Re: Whoops! The Atlantic Makes Trump Look EPIC In Cover Intended as a Smear

Mike Van Pelt wrote:

In article <vd1td8$3qtr8$1@dont-email.me>,
William Hyde  <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:

Mike Van Pelt wrote:

The adamant opposition to nuclear power by the people who
are most gung-ho on the "Global Warming" thing unalterably
convinces me that they do not belive it themselves.

>
Actually I am strongly pro-nuclear power, as are most climate
scientists I know.

 Good. You make ... what, the third? ... that has come to my
attention.  In the past, when I've said this, what I've gotten
from the global warming folks in the conversation is "Noooooo,
nuclear is teh evulzzz!!!"

The people who speak in public about global climate change are seldom the people who work at the science. The same as with any other major issue.
We are not in general a charismatic bunch, we do not wow the audience with out speaking abilities (with a few exceptions like Asimov).  So the public face of the cause is people who are political.  And among that crowd, "nuclear" is almost an obscenity.
Half the power I am using is nuclear, and this has been the case for decades.  I've yet to see anyone around here who glows in the dark.

 One of several reasons I took "Science Friday" off of my
podcast download was that in several years of listening
to it, they had many, many overheated (heh) stories about
global warming, but never once could bring themselves to
mention nuclear in that context.  The only mention of
nuclear power I recall was one "nuclear is bad" story.

The older I get the less I can bear watching "scientific" programming, (or history programming, but that's a different story) as popular narratives intrude on that which should be objective.

 (The main reason being that Ira Flatow's questions were those
of a scientific *tabula rasa*; I don't think he was as ignorant
as the questions made him seem, but I think he was asking
the questions he expected a scientifically ignorant audience
to ask.  "The Naked Scientists", "Quirks and Quarks", and
the Science Magazine podcast cover all the same territory far
better.  The host of "The Naked Scientists" asks intelligent
questions, often the question I would have wanted to ask.)
 

I am also pro-hydro, which most greens oppose, though it has to be
carefully done (poorly placed reservoirs for dams can emit C02 and CH4
to such a degree that the power is only as clean as non-fracked natural
gas.  Better than coal, but not good enough).

 Hydro is great, but as has been pointed out, all the good
sites have been taken.

I am not at all sure this is true.  And yes, some dams were put in the wrong place and should be demolished (most of those do not produce power anyway).
But I think that if we take things seriously, with an actual plan as opposed to the occasional spasmodic development, that we will find there is a great deal of untapped hydro out there.
   (And the greens, of course, are

clammoring to have even existing dams torn down.)
 

Fossil fuels will continue to be burnt for a very long time.  There is
no conceivable way of shutting them down rapidly. We don't currently
have a carbon capture system worth anything, but I can't believe it's
beyond our abilities. Put Lynn on the job.

 Apparently, phytoplankton could absorb a lot more CO2 if it
weren't for lack of the limiting nutrient, iron.  Some experiements
should be done (*CAREFULLY*) along these lines, but they aren't
One group did try something along these lines, and were roundly
condemned for doing it.  (I did get the impression that their
experiment wasn't particularly well controlled, so perhaps they
did deserve some criticism, but it's been years, and nobody else
is even looking into this as far as I know.)

Quite a number of experiments have been done, which are summarized in the wikipedia article.
Results have been mixed at best, but I'd be happy to see more work done on this.  So far it seems as if it will require vast amounts of iron, with side effects not yet known in full, to achieve relatively little.
But in a world where the debt-ridden province of Ontario is considering spending 40+ billion on an underground highway, a few million for a more extensive experiment on this doesn't seem too much to ask.
We really can't afford to neglect anything that might be part of the answer.

 Any solution that doesn't involve shutting down fossil fuel
use *right now* generally gets shouted down with chants of
"Technofix!" as if that's a bad thing.

People love to point out apparent contradictions.  "You can't solve the problems of technology with technology".
Some of the people mouthing this slogan also believe in homeopathy.  Now if you could put that irony into the ocean ...
William Hyde