Little Greta comes clean

[Sparko]

And that paper has to come from somewhere. So more and more trees get chopped down so they can make paper straws.

Thus my mentioning of "deforestation" Although I believe paper mills in the USA use at least some farmed trees (I think its about 15%)

Something tells me that we'll revisit the argument we saw over paper or plastic bags. Every few years it was decided that one or the other was a scourge and we need to switch to the other only to see it being attacked a few years later as worse and we need to switch back. Then that will be attacked and a call go to switch again -- over and over.

Glass. We should use glass bags.

[rogue06]

I saw a "MEGA" series special (Mega Buildings, etc) on these wind turbines, and how much more maintenance was involved in keeping them running than anybody had ever suspected.

My great uncle Tom had an old style windmill on his farm that worked the pump from the well. He was always complaining how much work it took to keep it operating so I can only imagine the difficulties when you scale up the size a hundred-fold.

[rogue06]

Thus my mentioning of "deforestation" Although I believe paper mills in the USA use at least some farmed trees (I think its about 15%)

Hmm. Maybe another reason to legalize hemp. Each year you can chop everything down and it'll be back next year.

And hemp paper has long been considered high quality -- just like hemp rope.

[rogue06]

Indeed.

But The problem doesn't come from trying to do the right thing or because the problem doesn't exist. So saying plastic in the oceans is not a problem is head in the sand sort of stuff. But understanding what the best response is to these problems is not always trivial, and the fact the 'correct' answer might wander around a bit is not an excuse to ignore the issue or deduce it is not serious.

Never said nor implied that it should be ignored but it would be nice if they waited until a determination can be made before enacting a series of laws to enforce the decision only to have to repeal them and write new laws, only to repeal them and write new laws only to... ad nauseam

[Starlight]

And the environmentalists are against nuclear power.

I would describe myself as an environmentalist. I am pro nuclear power.

Something tells me that we'll revisit the argument we saw over paper or plastic bags. Every few years it was decided that one or the other was a scourge and we need to switch to the other only to see it being attacked a few years later as worse and we need to switch back. Then that will be attacked and a call will arise to switch again -- over and over.

Really? What group or area has ever switched from paper to plastic for environmental reasons? I've never heard of that happening anywhere in the world and don't see any hits on google on the subject.

My country banned single use plastic shopping bags six months ago, and initial data suggests the amount of plastic rubbish on beaches (a proxy measure for what is blowing into the ocean and interacting with marine life) has dropped by half. So as far as fish not being full of decomposing plastic goes, it looks like it's been wildly successful, and achieving exactly what it aimed to.

Never said nor implied that it should be ignored but it would be nice if they waited until a determination can be made before enacting a series of laws to enforce the decision only to have to repeal them and write new laws, only to repeal them and write new laws only to... ad nauseam

In general the quality of the scientific data is always going to be better if you try something and test out the results and compare it to the previous state of affairs, than if you simply model / speculate about what might happen if you changed the laws. It's hard to make an accurate determination without testing something out, so your suggestion sounds like a prescription for never taking any action ever.

Obviously there are some costs associated with changing policies / laws, and these do need to be considered. But assuming we're talking about something relatively low cost (like using paper vs plastic bags), my general political viewpoint is that agile government that is unafraid to try something out and then tweak it or change back if it is found to not work, generally tends to be better than a hidebound gridlocked government that hasn't get implemented policies that were agreed to be a good idea 50 years ago.

[mossrose]

Thanks mossy.

Would it be too personal to ask you to explain that in a bit more detail? Just to help connect the dots.

I'll try.

We live in a province with the best record of clean petroleum in the entire world, not to mention the third largest amount. The processes are clean, we don't have the civil rights injustices that occur in South America or other parts of the world that have large deposits of petroleum. The companies that work the oilfields have already put into place carbon credits and every other option for helping the environment that they are able to do at this time.

For decades we have supported the rest of Canada with what is referred to as transfer payments. Provinces with rich natural resources are forced to send billions of dollars a year to the feds and that money is passed around to other "have-not" provinces. My husband taught safety, H2S gas safety, first aid, confined entry, other courses for the petroleum industry for 42 years, until he retired 3 years ago.

Over the past 10 or maybe more years, the petroleum industry in this province has been attacked not only from outside the country, but from the government and special interest groups in Canada. We have had numerous Hollywood celebrities come and view the processes and they will never admit that our processes are good. These people don't know anything about the industry, but are part of the environmental AGW machine. They are not the only ones who come here and badmouth us. Every pro-environmental group you can name has protested and even tried to sabotage the oilfields and existing pipelings.

We have struggles with getting our oil out of the province. We are landlocked, and the decade long struggle to get the extension pipeline into the States hurt us. We have been trying for more than 5 years to get a pipeline to tidewater, but have had to fight indigenous groups and the neighbouring province to get a trans-mountain pipeline built. Even American foundations have funded anti-pipeling protests which has helped to devastate the industry.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...eory-1.4987202


We are just coming out of having a NDP government in the province, who cut jobs in the oilpatch and sunk our economy into a recession. They slapped a horrendous carbon tax on everything. Bear in mind that we live in a winter climate, and rely on natural gas to heat our homes. Add 25 or 30% tax on top of the bill, and on auto fuel and on electricity and you see how that has been. The past 5 years have been a nightmare. My husband's wages were cut by 30% in the 2 years before he retired.

My son-in-law works in real estate, and he has not sold a house in 2 years. He has had to take side jobs just to keep afloat, and my daughter had to go to work. The NDP government, who's model of operation is the communist manifesto, and I am not kidding here, have destroyed the economy of this province. It will take years to get back to where we were even 5 years ago. At least we now have a Conservative government that removed the carbon tax in May.

We have also had a Liberal federal government that has also dragged their feet on getting the trans-mountain pipeline built. The industry has jumped through hoops to do whatever it can to make everybody happy, but the PM doesn't do much to help because he is a big environmental fanatic, and he was just elected for another 4 years. Oh, and we are still required to send transfer payments to Ottawa, even though our economy is in the sewer.

He is also going to be slapping a carbon tax onto all the provinces that don't already have one, in January, so we are back where we started when the NDP came into power. Oh, and little Greta was here, in the province, just before the federal election in October and was funded by the Liberal and NDP factions to try to spread her story of how bad the oilpatch is. Didn't help here, but the liberal parts of the country certainly paid attention to her rhetoric.

I don't know if all this helps you understand my frustration or not. I get so tired of the misinformation about this province's oilpatch that is NEVER rebutted by anybody in the MSM or the federal government.

And for Greta to admit that she has other parts to her environmental agenda, especially after having been asked outright when she was here in the province if there was more to her "movement" and she denied it, just makes me sick of it all.

[oxmixmudd]

I'll try.

We live in a province with the best record of clean petroleum in the entire world, not to mention the third largest amount. The processes are clean, we don't have the civil rights injustices that occur in South America or other parts of the world that have large deposits of petroleum. The companies that work the oilfields have already put into place carbon credits and every other option for helping the environment that they are able to do at this time.

For decades we have supported the rest of Canada with what is referred to as transfer payments. Provinces with rich natural resources are forced to send billions of dollars a year to the feds and that money is passed around to other "have-not" provinces. My husband taught safety, H2S gas safety, first aid, confined entry, other courses for the petroleum industry for 42 years, until he retired 3 years ago.

Over the past 10 or maybe more years, the petroleum industry in this province has been attacked not only from outside the country, but from the government and special interest groups in Canada. We have had numerous Hollywood celebrities come and view the processes and they will never admit that our processes are good. These people don't know anything about the industry, but are part of the environmental AGW machine. They are not the only ones who come here and badmouth us. Every pro-environmental group you can name has protested and even tried to sabotage the oilfields and existing pipelings.

We have struggles with getting our oil out of the province. We are landlocked, and the decade long struggle to get the extension pipeline into the States hurt us. We have been trying for more than 5 years to get a pipeline to tidewater, but have had to fight indigenous groups and the neighbouring province to get a trans-mountain pipeline built. Even American foundations have funded anti-pipeling protests which has helped to devastate the industry.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...eory-1.4987202


We are just coming out of having a NDP government in the province, who cut jobs in the oilpatch and sunk our economy into a recession. They slapped a horrendous carbon tax on everything. Bear in mind that we live in a winter climate, and rely on natural gas to heat our homes. Add 25 or 30% tax on top of the bill, and on auto fuel and on electricity and you see how that has been. The past 5 years have been a nightmare. My husband's wages were cut by 30% in the 2 years before he retired.

My son-in-law works in real estate, and he has not sold a house in 2 years. He has had to take side jobs just to keep afloat, and my daughter had to go to work. The NDP government, who's model of operation is the communist manifesto, and I am not kidding here, have destroyed the economy of this province. It will take years to get back to where we were even 5 years ago. At least we now have a Conservative government that removed the carbon tax in May.

We have also had a Liberal federal government that has also dragged their feet on getting the trans-mountain pipeline built. The industry has jumped through hoops to do whatever it can to make everybody happy, but the PM doesn't do much to help because he is a big environmental fanatic, and he was just elected for another 4 years. Oh, and we are still required to send transfer payments to Ottawa, even though our economy is in the sewer.

He is also going to be slapping a carbon tax onto all the provinces that don't already have one, in January, so we are back where we started when the NDP came into power. Oh, and little Greta was here, in the province, just before the federal election in October and was funded by the Liberal and NDP factions to try to spread her story of how bad the oilpatch is. Didn't help here, but the liberal parts of the country certainly paid attention to her rhetoric.

I don't know if all this helps you understand my frustration or not. I get so tired of the misinformation about this province's oilpatch that is NEVER rebutted by anybody in the MSM or the federal government.

And for Greta to admit that she has other parts to her environmental agenda, especially after having been asked outright when she was here in the province if there was more to her "movement" and she denied it, just makes me sick of it all.

Sounds to me like you have very good reasons to be angry about the sort of naive approach to environmentalism that Thunberg represents - no fault of her own (she's too young to know better or understand why someone in your situation would have cause to oppose what she stands for).

She is old enough to understand that denying other agendas and then announcing them later is going to be seen as hypocritical.

Thanks, good information to know and to help keep things in context.

Jim

[Adrift]

And the environmentalists are against nuclear power.

This is actually not true anymore. Or at least, it's turning the other way radically with younger generations of environmentalists. If you go onto a heavy left leaning website like Reddit they'll rip into you if you suggest that nuclear energy is dangerous. They whole-heartedly believe it's the answer to the energy issue on earth. What's stranger is that many of them actually believe that it's the right that is against nuclear energy. Most of them are too young to remember it used to be a left-leaning issue, and they naturally assume that everything that's anti-science is Conservative (it's also a reason they think the anti-vax crowd is largely right-leaning as well, even though it started on the left and only recently moved into the right).

[mossrose]

Sounds to me like you have very good reasons to be angry about the sort of naive approach to environmentalism that Thunberg represents - no fault of her own (she's too young to know better or understand why someone in your situation would have cause to oppose what she stands for).

She is old enough to understand that denying other agendas and then announcing them later is going to be seen as hypocritical.

Thanks, good information to know and to help keep things in context.

Jim

Thank you, Jim.

[One Bad Pig]

When seer can make ya look bad, you're not looking good.

When you can't address the point, ridicule it?

Find me a civilian who could play Uncle Hymie and I'd be a lot more comfortable boosting civilian nuclear plants. There are indirect costs, too. Mine tailings make their way into every brick house in Denver. Like fracking for natural gas, though, it's better than coal, but short of the brass ring.

It's certainly not a panacea, but even without a civilian Uncle Hymie, there's been ONE nuclear accident in the country (which had a negligible adverse effect on the surrounding community, and was perpetrated by guys who'd been through Uncle Hymie's training).

Have you driven through east Texas lately?

I drove to San Antonio from Miami through New Orleans for the nephew's boot graduation at Lackland a coupla years back. Coming up I-10, it was windmills horizon to horizon from Beaumont to Houston, and not much thinner all the way into San Antonio. And that's just wind. The government owns 90 percent of Nevada outright. Vegas gets a baker's dozen thunderstorms a year. That's a lot of sunshine going to waste.

There's a lot more that could be done if we were willing to treat it like a Manhattan Project emergency. In '79, Jerry Pournelle, the sci-fi writer, was talking about solar farms in orbit beaming power back via microwave lasers at a gee-whiz efficiency factor higher than anything ground-based. And bonus, it never rains out there, and the sun never goes down, either. That was an off-the-shelf solution in 1979. I think we might maybe be able to do better than that, today.

I rather suspect that if such a scenario were remotely financially feasible, a way would be found to do it. Sci-fi writers have the luxury of not having to deal with real world obstacles (though IIRC he was trained as a physicist).

[Sparko]

This is actually not true anymore. Or at least, it's turning the other way radically with younger generations of environmentalists. If you go onto a heavy left leaning website like Reddit they'll rip into you if you suggest that nuclear energy is dangerous. They whole-heartedly believe it's the answer to the energy issue on earth. What's stranger is that many of them actually believe that it's the right that is against nuclear energy. Most of them are too young to remember it used to be a left-leaning issue, and they naturally assume that everything that's anti-science is Conservative (it's also a reason they think the anti-vax crowd is largely right-leaning as well, even though it started on the left and only recently moved into the right).

not sure how representative of the actual left reddit is. but that is interesting.

[seanD]

Indeed.

But The problem doesn't come from trying to do the right thing or because the problem doesn't exist. So saying plastic in the oceans is not a problem is head in the sand sort of stuff. But understanding what the best response is to these problems is not always trivial, and the fact the 'correct' answer might wander around a bit is not an excuse to ignore the issue or deduce it is not serious.

Isn't plastic in the ocean a different issue? Plastic in the oceans is a problem that can be solved a whole lot easier than saying the world is doomed in 12 years unless we radically alter the entire infrastructure of the global industrial economy.

[Sparko]

Isn't plastic in the ocean a different issue? Plastic in the oceans is a problem that can be solved a whole lot easier than saying the world is doomed in 12 years unless we radically alter the entire infrastructure of the global industrial economy.

yep. and the solution is to stop dumping plastic into the ocean, not stop using plastic. Not to mention most of the plastic in the ocean doesn't come from the USA. Most of it comes from Asia.

But specifically, scientists say, the bulk of the garbage patch trash comes from China and other Asian countries.

This shouldn't be a surprise: Overall, worldwide, most of the plastic trash in the ocean comes from Asia. In fact, the top six countries for ocean garbage are China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Thailand, according to a 2015 study in the journal Science.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...me/1133838002/

[Adrift]

not sure how representative of the actual left reddit is. but that is interesting.

I think they're a great sample pool for left-leaning Millennials. In fact, it's one of the issues I remember them combating Bernie Sanders on in his AMA in 2015 even though the website mostly supported him. Here's a top post on the subject:

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/commen...tic_candidate/

Hello Sen. Sanders,

While I understand your stance on nuclear power is (forgive me for paraphrasing) something along the lines of “old reactors are bad, why are we (as taxpayers) spending money to keep them going?”, I have not yet found any quotes from you regarding new nuclear energy technology. Could you give some opinions on emerging nuclear technology, such as reactors with passive safety mechanisms, the ability to consume spent fuel rods from other (pressurized water) plants, and fusion? Since nuclear power has close to the lowest amount of human deaths per kilowatt hour of electricity generated ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamescon...always-paid/2/ ) , is it fair to cut all taxpayer funding to developing newer forms of nuclear power while subsidizing others?

For the record I am hopeful that you will win in 2016 regardless of whether or not we see eye to eye on this issue. Thank you for your time.

They made it known they were not so happy with his answer.

[mikewhitney]

Sounds to me like you have very good reasons to be angry about the sort of naive approach to environmentalism that Thunberg represents - no fault of her own (she's too young to know better or understand why someone in your situation would have cause to oppose what she stands for).

She is old enough to understand that denying other agendas and then announcing them later is going to be seen as hypocritical.

Thanks, good information to know and to help keep things in context.

Jim

Good response Mossy. it may help Jim start connecting the other dots that he has been missing.

Jim,
It's this task of making connections that many of us in tweb have been trying to help you do. I hope there are other connections that you start making. Mossy presented many ways that hollywood folks and the media fail to present details accurately. So much hype gets in the media which is based on false premises.

It is fine to be concerned about the environment. But we can't have the concern based on sensationalized sources. I think often we could be on the same side of politics if there were less hype going out. Pray that we can filter through the hype. (the devil likes us to fear the wrong things.)