I was dismayed to discover that the DNC Platform Drafting Committee sent two emails requesting feedback from Democratic party members on issues to be addressed by the party’s platform. One email was just a brief notice from the DNC that “had one small box for me to put my thoughts into.”
The other was an email sent by Keith Ellison, one of the members of the DNC Platform Committee (he was a pick of Bernie Sanders). His missive was a little bit longer, but here are the issues he listed for which he requested feedback (as well as all of one’s contact info), and specifically the recipient’s priorities from among a drop-down menu of issues:
Raising the minumum wage
Civil rights
Making college more affordable
Protecting women’s health care choices
Immigration reform
Protecting and expanding Social Security
Overturning Citizens United
Reducing economic equality
Wall Street accountability and consumer protection
Common-sense gun reform
Affordable housing
Criminal justice reform
Other
Now these are all valid matters worthy of the Democratic Party’s careful consideration as it drafts it’s proposed party platform, and I don’t wish the disparage the importance of any of them. However, there is one glaring omission from this list. Can you guess what it is?
Answer: CLIMATE CHANGE
I suppose one could argue the “Other’ category is adequate, but I personally don’t find that Rep. Ellison’s failure to list Climate Change among the issues that Democrats are being asked to prioritize was a very smart move. Indeed, I consider it disturbing considering that nine out of ten of the hottest years on record have occurred since 2005, with the two hottest years being 2014 and 2015. And 2016 is shaping up as a the likely new Numero Uno on that list, based on the number of record hottest months already.
So, forgive me if I find the lack of interest in this issue – well – a big effing deal. Here’s just a few things the DNC ought to be considering including in their party’s Platform regarding Climate Change:
1. Ban Fracking.
2. End the huge subsidies that benefit fossil fuel companies.
3. Create a national environmental and climate justice plan that recognizes the heightened public health risks faced by low-income and minority communities.
4. Department of Justice investigation into Exxon Mobil and other fossil fuel companies, which not only knew about the dangers of climate change, but spent millions of dollars to spread doubt about the causes and impacts of burning fossil fuels.
5. Adopt an immediate clean energy initiative to replace fossil fuels while creating millions of new jobs by investing in renewable energy technologies.
6. Promote Conservation, including upgrading the nation’s electricity grid so less energy is lost in transmission.
7. Provide subsidies to consumers and businesses that convert to the use to wind solar or other forms of renewable energy technology. For example, support solar net metering, which means that people who invest in solar should be able to offset the cost – or in some cases even make money – on their electric utility bill.
8. Pass the Low Income Solar Act to increase low-income families’ access to solar energy by making it more affordable for people who own their own home to get access to community solar projects.
9. Make residential and commercial buildings more energy efficient, by passing the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and the Residential Energy Savings Act to provide federal loans to states to perform energy efficiency updates.
10. Build electric vehicle charging stations and subsidize electric motor vehicles.
11. Build high-speed passenger and cargo rail to reduce carbon emissions.
And that’s just a short list of some of the things we should be advocating to reduce carbon emissions and protect the planet.
Maybe someone could let the DNC and Rep. Ellison know that Climate Change better be a priority for the Democratic Party if we hope to create a sustainable world in which we, our children and grandchildren can continue to live and thrive.
Yep. That is one glaring hole.
Energy policy/climate change should be near the top of our concerns.
Yeah, so, in spite of her stated commitment to dealing with climate change, this really means that’s all a sham. They’ll be fracking in your bathroom tomorrow because, well, I don’t know why.
And you don’t know why. Because, when you actually consider her public positions, and stated goals, and, you know, the public record, this definitely reveals the nefarious plot to…
Really? Are you shitting me?
Definitely in the forebrain of our leaders, you say? Curious that.
You believe that someone can be given three billion dollars and not be influenced? Would you give money to someone who will cut into your profits?
The whole concept of quid pro quo has been wiped from the memories of Clinton supporters.
Do you really think Clinton will go against the people who have been shoveling money to her? Really?
And, of course, as a corollary to banishing the concept of quid pro quo is the new one, that politicians never lie to their supporters.
This requires not examining the results of past terms of a politician’s service, but if you can brainwash yourself into not seeing quid pro quo and can believe that your favorite politican would never ever lie to you, well, not being diligent in examining your candidate’s history would be easy.
I guess this is a replay of “trickle down”. Tie your fortunes to the ultra-wealthy. They’ll eventually pay off for you.
Unfortunately for the future generations, the current crop of spineless politicians won’t be doing that because they believe that is a certain path to defeat.
Winning is the first priority of the political party establishment just as profits are the first priority of the business establishment, the environment not withstanding. Anything that might threaten said win, is either to be ignored or outright derided as “impossible”, “politically unfeasible” or “too radical”, irregardless of how beneficial it would be to the people or future generations.
Even when they win, they pooh pooh the science, urgency, or state political considerations, IE future campaign donations make this not the time.
However no matter how many rhetorical games and political gyrations they go through;
CO2 concentrations continue to rise year after year,
CH4 concentrations continue to rise year after year.
Global temperatures go up with the last few years being the hottest on record.
This increases the amount of H2O the atmosphere can contain, H2O BTW is also a greenhouse gas.
The ice on the planet continues to melt, both raising sea levels, and changing how the climate creates weather in the changing energy levels of the atmosphere (what the temp is a measurement of).
This leads to both more extreme weather events and a much more unstable set of weather patterns from which to plan our industrialized agriculture.
Industrialized Agriculture, the very thing the vast majority of the 7.5 billion people on earth rely on daily to live on.
The oceans continue to become more acidic, and the sixth great extinction event continues to decimate the various life forms of the planet.
However BAU can continue and those to be gifted to live with in the political bubble, most live in the USA, can continue to ignore the problem, at least for this election cycle again.
Future generations including those being born today are on their own on this one, too bad they don’t get a vote as to how screwed up we are going to leave the planet to them.
In this case there is no difference, relevant to future generations, between any of the major party candidates.
Given the zero to snail’s pace they act on all the other “important” platform issues, wouldn’t matter if they put climate change at the top of the list.
If FDR and his team had worked with the same degree of urgency and foresight as we’ve seen out of DC for the past forty odd years, the Great Depression would never have ended and we’d be a colony of Germany and Japan.
Snort! Made me laugh, but I gotta agree. You came up with a more, uh, pointed comment than me, but basically I was on the same page.
I think I got one or both of those mailings from the DNC asking me for my vaunted input. I chucked both right into the circular file.
Yeah, yeah: if you don’t participate,then you can’t complain or whatever.
RU Kidding me? The DNC ain’t never ever ever ever listened to me ever, and they ain’t gonna start now. It’s clear as day that the masters they serve are Mammon, eg, the 1%, Wall St, the MIC, blah de blah.
The D Party has proven endlessly that they are just as bad as the R Team in terms of issues that truly affect Main Street and breathing humans on this planet.
Sorry for the tirade and for hashing anyone’s buzz, but really? Doesn’t matter. That’s why the first mailing only had a teeny weeny eensy tiny box for you to put your hopes and dreams in.
The D Party/DNC/DLC? They’re just not into you (or me or any of us proles).
Make sure to really show the Democratic party what’s what by voting for Trump this November.
It’s old, Nicholas. We know who we are, but I’m not all that sure who you are.
I’m someone far to your left politically, who is able to discern the difference between a center-right Democrat and a Strongman authoritarian-wielding candidate.
I’m someone far to your left politically, who recognizes that here in objective, observable reality, there are exactly two choices as to who runs the Executive Branch of the United States government. And as a pro-tip, none of the choices are Jill Stein, or Bernie Sanders. Unfortunate, but true.
Reality sucks sometimes.
I’m someone far to your left politically, who lives in a Republican controlled state, and knows exactly how much different real-life Republicans are from real-life Democrats, outside of the paper and internet-based avatars of Republicans and Democrats that apparently you believe are the real Republicans and Democrats that do the voting and appointing and governing.
At this point, if you truly believe that HRC is as bad or worse than Trump, go vote for Trump, and wear that shit as a badge of honor. Otherwise, this incessant whining that HRC isn’t going to be SuperUltraMega Progressive Champion is old, Bob.
I was referring to your need to accuse people you don’t agree with of being Trump supporters.
As far as your man of mystery autobiography, I’m not particularly interested.
If you are bored by discussing politics you’ve arrived at the wrong place. If it bothers you that people actually support someone other than H. Clinton, for any number of reasons, again you’ve probably arrived at the wrong place. But every time you comment to someone that he or she is a Trump supporter when the commenter has never said anything of the sort you aren’t advancing any argument. You are namecalling.
If you’re as politically to the left as you say, do you have any opinion on our endless wars? Opposition to war, especially to wars in order to advance business interests, has been an important part of being an liberal/progressive since the Vietnam War. Hillary Clinton has, her entire political career, supported the idea of war to advance America’s corporate interests overseas.
You may read this before you respond with more of the same:
https:/consortiumnews.com/2016/06/08/democrats-are-now-the-aggressive-war-party
Thanks for informing me about “arriving” at the wrong place. I’ve been here for awhile now.
My opinion on Drone Terrorism, as I’ve called it since the US began it, should be clear by my refusal to use euphemisms. That said, what does it matter, since I’m willing to vote for the non-Trump candidate, I guess I tacitly support murdering people. Sure, why not?
I’m bored reading the same old “The democratic party sucks”, from people who aren’t firing on all cylinders. There are two political parties that can win the White House. Voting for one party is the same as voting against the other. Act accordingly.
Maybe just using the signifier “Trump” would work. So much quicker. Any reasoned criticism of Dem policies is rebutted with “TRUMP”!!! And we all fall in line.
See, both sides do it.
I agree it’s a glaring omission, and deserves to be called out. I disagree that the “obvious” conclusion is that Democrats neither care about it, nor will do anything about it. It’s certainly something she has pledged to address, and something for which she has pledged to continue Obama’s efforts.
And this response, reminiscent of Men in Black (“All is lost! All is lost!”) is, frankly, a little silly.
LOL I have read that our fatal weakness is evolutionary…that a monkey in a tree cannot remember where the banana went when they dropped it.
Cannot wait for the billionaires to start playing with their pet geo-forming solutions… A few have already done so. Soooooooo much money and who is to stop them?
Mother nature, …… eventually.
Nature always bats last, and decides how we do no matter our best intentions ans technologies. On this one a little geo-forming will be the icing on the cake we have already baked into the environment.
We don’t know enough to be changing the climate even more than we already have, and tinkering with portions of it to try to undo the damage we have already wrought upon ourselves, isn’t the best of ideas. Probably the only one the wealthy BAU adherents have left before the consequences overwhelm us all.
Second time I’ve seen this recently (guessing both were you), and I still have no clue what it’s supposed to stand for.
My rule: for any acronym that cannot be assumed commonly understood (this is one, obviously), write it out/define it first time used in a thread. (Don’t presume everyone has read everything you’ve ever written.) Then use it to your heart’s content.
Unless of course the goal is to give people reasons NOT to open/read your comments.
BAU:
business as usual,
used all over the inter tubes.
especially where climate change is concerned.
means we will continue to do the dumb things we are doing for as long as possible.
worst case scenario as far as climate change is concerned because following BAU means the worst outcome for CO2 and increased temps, sea levels and die-off etc.
all over the inter tubes”.
Yet I spend a lot of time on the inter tubes, but had never previously (to my knowledge) come across it!
Whaddaya make of that?
Perhaps I haunt different corners of the inter tubes than you?
Perhaps what seems “obvious” to you that “everyone” already knows really isn’t?
Just a thought!
No problem with the rest of all that, obviously. You just hit a long-standing pet peeve of mine (i.e., rampant use of undefined acronyms under apparent assumption everyone must be familiar with them just because you are).
Yes, if you follow the discussion about climate change at all, probably the most used acronym on those websites.
No problem, I’ves used it for years, so i didn’t realize it wasn’t used in political discussion for the basic same meaning.
Such as, Hillary would be the BAU candidate , Bernie not so much especially with respect to economics.
Absolutely should be a top priority. I would underline #6 on Steven’s list: promote conservation. We in the US are a 10kW society, meaning our average power consumption per person is about 10kW. That’s much higher than necessary for a civilized lifestyle. Europe gets by with 4-5 kW. We in the US can do better.
I’d also add one item to Steven’s list : promote nuclear power production in the US again. It’s a comparatively safe and nearly carbon-free energy source.
God, it’s a farking money pit for connected cronies. You checked out Hinkley C lately?
Even with recycle requirements, wind and solar is eating its lunch.
Nuke advocates never recognize the full costs. Most are kicked down the road for future generations to deal (if that even becomes possible) and pay for. The also grossly underestimate the inherent risks.
“grossly underestimate the inherent risks”: baloney. Take a look at actual data and expert opinion on the subject.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053-600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power
/
As for “kicking the can down the road”, costs of plant decommissioning are included in cost estimates. As for the nuclear waste issue, there are several viable technical solutions that in the US are politically unfeasible, thanks mainly to ill-informed knee-jerk reactions such as yours.
How much for Fukushima? I’ve never seen an estimate of total costs.
That’s because like much of the other costs that are can’t avoid being recognized, they get buried in various rat holes.
Nuke industry couldn’t even afford the liability insurance even if it were available.
Govtt forced them to self-insure to some degree, but of course the taxpayer backstops that.
A Current estimat is 15 B direct costs for cleanup and 60B for compensation to residents. This should be put in the context of the overall tokuhu quake and tsunami which has caused estimated damages of over 120B not to mention over 15000 killed. Of course, with hindsight the Fukushima costs are Avoidable costs, given better designed electrical systems. ( eg panels not in the freaking basement where they were flooded).
Assuming you have all this correct (I don’t, but just for the sake of argument), we now know what to do differently to prevent the catastrophe that already occurred.
But we know this only in hindsight, because the catastrophe occurred.
What else will we only learn that way? What are the other “panels in the basement” that we don’t yet know about?
When don’t the “experts” promoting a technology declare it safe, and that all past issues are now resolved? (See endless history of this — ongoing — in mining industry. Can anyone name a single mine of any type anywhere ever at which all environmental protection, pollution control/mitigation, and cleanup functioned completely according to design and within bonded cost? This is your chance to shock me with a documented case.)
Is it worth that risk?
This is a valid and important question for any technology. I started a long comment in reply and it disappeared into cyberspace. The short version: powerful technologies carry with them inherent risks that are carefully considered, by concerned parties ( engineers, regulators, industry executives, etc) particularly In The case of nuclear power. The risks are estimated using history of the technology, accident rates, cost overruns, etc. With a half century of data available, such studies indicate nuclear power to be comparatively safe, see the article from new scientist I quoted above for a recent summary.. Newer technology, be it mining, steel manufacture, or power production, become safer as we learn failure modes and design to,protect against them.
And, when considering risks, one must weigh the benefits as well. Gigawatt level dispatchable carbon free power is exactly what we need to fight global warming.
The main reason I think people are scared of nuclear energy is because radiation is too damn easy to measure, down to levels well below anything dangerous, as opposed to say the chemical pollution all around us in our homes.
Hmm, new type plants being designed as they build? Causing ginormous cost and time over-runs. Chinese using questionable containment domes in their rush to stay on schedule? Does not sound like a mature industry. If they stayed base-load, but renewables are forcing them to compete in load following.
“new type plants being designed as they build”
I assume you are talking about the problems surrounding the third generation EPR design being used in China, Finland and England? It is apparently a difficult design to build and that has produced delays and cost overruns, but it is being built as designed. Over the long term (these plants will operate for decades) they are expected to be quite profitable and efficient. The new plants, based on the original EPR design, will be coming online in the next few years (2018 for the Finland plant). New simplified designs based on this experience are under consideration, and will have to go through the same stringent regulatory process as the original EPR design. So no, they are not being designed as they are built. That would be crazy.
I haven’t heard anything about problems with Chinese containment domes. The Chinese are going great guns with nuclear power development. Would you rather they rely on coal plants for their base load? They are building lots of those too, great for the air quality. Or maybe more hydro dams? That worked out well for them in the past, didn’t it?
GE probably thought the exact same thing when they were designing and building their BWR plants all over the planet in the 60’s and 70’s. Only later did the problems with them show up in places like Three mile Island and Fukashima.
On the whole, GE was right. BWR’s have been both profitable and efficient. They are an older design and are being superseded by safer more efficient designs where plants are still being built like Europe and Asia. Too bad for the US, we will rely on fracking I guess.
And a bad design as reactor #4 at Fukashima has proven.
Design flaws no one could have thought of doom those reactors. that is always going to be the problem with nukes, design flaws no one at the time could conceive of.
Oh and the fact as we slide down the wrong side of Hubbert’s curve some of those plants will not be maintained, let alone decommissioned. And all the waste we still do nothing about, but pass on to future generations to worry about, along with climate change, loss of the resources to keep up the modern day juggernaut that we are handing to them.
“Design flaws no one could have thought of ” affect every technology, from poorly thought out medicines that killed or deformed thousands to poorly designed chemical plants that killed tens of thousands to badly designed hydro-electric dams that killed hundreds of thousands. Yet we still use medicines, build chemical plants and hydro dams, using what we have learned about past mistakes to improve their design. That is what is also happening with nuclear power, except in the US and a few other places where irrational fear has trumped all other considerations.
We can’t give up on powerful technology when the benefits exceed the costs, its the only thing that is going to keep us alive as a species in the long run.
No actually it will not when the fossil fuels run out so does all the needed infrastructure to build maintain and supply fuel to the nukes. They depend on far too much fossil fuel inputs for everything but the actual operation. Sorry to break it to you but alternatives won’t be able to keep the nukes running, and they cannot sustain themselves.
This is entering the arena of science fiction. I suppose when fossil fuels run out they will be replaced by some alternate liquid fuel, maybe liquid hydrogen, or by high energy density battery technology that has yet to be invented, or by something else we haven’t thought of yet. I am a big believer in man’s ingenuity when it comes to solving technical problems. It’s really the politics that typically screws up everything.
The Kyshtym disaster was a radiation contamination incident that occurred at Mayak, a Nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the Soviet Union.
September 29, 1957
Partial core meltdown at Simi Valley, California, Santa Susana Field Laboratory’s Sodium Reactor Experiment.
July 26, 1957
A fire at the Sellafield, Cumberland British atomic bomb project destroyed the core and released an estimated 740 terabecquerels of iodine-131 into the environment.
October 10, 1957
Explosion at SL-1 prototype at the National Reactor Testing Station, Idaho Falls, Idaho. All 3 operators were killed when a control rod was removed too far.
January 3, 1961
Partial core meltdown of the Fermi 1 Reactor at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, Frenchtown Charter Township, Michigan. No radiation leakage into the environment.
October 5, 1966
Lucens reactor, Vaud, Switzerland suffered a loss-of-coolant accident, leading to a partial core meltdown and massive radioactive contamination of the cavern, which was then sealed.
January 21, 1969
There was reportedly a partial nuclear meltdown in Leningrad nuclear power plant reactor unit 1.
1975
Greifswald, East Germany electrical error causes fire in the main trough that destroys control lines and five main coolant pumps.
December 7, 1975
Jaslovské Bohunice, Czechoslovakia malfunction during fuel replacement. Fuel rod ejected from reactor into the reactor hall by coolant (CO2).
January 5, 1976
Jaslovské Bohunice, Czechoslovakia severe corrosion of reactor and release of radioactivity into the plant area, necessitating total decommission.
February 22, 1977
Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, loss of coolant and partial core meltdown due to operator errors. There is a small release of radioactive gases.
March 28, 1979
Athens, Alabama, safety violations, operator error, and design problems force a six-year outage at Browns Ferry Unit 2.
September 15, 1984
Athens, Alabama, instrumentation systems malfunction during startup, which led to suspension of operations at all three Browns Ferry Units.
March 9, 1985
Plymouth, Massachusetts, recurring equipment problems force emergency shutdown of Boston Edison’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant.
April 11, 1986
Chernobyl disaster, Ukrainian SSR overheating, steam explosion, fire, and meltdown, necessitating the evacuation of 300,000 people from Chernobyl and dispersing radioactive material across Europe.
April 26, 1986
Hamm-Uentrop, West Germany experimental THTR-300 reactor releases small amounts of fission products (0.1 GBq Co-60, Cs-137, Pa-233) to surrounding area.
May 4, 1986
Delta, Pennsylvania, Peach Bottom units 2 and 3 shutdown due to cooling malfunctions and unexplained equipment problems.
March 31, 1987
Lycoming, New York, malfunctions force Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation to shut down Nine Mile Point Unit 1.
December 19, 1987
Lusby, Maryland, inspections at Calvert Cliff Units 1 and 2 reveal cracks at pressurized heater sleeves, forcing extended shutdowns.
March 17, 1989
Sosnovyi Bor, Leningrad Oblast, Russia an accident at the Sosnovy Bor nuclear plant leaked radioactive gases and iodine into the air through a ruptured fuel channel.
March 1992
Waterford, Connecticut, leaking valve forces shutdown Millstone Nuclear Power Plant Units 1 and 2, multiple equipment failures found.
February 20, 1996
Crystal River, Florida, balance-of-plant equipment malfunction forces shutdown and extensive repairs at Crystal River Unit 3.
September 2, 1996
Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, Tokaimura nuclear accident killed two workers, and exposed one more to radiation levels above permissible limits.
September 30, 1999
Oak Harbor, Ohio, severe corrosion of control rod forces 24-month outage of Davis-Besse reactor.
February 16, 2002
Fukui Prefecture, Japan, steam explosion at Mihama Nuclear Power Plant kills 4 workers and injures 7 more.
August 9, 2004
Forsmark, Sweden, an electrical fault at Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant caused one reactor to be shut down.
July 25, 2006
Fukushima, Japan, a tsunami flooded and damaged the 5 active reactor plants drowning two workers. Loss of backup electrical power led to overheating, meltdowns, and evacuations. One man died suddenly while carrying equipment during the clean-up.
March 12, 2011
Marcoule, France, one person was killed and four injured, one seriously, in a blast at the Marcoule Nuclear Site. The explosion took place in a furnace used to melt metallic waste.
12 September 2011
List is not exhaustive, but probative. People just might have a very good reason to fear the way the for profit nuclear industry runs itself.
Actually, more people have been killed mining the uranium than in nuclear accidents in the plants that use it. And that number is a handful compared to the numbers killed in coal mines and through air pollution associated with coal plants. People fear what they don’t understand. Radiation is invisible and intangible to the average person, but easily measured down to tiny and harmless releases as your list shows. The average gasoline refinery causes far more environmental harm through air pollution than the average nuclear plant. People are shitty at judging risk.
I assume you are not counting the numbers who have died from exposure to mishandled uranium contamination from mining sites? Cause the Navajos might have a different opinion.
I’d not heard of this, thanks for pointing it out. You do know however that over 13000 deaths per year are ascribed to coal power plant air pollution, in the US alone? My point about the relatively small number of deaths associated with nuclear power stands.
Compared to actually doing conservation so we can stop build so god damned many of both?
I don’t think so, but BAU rule all.
BAU?
BAU:
business as usual,
used all over the inter tubes.
especially where climate change is concerned.
means we will continue to do the dumb things we are doing for as long as possible.
worst case scenario as far as climate change is concerned because following BAU means the worst outcome for CO2 and increased temps, sea levels and die-off etc.
See my original post. Conservation is job 1.
Can you help me here;
I can’t find it.
Here you go:
[Global Warming] Absolutely should be a top priority. I would underline #6 on Steven’s list: promote conservation. We in the US are a 10kW society, meaning our average power consumption per person is about 10kW. That’s much higher than necessary for a civilized lifestyle. Europe gets by with 4-5 kW. We in the US can do better.
I’d also add one item to Steven’s list : promote nuclear power production in the US again. It’s a comparatively safe and nearly carbon-free energy source.
Too bad it’s not on the list I quoted,
the ONE THAT MATTERS.
? I guess that was the point of Stevens post, and I agree. It should be there.
Except it is NOT, and that is the problem here. The thrid way DNC control of the party seems not to want it.
BAU remains their objective,
This is a valid and important question for any technology. I started a long comment in reply and it disappeared into cyberspace. The short version: powerful technologies carry with them inherent risks that are carefully considered, by concerned parties ( engineers, regulators, industry) particularly In The case of nuclear power. The risks are estimated using history of the technology, accident rates, cost overruns, etc. With a half century of data available, such studies indicate nuclear power to be comparatively safe, see the article from new scientist I quoted above for a recent summary.. Newer technology, be it mining, steel manufacture, or power production, become safer as we learn failure modes and design to,protect against them.
When considering risks, one must weigh the benefits as well. Gigawatt level dispatchable carbon free power is exactly what we need to fight global warming. That what nuclear power provides.
Sorry for the double posting. Typing on my iPad involves inherent risks too I guess.
Any given plant can be more (or less) expensive to build, particularly these days with law suits slowing the process. But in the US, the overall cost per kW-hour is lower for nuclear energy than for either coal or petroleum-based energy. All are less expensive per kW-hour produced than rooftop solar. Industrial wind is in the majority of cases a true boondoggle, lining many pockets and doing little to reduce carbon emissions.
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/elec-prod-graph.png
Below $0.05 per kw? Where, please?
Oh, wait…http://www.utilitydive.com/news/austin-energy-gets-record-low-solar-bids-at-under-4-centskwh/401642/
Wow, that’s cheap for industrial scale solar! (I was talking about rooftop solar, not industrial scale, but still…cheap!)
Even more astonishing when you notice that, not only is there not any ecological/environmental item that might conceivably have some nexus with climate change, there’s no ecological/environmental item at all, whatsoever, anywhere in that list!!!
I’m old enough to remember when Dems at least pretended to care about such things (which currently are the most serious, pressing threats we face!), and sometimes even went beyond pretending and did at least partially effective things about them. That’s the main reason I’ve been a registered (if often disgruntled) Dem throughout my adult life.
Many of the changes now underway are irreversible. Even if all fossil fuel burning ended tomorrow, the CO2 level in the atmosphere would not get back to the pre-industrial level for centuries. The Earth’s climate system just has a hell of a lot of inertia, so to speak. Thus planning for how to deal with the inevitable (such as sea level rise that will leave many major cities either swamped or at greatly increased risk from storm surge) has to happen.
I disagree with comments above about nuclear power, which I feel is going to play a very important role in getting humanity from here to there (whatever “there” is exactly). But that’s a topic for another time.
States don’t have the cash to invest and investors don’t want to wait a generation to be made whole.
A good overview of the situation….https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_nuclear_power_plants
Joe, have you watched the Vice documentary on the Antarctic ice caps? Highly recommended.
What they discuss is irreversible. Not coming back. And Miami will be under water far sooner than they think.
.
If you want to gauge when the powers that be can no longer hide the problems climate change is going to cause the economy, watch the insurance industry and real-estate markets in soon to flood ocean front areas.
When the insurance costs go through the roof and no mortgage loans are available for properties, it means both industries have determined that the property will be worthless before the loan matures.
Those holding the properties will see the dropping values and inability to get out from under them.
Just something to watch going forward.
Ugh.
By then, the elites will already have gotten their federal bailouts and decamped to lovely high ground fully protected from climate change and the riff-raff that will be left with the worthless underwater properties (but they’ll vote for the next scoundrel that appears on their media platform and promises that they too can get federal bailouts, just like those that lost their houses in the Great Recession).
Maybe that is the answer to this question;
Why Did George Bush Buy Nearly 300,000 acres in Paraguay?
That’s how dynasties roll.
It sits over a major aquifer. Meanwhile, we are polluting ours with fracking waste. Oh, well…
I thought I read that some insurance companies are already refusing to write policies for persistent flooding in places like Miami
It’s impossible to get ahead of insurance companies on a long term issue like this.
The city of Miami is spending hundreds of millions to raise roads and power stations, but none of that will make it more livable for home owners.
.
Federal flood insurance. Another poorly managed (but worthy) federal program. It along with federal disaster aid has allowed high end construction where none should ever have existed. After hurricane Sandy, all those NJ beachfront properties were rebuilt with a significant amount of federal dollars.
How long before buyouts are the rule? If that.
Instability and collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet. Yes indeed. This is going to lead to somewhere around 10 feet of sea level rise over the next few centuries. Try to imagine that. And the only way to re-grow the ice sheet is to have the Earth go into another ice age. That’ll happen in due course, and if humanity is still around, there’ll be some interesting times. But why think about that when we can instead sling insults at one another and rage against The Man, the PTB, the Establishment, the Clintons and their banker friends, insurance companies, Berniebots, yadda yadda yadda?
I need a break from the insultfests.
Auf wiederlesen.
Hasta luego.
A la prochaine.
Yes,
The thing is, many places (like Miami) it only takes inches of rise to matter.
Me too on the other part.
.
Well, we might need nuclear if we are forced underground in a few decades…
Say bye-bye to East Coast and West Coast shipping ports, or very expensive construction elevating the piers.
What we have is not the inertia of the climate system but the 47-year long inertia of politicians.
Hasn’t Hillary gotten money from the fracking industry?
We know she pitched fracking in various countries around the world while she was SOS. But we’ve been assured that she didn’t get any money for doing that.
Put it in the file with: Emails Show Hillary Clintons Aides Celebrating F-15 Sales to Saudi Arabia: Good News
But no qui pro quo from the Saudis for that (regardless of how much KSA money entered the Clinton foundations coffers).
Saudis threaten to leave the UN if it does not stop saying mean things about them.
The United States has a sick relationship with Saudi Arabia (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Saud clan). It’s had a sick relationship with this bloody minded medieval kingdom under both Democratic and Republican administrations in DC.
Only tangentially related, but there was a long article in the Sunday New York Times a couple of weeks ago about the way that Saudi influence has destabilized Kosovo by implanting Wahhabi Islam.
What a great relationship: The Saudi regime exports Wahhabism, leading to more recruitment of violent jihadists. You know, the sort of people who flew planes into the World Trade Center.
The Germans used the same tactics in WWI, and in WWII. The relationship was renewed for WWII, and many of the jihadi problems we have today arose from Germany allying with Arabs to fight the imperialistic Britain and France. (Note: Bosnian Hanjar Division)
The US has that relationship now. The House of Saud has been sending out Wahhabi imams and funded radical Islam around the world for decades. ISIS is essentially an invention of the Sauds along with Turkey and the Gulf States. ISIS is the cover story for the US and its allies trying to remove Assad. ISIS is the 21st Century equivalent of the Mujahadeen. Remember, the Mujahadeen became al Qaeda.
There are long-term problems with this arrangement aside from its “sick relationship”. The drop in oil prices, which seems to have been caused by the House of Saud with US blessings was supposed to knock out Russia economically. It didn’t work, but it’s weakened Saudi Arabia instead. Presumably, the folks who play seven-dimensional chess in the State Department are a dozen moves ahead, but it looks like the script is the same old Cold War game from the end of WWII.
I was hoping “stop executing American citizens without trial” might sneak in somewhere.
Infrastructure? Jobs program?
Dontcha know, Steven D, asking for honest dealing with climate change by Democrats is too unrealistic of Democratic politicians. They’ve not shown the ability to work together to shove something through Congress that actually deals with a problem since….
Reality shoved them into doing it in 1933. With the alternatives being Hitler and Stalin, it sorta focused some minds.
When you imagine that you are still the world’s sole and exceptional superpower, you get really lazy.
Besides, who wants to deal with climate change? Treehuggers and PETA, that’s all. Besides there’s still coastal real estate to sell.
Oh yes, how dare we hold the Democratic Party hostage to fighting climate change. There are coal miners, oil field workers, and nuclear plant employees to worry about. What would happen if we didn’t have an all-sources energy plan and spend down our inheritance? Unemployment, that’s what.
Just like the 16% of all jobs that would disappear if Medicare-for-All passed and forced out insurance workers put to work under Obamacare.
I’ve long been a “doomer” on climate change. Not to say that we shouldn’t make every effort — every last god-damned effort — to reduce emissions, but in that the obvious needs to be stated too:
It’s too late.
That’s why you see climatologists and other scientists proposing batshit-crazy solutions like using aerosol cans to block out the Sun and dumping iron into the water to foster algae growth. They’re panicking. And rightly so.
The world is going to witness and suffer increasingly destabilizing effects for the foreseeable future. Nobody has to tell me that. I understand the lag times and geopolitics, and I’m a Floridian to boot.
The IPCC and environmental activists, noble though their intentions are (and they absolutely are), are deluding themselves. And their efforts ARE noble — and important, because mitigating this is going to be the difference between millions and billions. And, as always, it’s the efforts of activists that change things. But you also have to be able to step back and look at the reality and what you’re trying to achieve, understanding that the politics is not entirely in your control, an that science doesn’t give a shit about your politics. And know when to shift, tactically. Know when a given path is closed. It’s not about the survival of our species — there’s too many of us to kill us all off — let alone the planet (oy…), but about ensuring fewer of us are destroyed by this.
You have to know when to call in the fishing boats and hope the damned radar system can be made to work so you can fight off the onslaught and turn the tide down the road.
We can’t “solve” the problem in the context folks normally take “solve” to mean. Wars are going to be fought over water and arable land and other resources. A lot of people are going to die.
These sorts of consequences are now inevitable. We can only mitigate the damage and adapt.
I don’t think we ever could’ve “solved” this problem. Climate change is a collective action problem we are ill-equipped to solve, because we’re still those dumb apes roaming the plains of central and eastern Africa 200,000 years ago clinging to our tribes and killing anything that could feed us. In an evolutionary sense, we’re simply not equipped to stop it.
I wish the conversation would shift a bit more in that direction.
But if we get into a nuclear war with Russia the subsequent nuclear winter would counteract global warming…
Er, billionaires with pet geo-forming solutions…what could go wrong?
I doubt that there will be much movement on any of the platform issues. The platform is functionally the unicorn a political party promises but never delivers.
I guess there won’t be an anti-war platform. We’ve only been in Afghanistan for forever.
And they only had how many months to prepare for this?
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-87496798/
Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?
Steve. I commend you for a comment that isn’t filled with vitriol. Normally I have to skip your long rants. But this one makes some sense. It is an omission, obviously, and an important one. Especially striking is that it’s one of Sander’s most salient issues and he appointed McKibbon to be on the drafting committee.
As for “someone could let the DNC and Rep. Ellision know,” I’d like to remind you that YOU are someone. Get on the horn. You’re quick to chase folks who got paid by someone else’s campaign, supposedly. This is much more sensible and, I think all here would agree, more important.
I had some tweets to Ellison tonight after he claimed it was in there. I give him the benefit of the doubt that he may not have known.
Here is the link to the online survey, the same as the one mentioned in the email:
http://mn.keithellison.org/page/s/dncplatform
also added McKibben to the tweet. We shall see what happens.
Link to one of my tweets to Ellison:
https://twitter.com/StevenDBT/status/740719252647387136
Ditto. Kudos to Steven D for the matter of factness of his post.
Excellent. A model for others here, rather than just complaining. Action!! I hope it bears fruit.
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-87500110/
I think a serious effort to combat climate change will require
If I remember, a carbon tax was passed in the house in 2008 or 2009 (cap and trade). But the Senate rejected it.
Why should this come as a surprise? This is exactly the reason I didn’t support Clinton in the primaries. She just doesn’t get it, and I don’t expect her (or the DNC) to get it now. It’s why I’m moving to the Green Party after nearly 50 years of voting Democratic. I’ve had enough.
To be fair, this was in a survey online at Keith Ellison’s site. He is a Bernie endorser and was selected by Sanders to sit on the Platform committee. I imagine a staffer drafted this survey and did not include climate change in it, and that he was unaware of that fact. Hopefully, now that he is aware, he will see that it is included.
Well the GOtPers in congress want to put our knowledge of the climate in their cross hairs:
U.S. Congress Aims to Cut Climate Science
Proposed cuts to NOAA and NASA target climate change research in particular
Somebody needs to tell the dippy-shiites that ignoring a problem won’t make it go away.
How about the DNC in their party platform, since this is an election year and people will be paying attention, and …..
oh yea,
no platform about climate change.
Tweedledee and tweedledum on climate change it seems.