As a Dane, let me just say, I'm fairly certain Donald Trump spells Des Moines with a th.
They sent 9500 troops to Afghanistan, you silly goose.
And no, I'm not talking about Des Moines, since that'd be half the population of Des Moines.
Des Moines has 200k people, you're off by an order of magnitude somewhere.
Okay, yes, math is hard. It's 5%. But ~0.5% of Americans serve in the armed forces, and not all of them are in Afghanistan, so maybe choose another country that starts with D that didn't send their citizens into harms' way to "protect" the people of Des Moines from the evil terrorists.
I'm not even a Dane. I guess I'll be back, even angrier about this when he says he cares about Kansas, not Canada, shortly after shitting over NATO again. :mad:
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Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
Plus there's still the ocean. Even if we can cope with the weather changes the pH of the ocean is changing as a result of the carbon and we're all gonna die if we don't do something about that.
phytoplankton produces like 60% of our oxygen. if that dies... I hope you got some perri-air stashed
Man, all the other threads are just fuckin around, this is the one to come to for that real existential dread.
The most frustrating part is it's a really "easy" fix compared to carbon capture. You just manufacture a shitload of lime and dump it in the ocean to make it more basic again.
Nobody's doing it yet even though it looks like the 6th Mass Extinction is on already.
That plan has some problems. To make that lime (calcium hydroxide) requires calcium oxide and water. Calcium oxide is produced from the thermal decomposition of calcium carbonate which produces calcium oxide and carbon dioxide. So the reaction itself generates CO2 which you'd have to be doing carbon capture on anyway for the plan to make sense, the energy required to heat all of it to 825 C would be around 2% of total worldwide energy output and from CO2 generating power plants (and where do you get all the fuel for that), the massive mining operations (about 75 times more than current worldwide production) to get that much limestone will be pumping out CO2, all the transportation to get it to the ocean will be pumping out CO2. And you'd be poisoning the area around the ocean dump sites.
Concentrated local carbon capture is much more of a solved problem than ambient carbon capture though; and any new atmospheric carbon you get an 8 year lead time before it makes its way into the ocean which gives you time to clean up where you're getting your energy from.
So Trump skipped his "Pittsburgh, not Paris" rally to... apparently go golfing. No, really.
According to a pool report, the president’s motorcade pulled up at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, NJ on Saturday morning. It’s unclear whether the president is playing golf, and the press pool said it would file another report when it gets more information about the president’s activities.
While Trump is at his golf club, the “Pittsburgh, not Paris” rally has kicked off with “dozens” of Trump supporters who gathered to express their support for Trump’s decision to pull out of the landmark Paris Agreement.
Did he actually organize it? Or did his staff or something?
...? I can't really imagine Trump having actually organized anything this century.
The stuff his staff does in his name is the shit he does. that's kinda how pretending to be a billionair works.
They moistly come out at night, moistly.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Did he actually organize it? Or did his staff or something?
...? I can't really imagine Trump having actually organized anything this century.
The stuff his staff does in his name is the shit he does. that's kinda how pretending to be a billionair works.
I should've been clearer - was this an official White House event, or put on by his campaign committee, or whatever? Like the larger rallies he put on early in his presidency seemed to have him hyping them. I dunno if this one did.
This shows why i shouldn't have gotten mad about the audacious "Pittsburgh not Paris" rally. Administration does something nasty but then it falls flat on its face and Trump doesn't even bother and just goes golfing.
So I'm starting to think we aren't in the darkest timeline at this point, since that would likely include a more competent, but shitty administration. Perhaps we should say we're trapped in the dumbest timeline.
I'm disappointed that McAuliffe has not come in favor of the state coalition. Sure his term ends little into the next year, but Virginia is already seeing the problems that are a result of climate change. Sure it would piss off some of his donors, but I'd argue not doing anything in favor of fighting climate change will be a political dead end. The democratic party isn't going nominate someone that stays silent on the matter in 2020. Plus, it would put the republicans on the spot, yet again. Also a bit surprised that there are so few Virginia city mayors signing on. Like I would expect Kenneth Cooper Alexander Mayor of Norfolk to be one of the first to sign on, the city has been seeing much more flooding in the last couple of years.
So I'm starting to think we aren't in the darkest timeline at this point, since that would likely include a more competent, but shitty administration. Perhaps we should say we're trapped in the dumbest timeline.
I'm disappointed that McAuliffe has not come in favor of the state coalition. Sure his term ends little into the next year, but Virginia is already seeing the problems that are a result of climate change. Sure it would piss off some of his donors, but I'd argue not doing anything in favor of fighting climate change will be a political dead end. The democratic party isn't going nominate someone that stays silent on the matter in 2020. Plus, it would put the republicans on the spot, yet again. Also a bit surprised that there are so few Virginia city mayors signing on. Like I would expect Kenneth Cooper Alexander Mayor of Norfolk to be one of the first to sign on, the city has been seeing much more flooding in the last couple of years.
Presumably, McAuliffe is giving room for the gubernatorial candidates.
Also having much schadenfreude seeing this article about how Trump's shitty victory has meant fuck all for the all the shitty fossil fuel companies. Some saw a brief spike in their stocks when he won, but they are all seeing their stocks decline. It's a dying industry and it doesn't look like a fucker like Trump is going to be able to reverse that. Hell, his little stunt might have just accelerated the rate that these shitty companies become irrelevant.
Yeah, the federal government trying to pull our of the accord is going to hurt short term, but if this spurs several states and local governments to give Trump and Republicans the bird. That is likely to accelerate the rate that green energy companies amass fortunes and revenue and increase their clout in local, state and Congressional elections. I don't think it'll be in time to be noticeable in 2018, but the effects might be felt in 2020. I'm also expecting to see a shit ton of law suits come out of certain states as their shitty Republican legislatures try to prevent localities from taking the initiative. I have a feeling this is a matter where the courts will tell the GOP to get fucked because most of it will probably fail when it's pointed out that most of the legislation doesn't have the public good in mind. Will also be amusing when they get kicked in the political balls because someone of gets demonstrated to fly in the face of federal laws that are designed to prevent anti-competitive practices.
I thought the downturn of fossil fuels was the result of China's economy getting fucked. I'll be pleased if green energy is really having that much of an impact though.
I thought the downturn of fossil fuels was the result of China's economy getting fucked. I'll be pleased if green energy is really having that much of an impact though.
Its green energy. Well comparatively green energy. Enormous amounts of cheap natural gas has simply made coal as obselete as charcoal before it as a fuel source. Other energy sources (cheap solar) have made a big impact too, it was unimaginable 10 years ago that the revolution in solar process we're seeing today would occur, alongside the battery storage to hold that power. 10-15 years ago anyone who said they wanted to save the planet but want advocating building nuclear plants was an insane optimist. Im very glad to see them proven right. Hell, it doesn't even look as if the rate of fall of solar prices is slowing down, so we might see it overtake natural gas and coal nationwide.
I thought the downturn of fossil fuels was the result of China's economy getting fucked. I'll be pleased if green energy is really having that much of an impact though.
I don't think there's enough data to be sure, but China may have passed peak coal. Their coal consumption has been decreasing while their energy consumption is increasing (which presumably negates economic growth effects). At an abstract level, this suggests that they're turning away from coal to other energy source.
Of course, it's not nearly that simple, and we don't have enough data to establish any sort of long-term trend.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I thought the downturn of fossil fuels was the result of China's economy getting fucked. I'll be pleased if green energy is really having that much of an impact though.
I don't think there's enough data to be sure, but China may have passed peak coal. Their coal consumption has been decreasing while their energy consumption is increasing (which presumably negates economic growth effects). At an abstract level, this suggests that they're turning away from coal to other energy source.
Of course, it's not nearly that simple, and we don't have enough data to establish any sort of long-term trend.
They are opening like 15 Nuclear Power plants in the next 3 years
From what I understood, China has gone all in with alternative non-fossil fuels (nuclear, solar, hydroelectric, wind and anything else they can make work). Add to all that energy efficiency technologies and it's not surprising that the fossil fuel industry is no longer benefiting much from China.
Changes in China are only one aspect in fortunes falling for the fossil fuel industry overall, I think natural gas is the only one that isn't getting massively hammered. Everyone else that has had any sense and hasn't completely lost the ability to look long term, has been investing the research to cut down on wasted energy and to make other forms of energy production more viable. It's little surprise that coal is the first to go because it's fucking awful at every metric (irradiates the surrounding more than nuclear). It's also very inflexible, you pretty much have a set output and well too fucking bad if that isn't the right amount. Other sources are more flexible. Natural gas is being propped up a little because it's a good complementary source with wind generation, if the wind farm isn't generating enough power for some reason, fire up the natural gas generator to pick up the slack and then shut it off when the wind turbines are able to keep pace with demand. I think we'd be further along with people weren't so shortsighted, probably could have hit some of the current tech earlier if people weren't so eager to write it off and I'm sure the fossil fuel industry had an hand in delaying some of it. Plus, we'd probably be in even better shape if people didn't have such a skewed outlook on nuclear. Nuclear is probably the best stop gap we have until we either figure out fission or get a combo of battery technology and renewable to really work for us.
Anyways, the media has been pretty quiet about just how strong a hand green energy has in the US. We already have areas where some of the alternative energy companies are a major employer. Plus, if we throw in energy efficiency focused companies, which probably aren't pleases with the Trump administration, that's another huge source of jobs. Supposedly, we have cases where local Republican office holders are at odds with the national ones because sucking off the fossil fuel industry at the expense of alternative energy is political suicide for them. Unfortunately, money plays an out sized role in US politics and the fossil fuel industry has amassed quite a bit of wealth, so we'll probably see a messy transition. Where that wealth allows short sighted owners of fossil fuel companies to continue to delay policies aimed at fighting climate change, long after their companies cease to be profitable.
About 50 Trump supporters showed up Saturday morning for a rally in front of the White House to support the president’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate accord.
I'm seeing 'thousands' for the overall March For Truth across all cities, but no count for DC specifically other than that they had to move somewhere with more space.
So this article is interesting for two reasons- one, for the lengths the administration is willing to lie to boost cosl, even from people who's job that isn't.
Pruitt overestimated the growth in coal jobs by 100 times. (500 ish real vs 50,000 ish claimed)
Second and a bit more heartening is the stats on the fall of coal use and production in the US. Lowest coal use since 1984.
(At least until they start fucking with those numbers too)
Granted a lot of that was replaced with natural gas so not ideal..
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MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Within three years every single Chinese coal plant will be more efficient than every single coal plant in the US and their coal consumption is declining without using natural gas as a crutch.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
With some levity, John Oliver provides a summary of what just happened with the Paris Agreement, where it came from, and how opposed almost everyone is to Trump on his decision. As always these episodes are NSFW for language's sake, I think this one is SFW regarding visuals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5scez5dqtAc
About 50 Trump supporters showed up Saturday morning for a rally in front of the White House to support the president’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate accord.
I'm seeing 'thousands' for the overall March For Truth across all cities, but no count for DC specifically other than that they had to move somewhere with more space.
I saw some Trump supporters on Twitter trying to turn the low turn-out around, claiming it was an anti-Trump rally. Nobody let them get away with it and the small bump it made in recognition had everything to do with the lame dishonest attempt.
The "debate" about the global environment keeps running through my head because I keep trying to make sense of it all. Not the pro side of it but the anti side.
The confluence of influential people supporting the anti side. The shift of many businesses from anti to neutral to now pro. The adherents treating what the influential people say as a sort of religious text. And all of it, all of it being very much pro-ignorance. It's that last part which I find the hardest to understand, the part which I can't wrap my mind around. I can understand that seeing the fuss and not caring. I can get about it not being a priority for some. I can even understand, to a certain extent, about being cautious about what approach is used to resolve. But I don't get the mindless side. The incuriosity and the fervent opposition to even understanding what's going on.
I hate the metaphor, but it seems too on point. It some ways this strikes me as knowledge being treated as a virus and that this particular kind of ignorance is being used, not as an antidote, but as an inoculation against understanding.
All opinions are my own and in no way reflect that of my employer.
The "debate" about the global environment keeps running through my head because I keep trying to make sense of it all. Not the pro side of it but the anti side.
The confluence of influential people supporting the anti side. The shift of many businesses from anti to neutral to now pro. The adherents treating what the influential people say as a sort of religious text. And all of it, all of it being very much pro-ignorance. It's that last part which I find the hardest to understand, the part which I can't wrap my mind around. I can understand that seeing the fuss and not caring. I can get about it not being a priority for some. I can even understand, to a certain extent, about being cautious about what approach is used to resolve. But I don't get the mindless side. The incuriosity and the fervent opposition to even understanding what's going on.
I hate the metaphor, but it seems too on point. It some ways this strikes me as knowledge being treated as a virus and that this particular kind of ignorance is being used, not as an antidote, but as an inoculation against understanding.
it isn't pro ignorance. everyone knows it's happening whether they'll openly admit it or not.
it's very much pro FUCK YOU! dirty hippie liberals want clean air and water?! dirty ass country water was good enough for me, why not you?!
The "debate" about the global environment keeps running through my head because I keep trying to make sense of it all. Not the pro side of it but the anti side.
The confluence of influential people supporting the anti side. The shift of many businesses from anti to neutral to now pro. The adherents treating what the influential people say as a sort of religious text. And all of it, all of it being very much pro-ignorance. It's that last part which I find the hardest to understand, the part which I can't wrap my mind around. I can understand that seeing the fuss and not caring. I can get about it not being a priority for some. I can even understand, to a certain extent, about being cautious about what approach is used to resolve. But I don't get the mindless side. The incuriosity and the fervent opposition to even understanding what's going on.
I hate the metaphor, but it seems too on point. It some ways this strikes me as knowledge being treated as a virus and that this particular kind of ignorance is being used, not as an antidote, but as an inoculation against understanding.
it isn't pro ignorance. everyone knows it's happening whether they'll openly admit it or not.
it's very much pro FUCK YOU! dirty hippie liberals want clean air and water?! dirty ass country water was good enough for me, why not you?!
god made dirt and dirt don't hurt
Not to go too far down this particular hole, but that position, the Fuck you position, is the essence of pro-ignorance.
It's calcified intransigence, fossilized thought patterns which go beyond resisting change to actively seeking to remain the same in spite an entire corpus of reasons which illustrate how change would be beneficial to themselves on an undeniable personal level.
All opinions are my own and in no way reflect that of my employer.
So, not only has India canceled a major coal power plant construction, in favor of renewables, it has also resolved to sell only electric cars by 2030.
The "debate" about the global environment keeps running through my head because I keep trying to make sense of it all. Not the pro side of it but the anti side.
The confluence of influential people supporting the anti side. The shift of many businesses from anti to neutral to now pro. The adherents treating what the influential people say as a sort of religious text. And all of it, all of it being very much pro-ignorance. It's that last part which I find the hardest to understand, the part which I can't wrap my mind around. I can understand that seeing the fuss and not caring. I can get about it not being a priority for some. I can even understand, to a certain extent, about being cautious about what approach is used to resolve. But I don't get the mindless side. The incuriosity and the fervent opposition to even understanding what's going on.
I hate the metaphor, but it seems too on point. It some ways this strikes me as knowledge being treated as a virus and that this particular kind of ignorance is being used, not as an antidote, but as an inoculation against understanding.
it isn't pro ignorance. everyone knows it's happening whether they'll openly admit it or not.
it's very much pro FUCK YOU! dirty hippie liberals want clean air and water?! dirty ass country water was good enough for me, why not you?!
god made dirt and dirt don't hurt
As we all know, Lead, Arsenic and Algal overgrowth are THE WORK OF SATAN!
The "debate" about the global environment keeps running through my head because I keep trying to make sense of it all. Not the pro side of it but the anti side.
The confluence of influential people supporting the anti side. The shift of many businesses from anti to neutral to now pro. The adherents treating what the influential people say as a sort of religious text. And all of it, all of it being very much pro-ignorance. It's that last part which I find the hardest to understand, the part which I can't wrap my mind around. I can understand that seeing the fuss and not caring. I can get about it not being a priority for some. I can even understand, to a certain extent, about being cautious about what approach is used to resolve. But I don't get the mindless side. The incuriosity and the fervent opposition to even understanding what's going on.
I hate the metaphor, but it seems too on point. It some ways this strikes me as knowledge being treated as a virus and that this particular kind of ignorance is being used, not as an antidote, but as an inoculation against understanding.
it isn't pro ignorance. everyone knows it's happening whether they'll openly admit it or not.
it's very much pro FUCK YOU! dirty hippie liberals want clean air and water?! dirty ass country water was good enough for me, why not you?!
god made dirt and dirt don't hurt
Not to go too far down this particular hole, but that position, the Fuck you position, is the essence of pro-ignorance.
It's calcified intransigence, fossilized thought patterns which go beyond resisting change to actively seeking to remain the same in spite an entire corpus of reasons which illustrate how change would be beneficial to themselves on an undeniable personal level.
ahh I was thinking you meant pro ignorance as in 'we refuse to find out these facts' as opposed to 'we know these facts but refuse to acknowledge them'
So, not only has India canceled a major coal power plant construction, in favor of renewables, it has also resolved to sell only electric cars by 2030.
Ignorance isn't that big of a problem - you can solve ignorance through education. Miseducation is the problem, the people who know lots about an issue...and everything they know is fucking wrong. Antivaxxers, climate change deniers, flat earthers, people who say 'trickle down' with a straight face, take your fucking pick. It's the same problem.
Also, get ready for oil workers to become the next coal workers in 20 years, as the price and demand for oil starts to fall.
...yeah, Houston is screwed on so many levels.
Eh, there's plenty of useful things to do with oil provided you don't burn it. Its a much more versatile commodity than coal. And a lot of oil field workers can transit to other fields (water, CO2 storage) relatively smoothly. I don't think the collapse of the oil industry will be so precipitous.
Yeah, demand for plastic basically will never subside and fuel oil won't go away completely (a lot longer to get solar jet planes than electric cars, perhaps), so the fall isn't as steep there.
Yeah, demand for plastic basically will never subside and fuel oil won't go away completely (a lot longer to get solar jet planes than electric cars, perhaps), so the fall isn't as steep there.
It will still be useful, but demand will decline sharply. Texas may be sustainable by shipping and air travel, but the shale operations in the Midwest and Canada won't be worth the land* they're standing on. So all those economic booms will vanish back into the aether, and that might sting.
*Except in cases where that land has been rendered worthless by said operations.
Part of the reason why there is still a "debate" on climate change is because simply bringing up an argument, even if has no evidence supporting it or even if in fact there's massive amounts of evidence against it, is still an incredibly persuasive tool.
By associating the idea in people's heads that people are unsure about climate change, even if reporting usually clarifies that there is an almost universal scientific consensus among multiple fields about human activity's impact on global climate, people slowly become more likely to accept the idea through simple familiarity.
Like, kind of a bad thing for both science and also humanity in general, is that evidence based arguments are often not the most persuasive rhetorical tools.
They are told all environmental policy is a scam, most scientists agree it's not real, and solar/wind have already failed. Told that anybody who says otherwise is a liar and you should be suspicious of them. Instill the idea that they are not fools to be tricked, so broaching the fact that they were tricked fools meets ego resistance.
Horrible analogy, but a lot of the people in positions of importance/decision look at the data and say, "Nothing will be noticeable for 80 years? Fuck it! I'll be dead!" And so they either deny it or straight up ignore it. There's a video of one of the commenters on CNN freaking out over the Paris withdrawal and the guy next to him mentions sea level rise and physically scoffs. I'm sorry that the Earth is so big that it takes time to notice, fuckwad, but it doesn't discount the fact that what we're doing now is going to have ramifications for future generations.
It's the same thing I'm dealing with as a government worker in [unnamed DoD agency]. No one wanted to buy new equipment because "WAR!" so now we have bombers that are literally over 60 years old and we have a Strategic Defense infrastructure literally as old as the atomic bomb. And now when people are like, "we should [finally] buy new planes," they scoff at the price.
Bitch, if you would have cared even 20 years ago, we wouldn't be in this mess.
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
We humans are very shitty at looking ahead, and incredibly myopic, is what it comes down to.
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Okay, yes, math is hard. It's 5%. But ~0.5% of Americans serve in the armed forces, and not all of them are in Afghanistan, so maybe choose another country that starts with D that didn't send their citizens into harms' way to "protect" the people of Des Moines from the evil terrorists.
I'm not even a Dane. I guess I'll be back, even angrier about this when he says he cares about Kansas, not Canada, shortly after shitting over NATO again. :mad:
Concentrated local carbon capture is much more of a solved problem than ambient carbon capture though; and any new atmospheric carbon you get an 8 year lead time before it makes its way into the ocean which gives you time to clean up where you're getting your energy from.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Like, two?
Well hang on now, they could be bakers dozens
...? I can't really imagine Trump having actually organized anything this century.
The stuff his staff does in his name is the shit he does. that's kinda how pretending to be a billionair works.
I should've been clearer - was this an official White House event, or put on by his campaign committee, or whatever? Like the larger rallies he put on early in his presidency seemed to have him hyping them. I dunno if this one did.
I'm disappointed that McAuliffe has not come in favor of the state coalition. Sure his term ends little into the next year, but Virginia is already seeing the problems that are a result of climate change. Sure it would piss off some of his donors, but I'd argue not doing anything in favor of fighting climate change will be a political dead end. The democratic party isn't going nominate someone that stays silent on the matter in 2020. Plus, it would put the republicans on the spot, yet again. Also a bit surprised that there are so few Virginia city mayors signing on. Like I would expect Kenneth Cooper Alexander Mayor of Norfolk to be one of the first to sign on, the city has been seeing much more flooding in the last couple of years.
Also having much schadenfreude seeing this article about how Trump's shitty victory has meant fuck all for the all the shitty fossil fuel companies. Some saw a brief spike in their stocks when he won, but they are all seeing their stocks decline. It's a dying industry and it doesn't look like a fucker like Trump is going to be able to reverse that. Hell, his little stunt might have just accelerated the rate that these shitty companies become irrelevant.
Yeah, the federal government trying to pull our of the accord is going to hurt short term, but if this spurs several states and local governments to give Trump and Republicans the bird. That is likely to accelerate the rate that green energy companies amass fortunes and revenue and increase their clout in local, state and Congressional elections. I don't think it'll be in time to be noticeable in 2018, but the effects might be felt in 2020. I'm also expecting to see a shit ton of law suits come out of certain states as their shitty Republican legislatures try to prevent localities from taking the initiative. I have a feeling this is a matter where the courts will tell the GOP to get fucked because most of it will probably fail when it's pointed out that most of the legislation doesn't have the public good in mind. Will also be amusing when they get kicked in the political balls because someone of gets demonstrated to fly in the face of federal laws that are designed to prevent anti-competitive practices.
Its green energy. Well comparatively green energy. Enormous amounts of cheap natural gas has simply made coal as obselete as charcoal before it as a fuel source. Other energy sources (cheap solar) have made a big impact too, it was unimaginable 10 years ago that the revolution in solar process we're seeing today would occur, alongside the battery storage to hold that power. 10-15 years ago anyone who said they wanted to save the planet but want advocating building nuclear plants was an insane optimist. Im very glad to see them proven right. Hell, it doesn't even look as if the rate of fall of solar prices is slowing down, so we might see it overtake natural gas and coal nationwide.
I don't think there's enough data to be sure, but China may have passed peak coal. Their coal consumption has been decreasing while their energy consumption is increasing (which presumably negates economic growth effects). At an abstract level, this suggests that they're turning away from coal to other energy source.
Of course, it's not nearly that simple, and we don't have enough data to establish any sort of long-term trend.
They are opening like 15 Nuclear Power plants in the next 3 years
Changes in China are only one aspect in fortunes falling for the fossil fuel industry overall, I think natural gas is the only one that isn't getting massively hammered. Everyone else that has had any sense and hasn't completely lost the ability to look long term, has been investing the research to cut down on wasted energy and to make other forms of energy production more viable. It's little surprise that coal is the first to go because it's fucking awful at every metric (irradiates the surrounding more than nuclear). It's also very inflexible, you pretty much have a set output and well too fucking bad if that isn't the right amount. Other sources are more flexible. Natural gas is being propped up a little because it's a good complementary source with wind generation, if the wind farm isn't generating enough power for some reason, fire up the natural gas generator to pick up the slack and then shut it off when the wind turbines are able to keep pace with demand. I think we'd be further along with people weren't so shortsighted, probably could have hit some of the current tech earlier if people weren't so eager to write it off and I'm sure the fossil fuel industry had an hand in delaying some of it. Plus, we'd probably be in even better shape if people didn't have such a skewed outlook on nuclear. Nuclear is probably the best stop gap we have until we either figure out fission or get a combo of battery technology and renewable to really work for us.
Anyways, the media has been pretty quiet about just how strong a hand green energy has in the US. We already have areas where some of the alternative energy companies are a major employer. Plus, if we throw in energy efficiency focused companies, which probably aren't pleases with the Trump administration, that's another huge source of jobs. Supposedly, we have cases where local Republican office holders are at odds with the national ones because sucking off the fossil fuel industry at the expense of alternative energy is political suicide for them. Unfortunately, money plays an out sized role in US politics and the fossil fuel industry has amassed quite a bit of wealth, so we'll probably see a messy transition. Where that wealth allows short sighted owners of fossil fuel companies to continue to delay policies aimed at fighting climate change, long after their companies cease to be profitable.
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-nation/2017/06/03/Trump-Pittsburgh-not-Paris-rally-Washington-small-Peduto/stories/201706030124
I'm seeing 'thousands' for the overall March For Truth across all cities, but no count for DC specifically other than that they had to move somewhere with more space.
Looked like ~600 people or so, but probably more judging by all the people with signs walking about
Pruitt overestimated the growth in coal jobs by 100 times. (500 ish real vs 50,000 ish claimed)
Second and a bit more heartening is the stats on the fall of coal use and production in the US. Lowest coal use since 1984.
(At least until they start fucking with those numbers too)
Granted a lot of that was replaced with natural gas so not ideal..
The confluence of influential people supporting the anti side. The shift of many businesses from anti to neutral to now pro. The adherents treating what the influential people say as a sort of religious text. And all of it, all of it being very much pro-ignorance. It's that last part which I find the hardest to understand, the part which I can't wrap my mind around. I can understand that seeing the fuss and not caring. I can get about it not being a priority for some. I can even understand, to a certain extent, about being cautious about what approach is used to resolve. But I don't get the mindless side. The incuriosity and the fervent opposition to even understanding what's going on.
I hate the metaphor, but it seems too on point. It some ways this strikes me as knowledge being treated as a virus and that this particular kind of ignorance is being used, not as an antidote, but as an inoculation against understanding.
it isn't pro ignorance. everyone knows it's happening whether they'll openly admit it or not.
it's very much pro FUCK YOU! dirty hippie liberals want clean air and water?! dirty ass country water was good enough for me, why not you?!
god made dirt and dirt don't hurt
Not to go too far down this particular hole, but that position, the Fuck you position, is the essence of pro-ignorance.
It's calcified intransigence, fossilized thought patterns which go beyond resisting change to actively seeking to remain the same in spite an entire corpus of reasons which illustrate how change would be beneficial to themselves on an undeniable personal level.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/03/technology/future/india-electric-cars/
I mean, they only have the second largest population in the world, next to China, so they're not that big of a player.........
Also, get ready for oil workers to become the next coal workers in 20 years, as the price and demand for oil starts to fall.
As we all know, Lead, Arsenic and Algal overgrowth are THE WORK OF SATAN!
ahh I was thinking you meant pro ignorance as in 'we refuse to find out these facts' as opposed to 'we know these facts but refuse to acknowledge them'
I'm going to go ahead and say there's a 0% chance that India meets that 100% EV target by 2030.
20% of the country didn't even have access to electricity in 2014. (source: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS )
...yeah, Houston is screwed on so many levels.
Eh, there's plenty of useful things to do with oil provided you don't burn it. Its a much more versatile commodity than coal. And a lot of oil field workers can transit to other fields (water, CO2 storage) relatively smoothly. I don't think the collapse of the oil industry will be so precipitous.
It will still be useful, but demand will decline sharply. Texas may be sustainable by shipping and air travel, but the shale operations in the Midwest and Canada won't be worth the land* they're standing on. So all those economic booms will vanish back into the aether, and that might sting.
*Except in cases where that land has been rendered worthless by said operations.
By associating the idea in people's heads that people are unsure about climate change, even if reporting usually clarifies that there is an almost universal scientific consensus among multiple fields about human activity's impact on global climate, people slowly become more likely to accept the idea through simple familiarity.
Like, kind of a bad thing for both science and also humanity in general, is that evidence based arguments are often not the most persuasive rhetorical tools.
It's the same thing I'm dealing with as a government worker in [unnamed DoD agency]. No one wanted to buy new equipment because "WAR!" so now we have bombers that are literally over 60 years old and we have a Strategic Defense infrastructure literally as old as the atomic bomb. And now when people are like, "we should [finally] buy new planes," they scoff at the price.
Bitch, if you would have cared even 20 years ago, we wouldn't be in this mess.