmentalists' claims clearly have their own bias, the claim that the skeptical project is generated from a sense of objectivity and value neutrality is flatly rejected as part of an attempt to subvert reflexive interrogation and the implied counter-hegemonic resistance this entails.

In particular, environmental skepticism is opposed to the establishment of global environmental concerns and those related to human sustainability. The substantive arguments of environmental skeptics are guided by a "deep anthropocentrism" which dissolves society from non-human nature. Importantly, a severed nature-human relationship effectively challenges the institutionalization of obligation to environmental changes and the people who are affected by these changes. Skepticism therefore preserves a conservative hope for limited government in the global market while it protects a consumptive elite against responsibilities for these systemic changes. In the process, environmental skepticism defends the structure of dominant social values in world politics such as the state system, expansive resource exploitation under world capitalism, and a hegemonic and consumptive North (and US in particular from where most skeptics hail) to flourish unmolested by the gadflies of the environmental movement.

Therefore, being overly concerned with the contrarian knowledge claims of environmental skeptics misses skepticism's more important political message about duty and the legitimacy of public environmental concern. Environmental skeptics, even if they are conclusively proven wrong on all counts, will succeed in—at least temporarily—guarding a falling hegemonic order if academia, the press, and government become overly interested in Darth Vader and Obi Wan dueling at the bay doors.101 I suspect that skeptics will be happy to continue to create this kind of conflict because it ultimately provides an indefinite defense of the dominant social norms and institutions. They do not need to win the debate about the state of the world to maintain this power and dominance. They only need to establish enough doubt about the environmental epistemic community having the debate to throw public action into doubt as well.

Kysar, in Ecology Law Quarterly, notes that both environmentalists, such as Worldwatch Institute, and skeptics like Lomborg are guilty of hyperbole which they use to focus attention on their own policy agenda through competing Litanies.102 These Litanies are, among other things, struggles over the ability to frame risk, and therefore regulation: As a result, science becomes a contested space in which competitors vie for the legal authority to impose costs on other parties, whether in the form of regulatory compliance, or externalized physical and environmental harms.103

However, Wildavsky, correctly I think, argues that risk is politically assessed by morality, and this makes the framing of public risk a civic exercise.104 From here, he argues that environmental policies need to be made with a preponderance of evidence, not evidence from probabilities. But skeptical ethics severely limit what counts and is available to create such a preponderance of evidence. Thus, contrary to what Lomborg argues, understanding what is to be done and prioritizing action is not just a simple matter of adding up the costs and benefits. The real struggle is over what can count as a cost or benefit or even whether such a conceptual tool is fair, appropriate, or relevant.105

Environmental skepticism is therefore a struggle over the core values and beliefs that frame who and what risks should count as important. But these are no ordinary historical risks. The state of the world debate centers on what core civic values should organize risk in society regarding human development and progress. Wildavsky's "culture" model is based on core fears and different cultural sets have different core fears of risks, and that environmentalists have a specific culture guided by "radical egalitarianism." I do not disagree that some environmentalism is deeply concerned about the fair distribution of ecological space and change.106 Turning this around though, it is just as plausible to frame skeptics as struggling for a "radical in-egalitarianism" within the core values that already organize world politics.

In conclusion, skepticism's influence in politics and culture presents a dramatic threat to human ability and political will to protect the critical life support systems found in ecological goods and services because they dismiss these systems as important. Many civilizations have actively decided, for one reason or another, to ignore the erosion of this essential relationship between society and non-human nature, only to collapse or find themselves at the mercy of a Dark Age that is defined by misery and suffering.107 Jared Diamond writes, Our world is interconnected and interdependent, like Easter Island's 11 clans. Today, we face the same problems—loss of forests, fisheries, biodiversity, fresh water, and topsoil—that dragged down past societies. But for the first time in world history, we are producing or transporting toxic materials, greenhouse gases, and alien species. All these environmental problems are time bombs. The world is now on an unsustainable course, and these problems will be resolved one way or another, pleasantly or unpleasantly, within the next 50 years.108

Yet, Lomborg shrugs off the matter of accountability to exactly these kinds of changes as "blame" and says our true priorities should be more along the lines of a low-fat diet instead of "focusing on pesticides, oxygen depletion, global warming, forests, wind power, biodiversity, etc.—issues which are more clearly someone else's fault."109

To some, the song of skepticism sounds like a sweet song, laden with the security and power of modernity. Diamond points out with optimism I share, when Easter Island collapsed, it did not have the benefit of knowing that other societies had collapsed by undermining ecological life support systems.

However, taking responsibility for global environmental integrity would be a positive step towards paradigmatic and r/evolutionary changes, one of which could be an incorporation of obligations to human societies commensurate with membership and impact within a larger international and ecological community.110 This directly challenges the way power and wealth are concentrated in the current world system, and environmental skeptics have organized as the rearguard for this system and its globalizing—but beleaguered - paradigm. To be sure, the fact that conservatives have felt the need to rally around the DSP indicates that the ecological position is gaining strength.

Skeptics however wish to postpone this change. Their placations sound good to the elite who are part of the dominant world order. From Diamond's lessons, this skeptical song is like lulling the boiling frog to sleep, ignoring that someone put the frog in the pot to begin with, and then telling the frog that things are, "in fact," getting better all the time.

Peter Jacques "Rearguard of Modernity: Environmental Skepticism as a Struggle of Citizenship"
Copyright © 2006 The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Fair use cited.

[Dead_Parrot]

26. Yeah, they both think CO2 from gas is great

Do you even look at the shit you copy and paste?

[Nederland]

27. LOL

You just can't help but give more examples of how you are incapable of nuance and intellectual subtlety.

Nope. It's all black or white. Right or wrong. Democrat or Republican. Believer or denier. No minor differences of opinion. Ever.

[kristopher]

28. You're a climate denier. You've just tried to rebrand the effort you are engaged in.

[Nederland]

30. I take it you've given up then

...and admitted you can find no proof?

[kristopher]

31. Your entire posting history is proof

There is no difference between a climate skeptic and a climate denier. It is nothing more than an attempt to rebrand their idiotic and indefensible obstructionism. Both employ strategies crafted by right-wing think tanks to stop action on DEALING with climate change by eliminating fossil fuels and the centralized energy system built around them. It is similar to trying to find a difference between a leg breaking mafioso and an arm breaking mafioso; the arm breaker might take umbrage at being referred to as a leg breaker, but for the majority of people they are both just fucking lowlife creeps

Peter Jacques "Rearguard of Modernity: Environmental Skepticism as a Struggle of Citizenship"
Copyright © 2006 The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fair use cited.


Conclusion
Environmental skepticism presents itself as "speaking truth to power" through contrarian claims they say objectively "debunk" the myths of the environmental movement and environmental science. Yet, the analysis of this literature indicates that environmental skepticism is specifically issued from a conservative ideology supported by a coherent conservative countermovement opposed to environmentalism. This positions the bias of skeptic knowledge claims, and while environmentalists' claims clearly have their own bias, the claim that the skeptical project is generated from a sense of objectivity and value neutrality is flatly rejected as part of an attempt to subvert reflexive interrogation and the implied counter-hegemonic resistance this entails.

In particular, environmental skepticism is opposed to the establishment of global environmental concerns and those related to human sustainability. The substantive arguments of environmental skeptics are guided by a "deep anthropocentrism" which dissolves society from non-human nature. Importantly, a severed nature-human relationship effectively challenges the institutionalization of obligation to environmental changes and the people who are affected by these changes. Skepticism therefore preserves a conservative hope for limited government in the global market while it protects a consumptive elite against responsibilities for these systemic changes. In the process, environmental skepticism defends the structure of dominant social values in world politics such as the state system, expansive resource exploitation under world capitalism, and a hegemonic and consumptive North (and US in particular from where most skeptics hail) to flourish unmolested by the gadflies of the environmental movement.

Therefore, being overly concerned with the contrarian knowledge claims of environmental skeptics misses skepticism's more important political message about duty and the legitimacy of public environmental concern. Environmental skeptics, even if they are conclusively proven wrong on all counts, will succeed in—at least temporarily—guarding a falling hegemonic order if academia, the press, and government become overly interested in Darth Vader and Obi Wan dueling at the bay doors.101 I suspect that skeptics will be happy to continue to create this kind of conflict because it ultimately provides an indefinite defense of the dominant social norms and institutions. They do not need to win the debate about the state of the world to maintain this power and dominance. They only need to establish enough doubt about the environmental epistemic community having the debate to throw public action into doubt as well.

Kysar, in Ecology Law Quarterly, notes that both environmentalists, such as Worldwatch Institute, and skeptics like Lomborg are guilty of hyperbole which they use to focus attention on their own policy agenda through competing Litanies.102 These Litanies are, among other things, struggles over the ability to frame risk, and therefore regulation: As a result, science becomes a contested space in which competitors vie for the legal authority to impose costs on other parties, whether in the form of regulatory compliance, or externalized physical and environmental harms.103

However, Wildavsky, correctly I think, argues that risk is politically assessed by morality, and this makes the framing of public risk a civic exercise.104 From here, he argues that environmental policies need to be made with a preponderance of evidence, not evidence from probabilities. But skeptical ethics severely limit what counts and is available to create such a preponderance of evidence. Thus, contrary to what Lomborg argues, understanding what is to be done and prioritizing action is not just a simple matter of adding up the costs and benefits. The real struggle is over what can count as a cost or benefit or even whether such a conceptual tool is fair, appropriate, or relevant.105

Environmental skepticism is therefore a struggle over the core values and beliefs that frame who and what risks should count as important. But these are no ordinary historical risks. The state of the world debate centers on what core civic values should organize risk in society regarding human development and progress. Wildavsky's "culture" model is based on core fears and different cultural sets have different core fears of risks, and that environmentalists have a specific culture guided by "radical egalitarianism." I do not disagree that some environmentalism is deeply concerned about the fair distribution of ecological space and change.106 Turning this around though, it is just as plausible to frame skeptics as struggling for a "radical in-egalitarianism" within the core values that already organize world politics.

In conclusion, skepticism's influence in politics and culture presents a dramatic threat to human ability and political will to protect the critical life support systems found in ecological goods and services because they dismiss these systems as important. Many civilizations have actively decided, for one reason or another, to ignore the erosion of this essential relationship between society and non-human nature, only to collapse or find themselves at the mercy of a Dark Age that is defined by misery and suffering.107 Jared Diamond writes, Our world is interconnected and interdependent, like Easter Island's 11 clans. Today, we face the same problems—loss of forests, fisheries, biodiversity, fresh water, and topsoil—that dragged down past societies. But for the first time in world history, we are producing or transporting toxic materials, greenhouse gases, and alien species. All these environmental problems are time bombs. The world is now on an unsustainable course, and these problems will be resolved one way or another, pleasantly or unpleasantly, within the next 50 years.108

Yet, Lomborg shrugs off the matter of accountability to exactly these kinds of changes as "blame" and says our true priorities should be more along the lines of a low-fat diet instead of "focusing on pesticides, oxygen depletion, global warming, forests, wind power, biodiversity, etc.—issues which are more clearly someone else's fault."109

To some, the song of skepticism sounds like a sweet song, laden with the security and power of modernity. Diamond points out with optimism I share, when Easter Island collapsed, it did not have the benefit of knowing that other societies had collapsed by undermining ecological life support systems.

However, taking responsibility for global environmental integrity would be a positive step towards paradigmatic and r/evolutionary changes, one of which could be an incorporation of obligations to human societies commensurate with membership and impact within a larger international and ecological community.110 This directly challenges the way power and wealth are concentrated in the current world system, and environmental skeptics have organized as the rearguard for this system and its globalizing—but beleaguered - paradigm. To be sure, the fact that conservatives have felt the need to rally around the DSP indicates that the ecological position is gaining strength.

Skeptics however wish to postpone this change. Their placations sound good to the elite who are part of the dominant world order. From Diamond's lessons, this skeptical song is like lulling the boiling frog to sleep, ignoring that someone put the frog in the pot to begin with, and then telling the frog that things are, "in fact," getting better all the time.

[Nederland]

32. Is it?

Then why has it been so hard for you to find a single example? :rofl:

[bananas]

33. Maybe he's talking about posts like these: "Global Warming will turn out to be no big deal"

Where you say global warming is real, but it's "no big deal" and will be "hardly noticeable", implying that we shouldn't bother doing anything about it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=217096&mesg_id=217136

Nederland

13. Global warming is real and the outcome is not what you think it is

On a planet of 6 billion, hundreds of millions of people dying over the course of 50 years is hardly noticeable. Right now 56+ million people die every year from natural and unnatural causes. Global warming isn't going to change those numbers by much.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=217096&mesg_id=217220

Nederland

39. No rubber stamp

To be fair, I don't think you and I agree on this subject. I think global warming is real and man-made, I just don't think it's going to be the world altering catastrophe that many people around here think it is. A good summary of what I think is here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=203791

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=203791&mesg_id=203791

Nederland

Global Warming will turn out to be no big deal

There, I said it.

To be clear, I believe three things about climate change:

1) Global Warming is real.
2) Global Warming is caused by human activity.
3) Global Warming will turn out to be no big deal.

Before responding, please re-read #1 and #2. Now read them again. And again.

Now that you all understand that I'm not denying the climate change is real and happening and is caused by human activity, let me explain why I think #3 is true. I've read large portions of the IPCC 2007 report and quite simply I don't get all the hysteria. Yes, temperatures are projected to increase 1.1 and 6.4 °C. Yes, sea levels will probably rise by 18 to 59 cm. Yes, there will be increased instances of drought, heat waves, heavy rainfall, tropical cyclones, and extreme high tides.

So what?

All these changes are going to be spread out over a 100 year period and humanity and nature will adapt to those changes. It's called evolution, and it happens very quickly despite the conventional wisdom that it is a slow process (see: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x203617 ). Compared to the myriad of other problems we are going to face in the future (Peak Oil, for example), I fail to see why people around here think climate change should be anywhere near our top priority.

Flame suit on.

And here's someone who seems to agree with you:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=217096&mesg_id=217420

joshcryer

109. And note that by "very bad" I have a high standard. Mass migrations, to me, aren't "very bad."

They're bad, but for a country that has nearly 2 million people immigrating a year, we can handle a mass migration. We're talking about 20-30, possibly even 40 years to migrate for the southern states. We're lucky in that regard.

But mass migrations for *other countries* even over such long periods of time are not as easy to cope with as it would be for the US, in my opinion.

So "very bad" really means things like civil war (which I don't see happening to us but probably other states), and famine (again, we should be OK in that regard), disease (thank god for the CDC), etc.

I don't even consider the billions, potentially trillions of economic losses from 1M of sea rise "very bad" (and I think you can accept that 1M is possible). Out of destruction comes innovation and good things.

[Nederland]

36. I think you are correct

Kristopher has demonstrated time and time again that he views things in black and white. As a result, when a person like me says that he agrees with two out of three common assertions regarding climate change, his mind just kind of freezes up in some sort of infinite loop. The idea that a person could agree with 66-2/3% of what you believe is unfathomable. You either agree with him 100% or you disagree with him 100%. There is no middle ground.

[kristopher]

37. Inconsequential nonsense.

It isn't "black and white" thinking; it is recognizing basic bullshit when I see it. As is documented by Jacques below, there is no difference between a climate skeptic and a climate denier. It is nothing more than an attempt to rebrand an idiotic and indefensible obstructionism. Both employ strategies crafted by right-wing think tanks to stop action on DEALING with climate change by eliminating fossil fuels and the centralized energy system built around them. It is similar to trying to find a difference between a leg breaking mafioso and an arm breaking mafioso; the arm breaker might take umbrage at being referred to as a leg breaker, but for the majority of people they are both just fucking lowlife creeps

Peter Jacques "Rearguard of Modernity: Environmental Skepticism as a Struggle of Citizenship"
Copyright © 2006 The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Fair use cited.


Conclusion
Environmental skepticism presents itself as "speaking truth to power" through contrarian claims they say objectively "debunk" the myths of the environmental movement and environmental science. Yet, the analysis of this literature indicates that environmental skepticism is specifically issued from a conservative ideology supported by a coherent conservative countermovement opposed to environmentalism. This positions the bias of skeptic knowledge claims, and while environmentalists' claims clearly have their own bias, the claim that the skeptical project is generated from a sense of objectivity and value neutrality is flatly rejected as part of an attempt to subvert reflexive interrogation and the implied counter-hegemonic resistance this entails.

In particular, environmental skepticism is opposed to the establishment of global environmental concerns and those related to human sustainability. The substantive arguments of environmental skeptics are guided by a "deep anthropocentrism" which dissolves society from non-human nature. Importantly, a severed nature-human relationship effectively challenges the institutionalization of obligation to environmental changes and the people who are affected by these changes. Skepticism therefore preserves a conservative hope for limited government in the global market while it protects a consumptive elite against responsibilities for these systemic changes. In the process, environmental skepticism defends the structure of dominant social values in world politics such as the state system, expansive resource exploitation under world capitalism, and a hegemonic and consumptive North (and US in particular from where most skeptics hail) to flourish unmolested by the gadflies of the environmental movement.

Therefore, being overly concerned with the contrarian knowledge claims of environmental skeptics misses skepticism's more important political message about duty and the legitimacy of public environmental concern. Environmental skeptics, even if they are conclusively proven wrong on all counts, will succeed in—at least temporarily—guarding a falling hegemonic order if academia, the press, and government become overly interested in Darth Vader and Obi Wan dueling at the bay doors.101 I suspect that skeptics will be happy to continue to create this kind of conflict because it ultimately provides an indefinite defense of the dominant social norms and institutions. They do not need to win the debate about the state of the world to maintain this power and dominance. They only need to establish enough doubt about the environmental epistemic community having the debate to throw public action into doubt as well.

Kysar, in Ecology Law Quarterly, notes that both environmentalists, such as Worldwatch Institute, and skeptics like Lomborg are guilty of hyperbole which they use to focus attention on their own policy agenda through competing Litanies.102 These Litanies are, among other things, struggles over the ability to frame risk, and therefore regulation: As a result, science becomes a contested space in which competitors vie for the legal authority to impose costs on other parties, whether in the form of regulatory compliance, or externalized physical and environmental harms.103

However, Wildavsky, correctly I think, argues that risk is politically assessed by morality, and this makes the framing of public risk a civic exercise.104 From here, he argues that environmental policies need to be made with a preponderance of evidence, not evidence from probabilities. But skeptical ethics severely limit what counts and is available to create such a preponderance of evidence. Thus, contrary to what Lomborg argues, understanding what is to be done and prioritizing action is not just a simple matter of adding up the costs and benefits. The real struggle is over what can count as a cost or benefit or even whether such a conceptual tool is fair, appropriate, or relevant.105

Environmental skepticism is therefore a struggle over the core values and beliefs that frame who and what risks should count as important. But these are no ordinary historical risks. The state of the world debate centers on what core civic values should organize risk in society regarding human development and progress. Wildavsky's "culture" model is based on core fears and different cultural sets have different core fears of risks, and that environmentalists have a specific culture guided by "radical egalitarianism." I do not disagree that some environmentalism is deeply concerned about the fair distribution of ecological space and change.106 Turning this around though, it is just as plausible to frame skeptics as struggling for a "radical in-egalitarianism" within the core values that already organize world politics.

In conclusion, skepticism's influence in politics and culture presents a dramatic threat to human ability and political will to protect the critical life support systems found in ecological goods and services because they dismiss these systems as important. Many civilizations have actively decided, for one reason or another, to ignore the erosion of this essential relationship between society and non-human nature, only to collapse or find themselves at the mercy of a Dark Age that is defined by misery and suffering.107 Jared Diamond writes, Our world is interconnected and interdependent, like Easter Island's 11 clans. Today, we face the same problems—loss of forests, fisheries, biodiversity, fresh water, and topsoil—that dragged down past societies. But for the first time in world history, we are producing or transporting toxic materials, greenhouse gases, and alien species. All these environmental problems are time bombs. The world is now on an unsustainable course, and these problems will be resolved one way or another, pleasantly or unpleasantly, within the next 50 years.108

Yet, Lomborg shrugs off the matter of accountability to exactly these kinds of changes as "blame" and says our true priorities should be more along the lines of a low-fat diet instead of "focusing on pesticides, oxygen depletion, global warming, forests, wind power, biodiversity, etc.—issues which are more clearly someone else's fault."109

To some, the song of skepticism sounds like a sweet song, laden with the security and power of modernity. Diamond points out with optimism I share, when Easter Island collapsed, it did not have the benefit of knowing that other societies had collapsed by undermining ecological life support systems.

However, taking responsibility for global environmental integrity would be a positive step towards paradigmatic and r/evolutionary changes, one of which could be an incorporation of obligations to human societies commensurate with membership and impact within a larger international and ecological community.110 This directly challenges the way power and wealth are concentrated in the current world system, and environmental skeptics have organized as the rearguard for this system and its globalizing—but beleaguered - paradigm. To be sure, the fact that conservatives have felt the need to rally around the DSP indicates that the ecological position is gaining strength.

Skeptics however wish to postpone this change. Their placations sound good to the elite who are part of the dominant world order. From Diamond's lessons, this skeptical song is like lulling the boiling frog to sleep, ignoring that someone put the frog in the pot to begin with, and then telling the frog that things are, "in fact," getting better all the time.

[bananas]

38. And yet the National Academy of Sciences urges strong action to cut greenhouse gases

see: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x248493

[Nederland]

39. So...

Is it your contention that the National Academy of Sciences is infallible?

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[hatrack]

9. Does this mean uranium votes GOP? And does it make the rare earth elements libertarian?

:eyes:

[joshcryer]

23. Does this mean Mark Z. Jacobson is a right winger?

[bananas]

29. How nuclear lobbyists see it: “We’ve tried to screw this guy three different times and failed."

From an article written in January 2008 in "Power Magazine":

http://www.powermag.com/nuclear/Regulatory-risks-paralyzing-power-industry-while-demand-grows_99.html

January 15, 2008
Regulatory risks paralyzing power industry while demand grows

Kennedy Maize and Dr. Robert Peltier, PE

<snip>

Nuclear is the most intensely political of generation technologies (although coal is making a strong bid for the lead), and the politics tend to be partisan. Democrats generally are averse to the atom, while Republicans as a whole are fond of fission.

This year we’ll watch the quadrennial political Super Bowl as the nation elects a president and vice president, all 435 members of the House of Representatives, and one-third of the U.S. Senate. At this early stage of the game, most political pundits are predicting that a year from now, the Democratic Party will have power it hasn’t had since 1993: one of its own in the White House and control of both the Senate and the House.

That’s not a given; plenty can happen between now and this November. But prospects don’t look good for the GOP, and that means they don’t look good for new nukes. The U.S. nuclear industry decided—even before the 2006 elections, which produced a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress—to bet the radioactive ranch on the GOP. The nuclear industry lobby was, to use a waterskiing and snowboarding term, “goofy-footed” by the Democratic tsunami—caught with its right foot in the forward binding.

Eight years of Republican control of the White House, and 12 of Congress, haven’t delivered for nuclear power. As one nuclear lobbyist, speaking anonymously for fear of losing his job, told POWER, “We’ve had the most pro-nuclear administration in 20 years. During its reign, not a spade of dirt has turned on a new plant. The schedule for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain has slipped another 12 years. The Department of Energy has been unable to turn the promises of the 2005 Energy Policy Act into realities. It’s a failure of monumental proportions.” Put Yucca Mountain in that same category (see sidebar, “Clinton, Obama agree: Death to Yucca Mountain”).

When Republican President Gerald R. Ford faced a different kind of energy crisis in mid-1970s (the result of the Arab oil embargo), he and the Democratic Congress worked together to serve up an attractive plate of goodies for new nukes. When Democrat Jimmy Carter took office in 1977, the menu instantly changed to gall and boronated wormwood. According to the anonymous lobbyist, the U.S. nuclear industry began melting down in 1976 with Carter’s election, not in 1979 with Three Mile Island. “I was there,” he said. “As soon as Carter made his selections for the NRC, the industry crashed.”

Nukes face stiff political wind

A new Democratic administration isn’t likely to push licensing of new nuclear plants. Indeed, the nuclear industry’s worst regulatory nightmare is very much a political possibility: NRC Commissioner Gregory Jaczko becoming the agency’s chairman. Jaczko, a very bright and sharp-elbowed political player, is considered “Harry Reid’s guy” at the NRC.

A PhD physicist, Jaczko came to Congress as a science fellow working for Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the most anti-nuclear members of Congress over the past 30 years. Jaczko decided he liked Washington and became Reid’s chief advisor on nuclear waste issues. Reid has vowed to kill Yucca Mountain, and he may be able to keep his promise come January 2009. Jaczko professes, no doubt honestly, that he is not anti-nuclear power.

But Jaczko has every reason to be anti–nuclear industry. The Nuclear Energy Institute tried, and failed, to block his initial appointment to the NRC when he won a recess appointment—as did Republican Peter Lyons, a former advisor to former Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.). That was a deal the White House and Reid negotiated, over the objections of the nuclear lobby.

Then the nuke reps tried to derail Jaczko’s nomination to fill a full term last year. They failed. Recently, the nuclear lobby tried to abort a second term for Jaczko. They were unsuccessful. Said our lobbyist, “We’ve tried to screw this guy three different times and failed. How understanding and helpful is he going to be when he runs the NRC?” There’s little doubt that if the Democrats reclaim the White House, Jaczko, the only Democrat on the commission, will become its chairman.

The industry’s political support in Congress has diminished substantially recently. Domenici, the nuke lobby’s leader in the Senate, is a spent force. He’s ill and sometimes unfocused, and he’s announced he’s stepping down at the end of 2008. The second-most-ardent nuke supporter in the Senate is Idaho Republican Larry Craig. His political career is apparently in the toilet. In recent years, the number-three supporter was Wyoming Republican Sen. Craig Thomas, a buddy of vice president Dick Cheney. Thomas died last year. There are no important nuclear stalwarts on the Democratic side of the House or Senate.

The politics of nuclear power will manifest themselves directly in financial markets. It won’t matter how badly a utility wants to build new nuclear capacity if it can’t convince lenders their investment is a safe one. No one is going to risk $5 billion or more on a new plant without assurance of at least capital recovery plus a return. For most generators, it’s a bet-the-company gamble.

So while the politics of new nukes look bad, their short-term financing outlook isn’t very promising, either. An October study of the U.S. industry by Moody’s Financial Services concluded that “there can be no assurances that tomorrow’s regulatory, political or fuel environment will be as supportive to nuclear power as they are currently.” The NRC’s 42-month COL process, Moody’s noted, “remains untested.” Opponents of nukes are likely to litigate NRC decisions, adding time, money, and doubt to the process.

Most ominously, Moody’s suggests that the current estimate of the average cost to build a reactor and start it up by 2015—around $3,500/kW of capacity—is pie in the sky. A more realistic all-in cost for a new reactor, says the bond rating agency, is in the $5,000 to $6,000/kW range. That’s considerably more than conservative estimates for new integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) coal plants. American Electric Power (AEP) estimates its planned 600-MW IGCC plant will cost $3,500/kW.

<snip>