Slashdot Mirror

Educating girls does reduce birthrates, and it's been know for decades..
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/press...
https://www.independent.co.uk/...
http://www.earth-policy.org/da...

The USA used to be that bad. Then we made the EPA, and spent the next 40 years cleaning

I'm glad someone on Slashdot finally admitted that the USA has improved in this regard instead of everyone trying to make it out like the United States is the worst of the pollution offenders. It's China, hands down. Evidence that the USA has improved dramatically over the past 20 years. I'm surprised you didn't get modded down making this factual claim.

The refugee crisis you refer to is actually the second Syrian refugee crisis.

The first refugee was an internal displacement of 1.5 million people (out of a population of 20 million) over the period 2007-2011 during crops failed due to unprecedented drought. Over two hundred villages were completely depopulated, and 40% of Syria's agricultural workforce was lost. Domestic wheat production crashed, and prices skyrocketed as it was replaced by imports.

So you had over a million hungry, unemployed displaced people crowded into cities, when a bad harvest in Russia caused a spike in global wheat prices. Check out the graph in this link labelled "World Monthly Grains Price Index" and note the massive upswing in prices in 2010 - 2011. There was a similar price spike in 2007, but back then Syria produced essentially all the wheat it consumed. In 2010 Syria only produced 80% of what it needed, resulting in underconsumption -- aka "starvation". You can check out the figures here.

Finally note that the so-called "Day of Rage" which critically destabilized the regime took place on March 15, 2011. The timing was not coincidental.

Now you can talk to me about "political struggle" in Syria. The roots of that struggle are of course decades old. But the effects were exacerbated by the worst drought in 900 years.

Without the sarcasm, try to stay on topic lest you continue to be perceived as a shithead Troll.

I have stayed on topic. Shithead troll I guess is a matter of perspective. Syria is exactly the kind of scenario security planners are worried about. And one reason they are worried is that many in the public literally find the idea of climate-driven refugees unimaginable. People who've been paying attention find it all too easy to imagine.

http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2010/update87

250 million cars

if only one in 10 thousand catches fire then their would be 25 thousand car fires.

http://www.nfpa.org/research/fire-statistics/the-us-fire-problem/highway-vehicle-fires

187 thousand fires on the highway alone.

or nearly 1 in 2000 petrol cars catch fire each year.

Western technology is what caused western birthrates.

You have the whole thing backwards.

Wrong punchy.
Education lowers birthrates. Not western tech. You can feed, cure, and entertain to your hearts content, but it is teaching people, particularly girls and women, that causes them not to pop out 20 babies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence
http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2011/highlights13
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/07/from_the_cuttin_2.html

Don't be silly, it won't be 200F in July.

If it was as much above normal in July, as it is currently in March here in Chicago, the daily high would be 127, with an overnight low of 94.

Fun stuff, isn't it?

I know it's kinda an interesting anecdote, but it's not as funny when heat waves kill tens of thousands.

We would be seeing similar problems in the US if we had a heat wave of 127 with a low of 94 for several days in a row. It's not the average Slashdotter that would have problems, it's the elderly, the already ill, the poor, the young, et cetera. Those who are already vulnerable to severe temperatures. And to say nothing of the brownouts due to a huge city like, say, Chicago all running the AC at full bore 24x7.

Unfortunately, the Corporate Apologists in America would be sure to point out that there is no climate change problem and it's "All Obama's Fault" (tm) in any case, so we'll get nowhere.

It's really starting to look like we won't wise up and do something about our environmental destruction until it's too late.

Dang, first post got eaten. Anyways - on enforcing the law. I did some research. It bans the importation and manufacture of non-compliant bulbs. It doesn't make selling them domestically illegal, nor possession, etc... So unless you're running a factory or importing business, I don't think you have to worry. Just like the toilets. They aren't going to break down people's doors looking for them.

Even you can see the right answer. So why go with a wrong one?

Remember I only stepped in to explain the analogy. Didn't say I agreed with it. I think we can both agree that pollution, especially too much of it, can be bad.

But not from light bulbs.

Let's see: ~70k deaths from air pollution in the USA per year. The UK is 50k. Worldwide is 1.3M per year.
Lighting is 9% of electricity usage.
Eyeballing this and averaging the four sources, I get 24% of air pollution from energy production and distribution. EPA says 67% sulfur dioxide, 23% nitrogen oxide. I dropped CO2. That would be 45%. I'll stick with 24%.

Using a straight blame - 70k deaths from air pollution. 17k would be from electricity generation. 1.5k for pollution from powering lights, on average. 28k worldwide.
So yeah, I can trace thousands of deaths to the pollution from light bulbs. Making matters worse - there's plenty of survivors affected - per 75 deaths there are '505 hospital admissions for asthma and other respiratory diseases, 3,500 respiratory emergency doctor visits, 180,000 asthma attacks, 930,000 restricted activity days, and 2,000,000 acute respiratory symptom days.' Per 75 deaths seems an odd measure to use, but it's what the article listed. That's a lot of lost labor due to the pollution.

As for the baseload vs peak - 'not many lights are left on overnight'? I refer you to this image. And coal power isn't entirely baseload - fire up another boiler, spin another turbine. It might have to be scheduled a bit more compared to hydro or NG, but it's there.

Look, it's not that we don't agree on some things, it's just that, well, if you're going to argue this stuff, you need to do it right, and denying facts isn't going to help. I lean majorly libertarian, but given the pollution levels in my town on occasion,

Too lazy to google it yourself?

This was just released today by the Earth Policy Institute. While it is US centric, it does have some compelling data:

http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2011/update101

Between 2007 and 2011, carbon emissions from coal use in the United States dropped 10 percent. During the same period, emissions from oil use dropped 11 percent. In contrast, carbon emissions from natural gas use increased by 6 percent. The net effect of these trends was that U.S. carbon emissions dropped 7 percent in four years. And this is only the beginning.

In installed wind-generating capacity, Texas is followed by Iowa, California, Minnesota, and Illinois. In the share of electricity generation in the state coming from wind, Iowa leads at 20 percent.

With electricity generated by solar panels, the United States has some 22,000 megawatts of utility-scale projects in the pipeline. And this does not include residential installations.

Closing coal plants also cuts oil use. With coal use falling, the near 40 percent of freight rail diesel fuel that is used to move coal from mines to power plants will also drop.

In fact, oil use has fallen fast in the United States over the last four years, thus reversing another long-term trend of rising consumption. The reasons for this include a shrinkage in the size of the national fleet, the rising fuel efficiency of new cars, and a reduction in the miles driven per vehicle.

While not Belgium, the US is a much larger market, and I'd fathom that the trend will be followed in other first-world countries (including those in Europe).

I read somewhere, around the 1980s, probably by Amory Lovins, that if we spent a year or so of the cost of maintaining the US Persian Gulf deployment force on insulating US homes and other energy efficiency improvements, that we would not need any imported oil. Related:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
    http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
    http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

All this robotic warfare is just ironic, as are, ultimately, all arms races that lead to the destruction of all parties (except maybe the robots). See also:
    http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Minosian
"The Minosians were a thriving, technologically-advanced humanoid civilization from the planet Minos. The Minosians gained notoriety as arms merchants during the Erselrope Wars, providing advanced weaponry such as the Echo Papa 607 which were sold under the banner "Peace through superior firepower." It was discovered in 2364 that the Minosians were subsequently eradicated by their own weapon system when it went out of control. One of the few Minosian artifacts surviving, the Echo Papa 607 system was responsible for the destruction of the USS Drake and attempted to destroy the USS Enterprise-D. (TNG: "The Arsenal of Freedom") "

Thus:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html

"Again, I'm all for more nuke plants. It's cleaner' than coal, and going heavily into solar + wind is a pipe dream."

Citation needed on solar and wind?

Counterpoints:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity
    http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/press_room/C68/2010_datarelease9
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
    http://www.google.com/#q=no+furnace
    http://www.nanosolar.com/company/blog/beck-energy-and-nanosolar-complete-solar-power-plant
    http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/blog/?p=1037
    http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127

At current levels of exponential growth, renewable energy will supply all our power in twenty years. Why should this exponetial growth stop before then? Short of something way better?

So, citation needed for your point.

However, sure, small modern nukes may be safer, but how risky will the centralized reprocessing plants be in an earthquake?

Have you looked?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage#Metal_hydrides
"Metal hydrides, such as MgH2, NaAlH4, LiAlH4, LiH, LaNi5H6, and TiFeH2, with varying degrees of efficiency, can be used as a storage medium for hydrogen, often reversibly.[8] Some are easy-to-fuel liquids at ambient temperature and pressure, others are solids which could be turned into pellets. These materials have good energy density by volume, although their energy density by weight is often worse than the leading hydrocarbon fuels."

http://web.ead.anl.gov/saltcaverns/uses/compair/index.htm
"Salt caverns or mines have been used to store air under high pressure.
* Compressors use off-peak electricity to fill the cavern with compressed air.
* For peaking demand, the compressed air is withdrawn from the cavern, blended with natural gas, and used to drive a gas turbine to generate electricity.
* CAES Plants of 110 â" 290 MW exist."

http://www.saltcavernstorage.com/caes.html

http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2000/alert14
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2003/update24
http://www.earth-policy.org/books/pb4/PB4ch5_ss2
"Europe is already tapping its off-shore wind. An assessment by the Garrad Hassan wind energy consulting group concluded that if governments aggressively develop their vast off-shore resources, wind could supply all of Europeâ(TM)s residential electricity by 2020. 13 ... This climate-stabilizing initiative would require the installation of 1.5 million wind turbines of 2 megawatts each. Manufacturing such a huge number of wind turbines over the next 11 years sounds intimidating until it is compared with the 70 million automobiles the world produces each year. At $3 million per installed turbine, this would mean investing $4.5 trillion by 2020, or $409 billion per year. This compares with world oil and gas capital expenditures that are projected to reach $1 trillion per year by 2016. 29 Wind turbines can be mass-produced on assembly lines, much as B-24 bombers were in World War II at Fordâ(TM)s massive Willow Run assembly plant in Michigan. Indeed, the idled capacity in the U.S. automobile industry is sufficient to produce all the wind turbines the world needs to reach the Plan B global goal. Not only do the idle plants exist, but there are skilled workers in these communities eager to return to work. The state of Michigan, for example, in the heart of the wind-rich Great Lakes region, has more than its share of idled auto assembly plants. 30"

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2010/08/24/plan-seeks-100-pct-renewable-energy-australia-ten-years
"The report, entitled Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan, "outlines a technically feasible and economically attractive way for Australia to transition to 100 percent renewable energy within ten years." The plan specifies that the 100 percent renewable grid be "based on proven technologies that are already commercially available and that have already been demonstrated in large industries.""

Recent:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-scientists-breakthrough-nanocomposite-high-capacity-hydrogen.html

Have you looked?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage#Metal_hydrides
"Metal hydrides, such as MgH2, NaAlH4, LiAlH4, LiH, LaNi5H6, and TiFeH2, with varying degrees of efficiency, can be used as a storage medium for hydrogen, often reversibly.[8] Some are easy-to-fuel liquids at ambient temperature and pressure, others are solids which could be turned into pellets. These materials have good energy density by volume, although their energy density by weight is often worse than the leading hydrocarbon fuels."

http://web.ead.anl.gov/saltcaverns/uses/compair/index.htm
"Salt caverns or mines have been used to store air under high pressure.
* Compressors use off-peak electricity to fill the cavern with compressed air.
* For peaking demand, the compressed air is withdrawn from the cavern, blended with natural gas, and used to drive a gas turbine to generate electricity.
* CAES Plants of 110 â" 290 MW exist."

http://www.saltcavernstorage.com/caes.html

http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2000/alert14
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2003/update24
http://www.earth-policy.org/books/pb4/PB4ch5_ss2
"Europe is already tapping its off-shore wind. An assessment by the Garrad Hassan wind energy consulting group concluded that if governments aggressively develop their vast off-shore resources, wind could supply all of Europeâ(TM)s residential electricity by 2020. 13 ... This climate-stabilizing initiative would require the installation of 1.5 million wind turbines of 2 megawatts each. Manufacturing such a huge number of wind turbines over the next 11 years sounds intimidating until it is compared with the 70 million automobiles the world produces each year. At $3 million per installed turbine, this would mean investing $4.5 trillion by 2020, or $409 billion per year. This compares with world oil and gas capital expenditures that are projected to reach $1 trillion per year by 2016. 29 Wind turbines can be mass-produced on assembly lines, much as B-24 bombers were in World War II at Fordâ(TM)s massive Willow Run assembly plant in Michigan. Indeed, the idled capacity in the U.S. automobile industry is sufficient to produce all the wind turbines the world needs to reach the Plan B global goal. Not only do the idle plants exist, but there are skilled workers in these communities eager to return to work. The state of Michigan, for example, in the heart of the wind-rich Great Lakes region, has more than its share of idled auto assembly plants. 30"

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2010/08/24/plan-seeks-100-pct-renewable-energy-australia-ten-years
"The report, entitled Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan, "outlines a technically feasible and economically attractive way for Australia to transition to 100 percent renewable energy within ten years." The plan specifies that the 100 percent renewable grid be "based on proven technologies that are already commercially available and that have already been demonstrated in large industries.""

Recent:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-scientists-breakthrough-nanocomposite-high-capacity-hydrogen.html

Have you looked?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage#Metal_hydrides
"Metal hydrides, such as MgH2, NaAlH4, LiAlH4, LiH, LaNi5H6, and TiFeH2, with varying degrees of efficiency, can be used as a storage medium for hydrogen, often reversibly.[8] Some are easy-to-fuel liquids at ambient temperature and pressure, others are solids which could be turned into pellets. These materials have good energy density by volume, although their energy density by weight is often worse than the leading hydrocarbon fuels."

http://web.ead.anl.gov/saltcaverns/uses/compair/index.htm
"Salt caverns or mines have been used to store air under high pressure.
* Compressors use off-peak electricity to fill the cavern with compressed air.
* For peaking demand, the compressed air is withdrawn from the cavern, blended with natural gas, and used to drive a gas turbine to generate electricity.
* CAES Plants of 110 â" 290 MW exist."

http://www.saltcavernstorage.com/caes.html

http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2000/alert14
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/plan_b_updates/2003/update24
http://www.earth-policy.org/books/pb4/PB4ch5_ss2
"Europe is already tapping its off-shore wind. An assessment by the Garrad Hassan wind energy consulting group concluded that if governments aggressively develop their vast off-shore resources, wind could supply all of Europeâ(TM)s residential electricity by 2020. 13 ... This climate-stabilizing initiative would require the installation of 1.5 million wind turbines of 2 megawatts each. Manufacturing such a huge number of wind turbines over the next 11 years sounds intimidating until it is compared with the 70 million automobiles the world produces each year. At $3 million per installed turbine, this would mean investing $4.5 trillion by 2020, or $409 billion per year. This compares with world oil and gas capital expenditures that are projected to reach $1 trillion per year by 2016. 29 Wind turbines can be mass-produced on assembly lines, much as B-24 bombers were in World War II at Fordâ(TM)s massive Willow Run assembly plant in Michigan. Indeed, the idled capacity in the U.S. automobile industry is sufficient to produce all the wind turbines the world needs to reach the Plan B global goal. Not only do the idle plants exist, but there are skilled workers in these communities eager to return to work. The state of Michigan, for example, in the heart of the wind-rich Great Lakes region, has more than its share of idled auto assembly plants. 30"

http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2010/08/24/plan-seeks-100-pct-renewable-energy-australia-ten-years
"The report, entitled Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan, "outlines a technically feasible and economically attractive way for Australia to transition to 100 percent renewable energy within ten years." The plan specifies that the 100 percent renewable grid be "based on proven technologies that are already commercially available and that have already been demonstrated in large industries.""

Recent:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-scientists-breakthrough-nanocomposite-high-capacity-hydrogen.html

Well said!

See also:

Plans:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

Cars:
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

Agriculture:
http://www.remineralize.org/
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx

But, with all that said, the same sorts of reasons solar energy is getting better (better materials, better designs, better discussions, better insights into physics) is the same reason small scale nuclear is getting better (even as I would agree solar is safer and more decentralized than conventional nuclear). And example of small nuclear:
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/

Related case for nuclear power:
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/

Let's say, in a moderate worse case in Japan that 100,000 people die from some nuclear radiation accident and the clean up cost a couple trillion dollars. Nuclear power still might have been cheaper in Japan, all things considered, than coal which causes a lot of pollution and related illness.

Would it have been cheaper in that sense than solar and wind? Probably not...

Still, given this is the worst quake to have hit Japan in a century, and the nuclear plants are not being talked about as having total meltdowns, this event itself might prove how safe they can be in some situations.

Of course, dealing with direct terrorism intended to cause them to malfunction may be a different issue, but many major industrial facilities, like at Bhopal, have that risk. And ideas like Hyperion help reduce that risk. Ultimately, if we try harder to make our global economy work for everyone, we might have less fears that people will commit terrorism because the hate us because we support their oppressors for various reasons...

On economic transformation, see:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Economic_Transformation

BTW, an example of perhaps cold fusion (still needs more confirmation):
http://pesn.com/2011/03/07/9501782_Cold_Fusion_Steams_Ahead_at_Worlds_Oldest_University/

Personally, I want to be able to print solar panels in a solar-powered 3D printer. :-)

http://remineralize.org/

And such fertilizer produces healthier plants that need less pesticides.

"Biodegradable plastic made from plants, not oil, is emerging"
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/manufacturing/2008-12-25-biodegradable-plastic_N.htm

"Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user"
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

"More energy goes into making gasoline from electricity and natural gas than it would take to make electric cars go the same distance"
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm

See also:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power
"Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security is a 1982 book by Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, prepared originally as a Pentagon study, and re-released in 2001 following the September 11 attacks. The book argues that U.S. domestic energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption, by accident or malice, often even more so than imported oil. According to the authors, a resilient energy system is feasible, costs less, works better, is favoured in the market, but is rejected by U.S. policy.[1] In the preface to the 2001 edition, Lovins explains that these themes are still very current. [2]"

Other approaches to all renewables:
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan

Given the exponetial growth of renewable energy, and how PV solar panels are about to reach grid parity and the prices will continue to drop, I think we will be all renewables by about 2030 from market forces alone at this point. (Unless cold fusion pans out, or if small scale nuclear like Hyperion gets popular.)

Three quarters of US agricultural production also just goes to produce livestock, and the health consequences of too much animal products are harming people's health, too, so we really don't need most of the fertilizer we produce.
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm
http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/11/the-subsidized-food-pyramid.html
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diet-myths-the-food-pyramid-of-the-insane.html
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/foodpyramid.aspx
http://www.ravediet.com/preview.html

How to deal with the economic consequences of all this increased efficiency:
http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=360&cpage=6#comment-20270
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/more-on-the-future-implications-ibm-watson-technology/#comment-534

Fossil fuel costs for defense and pollution easily rack up into hundreds of billions of dollars per year. As suggested in the book Brittle Power in 1982, renewable energy has been cheaper for decades than fossil fuels (or nuclear) when you include *all* the externalities.
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

We just pay for fossil fuel use through our taxes and national debt for the military, and through health costs from mercury pollution and other forms of pollution that lead to health problems (even wonder why much fish is now unsafe to eat from mercury?), systemic risk like of economic disruption or global war over oil, and so on.
        http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461

By the way, it takes more electricity and natural gas to refine a gallon of gasoline from oil than an electric car would need to go the same distance, so all that oil is completely wasted -- except it is profitable for some to fleece the public treasury.
    http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

GE had a cost-competetive production ready electric vehicle built from off-the-shelf parts built in the late 1970s -- you can see it in the Schenectady, NY science museum.

That our elected officials have allowed this public fleecing using fossil fuels, including the destruction of the health of our rivers, oceans, and humanity through smog and mercury, to go on since the Reagan years is an unspeakable tragedy of widespread corruption and ignorance which wider access to pubic records might help some with.

For the cost of less than one half-year of US defense spending the USA could shift to all renewables, eliminating the need for much of the defense budget.
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
    http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
    http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

As Jimmy Carter said in 1979:
    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html
"""
We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.
    All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.
"""

Thanks for the reply.

How is there a natural scarcity of materials when the Earth is so big, and the solar system is even bigger?
"Advanced Automation for Space Missions"
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/

How is there a scarcity of energy when the Earth receives 10,000 times what the human race uses from sunlight (and there are also vast geothermal energy reserves)? Nuclear missiles to fight over oil fields and land are so ironic, because the same technologies would let us build habitats in space or build solar panels (or nuclear power systems). For half of one year's US defense budget, the USA could move to entirely renewable energy sources with energy efficiency, and be way more intrinsically secure than depending on long supply lines that need to be guarded by soldiers.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

So, I'd suggest that when people fight over land and raw materials, it is mainly either through ignorance, lack of imagination,
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/
or through some sort of racket.
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

I'll agree with you that power over other people is a motivator for some people, but maybe we have to stop worshiping such people and start labelling that as mental illness? Another vision of an abundant society where that does not happen is James P. Hogan's "Voyage From Yesteryear":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear

Whether "people" are on top of the food chain is a matter of opinion. Bacteria and fungi eat humans in the end. And humans are roughly 90% bacterial cells by numbers and 10% by weight (mostly in the colon).

Maybe rather than create mind reprogramming technology, what we need to do is stop using the kind we invented already, which is present in compulsory schools, which were designed to create obedient soldiers and robot-like workers who would do whatever they were told, no matter how vile or boring:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/7a.htm
"""
The particular utopia American believers chose to bring to the schoolhouse was Prussian. The seed that became American schooling, twentieth-century style, was planted in 1806 when Napoleon's amateur soldiers bested the professional soldiers of Prussia at the battle of Jena. When your business is renting soldiers and employing diplomatic extortion under threat of your soldiery, losing a battle like that is pretty serious. Something had to be done.
The most important immediate reaction to Jena was an immortal speech, the "Address to the German Nation" by the philosopher Fichte--one of the influential documents of modern history leading dire

"Hey, why not disband the countries army then? Violence is not the answer, you know."

Military expenditure as percentage of GDP, Venezuela: 1.06% of GDP
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=venezuela+military+spending

Military expenditure as percentage of GDP, United States: 4.28% of GDP
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=usa+military+spending

With its larger economy, and if you included interest payments and all related expenses (including incurred future obligations like for disabled soldiers), the USA spends about a trillion dollars a year on the military, so the more accurate figure may be closer to 8% of the US GDP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

There is nothing wrong with spending some on security if the focus is mainly about mutual security (so, everyone feels secure and part of a mutual security community, as in "We're all secure together."):
http://www.beyondintractability.org/audio/morton_deutsch/?nid=2430
and intrinsic security (sustainable resilient infrastructure as civil defense, as in "We're secure in our core infrastructure regardless of typhoon, earthquake, electromagnetic storm, crop failure, plague, or bombs."):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittle_Power

But the USA has pursued mostly a doctrine of unilateral security ("We're secure because you're insecure") and extrinsic security ("We're secure because we have soldiers everywhere guarding insecure installations.") This approach persists because it is extremely profitable for a narrow part of society, as two-time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler (USMC) said:
"War is a Racket"
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

For all the money spent, the USA is one of the most insecure countries on the planet (with long energy supply lines, long food supply lines, long goods supply lines, an unhardened and unecrypted civilian communications infrastructure, no comprehensive national health care system scaled for disasters, and in many other ways). This can't be fixed by spending more money the same way on more soldiers and more weapons -- the USA passed the law of diminishing returns on that decades ago. These fundamental insecurities can only be fixed by spending the money differently.

For example, for one half of one year's military spending, the USA could go all solar with improved energy efficiency and no longer have to defend oil supply lines:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/books/pb3/pb3_table_of_contents
(while also improving human health and environmental health and creating many jobs). As part of that, free luxury electric cars to everyone in the USA would greatly reduce our taxes for defense and care of the sick:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/09eb7f4c973349f2?hl=en

Likewise, for a fraction of one year's defense budget, the USA could put in place local flexible manufacturing facilities that remove the need to defend shipping lines to China, as I suggest here:
"21,000 Flexible Public Fabrication Facilities a

Even just in terms of the effects air pollution is having on the human population right now it's very expensive, apparently more people die from air pollution than automobile accidents.

In an excellent recent analysis, "The Nuclear Illusion," Amory B. Lovins and Imran Sheikh put the cost of electricity from a new nuclear power plant at 14 per kilowatt hour and that from a wind farm at 7 per kilowatt hour. This comparison includes the costs of fuel, capital, operations and maintenance, and transmission and distribution. It does not include the additional costs for nuclear of disposing of waste, insuring plants against an accident, and decommissioning the plants when they wear out. Given this huge gap, the so-called nuclear revival can succeed only by unloading these costs onto taxpayers. If all the costs of generating nuclear electricity are included in the price to consumers, nuclear power is dead in the water.

Personally, I like the podcasts.... they are teleconferences and cover a lot of information, all while on my morning walk!

1. How much has the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere gone up since the industrial revolution? How much has the temperature gone up?

CO2: Around 40%
Temperature: Around 1 degree Celcius

2. When and why were Europe and North America deforested? Why does it matter?

Europe experienced a lot of deforestation at the hands of mankind between 1100 to 1500 AD. There wasn't much after that until recent years, when it has again become a serious problem.
America experienced little deforestation until the arrival of European settlers, and there has been extensive deforestation since then, mostly over the last two centuries.

As for why it matters: Forests are a good CO2 sink. Losing them at the same time as releasing unprecedented quantities of CO2 in to the atmosphere will lead to a situation we have not had before and therefore can only make educated guesses as to what will happen.

3. What bad effects of the temperature rise have been observed since the industrial revolution? How sure are you that the bad effects are attributable to global warming?

If I may, I won't just concentrate on what the temperature rise has done, but instead the overall effects of temperature, increased CO2 and so on. It's not fair to look at only one part of the story...

Possible (debatable) effects: More flooding, tornadoes and extreme weather than we had before.
More definite effects: More swans in Siberia, colural foliage fading, severe damage to coral reefs, ocean acidification and more...

4. How much are you predicting that the carbon dioxide levels will rise?

I'm not predicting anything... It's probably safe to say "between not much and quite a lot". Please go look at some research yourself for estimates.

5. How much are you predicting that the temperatures will rise?

I'm not predicting anything... It's probably safe to say "between not much and quite a lot". Please go look at some research yourself for estimates.

6. What bad effects are you predicting due to increased temperature?

Similar to the effects we're experiencing today (see above), only worse relative to the amount of climate change inducing factors involved (including, but not limited to, CO2, temperature rises (from any source) and so on).

7. Isn't it true that without the greenhouse effect, the earth would be a frozen ball of ice and life would be very difficult on the planet?

Yes, that is true, which is why no-one is suggesting we strip the atmosphere off the planet - things would be rather unpleasant.
This is a very silly question though, because you know full well that it's not a binary situation "we have a greenhouse effect"/"we don't have a greenhouse effect". What matters is how MUCH of a greenhouse effect we have. Too little or too much are both bad situations.

New York, in particular, is disgusting. They have a tax policy that reflects decades of liberal orthodoxy and the stupidity of the results just staggers the mind. I mean, they raise taxes on cigarettes, and are suddenly horrified to find that people do not buy cigarettes in New York. Now, what do you think the enlightened liberals do up there? Do you think they set the tax at a more reasonable level? No... they call out the cops and pass even -more- laws designed to try and ban people from cigarettes from out of state.

I was always under the impression that it was just a part of a greater anti-cigarette campaign. (No smoking in bars etc included.) It's almost guaranteed that health insurance companies are taking a large roll in all of this too. The interesting thing is rising taxes on cigarettes is actually a worldwide phenomenon. Just check out http://www.earth-policy.org/Alerts/Alert2.htm or google some articles.

Western Europe is about the best in the world.

You're shifting the goalposts. First "Europe" was the best in the world. Your own chart shows that Eastern Europe is much worse than the US. According to this, "[a] study published in The Lancet in 2000 concluded that air pollution in France, Austria, and Switzerland is responsible for more than 40,000 deaths annually in those three countries. In the United States, traffic fatalities total just over 40,000 per year, while air pollution claims 70,000 lives annually." Considering the United States has more than ten times

Secondly, the chart you show is for deaths as a result of air pollution, not air pollution itself. While obviously more polluted air is more likely to cause deaths, there is a close connection between such things as temperature and sunlight, and ground-level ozone is a serious killer that's going to be less common in darker climes.

Water: #30th worst United States: 1.14 tons/cubic km

Better than Western Europe I see.

A word of advice, this is exactly why Europe has been sliding into irrelevancy. Why bother facing global problems when you can just blame the United States and all those lazy, stereotypical Americans. Your own map shows the worst level of air pollutions is in poorer regions of the world; are you going to blame their SUVs and McMansions too? Ever been to an American city? Ever seen a New York apartment? You think everyone over here lives in the suburbs and has an SUV?

I'm not saying I disagree or agree with you. So please don't shoot the messenger.

It's interesting when you look at the worldwide phenominion conserning obesity and smoking. Take for example, how the world's governments are starting to turn against cigarates. Taxes on tobacco has been going up worldwide. Or maybe the crazy french smoking band. I could have never seen the French banning smoking anywhere in my imagination.

Other oddities are the Japanese people getting concerned over obesity caused by the western culture creeping in. (Read McDonalds.) Their children are heavier than they used to be...and we all know where that goes (theoretically.)

Let's look more closely at the numbers.

1. Current population: 6.7 billion
2. Estimate for 2015: 7.2 billion
3. Difference: 0.5 billion

That is basically an increase of half a billion children younger than 7 years. I think it is a bit much to expect these youngsters to be providing us with knowledge about how to use our resources more effectively; we will need to accommodate their needs with what we already know. In fact, since they are still growing, we can expect these kids to more than double their drain on resources by 2025.

A troubling aspect of population projections is that they are measuring by count, and not by biomass. The impact on the environment of a child who weighs 10 kilos is a lot less than the impact that kid will have when he grows up and weighs more than 5 times that. Even if some kind of celestial intervention caused absolute infertility of our species tomorrow, the weight of humanity on Earth's resources would continue to increase for another decade or more.

The effects of human population growth should be measured in terms of changes in biomass.

Both papers are published in Science Express rather than the regular journal yet. Here are the abstracts:

Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt
Joseph Fargione Jason Hill David Tilman Stephen Polasky, Peter Hawthorne

Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to lowcarbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential lowcarbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food-based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a 'biofuel carbon debt' by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions these biofuels provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.

Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change
Timothy Searchinger, Ralph Heimlich R. A. Houghton, Fengxia Dong, Amani Elobeid, Jacinto Fabiosa, Simla Tokgoz, Dermot Hayes, Tun-Hsiang Yu

Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. Using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.

While this work is very useful, the immediate concern would seem to be that grain carryover stocks are becoming quite low as a result of ethanol production. They are now at about 54 days worth of world consumption compared to over 100 days in 2000. Much lower stocks would mean making a choice between starvation of people or reducing feedlot operations and meat availability.

Both papers are published in Science Express rather than the regular journal yet. Here are the abstracts:

Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt
Joseph Fargione Jason Hill David Tilman Stephen Polasky, Peter Hawthorne

Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to lowcarbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential lowcarbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food-based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a 'biofuel carbon debt' by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions these biofuels provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.

Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change
Timothy Searchinger, Ralph Heimlich R. A. Houghton, Fengxia Dong, Amani Elobeid, Jacinto Fabiosa, Simla Tokgoz, Dermot Hayes, Tun-Hsiang Yu

Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. Using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.

While this work is very useful, the immediate concern would seem to be that grain carryover stocks are becoming quite low as a result of ethanol production. They are now at about 54 days worth of world consumption compared to over 100 days in 2000. Much lower stocks would mean making a choice between starvation of people or reducing feedlot operations and meat availability.

Oil, natural gas, and coal are all very different resources that are subject to very different constraints

"The current peaking of global oil production (and subsequent decline of production), along with the peak of North American natural gas production will very likely precipitate this agricultural crisis much sooner than expected". "Crop production now relies on fertilizers to replace soil nutrients, and therefore on the oil needed to mine, manufacture, and transport these fertilizers around the world." But that all ignores the fact that oil is used to transport food. Last I read, in the US on average food travels more than 2000 from the farm to your table. What's hard to understand about that?

Oh come on! Are you on drugs or something? Just have a look at space shots of North pole ice fields they feed you every year and how these fields shank recently. Look at graphs and tables http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Ice/Ice_dat a.htm These are facts. We have one of the hottest summers here in Japan and the 35+ degrees C heat continues noticably longer than it used to be. My home city of Moscow sees absolutely unrealistic temperatures like 30C for a month with sparks to 35. It's definitely getting hotter and no, it's not about killing US economics, though I heard that US economic wastes more energy than Japanese USES, and this is absolutely crazy. It's about facts that if things will continue the way they do for last 100 years, absolutely nothing good is going to happen to humankind. Hopefully, just hopefully - the current situation is just a natural flow of things, but somehow I don't think so. You can have your head in the sand as long as you want but just don't forget to pull it out before the sand turns into glass.

Well I guess you are wrong my stating that [global] warming reduces the size of deserts
(Your quote: "Warming reduces the size of deserts and reduces storminess and extreme weather events."):

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update61. htm

And you are wrong by stating that Vaclav Klaus is correct.
It's amazing how people like you and Vaclav Klaus can twist and distort reality.

This FUD is at the least as bad if not worse that the RIAA and MPAA propaganda campaigns.

Here is some of the FUD and propoganda that you and Vaclav Klaus are using:
- "just like in totalitarian regimes"
- "history is being rewritten"
- "climate alarmists"
- "scientific fraud"
- "those dread people"
- "You simply repeat what you are told by alarmists with an extreme political agenda."
-

Just like Vaclav Klaus, you speak but you say nothing. You claim people don't give a reference, but you yourself give no references. All you are doing is using propoganda, rhetoric and logical fallacies to back up your claims with absolutely NO evidence.

Breeders = more fuel. Breeders = nuclear proliferation too.

Why do you thin the designers of light water reactors didn't choose a breeder design? Why do you think that US presidents for 20 years have shut down the reprocessing? N-U-C-L-E-A-R P-R-O-L-I-F-E-R-A-T-I-O-N.

You think that a huge complex of private industry can abate the risk of a softball sized lump of Pu going missing? You think that the US taking on nuclear is on a large scale paveing the way for more nuclear power plants everywhere is a good idea? So General electric end up selling plants to every 3rd world country breeding away there own supplies? Totally insane.

Oh, wait.... I forgot nuclear isn't economical (amongst many other faults). Oh wait renewables are already cheaper? What was the question?

"Loss of nation states: Name one nation that is now underwater."

Tuvalu.

New Zealand has already accepted the entire population as environmental refugees when it becomes completely uninhabitable.

You might want to take a look at what is happening with regard to to the carryover supply of food (going down) and the impact of the large number of distilleries being built in time to eat into this year's harvest http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63. htm. The capacity that is kept in reserve may not be quite so large as you think.
--
Solar power, the original renewable: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

That's exactly right which, I think, is why the prize conditions stipulate that the method be economically viable. This is why I've settled on fish. We are already geared up to replace the protein in our diet with fuel in our tanks: http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63. htm at least for a season. So, a new source of protein looks like it might meet favorable market conditions. The oceans are about tapped out for fish with fisheries collapsing all over http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Fish/Fish_d ata.htm#fig2 while aquaculture is polluting in many aspects. Why not them make the best of it and move the aquiculture out to the desolate regions and call the pollution sequestration? With a major increase in the fish supply, natural stocks can be allowed to recover. The surface area should be adequate given the photosynthetic efficency of single celled organisms http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/photosynthesis .html, the remaining worry being the mixing of CO2 into the water. However, to win you only need to run the thing for ten years, so disolved CO2 and a little mixing from weather ought ot provide an adequate resevoir for that timescale.

I think your comment about making things convenient is very important especially in getting renewable energy going on a big scale. But, when it comes to food, the political consequences of making anything inconvenient can be severe, so working on assuring an over-supply makes a lot of sense. If Brown is right in the first link here, people are going to be very upset.

That's exactly right which, I think, is why the prize conditions stipulate that the method be economically viable. This is why I've settled on fish. We are already geared up to replace the protein in our diet with fuel in our tanks: http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63. htm at least for a season. So, a new source of protein looks like it might meet favorable market conditions. The oceans are about tapped out for fish with fisheries collapsing all over http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Fish/Fish_d ata.htm#fig2 while aquaculture is polluting in many aspects. Why not them make the best of it and move the aquiculture out to the desolate regions and call the pollution sequestration? With a major increase in the fish supply, natural stocks can be allowed to recover. The surface area should be adequate given the photosynthetic efficency of single celled organisms http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/02/photosynthesis .html, the remaining worry being the mixing of CO2 into the water. However, to win you only need to run the thing for ten years, so disolved CO2 and a little mixing from weather ought ot provide an adequate resevoir for that timescale.

I think your comment about making things convenient is very important especially in getting renewable energy going on a big scale. But, when it comes to food, the political consequences of making anything inconvenient can be severe, so working on assuring an over-supply makes a lot of sense. If Brown is right in the first link here, people are going to be very upset.

Easy enough to find. Here is one graph that goes to 2004. To 2006 should be possible to find with some searching.

On surplus food, we actually keep that stuff around as a hedge against crop failure. The current surplus is quite low: http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Grain/index .htm while demand for this as a biofuel is growing: http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63. htm. So, while we do need energy,
our need for food seems a little more basic and setting up a competition between the two may be a big mistake.
--
Solar: It's not for dinner. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

On surplus food, we actually keep that stuff around as a hedge against crop failure. The current surplus is quite low: http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Grain/index .htm while demand for this as a biofuel is growing: http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63. htm. So, while we do need energy,
our need for food seems a little more basic and setting up a competition between the two may be a big mistake.
--
Solar: It's not for dinner. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Not just prices for tortilla but most other grains (substitution) and animal products (feed) will likely go up http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63. htm. But this has more to do with politics as usual and farm subsidies that environmentalism. May environmentalist are skeptical of bio-fuels. http://gp.org/committees/ecoaction/eco_2006_04_25. shtml Setting up a situation where food and fuel compete is a Republocrat endeavor.
--
Don't eat your seed corn: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Ethanol is hyrophilic which means is needs a little more handling than gas. As a mix it usually works OK but with water in the mix cold weather can be a problem. That said, E85 makes sense so long as you're not competing against food production: http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63. htm
--
Solar: it beats plants: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Well, actually any heat we generate is miniscule compared to what comes in every day from the Sun, so your take on nuclear power contributing to heating is not actually a big deal. But, you're right that the competition for resources involved with ethanol could be a problem. Some think it is a near term problem just because of governement incentives: http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2007/Update63. htm.

If Brown is correct, then buying flour now would be a good hedge.
----
Solar doesn't increase grain futures. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Temp/2004.h tm Global warming is a reality. So I won't argue. I bought a hybrid because that is a positive individual step to help everyone of us. As for variables there are many factors , patterns are what we should focus on. That and tangible data. We have both and both indicate that something is excelerating increased global temperatures. First the polar bear will go extinct and who knows what grave effect that will have on the food chain. Sounds funny but it isn't; we all need to do our part.

Apparently you've never been to New Jersey, where there are many landfills several orders of magnitude larger than this. It's easy to get karma by saying "if you calculate it [out, sic]." However, pretending to run the numbers isn't good enough. If what you were saying was true, then one enterprising owner of strip-mined land could take up every refuse contract in the nation, and become an exceptionally rich individual overnight.

New York City produces 12,000 tons of garbage per day. If you honestly believe that a 25 square mile area 200 feet deep will handle this country for a thousand years, then sir, that location is on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge, and I'll sell you both for a modest fee.

Don't say "if you calculate it" unless you're actually willing to do so. Stapling the suggestion that your lie is statistically backed onto your lie makes it no less a lie.

Yet even FOX News is typical of the coverage on Iran. They repeat deliberate mis-interpretations of what Iranian leaders say, and the scare over "wipe Israel off the map" is no different than the one about Iran legislating a dresscode for Jews. In the former case, we had the Iranian president saying that the Zionist regime must disappear from the page of time. Since Zionism can objectively be considered similar to Apartheid in crucial respects (not the least of which are its results).

I won't condone Iran's (or Israel's) theocracy, regardless of the particular style. Their involvement with Hizballah is questionable. But they are not a bunch of complete extremists. Iran is a country where women can get an education, show their faces, drive cars, and have access to birth control (compare that to our fascist allies, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan). Iran has a limited, nascent form of democracy and a great deal of technical sophistication.

They are independant of the West and that fact lands them squarely on the "must demonize" list. Iran is targeted for dehumanization all the more for its relative modernity, which gains them moral and cultural influence that makes it difficult for the West to propagandize the Middle East.

For our "civilized" western media, railing against a Zionist regime is eagerly mis-interpreted as a genocidal rant against Jews and an entire country. AND they do this at a time when the US is floating the idea of a "preventative" war and nuclear attack on Iran. Meanwhile, in the middle of all this self-righteous hyperventilating, our leaders get carte blanche to lie and spill vast amounts of blood elsewhere.

"crop" based alternative fuel production is the wrong way to proceed imo, primarily because of water. it takes roughly 800-1000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain (1 ton of grain represents 1,000 tons of water (see http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Out/Ote6_6.htm, http://www.sdearthtimes.com/et0700/et0700s8.html). bio-bacteria based in our oceans or water bodies may do a better job overall though i shudder to think shell chevron etc owning vast tracts of ocean surface to produce synthetic fuel...

Cells will fail and will need replacing from time to time, and will be expensive to do.

Most manufacturers Guarantee their panels for 20-30 years, so that is minimum life. Of course on average they will last longer. Longer than most power plants, and yes, virtually maintenance free.

home energy usage is pretty much the exact inverse of when the most solar radiation is available

In fact, the average electricity demand on the grid typically follows the sun cycles, especially in summer when electricity use peaks. The peak grid loads are typically ~40% higher at midday than the nighttime minimum. Even in the winter, when the day peaking is less pronounced (and shifted towards morning/evening), solar could address as much as 35-40% the national electricity demand even without storage. See http://currentenergy.lbl.gov/pjm/index.php for an example of demand curves.

Of course storage on the grid is important, and needs work, but we could address a HUGE amount of US electrical need without it.

However, for serious microgeneration, at the current time the only halfway practical and affordable renewable energy source is wind, which is vastly cheaper

Wind is very cheap, not halfway practical cheap, but cheap as coal cheap. Hydro is very cheap as in cheaper than coal cheap, and photovoltaics are the cheapest thing going when you don't have a 100 year old subsidized grid infrastructure. Because of that, photovoltaics is the only option in many places in the developing world, because the cost of the lines is 10 times more expensive than the coal plant that make the power. But more importantly, PV is getting exponentially cheaper to manufacture by the decade, and new low cost technologies are just starting to leak out of the lab into a marketplace near you. (However, note that demand has outstripped supply by 30% with 40%/year growth in the market for several years, even if the manufacturing is getting cheaper, it is not currently seen in the market because of high demand).

Bottom line, renewables are the cheapest things going, even without addressing the huge subsidy imbalance going to traditional fuel sources (oil, coal, nuclear, etc)

The energy to make a typical wind turbine is generated by the turbine over a period of six months - it's more like 6 years for solar.

Photovoltaics cells have an energy pay-back period ranging from 3 months for newer technologies (e.g. CIS, CdTe) to 3 years for traditional crystalline silicon. Even mainstream multi-crystal silicon has a payback period of 0.8 years. And these numbers don't even address the newer, and lower embodied energy low cost multi-junction concentrators or low temp printable cells.

So when you look at a 30 year life span, that gives PV an Energy return on investment of 10:1 for Crystal Si, 37:1 for multi-Crystal Si, and 100:1 with CIS. Compare that to typical fuels: Coal (9:1), nuclear (4:1), US oil (3:1), Mid-east oil (10:1-30:1).

Unless photo voltaic solar becomes vastly cheaper, it's simply a non-contender except for novelty value, even if you live in the desert.

A desert is not needed as solar insolation is relatively uniform throughout the US (and world). The best location in Arizona is only twice as good as the worst place in the Washington rainforest, with the majority of the US within 80% insolation of the best location in Arizona!

Even with today's "high" PV prices, PV is unique in that it is deployable on any rooftop, parking lot, or yard at the point of use. With net-metering or battery storage that means PV competes with retail energy not w

As others have said, reactors built today won't meltdown even at a rate of "one meltdown per 1000 years". Even if they did, there are far more containment structures in place to prevent it from getting off the plant grounds.

TMI was the USA scare that got us to pay more attention to disaster scenarios. Even IF we had a Chernobyl type explosion in the states, it wouldn't be the big deal it was in Chernobyl since all nuclear reactors are covered by a pressure rated dome. Basically, they're pre-enclosed in a sarcophagus already.

Basically, even with Chernobyl you can argue that coal has killed more people.

Nuclear Power deaths: 3 Japanese workers*
Chernobyl: 47 workers/accident responders, 9 children died of thyroid cancer, and IAEA/WHO estimate that 9000 more might die of cancer. Please excuse me for not using Greenpeace numbers, as they are both biased and known to exaggerate. 9000, in the last 20 years.

Let's take a look at coal.
Wiki says:2004 alone cost China 6,000 workers, though some estimate as high as 20,000. US Coal mining is far safer, with only about 30 deaths/year. Still, we have yet to cover the health effects. 23,600 per year due to air pollution, in the USA alone.

If you figure 1 nuclear meltdown/worst case disaster every thousand years, that kills the same # as chernobyl, that's an average annual death toll of 9 people. Meanwhile, coal mining in the US kills 30, even if you figure in that pollution controls eventually stops all the air pollution.

There's a reason I'd love to shut down every coal plant and replace it with a nuclear one. Preferably breeders that allow us to take all the 'waste' piling up around current reactors and burn it as more fuel again.

*who violated every safety reg in the book, mixing many times the amount of nuclear materials in a steel bucket rather than using the provided shielded equipment meant to do it in limited, but safe, quantities.