Trump was profoundly right during his 2018 UN speech

[Ford]

But it wasn't due to some deep geopolitical insight either.

So who else was saying something directly counter and unpopular to what the German government was taking?

Do it think it would be easy for a US leader to say something true which would would cause ridicule and dismisal by many others?

For Trump, it comes naturally.

It doesn't take special courage or wisdom for an American president to go to another country and say "you should buy stuff from America".

But according to Tucker Carlson (jeez, really?) he was right about this one thing one time! Trump was the best President ever because stopped clocks and stuff!

 

[bilby]

But they were probably listening to the US media

The average German rarely encounters the US media, and certainly doesn't listen to what it has to say without serious eye-rolling.

I think you massively underestimate just how few fucks the citizens of the EU give about the USA.

Do you watch a lot of German news shows? Does German media (or French, or Italian, or Dutch...) strongly influence your thinking?

There are some countries in the world that look to the USA for leadership and guidance. None are in the EU.

 

[Patooka]

But they were probably listening to the US media

The average German rarely encounters the US media, and certainly doesn't listen to what it has to say without serious eye-rolling.

I think you massively underestimate just how few fucks the citizens of the EU give about the USA.

Do you watch a lot of German news shows? Does German media (or French, or Italian, or Dutch...) strongly influence your thinking?

There are some countries in the world that look to the USA for leadership and guidance. None are in the EU.

I find it very difficult to believe Germans would prefer watching FOX, Newsmax etc over DW.

 

[thebeave]

Germany's fuck up was trusting Russia and shutting down their nuclear power plants before the green energy is running full tilt

Nah, basing energy policy on the rantings of a truant autistic Swedish girl is just stupid.

This is the part where you name a single nation that does that. Don't worry, I can wait.

Merkel says Greta Thunberg 'drove us' to move on climate change

German Chancellor Angela Merkel conceded Friday that her government was driven to act faster on climate change by young activists like teenaged Greta Thunberg, who was speaking at rally in Berlin the same day.

"They certainly drove us to speed up" efforts to change policy, said Merkel at a press conference while nearby in the German capital the 16-year-old Swedish activist addressed the latest "Fridays for Future" rally.

"The seriousness with which Greta, but also many, many other young people, are telling us that this is about their lives, and that their life spans extend further, has led us to approach the matter more resolutely," said Merkel.

Greta is on record as being anti-nuke, so maybe that affirmed to Merkel that shutting down Germany's nuclear power plants was the right way to go. Little brat...

 

[bilby]

The fact is that gas is less awful than coal, but it's like crashing into a solid wall at 100kph rather than at 200kph - you're still fucked, just fucked slower.

As I posted elsewhere on these boards, the facts are simple enough:

The IPCC 2014 data gives the following CO2equivalent emissions by energy source for electricity generation (gCO2eq/kWh):

820 Coal
650 Oil
490 Gas
230 Biomass
235 Solar + Storage*
188 Wind + Storage*
------------------------------
45 Solar when available*
38 Geothermal
24 Hydro
12 Nuclear
11 Wind when available*

Obviously the lower down this list your choice of electricity source appears, the better. Equally obviously, third place is better than first or second, but hardly qualifies as "good". Coal is 68x as bad as Nuclear power, Oil is 54x as bad, while Gas is "only" 41x as bad.

...

If all current human energy consumption was to fall below that approximately 100gCO2eq/kWh level, the atmospheric greenhouse gas level would start to decline, rather than increase, due to natural processes that remove carbon dioxide from the air (mostly the activity of photosynthetic organisms). Obviously if global energy consumption doubles, we would need to target <50g, or if it quadruples, <25g, etc.

If we want to prevent carbon dioxide emissions from continuously altering the composition of our atmosphere, which will ultimately be catastrophic (even if you are a hopeless optimist who thinks this will take a long time, there's no rational basis to claim it won't happen), then it's essential that we transition ALL electricity generation to technologies that are below the dotted line in my post quoted above.

Of those five technologies, two are limited by physics to operating less than half the time (because the sun doesn't shine at night, and the wind doesn't blow all the time); And two are limited by geological and geographical conditions that make them unviable for many countries.

The only remaining question is why we haven't yet started a massive worldwide program to transition to the one technology that allows both 24x7 electricity, and a climate that's not racing towards disaster.

The answer seems to be that we are politically polarised into two camps: One which refuses to believe that there's a problem, and one that refuses to consider the only viable solution.

Humans are fucking nuts.

 

[pood]

Advanced nuclear energy key to future, EPA chief says.

 

[bilby]

Advanced nuclear energy key to future, EPA chief says.

While I don't disagree, the idea that we need "advanced" (ie not the stuff we have right now) is nonsense.

We have been building perfectly good nuclear reactors for fifty years. We don't need more research dollars, or more time, or more advanced materials. Those are all 'nice to have' luxuries that we can take advantage of once we are out of the hole we are currently digging.

We need to just build lots of reactors. Just like the French did back in the 1980s. It was not only possible, but fairly easy, forty years ago, for a middling ranked developed economy.

 

[pood]

Advanced nuclear energy key to future, EPA chief says.

While I don't disagree, the idea that we need "advanced" (ie not the stuff we have right now) is nonsense.

We have been building perfectly good nuclear reactors for fifty years. We don't need more research dollars, or more time, or more advanced materials. Those are all 'nice to have' luxuries that we can take advantage of once we are out of the hole we are currently digging.

We need to just build lots of reactors. Just like the French did back in the 1980s. It was not only possible, but fairly easy, forty years ago, for a middling ranked developed economy.

I find it encouraging that the head of the EPA is talking nuclear. Wind, geothermal, solar, etc. just aren’t going to cut it as replacements for fossil fuels, if we want to preserve a high-tech, global industrial economy.

 

[Patooka]

Here's the thing; if the word "Trump" is in your sentence, you can't use the word "profound". It just doesn't work.

 

[Jarhyn]

Here's the thing; if the word "Trump" is in your sentence, you can't use the word "profound". It just doesn't work.

"Trump has a profound deficit in his mental capacities".

"The depths of Trump's racism, and ignorance as well, are profound."

"Trump has committed an utterly profound number of crimes"

Works just fine!

 

[bilby]

Here's the thing; if the word "Trump" is in your sentence, you can't use the word "profound". It just doesn't work.

Also, references to "right" in such a sentence are always construed to mean "politically conservative", and never "correct" or "accurate".

Was I incorrect in my assumption that the thread title meant:

Trump was profoundly politically conservative during his 2018 UN speech​

 

[zorq]

Trump started that speech with the foolish boast of "In less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of my country." The entire UN assembly broke into laughter at Trump for that. Starting with bold, self congratulatory lies like that, it is hard for anyone to take the rest of Trump's speech seriously. Why wouldn't the Germans be laughing? The court jester had the spotlight.

Show

 

[ZiprHead]

Didn't we have a throw up emoji? I need one after that.

 

[funinspace]

As a related aside I have always found it very interesting that the very same people who thought (still think) Trump was (and is) in Putin's bed...are the same people who would have laughed and jeered at him during this UN speech! The congnitive dissonence of such reasoning is incredible! Just how people could believe the same man is for Russia when he is doing all he can warning others of Russia.

But with our monopolized media and an entrenched government state anything is possible I guess.

What alternate reality do you live in? Why in the world do you even think the big US media supported it. If anything, they were largely not paying much attention to it, because most Americans don't care about things outside of our country.

The Obama Administration also opposed the pipeline when it was initiated in 2015. However, blackmailing our ally (Germany) is not exactly a smart move. Much of Europe was strongly against the pipeline as well. This is Germany's fuckup, Clownstick is just a broken clock who on rare occasion says the correct thing, even if he is also an asshole in the process. But being an asshole, doesn't help much in cajoling allies to do the right thing.

From Nov 2015 (with snippet):
https://www.ft.com/content/eb1ebca8-9514-11e5-ac15-0f7f7945adba

The issue also risks becoming a source of renewed transatlantic tensions. The Obama administration has vocally objected to the project, noting it would deprive Ukraine of about €2bn in gas transit fees — money that the International Monetary Fund or EU would have to make up as part of its burgeoning aid package to Kiev.

 

[Jayjay]

Didn't we have a throw up emoji? I need one after that.

 

[Bomb#20]

Why wouldn't the Germans be laughing?

Correlation coefficient between humor and German sense of humor?

 

[Bomb#20]

Nah, basing energy policy on the rantings of a truant autistic Swedish girl is just stupid.

This is the part where you name a single nation that does that. Don't worry, I can wait.

Merkel says Greta Thunberg 'drove us' to move on climate change

German Chancellor Angela Merkel conceded Friday that her government was driven to act faster on climate change by young activists like teenaged Greta Thunberg, who was speaking at rally in Berlin the same day.
...
"The seriousness with which Greta, but also many, many other young people, are telling us that this is about their lives, and that their life spans extend further, has led us to approach the matter more resolutely," said Merkel.

Greta is on record as being anti-nuke, so maybe that affirmed to Merkel that shutting down Germany's nuclear power plants was the right way to go. Little brat...

The truant autistic Swedish girl is a symptom, not a cause; and Merkel was just virtue signaling. These things

have been all over the place at least since the 1970s.

 

[zorq]

Why wouldn't the Germans be laughing?

Correlation coefficient between humor and German sense of humor?

May I remind you that "schadenfreude" is a German word?

 

[Ford]

Didn't we have a throw up emoji? I need one after that.

I needed this after the above attack on Greta for being autistic. All that's left after that is for the poster who said it to complain about us not being "civil."

 

[thebeave]

Didn't we have a throw up emoji? I need one after that.

I needed this after the above attack on Greta for being autistic. All that's left after that is for the poster who said it to complain about us not being "civil."

Didn't we have a throw up emoji? I need one after that.

I needed this after the above attack on Greta for being autistic. All that's left after that is for the poster who said it to complain about us not being "civil."

She IS autistic and embraces it:

The transformation of Greta Thunberg

Thunberg was at home with her father for a year. By the time she was ready to return to school (initially a specialist autism school, then grammar school), she had been diagnosed with Asperger’s, obsessive compulsive disorder and selective mutism. Thunberg says the diagnosis came as a relief. “When I felt the most sad, I didn’t know that I had autism. I just thought, I don’t want to be like this. The diagnosis was almost only positive for me. It helped me get the support I needed and made me understand why I was like this.”
She describes her autism as her superpower. I ask why. “A lot of people with autism have a special interest that they can sit and do for an eternity without getting bored. It’s a very useful thing sometimes. Autism can be something that holds you back, but if you get to the right circumstance, if you are around the right people, if you get the adaptations that you need and you feel you have a purpose, then it can be something you can use for good. And I think that I’m doing that now.” Thunberg has not just become the world’s best-known climate change activist, but also its best-known autism activist.

I think she would be more offended about the fact that people think her ideas on energy are stupid (which they are).