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Made in gb
Courageous Grand Master




-

First and foremost, I'm not denying climate change here

and even though it will ultimately take a political solution at the end of the day to save the planet, we strictly follow the new dakka policy on no political discussion.

This discussion is merely on the technical side e.g are wind turbines any good in combatting climate change?

I ask this question, because the more I hear about what goes in combatting climate change, the more concerned I get.

For example:

1. People in Britain were meticulously recycling paper, plastic, glass etc in special bins which every household has...and then later on you find out this stuff ended up in a landfill in Africa or China!

2. Electric cars. Sounds excellent in theory, and charging a dynamo up as you go down hill is common sense...and then you read about how much damage, pollution and CO2 is used to get the rare Earth metals out of the ground to make these batteries.

3. Wind turbines siting idle when there's no wind. And problems reported from those who live near them. One collapsed during a storm near where I live I'm beginning to think that wind turbines were a giant ponzi scheme.

4. There was a report in the BBC a few months back that engineering efficiency I.e. making electronic goods more energy efficient was doing more for reducing CO2 levels than most of the wind and tidal renewables put together.

5. The other day, it was reported that new, so called biodegradable bags, we're taking longer to break down than expected. 5 years in some cases It was supposed to be 3 years max.

A few of many examples.

So, what does dakka think? Are current green measures effective, or are we spitting in the wind, here?

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Any and all measures have to be considered in a rational manner, and re-evaluated as new data comes in. What may seem like a great solution on proposal may be unworkable, economically unfeasible, or just plain not work in practice.

The trick is getting people to consider things in a rational manner. Most people tend to 'think' with their emotions, and everyone is prone to manipulation by people with money at stake in any given solution or lack thereof.

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 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
First and foremost, I'm not denying climate change here

and even though it will ultimately take a political solution at the end of the day to save the planet, we strictly follow the new dakka policy on no political discussion.

This discussion is merely on the technical side e.g are wind turbines any good in combatting climate change?

I ask this question, because the more I hear about what goes in combatting climate change, the more concerned I get.

For example:

1. People in Britain were meticulously recycling paper, plastic, glass etc in special bins which every household has...and then later on you find out this stuff ended up in a landfill in Africa or China!

2. Electric cars. Sounds excellent in theory, and charging a dynamo up as you go down hill is common sense...and then you read about how much damage, pollution and CO2 is used to get the rare Earth metals out of the ground to make these batteries.

3. Wind turbines siting idle when there's no wind. And problems reported from those who live near them. One collapsed during a storm near where I live I'm beginning to think that wind turbines were a giant ponzi scheme.

4. There was a report in the BBC a few months back that engineering efficiency I.e. making electronic goods more energy efficient was doing more for reducing CO2 levels than most of the wind and tidal renewables put together.

5. The other day, it was reported that new, so called biodegradable bags, we're taking longer to break down than expected. 5 years in some cases It was supposed to be 3 years max.

A few of many examples.

So, what does dakka think? Are current green measures effective, or are we spitting in the wind, here?


I do kind of feel like we are doing a half-ass job with them, and a lot of the green initiatives are more of a fad/marketing tool rather than a genuine attempt to help the environment. A lot of the times, it has to do with the fact that we aren't really holding the people supposedly doing the initiatives/jobs responsible past a certain point since the average person's interest basically peters out once they think "they've done their part" which is drop the bottle in the blue bin or buy something with the "green-sigil of approval". This means that even if there is a real foundation behind a lot of these initiatives and projects, once money and other issues kick in, people start taking shortcuts and keep up the initial front of it being efficient and great, even if it may not be true, meaning that any follow-ups tend to be far too late.

I do also think it doesn't help that a lot of the older generation seem pretty apathetic towards global warming and the impact of damaging the environment, mainly because they haven't been hammered with it as much as my generation was and thus many take the stance of "that's the next generation's problem not mine, I'll be dead by then".

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/02 14:49:12


 
   
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Bodt

I feel guilt for my contribution to plastic rubbish, exhaust emissions etc, and do my best to recycle, reuse etc. But then if you look at the big picture, our contribution to overall pollution compared to places like Africa, SE Asia, China, India etc is minuscule. I know its fashionable to point to those places when this issue comes up, but our green efforts are basically a mouse trying to eff an elephant.

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Until we can persuade China and Eastern European countries from building yet more coal-fired power stations or convince India to abandon ICE vehicles, for eaxample, diligently making sure your bottles are sorted into the correct bin is more like pissing into the wind.

That's not to say that it is a waste of time and we should all just say 'hang it, I can't be bothered' but rather that we have got to the stage where we need a concerted global effort instead of trying to do it at a national level. It needs to be a UN thing, I think. Sadly, it's very difficult and hypocritical for us in the West to point at 3rd world countries and say 'we got our shiny cars, electricity and new iPhones but you can't have yours because it might harm the planet'. They very rightly see the modern, Western way of life and want it as well and why not? As I have said before in these threads, it needs a massive, global upheaval to effect any meaningful change. Until that time, we will carry on recycling our plastic and building wind farms, assuaging our guilt and convincing ourselves that it is going to make a difference.

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Courageous Grand Master




-

 Vulcan wrote:
Any and all measures have to be considered in a rational manner, and re-evaluated as new data comes in. What may seem like a great solution on proposal may be unworkable, economically unfeasible, or just plain not work in practice.

The trick is getting people to consider things in a rational manner. Most people tend to 'think' with their emotions, and everyone is prone to manipulation by people with money at stake in any given solution or lack thereof.


Sensible words.

And I agree with your emotional manipulation point. I cringe every time I see TV ads where big corporations and the usual suspects are trying to jump on the green bandwagon. Kids running around in fields of flowers, soft, sentimental music humming away softly in the background.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 filbert wrote:
Until we can persuade China and Eastern European countries from building yet more coal-fired power stations or convince India to abandon ICE vehicles, for eaxample, diligently making sure your bottles are sorted into the correct bin is more like pissing into the wind.

That's not to say that it is a waste of time and we should all just say 'hang it, I can't be bothered' but rather that we have got to the stage where we need a concerted global effort instead of trying to do it at a national level. It needs to be a UN thing, I think. Sadly, it's very difficult and hypocritical for us in the West to point at 3rd world countries and say 'we got our shiny cars, electricity and new iPhones but you can't have yours because it might harm the planet'. They very rightly see the modern, Western way of life and want it as well and why not? As I have said before in these threads, it needs a massive, global upheaval to effect any meaningful change. Until that time, we will carry on recycling our plastic and building wind farms, assuaging our guilt and convincing ourselves that it is going to make a difference.


Another great comment.

What gets my goat is the way we jump from bandwagons to bandwagons. A few years ago, it was cans, now, because of Richard Attenborough's great documentary on plastic in the oceans, plastic is public enemy number one. We never seem to settle on a coherent strategy, and yesterday's fashions are forgotten.

Let me give everybody an example. Last year, in the Sunday Post (a Scottish newspaper) a landfill expert wrote an alarming story on our old landlfills, the one's from 50-60 years ago. And they are leaking, and old stuff is getting out, and any old landfill near the coast is in danger od coastal erosion

And this was just Scotland, so the rest of the UK must be in a similar position.

and the response from the authorities was silence!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I feel guilt for my contribution to plastic rubbish, exhaust emissions etc, and do my best to recycle, reuse etc. But then if you look at the big picture, our contribution to overall pollution compared to places like Africa, SE Asia, China, India etc is minuscule. I know its fashionable to point to those places when this issue comes up, but our green efforts are basically a mouse trying to eff an elephant.


Totally agree. We in the UK are being encouraged to cut down on milk and dairy, and I've no argument for that, and then you read about the demand for milk and red meat from the Chinese middle-classes going through the roof.

I'm not bashing China here

and they have a point when they say you got to industrialise, why not us,

but feck me if this whole thing feels like a road to nowhere.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/05/02 15:09:29


"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd 
   
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Writing only in terms of "The West" I think one of the big problems is scale. Its already been mentioned here that I can buy consumer electronics or a personal vehicle, etc. etc. And my operation of my personal vehicles puts out X emissions which does some kind of harm to the environment.

IMHO, the problem is that we're all too often focused on what we little guy can do. The real problem that western countries have (again, looking only internally) is that our industry still puts out a ton of emissions and aren't really trying to "clean up". I think this will always be a problem until we further incentivize the industrial side of things to "go green." Until they come up with ways of producing the goods that are consumed without the harmful side effects, we're always going to be about where we are. I know there are some policies in certain realms, particularly stuff like "carbon offsets", but those have major problems all on their own to begin with. Ultimately, it will come down to the P-word, and whether the People actually get their say, and get policies shifted in a direction that is good for all.
   
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Scotland

I'd just like for us to stop dumping our rubbish in the ocean and perhaps try and take more measures to clean it up.

The UK is pretty good but I honestly don't believe education is the full answer. The amount of times I need to clean up the back court of the flats I live at is beyond a joke. Even with all this infrastructure people can't even put their stuff in bins properly.



There's a particular kind of busy body that's attracted to these causes that often seek to clean a beach for a photo op or is aggressively interested in world affairs but can't keep their own backyards clean.

Like a NIMBY but reversed.
   
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 filbert wrote:
Until we can persuade China and Eastern European countries from building yet more coal-fired power stations or convince India to abandon ICE vehicles, for eaxample, diligently making sure your bottles are sorted into the correct bin is more like pissing into the wind.

That's not to say that it is a waste of time and we should all just say 'hang it, I can't be bothered' but rather that we have got to the stage where we need a concerted global effort instead of trying to do it at a national level. It needs to be a UN thing, I think. Sadly, it's very difficult and hypocritical for us in the West to point at 3rd world countries and say 'we got our shiny cars, electricity and new iPhones but you can't have yours because it might harm the planet'. They very rightly see the modern, Western way of life and want it as well and why not? As I have said before in these threads, it needs a massive, global upheaval to effect any meaningful change. Until that time, we will carry on recycling our plastic and building wind farms, assuaging our guilt and convincing ourselves that it is going to make a difference.


Didn't you forget the US states aswell as brazil and co KG?

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Well designed solutions work.

Poorly designed solutions don't.

Failure of some ideas means doing better with designing the next solution, not giving up on long-term survival by saying "green doesn't work."

/thread

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/02 15:35:37


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London, UK

As all countries haven't developed at the same rate and at the same time, a concerted effort will be very hard to pull off, as has already been mentioned.

The problem is that a lot of climate action groups aren't really for the climate and more for profit and the same goes for governments as they're all wrangling with the energy triad without thinking of the bigger picture. I won't talk about politics any further than that!

Coming from an O&G background, the industry is far cleaner today than it was in the 20th century as much of the West is on on the decline in terms of coal usage and switching to cleaner fuels like gas as well as renewables (with the exception of Germany, who for some reason are decommissioning their nuclear plants and returning to mining brown coal which is low quality and one of the worst for pollutants). Nuclear fusion needs to hurry up but for the time being fission is still an excellent alternative.

China are still catching up but they've made a massive onshore oil and gas discovery in this past week so that will potentially cause a decline in the amount of coal usage but it's doubtful in the short term until that field comes online.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2019/05/02 15:45:33


   
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Last Remaining Whole C'Tan






Pleasant Valley, Iowa

I don't think that any measures we can take to combat climate change are going to make any difference. The world as a whole lacks the political will to do what needs to be done to effect the needed change. Filbert already summed it up pretty well.

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In the West the green and eco-movement is embraced more out of a sales-technique (i.e. guilt laden purchases etc.) than genuine interest in the future of the planet. That's why I'm dismissive of so many products I see being thrown at concerned Westerners.

I think we're not addressing the actual real major contributors in a meaningful way - and more importantly even if we doubled up what we're doing now, is it enough as the population increases? I would imagine population increase will outstrip the relatively minimal forward progress we're making.

It's easy to criticize middle-class Western citizens and to guilt them into buying "green" products...but that doesn't fly in the developing world where money is scarce and environmentalism is a distant second behind managing to find enough food to feed the family tonight, etc.

I don't run around wringing my hands over the environment, but I do live my life as waste-minimal as I can from a simple and reasonable perspective. I recycle, bring my own bags for grocery shopping, drive a normal car that suits my needs as is reasonably economical, etc. I don't waste food or water when I can avoid it etc...but I'm not an activist.

I would like to see more environmentally friendly initiatives moving forward, but the reality is they have to be legitimate and logical replacements to encourage companies and businesses and industries to invest in them. Electric cars are a good example of a bad product, being sold more for identity politics and "look how green we are...buy our stuff!" vs. "this is legitimately having a positive impact on the environment" etc. Electric cars are not a worldwide solution or a feasible one. It's a tiny market for people who can afford to run them and for people who feel better about themselves when they buy one, etc. It's not being done out of the goodness of manufacturers' hearts. It's just a sales tool.
   
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If more people would stop being afraid of nuclear power plants, we could eliminate coal completely and have a very clean energy source that doesn't foul up the atmosphere. Storing all that nuclear waste could get to be a problem, but perhaps ultimately it'll become economically feasible to just launch that stuff into space or into the sun or something.

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Pleasant Valley, Iowa

 ZergSmasher wrote:
If more people would stop being afraid of nuclear power plants, we could eliminate coal completely and have a very clean energy source that doesn't foul up the atmosphere. Storing all that nuclear waste could get to be a problem, but perhaps ultimately it'll become economically feasible to just launch that stuff into space or into the sun or something.


There are a lot of reasons this doesn't work, but let's pick the one biggest, most obvious one.

Imagine what a launch accident would like like - spraying 20 tons of nuclear waste over potentially populated areas.

There have been 135 shuttle missions. Out of those, 6 had serious accidents (2 killed the entire crew and lost the vehicle).

There are 60 nuclear power plants in the US, producing 1200 tons of nuclear waste a year. Assuming the worst case 1 horrible accident per 70 flights, that works out to about one hideous, unprecedented nuclear waste disaster every single year, more or less (and that's if you only start shipping out the new waste).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/03 05:22:03


 lord_blackfang wrote:
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We'll find out soon enough eh.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
First and foremost, I'm not denying climate change here

and even though it will ultimately take a political solution at the end of the day to save the planet, we strictly follow the new dakka policy on no political discussion.

This discussion is merely on the technical side e.g are wind turbines any good in combatting climate change?

I ask this question, because the more I hear about what goes in combatting climate change, the more concerned I get.

For example:

1. People in Britain were meticulously recycling paper, plastic, glass etc in special bins which every household has...and then later on you find out this stuff ended up in a landfill in Africa or China!


Personal recycling was always a boondoggle, but "it's your fault for being so wasteful, just recycle" is, without getting into the politics of why, a much easier sell for politicians than "we have to make fundamental changes to large parts of our societies' underlying structures, in ways that will likely result in lower profits for big corporations".

2. Electric cars. Sounds excellent in theory, and charging a dynamo up as you go down hill is common sense...and then you read about how much damage, pollution and CO2 is used to get the rare Earth metals out of the ground to make these batteries.


Largely a red herring, since extracting and burning fossil fuels still causes much more damage and pollution. Batteries are also something that can be recycled fairly efficiently, and when done large-scale by big companies like car manufacturers is actually feasible.

3. Wind turbines siting idle when there's no wind. And problems reported from those who live near them. One collapsed during a storm near where I live I'm beginning to think that wind turbines were a giant ponzi scheme.


I dunno why them not being active 100% of the time is an issue, the point is that when they are active they can generate a huge amount of clean power, and with proper facilities(pumped hydro storage) that energy can even be "saved" for peak times at a fairly high level of efficiency. As for living near them, I'd rather live next to a wind farm than a coal fired or nuclear plant.

4. There was a report in the BBC a few months back that engineering efficiency I.e. making electronic goods more energy efficient was doing more for reducing CO2 levels than most of the wind and tidal renewables put together.


What makes you think we don't need to be doing both and a whole lot more? Spoiler; we do need to be doing both and a whole lot more.

5. The other day, it was reported that new, so called biodegradable bags, we're taking longer to break down than expected. 5 years in some cases It was supposed to be 3 years max.


This is a classic example of the press reporting something in a way that implies one thing, when the actual facts are something different. The study they were talking about was studying whether these bags were better, worse, or equivalent in terms of environmental impact than regular plastic bags when disposed of improperly. People hear "biodegradable" and think "so I can just chuck 'em then" when the reality is they're designed to break down rapidly under specific conditions like composting or landfill, if you just chuck them in the ocean, as the study shows, they're not much better than regular plastic bags.

That's an argument for not chucking bags in the ocean, not against biodegradable plastics.

A few of many examples.

So, what does dakka think? Are current green measures effective, or are we spitting in the wind, here?


No, current green measures aren't effective, because of what I said in response to point 1 - most of this stuff is good an necessary, but it's not enough. We can't solve this problem by pawing through our own individual trash like raccoons or sticking a 5p charge on plastic bags at the supermarket, it needs big, structural, systemic alterations to a lot of things that the forum rules prevent us from discussing. That doesn't mean that recycling or bag charges are bad, they're just not good enough.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/05/03 05:39:19


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 ZergSmasher wrote:
If more people would stop being afraid of nuclear power plants, ...

That's not going to happen. Not while we have examples like Chernobyl and Fukishima showing what happens when something goes wrong.


And not when you have safer options becoming more widely available all the time.

 
   
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I think I am cool as far as the planet goes, but the grandkids are royally gakked. As much as I'd like to help, naw gak it, they're fethed. Too bad really, it was a pretty good planet for a while. (Taking the really long view, humans are a blip, intelligence is fleeting, etc.--the only way you can really stay sane and still consume mass, well everything).

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 Ouze wrote:
 ZergSmasher wrote:
If more people would stop being afraid of nuclear power plants, we could eliminate coal completely and have a very clean energy source that doesn't foul up the atmosphere. Storing all that nuclear waste could get to be a problem, but perhaps ultimately it'll become economically feasible to just launch that stuff into space or into the sun or something.


There are a lot of reasons this doesn't work, but let's pick the one biggest, most obvious one.

Imagine what a launch accident would like like - spraying 20 tons of nuclear waste over potentially populated areas.

There have been 135 shuttle missions. Out of those, 6 had serious accidents (2 killed the entire crew and lost the vehicle).

There are 60 nuclear power plants in the US, producing 1200 tons of nuclear waste a year. Assuming the worst case 1 horrible accident per 70 flights, that works out to about one hideous, unprecedented nuclear waste disaster every single year, more or less (and that's if you only start shipping out the new waste).



Yeah. Launching nuclear waste into space is dumb.

But storing it under a mountain somewhere is perfectly viable. Dealing with nuclear waste is hardly a monumental challenge.

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 Grey Templar wrote:
 Ouze wrote:
 ZergSmasher wrote:
If more people would stop being afraid of nuclear power plants, we could eliminate coal completely and have a very clean energy source that doesn't foul up the atmosphere. Storing all that nuclear waste could get to be a problem, but perhaps ultimately it'll become economically feasible to just launch that stuff into space or into the sun or something.


There are a lot of reasons this doesn't work, but let's pick the one biggest, most obvious one.

Imagine what a launch accident would like like - spraying 20 tons of nuclear waste over potentially populated areas.

There have been 135 shuttle missions. Out of those, 6 had serious accidents (2 killed the entire crew and lost the vehicle).

There are 60 nuclear power plants in the US, producing 1200 tons of nuclear waste a year. Assuming the worst case 1 horrible accident per 70 flights, that works out to about one hideous, unprecedented nuclear waste disaster every single year, more or less (and that's if you only start shipping out the new waste).



Yeah. Launching nuclear waste into space is dumb.

But storing it under a mountain somewhere is perfectly viable. Dealing with nuclear waste is hardly a monumental challenge.





Well, by definition, it is sort of a monumental challenge. As in we would need to have some number of people ...., and it would probably end up being some sort of monument someday. How bout we just burn it? Like really hot. All we would need is the biggest vent fan. A vent fan doesn't seem as dangerous as all the other stuff. Actually, if a space elevator isn't outside the realm...

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 insaniak wrote:
 ZergSmasher wrote:
If more people would stop being afraid of nuclear power plants, ...

That's not going to happen. Not while we have examples like Chernobyl and Fukishima showing what happens when something goes wrong.


And not when you have safer options becoming more widely available all the time.


Which just proves that people are stupid and don't understand what actually caused those events, things which won't exist in power plants.

Chernobyl can hardly actually even be called an accident. It would be better to describe it as willful negligence rather than an accident. A test that was carried out because of political pressure under conditions which everybody involved knew were completely unsafe, and yet they did it anyway. Given the example that Chernobyl set, nobody would ever pull a stunt like it again. Furthermore, modern nuclear power plants literally cannot have the same type of disaster occur even if someone tried.

Fukishima is a sort of similar thing. A nuclear power plant with built without proper countermeasures in place to deal with a tsunami, in a tsunami prone area. Which again an issue with nuclear power, its an issue with people being dumb.

Furthermore, the environmental damage caused by both of these events is wildly exaggerated. Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster in history, has not left a nuclear wasteland. The area around is a thriving ecosystem that just happens to have a higher rate of minor mutation in the plants and animals. Fukishima is even more insignificant.

Given the massive benefits of nuclear power, the relatively minor risk of a radiation leak is worth it in the long run.

Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
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The sad thing is that governments are unlikely to invest in long term solutions to anything. I've often felt that most politicians don't care about much that does not affect them during their term of office. At least that's the feel I get with Australian politics, they love to make promises about this and that but only have a roughly 20 or 25% rate of actually going through with their promises.

And that's the issue isn't it? To increase the longevity and stability of our ecosystem we would have to invest a large amount of resources and likely make changes to how we live as individuals and as a species. Unless things are literally burning down that's sadly unlikely to happen in the next couple of generations.

Upon saying that you do often see small groups of people banding together to make positive short term changes, like the stories of people planting trees to restore an area of land. Or the trend recently for a group to go into a beach or other place where people just randomly dump their garbage then clean that gak up like the legends they are. But how long till the lazy and destructive people return said fixed areas to their prior state for profit or by simply not giving a damn?

I dunno, maybe there's no possible way to stop us destroying the world. People just seem to be destructive as a whole.
   
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Nuremberg

I am a Green party voter, and one of the things that frustrates me the most about them is that they have unrealistic policies about nuclear energy.

I would say that we should all be like France and have the majority of our energy coming from Nuclear fission while we work hard on getting fusion to work. While those two problems are being solved then we need to make large cultural changes with regard to diet, cuttting down on meat consumption hugely (not forcing everyone to go vegan but getting them to eat a lot less meat). The problem of habitat destruction due to land clearance for agriculture is absolutely staggering and people do not realise how bad it is. The push for organic food will make this worse, because organic farms require more square metres to produce the same amount of calories of food. Intensive farming may be unpleasant and have other environmental costs, but it uses less land, meaning more wild land can be left untouched.

Obviously, any amount of renewables that make logical sense should be used. That is a no brainer. But it needs to be looked at carefully to make sure that renewables make sense in each context. The big push for wind for example is in my view partially just because it lets you create jobs in heavy industries that are hurting at the moment, not because wind is a panacea.

I am very pessimistic about our chances. The dramatic drop in biodiversity we are experiencing will likely not stop any time soon.

I think one of the greatest problems is that it does require changes to our lifestyles and people absolutely do not want to accept that. I teach kids and they are all pro SOMEONE doing something about the environment, but whenever I suggest specific actions they themselves can take it is always a hard no.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/03 06:38:17


   
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Until we tackle the unbridled growth of our species' population nothing will ever be more than a stop-gap measure.
   
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If we can't harness our sun to do our work (heeeyahh), we aren't selling it right.

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Nuremberg

Bran Dawri wrote:
Until we tackle the unbridled growth of our species' population nothing will ever be more than a stop-gap measure.


The best answer to that is to increase the development of developing nations and give women greater rights and reproductive autonomy. If all societies had birth rates like Japan and Germany that problem would be definitively solved. Whenever I discuss this with my students they always suggest horrible stuff, mostly restrictions on people from developing nations. When I point out it is Europeans and Americans that have the highest environmental impact per person, and that the wealthy have a greater impact on average than the poor even within those societies they get uncomfortable and go quiet. Then I point out there is a way to reduce birth rates by being nice to people and treating them better and they never really believe me. It is like we are hard wired to think things have to have horrible solutions (and to dehumanise the poor, but that is a different topic).

   
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 Grey Templar wrote:

Which just proves that people are stupid and don't understand what actually caused those events, things which won't exist in power plants.

Chernobyl can hardly actually even be called an accident. It would be better to describe it as willful negligence rather than an accident. A test that was carried out because of political pressure under conditions which everybody involved knew were completely unsafe, and yet they did it anyway. Given the example that Chernobyl set, nobody would ever pull a stunt like it again. Furthermore, modern nuclear power plants literally cannot have the same type of disaster occur even if someone tried.

Fukishima is a sort of similar thing. A nuclear power plant with built without proper countermeasures in place to deal with a tsunami, in a tsunami prone area. Which again an issue with nuclear power, its an issue with people being dumb.

Furthermore, the environmental damage caused by both of these events is wildly exaggerated. Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster in history, has not left a nuclear wasteland. The area around is a thriving ecosystem that just happens to have a higher rate of minor mutation in the plants and animals. Fukishima is even more insignificant.

Given the massive benefits of nuclear power, the relatively minor risk of a radiation leak is worth it in the long run.

You can describe those incidents however you like, it won't change the fact that they happened. And that's the problem. The fact that things were changed to prevent a specific incident from occurring again doesn't fix the underlying issue, which is that there is always some other potential issue. Someone finds a new and creative way to do something stupid that wasn't foreseen by the system designer. Some critical part that shouldn't be able to fail, fails. An earthquake or a tornado happens that's just big enough to exceed the tolerances that everyone thought would be more than sufficient.

Until someone can design a nuclear reactor that is absolutely, 100% risk free, it's not going to sell to those who are worried about what happens when something goes wrong. And the one thing that we all should have learnt from the last hundred years or so of technological advancement is that mankind simply isn't capable of designing anything that is 100% reliable and safe. And that makes the risks of nuclear power far outweigh the benefits, when there are increasingly-improving alternatives that don't carry those same risks.


 
   
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Nuremberg

I think the risks only outweigh the benefits if you do not compare them to fossil fuels, where the risks (and deaths) are actually much greater but spread out and not focused in dramatic incidents and so are much harder to comprehend.

   
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Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios

 insaniak wrote:
And that makes the risks of nuclear power far outweigh the benefits, when there are increasingly-improving alternatives that don't carry those same risks.



All of those alternatives unequivocally suck in terms of power generation and/or ecological damage compared to nuclear power.

Wind power is limited to very specific areas, is extremely unreliable, and kills birds.
Solar is woefully space inefficient, uses rare materials, and only works during the daylight.
Tidal power is a joke.

None of the above can be built anywhere you might need power either. Nuclear energy just needs some water access, which is massively abundant on this planet and is always near where we humans might need power.

There is no alternative to Nuclear energy, other than all the fossil fuels we're trying to get away from. The probability of even minor contamination with modern power plants is extremely tiny. The chance of another chernobyl is 0%. Combine that with being able to meet all our power needs for at minimum several thousand years and we have the ideal energy solution. Its only been ruined by bad faith scaremongers who actually have zero interest in 'saving the planet'.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/03 07:01:39


Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines

Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

MURICA!!! IN SPESS!!! 
   
 
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