Pathological Altruism

[Loren Pechtel]

All this frying pan and fire stuff is not aimed at solving any problem. It is aimed at stalling on actions we already know we need to take. You both are ignoring the fact we do have measurements and tools to evaluate these measurements. We don't have to go back and re-measure. The data is already in our hands and being constantly updated. This is the age of science, not the Aristotelian age.

You and Loren are arguing thus: "Because I don't understand, you must cease all action till I give you permission to act." That is authoritarian and narcissistic. You have not made the effort to understand the problem and choose to take pot shots at the messenger. If you put half the effort into understanding the problem as you did into psychoanalyzing me and others who recommend action, YOU WOULD ALREADY UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM. As it is, you are implying we do not have data to support the need for change in our practices when we do.

Re-read your last post and understand it is all predicated on your opinion that I am ignorant and merely trying to stampede us off a cliff. In my opinion, that is what the frackers and mountain top removers are doing...pushing us out of the frying pan into the fire. Poisoning our water and air and virtually cooking us alive...on the basis of the notion that Dr. Hansen is a crack pot is foolhardy and also cruel to those most affected by environmental degradation.

This sub-thread started because you objected to not acting even when we know the proposed course of action is wrong.

You have been evading this point bringing up things that are more clear cut.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

akirk, you're simply out of line.

First, I haven't argued against any and all action. Second, I put in the effort to understand the situation as best I am able. I have no difficulty understanding the problems.

What you are obviously missing is that Loren presented you with a specific scenario - one in which the suggested action is KNOWN to be worse than doing nothing. Go read his initiating post again. Everything else flows from the fact that he presented you a scenario in which {taking action} is KNOWN to be worse than {doing nothing}.

The remainder of your posts are wildly presumptive and have no basis in anything that I've said. Whether they represent something that Loren has said in the past is another issue, but they most certainly don't represent my views, and I'll thank you to keep your reactionary rants in check.

Thank you--I'm glad to see someone understood the point so I must have said it properly.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Emily isn't arguing it is a pathology. Just that she thinks there are cases, such as asbestos and lead paint where people were told altruistically to use these great products to prevent disease, despite knowing that they caused cancer and brain developmental issues.

Since when is it altruistic to recommend a product you know causes cancer or brain developmental issues because you desire the proceeds from selling it? That is just plain old dishonesty. If the purchaser was kept in the dark about the realities of the product the producer already knew then altruism has nothing to do with it. It is a matter of the buyer thinking the seller was altruistic possibly, but then that is a false assumption. If all parties are ignorant of the consequences of using the stuff, then I suppose some people could altruistically make some recommendations based on lies of others, but not once the data is clear. After that, it reverts to lies, obfuscation and stalling till the inventories are sold out. These practices are well known to people the advertising industry and they practice lying constantly...lies of commission and omission. A lie is a lie. A stall is a stall.

Except the government was issuing contracts for asbestos-containing parts long after it was known to be dangerous. You persist in blaming the companies for what the government basically told them to do.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I wonder if the opposition to nuclear power, GMOs and vaccinations might be considered pathological altruism. The anti nuke, GMO & vaccine crowd seem to genuinely believe that all three technologies are harmful to our way of life and probably feel they are being altruistic to their fellow man by trying to rid the world of nuclear power, GMOs and vaccines. Yet, the science indicates that it is the "anti crowd" themselves who are putting the health and way of life of the modern world at greater risk by rejecting these technologies. Their altruism, while well intentioned in their mind I'm sure, is obviously pathological.

Good point. I would certainly call the anti-nuke and anti-vax positions pathological. Since there have been some carelessness with GMOs I wouldn't automatically call it pathological. (I'm thinking of the starlink corn. It was not approved for human consumption due to potential allergen issues. Sorry, but keeping them separate didn't work too well.)

 

[arkirk]

All this frying pan and fire stuff is not aimed at solving any problem. It is aimed at stalling on actions we already know we need to take. You both are ignoring the fact we do have measurements and tools to evaluate these measurements. We don't have to go back and re-measure. The data is already in our hands and being constantly updated. This is the age of science, not the Aristotelian age.

You and Loren are arguing thus: "Because I don't understand, you must cease all action till I give you permission to act." That is authoritarian and narcissistic. You have not made the effort to understand the problem and choose to take pot shots at the messenger. If you put half the effort into understanding the problem as you did into psychoanalyzing me and others who recommend action, YOU WOULD ALREADY UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM. As it is, you are implying we do not have data to support the need for change in our practices when we do.

Re-read your last post and understand it is all predicated on your opinion that I am ignorant and merely trying to stampede us off a cliff. In my opinion, that is what the frackers and mountain top removers are doing...pushing us out of the frying pan into the fire. Poisoning our water and air and virtually cooking us alive...on the basis of the notion that Dr. Hansen is a crack pot is foolhardy and also cruel to those most affected by environmental degradation.

This sub-thread started because you objected to not acting even when we know the proposed course of action is wrong.You have been evading this point bringing up things that are more clear cut.

I never did any such thing. This idea of yours is completely of your construction. Who are you? The great authority of right and wrong now. I object to actions that are completely wrong like fracking and mountaintop removal and industrial pollution and war. When do we get a break from these things....oh no! Loren objects to responsible actions and promotes irresponsible ones. Our differences are not a matter of who objects to taking actions. They are a matter of just which action to take and you know it. This actually does go to the thread OP. Because we have differing ideas as to what actions we should be taking, it is disingenuous of you to simply call my suggested actions wrong on their face without saying why and addressing the issue rather than attacking me and making false charges. Are you doing this because you have an altruism for the people here and they need to know we need to drill baby drill forever till the bitter end or what? That I would call pathological but I will not dignify it by calling it altruism.

There has been little or no discussion of actions that should be taken and how they would be good or bad. I have a little experience in pollution control and wastewater treatment and have seen that it is possible to ameliorate serious environmental problems if we try...even half heartedly. But serious efforts at pollution control only come when the obstructionists accept they will have to change. The handwriting is on the wall on this matter and all I hear from Loren is that I better look before I leap.

I agree on that but I don't appreciate the obfuscation and the barrier building I see from folks like Loren and the fossil fuel industry. We need to stop doing some things. Stop is stop. It is like some of us are very unaltruistically attached to short term profits from dying industries and their addiction will sink us all and forestall alternative solutions to very great problems indeed. I do not deny that we may have to change dramatically. I only think we need to invest a certain portion of our economy to this change before it is too late.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I wonder if the opposition to nuclear power, GMOs and vaccinations might be considered pathological altruism.

There is one big problem with "pathological altruism". First off, WSJ, who coined the term, don't actually mean "pathological". Secondly, fear of these is about avoiding potential hazards.

Is fear of nuclear power, GMOs, and vaccinations short-sighted? Vaccinations definitely. Nuclear Power has a track record of issues, so a lack of trust in nuclear power isn't exactly unearned. GMOs seems like the biggest fear of nothing, but is it harming much?

- - - Updated - - -

Thank you--I'm glad to see someone understood the point so I must have said it properly.

You did a great job creating a fake hypothetical.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There is one big problem with "pathological altruism". First off, WSJ, who coined the term, don't actually mean "pathological". Secondly, fear of these is about avoiding potential hazards.

Is fear of nuclear power, GMOs, and vaccinations short-sighted? Vaccinations definitely. Nuclear Power has a track record of issues, so a lack of trust in nuclear power isn't exactly unearned. GMOs seems like the biggest fear of nothing, but is it harming much?

Nuke has had a couple of issues but even Chernobyl + Fukushima are nothing compared to what coal does. It's just they are concentrated so we notice them.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

There is one big problem with "pathological altruism". First off, WSJ, who coined the term, don't actually mean "pathological". Secondly, fear of these is about avoiding potential hazards.

Is fear of nuclear power, GMOs, and vaccinations short-sighted? Vaccinations definitely. Nuclear Power has a track record of issues, so a lack of trust in nuclear power isn't exactly unearned. GMOs seems like the biggest fear of nothing, but is it harming much?

Nuke has had a couple of issues but even Chernobyl + Fukushima are nothing compared to what coal does. It's just they are concentrated so we notice them.

I have reluctantly swayed towards a potential nuclear option. But as I noted, nuclear plants have had problems. They are typically in the news locally wherever they are, having troubles with the NRA. I grew up in a town with one and am familiar with the issues. The Davis-Bessy plant in Ohio has been notorious with issues.

As a side-note, if Obama announced a transition from coal to nuclear, he'd been impeached for killing coal.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Nuke has had a couple of issues but even Chernobyl + Fukushima are nothing compared to what coal does. It's just they are concentrated so we notice them.

I have reluctantly swayed towards a potential nuclear option. But as I noted, nuclear plants have had problems. They are typically in the news locally wherever they are, having troubles with the NRA. I grew up in a town with one and am familiar with the issues. The Davis-Bessy plant in Ohio has been notorious with issues.

As a side-note, if Obama announced a transition from coal to nuclear, he'd been impeached for killing coal.

If Obama cured cancer, he'd be impeached for putting doctors out of business
If Obama found the secret to immortality and shared it with the world, he would be impeached for putting morticians out of business.

/end derail

 

[Togo]

There is one big problem with "pathological altruism". First off, WSJ, who coined the term, don't actually mean "pathological". Secondly, fear of these is about avoiding potential hazards.

Is fear of nuclear power, GMOs, and vaccinations short-sighted? Vaccinations definitely. Nuclear Power has a track record of issues, so a lack of trust in nuclear power isn't exactly unearned. GMOs seems like the biggest fear of nothing, but is it harming much?

Nuke has had a couple of issues but even Chernobyl + Fukushima are nothing compared to what coal does. It's just they are concentrated so we notice them.

There's also the element that there are more instances of people lying in connection to nuclear power. Deception from spokesmen in the public eye does tend to increase the mistrust, irrespective of the actual record.

 

[arkirk]

Heavy reliance on non-renewable energy is pahological/

There is one big problem with "pathological altruism". First off, WSJ, who coined the term, don't actually mean "pathological". Secondly, fear of these is about avoiding potential hazards.

Is fear of nuclear power, GMOs, and vaccinations short-sighted? Vaccinations definitely. Nuclear Power has a track record of issues, so a lack of trust in nuclear power isn't exactly unearned. GMOs seems like the biggest fear of nothing, but is it harming much?

Nuke has had a couple of issues but even Chernobyl + Fukushima are nothing compared to what coal does. It's just they are concentrated so we notice them.

When a plant and process produces waste products NOBODY WANTS NEAR THEM, it is impractical because continued operation creates a buildup of dangerous waste nobody agrees to accept in their community. Many of these waste products have half lives of thousands of years. There has been a great deal of research into finding a way to isolate these products but alas to no avail. It is the nature of most of the radioactive waste products that their emissions gradually and sometimes not so gradually compromise their containers...take you pick...dry concrete casks, vitrified containers, etc. etc.

The reason nobody want this stuff anywhere near them is because emissions from radioactive isotopes damage DNA. It appears we have a growing quantity of waste that has nowhere to go and if we were to "go nuclear" we would be on a collision course with increasing exposures to ever increasing amounts of waste. Radiation exposures are subtle and permanent damage to DNA is a known cause of cancer.

If you look at Chernobyl and Fukushima, both of these facilities have not been brought into adeguate control. The decommissioning of the plants at Fukushima has a timeline of near forty years...and even that is open ended. Tepco is having trouble projecting where they can get replacement help in the cleanup as workers only have a limited time they can work in radioactive environments. A few issues to you seems like a lot of issues to me.

Chernobyl is back in the news already. It needs a container around the containment they have already built. Nuclear power is the gift that keeps on giving even when it can no longer generate power. Nukes is a ridiculous method of boiling water and little else....excepting of course a threat to human life.

In terms of day to day impacts, Coal presently outstrips nukes...but long term I would have to call it a draw. I strongly suspect that there will be ever increasing limitations on the overall amount of power we can produce anyway. Our future will be one of striving to increase efficiency in terms of the amount of artificial power we consume anyway. Most of us have a notion that we must continue to consume inordinate amounts of artificial energy to remain civilized. This notion has been drummed into our heads by the power oligarchs via the medium of advertising.

Even the environmental community makes a big thing of "replacing" toxic sourced energy with a mind that we must always have more. They complain about the fact that alternative sources operate sporadically and are not reliable. This is a problem but we need to be mindful of just how precious clean energy is and adapt to it, rather than continue to poison future generations with nukes, coal, oil, etc.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Nuke has had a couple of issues but even Chernobyl + Fukushima are nothing compared to what coal does. It's just they are concentrated so we notice them.

When a plant and process produces waste products NOBODY WANTS NEAR THEM, it is impractical because continued operation creates a buildup of dangerous waste nobody agrees to accept in their community. Many of these waste products have half lives of thousands of years. There has been a great deal of research into finding a way to isolate these products but alas to no avail. It is the nature of most of the radioactive waste products that their emissions gradually and sometimes not so gradually compromise their containers...take you pick...dry concrete casks, vitrified containers, etc. etc.

Nuke waste is far easier to deal with than coal waste due to the quantities involved. Coal plants haul off traincars of toxic waste that's not going to decay.

As for ways of isolating the products--we have multiple answers that work, the problem is political.

First of all, reprocess. Most of the problem goes away right there--most of the long-lived stuff is unused fuel, it belongs in the reactor, not the trash. What's left will decay to ambient in 10,000 years. You also extract some of the hot stuff that has medical or industrial use. At this point it would be ecologically sound to simply dump it in an old salt mine with no containment at all. Just make sure there's no lake nearby that some idiot could drill through and into the mine.

The reason nobody want this stuff anywhere near them is because emissions from radioactive isotopes damage DNA. It appears we have a growing quantity of waste that has nowhere to go and if we were to "go nuclear" we would be on a collision course with increasing exposures to ever increasing amounts of waste. Radiation exposures are subtle and permanent damage to DNA is a known cause of cancer.

Note that I live less than 100 miles from Yucca Mountain. I don't consider it a threat other than to property values.

In terms of day to day impacts, Coal presently outstrips nukes...but long term I would have to call it a draw. I strongly suspect that there will be ever increasing limitations on the overall amount of power we can produce anyway. Our future will be one of striving to increase efficiency in terms of the amount of artificial power we consume anyway. Most of us have a notion that we must continue to consume inordinate amounts of artificial energy to remain civilized. This notion has been drummed into our heads by the power oligarchs via the medium of advertising.

Coal outstrips nuke by 3 1/2 orders of magnitude. Nuke has the best safety record of any major source of power, coal has the worst. (Yes, nuke beats all your green options.)

 

[Togo]

When a plant and process produces waste products NOBODY WANTS NEAR THEM, it is impractical because continued operation creates a buildup of dangerous waste nobody agrees to accept in their community. Many of these waste products have half lives of thousands of years. There has been a great deal of research into finding a way to isolate these products but alas to no avail. It is the nature of most of the radioactive waste products that their emissions gradually and sometimes not so gradually compromise their containers...take you pick...dry concrete casks, vitrified containers, etc. etc.

Nuke waste is far easier to deal with than coal waste due to the quantities involved. Coal plants haul off traincars of toxic waste that's not going to decay.

As for ways of isolating the products--we have multiple answers that work, the problem is political.

No, the primary problem is business-related. The present model for nuclear power relies on the government subsidising your risks. Governments aren't keen any more. That's not a political problem, it's a problem with the business model.

First of all, reprocess. Most of the problem goes away right there--most of the long-lived stuff is unused fuel, it belongs in the reactor, not the trash. What's left will decay to ambient in 10,000 years. You also extract some of the hot stuff that has medical or industrial use. At this point it would be ecologically sound to simply dump it in an old salt mine with no containment at all. Just make sure there's no lake nearby that some idiot could drill through and into the mine.

Source?

Coal outstrips nuke by 3 1/2 orders of magnitude. Nuke has the best safety record of any major source of power, coal has the worst. (Yes, nuke beats all your green options.)

Source please. And if it's the same mortality-rate-based figures you tried to fool people with last time, I'll be disappointed.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Nuke waste is far easier to deal with than coal waste due to the quantities involved. Coal plants haul off traincars of toxic waste that's not going to decay.

As for ways of isolating the products--we have multiple answers that work, the problem is political.

No, the primary problem is business-related. The present model for nuclear power relies on the government subsidising your risks. Governments aren't keen any more. That's not a political problem, it's a problem with the business model.

The thing is insurance companies do not want to deal with large events. It's the same reason the government does flood insurance and earthquake insurance is a joke.

Coal outstrips nuke by 3 1/2 orders of magnitude. Nuke has the best safety record of any major source of power, coal has the worst. (Yes, nuke beats all your green options.)

Source please. And if it's the same mortality-rate-based figures you tried to fool people with last time, I'll be disappointed.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

Yeah, it's based on deaths so it doesn't allow you to pretend nuke is much more dangerous than it really is.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

No, the primary problem is business-related. The present model for nuclear power relies on the government subsidising your risks. Governments aren't keen any more. That's not a political problem, it's a problem with the business model.

The thing is insurance companies do not want to deal with large events. It's the same reason the government does flood insurance and earthquake insurance is a joke.

Coal outstrips nuke by 3 1/2 orders of magnitude. Nuke has the best safety record of any major source of power, coal has the worst. (Yes, nuke beats all your green options.)

Source please. And if it's the same mortality-rate-based figures you tried to fool people with last time, I'll be disappointed.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

Yeah, it's based on deaths so it doesn't allow you to pretend nuke is much more dangerous than it really is.

95000GW would have taken 43.7 million tons of steel and 82.7 million tons of concrete. 3% of one year of global steel production. 4% of one year of the world’s concrete production. Half of one year’s production in the US for steel. About 15 deaths if corresponded to half of one years metal/nonmetal mining fatalities. 0.1 deaths per TWh. If the metal and concrete had come from China about 2700 metal/nonmetal mining deaths per year for 5 times the amount of steel. 270 deaths to get the metal for the wind turbines. 1.9 deaths per TWh. These construction related deaths are amortized over the life of the wind turbines of 30 years. Other wind power deaths need to factor in dangers associated with working with very tall structures (50 stories tall) and with deep water work associated with building and anchoring offshore.

Are you serious?! This is including material production? Did the study account for drunk drivers that may crash into the wind turbine's design engineer's car and kill him too?

"Deaths by TWh by energy source" strongly implies during production of energy, not the 'dust-to-dust' cost starting back in the waning days of glaciation.

 

[arkirk]

The thing is insurance companies do not want to deal with large events. It's the same reason the government does flood insurance and earthquake insurance is a joke.

Coal outstrips nuke by 3 1/2 orders of magnitude. Nuke has the best safety record of any major source of power, coal has the worst. (Yes, nuke beats all your green options.)

Source please. And if it's the same mortality-rate-based figures you tried to fool people with last time, I'll be disappointed.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

Yeah, it's based on deaths so it doesn't allow you to pretend nuke is much more dangerous than it really is.

95000GW would have taken 43.7 million tons of steel and 82.7 million tons of concrete. 3% of one year of global steel production. 4% of one year of the world’s concrete production. Half of one year’s production in the US for steel. About 15 deaths if corresponded to half of one years metal/nonmetal mining fatalities. 0.1 deaths per TWh. If the metal and concrete had come from China about 2700 metal/nonmetal mining deaths per year for 5 times the amount of steel. 270 deaths to get the metal for the wind turbines. 1.9 deaths per TWh. These construction related deaths are amortized over the life of the wind turbines of 30 years. Other wind power deaths need to factor in dangers associated with working with very tall structures (50 stories tall) and with deep water work associated with building and anchoring offshore.

Are you serious?! This is including material production? Did the study account for drunk drivers that may crash into the wind turbine's design engineer's car and kill him too?

"Deaths by TWh by energy source" strongly implies during production of energy, not the 'dust-to-dust' cost starting back in the waning days of glaciation.

I find this an amusing attempt to dodge the facts regarding nuclear power generation and the problems of nuclear waste handling. Perhaps the globe trotting Loren ought to visit Fukushima and see the tremendous economic upheaval just one facility failure can bring to a whole country. Opposing nukes in no way presages any particular green technology and definitely does not mean I support in any way the coal industry.

The 20th century was a period of huge expenditures of energy and huge disruptions of our environment for things such as war and commercial profit seeking. All of this disruption led to the establishment of a system of gross power production in order to support it. We are wasting our planet in support of both military and commercial ventures that are completely unsustainable. We will run out of mountaintops to remove and places to tuck nuclear waste.

Much of our huge expenditures of energy are unrelated to meeting human needs and are in fact only supporting oligarchical structures of political power. People who see no problem with dominating and occasionally exterminating other human beings are equally at home with ruining our environment. It really shakes out as a question of whether or not we believe in domination so fervently we are willing to destroy our natural support systems.

We are a species that is out of control on this planet. The question in my mind is whether or not enough of the human population can forge agreements of cooperation and discipline itself sufficiently to have a future here. Loren, and indeed most environmentalists are very panicky at the thought of humanity having to cease consuming entire ecosystems whole and creating a regimen of reduced energy consumption and reduced pollution.

The question is can we control our aggression against our fellow men and our environment, not merely where do we sweep this or that waste product under a rug that quite factually does not exist. Economy has another meaning to a wholistic environmentalist. It means to use no more than you have to. It does not mean growth. Those who propose to help mankind by increasing our energy consumption are perhaps the true meaning of pathological altruism. They have a zeal that propels them from one destructive project to the next. It is that zeal, that hunger that amounts to a kind of pathology and I frankly do not know if there is any hope of overcoming it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The thing is insurance companies do not want to deal with large events. It's the same reason the government does flood insurance and earthquake insurance is a joke.

Coal outstrips nuke by 3 1/2 orders of magnitude. Nuke has the best safety record of any major source of power, coal has the worst. (Yes, nuke beats all your green options.)

Source please. And if it's the same mortality-rate-based figures you tried to fool people with last time, I'll be disappointed.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

Yeah, it's based on deaths so it doesn't allow you to pretend nuke is much more dangerous than it really is.

95000GW would have taken 43.7 million tons of steel and 82.7 million tons of concrete. 3% of one year of global steel production. 4% of one year of the world’s concrete production. Half of one year’s production in the US for steel. About 15 deaths if corresponded to half of one years metal/nonmetal mining fatalities. 0.1 deaths per TWh. If the metal and concrete had come from China about 2700 metal/nonmetal mining deaths per year for 5 times the amount of steel. 270 deaths to get the metal for the wind turbines. 1.9 deaths per TWh. These construction related deaths are amortized over the life of the wind turbines of 30 years. Other wind power deaths need to factor in dangers associated with working with very tall structures (50 stories tall) and with deep water work associated with building and anchoring offshore.

Are you serious?! This is including material production? Did the study account for drunk drivers that may crash into the wind turbine's design engineer's car and kill him too?

"Deaths by TWh by energy source" strongly implies during production of energy, not the 'dust-to-dust' cost starting back in the waning days of glaciation.

It's quite reasonable to look at the whole cycle. Does the death not being direct somehow make it not happen?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I find this an amusing attempt to dodge the facts regarding nuclear power generation and the problems of nuclear waste handling. Perhaps the globe trotting Loren ought to visit Fukushima and see the tremendous economic upheaval just one facility failure can bring to a whole country. Opposing nukes in no way presages any particular green technology and definitely does not mean I support in any way the coal industry.

The 20th century was a period of huge expenditures of energy and huge disruptions of our environment for things such as war and commercial profit seeking. All of this disruption led to the establishment of a system of gross power production in order to support it. We are wasting our planet in support of both military and commercial ventures that are completely unsustainable. We will run out of mountaintops to remove and places to tuck nuclear waste.

Much of our huge expenditures of energy are unrelated to meeting human needs and are in fact only supporting oligarchical structures of political power. People who see no problem with dominating and occasionally exterminating other human beings are equally at home with ruining our environment. It really shakes out as a question of whether or not we believe in domination so fervently we are willing to destroy our natural support systems.

We are a species that is out of control on this planet. The question in my mind is whether or not enough of the human population can forge agreements of cooperation and discipline itself sufficiently to have a future here. Loren, and indeed most environmentalists are very panicky at the thought of humanity having to cease consuming entire ecosystems whole and creating a regimen of reduced energy consumption and reduced pollution.

The question is can we control our aggression against our fellow men and our environment, not merely where do we sweep this or that waste product under a rug that quite factually does not exist. Economy has another meaning to a wholistic environmentalist. It means to use no more than you have to. It does not mean growth. Those who propose to help mankind by increasing our energy consumption are perhaps the true meaning of pathological altruism. They have a zeal that propels them from one destructive project to the next. It is that zeal, that hunger that amounts to a kind of pathology and I frankly do not know if there is any hope of overcoming it.

Once again you evade the issue.

I gave you the numbers, you didn't even reply to my post, but rather to a misguided rebuttal of it.

You want energy consumption to go way down--never mind that that would doom us as a species. You're the one with the most ecologically unsound approach! (If we go down we won't just fade away. Most of the ecosystem will go with us as the survivors try to eek out a living without the resources to do so.)

 

[ksen]

Most of the ecosystem will go with us as the survivors try to eek out a living without the resources to do so.)

Maybe the survivors should take a class in how to make good decisions.

 

[arkirk]

I find this an amusing attempt to dodge the facts regarding nuclear power generation and the problems of nuclear waste handling. Perhaps the globe trotting Loren ought to visit Fukushima and see the tremendous economic upheaval just one facility failure can bring to a whole country. Opposing nukes in no way presages any particular green technology and definitely does not mean I support in any way the coal industry.

The 20th century was a period of huge expenditures of energy and huge disruptions of our environment for things such as war and commercial profit seeking. All of this disruption led to the establishment of a system of gross power production in order to support it. We are wasting our planet in support of both military and commercial ventures that are completely unsustainable. We will run out of mountaintops to remove and places to tuck nuclear waste.

Much of our huge expenditures of energy are unrelated to meeting human needs and are in fact only supporting oligarchical structures of political power. People who see no problem with dominating and occasionally exterminating other human beings are equally at home with ruining our environment. It really shakes out as a question of whether or not we believe in domination so fervently we are willing to destroy our natural support systems.

We are a species that is out of control on this planet. The question in my mind is whether or not enough of the human population can forge agreements of cooperation and discipline itself sufficiently to have a future here. Loren, and indeed most environmentalists are very panicky at the thought of humanity having to cease consuming entire ecosystems whole and creating a regimen of reduced energy consumption and reduced pollution.

The question is can we control our aggression against our fellow men and our environment, not merely where do we sweep this or that waste product under a rug that quite factually does not exist. Economy has another meaning to a wholistic environmentalist. It means to use no more than you have to. It does not mean growth. Those who propose to help mankind by increasing our energy consumption are perhaps the true meaning of pathological altruism. They have a zeal that propels them from one destructive project to the next. It is that zeal, that hunger that amounts to a kind of pathology and I frankly do not know if there is any hope of overcoming it.

Once again you evade the issue.

I gave you the numbers, you didn't even reply to my post, but rather to a misguided rebuttal of it.

You want energy consumption to go way down--never mind that that would doom us as a species. You're the one with the most ecologically unsound approach! (If we go down we won't just fade away. Most of the ecosystem will go with us as the survivors try to eek out a living without the resources to do so.)

So reduced energy consumption will "doom us as a species?" What you are dodging is the fact we are out of control and when nature applies its control on us, it will not be nice. You also give the common man no credit for perhaps being able to help us plan on how to accomplish energy consumption reduction. We are literally drowning in our waste.

We already have made some baby steps in the realm of transportation with things like CAFE standards. Our greatest savings will indeed come from reducing the energy required to stay alive. You confine your thinking to the balance sheet on a dollars and cents ledger. There is another bigger balance sheet you ignore...the state of the human race on this earth.

Advocating nuclear power is just saying, "Coal is bad. Try this other bad." Since the dawn of the nuclear age, the problem of disposal of nuclear waste (including plutonium) has been and will continue to be critical and still without viable answers. The salt dome proposal you mentioned has already been discounted as unfeasible. You seem unable to grasp the concept of non renewable. You seem unaware that there are tipping points in the global warming problem...when we melt sufficient permafrost and start releasing methane in even larger quantities than the frackers are doing and intend to do.
You ignore the dying condition of the world's corral reefs due to bleaching caused by dissolved CO2 in our oceans. Our oceans have been acting as a CO2 sink and this too will reverse as temperatures rise. You seem to think we have some sort of eternal license to inhabit this real estate no matter what we do. Are you a religious man?

We already have enough nuclear waste and its safe disposal is doubtful right now. Our environmental conditions are changing and will continue to go in the wrong direction for human life even if we greatly reduce our Carbon pollution. We will not be able to kiss off the rest of the world when these problems land full force at home. Here we are in the deep muddy and you keep telling us to push on.