The more I read about Global Warming, the more I can't escape the notion that it is utterly unstoppable.
Unstoppable because politicians are the least effective people to actually have in charge of fixing the problem, or to effect anything positive in the fight that actually matters, as they're too busy propping up their re-election to give the issue the importance and resources it requires.
If they can win votes by talking about it? Sure, but anything past that may be fleeting.
The greater good comes a distant 2nd compared to propping up domestic big business, in the form of power companies and coal mines where I live unfortunately.
Given that many 3rd and 2nd world nations will emerge in the next few decades in the same way China & India are currently, needing vast resources to power their way up to affluence, I fear there is a very real possibility we have not only already passed the point of no return now, but are going to continue to power our way past it with very little reluctance.
The main thing that scares me the most, is that as the world population/pollution increases, the global warming effect also restricts the amount of viable farmland in many countries across the globe, in various forms like drought & global sea rise.
These effects are already being felt.
Given we've had scientists telling us about Global Warming since the 70's, and still very little has been done in a global sense, will anything ever actually change before it's utterly too late? Is continuing to leave this issue with politicians where we should be?
I get the feeling more and more these days, that talk of global warming from politicians is nothing more than a vote buying exercise. Just talk. Action is seldom, and usually utterly insignificant compared to the wants of domestic economies and big business.
Is this all Global Warming will ever be until the writing is on the wall?
The more I read about Global Warming, the more I can't escape the notion that it is utterly unstoppable.
...
Given that many 3rd and 2nd world nations will emerge in the next few decades in the same way China & India are currently, needing vast resources to power their way up to affluence, I fear there is a very real possibility we have not only already passed the point of no return now, but are going to continue to power our way past it with very little reluctance.
Yes, and note that this has nothing to do with politicians, corruption, big oil, or climate deniers. Unless people are willing to use political force to prevent developing nations from developing, this is an unstoppable phenomenon.
The US has already stopped the exponential growth of its emissions and in fact US emissions are now on a negative trend line. Meanwhile, China and India are still in what is presumably the center of the exponential phase of growth (and do recall that the biggest deltas of exponential growth take place at the top), and China is already ahead of the US in emissions. Unless we force China to stop developing immediately, we are committed to an increasing trajectory of emissions for the forseeable future.
If you add to this already-unrecoverable situation the notion that "everyone has to be allowed to catch up," then we're just looking at indefinite exponential increases in worldwide emissions until such time as some sort of miraculous technological advance saves us or the consequences kill us.
We're stuck between two unpalatable alternatives: force the sub-first-world to remain deindustrialized or accept whatever the consequences of massive carbon emissions may be.
The main thing that scares me the most, is that as the world population/pollution increases, the global warming effect also restricts the amount of viable farmland in many countries across the globe, in various forms like drought & global sea rise.
These effects are already being felt.
Given we've had scientists telling us about Global Warming since the 70's, and still very little has been done in a global sense, will anything ever actually change before it's utterly too late? Is continuing to leave this issue with politicians where we should be?
Just what exactly do you expect the politicians to do? Like, is Hillary Clinton going to send the military into China and force them to stop industrializing? There's nothing to be done. I would like to hear a politician say basically what you just said here. At least that would be an honest statement of the facts of the situation, as opposed to current rhetoric on this issue, which basically constitutes using it as a political football.
You're not seeing much of anyone seriously committing to dealing with global warming because in order to do so we'd need to radically restructure the global economic system. Few people who essentially rely on popularity to keep their jobs want to tell people that actually no country should be rich and we're going to have to stop having so many cars and electronics. The people who own the factories that make those things aren't too keen on hearing that, either, and they're to say the least putting a lot of effort into making sure they're better represented than anyone else.
The climate is going to change and it'll be horrible for billions of people but those in power now won't be alive in a hundred years anyway and their replacements will be far better insulated from the consequences of their actions than everyone else.
There are also those of us who basically look at it and go "we'll deal with the consequences and adapt, poverty is a bigger problem" in the Michael Critchton camp. The basic argument is that through crippling an economy will cause more harm than good, because poor people tend to destroy the environment faster than rich people. As a person grows richer and has better access to healthcare, they have fewer children and are more careful with resources and time. If you consider the "old model" is that you had a lot of children, expanded rapidly and destroyed the forest converting it to farm land.
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I think there are a number of critical hurdles one needs to cross in order to make climate change regulations worthwhile:
1. Show climate change is happening. There is a great deal of data showing warming trends over the last century and scientific consensus is >90% in favor of the truth of this statement. We can regard it as effectively proven.
2. Show humans activities are a significant cause of climate change. Certainly CO2 and methane are greenhouse gasses, and certainly human activities have released a lot of these substances in the past couple of centuries. However, there are significant natural sources of these gasses, as well as other natural greenhouse gasses such as water vapor. "[W]ater vapor is the largest contributor to the Earth’s greenhouse effect." In fact, water evaporation is a huge part of anthropogenic climate change models (CO2 causes a slight increase in temperatures, which causes water evaporation, which causes a greater increase in temperatures, etc). But non-human factors could also cause water evaporation, such as changes in sun activity. I would consider this probably proven, but still debatable.
3. Show it's not too late. As I noted above, most anthropogenic climate change models rely on a small temperature "shock" from CO2 emissions causing a cascade effect due to increased water evaporation. It may be that this cascade is already inexorably set in motion, and even a complete end to all human carbon emissions would have a negligible effect on global temperatures at this point. I have not seen any persuasive science either way on this point. Whether we're closing the barn door after the horse has escaped is unclear.
4. Show that it's feasible to regulate global emissions. As others have noted, developing countries are beginning to dwarf the developed world in terms of emissions. Is it possible, in a practical political sense, to limit their emissions? If the answer is "no," there's probably no point to regulating first world emissions. This one is also unclear.
5. Show it would do more good than harm. Even if you had the magical power to regulate emissions on a global scale, would it be the right choice for humanity? Global warming is forecasted to kill and displace many people. But regulating emissions, especially in the developed world, would slow the pace of economic growth and innovation. This might result in things like famines that could conceivably kill many more people than global warming. And, assuming technology is the answer to our carbon emissions problems, slowing the growth of the world economy will likely slow the pace of technological innovation, meaning we might solve our energy problems much slower than we otherwise would have. Perhaps an unregulated world economy will naturally fix the problem faster than a regulated one? Unclear.
This is why I tend not to support climate change regulations. I am not a climate change denier, but I am skeptical that all of the five statements above are true. If even one of them is false, then we should not attempt to regulate climate change.
Global warming is forecasted to kill and displace many people. But regulating emissions, especially in the developed world, would slow the pace of economic growth and innovation.
Well. If you worry about famines then drought affecting enormous parts of arable land should be a concern. More so than such vague metrics as "innovation". I fear you're really just throwing out a bunch of unquantifiable buzzwords. I mean, our "energy problem" is already solved. We know that we're using resources at a rate that is self-destructive. Sitting around with a gangrenous leg because maybe one day there might be a pill that cures it is foolish when all that can be done is an amputation.
There isn't going to be an easy solution.
I am being intentionally vague so as not to burden this conversation with a bunch of math.
Let me just try to communicate my point in clearer prose: Energy is an input into almost every economic good. If we reduce the number of available energy sources (i.e. by outlawing or restricting fossil fuel use) this will tend to increase the cost of energy. Increasing the cost of energy increases the cost of virtually every other economic good. Higher costs for virtually everything results in less total economic output.
"Innovation" we will define as new discoveries or advancements in science and technology. Incentives to innovate come from one of two sources: (1) the private sector economy, or (2) public funding of research. If total economic output is reduced because all costs in the economy are higher, then the private sector has fewer resources to devote to R&D. Likewise, a reduction in economic output results in less tax revenue, which also reduces available sources of public funding for research. If fewer resources are being devoted to "innovation," then we should expect the pace of innovation to be slower than it otherwise would be.
This means that regulating fossil fuel consumption may result in it taking longer for humans to develop better, cheaper sources of clean energy. It also means that everything, including food, will be more expensive. This will tend to cause an increase in worldwide rates of malnutrition and starvation.
So it is a balancing or optimization problem. Will the economic effect of regulating fossil fuel be more harmful than the environmental harm we avoid by imposing the regulation? I don't know, but I know this is not a trivial question to answer.
One thing I think you're neglecting, bitterroot, is the existence of nuclear energy. We could, today, go through and replace basically every coal power plant worldwide with a nuclear one, and cut carbon emissions significantly. Granted, there's a decent upfront cost of building all of those nuclear power plants, but they also have a lower sustained maintenence cost.
Why don't we? People are *extremely* squeamish about nuclear power. There have been basically three significant nuclear meltdowns in the history of using it as a power source (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukashima), and yet people are concerned about it disproportionately to how likely it is to happen. Especially given that two of these events were many years ago (and our techniques at containment and maintenance have improved since) and the third was based off of another significant and rare disaster.
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One thing I think you're neglecting, bitterroot, is the existence of nuclear energy. We could, today, go through and replace basically every coal power plant worldwide with a nuclear one, and cut carbon emissions significantly. Granted, there's a decent upfront cost of building all of those nuclear power plants, but they also have a lower sustained maintenence cost.
Why don't we? People are *extremely* squeamish about nuclear power. There have been basically three significant nuclear meltdowns in the history of using it as a power source (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukashima), and yet people are concerned about it disproportionately to how likely it is to happen. Especially given that two of these events were many years ago (and our techniques at containment and maintenance have improved since) and the third was based off of another significant and rare disaster.
I agree with you, that, in theory, we could do this. But your post also explains exactly why this isn't a feasible option in practice - pervasive, idiotic fear of nuclear power.
My analysis is based on the dichotomy between the two most likely options for actual real-world policy: (1) do nothing; or (2) restrict carbon emissions with regulation.
I agree with you, that, in theory, we could do this. But your post also explains exactly why this isn't a feasible option in practice - pervasive, idiotic fear of nuclear power.
My analysis is based on the dichotomy between the two most likely options for actual real-world policy: (1) do nothing; or (2) restrict carbon emissions with regulation.
Well, there's not much chance of (2) because it eats into corporate profits.
Really, we just need more widespread education about nuclear safety.
I'd also settle for the invention of sustainable cold fusion, but that's just a touch more unlikely.
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Rich people use more resources, because they can afford to.
I believe this is why we need the rich nations to lead the way.
Most western nations have the resources to back renewable energies, whether it's wind, solar, geothermal, tidal or otherwise. Once these technologies are widely supported they will no doubt become more efficient and cheaper to manufacture.
I'm surprised tidal hasn't been pursued more...
One of the arguments made in the support of coal here in Australia, has been jobs. Jobs for the miners and power company, logistics etc.
Surely there are jobs is renewable energies too. Guess who the lobbyists are.
Just what exactly do you expect the politicians to do?
Like, is Hillary Clinton going to send the military into China and force them to stop industrializing? There's nothing to be done.
Exactly, the pollies aren't equipped to deal with this. I don't think they ever will be. Just look at the gun debate in the US for an example of politicians being unable to change things that obviously need reform.
Telling homeowners in all affluent countries (because they can afford it) they need to use X-number of renewable energies might just help though.
Example;
Every new house must have rainwater tanks and solar power. Obviously this is relative to where I live, but you get the idea.
It might not sound like much, but if EVERYONE was on board with this, it would make a difference.
1. Show climate change is happening.
2. Show humans activities are a significant cause of climate change.
3. Show it's not too late.
4. Show that it's feasible to regulate global emissions.
5. Show it would do more good than harm.
A lot of people I know think much the same as you on this topic, although I differ a bit.
I think points 1 & 2 whilst debateable to some, are a certainty in the world of science.
We know there are natural phenomena relating to global warming, but when you compare the man-made reasons with historical ice cores, it's pretty clear the natural phenomena haven't been all that different in the time of the human race.
Point 3 is a tricky one, and much more opinion biased. I think it is too late, simply because even if we do act now on a global scale, the sheer number of humans on the planet means it will gradually become much harder to keep emissions down, if not impossible. Given inaction at present, I think we gonna be getting sunburnt.
Point 4 is very difficult. The old notion of, "we'll change when they change" has so far been the status quo. To me this one is far harder to find a solution for any other. It's a shame, because it's obvious there are many leaders in the world who feel very passionate about this topic, but seem to be impotent at effecting change.
Point 5 is where the discussion can get ugly in my mind. Are you a socialist or a capitalist? LOL I honestly think something like a global limit on fossil fuel sources of power could be one of the ways to really effect change. If every country was contracted to have a certain percentage of clean power generated by a certain time, especially in the first world, it might actually make a difference. But then of course the miners would chuck a fit, export-style economies like Australia would nose-dive and no ones happy... so there's that.
People are *extremely* squeamish about nuclear power. There have been basically three significant nuclear meltdowns in the history of using it as a power source (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukashima), and yet people are concerned about it disproportionately to how likely it is to happen. Especially given that two of these events were many years ago (and our techniques at containment and maintenance have improved since) and the third was based off of another significant and rare disaster.
People are squeamish for a reason. If you ever want nightmares, do some reading about Fukushima and how loooooooooooong this nightmare will last.
Hint: Our great-great-great-great-grandkids will still have to deal with it. And while they're at it, they'll be living on top of giant water tanks full of radioactive sea water used to cool the reactors. If you're not well informed of this stuff, do some digging.
I understand the pro's for nuclear from an emissions point of view. But it just doesn't wash with me. I studied nuclear physics at Uni, so I've learned a bit about nuclear half lives, radiation etc.. The fact we've had more than a few nuclear disasters is enough for me, when you consider for a moment that many fish around Japan and in the larger North Pacific (especially the larger predatory fish, like tuna) are showing levels of radiation unacceptable for human consumption. It will remain like this for quite some time, how long is uncertain from what I've read.
But lets look at the *good ones*.
The sheer amount of radioactive waste, and the undeniable certainty that dealing with this waste is a major problem which will probably outlive the human race, is a point of fact I simply can't fathom as something people find acceptable. In many sources I've read, the vast majority of these nuclear waste sights are neglected and end up leaking radioactive material and heavy metals in the ground water supply and into the food chain. And this is in developed countries like the USA. Imagine how bad this could potentially be in poorer countries... or corrupt ones.
It's only unstoppable if we limit ourselves to passive answers. Just reducing our carbon output will likely not stop it (which, as people have been saying, was politically impossible anyway). We need to stop thinking about it as a political problem, and start thinking about it as an engineering one.
At this point, we can't regulate CO2 emissions to stop it, but we weren't realistically going to do that anyway. Now we have to engineer the problem away. Like building a dam and changing the environment again to solve a manmade problem. If those solutions above don't work, we'll just have to try other ones. Mankind has always been good at adapting our environment to us; we'll just now have to do it again the other way.
People are *extremely* squeamish about nuclear power. There have been basically three significant nuclear meltdowns in the history of using it as a power source (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukashima), and yet people are concerned about it disproportionately to how likely it is to happen. Especially given that two of these events were many years ago (and our techniques at containment and maintenance have improved since) and the third was based off of another significant and rare disaster.
People are squeamish for a reason. If you ever want nightmares, do some reading about Fukushima and how loooooooooooong this nightmare will last.
Hint: Our great-great-great-great-grandkids will still have to deal with it. And while they're at it, they'll be living on top of giant water tanks full of radioactive sea water used to cool the reactors. If you're not well informed of this stuff, do some digging.
I understand the pro's for nuclear from an emissions point of view. But it just doesn't wash with me. I studied nuclear physics at Uni, so I've learned a bit about nuclear half lives, radiation etc.. The fact we've had more than a few nuclear disasters is enough for me, when you consider for a moment that many fish around Japan and in the larger North Pacific (especially the larger predatory fish, like tuna) are showing levels of radiation unacceptable for human consumption. It will remain like this for quite some time, how long is uncertain from what I've read.
But lets look at the *good ones*.
The sheer amount of radioactive waste, and the undeniable certainty that dealing with this waste is a major problem which will probably outlive the human race, is a point of fact I simply can't fathom as something people find acceptable. In many sources I've read, the vast majority of these nuclear waste sights are neglected and end up leaking radioactive material and heavy metals in the ground water supply and into the food chain. And this is in developed countries like the USA. Imagine how bad this could potentially be in poorer countries... or corrupt ones.
You should do more research on power in general. Being afraid of nuclear power is kind of like being afraid of flying. Sure, there is some danger involved, but you're much more likely die driving to the airport. In the same way, traditional power is killing our environment MUCH faster than Nuclear power ever could.
The problems with Nuclear Power don't have anything to do with power itself, but the fact that the public blocks attempts at building new plants, which would allow us to close the old ones. The vast majority of nuclear power plants around the world are, on average, 34 years old. The NRC licenses them for 40 years.
The issue here is that our Power Grid is ancient, and in order to keep up with demand we really only have two options: More nuclear power, or more (essentially) coal power. By taking a stand against Nuclear Power, people are actually accelerating the environmental damage they're afraid of from Nuclear Power.
Now Microgrids are an interesting solution, but it's a long way off before the majority of people can afford solutions like that.
I have a relative that works in insurance, dealing with large aircraft that have policies near a billion dollars on them. (Third party damage being most of that).
I asked them what fair market price to insure a nuclear plant against the prospect of a Fukushima-style incident would be. Low but non-zero risk (I used the figure 'one catastrophic failure per 500 years'), damage bills in the low 12 figures (100-200 billion USD).
His answer - not available at any price from any insurer.
The nuclear industry would close tomorrow if it wasn't underwritten by massive state handouts in the form of free insurance - and look how much that has cost both the Japanese people and their government just in residential properties rendered permanently unliveable.
On the non-economic impacts - the industry has extreme ties to the military. The USA knows this - it's why they don't want Iran or North Korea having civilian nuclear power. It does not take long to repurpose a civilian nuclear plant to have it produce weapons instead, and nuclear proliferation is (IMO) a bigger threat than climate change is.
Just what exactly do you expect the politicians to do?
Like, is Hillary Clinton going to send the military into China and force them to stop industrializing? There's nothing to be done.
Exactly, the pollies aren't equipped to deal with this. I don't think they ever will be. Just look at the gun debate in the US for an example of politicians being unable to change things that obviously need reform.
The gun issue is a matter of Constitutional law in the US, not a matter of politicians being unable to get anything done. Even if 100% of politicians agreed that gun rules need to change, it would require a Constitutional amendment before they could make any major reforms.
1. Show climate change is happening.
2. Show humans activities are a significant cause of climate change.
3. Show it's not too late.
4. Show that it's feasible to regulate global emissions.
5. Show it would do more good than harm.
A lot of people I know think much the same as you on this topic, although I differ a bit.
I think points 1 & 2 whilst debateable to some, are a certainty in the world of science.
We know there are natural phenomena relating to global warming, but when you compare the man-made reasons with historical ice cores, it's pretty clear the natural phenomena haven't been all that different in the time of the human race.
That's why I regard this as "probably proven."
But our understand of climate is imperfect (to put it mildly) and our models are oversimplifications by necessity. We're dealing with an extremely complex and chaotic system when we're talking about weather. Answering the question "what is causing climate change?" is similar to attempting to answer the question "what caused the US to go from essentially nothing in the 19th century, to a world economic power?" We can posit plausible explanations, but at the end of the day these are emergent properties of highly complex and nonlinear systems. It's very hard to draw reliable arrows of causation.
To me, it seems likely that climate change is largely caused by humans. But there could be other screwy things going on that we don't understand very well right now. Changes in solar output, long-term weather cycles causing a "reverse ice age," who knows?
Point 3 is a tricky one, and much more opinion biased. I think it is too late, simply because even if we do act now on a global scale, the sheer number of humans on the planet means it will gradually become much harder to keep emissions down, if not impossible. Given inaction at present, I think we gonna be getting sunburnt.
If it's too late, then why implement costly policy changes like regulating CO2 emissions? You still seem to act like this would be a good idea.
Point 4 is very difficult. The old notion of, "we'll change when they change" has so far been the status quo. To me this one is far harder to find a solution for any other. It's a shame, because it's obvious there are many leaders in the world who feel very passionate about this topic, but seem to be impotent at effecting change.
In the history of mankind, how many policies have ever been successfully enacted on a global level? I think the answer is basically zero.
Point 5 is where the discussion can get ugly in my mind. Are you a socialist or a capitalist?
I'm a realist. It doesn't really matter whether I think socialism or capitalism is the better way of running an economy -- people react to economic incentives the same way regardless.
I honestly think something like a global limit on fossil fuel sources of power could be one of the ways to really effect change.
How would it effect change if, as you say, we're too late?
If every country was contracted to have a certain percentage of clean power generated by a certain time, especially in the first world, it might actually make a difference. But then of course the miners would chuck a fit, export-style economies like Australia would nose-dive and no ones happy... so there's that.
Any time you artificially make something (e.g. fossil fuels) more expensive, this will reduce economic output. That's not always a bad thing, sometimes it's worth incurring this cost. But it's critically important to remember that this cost exists and needs to be factored in when making policy decisions.
The relevant question is whether the benefit of reducing fossil fuel use outweighs the economic cost. If, as you say, it's too late to fix the problem, then I don't see why we would want to incur the economic costs of restricting fossil fuels.
People are squeamish for a reason. If you ever want nightmares, do some reading about Fukushima and how loooooooooooong this nightmare will last.
Hint: Our great-great-great-great-grandkids will still have to deal with it. And while they're at it, they'll be living on top of giant water tanks full of radioactive sea water used to cool the reactors. If you're not well informed of this stuff, do some digging.
Lets say we have a huge Fukushima-like disaster every year. Kills 1,000 people and contaminates a radius of 20km. That's still a tiny number of lives lost and a tiny fraction of the earth's land-area destroyed when compared with the projected future damage from climate change.
No energy source is perfect right now. All we can do is pick the best option.
Just as a side note, I'd like to say that a similar question exists with regards to bioethics.
While we're here twiddling our thumbs about stunting research concerning bioethics on stem cell research, other nations like China as simply going to go ahead with it.
What's the point of debating and debating on bioethics when other nations, especially developing nations, aren't going to be bound by the same morality that we're tying our hands with.
But concerning Global Warming, I agree that in terms of absolute solutions, there is little that can be done to stop third world development.
But that doesn't mean that global warming initiatives are useless.
1. Legislation and Initiatives to curb emissions will slow down the rate of warming. This slow down buys us valuable time to adapt and refine further conservation technologies.
2. Alternative fuels and energy sources are pursued, perhaps not the point where it becomes a primary source, but at least the groundwork is laid there.
3. Conservation technologies that re-use materials will be invaluable in later technological pursuits with a limited resource supply.
The last point, I'd like to make a magic analogy on. I remember playing my brother's land destruction deck back in the day. All my decks at the time used large creatures and were slow but powerful. They were very mana intensive, hard summoning 6,7,and 8 casts. Against a land destruction deck, there was no way I'd win. My mana sources kept getting destroyed.
I needed a deck that could operate on one maybe two mana. Enter Re-animator. It was lean, it could operate efficiently and powerfully on extremely limited mana resources.
Here's the kicker though. All I was looking for was a deck that could operate on as few mana resources as possible. What I hadn't been looking for, but also got was
- A deck that happened to be extremely fast. Fewer resources means I move on turns 1 or 2.
- A deck that could win against most decks. Running a faster clock means I could ignore most other casual deck strategies altogether.
I see global warming initiatives to be a similar situation. What we're looking for are ways to curb global warming. What we will get, even if we don't manage to halt global warming are:
1. Learning how to build habitats that run on less power and fewer resources.
2. Extending human settlement into more inhospitable places where power and resources are limited --underwater colonies, space exploration, martian settlements.
3. A number of ready alternative power supplies to be tapped into, the research driven by initiatives.
So no, I don't think talk of tackling global warming is pointless. In fact, as it pushes our thinking into efficient resource utilization, I think it will drive our future technological development.
While we can't stop 3rd world development, we do have the potential to direct and shape it so as to minimize the impacts.
Not without affecting their economic development in a detrimental manner.
Right now.
That is the problem with your approach. It looks at the problem, doesn't see a good solution on hand right now...and just stops there. Imagine if all science had taken that approach throughout history...
OTOH use even the tiniest smidgen of imagination and you can find ways that we could potential develop solutions. With your mindset we would never go down those paths, but thankfully we don't have that mindset in the science community.
It's only unstoppable if we limit ourselves to passive answers....I've seen other talks about methods that would pull the CO2 out of the air....we have to engineer the problem away.
This exactly the kind of thinking we should be aiming towards at the same time as clean energy.
We know the amount of humans on the planet will impact the world no matter how clean we are, so this sounds like the most logical course of action to me.
One of the idea's like these that has already been proven wrong is the idea of pumping CO2 emissions from coal power plants underground. It's been found that this action tends to change the chemical nature of the ground water supply into "not good". Fingers crossed for alternatives....
You should do more research on power in general. Being afraid of nuclear power is kind of like being afraid of flying.
Nah not really mate. Afraid and aware are two different things.
I don't wanna flame you, but nuclear power isn't as clean as you think.
Look into radiation contamination simply from storing spent waste/transporting/tailings damns etc. seeping into the ground water, the food chain, all that eco stuff.
There were area's here in Australia that were used by the British for above ground nuclear testing back in the 50's and 60's.
This area is still off limits, and will remain to be for a VERY long time, maybe forever.
We live with radiation every day from many natural sources, but the type of exposure and severity of the exposure makes a huge difference.
The most harmful type of radiation to the human body is the Alpha particle, which Uranium emits (among other particles). It's important to note that low-energy particles are quite often more dangerous than high energy particles like Xrays & Gamma's, as they get attenuated in the body, rather than pass though.
Uranium 235, the fuel/enriched type, has a half-life of 703.8 million years, spent fuel Uranium (238), 4.468 billion years.
So;
How do want to store a highly dangerous heavy metal, that will remain to poison the human race and the environment as a whole for the next X-million years or so?
As far as I know, the current way of storing inside metal drums and concrete doesn't last that long.
Just as a side note, I'd like to say that a similar question exists with regards to bioethics.
While we're here twiddling our thumbs about stunting research concerning bioethics on stem cell research, other nations like China as simply going to go ahead with it.
What's the point of debating and debating on bioethics when other nations, especially developing nations, aren't going to be bound by the same morality that we're tying our hands with.
This is another topic that makes me spew. Massive amounts of research protected by patents and copyrights owned by massive multinational companies, as people are dying.
We should have cures for all manner of things. Instead we have researchers running in circles, having to avoid working further on developing previous success.
That is the problem with your approach. It looks at the problem, doesn't see a good solution on hand right now...and just stops there. Imagine if all science had taken that approach throughout history...
OTOH use even the tiniest smidgen of imagination and you can find ways that we could potential develop solutions. With your mindset we would never go down those paths, but thankfully we don't have that mindset in the science community.
What mindset? Did I actually ever write anything on this thread that comes even remotely close to what you're thinking of right now?
Please do try to actually just... read what the person wrote instead of reading what you want to read.
That is the problem with your approach. It looks at the problem, doesn't see a good solution on hand right now...and just stops there. Imagine if all science had taken that approach throughout history...
OTOH use even the tiniest smidgen of imagination and you can find ways that we could potential develop solutions. With your mindset we would never go down those paths, but thankfully we don't have that mindset in the science community.
What mindset? Did I actually ever write anything on this thread that comes even remotely close to what you're thinking of right now?
Please do try to actually just... read what the person wrote instead of reading what you want to read.
So you can't imagine any way we could do what I described without negatively impacting 3rd world economies? Like developing better alternatives perhaps, or even just using brute force incentives?
I have a relative that works in insurance, dealing with large aircraft that have policies near a billion dollars on them. (Third party damage being most of that).
I asked them what fair market price to insure a nuclear plant against the prospect of a Fukushima-style incident would be. Low but non-zero risk (I used the figure 'one catastrophic failure per 500 years'), damage bills in the low 12 figures (100-200 billion USD).
His answer - not available at any price from any insurer.
The nuclear industry would close tomorrow if it wasn't underwritten by massive state handouts in the form of free insurance - and look how much that has cost both the Japanese people and their government just in residential properties rendered permanently unliveable.
On the non-economic impacts - the industry has extreme ties to the military. The USA knows this - it's why they don't want Iran or North Korea having civilian nuclear power. It does not take long to repurpose a civilian nuclear plant to have it produce weapons instead, and nuclear proliferation is (IMO) a bigger threat than climate change is.
Why does the nuclear industry need an outside entity to handle insurance? Is the industry not large enough to provide each-other insurance?
This exactly the kind of thinking we should be aiming towards at the same time as clean energy.
We know the amount of humans on the planet will impact the world no matter how clean we are, so this sounds like the most logical course of action to me.
One of the idea's like these that has already been proven wrong is the idea of pumping CO2 emissions from coal power plants underground. It's been found that this action tends to change the chemical nature of the ground water supply into "not good". Fingers crossed for alternatives....
Performing engineering on a system as complex and interconnected as the global climate will produce unintended consequences. I'm prepared to state that right now, categorically, no matter how sophisticated our science becomes. The only questions are whether we will be able to foresee the most serious consequences, and whether we're willing to accept them as better than doing nothing.
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This has been reported by some of the "vested-interests" types when talk of solar/wind power became popular. "Do you guys know how many toxic chemicals go into a single solar panel?". All that kind of talk.
I expect any serious fix for global warming to have a cost above what we currently are used to, whether that is only in terms of money is debateable.
Has anyone heard any recent news concerning Tidal power?
The main thing I don't accept about the debate on renewable energies, is the job debate.
"Renewable energies will create unemployment", is a statement that gets brought out by politicians all the time, and yet tidal is quite a labour intensive (maintenance) way to access a 24hr source of energy.
Surely people in the power sector will have opportunities in a renewable energy future aswell?
If people in other professions can up-skill and find other opportunity, what's holding them back?
I have a relative that works in insurance, dealing with large aircraft that have policies near a billion dollars on them. (Third party damage being most of that).
I asked them what fair market price to insure a nuclear plant against the prospect of a Fukushima-style incident would be. Low but non-zero risk (I used the figure 'one catastrophic failure per 500 years'), damage bills in the low 12 figures (100-200 billion USD).
His answer - not available at any price from any insurer.
The nuclear industry would close tomorrow if it wasn't underwritten by massive state handouts in the form of free insurance - and look how much that has cost both the Japanese people and their government just in residential properties rendered permanently unliveable.
On the non-economic impacts - the industry has extreme ties to the military. The USA knows this - it's why they don't want Iran or North Korea having civilian nuclear power. It does not take long to repurpose a civilian nuclear plant to have it produce weapons instead, and nuclear proliferation is (IMO) a bigger threat than climate change is.
Why does the nuclear industry need an outside entity to handle insurance? Is the industry not large enough to provide each-other insurance?
It is not nearly large enough. Many national governments are not large enough either. The entire country of Greece is basically bankrupt over a debt of about a quarter trillion Euros.
Not counting human costs at all, nor consequential damage, only the destruction of property, that's about the damage that would be caused by a Chernobyl-style meltdown that rendered an area of medium-density suburbia uninhabitable in the long term. (All 1.4 million residential properties in my city, Melbourne Australia, are worth a little over half a trillion euros combined, and if an exclusion zone the size of Fukushima's was imposed here for 30 years it would potentially destroy half of that wealth).
Even if plants are built strategically to minimize this risk, they impose massive constraints on future growth. I work in a suburb that was rural 30 years ago - the sort of place a nuclear plant might have been built then. Now, it's a low-density part of suburbia. In twenty years it may be high density.
Again note this is solely considering the economic impact.
Performing engineering on a system as complex and interconnected as the global climate will produce unintended consequences. I'm prepared to state that right now, categorically, no matter how sophisticated our science becomes. The only questions are whether we will be able to foresee the most serious consequences, and whether we're willing to accept them as better than doing nothing.
Well, as they said in the Ted Talk, while 'we' debate all that, China might just do it on its own.
China -or another country- isn't going to wait for approval if they decide that geoengineering the planet is best for them.
Unstoppable because politicians are the least effective people to actually have in charge of fixing the problem, or to effect anything positive in the fight that actually matters, as they're too busy propping up their re-election to give the issue the importance and resources it requires.
If they can win votes by talking about it? Sure, but anything past that may be fleeting.
The greater good comes a distant 2nd compared to propping up domestic big business, in the form of power companies and coal mines where I live unfortunately.
Given that many 3rd and 2nd world nations will emerge in the next few decades in the same way China & India are currently, needing vast resources to power their way up to affluence, I fear there is a very real possibility we have not only already passed the point of no return now, but are going to continue to power our way past it with very little reluctance.
The main thing that scares me the most, is that as the world population/pollution increases, the global warming effect also restricts the amount of viable farmland in many countries across the globe, in various forms like drought & global sea rise.
These effects are already being felt.
Given we've had scientists telling us about Global Warming since the 70's, and still very little has been done in a global sense, will anything ever actually change before it's utterly too late? Is continuing to leave this issue with politicians where we should be?
I get the feeling more and more these days, that talk of global warming from politicians is nothing more than a vote buying exercise. Just talk. Action is seldom, and usually utterly insignificant compared to the wants of domestic economies and big business.
Is this all Global Warming will ever be until the writing is on the wall?
Yes, and note that this has nothing to do with politicians, corruption, big oil, or climate deniers. Unless people are willing to use political force to prevent developing nations from developing, this is an unstoppable phenomenon.
The US has already stopped the exponential growth of its emissions and in fact US emissions are now on a negative trend line. Meanwhile, China and India are still in what is presumably the center of the exponential phase of growth (and do recall that the biggest deltas of exponential growth take place at the top), and China is already ahead of the US in emissions. Unless we force China to stop developing immediately, we are committed to an increasing trajectory of emissions for the forseeable future.
If you add to this already-unrecoverable situation the notion that "everyone has to be allowed to catch up," then we're just looking at indefinite exponential increases in worldwide emissions until such time as some sort of miraculous technological advance saves us or the consequences kill us.
We're stuck between two unpalatable alternatives: force the sub-first-world to remain deindustrialized or accept whatever the consequences of massive carbon emissions may be.
Just what exactly do you expect the politicians to do? Like, is Hillary Clinton going to send the military into China and force them to stop industrializing? There's nothing to be done. I would like to hear a politician say basically what you just said here. At least that would be an honest statement of the facts of the situation, as opposed to current rhetoric on this issue, which basically constitutes using it as a political football.
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There are also those of us who basically look at it and go "we'll deal with the consequences and adapt, poverty is a bigger problem" in the Michael Critchton camp. The basic argument is that through crippling an economy will cause more harm than good, because poor people tend to destroy the environment faster than rich people. As a person grows richer and has better access to healthcare, they have fewer children and are more careful with resources and time. If you consider the "old model" is that you had a lot of children, expanded rapidly and destroyed the forest converting it to farm land.
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1. Show climate change is happening. There is a great deal of data showing warming trends over the last century and scientific consensus is >90% in favor of the truth of this statement. We can regard it as effectively proven.
2. Show humans activities are a significant cause of climate change. Certainly CO2 and methane are greenhouse gasses, and certainly human activities have released a lot of these substances in the past couple of centuries. However, there are significant natural sources of these gasses, as well as other natural greenhouse gasses such as water vapor. "[W]ater vapor is the largest contributor to the Earth’s greenhouse effect." In fact, water evaporation is a huge part of anthropogenic climate change models (CO2 causes a slight increase in temperatures, which causes water evaporation, which causes a greater increase in temperatures, etc). But non-human factors could also cause water evaporation, such as changes in sun activity. I would consider this probably proven, but still debatable.
3. Show it's not too late. As I noted above, most anthropogenic climate change models rely on a small temperature "shock" from CO2 emissions causing a cascade effect due to increased water evaporation. It may be that this cascade is already inexorably set in motion, and even a complete end to all human carbon emissions would have a negligible effect on global temperatures at this point. I have not seen any persuasive science either way on this point. Whether we're closing the barn door after the horse has escaped is unclear.
4. Show that it's feasible to regulate global emissions. As others have noted, developing countries are beginning to dwarf the developed world in terms of emissions. Is it possible, in a practical political sense, to limit their emissions? If the answer is "no," there's probably no point to regulating first world emissions. This one is also unclear.
5. Show it would do more good than harm. Even if you had the magical power to regulate emissions on a global scale, would it be the right choice for humanity? Global warming is forecasted to kill and displace many people. But regulating emissions, especially in the developed world, would slow the pace of economic growth and innovation. This might result in things like famines that could conceivably kill many more people than global warming. And, assuming technology is the answer to our carbon emissions problems, slowing the growth of the world economy will likely slow the pace of technological innovation, meaning we might solve our energy problems much slower than we otherwise would have. Perhaps an unregulated world economy will naturally fix the problem faster than a regulated one? Unclear.
This is why I tend not to support climate change regulations. I am not a climate change denier, but I am skeptical that all of the five statements above are true. If even one of them is false, then we should not attempt to regulate climate change.
I am being intentionally vague so as not to burden this conversation with a bunch of math.
Let me just try to communicate my point in clearer prose: Energy is an input into almost every economic good. If we reduce the number of available energy sources (i.e. by outlawing or restricting fossil fuel use) this will tend to increase the cost of energy. Increasing the cost of energy increases the cost of virtually every other economic good. Higher costs for virtually everything results in less total economic output.
"Innovation" we will define as new discoveries or advancements in science and technology. Incentives to innovate come from one of two sources: (1) the private sector economy, or (2) public funding of research. If total economic output is reduced because all costs in the economy are higher, then the private sector has fewer resources to devote to R&D. Likewise, a reduction in economic output results in less tax revenue, which also reduces available sources of public funding for research. If fewer resources are being devoted to "innovation," then we should expect the pace of innovation to be slower than it otherwise would be.
This means that regulating fossil fuel consumption may result in it taking longer for humans to develop better, cheaper sources of clean energy. It also means that everything, including food, will be more expensive. This will tend to cause an increase in worldwide rates of malnutrition and starvation.
So it is a balancing or optimization problem. Will the economic effect of regulating fossil fuel be more harmful than the environmental harm we avoid by imposing the regulation? I don't know, but I know this is not a trivial question to answer.
Why don't we? People are *extremely* squeamish about nuclear power. There have been basically three significant nuclear meltdowns in the history of using it as a power source (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukashima), and yet people are concerned about it disproportionately to how likely it is to happen. Especially given that two of these events were many years ago (and our techniques at containment and maintenance have improved since) and the third was based off of another significant and rare disaster.
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I agree with you, that, in theory, we could do this. But your post also explains exactly why this isn't a feasible option in practice - pervasive, idiotic fear of nuclear power.
My analysis is based on the dichotomy between the two most likely options for actual real-world policy: (1) do nothing; or (2) restrict carbon emissions with regulation.
Well, there's not much chance of (2) because it eats into corporate profits.
Really, we just need more widespread education about nuclear safety.
I'd also settle for the invention of sustainable cold fusion, but that's just a touch more unlikely.
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I believe this is why we need the rich nations to lead the way.
Most western nations have the resources to back renewable energies, whether it's wind, solar, geothermal, tidal or otherwise. Once these technologies are widely supported they will no doubt become more efficient and cheaper to manufacture.
I'm surprised tidal hasn't been pursued more...
One of the arguments made in the support of coal here in Australia, has been jobs. Jobs for the miners and power company, logistics etc.
Surely there are jobs is renewable energies too. Guess who the lobbyists are.
Exactly, the pollies aren't equipped to deal with this. I don't think they ever will be. Just look at the gun debate in the US for an example of politicians being unable to change things that obviously need reform.
Telling homeowners in all affluent countries (because they can afford it) they need to use X-number of renewable energies might just help though.
Example;
Every new house must have rainwater tanks and solar power. Obviously this is relative to where I live, but you get the idea.
It might not sound like much, but if EVERYONE was on board with this, it would make a difference.
A lot of people I know think much the same as you on this topic, although I differ a bit.
I think points 1 & 2 whilst debateable to some, are a certainty in the world of science.
We know there are natural phenomena relating to global warming, but when you compare the man-made reasons with historical ice cores, it's pretty clear the natural phenomena haven't been all that different in the time of the human race.
Point 3 is a tricky one, and much more opinion biased. I think it is too late, simply because even if we do act now on a global scale, the sheer number of humans on the planet means it will gradually become much harder to keep emissions down, if not impossible. Given inaction at present, I think we gonna be getting sunburnt.
Point 4 is very difficult. The old notion of, "we'll change when they change" has so far been the status quo. To me this one is far harder to find a solution for any other. It's a shame, because it's obvious there are many leaders in the world who feel very passionate about this topic, but seem to be impotent at effecting change.
Point 5 is where the discussion can get ugly in my mind. Are you a socialist or a capitalist? LOL I honestly think something like a global limit on fossil fuel sources of power could be one of the ways to really effect change. If every country was contracted to have a certain percentage of clean power generated by a certain time, especially in the first world, it might actually make a difference. But then of course the miners would chuck a fit, export-style economies like Australia would nose-dive and no ones happy... so there's that.
People are squeamish for a reason. If you ever want nightmares, do some reading about Fukushima and how loooooooooooong this nightmare will last.
Hint: Our great-great-great-great-grandkids will still have to deal with it. And while they're at it, they'll be living on top of giant water tanks full of radioactive sea water used to cool the reactors. If you're not well informed of this stuff, do some digging.
I understand the pro's for nuclear from an emissions point of view. But it just doesn't wash with me. I studied nuclear physics at Uni, so I've learned a bit about nuclear half lives, radiation etc.. The fact we've had more than a few nuclear disasters is enough for me, when you consider for a moment that many fish around Japan and in the larger North Pacific (especially the larger predatory fish, like tuna) are showing levels of radiation unacceptable for human consumption. It will remain like this for quite some time, how long is uncertain from what I've read.
But lets look at the *good ones*.
The sheer amount of radioactive waste, and the undeniable certainty that dealing with this waste is a major problem which will probably outlive the human race, is a point of fact I simply can't fathom as something people find acceptable. In many sources I've read, the vast majority of these nuclear waste sights are neglected and end up leaking radioactive material and heavy metals in the ground water supply and into the food chain. And this is in developed countries like the USA. Imagine how bad this could potentially be in poorer countries... or corrupt ones.
But, we could take more aggress actions to stop it. Just as an example:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/can-engineer-planet-fight-global-warming/
I've seen other talks about methods that would pull the CO2 out of the air. 7 Geoengineering Solutions That Promise To Save Humans from Climate Change.
At this point, we can't regulate CO2 emissions to stop it, but we weren't realistically going to do that anyway. Now we have to engineer the problem away. Like building a dam and changing the environment again to solve a manmade problem. If those solutions above don't work, we'll just have to try other ones. Mankind has always been good at adapting our environment to us; we'll just now have to do it again the other way.
The problems with Nuclear Power don't have anything to do with power itself, but the fact that the public blocks attempts at building new plants, which would allow us to close the old ones. The vast majority of nuclear power plants around the world are, on average, 34 years old. The NRC licenses them for 40 years.
The issue here is that our Power Grid is ancient, and in order to keep up with demand we really only have two options: More nuclear power, or more (essentially) coal power. By taking a stand against Nuclear Power, people are actually accelerating the environmental damage they're afraid of from Nuclear Power.
Now Microgrids are an interesting solution, but it's a long way off before the majority of people can afford solutions like that.
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I have a relative that works in insurance, dealing with large aircraft that have policies near a billion dollars on them. (Third party damage being most of that).
I asked them what fair market price to insure a nuclear plant against the prospect of a Fukushima-style incident would be. Low but non-zero risk (I used the figure 'one catastrophic failure per 500 years'), damage bills in the low 12 figures (100-200 billion USD).
His answer - not available at any price from any insurer.
The nuclear industry would close tomorrow if it wasn't underwritten by massive state handouts in the form of free insurance - and look how much that has cost both the Japanese people and their government just in residential properties rendered permanently unliveable.
On the non-economic impacts - the industry has extreme ties to the military. The USA knows this - it's why they don't want Iran or North Korea having civilian nuclear power. It does not take long to repurpose a civilian nuclear plant to have it produce weapons instead, and nuclear proliferation is (IMO) a bigger threat than climate change is.
The gun issue is a matter of Constitutional law in the US, not a matter of politicians being unable to get anything done. Even if 100% of politicians agreed that gun rules need to change, it would require a Constitutional amendment before they could make any major reforms.
That's why I regard this as "probably proven."
But our understand of climate is imperfect (to put it mildly) and our models are oversimplifications by necessity. We're dealing with an extremely complex and chaotic system when we're talking about weather. Answering the question "what is causing climate change?" is similar to attempting to answer the question "what caused the US to go from essentially nothing in the 19th century, to a world economic power?" We can posit plausible explanations, but at the end of the day these are emergent properties of highly complex and nonlinear systems. It's very hard to draw reliable arrows of causation.
To me, it seems likely that climate change is largely caused by humans. But there could be other screwy things going on that we don't understand very well right now. Changes in solar output, long-term weather cycles causing a "reverse ice age," who knows?
If it's too late, then why implement costly policy changes like regulating CO2 emissions? You still seem to act like this would be a good idea.
In the history of mankind, how many policies have ever been successfully enacted on a global level? I think the answer is basically zero.
I'm a realist. It doesn't really matter whether I think socialism or capitalism is the better way of running an economy -- people react to economic incentives the same way regardless.
How would it effect change if, as you say, we're too late?
Any time you artificially make something (e.g. fossil fuels) more expensive, this will reduce economic output. That's not always a bad thing, sometimes it's worth incurring this cost. But it's critically important to remember that this cost exists and needs to be factored in when making policy decisions.
The relevant question is whether the benefit of reducing fossil fuel use outweighs the economic cost. If, as you say, it's too late to fix the problem, then I don't see why we would want to incur the economic costs of restricting fossil fuels.
Lets say we have a huge Fukushima-like disaster every year. Kills 1,000 people and contaminates a radius of 20km. That's still a tiny number of lives lost and a tiny fraction of the earth's land-area destroyed when compared with the projected future damage from climate change.
No energy source is perfect right now. All we can do is pick the best option.
While we're here twiddling our thumbs about stunting research concerning bioethics on stem cell research, other nations like China as simply going to go ahead with it.
What's the point of debating and debating on bioethics when other nations, especially developing nations, aren't going to be bound by the same morality that we're tying our hands with.
But concerning Global Warming, I agree that in terms of absolute solutions, there is little that can be done to stop third world development.
But that doesn't mean that global warming initiatives are useless.
1. Legislation and Initiatives to curb emissions will slow down the rate of warming. This slow down buys us valuable time to adapt and refine further conservation technologies.
2. Alternative fuels and energy sources are pursued, perhaps not the point where it becomes a primary source, but at least the groundwork is laid there.
3. Conservation technologies that re-use materials will be invaluable in later technological pursuits with a limited resource supply.
The last point, I'd like to make a magic analogy on. I remember playing my brother's land destruction deck back in the day. All my decks at the time used large creatures and were slow but powerful. They were very mana intensive, hard summoning 6,7,and 8 casts. Against a land destruction deck, there was no way I'd win. My mana sources kept getting destroyed.
I needed a deck that could operate on one maybe two mana. Enter Re-animator. It was lean, it could operate efficiently and powerfully on extremely limited mana resources.
Here's the kicker though. All I was looking for was a deck that could operate on as few mana resources as possible. What I hadn't been looking for, but also got was
- A deck that happened to be extremely fast. Fewer resources means I move on turns 1 or 2.
- A deck that could win against most decks. Running a faster clock means I could ignore most other casual deck strategies altogether.
I see global warming initiatives to be a similar situation. What we're looking for are ways to curb global warming. What we will get, even if we don't manage to halt global warming are:
1. Learning how to build habitats that run on less power and fewer resources.
2. Extending human settlement into more inhospitable places where power and resources are limited --underwater colonies, space exploration, martian settlements.
3. A number of ready alternative power supplies to be tapped into, the research driven by initiatives.
So no, I don't think talk of tackling global warming is pointless. In fact, as it pushes our thinking into efficient resource utilization, I think it will drive our future technological development.
Not without affecting their economic development in a detrimental manner.
Right now.
That is the problem with your approach. It looks at the problem, doesn't see a good solution on hand right now...and just stops there. Imagine if all science had taken that approach throughout history...
OTOH use even the tiniest smidgen of imagination and you can find ways that we could potential develop solutions. With your mindset we would never go down those paths, but thankfully we don't have that mindset in the science community.
This exactly the kind of thinking we should be aiming towards at the same time as clean energy.
We know the amount of humans on the planet will impact the world no matter how clean we are, so this sounds like the most logical course of action to me.
One of the idea's like these that has already been proven wrong is the idea of pumping CO2 emissions from coal power plants underground. It's been found that this action tends to change the chemical nature of the ground water supply into "not good".
Fingers crossed for alternatives....
Nah not really mate. Afraid and aware are two different things.
I don't wanna flame you, but nuclear power isn't as clean as you think.
Look into radiation contamination simply from storing spent waste/transporting/tailings damns etc. seeping into the ground water, the food chain, all that eco stuff.
There were area's here in Australia that were used by the British for above ground nuclear testing back in the 50's and 60's.
This area is still off limits, and will remain to be for a VERY long time, maybe forever.
We live with radiation every day from many natural sources, but the type of exposure and severity of the exposure makes a huge difference.
The most harmful type of radiation to the human body is the Alpha particle, which Uranium emits (among other particles). It's important to note that low-energy particles are quite often more dangerous than high energy particles like Xrays & Gamma's, as they get attenuated in the body, rather than pass though.
Uranium 235, the fuel/enriched type, has a half-life of 703.8 million years, spent fuel Uranium (238), 4.468 billion years.
So;
How do want to store a highly dangerous heavy metal, that will remain to poison the human race and the environment as a whole for the next X-million years or so?
As far as I know, the current way of storing inside metal drums and concrete doesn't last that long.
This is another topic that makes me spew. Massive amounts of research protected by patents and copyrights owned by massive multinational companies, as people are dying.
We should have cures for all manner of things. Instead we have researchers running in circles, having to avoid working further on developing previous success.
I don't believe this has stopped first world nations or their large companies from stopping too many times in the past...
What mindset? Did I actually ever write anything on this thread that comes even remotely close to what you're thinking of right now?
Please do try to actually just... read what the person wrote instead of reading what you want to read.
So you can't imagine any way we could do what I described without negatively impacting 3rd world economies? Like developing better alternatives perhaps, or even just using brute force incentives?
Why does the nuclear industry need an outside entity to handle insurance? Is the industry not large enough to provide each-other insurance?
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This has been reported by some of the "vested-interests" types when talk of solar/wind power became popular.
"Do you guys know how many toxic chemicals go into a single solar panel?". All that kind of talk.
I expect any serious fix for global warming to have a cost above what we currently are used to, whether that is only in terms of money is debateable.
Has anyone heard any recent news concerning Tidal power?
The main thing I don't accept about the debate on renewable energies, is the job debate.
"Renewable energies will create unemployment", is a statement that gets brought out by politicians all the time, and yet tidal is quite a labour intensive (maintenance) way to access a 24hr source of energy.
Surely people in the power sector will have opportunities in a renewable energy future aswell?
If people in other professions can up-skill and find other opportunity, what's holding them back?
It is not nearly large enough. Many national governments are not large enough either. The entire country of Greece is basically bankrupt over a debt of about a quarter trillion Euros.
Not counting human costs at all, nor consequential damage, only the destruction of property, that's about the damage that would be caused by a Chernobyl-style meltdown that rendered an area of medium-density suburbia uninhabitable in the long term. (All 1.4 million residential properties in my city, Melbourne Australia, are worth a little over half a trillion euros combined, and if an exclusion zone the size of Fukushima's was imposed here for 30 years it would potentially destroy half of that wealth).
Even if plants are built strategically to minimize this risk, they impose massive constraints on future growth. I work in a suburb that was rural 30 years ago - the sort of place a nuclear plant might have been built then. Now, it's a low-density part of suburbia. In twenty years it may be high density.
Again note this is solely considering the economic impact.
Well, as they said in the Ted Talk, while 'we' debate all that, China might just do it on its own.
China -or another country- isn't going to wait for approval if they decide that geoengineering the planet is best for them.