Avurax wrote:Ten years ago, this might have been a good idea.  Today, not so much.  Do you really want a cheap energy source in your back yard that will spread deadly materials for miles around and last for decades when someone who hates America runs a commercial plane into it?  Thanks, but I will keep my water wheel (vive le TVA).

A nuclear plant is a delicate machine that is much more likely to stop functioning (harmlessly) rather than explode.  Sure it's possible -- but consider that Chernobyl didn't require a plane.  The plane itself adds a relatively small amount of incremental danger.

What we do need is for someone to invent a better nuclear plant, because the current models aren't very good.  Most are little more than really big steam engines, and they aren't particularly efficient with the intermediate energy transfers going from nuclear --> heat --> kinetic --> electrical.

Besides, they produce a lot of dangerous radioactive nuclear waste that we don't know what to do with.  Which is a bit odd when you think about it, because y'know what makes that waste dangerous?  The excessive energy it's giving off.  Eventually someone's going to figure out how to reclaim that energy, and become very rich.

deimos3428 wrote:A nuclear plant is a delicate machine that is much more likely to stop functioning (harmlessly) rather than explode.  Sure it's possible -- but consider that Chernobyl didn't require a plane.  The plane itself adds a relatively small amount of incremental danger.

What we do need is for someone to invent a better nuclear plant, because the current models aren't very good.  Most are little more than really big steam engines, and they aren't particularly efficient with the intermediate energy transfers going from nuclear --> heat --> kinetic --> electrical.

Besides, they produce a lot of dangerous radioactive nuclear waste that we don't know what to do with.  Which is a bit odd when you think about it, because y'know what makes that waste dangerous?  The excessive energy it's giving off.  Eventually someone's going to figure out how to reclaim that energy, and become very rich.

Actually the French have gone a long way toward creating a very efficient nuclear power plant.  Their plants are the best in the world and they have not had an accident.  Yes, still have the problem of nuclear waste but I think this can be manageable.

The Candu reactor design seems to have problems. There is one about 150 miles from where I live in Point Lepreau New Brunswick.

It has had more downtime than uptime since it was constructed. It is currently in a very long maintenance cycle which has had it shut down for the last 18 months. It was billed originally as an inexpensive source of power with a surplus that could be sold to New England at a profit.Naturally it has turned into a multi-billion dollar money pit.

At the moment the NB Power company is in such poor shape that our provincial government has been trying to sell it off to Hydro Quebec. Naturally the idea of selling off part of our infrastructure to Quebec has created a political firestorm in my province and it looks like it will be the downfall of the provincial government.

The neighboring province of Nova Scotia privatized their power corporation several years ago. One of the first things the new private company did was to cut back on staff to increase profits for their shareholders. This of course means that any time there is a major storm it takes far longer to restore power outages. With no competition for power distribution there is not even an option for the public to move their business to another company.

RaisedFromTheDead wrote:Sorry, dead wrong. We're not talking about American scientists, or government-funded research. The WORLDWIDE scientific community agrees. A power grab? Taxation? Those existed long before we started turning the air into charcoal. Or did you think the Copenhagen meeting was all about the U.S.?
Check out the statistics for the massive increase in asthma and lung-related health issues. You'd be shocked.
What IS true is that the climate problems were CAUSED by power grabs and greed. Humans by nature are lazy and greedy. We shit in our own yard and leave it there until it is intolerable, THEN we clean it up.
We'll leave out the fact that two of the biggest offenders (besides the U.S.0, China and India, could give a fuck how much they throw off as long as they are making money.
If you're religious, think on this: God gave us this world as a gift. We've managed to strip, pollute and abuse it to the point where it is a problem. I liken it to giving a kid his own room, and seeing him thoroughly trash it, leaving food and toys everywhere, pissing on the carpet, etc.
And what do you do to the kid? You take away his room.

The world wide scientific community can't agree on how to change a light-bulb. Mainly because the world wide scientific community is dependent on funds to conduct their research and those funds come from industry and those with vested poltical interests.

You will also find that reserach into global climate conditions is something that has to be conducted over extremely long periods of time for any meaningful data. This becomes a question of research over decades and centuries for meaningful data to be accumulated.

The current global warming scare is a political vehicle. It is also a continuation of economic warfare against the USA. And whether global warming is taking place or not, allowing other countries to industrialize and expand while the USA goes deeper into debt is suicide for the USA.

If the earth is warming time to take over Canada now.

JasonZavoda wrote:If the earth is warming time to take over Canada now.

Makes sense.  We've got lots of oil.  

RaisedFromTheDead wrote:Explain to me exactly how ANY political party benefits from global warmig, or even the threat of it. I'm very curious.

Very simple. Democrats are using the supposed Global Warming "fact" to increase the size of government (because only government can solve all of our problems) and by extension diminish freedoms by creating a dependency on government - say, like, welfare [Oh look, an entire class of people that are completely beholden to the Democratic party and every time someone even suggest improving a welfare program, all we hear is that only the Democrats can make sure you keep getting those welfare checks].
Bottom line is right out of the Democrat playbook. Create a massive social program to make an entire group of people dependent on "government" money and, look at that, a devoted voting block kept in line by the threat that if the opposing party has their way, they will strip you of your god-given right to sponge off the people who actually earn money.
Very Simple.

FormCritic wrote:Ever notice that it's always someone else who is causing global warming?

I once pointed out to a room full of indignant eco-hippy teachers that every single one of them drove to the meeting in private automobiles, and that the odds were strong that all of them had used petroleum products carried by the Exxon Valdese.

It did not add to my already-declining popularity.

It's always someone else who is destroying the rain forest.

It's always someone else who is burning coal for electricity.

I think it makes Democrats feel better about themselves to imagine that all corporations, power plants and banks belong to Republicans.  That way, global warming cannot possibly be their fault too.

It shouldn't be any surprise to Democrats that Republicans get tired of hearing it.

Point out to a vegan or animal right nut how much of their clothing comes from animal byproducts (leather is a great one...amazing the number of vegans who don't realize their purse, belt, shoes, etc is leather....), or ask how many eat jello, etc.  As Mark said it's always "someone else" hurting or exploiting animals, not them....

I think it's more a money issue than a political issue, actually. While Dems may court the "eco hippy" vote, in reality both sides of the aisle are beholden to pro-business and pro-union lobbies that oppose any reduction in production.  Phil Jones was revealed to have gotten millions of dollars in donations from global warming advocates.  I'm sorry but I just find it hard to discount human nature and believe that despite this money flowing in he was able to someone summon superhuman reserves of ethics and morality to "let the chips fall where they will" when it came to his studies based on where his money was coming from.  I'd feel the same about a PETA rep running a study on animal experiments, or a John Bircher giving a fair accounting of Communism.

And reduced to the lowest common denominator, there are people making money off the threat of global warming, whether it be as lobbiests for green causes, or board members of large green organizations, or even the person selling solar panels.  

The thing about science is you can point to half a hundred times in our history that "irrefutable" evidence was given by the scientific community on some matter, and then proven to be nonsense a generation later.  I'm not saying the advocates in this case are right or wrong, only that we should remember at one time "bleeding" was considered by the top minds of the day the best way to treat most illnesses.

Mike B.

RaisedFromTheDead wrote:Explain to me exactly how ANY political party benefits from global warmig, or even the threat of it. I'm very curious.
Research HAS been going on for decades. I've been following it for 2/3 of my life. All that aside, common sense dictates that releasing more greenhouse gases than are naturally reclaimable into the atmosphere produces, yep, you guessed it, a GREENHOUSE EFFECT.
Go do some research on what will happen when permafrosts start thawing.

I don't think too many political parties benefit from global warming, however I thnik there is a political cost to actually do something about it. Why? it costs money and that money comes out of our pockets, and while no one wants to be effected by global warming I feel that the majority of us don't want to pay or see a decrease in our own personal lifestyle (no matter what we really say..

I think the biggest problem here is this..




Our population keeps growing and growing! We as humans also have a tendency to "save" as many people as possiable, to cure deseases, to prolong life no matter what that persons quality of life actually is! There is no more survival of the fittest, insead now there is survival of as many as possiable no matter what the cost to the ecology. We see it happening, we know its happening but as a whole we don't want to make choices that are "morally" wrong. I think China saw it comming and thats why they have introduced the one child policy, to try and do something about population, its a hard choice to make and unpopular one, and no one want to make unpopular choices. What the public want to know is that everything is going to be ok, scientists are going to fix the problem and they won't be effected, or effected only a small amount. No one wants to hear that maybe your standard of living has to be drastically reduced (esp in the west were we chew through resourses), no one want to be limited in haveing the ability to have children (if at all), no one want to die if they don't have too or to see others die... These are the choices we NEED to make! Not the small choices of making sure you turn the lights off when you leave the room, as yes if will change things, but basically all it does is slow things down... I think than no one wants to make these choices, the people of Easter island didn't and the earth is like easter island.. at the moment we haven't got anywhere else to go..

Hopefully we will not be the frog in the pot...

Brette:(

Badmike wrote:And reduced to the lowest common denominator, there are people making money off the threat of global warming, whether it be as lobbiests for green causes, or board members of large green organizations, or even the person selling solar panels.

This very well may be the case, but it doesn't actually mean that it's not happening.  TBH, I haven't a clue if man made global warming is occurring or not, but I'm not eager to dismiss it out of hand either.

Also, people making money at opportune times is kind of the American way, no?

Badmike wrote:The thing about science is you can point to half a hundred times in our history that "irrefutable" evidence was given by the scientific community on some matter, and then proven to be nonsense a generation later.  I'm not saying the advocates in this case are right or wrong, only that we should remember at one time "bleeding" was considered by the top minds of the day the best way to treat most illnesses.

Mike B.

The very same rational can be applied to those scientists who say it's a myth as opposed to those it's happening because of man made factors.  The issue is that there is no real concrete proof one way or the other yet, it's all just theories at this point.