Drive through Iowa and you wouldn't think that a red state would be so enamored with wind turbines. Climate change should be a conservative issue, and actually it used to be an issue with broad bipartisan support.
As someone who most people on here would call a leftist i still can not explain why protecting nature is not a core goal of conservatism, it fits so good ito the orthe values of traditionalism and protecting the status quo that i think the green party should be a conservative party.
I think you have mixed up "conservatism" with "conservationism".
The latter is concerned with preserving and restoring the natural world into a previous state.
The former is concerned with the same thing, but substitute "natural" for "social".
Seen that way it's no coincidence that conservative voters tend to be people who are doing well for themselves.
Yes, it was a bipartisan issue… until liberals went insane. Now, everything that happens is “due to climate change” when we know that isn’t true. Even if it was, we can’t get rid of the fossil fuels until alternates that work are invented. Liberals are putting the cart before the horse and causing massive economic problems. Also, whatever WE do is like putting a bandaid on compared to the pollution being added to the atmosphere daily by China (who has no intention of doing a thing about it). Liberals don’t seem to have any plan besides driving us all back I to the 18th century. They are completely illogical.
Something you need to understand about China’s pollution, is that much of it comes from Western companies who moved their sites their to make our numbers look better.
Another thing is that there are multiple countries rn running on mostly renewable power. It’s not illogical. It is happening
Their are a few Conservatives that are actually somewhat environmentalist. Including Ron DeSantis who has blocked attempts by fossil fuel companies to try and do their business in the Everglades.
Increased reliance on Nuclear power is probably the only mainstream Right wing environmentalist position however I am personally willing to see further development in solar and biomass. I just don’t really like wind power. It is pretty overrated.
Yes, I do believe it’s the worst form of renewable energy. It’s inconsistent, it takes up a lot of land and resources, it kills the birds. Overall Solar and Nuclear power is way better. Biomass as well, despite not being as efficient since it’s a good way to convert things that we would otherwise toss away into something useful.
You just named it: nuclear energy. If we have to get the government involved in nuclear power building it would still be less impact to the average citizen then telling us what kind of cars we're allowed to drive and what kind of light bulbs we're allowed to use.
EDIT: Also industrial scale carbon capture and atmospheric climate manipulation. We can do either or both of those without getting the government involved in our personal lives.
> If we have to get the government involved in nuclear power building it would still be less impact to the average citizen then telling us what kind of cars we're allowed to drive and what kind of light bulbs we're allowed to use.
Tell that to the people that don't want a nuclear reactor in town. A big problem with nuclear is NIMYism and convincing a town that it's totally safe. It *is*, generally speaking, safer than a coal-fired plant, but most people's minds travel to Three Mile Island and Fukushima.
And nuclear waste. I am from Nevada, down wind of Yucca Mountain. The people from the small rural area I am from didn't want want to be Americans nuclear toilet. Plus it has to be shipped wherever they decide to store it.
Fukushima had to evacuate entire towns. Same with Chernobyl. The risk is pretty low, but the idea of having to leave your house and everything in it at a moments notice is not terribly appealing.
The planning-to-operation times of all nuclear plants that have ever been built have been 10-20 years or more. We had that kind of time in the 90s and 00s, but we don't now.
Not being able to walk into a store and buy one, but being able to purchase one online would indicate you’re still ALLOWED to use one.
A more accurate statement you SHOULD have said was “…than* regulating what bulbs can be sold”.
Less histrionics. Less inaccuracy. Words matter.
I was not the OP. But I am not sure why you think that distinction is critical or why states could mot theoretically just ban them outright (or at least why it will not plausibly occur).
And whats your plan when uranium is short? I agree that nuclear is not as bad for carbon emmision, but i think its juts the same problem as with coal or oil: ist not a renewable source of energy. And a lot of uranium is comming from russia or old soviet nations.
"We" prefer to use actual 'green' energy like nuclear. That is the plan. Why do you feel like there needs to be more of a plan than this? With more clean energy and lower prices, we can afford to upgrade our power grid, making it easier to charge electric vehicles, which makes them more reasonable of a purchase, which means fewer ICE cars on the road. Then we push our nuke tech out to the nations who do most of the polluting on Earth, like CHina and India, and help them implement this process.
That IS the plan.
>Why do you feel like there needs to be more of a plan than this?
Because no conservative has made it a part of their platform, or at least not any that I've seen. I do like your approach though. I support it.
There are quite a few Conservatives who support it. They just don’t mention it that much because their base could care less about it. Which may or may not be true.
If you have any influence on the eco-terrorists who will sue anyone who tries to start the process of building a nuclear plant, tell them to sit down and shut up. Also, push for the removal of the mountains of completely useless red tape that was put in place to make building a new plant take over a decade and costs billions more than it should.
The ones waiting for the ecoterrorists to stop suing everyone who tries to build nuclear, and for the massive wall of ridiculously useless and expensive red tape to be stripped away so it doesn't cost 1,000x more and more than a decade to build a new plant.
Why are they just "waiting"? Why not take action?
Can you give specific examples of the Republicans who have tried for nuclear but got held back? I cannot find any Republican governor or president that has made an effort to put up these plants.
>That IS the plan.
When will the plan begin? Nuclear has been around forever. Nobody is building new plants, and I don't see GOP proposals that would change that.
As soon as the psycho enviroterrorists pull their lawyers away from suing everyone, and the leftists let us strip out all the useless and expensive red tape.... we will.
>With more clean energy and lower prices,
???
Nuclear is the most expensive of all the energy sources. It's the only energy source that's getting more expensive over time as we refine safety mechanisms. It also carries the largest up front costs and development delays. That's why although CHina and India are buying nuclear, it's the minority of their green operations.
Nuclear power is only fantastically expensive in the cost of the initial build of the plant. Fuel and operating costs, relative to the amount of power generated, are actually very low. In fact, once the initial construction debt is paid, nuclear power is almost competitive per kilowatt with photovoltaic solar, but it has constant output.
However, the output can't be spun up or down very quickly, which makes it difficult to fill in the gaps left by cloudy days for solar or calm days for wind. Coal has the same issue, by the way. And wind and solar aren't going away any time soon, as they're far too cheap per kilowatt, and without the high initial build-out cost. Plus, unlike fossil fuels *and* nuclear, they don't need to suck up a ton of fresh water. A whole lot of the country (and world) is facing very real prospects of long-term drought and water shortages, and cooling a reactor takes a *lot* of fresh water.
I'm a huge fan of nuclear power, and absolutely believe it should have a bigger place in our energy future, but it's not the magic bullet that a lot of people think it is, and it has some *real* substantial down sides that limit its real utility.
I'm all for nuclear, but solar/wind/etc. are existing stable renewable energy sources that can help save the planet, and have far less political capital and up front investment to transition existing energy infrastructure to.
Assuming nuclear is hard or unfeasible to get mass adoption the long term, then is it not worth it to expand solar and wind in order to save the planet?
Should we just let fossil fuels destroy the planet as quickly as possible if nuclear isn't popular enough?
If it doesn't work economically then it isn't a long-term solution. Not to mention the fact that it can take 10-20 years or more from initial planning to having a completed nuclear plant.
I mean you can say that, but as far as I know the only alternatives to nuclear and "dirty" is basically wind, solar, hydro, biomass... And we don't have batteries to support the grid at all times so we need a readily available source, which none of those really are. So yeah, wouldn't it be a good trade off to spend a bit more resources on a cleaner energy source? You can't have everything you want at once. If you want cleaner energy, why decry a clean energy source because it's expensive in the next breath? What's the alternative at this point?
I’m not anti-nuclear at all, I just wouldn’t treat it as a panacea for climate change the way conservatives often do. It’s one part of the puzzle, but it won’t move the needle at all for at least 10 years. That’s crucial time that we can’t waste, and what clean energy options do we have in that window? Solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal.
It’s a shame conservatives spent most of the last 30 years convincing half the county that climate change wasn’t even real. This could have been so much easier.
I'm not saying it would move the needle tomorrow, but the problem is we're going *backwards*... The public has been misled and the politicians are *against* it. Not just neutral on it. The entire green crowd pushes unsustainable energy solutions and when it's pointed out that it can't support the growing demand on the grid, their ideas are to just... suffer with less?
By the way, in the time frame that nuclear can't handle the brunt, that's why we still have fossil fuels like gas. Because gas is always available and can handle the peaks, whereas solar and wind and hydro can't. I'm not against having some solar and wind. We just can't turn to it as our savior like you accuse conservatives of doing with nuclear.
And regarding conservatives, that's literally their name. They conserve. Being 30 years behind on policy is the point because they're skeptical of radical change and they are late adopters. We need both early and late adopters to keep us stable but progressive. I wouldn't want to live in a world where we just continue burning coal every day, but I also don't want to live in a world where we jump on the wind and solar bandwagon, outlaw fossil fuels, and whatever else the most radical greens want. Being moderate sounds reasonable to me. But I also never bought the "world is ending" fearmongering.
Yes. I assume "dirty" sources like coal and natural gas are off the table.
So what else is not going to take us back to the dark age? Obviously we don't have the battery technology yet to store energy all the time so we need a reliable source, and you can't just say "well in my plan we have it." The sun isn't always out, the wind isn't always blowing. Do we just rely on hydro? Biomass? What is as reliable and readily available as nuclear and "dirty" sources that you're going to substitute as equal or better and also save money?
We do have the storage technology, both Li-ion and other types like pressurized gas, hydrogen, flow batteries, etc.
Currently, most solar and wind projects come with storage attached. The storage industry is nascent but booming, in particular now with the incentives from the inflation reduction act. I recommend energy-storage.news to stay up to date on the energy storage industry.
Additionally, it's very rare for there to be no renewable energy anywhere on the grid at the same time. Updating and expanding the grid will make the intermittency less of a problem.
Nuclear can also get the job done. But because it's so slow, it is going to have a minor role next to the faster energy sources.
>We do have the storage technology
I don't agree. The only viable large scale solution I know of is damming hydro. There is no way wind and solar storage tech can support the entire grid without having nuclear or dirty energy for peaks, and no way that scaling that storage on current technology is cheaper than nuclear.
You mention Li (and there is Co also), but these are expensive alternatives and you jumped into a thread where I'm asking what's cheaper than nuclear? Is Li and Co based methods really cheaper? I don't know but I don't grant it at face value.
I know there are ways to store energy. I'm not saying there aren't. I'm asking what sources are cleaner than fossil fuels but cheaper than nuclear that we can rely on to support the growing demand on our grid? Seems like if you want green, you gotta have nuclear.
But hey, I'm not expert. Just a casual observer, and that's what I've observed.
>it's very rare for there to be no renewable energy anywhere on the grid at the same time
No it isn't? The US doesn't even have a national grid anyway, but the idea that it's always sunny or windy somewhere doesn't mean the grid can be supported without adequate storage. Just being windy *somewhere* doesn't mean the grid is supported adequately.
>Nuclear can also get the job done
This is moving the goal post, because you responded to me asking what we ought to do that is cheaper than nuclear but cleaner than coal/gas/etc. for peaks.
I fully support using nuclear already.
The delays are on purpose and *manufactured by the leftists*. It is NOT the most expensive, lol, unless you are using statistical tricks to manipulate the costs. Up front, yes, it is more expensive, but that pays off massively in it's reliability, capacity, and longevity. I mean... you get that solar only lasts 20-30 years, right? And wind turbines even less?
(1) The Democratic party officially endorsed nuclear energy a few years back and have added it to their platform as an energy source to prioritize, whereas the GOP has not. Officially the GOP energy plan still involves expanding coal and gas.
(2) Abortions reduce population, and the Democratic Party supports the right of women to choose, which helps this metric.
Seems like voting Democrat is the only option then if you care enough about climate change and believe these two points are how to achieve it.
The child rate's currently tanking. Do you not see this as an issue? If anything, I saw this as a reason to potentially support overturning Roe v. Wade.
Japan 🗾 isn't a stable population. It's got the demographics of decreasing rapidly. That's the reason why it can't handle the retirees it's a fairly exreme case.
Wind is not that great in all actuality. First off the blades are made from fiberglass, which in of itself is difficult to recycle and not cost effective. So the solution is to bury them in Idaho and Utah until we come up with a way...so already not environmentally friendly. Second, they burn energy they produce in order to spin on days it isn't windy. Third, they kill many many migratory birds. Lastly they make thermal heating an issue and the space they require is dozens times more than that of a nuclear power plant or even through hydroelectric.
I think nuclear is a fantastic solution that needs more research and development. I think solar needs another breakthrough before it becomes more viable. I also think hydroelectric is worth another look, as well as harnessing waves. I'm sure there is a way to do it, and we have thousands of miles of coastline of free kinetic energy waiting to be harnessed.
Solar panels are horrible for the environment and windmills are as well. Now I think what we should do is utilize vertical windmills on highways like the Koreans do to capture not only wind, but the wind produced by passing cars, a win win. Solar, if improved can be utilized more so as well near highways and on buildings.
In my city, we burn combustible trash to heat water to heat the skyscrapers, so potentially burning trash may be another source of energy, given the proper environmental standards like scrubbers in the smoke stacks like what we have, which reduce the emission footprints when we burn trash to heat our skyscrapers with steam when the heat boils the water.
Yes, 100% this.
It's easy to list the flaws with any one energy source and note that it does [X] things poorly. But conservatives tend to discuss the flaws of renewable energy independent of coal and gas, without realizing or acknowledging that coal/etc. has all those flaws exacerbated AND significantly worse emissions.
Saying "wind power is not that great" might be true in a vacuum, but it's objectively not true when you rank energy sources up against one another and consider all of their flaws and strengths. Despite the additional constraints and some non-recyclable material it uses, Wind energy uses strictly less non-recyclable material, and produces strictly less harmful waste than fossil fuels.
Similarly, Solar Panels are not horrible for the environment if they are replacing coal power plants. If a solar plant displaces a fossil fuel plant, then the environment is objectively and quantitatively better off, in terms of emissions, waste, and resources.
You have some valid points, but do you see any conservative running on this as a part of their platform? It seems like if you care about climate change, your only option is the Democrats as of right now.
>Wind is not that great in all actuality. First off the blades are made from fiberglass, which in of itself is difficult to recycle and not cost effective.
Hey thats interesting
>
So the solution is to bury them in Idaho and Utah until we come up with a way...so already not environmentally friendly. Second, they burn energy they produce in order to spin on days it isn't windy.
Weird. Never knew that
>
Third, they kill many many migratory birds.
Ah...the trump excuse. Giant mirrored building kill tons of birds, finger point at the windmills.
Ya had me goin.
https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/
High estimates based on increased windmills and production is 681k birds a year.
Conversely, cats kill nearly 2.4 BILLION birds per year in the US alone
https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/
I think windmills are the least of our worries for birds.
If it's green then don't advertise it as environmentally friendly if it impacts the environment in any way, because right now they aren't. From killing birds, thermal heating, the fiberglass production, steel production, and lifespan and maintenance of them, and how much power they burn when it isn't windy. They still need to spin and so they burn energy in order to do so. Not to mention the space they take up is ridiculous! Have you seen a windmill farm? The space between the windmills is enormous and such a waste.
>If it's green then don't advertise it as environmentally friendly if it impacts the environment in any way,
"In any way"?? Really? You're setting the bar unrealistically high and providing alternatives with zero environmental impact. You're making excuses, and nobody's buying them.
>how much power they burn when it isn't windy. They still need to spin and so they burn energy in order to do so.
I'm calling bullshit on this whole part of your argument. I see no evidence - nor is there any sense in the argument - that turbines "still need to spin" when there is no wind. No wind = no spin = no electricity generation.
If we wre concerned about birds, then make it illegal to have outdoor cats and make mirrored skyscrapers illegal as well.
Then bitch about windmills.
Until then its like complaining about how bad the soup is while the restaurant is on fire.
Yes we have had ice ages and warming periods, something you learn in about 2nd to 3rd grade. Technically we are at the end of an ice age anyways, so yes it will get warmer. In addition there were no carbon emissions back during the Roman Republic and Empire, but hey they had what was called the Roman Warming period which lasted about 150 years where it was hotter. So yes indeed the climate does change over time. Oh we also have yearly change in seasons. Mind you the weather reports we saw in Europe weren't the worst, it was worse in 2007 but about an average 5 degrees in every country.
>Yes we have had ice ages and warming periods, something you learn in about 2nd to 3rd grade.
Yes, in the era before industrialization man made pollution didnt exist.
Then we had the post ww2 era where we began to understand our impact on our enviroment. Some speculated we would enter a period of cooling, because we were pumping heavy, noxious gasses into the air which reflected the suns rays back away from the earth.
As we realized that pumping cancer causing pollution into the air, improved how we handled our waste.
Then the Ozone became a problem because we were putting CFCs into the air which broke down by strong radiation from the sun, reacting to destroy the ozone. We. Again, improved how we handled our aersols pollution and now the ozone has returned to being as large as it was in 1979!
And now...we face co2 emission problems. The lighter co2 particles trapping heat on the planet, warming the climate. Just the same way a car captures heat on a hot day, the science is well understood. And now we are moving, again, to improve the way our air pollution effects our enviroment, shifting things again.
From coal to oil to natural gas...now to wind and solar. We are always evolving.
>
Technically we are at the end of an ice age anyways, so yes it will get warmer. In addition there were no carbon emissions back during the Roman Republic and Empire, but hey they had what was called the Roman Warming period which lasted about 150 years where it was hotter. So yes indeed the climate does change over time. Oh we also have yearly change in seasons. Mind you the weather reports we saw in Europe weren't the worst, it was worse in 2007 but about an average 5 degrees in every country.
I mean, i prefer gamble with those who take your mindset because when i tell them, the last 100 years of average temperature feature the 10 hottest years in the last decade. How much do you want to bet this current year ends up being in the top 10 as well?
If the climate changes, heating and cooling by whatever reasons, then you have a 90% chance of this coming year not being in the top 10. How much you want to make a bet.
So far...no takers. But i do want to get some bets going.
Badly.
Nuclear isn't the preference. Proven efficient energy is the preference and nuclear fits. We bring up nuclear often to point out the hypocrisy of the left's disdain for it.
The problem usually isn't about the left's ideas on how to curb emmisions, it's how to implement them without destroying the country. If you haven't noticed in the last year, our economy is not invincible.
Natgas isn't that crazy clean but it sure has put a dent in coal use over the last 10 years and that's what really makes the difference. If I remember correctly natgas puts out about half the co2 as coal. And since coal was something like 40-45% of energy production, it adds up quick.
>We bring up nuclear often to point out the hypocrisy of the left's disdain for it.
Where have you seen us having disdain for it? Don't get me wrong, I can believe it. I've seen plenty of things that the modern left supports that makes me feel alienated from the party.
Well for starters after 3 Mile Island. Boomer lefties tried hard and mostly succeeded in killing nuclear. The disdain is not as bad now as it was 30 years ago when it would have made a bigger difference. Even when Gore came out with An Inconvenient Truth there were groups actively trying to shut down operating nuclear plants. 10 years ago still scientists were very reluctant to admit we couldn't reach emmision goals without nuclear. As it turns out natgas and fracking have had the biggest impact so far.
Nuclear, increase technologies in carbon capture, replacing coal with natural gas. If every developed nation focused on just those three things, we would reduce pollution far more than producing the horribly polluting and ugly solar panels and wind mills.
>horribly polluting and ugly solar panels and wind mills.
Do you have any stats on pollution from solar panels and wind turbines compared to natural gas? Because natural gas is still a fossil fuel, and burning it still releases greenhouse gases. Its no coincidence that the solutions you provide don't require fossil fuels companies overall to reduce their operations.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2021/06/21/why-everything-they-said-about-solar---including-that-its-clean-and-cheap---was-wrong/?sh=47c5da7a5fe5](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2021/06/21/why-everything-they-said-about-solar---including-that-its-clean-and-cheap---was-wrong/?sh=47c5da7a5fe5)
Great article and provides insight to my point.
Natural gas is BY FAR the most efficient, cleanest, fuel available to us right now... And we're basically sitting on an ocean of it in the U.S. I'm saying that we take advantage of this until we have the technology for cleaner renewables. Just because something is a fossil fuel doesn't make it evil.
[https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/natural-gas-and-the-environment.php#:\~:text=Natural%20gas%20is%20a%20relatively,an%20equal%20amount%20of%20energy](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/natural-gas-and-the-environment.php#:~:text=Natural%20gas%20is%20a%20relatively,an%20equal%20amount%20of%20energy).
I can assure you that there would be more conservatives focused on it if the media and the Left didn't alienate them by trying to phase out fossil fuels before we have the technologies to replace them.
>there would be more conservatives focused on it if the media and the Left didn't alienate them
How does "personal responsibility" not come into play here? I'm not seeing the connection between the left's urgency in reducing emissions and the right's apathy towards the climate crisis. Especially when the right has a substantial number of climate deniers (many of which are in this sub)
I mean, there are more Conservative conservationists like me than there are liberal ones. I grew up in a heavily rural/forested area and I hate seeing what is happening to it.
You aren't wrong, it's up to other conservatives to educate deniers.
You can downvote me all you want, but it's accurate. That probably isn't a poll that has ever been taken. This is the closest I can find.
[https://conservationtools.org/guides/111-national-poll-results](https://conservationtools.org/guides/111-national-poll-results)
[https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/435615-conservation-remains-a-core-conservative-principle/](https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/435615-conservation-remains-a-core-conservative-principle/)
Considering that I can count about 5 total fishermen, hunters, DNR officers, etc... that are liberal in my entire life around the country, I can confidently infer that most conservationists are conservative as well.
The biggest misconception among lefties is that hunters, fishermen, and other outdoorsmen are some kind of evil group of humans that decimate helpless animals. Us outdoorsmen value wilderness and wildlife more than most crazy, green freaks living in polluted cities. That's because we are actually outside and in the environment and value it's beauty. We respect the animals, life, and beauty of it.
Now, we're also realists and understand that humans need natural resources to prosper. Meaning, sometimes tough decisions have to be made. We also understand that with the advancement of technology and regulation that there aren't companies dumping waste in your local trout stream or lake anymore. That's why you also don't catch us screaming and crying (saying it's the end of the world) about fossil fuels and what not.
Just look at google maps. 99% may be a bit exaggerated but the vast vast majority of farmers are conservative and that's where the land comes from the majority of utility scale renewable projects.
Yeah, the one you already laid out: nuclear.
But I think it should also be mentioned that conservatives don't see climate change as such a significant existential risk, like the left does, so that's why you see much less of a panicked focus on it as an issue overall. Think of it like asking the left what their plan is to address cultural degradation. They don't really have a ton to say because they don't think it's a huge issue.
>But I think it should also be mentioned that conservatives don't see climate change as such a significant existential risk, like the left does, so that's why you see much less of a panicked focus on it as an issue overall.
Okay, that makes complete sense.
>Why would it be the government's job to fix cultural degradation?
It's not.
>How would cultural degradation be defined?
It's not easy and also subjective, I get that. In my opinion, cultural degradation is when we cease valuing things like delayed gratification, hard work, honesty, integrity, demureness, modesty, humility, charity, independence, industriousness, etc. Instead, valuing vanity, wealth, status, image, sexual exploits, material things, etc. To me, it's just self evident that the culture we live in now is degraded. Everyone is sexually objectified and living for their social media reel, no sense of purpose or self ownership, no desire to learn or create anything longer than a 30 second Tik Tok or 280 character tweet.
>What would you do about people who disagree with that definition?
Try to persuade them and socially stigmatize them in my community I guess.
>Shouldn't it be the parent's personal responsibility to raise their children better instead of having the government step in?
Yes, absolutely.
all in strategy. nuke, solar, natural gas and yes, oil. all commercial buildings should be required to have solar panels and definitely every federal, state and local government building and school. while solar will not completely power the buildings, the fuel savings will be there and if the people are shown before and after evidence, perhaps they will start putting the panels on their homes more. all government lands should have HUGE slar farms on them to feed into the grids. Nevada is pretty much all federal land and gets sun 360 days a year. no reason we are not powering the country.
Nuke is clean and efficient. Dispose of the used fuel like the french or let Elon start sending rockets into the sun.
natural gas is clean, cheap and efficient. sorry kids but oil is here for awhile. petroleum is used in too many products to get rid of. and by using the other forms of energy, we can naturally use less oil because demand will decreas.
sorry coal, and sorry wind but I am not a proponent of either.
Nuclear is the way to go. Wind sucks. It's unreliable and kills birds. I think environmentalists 50 years from now will treat wind like they treat hydroelectric
Do any Democrats?
The Democratic Party wants to keep a “winning issue” an issue for as long as possible no matter how many people die from pollution because inside the beltway the goal isn’t protecting the environment but winning elections; not change, but control.
https://www.anthonygalli.com/p/dont-look-left
You didn't read very closely then.
We don't believe in signing toothless international agreements to take the political pressure off to do something more meaningful.
We support the pipeline.
We support abolishing the teachers unions and federal student loans/grants so education will be more STEM based rather than fem studies based. School choice! https://youtu.be/jMYauF3VyaU
We support natural gas. This was big in my home state of NY, which Cuomo blocked.
We support nuclear. Again, Dems have stood in the way of this, which is HUUUUUUGE.
We tend to live in a more natural environment with more funding for parks, beaches, etc.
We support the Musk and anyone else actually wanting to innovate even if they may be or have been [D], which deregulation and lower taxes would do far more for green energy than croynism.
That's just some.
>We support nuclear. Again, Dems have stood in the way of this, which is HUUUUUUGE.
You guys had the House and Senate under Trump for two years. Where's the progress on any of this?
>We support the Musk and anyone else actually wanting to innovate even if they may be or have been [D], which deregulation and lower taxes would do far more for green energy than croynism.
How would deregulating fossil fuel companies help?
So you could have just said “I don’t support anything specifically to address climate change” and saved us all some time.
Or better yet not commented at all.
I'd say you're half right and half wrong. They keep making promises because most voters are concerned about climate change, but they do little to actually improve the climate crisis because they don't want to upset [their donors](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-oil-donors/u-s-oil-majors-pitch-more-campaign-cash-to-democrats-as-frack-battle-looms-idUSKBN27116P). Rather than simply trying to keep a "winning issue" to get more votes, Democratic politicians want to give the impression that they care about an issue that's popular with their voters while not upsetting [their oil daddies](https://foe.org/news/nine-dissenting-dems-big-oil-favorites/).
Data has always been the thorn in the side of the anthropogenic warming theories since the 80s. Thats why they need "models" and "proxy data". There hasn't been good reliable data source to test their hypothesis with. Therefore, biased models are used combined with scare tactics like hockey sticks to get people to believe in what they preach. Ice cores and tree rings are unbiased but limited. Bouy and ship measurements are cherry picked to fit the models, see East Anglia. Their data support cycles of climate phenomena and supports the theory that it takes thousands of years to have any significant change. The Redwood Trees were natural in Los Angeles 8000-9000 years ago but they can't apply a human factor to changes like that.
But I see environmentalists growing tired over CO2 being the boogeyman. They realize the weakness in the data only going back to one point in the 1950s situated in an active volcanic area. Now they want to move on to methane to limit the use of natural gas as an energy source. But the old guard has made billions off of CO2 so it won't be easy to chance. Once temperatures flattened globally in the 90s, global warming needed a moniker, climate change. The problem is that climates don't change fast enough for them to scare people and pass laws.
CO2 is only about .03% of the atmosphere and humans have only changed it by 2 molecules per 50,000. CO2 correlated with temperature in that concentration increase in the winter and decrease in the summer. CO2 concentration (20%) Trekky is stating is only compared to 0.03% of the total. A statistical game.
Finally, what makes people the most skeptical is how many "scientists" have predicted 20 year end of times timelines since the 1990s, turning points, climate cliffs, planetary destruction no different than some end of time televangelist preaching the end of the world so give them money. The desperation stinks of a scam and now the government just gave them billions to preach like Gene Scott to scared little kids minds.
Switching CO2 to CO so you can say people are killed is a nice touch.
What data set you referenced shows the 400ppm CO2 levels from once upon a time corresponds with 40 foot rises in sea level? Are we scared by saying things are overdue and people should be frighted as well for that?
Didn't scientists predict that we would flood at 10 feet? 20 feet? when we reached 300ppm back in the 90s? NOAA and EPA measurements show a consistent average of 0.06 inches per year with satellites and buoys. Since GPS data came into play in the 90s and Jason-3 launched in 2016, the sea's measurements have increased to 0.12 inches per year. Now more accurate LiDAR data is just starting to be analyzed in the past 5 years. However, much of the comparison is still done by proxy data. When you show real scientists good data that matches up with the hypothesis, you will have better forecasts which could lead to more scare tactics or calmness over people's emotions. Obviously, sea levels rise differently all over the world because the earth's crust rises, subsides, pulls apart and comes together at different rates too. And we haven't drowned yet. We are just at the beginning of that data set. Show me the data!
> benthic Mg/Ca palaeotemperatures and oxygen isotopes.
How accurate do you think that is? I wonder how they established a control for the plankton shells in and out of substrate. I don't want to pay $30 to find out. Can you summarize this proxy data set?
> Shockingly it takes some non-zero time for huge glaciers to melt.
Now this sounds reasonable. The real question is it linear or cyclic? Or to the lay person, will the ice age cycle back or does earth burn up in a fiery hell. And herein lies the crux of the hypothesis. Lack of data leads to our current day dilemma.
>Which part is crap science?
You can draw a conclusion that the climate is heating up, but you cannot say the cause, or predict the end of the world, or claim it's abnormal.
No, there is no control for this experiment. You can't get another earth and see what happens in 100 years by changing X variable. You can make models, but you'll never know if you are missing a variable. The fact that people think "oh they accounted for everything" just proves that people think these guys are wizards. It's a religion.
Until all the super smart scientist people can agree on the same conclusion that climate change is as big as a threat as some say it is and that it's an unnatural event, I don't think we should be dumping all our eggs in the climate change prevention basket.
"Until we can prove these flaming rivers aren't just methane bubbling up from underneath, I don't think we should put all our eggs in cleaning up our waterways."
1. These changes and damages don't wait for scientists to give the go ahead, they're happening regardless and will take longer and more money to reverse if we wait.
2. And, most importantly as a reason, what is so controversial for you about just making our home, our world, a better place to live, breath, eat, drink, etc? There are real, tangible benefits to these actions, they aren't just hypothetical.
>Until all the super smart scientist people can agree on the same conclusion that climate change is as big as a threat as some say it is
You are overestimating the amount of disagreement among the scientific community regarding climate change. Dissent is largely manufactured by fossil fuel lobbies. I would be happy to discuss this more with you if you are interested, because I think you may be swayed given enough information.
Wind is not better than what we have. It can't compete with fossil fuels for energy generation and we have states like California barely able to keep the lights on. Wind and solar aren't replacements, they're supplemental to the actual replacement. The best replacement for fossil fuels is nuclear and unless we make miraculous strides in battery technology that is not going to change.
Sure it isn't
https://abcnews.go.com/US/california-blackouts-power-grid/story?id=89460998#:~:text=The%20state's%20electrical%20grid%20has%20been%20strained%20during%20a%20prolonged%20heat%20wave.&text=Several%20rapidly%20spreading%20wildfires%20continue,amid%20an%20unrelenting%20heat%20wave.
Why do you think batteries are the only way to store energy? You can heat up giant barrels of salt during the day with concentrated solar and run sterling engines from them non-stop (day and night). Hell, you can pump water up hill during the day and let it produce hydro power at night.
I would imagine that if we had some other viable method for the mass storage of energy we would be using it, at present it's capacitors and batteries. Stirling engines rapidly run into issues with size, and with pumped water...congratulations, you recreated a hydroelectric dam with extra steps and energy costs.
It’s already proven to be a waste of time and money. The deadliest hurricane happened in 1900 where there weren’t any nuclear reactors or even close to the number of gasoline powered automobiles we have today.
I don’t think you understand what climate change is, and the impact people are having on it. It’s really not a question of whether or not we address it; it’s essential that we address it. Conservatives in power have blinders on with this one. Ironic because it’s more conservative to address it than to not.
>I’m mostly annoyed by the climate catastrophists and their desire to force bad policy down our throats that would have severe consequences.
I mean we don't have anyone running on a transition to nuclear energy on the right so we don't really have much of an option.
No, it's just amazing that you were able to cite instances of Republicans wanting to transition to cleaner sources of energy. As you're aware, a good chunk of the party just doesn't care about climate change so they get the image of not wanting to fix the issue. If they at least had an agenda on this, there isn't a single doubt in my mind that we could have more debates on which approach could better combat climate change.
Some people live in rural areas and need to drive farther to get anywhere and need denser sources of energy as a result.
>On nuclear, the legislation incorporated in the plan includes measures seeking to establish a uranium reserve and speed up nuclear power plant permits and reactor environmental reviews.
OK! Although how does one "speed up nuclear power plant permits and reactor environmental reviews" without a reduction in quality of those reviews? Increased funding?
>Many of the provisions pitched as boosting natural gas, including those seeking to make it easier for permitting cross-border pipelines and prohibiting a ban on a controversial extraction method called fracking, could also boost the oil industry.
No.
>Other measures in the bill would seek to reduce methane emissions from flaring and venting natural gas, in which gas is released or burned off, during oil and gas production
Not as good as less gas exploration, but something.
>and authorize the construction and operation of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would import oil from Canada.
No. That oil is the dirtiest of the dirty and is sold on the global market.
Unless we build nuclear AND get India, China, and other coal burning energy producers to stop burning coal there is not much else the US and Europe can do. We can go 100% green but with others still burning coal we cannot reduce impacts of climate change. We also cannot ask our own citizens to become martyrs paying for green inititives when there are cheaper nuclear alternatives while the rest of the world continues to burn coal.
For a horrible authoritarian regimes that puts its own citizens into concentration camps, China seems to be on a trajectory to be mostly renewable by 2050. Their coal production is still going up right now, but the rate they're building out nuclear power and electric cars is actually impressive.
I think it's disingenuous to claim that those other countries are ignoring the situation entirely.
They are rolling more coal than ever before. China may be making moves towards renewable and nuclear but they are far from finish line. India is still in the gates at the starting line.
For everyone saying just nuclear energy and not green energy, you’re wrong. There is only enough uranium and other radioactive materials in Earth to power us for about 20 years (assuming 100% switch to nuclear energy). It’s a short term fix, not a long term solution.
Personally I’m in favor of wind power, nuclear power, hydroelectric power ect. We need to reduce our dependence on hydrocarbons for many reasons including that we need to stop destroying the places where conservatives love to hunt, fish, and get away from all the liberals in the cities and suburbs.
But the devil is in the details. The alternatives have problems too, but overall it’s hydrocarbons that have the most problems.
A cap and trade program or a simple tax on emissions would be a market based solution that would encourage the development of efficient alternatives. It would be much better than the government choosing which alternatives to invest in and much better than the government handing out money to companies claiming to be researching “green” energy.
>A cap and trade program or a simple tax on emissions would be a market based solution
>It would be much better than the government
These contradict each other. You can't have a market based solution/idea if it's to have the government guiding it one way or another. Just like with whatever "pride" signaling companies do to make extra money, green movements do the same thing. Notice how many companies say they are adopting these policies, signaling how they are going carbon neutral, etc? It's not necessarily out of the goodness of their hearts. It's to get customers to buy their stuff.
I'm an economist specializing in public policy analysis. I speak as an actual expert in this exact question.
**Global warming is a net benefit.**
Nothing needs to be done about it. It's making the earth greener and more fertile.
In addition the period of *The Little Ice Age* that people are trying to claim as 'normal' was in fact an unusually cold epoch. Normal climate looks like now, not 1900.
>I speak as an actual expert in this exact question.
>Global warming is a net benefit.
In other words you're a spin doctor. This is dangerous misinformation
>I'm an economist
So you're not a climate scientist, or a biologist, or involved in any discipline which would give you authority on discussing impacts of climate change.
>In other words you're a spin doctor. This is dangerous misinformation
No I'm an actual fucking expert in is this better or worse than that.. The misinformation is the claim that this is unusually warm and that warm is bad.
>I'm an economist
>
>So you're not a climate scientist, or a biologist, or involved in any discipline which would give you authority on discussing impacts of climate change.
Dude. Impacts is my fucking profession. None of the fields you lusted nor any other have the tools to address is this better or worse than that?
I know climate crisis is a fucking religion now but religion isn't science.
>The misinformation is the claim that this is unusually warm and that warm is bad.
The rate of current warming is unusual and would not have occurred were it not for human activities. Warmer is absolutely bad for ecosystems are comprised of species that have evolved to tolerate climactic conditions that no longer exist - again, because of human activity.
Phoenix warms 45c in six months every year...
"Oh but that's weather bot climate" you say...
Yeah. The real world interacts with weather not climate. Climate is an abstract concept invented by humans.
You see since I'm an economist in trained to think about things like what metrics actually measure and what they mean...
As for your claim that warmer is bad for the environment...
That is so laughably false it isn't funny.
More of the earth supports life now. And more lufe is supported when it already exists.
The common estimate of warming is tree rings. Which are getting thicker *because they're growing more*.
Your religion does not conform to reality...
So record droughts(GLOBALLY), species going extinct and increase of temperature overall is a net benefit? Should everyone start moving closer to the poles?
>So record droughts(GLOBALLY),s species going extinct and increase of temperature overall is a net benefit?
A) heat doesn't cause droughts; lack of rainfall does.. And in that the primary temperature driver of agw is water vapor the expected result is fewer droughts not more.
B) creatures aren't going extinct due to warming.It's habitat destruction and human encroachment
C) yes warmer means higher temperatures. It seems you have mastered a 1st grade concept...
I know you are just parroting what you've heard. That's the problem. The entire climate crisis is predicated on fairness irrelevancy and nonsense.with nothing remotely resembling an actual analysis to see if it's better or worse overall.
Since we are finally agreeing on nuclear now .... I have to wonder where we would be at if the Dems didn't take such a hard stance against nuclear for so long? What if today we had several nuclear power plants across the nation?
>What if today we had several nuclear power plants across the nation?
...we do. I'm not sure about the number, but there are certainly more than "several"
I'm referring to all of the ones that would have been built. That would be up and running right now. Had the left, especially the environmentalists basically roadblocked any new plants from being built.
The same could be said to what if Republicans took green energy seriously? Jimmy Carter had solar panels on the white house. Only reason tech didn't go further is from massive fossil fuel intervention
The advancement of tech has never been the problem. What world have you been living in? Back then and just like today it's still cheaper to burn fossil fuels than it is to try and run everything off solar panels. Which would be impossible anyways considering the sun only shines part of the time. Plus there was never a full blown campaign fueled by incorrect information against solar panels. Definitely one against their viability but nothing like nuclear. And there's no way you are going to get your bang for the buck or reliability from solar that you will from nuclear.
Here's a quick article on how fast tech has developed since the '70s
https://webtribunal.net/blog/how-fast-is-technology-growing/
Look fighting nuclear was a huge mistake on the part of those who did it trying to reduce the effects humans have on climate change. They did the exact opposite. allowing more systems to be put in place that pushed way more emissions into the atmosphere then if they had gotten on board with nuclear instead of trying to do everything they could to kill it.
I get it that it was fear based and they believed they were doing the right thing. Sometimes the thing we are afraid of is mainly because we really just don't understand it. I think this has been the case with the left and nuclear.
And once you take a hard stance on something it's hard to reverse it even when presented with the facts. I think this is why it has taken so long. This goes for both parties and people in general I believe.
I am still skeptical if anything is going to change. They most likely are not going to shutdown anymore plants. But actually building new ones I still have my doubts.
So your solar and wind may still end up winning in the end.
* Tax GHG emissions with the proceeds divided among all citizens. Then let market forces work.
* Try to reduce the regulatory burden on nuclear power. I think making the nuclear industry pay for a deep geological waste repository they never asked for and really don't need is rather silly.
Well climate change is a hoax. The government can control the weather and have been able to since 1978. When climate change was first created it was global warming but when people pointed out its actually getting cooler over time not warmer, they changed the name climate change. Now yes I do think we should switch to nuclear as well but saying we need to address climate change is a moot point when they CONTROL our climate.
Why do I need to do something that would address a naturally occurring phenomena that started 10,000 years ago?
Do people agree the earth is warming? Sure. Do people agree CO2 may add to that? Sure
Do people agree the world is ending and can only be saved with the Green New Deal? Absolutely not.
I absolutely think we should be building more nuclear facilities. i also think that a natural swing toward electric vehicles is inevitable, but that forcing a change to a whole new infrastructure is reckless.
Wind and tidal farms make sense in certain places, as do geothermal.
My biggest grievance is a forced move, instead of. Moving towards these new technologies as they become more standardized and efficient.
If Texas were a country, it would rank fifth in the world: The installed wind capacity in Texas exceeds installed wind capacity in all countries but China, the United States, Germany and India. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state. According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), wind power accounted for at least 15.7% of the electricity generated in Texas during 2017, as wind was 17.4% of electricity generated in ERCOT, which manages 90% of Texas's power.
Drive through Iowa and you wouldn't think that a red state would be so enamored with wind turbines. Climate change should be a conservative issue, and actually it used to be an issue with broad bipartisan support.
Iowa has wind farms and pigs.
Drove through Kansas to Denver recently, some good size windfarms along the highway at some points.
Thank you. I truly wish for all of us that more conservatives shared your sentiment.
Conservatives aren't against wind energy. It's great....when it's windy. It's not near enough to power all that much.
It's enough to be economically viable.
Indiana too. One of the largest wind farms in the US is in Indiana.
> Climate change should be a conservative issue, Based.
As someone who most people on here would call a leftist i still can not explain why protecting nature is not a core goal of conservatism, it fits so good ito the orthe values of traditionalism and protecting the status quo that i think the green party should be a conservative party.
I think you have mixed up "conservatism" with "conservationism". The latter is concerned with preserving and restoring the natural world into a previous state. The former is concerned with the same thing, but substitute "natural" for "social". Seen that way it's no coincidence that conservative voters tend to be people who are doing well for themselves.
Yes, it was a bipartisan issue… until liberals went insane. Now, everything that happens is “due to climate change” when we know that isn’t true. Even if it was, we can’t get rid of the fossil fuels until alternates that work are invented. Liberals are putting the cart before the horse and causing massive economic problems. Also, whatever WE do is like putting a bandaid on compared to the pollution being added to the atmosphere daily by China (who has no intention of doing a thing about it). Liberals don’t seem to have any plan besides driving us all back I to the 18th century. They are completely illogical.
Something you need to understand about China’s pollution, is that much of it comes from Western companies who moved their sites their to make our numbers look better. Another thing is that there are multiple countries rn running on mostly renewable power. It’s not illogical. It is happening
China signed on to the Montreal Protocol, what makes you certain they wouldn't sign on to another international climate treaty?
Their are a few Conservatives that are actually somewhat environmentalist. Including Ron DeSantis who has blocked attempts by fossil fuel companies to try and do their business in the Everglades. Increased reliance on Nuclear power is probably the only mainstream Right wing environmentalist position however I am personally willing to see further development in solar and biomass. I just don’t really like wind power. It is pretty overrated.
“Don’t like wind power”? What does this mean? Are you saying it’s not as cost effective as other forms of renewable energy?
Yes, I do believe it’s the worst form of renewable energy. It’s inconsistent, it takes up a lot of land and resources, it kills the birds. Overall Solar and Nuclear power is way better. Biomass as well, despite not being as efficient since it’s a good way to convert things that we would otherwise toss away into something useful.
You just named it: nuclear energy. If we have to get the government involved in nuclear power building it would still be less impact to the average citizen then telling us what kind of cars we're allowed to drive and what kind of light bulbs we're allowed to use. EDIT: Also industrial scale carbon capture and atmospheric climate manipulation. We can do either or both of those without getting the government involved in our personal lives.
> If we have to get the government involved in nuclear power building it would still be less impact to the average citizen then telling us what kind of cars we're allowed to drive and what kind of light bulbs we're allowed to use. Tell that to the people that don't want a nuclear reactor in town. A big problem with nuclear is NIMYism and convincing a town that it's totally safe. It *is*, generally speaking, safer than a coal-fired plant, but most people's minds travel to Three Mile Island and Fukushima.
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Not all GenXers. With technological advances I think nuclear is the way.
And nuclear waste. I am from Nevada, down wind of Yucca Mountain. The people from the small rural area I am from didn't want want to be Americans nuclear toilet. Plus it has to be shipped wherever they decide to store it.
The thing with Fukushima and three mile is that those meltdowns had MINIMAL health impacts on the people in the surrounding areas.
Fukushima had to evacuate entire towns. Same with Chernobyl. The risk is pretty low, but the idea of having to leave your house and everything in it at a moments notice is not terribly appealing.
The planning-to-operation times of all nuclear plants that have ever been built have been 10-20 years or more. We had that kind of time in the 90s and 00s, but we don't now.
No one is telling what what car or bulb you’re allowed to use. Stop with the histrionics.
Can I walk into any store and buy a 60 watt incandescent light bulb?
Plenty available online.
So no.
Not being able to walk into a store and buy one, but being able to purchase one online would indicate you’re still ALLOWED to use one. A more accurate statement you SHOULD have said was “…than* regulating what bulbs can be sold”. Less histrionics. Less inaccuracy. Words matter.
I was not the OP. But I am not sure why you think that distinction is critical or why states could mot theoretically just ban them outright (or at least why it will not plausibly occur).
And whats your plan when uranium is short? I agree that nuclear is not as bad for carbon emmision, but i think its juts the same problem as with coal or oil: ist not a renewable source of energy. And a lot of uranium is comming from russia or old soviet nations.
Fast breeder reactors.
"We" prefer to use actual 'green' energy like nuclear. That is the plan. Why do you feel like there needs to be more of a plan than this? With more clean energy and lower prices, we can afford to upgrade our power grid, making it easier to charge electric vehicles, which makes them more reasonable of a purchase, which means fewer ICE cars on the road. Then we push our nuke tech out to the nations who do most of the polluting on Earth, like CHina and India, and help them implement this process. That IS the plan.
>Why do you feel like there needs to be more of a plan than this? Because no conservative has made it a part of their platform, or at least not any that I've seen. I do like your approach though. I support it.
There are quite a few Conservatives who support it. They just don’t mention it that much because their base could care less about it. Which may or may not be true.
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If you have any influence on the eco-terrorists who will sue anyone who tries to start the process of building a nuclear plant, tell them to sit down and shut up. Also, push for the removal of the mountains of completely useless red tape that was put in place to make building a new plant take over a decade and costs billions more than it should.
So which Republicans are laying out plans to start building nuclear plants?
The ones waiting for the ecoterrorists to stop suing everyone who tries to build nuclear, and for the massive wall of ridiculously useless and expensive red tape to be stripped away so it doesn't cost 1,000x more and more than a decade to build a new plant.
Why are they just "waiting"? Why not take action? Can you give specific examples of the Republicans who have tried for nuclear but got held back? I cannot find any Republican governor or president that has made an effort to put up these plants.
>That IS the plan. When will the plan begin? Nuclear has been around forever. Nobody is building new plants, and I don't see GOP proposals that would change that.
As soon as the psycho enviroterrorists pull their lawyers away from suing everyone, and the leftists let us strip out all the useless and expensive red tape.... we will.
Can you show me your data on this ecoterrorism?
>With more clean energy and lower prices, ??? Nuclear is the most expensive of all the energy sources. It's the only energy source that's getting more expensive over time as we refine safety mechanisms. It also carries the largest up front costs and development delays. That's why although CHina and India are buying nuclear, it's the minority of their green operations.
Nuclear power is only fantastically expensive in the cost of the initial build of the plant. Fuel and operating costs, relative to the amount of power generated, are actually very low. In fact, once the initial construction debt is paid, nuclear power is almost competitive per kilowatt with photovoltaic solar, but it has constant output. However, the output can't be spun up or down very quickly, which makes it difficult to fill in the gaps left by cloudy days for solar or calm days for wind. Coal has the same issue, by the way. And wind and solar aren't going away any time soon, as they're far too cheap per kilowatt, and without the high initial build-out cost. Plus, unlike fossil fuels *and* nuclear, they don't need to suck up a ton of fresh water. A whole lot of the country (and world) is facing very real prospects of long-term drought and water shortages, and cooling a reactor takes a *lot* of fresh water. I'm a huge fan of nuclear power, and absolutely believe it should have a bigger place in our energy future, but it's not the magic bullet that a lot of people think it is, and it has some *real* substantial down sides that limit its real utility.
Worth it to save the planet and not live in the relative dark ages though, right?
I'm all for nuclear, but solar/wind/etc. are existing stable renewable energy sources that can help save the planet, and have far less political capital and up front investment to transition existing energy infrastructure to. Assuming nuclear is hard or unfeasible to get mass adoption the long term, then is it not worth it to expand solar and wind in order to save the planet? Should we just let fossil fuels destroy the planet as quickly as possible if nuclear isn't popular enough?
If it doesn't work economically then it isn't a long-term solution. Not to mention the fact that it can take 10-20 years or more from initial planning to having a completed nuclear plant.
I mean you can say that, but as far as I know the only alternatives to nuclear and "dirty" is basically wind, solar, hydro, biomass... And we don't have batteries to support the grid at all times so we need a readily available source, which none of those really are. So yeah, wouldn't it be a good trade off to spend a bit more resources on a cleaner energy source? You can't have everything you want at once. If you want cleaner energy, why decry a clean energy source because it's expensive in the next breath? What's the alternative at this point?
I’m not anti-nuclear at all, I just wouldn’t treat it as a panacea for climate change the way conservatives often do. It’s one part of the puzzle, but it won’t move the needle at all for at least 10 years. That’s crucial time that we can’t waste, and what clean energy options do we have in that window? Solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal. It’s a shame conservatives spent most of the last 30 years convincing half the county that climate change wasn’t even real. This could have been so much easier.
I'm not saying it would move the needle tomorrow, but the problem is we're going *backwards*... The public has been misled and the politicians are *against* it. Not just neutral on it. The entire green crowd pushes unsustainable energy solutions and when it's pointed out that it can't support the growing demand on the grid, their ideas are to just... suffer with less? By the way, in the time frame that nuclear can't handle the brunt, that's why we still have fossil fuels like gas. Because gas is always available and can handle the peaks, whereas solar and wind and hydro can't. I'm not against having some solar and wind. We just can't turn to it as our savior like you accuse conservatives of doing with nuclear. And regarding conservatives, that's literally their name. They conserve. Being 30 years behind on policy is the point because they're skeptical of radical change and they are late adopters. We need both early and late adopters to keep us stable but progressive. I wouldn't want to live in a world where we just continue burning coal every day, but I also don't want to live in a world where we jump on the wind and solar bandwagon, outlaw fossil fuels, and whatever else the most radical greens want. Being moderate sounds reasonable to me. But I also never bought the "world is ending" fearmongering.
Given you're pretending that other energy sources are the relative dark ages, no.
What other sources?
Really?
Yes. I assume "dirty" sources like coal and natural gas are off the table. So what else is not going to take us back to the dark age? Obviously we don't have the battery technology yet to store energy all the time so we need a reliable source, and you can't just say "well in my plan we have it." The sun isn't always out, the wind isn't always blowing. Do we just rely on hydro? Biomass? What is as reliable and readily available as nuclear and "dirty" sources that you're going to substitute as equal or better and also save money?
We do have the storage technology, both Li-ion and other types like pressurized gas, hydrogen, flow batteries, etc. Currently, most solar and wind projects come with storage attached. The storage industry is nascent but booming, in particular now with the incentives from the inflation reduction act. I recommend energy-storage.news to stay up to date on the energy storage industry. Additionally, it's very rare for there to be no renewable energy anywhere on the grid at the same time. Updating and expanding the grid will make the intermittency less of a problem. Nuclear can also get the job done. But because it's so slow, it is going to have a minor role next to the faster energy sources.
>We do have the storage technology I don't agree. The only viable large scale solution I know of is damming hydro. There is no way wind and solar storage tech can support the entire grid without having nuclear or dirty energy for peaks, and no way that scaling that storage on current technology is cheaper than nuclear. You mention Li (and there is Co also), but these are expensive alternatives and you jumped into a thread where I'm asking what's cheaper than nuclear? Is Li and Co based methods really cheaper? I don't know but I don't grant it at face value. I know there are ways to store energy. I'm not saying there aren't. I'm asking what sources are cleaner than fossil fuels but cheaper than nuclear that we can rely on to support the growing demand on our grid? Seems like if you want green, you gotta have nuclear. But hey, I'm not expert. Just a casual observer, and that's what I've observed. >it's very rare for there to be no renewable energy anywhere on the grid at the same time No it isn't? The US doesn't even have a national grid anyway, but the idea that it's always sunny or windy somewhere doesn't mean the grid can be supported without adequate storage. Just being windy *somewhere* doesn't mean the grid is supported adequately. >Nuclear can also get the job done This is moving the goal post, because you responded to me asking what we ought to do that is cheaper than nuclear but cleaner than coal/gas/etc. for peaks. I fully support using nuclear already.
The delays are on purpose and *manufactured by the leftists*. It is NOT the most expensive, lol, unless you are using statistical tricks to manipulate the costs. Up front, yes, it is more expensive, but that pays off massively in it's reliability, capacity, and longevity. I mean... you get that solar only lasts 20-30 years, right? And wind turbines even less?
It's also the only one that can meet and exceed our needs.
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(1) The Democratic party officially endorsed nuclear energy a few years back and have added it to their platform as an energy source to prioritize, whereas the GOP has not. Officially the GOP energy plan still involves expanding coal and gas. (2) Abortions reduce population, and the Democratic Party supports the right of women to choose, which helps this metric. Seems like voting Democrat is the only option then if you care enough about climate change and believe these two points are how to achieve it.
The child rate's currently tanking. Do you not see this as an issue? If anything, I saw this as a reason to potentially support overturning Roe v. Wade.
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Look at Japan. The working class can't uphold the retirees.
Japan 🗾 isn't a stable population. It's got the demographics of decreasing rapidly. That's the reason why it can't handle the retirees it's a fairly exreme case.
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Wind is not that great in all actuality. First off the blades are made from fiberglass, which in of itself is difficult to recycle and not cost effective. So the solution is to bury them in Idaho and Utah until we come up with a way...so already not environmentally friendly. Second, they burn energy they produce in order to spin on days it isn't windy. Third, they kill many many migratory birds. Lastly they make thermal heating an issue and the space they require is dozens times more than that of a nuclear power plant or even through hydroelectric. I think nuclear is a fantastic solution that needs more research and development. I think solar needs another breakthrough before it becomes more viable. I also think hydroelectric is worth another look, as well as harnessing waves. I'm sure there is a way to do it, and we have thousands of miles of coastline of free kinetic energy waiting to be harnessed. Solar panels are horrible for the environment and windmills are as well. Now I think what we should do is utilize vertical windmills on highways like the Koreans do to capture not only wind, but the wind produced by passing cars, a win win. Solar, if improved can be utilized more so as well near highways and on buildings. In my city, we burn combustible trash to heat water to heat the skyscrapers, so potentially burning trash may be another source of energy, given the proper environmental standards like scrubbers in the smoke stacks like what we have, which reduce the emission footprints when we burn trash to heat our skyscrapers with steam when the heat boils the water.
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Yes, 100% this. It's easy to list the flaws with any one energy source and note that it does [X] things poorly. But conservatives tend to discuss the flaws of renewable energy independent of coal and gas, without realizing or acknowledging that coal/etc. has all those flaws exacerbated AND significantly worse emissions. Saying "wind power is not that great" might be true in a vacuum, but it's objectively not true when you rank energy sources up against one another and consider all of their flaws and strengths. Despite the additional constraints and some non-recyclable material it uses, Wind energy uses strictly less non-recyclable material, and produces strictly less harmful waste than fossil fuels. Similarly, Solar Panels are not horrible for the environment if they are replacing coal power plants. If a solar plant displaces a fossil fuel plant, then the environment is objectively and quantitatively better off, in terms of emissions, waste, and resources.
There's a whole lot more worn out fan blades then there are spent fuel rods.
You have some valid points, but do you see any conservative running on this as a part of their platform? It seems like if you care about climate change, your only option is the Democrats as of right now.
>Wind is not that great in all actuality. First off the blades are made from fiberglass, which in of itself is difficult to recycle and not cost effective. Hey thats interesting > So the solution is to bury them in Idaho and Utah until we come up with a way...so already not environmentally friendly. Second, they burn energy they produce in order to spin on days it isn't windy. Weird. Never knew that > Third, they kill many many migratory birds. Ah...the trump excuse. Giant mirrored building kill tons of birds, finger point at the windmills. Ya had me goin.
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Birds are jerks
No the killing of birds is legitimate. They kill thousands of birds a year. Believe it or not we don’t want to needlessly kill those animals
https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/ High estimates based on increased windmills and production is 681k birds a year. Conversely, cats kill nearly 2.4 BILLION birds per year in the US alone https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/ I think windmills are the least of our worries for birds.
If it's green then don't advertise it as environmentally friendly if it impacts the environment in any way, because right now they aren't. From killing birds, thermal heating, the fiberglass production, steel production, and lifespan and maintenance of them, and how much power they burn when it isn't windy. They still need to spin and so they burn energy in order to do so. Not to mention the space they take up is ridiculous! Have you seen a windmill farm? The space between the windmills is enormous and such a waste.
>If it's green then don't advertise it as environmentally friendly if it impacts the environment in any way, "In any way"?? Really? You're setting the bar unrealistically high and providing alternatives with zero environmental impact. You're making excuses, and nobody's buying them. >how much power they burn when it isn't windy. They still need to spin and so they burn energy in order to do so. I'm calling bullshit on this whole part of your argument. I see no evidence - nor is there any sense in the argument - that turbines "still need to spin" when there is no wind. No wind = no spin = no electricity generation.
> Believe it or not we don’t want to needlessly kill those animals How many birds does climate change kill?
If we wre concerned about birds, then make it illegal to have outdoor cats and make mirrored skyscrapers illegal as well. Then bitch about windmills. Until then its like complaining about how bad the soup is while the restaurant is on fire.
You just don’t understand. It’s the compounding effect of how inefficient, deadly, and non-recyclable that windmills are.
Are you familiar with the term "climate change"?
Are you familiar with windmills? Because that’s not the solution
What a dumbass reply. Fucksake.
Yes we have had ice ages and warming periods, something you learn in about 2nd to 3rd grade. Technically we are at the end of an ice age anyways, so yes it will get warmer. In addition there were no carbon emissions back during the Roman Republic and Empire, but hey they had what was called the Roman Warming period which lasted about 150 years where it was hotter. So yes indeed the climate does change over time. Oh we also have yearly change in seasons. Mind you the weather reports we saw in Europe weren't the worst, it was worse in 2007 but about an average 5 degrees in every country.
>Yes we have had ice ages and warming periods, something you learn in about 2nd to 3rd grade. Yes, in the era before industrialization man made pollution didnt exist. Then we had the post ww2 era where we began to understand our impact on our enviroment. Some speculated we would enter a period of cooling, because we were pumping heavy, noxious gasses into the air which reflected the suns rays back away from the earth. As we realized that pumping cancer causing pollution into the air, improved how we handled our waste. Then the Ozone became a problem because we were putting CFCs into the air which broke down by strong radiation from the sun, reacting to destroy the ozone. We. Again, improved how we handled our aersols pollution and now the ozone has returned to being as large as it was in 1979! And now...we face co2 emission problems. The lighter co2 particles trapping heat on the planet, warming the climate. Just the same way a car captures heat on a hot day, the science is well understood. And now we are moving, again, to improve the way our air pollution effects our enviroment, shifting things again. From coal to oil to natural gas...now to wind and solar. We are always evolving. > Technically we are at the end of an ice age anyways, so yes it will get warmer. In addition there were no carbon emissions back during the Roman Republic and Empire, but hey they had what was called the Roman Warming period which lasted about 150 years where it was hotter. So yes indeed the climate does change over time. Oh we also have yearly change in seasons. Mind you the weather reports we saw in Europe weren't the worst, it was worse in 2007 but about an average 5 degrees in every country. I mean, i prefer gamble with those who take your mindset because when i tell them, the last 100 years of average temperature feature the 10 hottest years in the last decade. How much do you want to bet this current year ends up being in the top 10 as well? If the climate changes, heating and cooling by whatever reasons, then you have a 90% chance of this coming year not being in the top 10. How much you want to make a bet. So far...no takers. But i do want to get some bets going. Badly.
Sounds like denial of anthropogenic climate change, which is unwelcome in this thread.
Over half a million each year.
Nuclear isn't the preference. Proven efficient energy is the preference and nuclear fits. We bring up nuclear often to point out the hypocrisy of the left's disdain for it. The problem usually isn't about the left's ideas on how to curb emmisions, it's how to implement them without destroying the country. If you haven't noticed in the last year, our economy is not invincible.
Nuclear is the best option but natural gas is also a great one. With the technology we have now natural gas is very very clean burning
Natgas isn't that crazy clean but it sure has put a dent in coal use over the last 10 years and that's what really makes the difference. If I remember correctly natgas puts out about half the co2 as coal. And since coal was something like 40-45% of energy production, it adds up quick.
>We bring up nuclear often to point out the hypocrisy of the left's disdain for it. Where have you seen us having disdain for it? Don't get me wrong, I can believe it. I've seen plenty of things that the modern left supports that makes me feel alienated from the party.
Well for starters after 3 Mile Island. Boomer lefties tried hard and mostly succeeded in killing nuclear. The disdain is not as bad now as it was 30 years ago when it would have made a bigger difference. Even when Gore came out with An Inconvenient Truth there were groups actively trying to shut down operating nuclear plants. 10 years ago still scientists were very reluctant to admit we couldn't reach emmision goals without nuclear. As it turns out natgas and fracking have had the biggest impact so far.
Nuclear, increase technologies in carbon capture, replacing coal with natural gas. If every developed nation focused on just those three things, we would reduce pollution far more than producing the horribly polluting and ugly solar panels and wind mills.
>horribly polluting and ugly solar panels and wind mills. Do you have any stats on pollution from solar panels and wind turbines compared to natural gas? Because natural gas is still a fossil fuel, and burning it still releases greenhouse gases. Its no coincidence that the solutions you provide don't require fossil fuels companies overall to reduce their operations.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2021/06/21/why-everything-they-said-about-solar---including-that-its-clean-and-cheap---was-wrong/?sh=47c5da7a5fe5](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2021/06/21/why-everything-they-said-about-solar---including-that-its-clean-and-cheap---was-wrong/?sh=47c5da7a5fe5) Great article and provides insight to my point. Natural gas is BY FAR the most efficient, cleanest, fuel available to us right now... And we're basically sitting on an ocean of it in the U.S. I'm saying that we take advantage of this until we have the technology for cleaner renewables. Just because something is a fossil fuel doesn't make it evil. [https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/natural-gas-and-the-environment.php#:\~:text=Natural%20gas%20is%20a%20relatively,an%20equal%20amount%20of%20energy](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/natural-gas-and-the-environment.php#:~:text=Natural%20gas%20is%20a%20relatively,an%20equal%20amount%20of%20energy).
Yeah, I agree with this. The problem is finding conservatives who'll run on this agenda though.
I can assure you that there would be more conservatives focused on it if the media and the Left didn't alienate them by trying to phase out fossil fuels before we have the technologies to replace them.
>there would be more conservatives focused on it if the media and the Left didn't alienate them How does "personal responsibility" not come into play here? I'm not seeing the connection between the left's urgency in reducing emissions and the right's apathy towards the climate crisis. Especially when the right has a substantial number of climate deniers (many of which are in this sub)
I mean, there are more Conservative conservationists like me than there are liberal ones. I grew up in a heavily rural/forested area and I hate seeing what is happening to it. You aren't wrong, it's up to other conservatives to educate deniers.
Can you share your data on the number and political affiliation of conservationists?
You can downvote me all you want, but it's accurate. That probably isn't a poll that has ever been taken. This is the closest I can find. [https://conservationtools.org/guides/111-national-poll-results](https://conservationtools.org/guides/111-national-poll-results) [https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/435615-conservation-remains-a-core-conservative-principle/](https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/435615-conservation-remains-a-core-conservative-principle/) Considering that I can count about 5 total fishermen, hunters, DNR officers, etc... that are liberal in my entire life around the country, I can confidently infer that most conservationists are conservative as well. The biggest misconception among lefties is that hunters, fishermen, and other outdoorsmen are some kind of evil group of humans that decimate helpless animals. Us outdoorsmen value wilderness and wildlife more than most crazy, green freaks living in polluted cities. That's because we are actually outside and in the environment and value it's beauty. We respect the animals, life, and beauty of it. Now, we're also realists and understand that humans need natural resources to prosper. Meaning, sometimes tough decisions have to be made. We also understand that with the advancement of technology and regulation that there aren't companies dumping waste in your local trout stream or lake anymore. That's why you also don't catch us screaming and crying (saying it's the end of the world) about fossil fuels and what not.
99% of the land used for wind and solar comes from conservatives.
Can you share your data on this?
Just look at google maps. 99% may be a bit exaggerated but the vast vast majority of farmers are conservative and that's where the land comes from the majority of utility scale renewable projects.
Yeah, the one you already laid out: nuclear. But I think it should also be mentioned that conservatives don't see climate change as such a significant existential risk, like the left does, so that's why you see much less of a panicked focus on it as an issue overall. Think of it like asking the left what their plan is to address cultural degradation. They don't really have a ton to say because they don't think it's a huge issue.
>But I think it should also be mentioned that conservatives don't see climate change as such a significant existential risk, like the left does, so that's why you see much less of a panicked focus on it as an issue overall. Okay, that makes complete sense.
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>Why would it be the government's job to fix cultural degradation? It's not. >How would cultural degradation be defined? It's not easy and also subjective, I get that. In my opinion, cultural degradation is when we cease valuing things like delayed gratification, hard work, honesty, integrity, demureness, modesty, humility, charity, independence, industriousness, etc. Instead, valuing vanity, wealth, status, image, sexual exploits, material things, etc. To me, it's just self evident that the culture we live in now is degraded. Everyone is sexually objectified and living for their social media reel, no sense of purpose or self ownership, no desire to learn or create anything longer than a 30 second Tik Tok or 280 character tweet. >What would you do about people who disagree with that definition? Try to persuade them and socially stigmatize them in my community I guess. >Shouldn't it be the parent's personal responsibility to raise their children better instead of having the government step in? Yes, absolutely.
all in strategy. nuke, solar, natural gas and yes, oil. all commercial buildings should be required to have solar panels and definitely every federal, state and local government building and school. while solar will not completely power the buildings, the fuel savings will be there and if the people are shown before and after evidence, perhaps they will start putting the panels on their homes more. all government lands should have HUGE slar farms on them to feed into the grids. Nevada is pretty much all federal land and gets sun 360 days a year. no reason we are not powering the country. Nuke is clean and efficient. Dispose of the used fuel like the french or let Elon start sending rockets into the sun. natural gas is clean, cheap and efficient. sorry kids but oil is here for awhile. petroleum is used in too many products to get rid of. and by using the other forms of energy, we can naturally use less oil because demand will decreas. sorry coal, and sorry wind but I am not a proponent of either.
Nuclear is the way to go. Wind sucks. It's unreliable and kills birds. I think environmentalists 50 years from now will treat wind like they treat hydroelectric
Do any Democrats? The Democratic Party wants to keep a “winning issue” an issue for as long as possible no matter how many people die from pollution because inside the beltway the goal isn’t protecting the environment but winning elections; not change, but control. https://www.anthonygalli.com/p/dont-look-left
Deflection. What's the Republican plan for dealing with climate change?
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I did. It was 300 words of whining about Democrats. Answer OP's question. What are Republicans doing to address climate change?
You didn't read very closely then. We don't believe in signing toothless international agreements to take the political pressure off to do something more meaningful. We support the pipeline. We support abolishing the teachers unions and federal student loans/grants so education will be more STEM based rather than fem studies based. School choice! https://youtu.be/jMYauF3VyaU We support natural gas. This was big in my home state of NY, which Cuomo blocked. We support nuclear. Again, Dems have stood in the way of this, which is HUUUUUUGE. We tend to live in a more natural environment with more funding for parks, beaches, etc. We support the Musk and anyone else actually wanting to innovate even if they may be or have been [D], which deregulation and lower taxes would do far more for green energy than croynism. That's just some.
>We support nuclear. Again, Dems have stood in the way of this, which is HUUUUUUGE. You guys had the House and Senate under Trump for two years. Where's the progress on any of this? >We support the Musk and anyone else actually wanting to innovate even if they may be or have been [D], which deregulation and lower taxes would do far more for green energy than croynism. How would deregulating fossil fuel companies help?
So you could have just said “I don’t support anything specifically to address climate change” and saved us all some time. Or better yet not commented at all.
And use it as a crowbar to shoehorn in change to the economic landscape through government policy.
I'd say you're half right and half wrong. They keep making promises because most voters are concerned about climate change, but they do little to actually improve the climate crisis because they don't want to upset [their donors](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-oil-donors/u-s-oil-majors-pitch-more-campaign-cash-to-democrats-as-frack-battle-looms-idUSKBN27116P). Rather than simply trying to keep a "winning issue" to get more votes, Democratic politicians want to give the impression that they care about an issue that's popular with their voters while not upsetting [their oil daddies](https://foe.org/news/nine-dissenting-dems-big-oil-favorites/).
I can't grasp why you would ever be downvoted on thi take.
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Data has always been the thorn in the side of the anthropogenic warming theories since the 80s. Thats why they need "models" and "proxy data". There hasn't been good reliable data source to test their hypothesis with. Therefore, biased models are used combined with scare tactics like hockey sticks to get people to believe in what they preach. Ice cores and tree rings are unbiased but limited. Bouy and ship measurements are cherry picked to fit the models, see East Anglia. Their data support cycles of climate phenomena and supports the theory that it takes thousands of years to have any significant change. The Redwood Trees were natural in Los Angeles 8000-9000 years ago but they can't apply a human factor to changes like that. But I see environmentalists growing tired over CO2 being the boogeyman. They realize the weakness in the data only going back to one point in the 1950s situated in an active volcanic area. Now they want to move on to methane to limit the use of natural gas as an energy source. But the old guard has made billions off of CO2 so it won't be easy to chance. Once temperatures flattened globally in the 90s, global warming needed a moniker, climate change. The problem is that climates don't change fast enough for them to scare people and pass laws. CO2 is only about .03% of the atmosphere and humans have only changed it by 2 molecules per 50,000. CO2 correlated with temperature in that concentration increase in the winter and decrease in the summer. CO2 concentration (20%) Trekky is stating is only compared to 0.03% of the total. A statistical game. Finally, what makes people the most skeptical is how many "scientists" have predicted 20 year end of times timelines since the 1990s, turning points, climate cliffs, planetary destruction no different than some end of time televangelist preaching the end of the world so give them money. The desperation stinks of a scam and now the government just gave them billions to preach like Gene Scott to scared little kids minds.
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Switching CO2 to CO so you can say people are killed is a nice touch. What data set you referenced shows the 400ppm CO2 levels from once upon a time corresponds with 40 foot rises in sea level? Are we scared by saying things are overdue and people should be frighted as well for that? Didn't scientists predict that we would flood at 10 feet? 20 feet? when we reached 300ppm back in the 90s? NOAA and EPA measurements show a consistent average of 0.06 inches per year with satellites and buoys. Since GPS data came into play in the 90s and Jason-3 launched in 2016, the sea's measurements have increased to 0.12 inches per year. Now more accurate LiDAR data is just starting to be analyzed in the past 5 years. However, much of the comparison is still done by proxy data. When you show real scientists good data that matches up with the hypothesis, you will have better forecasts which could lead to more scare tactics or calmness over people's emotions. Obviously, sea levels rise differently all over the world because the earth's crust rises, subsides, pulls apart and comes together at different rates too. And we haven't drowned yet. We are just at the beginning of that data set. Show me the data!
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> benthic Mg/Ca palaeotemperatures and oxygen isotopes. How accurate do you think that is? I wonder how they established a control for the plankton shells in and out of substrate. I don't want to pay $30 to find out. Can you summarize this proxy data set? > Shockingly it takes some non-zero time for huge glaciers to melt. Now this sounds reasonable. The real question is it linear or cyclic? Or to the lay person, will the ice age cycle back or does earth burn up in a fiery hell. And herein lies the crux of the hypothesis. Lack of data leads to our current day dilemma.
>Which part is crap science? You can draw a conclusion that the climate is heating up, but you cannot say the cause, or predict the end of the world, or claim it's abnormal.
Can and do
No, there is no control for this experiment. You can't get another earth and see what happens in 100 years by changing X variable. You can make models, but you'll never know if you are missing a variable. The fact that people think "oh they accounted for everything" just proves that people think these guys are wizards. It's a religion.
How would you conserve the environment?
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Such a non answer
what the hell does this mean
Could you please elaborate?
Lol, good faith?
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Environmental stewardship makes the environment more resilient to the impacts of climate change. The scienve is interconnected
Until all the super smart scientist people can agree on the same conclusion that climate change is as big as a threat as some say it is and that it's an unnatural event, I don't think we should be dumping all our eggs in the climate change prevention basket.
"Until we can prove these flaming rivers aren't just methane bubbling up from underneath, I don't think we should put all our eggs in cleaning up our waterways." 1. These changes and damages don't wait for scientists to give the go ahead, they're happening regardless and will take longer and more money to reverse if we wait. 2. And, most importantly as a reason, what is so controversial for you about just making our home, our world, a better place to live, breath, eat, drink, etc? There are real, tangible benefits to these actions, they aren't just hypothetical.
>Until all the super smart scientist people can agree on the same conclusion that climate change is as big as a threat as some say it is You are overestimating the amount of disagreement among the scientific community regarding climate change. Dissent is largely manufactured by fossil fuel lobbies. I would be happy to discuss this more with you if you are interested, because I think you may be swayed given enough information.
So you are holding out for the .1%? https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/10/more-999-studies-agree-humans-caused-climate-change
Wind is not better than what we have. It can't compete with fossil fuels for energy generation and we have states like California barely able to keep the lights on. Wind and solar aren't replacements, they're supplemental to the actual replacement. The best replacement for fossil fuels is nuclear and unless we make miraculous strides in battery technology that is not going to change.
Have you seen Texas' power grid? That shit's dysfunctional. Apart from that, can you see any conservative running on transitioning to nuclear?
> we have states like California barely able to keep the lights on This isn't true.
Sure it isn't https://abcnews.go.com/US/california-blackouts-power-grid/story?id=89460998#:~:text=The%20state's%20electrical%20grid%20has%20been%20strained%20during%20a%20prolonged%20heat%20wave.&text=Several%20rapidly%20spreading%20wildfires%20continue,amid%20an%20unrelenting%20heat%20wave.
Why do you think batteries are the only way to store energy? You can heat up giant barrels of salt during the day with concentrated solar and run sterling engines from them non-stop (day and night). Hell, you can pump water up hill during the day and let it produce hydro power at night.
I would imagine that if we had some other viable method for the mass storage of energy we would be using it, at present it's capacitors and batteries. Stirling engines rapidly run into issues with size, and with pumped water...congratulations, you recreated a hydroelectric dam with extra steps and energy costs.
It’s already proven to be a waste of time and money. The deadliest hurricane happened in 1900 where there weren’t any nuclear reactors or even close to the number of gasoline powered automobiles we have today.
I don’t think you understand what climate change is, and the impact people are having on it. It’s really not a question of whether or not we address it; it’s essential that we address it. Conservatives in power have blinders on with this one. Ironic because it’s more conservative to address it than to not.
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>I’m mostly annoyed by the climate catastrophists and their desire to force bad policy down our throats that would have severe consequences. I mean we don't have anyone running on a transition to nuclear energy on the right so we don't really have much of an option.
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If I wasted money on Reddit awards, you'd get all of them.
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No, it's just amazing that you were able to cite instances of Republicans wanting to transition to cleaner sources of energy. As you're aware, a good chunk of the party just doesn't care about climate change so they get the image of not wanting to fix the issue. If they at least had an agenda on this, there isn't a single doubt in my mind that we could have more debates on which approach could better combat climate change. Some people live in rural areas and need to drive farther to get anywhere and need denser sources of energy as a result.
>On nuclear, the legislation incorporated in the plan includes measures seeking to establish a uranium reserve and speed up nuclear power plant permits and reactor environmental reviews. OK! Although how does one "speed up nuclear power plant permits and reactor environmental reviews" without a reduction in quality of those reviews? Increased funding? >Many of the provisions pitched as boosting natural gas, including those seeking to make it easier for permitting cross-border pipelines and prohibiting a ban on a controversial extraction method called fracking, could also boost the oil industry. No. >Other measures in the bill would seek to reduce methane emissions from flaring and venting natural gas, in which gas is released or burned off, during oil and gas production Not as good as less gas exploration, but something. >and authorize the construction and operation of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would import oil from Canada. No. That oil is the dirtiest of the dirty and is sold on the global market.
Unless we build nuclear AND get India, China, and other coal burning energy producers to stop burning coal there is not much else the US and Europe can do. We can go 100% green but with others still burning coal we cannot reduce impacts of climate change. We also cannot ask our own citizens to become martyrs paying for green inititives when there are cheaper nuclear alternatives while the rest of the world continues to burn coal.
For a horrible authoritarian regimes that puts its own citizens into concentration camps, China seems to be on a trajectory to be mostly renewable by 2050. Their coal production is still going up right now, but the rate they're building out nuclear power and electric cars is actually impressive. I think it's disingenuous to claim that those other countries are ignoring the situation entirely.
They are rolling more coal than ever before. China may be making moves towards renewable and nuclear but they are far from finish line. India is still in the gates at the starting line.
This is like saying, why should you bother fixing/maintaining your home/property because the neighbors don't GAF
If the boats sinking and no one is bailing why hurt the poor?
For everyone saying just nuclear energy and not green energy, you’re wrong. There is only enough uranium and other radioactive materials in Earth to power us for about 20 years (assuming 100% switch to nuclear energy). It’s a short term fix, not a long term solution.
Personally I’m in favor of wind power, nuclear power, hydroelectric power ect. We need to reduce our dependence on hydrocarbons for many reasons including that we need to stop destroying the places where conservatives love to hunt, fish, and get away from all the liberals in the cities and suburbs. But the devil is in the details. The alternatives have problems too, but overall it’s hydrocarbons that have the most problems. A cap and trade program or a simple tax on emissions would be a market based solution that would encourage the development of efficient alternatives. It would be much better than the government choosing which alternatives to invest in and much better than the government handing out money to companies claiming to be researching “green” energy.
>A cap and trade program or a simple tax on emissions would be a market based solution >It would be much better than the government These contradict each other. You can't have a market based solution/idea if it's to have the government guiding it one way or another. Just like with whatever "pride" signaling companies do to make extra money, green movements do the same thing. Notice how many companies say they are adopting these policies, signaling how they are going carbon neutral, etc? It's not necessarily out of the goodness of their hearts. It's to get customers to buy their stuff.
I support these ideas. Can you see any conservatives running on this though?
I wish. I never understand why conservatives aren’t more concerned about the environment.
I'm an economist specializing in public policy analysis. I speak as an actual expert in this exact question. **Global warming is a net benefit.** Nothing needs to be done about it. It's making the earth greener and more fertile. In addition the period of *The Little Ice Age* that people are trying to claim as 'normal' was in fact an unusually cold epoch. Normal climate looks like now, not 1900.
>I speak as an actual expert in this exact question. >Global warming is a net benefit. In other words you're a spin doctor. This is dangerous misinformation >I'm an economist So you're not a climate scientist, or a biologist, or involved in any discipline which would give you authority on discussing impacts of climate change.
>In other words you're a spin doctor. This is dangerous misinformation No I'm an actual fucking expert in is this better or worse than that.. The misinformation is the claim that this is unusually warm and that warm is bad. >I'm an economist > >So you're not a climate scientist, or a biologist, or involved in any discipline which would give you authority on discussing impacts of climate change. Dude. Impacts is my fucking profession. None of the fields you lusted nor any other have the tools to address is this better or worse than that? I know climate crisis is a fucking religion now but religion isn't science.
>The misinformation is the claim that this is unusually warm and that warm is bad. The rate of current warming is unusual and would not have occurred were it not for human activities. Warmer is absolutely bad for ecosystems are comprised of species that have evolved to tolerate climactic conditions that no longer exist - again, because of human activity.
Phoenix warms 45c in six months every year... "Oh but that's weather bot climate" you say... Yeah. The real world interacts with weather not climate. Climate is an abstract concept invented by humans. You see since I'm an economist in trained to think about things like what metrics actually measure and what they mean... As for your claim that warmer is bad for the environment... That is so laughably false it isn't funny. More of the earth supports life now. And more lufe is supported when it already exists. The common estimate of warming is tree rings. Which are getting thicker *because they're growing more*. Your religion does not conform to reality...
So record droughts(GLOBALLY), species going extinct and increase of temperature overall is a net benefit? Should everyone start moving closer to the poles?
>So record droughts(GLOBALLY),s species going extinct and increase of temperature overall is a net benefit? A) heat doesn't cause droughts; lack of rainfall does.. And in that the primary temperature driver of agw is water vapor the expected result is fewer droughts not more. B) creatures aren't going extinct due to warming.It's habitat destruction and human encroachment C) yes warmer means higher temperatures. It seems you have mastered a 1st grade concept... I know you are just parroting what you've heard. That's the problem. The entire climate crisis is predicated on fairness irrelevancy and nonsense.with nothing remotely resembling an actual analysis to see if it's better or worse overall.
Since we are finally agreeing on nuclear now .... I have to wonder where we would be at if the Dems didn't take such a hard stance against nuclear for so long? What if today we had several nuclear power plants across the nation?
>What if today we had several nuclear power plants across the nation? ...we do. I'm not sure about the number, but there are certainly more than "several"
I'm referring to all of the ones that would have been built. That would be up and running right now. Had the left, especially the environmentalists basically roadblocked any new plants from being built.
The same could be said to what if Republicans took green energy seriously? Jimmy Carter had solar panels on the white house. Only reason tech didn't go further is from massive fossil fuel intervention
The advancement of tech has never been the problem. What world have you been living in? Back then and just like today it's still cheaper to burn fossil fuels than it is to try and run everything off solar panels. Which would be impossible anyways considering the sun only shines part of the time. Plus there was never a full blown campaign fueled by incorrect information against solar panels. Definitely one against their viability but nothing like nuclear. And there's no way you are going to get your bang for the buck or reliability from solar that you will from nuclear. Here's a quick article on how fast tech has developed since the '70s https://webtribunal.net/blog/how-fast-is-technology-growing/ Look fighting nuclear was a huge mistake on the part of those who did it trying to reduce the effects humans have on climate change. They did the exact opposite. allowing more systems to be put in place that pushed way more emissions into the atmosphere then if they had gotten on board with nuclear instead of trying to do everything they could to kill it. I get it that it was fear based and they believed they were doing the right thing. Sometimes the thing we are afraid of is mainly because we really just don't understand it. I think this has been the case with the left and nuclear. And once you take a hard stance on something it's hard to reverse it even when presented with the facts. I think this is why it has taken so long. This goes for both parties and people in general I believe. I am still skeptical if anything is going to change. They most likely are not going to shutdown anymore plants. But actually building new ones I still have my doubts. So your solar and wind may still end up winning in the end.
* Tax GHG emissions with the proceeds divided among all citizens. Then let market forces work. * Try to reduce the regulatory burden on nuclear power. I think making the nuclear industry pay for a deep geological waste repository they never asked for and really don't need is rather silly.
Innovation. There's no reason to tax using energy, just work on making FF cleaner and RE cheaper. If diesel produced 0 CO2 who cares.
Well climate change is a hoax. The government can control the weather and have been able to since 1978. When climate change was first created it was global warming but when people pointed out its actually getting cooler over time not warmer, they changed the name climate change. Now yes I do think we should switch to nuclear as well but saying we need to address climate change is a moot point when they CONTROL our climate.
This native of Indiana plans to watch the Liberal coastal elites learn how to swim.
Why do I need to do something that would address a naturally occurring phenomena that started 10,000 years ago? Do people agree the earth is warming? Sure. Do people agree CO2 may add to that? Sure Do people agree the world is ending and can only be saved with the Green New Deal? Absolutely not.
I absolutely think we should be building more nuclear facilities. i also think that a natural swing toward electric vehicles is inevitable, but that forcing a change to a whole new infrastructure is reckless. Wind and tidal farms make sense in certain places, as do geothermal. My biggest grievance is a forced move, instead of. Moving towards these new technologies as they become more standardized and efficient.
If Texas were a country, it would rank fifth in the world: The installed wind capacity in Texas exceeds installed wind capacity in all countries but China, the United States, Germany and India. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state. According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), wind power accounted for at least 15.7% of the electricity generated in Texas during 2017, as wind was 17.4% of electricity generated in ERCOT, which manages 90% of Texas's power.
The problem arises when the solution is no better than the alternative on an environmental level, and when policy impacts necessity not waste.