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I'd have to disagree about solar thermal, we not too long ago got this one running in the US: http://www.engadget.com/2014/0...

There's this one in Israel due to be finished in 2017: http://www.brightsourceenergy....

One in Chile that was just announced: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/08...

One in South Africa: http://www.itweb.co.za/index.p...

That looks pretty active to me, and far from dead, Spain alone has 30 smaller thermal solar plants already and is building another dozen or so, along with lots of other ones in development: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Most humans can afford one. More to the point, it's important to them too: http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/05/qa-skipping-lunch-to-afford-a-mobile-phone-in-africa/

Half the people in Africa had a mobile phone a year ago. Not many places out there poorer than that.

He said it wasn't permanent, and he's right. It's not even close to permanent. Even on human timescales it's going to be increasingly difficult to find evidence of the oil within a decade or so, if past spills are any indication. If you dig in the right places, sure, you're going to be able to find oil, but it's going to get covered by sediments, broken down by biological activity, and otherwise become increasingly obscure and irrelevant to the ecosystem overall. It's a profoundly different situation from, for example, the Valdez spill in Alaska, because it is a different type of oil in a very different climate and coastal environment. It will be bad for a number of years, and then it will hardly be noticeable unless you go looking for it.

If you want comparisons, look at the 1979 Ixtoc I spill in Mexico, the effects of which extended into southern coastal Texas. While there are areas where petroleum from the spill can still be detected, the overall affects are hard to discern from the normal background of natural petroleum released from the Gulf oil seeps. Most of the damaging effects on the ecosystem were pretty much gone within a few years. Today, there's no fishing ban, the beaches are not stinking with oil, and most people live there pretty much without any thought or awareness that there ever was a huge oil spill.

In the deep Gulf, within a few kilometres around the wellhead, I'm sure you'll see more damage on the sea floor that will persist longer because it is colder and less biologically active, and that type of damage is very poorly studied to date, so it's a lot harder to predict. But it's a very small area within the huge Gulf of Mexico, humans don't have much interaction with such deep environments (i.e. not much impact on human concerns), and there are parts of the deep Gulf sea floor where communities of organisms directly grow on top of asphalt mats as a kind of prolific "oasis" (deep-sea cold seep communities), so I don't think life will have that much of a problem with it anyway. Certainly it's going to be a big change for some creatures who were living at the pre-disturbance site, but I suspect others will move in to take advantage of the change.

On your way out, please turn in your crass hyperbole at the door.

IANAL, but I'm pretty sure you cannot patent a natural phenomenon

Dude, SCOTUS upheld that you can patent genes. You know, the ones people already have.

I wish what you said were true, but I'm not sure it is any more. :(

It's a bit subtle, but I read the patent and and the various rulings and the currently only angle that has been upheld is that the segment of DNA which is extracted from a fragment of the BRCA gene is not naturally occuring so it can be patented (basically, a lengthy chemical process is needed to extract this chemical from naturally occuring mutated DNA and the result is no longer DNA, but a different chemical). However, the claims of the patent which involve identifying and using the results of the extraction to assess cancer risk are not valid because they do not involve the transformation of the chemical and are instead abstract mental steps.

The technical reading suggests that if someone came up with a different way to extract different fragments of the gene into a different end chemical (which is not the same as described) and used them to create a cancer risk assessment, then the part of the patent about using the fragments would not be enforcable. For example, if they transcribed the DNA fragment into another chemical (similar to the way a cell transcribes the DNA into a protein) and inferred that the the original DNA was mutated BRCA. However, if the remainder of the patent is eventually upheld, and someone used the same extraction of the same fragments of the BRCA gene, then it would be protected.

Admittedly this ruling seems a bit subtle, and may eventually be overturned as well, but that is my reading of the current situation, so I stand by my original assertion.

IANAL, but I'm pretty sure you cannot patent a natural phenomenon

Dude, SCOTUS upheld that you can patent genes. You know, the ones people already have.

I wish what you said were true, but I'm not sure it is any more. :(

Xest, at least you did the work of looking up actual sources. But I don't think you're there yet.

You could look up the piece the consistence that got so much publicity, the detonation chamber in Parchin.
It's not mentioned directly in the actual document you linked to but the document has a reference to an earlier document from nov2011 you can find over here
http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/IAEA_Iran_8Nov2011.pdf
Read items 44 and 45 under C.6. Initiation of high explosives and associated experiments
They actually mention those containers could be used for creation of nanodiamonds, but the emphasis is that this may well be a cover.

Now other sources make mincemeat of the accusation that the Iranians would use the container for developing nuclear triggers and claim the very likely reason for that explosives container is just that, creating nanodiamonds, and this is exactly Danilenko's specialty.
See ex IAEA inspector Robert Kelley here http://www.ipsnews.net/2011/11/ex-inspector-rejects-iaea-iran-bomb-test-chamber-claim/

Now, you have the IAEA demanding access to a military site, to which they normally have no right of access because it's not nuclear, and they can't make a decent case for it. And Iran is not happy to provide access since the IAEA is not being reasonable.

Does that sound anything like what you've heard about the case? To me this looks like building a case from nothing, in multiple steps - first by the IAEA , by casting suspicion while not actually making hard claims, and then by the US and the media, converting the suspicions to plausible guesses..

This is NEWS? Guys, this same thing is being done in Costa Rica as we speak http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45994

And there is more to it, the Russian Nuclear scientist is not a nuclear scientist at all:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105776
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/14/the-holes-in-the-iran-nuke-report/

And what a coincidence: this shit comes up a couple of weeks after that ridiculously bogus attempt to frame Iran for trying to kill the Saudi Ambassador in the US. What are the evil Iranians going to do next???

I wrote about your excellent question on my blog.
http://systemsaviour.com/2011/11/11/slashdot-iea-warns-of-irreversible-climate-change-in-5-years/

My answer: I already am doing something about it. There’s room for improvement, but I know I must be doing better than 99% of Australians. Here’s how:

* My wife and I don't have kids. I'll probably get modded down for saying this, but IMO there can be no greater selfishness. It may be said that the significance of all of our environmental problems are directly related to now 7 billion people on this planet. It's been known for decades that the Earth's population growth is unsustainable, and yet here we are.

* We don't own a car. Easily achievable. I know lots of people say "but I live in an area where there is no public transportation" or "I live too far away from work to ride" - but that's because they're selfish. They were not considering the environmental impact of their decision to live in such a location. My wife and I on the other hand have always expected we will not be relying on a car, and have planned our lifestyle accordingly. As such, it is no problem.

If more people chose such a lifestyle, maybe councils around the country and the world would better cater for the needs of people like ourselves who do not drive. For example, the detours I need to take to ride to work are ridiculous - just because my local council didn't pay any significant consideration to cyclists when planing and paving the roads.

* Don't rely on an air-conditioner or heater. Until the Australian summer heat wave of 2009, my wife and I had never owned an air-conditioner. We did buy a portable unit for those few weeks with over 40-degree heat since our apartment tends to get very hot as it is, but I don't think we've ever used it since. Under ordinary circumstances, we have no problem adapting by simply changing to lighter clothing. When it's cold, we wear a jumper and jacket, or dressing gown for night time. If that's still not enough, we'll just get a scarf or even a blanket until we're comfortable. Use thick curtains, keep the windows closed, etc. It's all common sense stuff - and it works.

Contrast this to basically any workplace I've ever worked at. If somebody just came back from a jog, the air-conditioner gets cranked up. Same deal if the air feels 'mucky'. If it's a few degrees too cold, don't bother putting something on - with a couple of button presses it'll magically feel better. It's a sad thing to witness. I usually just bring in a jacket so I can wear it if I'm cold, but almost every day someone will still turn on an air-conditioner. And worse - leave it on when they leave! Meanwhile, I don't think there has ever been a time I have turned on the air-conditioner or heater at any of my workplaces - past or present.

* We're vegetarian (and speaking for myself, I've been vegetarian for around 8 years). That means, we eat a lot of food that isn't processed. My wife is always buying fresh vegetables to cook something for dinner from. Further - and more importantly, we are not contributing to the damage caused by extensive cattle farming - the leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions in places like Brazil, and it makes up about 17 per cent of Australia's emissions. Our choice to be vegetarian certainly isn't because we're religious or too poor - it's because it's unethical from a number of viewpoints not to be at least a strict vegetarian. Some would say the same thing about being vegan, although I haven't taken my diet to that level.

* Limit use of shopping bags and plastic bottles. I personally drink about 1 litre of soft drink each day at work - but I make it at home with

Destroy biodiversity. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42161

Nukes don't make sense financially at all

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50308

From TFA:
"In 2007, another non-governmental organization built a gravity powered cargo ropeway in India that serves 2,000 families. It costs just 14,000 dollars and transports agricultural produce downhill while taking manure to fertilize the fields uphill." More at http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48170

The farmer’s federation charges Rs 5 (about 0.10 dollar) per carton from the farmers. This money is used for giving honorarium to the two persons who are engaged in operating the ropeway and for its maintenance, observes Kunwar.

• "In 2007, another non-governmental organization built a gravity powered cargo ropeway in India that serves 2,000 families. It costs just 14,000 dollars and transports agricultural produce downhill while taking manure to fertilize the fields uphill". More: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48170
• The RopeCon system in Jamaica saves 1,200 truck journeys per day and generates 1,300 kWh of braking energy per day, which is fed back into the power network.
• A temporary RopeCon installation was set up for the construction of a tunnel in Austria, where it was used for the transport of rock excavation material. Conveying capacity was 600 tonnes per hour, while engine output was very modest at 30 kW. The line was 270 metres long, with a vertical rise of 23 metres. It eliminated 115,000 truck journeys.

Some research indicates the contrary is true, Egyptians seem to blame their govt for NOT providing a solution:

From http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53606:

"A virus destroyed most of my summer harvest, which fell this year from the usual 50 tons per acre to only 10 tons," Mohamed Khairy, a tomato farmer in the Nile Delta province of Beheira, some 200 km north of Cairo, told IPS. "I tried to get assistance from the agriculture ministry, but my pleas fell on deaf ears."

Critics further point out that shortages were exacerbated by exploitive merchants - and the government's seeming reluctance to regulate their activities.

"Unscrupulous traders took advantage of the shortage to raise retail prices through the roof, allowing them to realise enormous profits," said Sami. "And the government has continued to allow them to get away with it."

Abdelazim concurred, noting that Egypt's ruling regime was largely composed of businessmen and "monopolistic traders".

"The regime, which is characterised by economic corruption and chaos, doesn't regulate the local market or move to break up monopolies - it merely looks on as consumers are exploited," he said. "Meanwhile, Egypt's limited civil society plays a negligible role in protecting the consumer."

From http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/news/egypts-recurring-food-price-crisis :

The Egyptian government, in close collaboration with USAID officials, began introducing a broad program of agricultural liberalization in the 1980s that aimed to limit state intervention--in the form of subsidies and controls on cropping patterns--and encourage a competitive market system based on private enterprise and export-led growth. These policies continued into the 1990s after Egypt concluded a structural adjustment agreement with the International Monetary Fund. A key component of these agrarian reforms was a new land law, known as Law 96, that revoked tenure rights for small peasants which had been in place for 40 years and allowed large landowners to charge market-based rents.

For government critics, Egypt's food inflation must be seen against the backdrop of these broader economic policies.

[...]

Ayeb explains that in the 1950s and 1960s Egyptian agricultural policies sought to protect small farmers and provide them with a respectable income. “In the pseudo-socialist period there was the idea of living on the land and surviving from it there was a guarantee of national agricultural security.”

Thus, as fertilizers and herbicides flooded the Egyptian market, the government provided subsidies to support small farmers and make food available locally.

Since the late 1970s, government subsidies have gradually receded and chemical fertilizers have instead been sold on the open market. Moreover, today Egypt is one of the biggest importers of fertilizers in the world and this dependency has in turn affected local prices.

“The state used to provide everything, from fertilizers to herbicides. Today, things have changed 180 degrees,” Haj Desouki reflects.

Another failure of free markets. Food is too important to be left to the free market!

These leaks have nothing to do with whistle-blowing to protect the people from the government, but instead hurt the government's efforts to legitimately help it's people remain on good terms with allies.

Are these not examples of wrongdoing?

* Wrongly kidnapping German citizens, and then threatening Germany over it - http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53702
* Collecting credit card data at the UN - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/un-reacts-us-embassy-cables

If so then by your definition I'd say this is definitely whistle-blowing, particularly so if you include the earlier leaks about the Iraq war.

There are plenty of private companies who have tried to break into nuclear power but there's not a single government in a country with a large enough market to make the investment worthwhile that doesn't micromanage every aspect of the energy industry.

France is not big enough? China isn't either? How about India and Russia? How big does a nation have to be then? In all 4 nations the government decides what gets built not the market. And none of them have the US's regulations either. Hell France has dumped their waste in the ocean and Russia sent prisoners to work the mines.

• France's Nuclear Waste Heads to Russia
• Russian protests against Areva and Urenco's nuclear waste dumping.
• Vive la Nucleair Waste: France Deals with Legacies of its Nuclear Programs.
• Thousands of radioactive waste barrels rusting.

Falcon

I was ashamed too when Harper was elected to become the next PM. He keeps doing the same BS that George Bush did a few years ago so much and so often he is known as Mini-Bush for a reason.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50308

Colombia (a nation that is not even close to being able to stage a successful attack on a country like Venezuela)

Under the 10-year deal, the US military will not only have access to military bases, but also be able to use major international civilian airports.

So? There are US-run military bases in Japan, but it's not like they're invading China anytime soon.

The U.S., which Japan relies on for its defense, has to proceed cautiously. U.S. diplomats are now dealing with North Korea's arrest of two U.S. journalists on the North Korea-China border on March 17.
The U.S. has been leaning against trying to shoot down the North's projectile and a senior U.S. official this week said the administration has ruled it out.

Colombians are determined to get rid of guerrillas even if it means hosting some gringos in your bases so they can help kick FARC/ELN butt. I hope the "right-wing" paramilitary are next.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the 2003-2006 demobilisation of the "brutal, mafia-like, paramilitary coalition known as the AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia)" was a failure, despite repeated government claims that the paramilitaries no longer exist.
The 122-page report, the result of two years of fieldwork, says that after the demobilisation process had come to an end, new groups almost immediately "cropped up all over the country, taking the reins of the criminal operations that the AUC leadership previously ran."
"The emergence of the successor groups was predictable, in large part due to the Colombian government’s failure to dismantle the AUC’s criminal networks and financial and political support structures during the demobilisations," adds the report, which was released in Bogotá Wednesday.

Some corrected facts about nuclear energy.
"1/Nuclear energy does not make economic sense. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50308 [ipsnews.net] (translation: it is expensive)"
But cheaper than oil, natural gas, Wind, and Solar. Only coal and Hydro are cheaper.
"2/Having to store waste for over 100000 years is not what someone with any common sense would call 'green'."
You don't you just reprocess the fuel rods like they do in France and Japan and have for years.
"3/limited liability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act [wikipedia.org]"
Yes that one does exist. Of course since you have nut balls claiming that wifi makes them sick....
"4/fuel-dependency"
Yes it is terrible if we move to a thorium cycle we only have a few centuries of fuel left. With breeders maybe no more than two or three centuries.

>> 1/Nuclear energy does not make economic sense. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50308sp?idnews=50308 [ipsnews.net] (translation: it is expensive)

It makes PERFECT economic sense when you consider that we will be transferring our transportation grid to electricity. It is a more difficult sell when you are simply replace coal power with nuclear power. We have plenty of coal, but dolling out billions of dollars a month in foreign oil doesn't make economic sense.

>> 2/Having to store waste for over 100000 years is not what someone with any common sense would call 'green'.

We have no idea how long we will need to store the spent fuel. With 2010 technology (ie: put it in a box and wait), it is ~100000 years. But what new technologies will we have in the year 2050, 2100 or 2200.

>> 3/limited liability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act [wikipedia.org]

Without limited liability, insurance companies could not offer insurance to the companies building/maintaining the systems.

>> 4/fuel-dependency
Fuel dependency? Errr, I don't follow you. We, as a country, should try to be as fuel independent as possible. This isn't a macho "GO USA!!!" kind of rant. Being fuel independent is key to the national security of any country. We are currently over extended in the worst possible way. Nuclear is ONE way to get us where we need to go. Ideally, we would use wind, solar, etc. etc. but as others have said, until that day, nuclear is a great option. I like the idea of (literally) sitting on our coal reserves... "just in case."

I've spent several hundred hours researching this issue. Frankly, you're wron.g

>>1/Nuclear energy does not make economic sense. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50308 (translation: it is expensive)

The actual cost of the plants they're building in the south are half this. And a lot of the cost has to do with NIMBYs and (ironically enough) environmentalists, who ought to all be very pro-nuclear. The actual cost of nuclear per KWH is the only source comparable to coal. Dirty coal. CC Coal Plants are 2x to 3x the cost per KWH of dirty coal.

You want to know what doesn't make economic sense? Anything that costs more than double or triple the current cost of energy. Guess what that includes? All green technologies. Solar costs roughly 6x to 150x the cost of coal.

Look up the costs yourself, and become educated. This is a mix of government, industry, and hippie cost estimates:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/electricity.html
http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/eiaenergy2016.png
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nuclear-costs-2009.pdf
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2007publications/CEC-200-2007-011/CEC-200-2007-011-SD.PDF
http://des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/water/wmb/coastal/ocean_policy/documents/te_workshop_cost_compare.pdf

>>2/Having to store waste for over 100000 years is not what someone with any common sense would call 'green'.

The waste problem is a social construct, not a technical one.

>>3/limited liability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act

It's a good thing. Because of idiot movies like the China Syndrome, people think that nuclear power is dangerous, when nuclear plants are actually quite safe. Even left-wing France produces the lion's share of its power through nuclear, and has done so very safely for the last 30 years. Compare this with the huge numbers of people killed every year in coal mining accidents and indirectly through the radiation released into the atmosphere by coal.

>>4/fuel-dependency

There's plenty.

some facts about nuclear energy.
1/Nuclear energy does not make economic sense. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50308 (translation: it is expensive)
2/Having to store waste for over 100000 years is not what someone with any common sense would call 'green'.
3/limited liability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act
4/fuel-dependency

Storing spent nuclear plant fuel (byproducts) is a headache, but:
a) do you prefer to pump it into the atmosphere, like coal plants do? Oh yeah, because you might want to know that coal plants pump into the atmosphere way more radioactive materials ALONG WITH OTHER NASTY SUBSTANCES, than nuclear plants.
b) we could re-use those byproducts, or drastically reduce their amount, if we built breeder reactors.

Sadly, Obama didn't mention either of these. Vision's too limited, I guess?

>> 1/Nuclear energy does not make economic sense. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50308 (translation: it is expensive)
>> 2/Having to store waste for over 100000 years is not what someone with any common sense would call 'green'.
>> 3/limited liability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act
>> 4/fuel-dependency

5/If we don't use nuclear we'll be using *coal*, not wind or solar or unicorn farts. Those techs must be, and are being developed but we need power _today_.

some facts about nuclear energy.
1/Nuclear energy does not make economic sense. http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50308 (translation: it is expensive)
2/Having to store waste for over 100000 years is not what someone with any common sense would call 'green'.
3/limited liability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act
4/fuel-dependency

Citations? Let's see them.

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/feb/06/world/fg-tenet6

Google around some if you like. Tenet specifically said multiple times that Iraq was NOT an "imminent threat" to the US. Tenet's CIA stated multiple times that Iraq was NOT a threat, imminent or otherwise. The CIA never supplied intel that Iraq was producing WMD - in fact, in the article I linked to, he is basically apologizing for allowing Iraqi defectors taint CIA testimony.

The only people who believed Iraq had WMD were the gullible, and the fearful - often the same thing.

The British and the United States administrations were cooking all that "intel" in a damned bar, or at cookouts. Even after the war started, the CIA supplied little to no "intel" about the crap going on in Iraq, they didn't advocate those "extreme interrogation" methods, and the administration had little use for the CIA.

In short - the CIA and most of the rest of the United States intelligence community acted professionally, while the administration cooked the books, and instilled fear in the population.

I'll be happy to look at any citations you may have, in which genuine intelligence agencies painted the bleak picture which George and his administration painted, and which the American media happily blared over the airwaves. Remember, now, I want INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY people - professionals from the CIA, NSA, or some other alphabet soup group. Not a political appointee, and almost anyone at the Pentagon is out. The Pentagon was basically subverted by the administration, for it's own purposes.

http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=19565

"It's hard to name another group that is so eager to use the law to enforce their morality on other people."

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34939

You have the worst imagination ever.

---linuxrocks123

Yeah, after I posted that I wished Slash had an edit function. I intended to limit my comment to the Western world and neglected to do so. Yes I am aware that some Muslims want to do much worse with Sharia law. Still, in the time-honored Slashdot tradition, don't ever miss an opportunity to denigrate or belittle a stranger.

Hubris - "to cause [or attempt to cause, in this case] shame to the target, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater."
-- Aristotle

"It's hard to name another group that is so eager to use the law to enforce their morality on other people."

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34939

You have the worst imagination ever.

---linuxrocks123

I did, they are trying, so far 2 tries out of hundreds http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37972 no successes due to impossible rules to get any somewhat connected judge thrown out.

Anyway, "center" or "center-right" conservatives (neoconservatives) aren't generally the ones who are adamantly pro-war, pro-death penalty, pro-gun, and so on.

Just a quick reference to the Wikipedia (et al) shows that neoconservatives supported Ronald Reagan and his ilk.

I'm not really interested in arguing over definitions. Like most or all labels (especially of the political kind) the terms have their vagaries[1] of definition and usage. If I knew a of better term for what I describe, then I would use it.

End notes:
1. With all the attention paid to neo-conservatives in the global media today, one would think that a standard definition of the term would exist. Yet, despite their now being credited with a virtual takeover of U.S. foreign policy under President George W. Bush, a common understanding of 'neo-cons' remains elusive.

>But no, no marine (or soldier, or sailor, or airman) is just given orders to fire at will when they arrive in country.

Except when they basically are.

http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa021400a.htm

Anyone familiar with Japanese history would understand Japanese poking constant fun of the Russians, their neighbors. Russia is a bit of a sore spot to Japan since they are still disputing sovereignty of mineral rich islands that Russia claimed as a results of Japan losing WWII. It doesn't help that Japanese culture has been known as being a bit on the racist and xenophobic side.

Amazingly enough France doesn't have this problem because they recycle the waste.

Sorry, but reprocessing plants don't get rid of all waste. And they are plutonium factories. Prime terrorist targets. Do you think we'd let Iran have one?

Concerns have been raised about contamination both from processing, and from transporting waste to France's reprocessing center.

In point of fact, France has large problems with nuclear waste. The people in the region slated to be the waste dump are fighting it, oddly enough.

They have attempted to sweep the problem under the rug by shipping waste to Russia.

And we haven't even touched on the reactor safety issues of having a bunch of nuclear plants built by developing nations.

I know that many technophiles have a romantic attachment to nuclear power, to the idea of Mighty Science Harnessing the Power of the Atom. But its time to get over it.

I have yet to see any proof that we are running out of fissionable material.

You're unaware that the planet's supply of uranium is limited? Odd gap in your education, that.

Climate change looks to be an unmitigated disaster that is going to cause a very large amount of pain and suffering. This disaster will have been caused completely by us and we will have to put the work in to both deal with its effects and fix the damage in someway.

That some people, including some very powerful people (such as George W. Bush), do not accept there is a problem makes it extremely difficult to get started at dealing with it.

The scale of the problem is such that having people deny it seems criminally irresponsible and neglectful to the utmost degree.

Let me explain the scale of the disaster. There are already places in the Pacific that are starting to be inundated with salt water. The people of Carterets Island (near Papua New Guinea) are moving to Bougainville. The island nation of Tuvalu has sea water coming up through the middle of the island and ruining crops. Now one might argue that it is the land sinking and not sea level rising - this doesn't help the people who are removed from their homes and their country.

Bangladesh, with its 150 million people living on what is basically one very large river delta, is likely to be the country with the biggest problem. The country already has floods seemingly every other year during typhoon season. It would not take a lot of sea level rise before Bangladesh is uninhabitable. So where do those 150 million people go?

There's India to the west. Overcrowded and the (mostly Hindu) Indians aren't going to be exactly charitable to the (mostly Muslim) Bangladeshis. They haven't been in the past - that's why Bangladesh exists. Do they go north to Tibet? China would be distinctly unhappy about that. How about east - Myanmar/Burma. The backwards military junta there will not help.

Can you imagine the chaos if even 10% of the 150 million have to move somewhere?

The next problem is what it will do to the plants and animals on this world. The plants and animals we utterly rely on to live but never seem to acknowledge. A species lives in a certain place because it's found a niche there. It has a temperature it likes, food it likes and a place to live. As the temperature changes these species are going to have to move or they will die. Yet many of them probably can't move quickly enough to match the temperature change. It takes quite a long time for plants to reproduce and grow and many animals will require certain plants to be there. Secondly, as species move up mountain ranges to find cool enough temperatures, the species at the top will simply be pushed off - and become extinct.

Why do we care? Do you like breathing? Do you pay anything to create the oxygen to breathe? The biology of this planet is kind enough to do this for you. The planet is an incredibly detailed web. We do not know how it all fits together. We haven't even named and described all of the species. So how can we go changing the way the world lives if we have no way of predicting the outcome?

So, in the light of this massive problem, why shouldn't the world express exasperation at people who would rather ignore it?

France seems to have a good handle on it.

Not so much. Yes, reprocessing reduces it somewhat - but creates plutonium factories, great terrorist targets and a huge security problem if we want to find a solution that's globally applicable. And reprocessing produces pollution itself, and doesn't eliminate all the waste. France's "solution" has been the same as the U.S.'s: stick your head in the sand.

Some of the wast they ship to Russia. A lot of it lies around in short-term storage, big barrels or holding tanks, and everybody prays for no leaks. They've designated the town of Bure as their main nuclear waste dump, like the U.S. has designated Yucca Mountain, but are getting the same sort of push-back about it.

Uranium or plutonium fission is a highly sub-optimal energy source. Much better to put resources into developing accelerator-based "energy amplifier" reactors that are subcritical, can burn up nuclear waste, and run on thorium, and also of course fusion, including making better use of that big fusion reactor just 93 million miles away.

I can't wait till the japanese send out scientific vessels to nearby planets. To perform scientific "experiments" on the wildlife. Experiments where the wildlife ends up in meals back home.

Hydroelectric power requires destroying ecosystems? All of the time? News to me.

Hydroelectric does destroy ecosystems, but they don't have to. The Three Gorges Dam in China will flood a lot of land. And to build it the Chinese are forcibly relocating millions of people. With the forests drowned, the rotting trees will produce methane, a greenhouse gas more than 20 tymes more potent than CO2. On top of that studies have shown that dams don't bring all the benefits they were sold as providing. The Epupa Damin Namibia is a good case study on this. The Tucuruí Dam in the Brazilian Amazon shows some things that can go wrong. In the US the Colorado River is an excellent case on the effects of dams. Whereas the river used to empty out into the Gulf of California or Sea of Cortez the water no longer reaches there. Instead dams were built along it to supply water to Nevada and Southern California, desert areas. Unfortunately lakes created by the dams, such as Lake Powell, allow more water to evaporate than what would without those dams. Larger surface areas allow more evaporation.

Sometime ago there was an article posted on /. about a different method of harnessing the power of rivers. Instead of constructing dams something like egg beaters on a boom would be lowered into the river, which would then spin driving a generator. I wonder what's happening with that.

Falcon

I could ship people huge bags of thallium, mercury and dead baby condors and still be hailed as eco-friendly as long as the packaging was recycled.

Unfortunately this is all too true. For instance GE, with it's Ecomagination campaign is trying to greenwash it's image. However what you won't hear from them is how they're trying to work on the Three Gorges Dam which will forcibly displace millions of Chinese and submerge a lot of land, graves, and archaeological sites.

Falcon

It has killed our manufacturing base

"Look at how many politicians take money from anti-abortion groups in full knowledge that they can rant and rave about abortion, but the law is unlikely to change."

I'm not sure you've looked at the makeup of SCOTUS, and their decisions, recently. They've moved in significant ways to the Right. Don't take my word for it - read for yourself:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/supreme_court/index.html?inline=nyt-org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Political_leanings
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42160
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Supreme_Court

Many people seem to think laws are immutable. Often this is not the case, and if you think the abstract concept of "abortion rights" is set in stone, you may be in store for some surprises over the next 20 years.

That the treatment at Abu Graib was newsworthy shows that you're babbling nonsense. If the US military was at all like al Qaeda or like Saddam Hussein, then it would have been expected.

All of you other countries lost the right to have the US stay out of world affairs. The US tried to avoid both world wars, and was brought in by plots of other nations. Now, the US is going to have its hands in whatever it can reach. We get attacked when we leave the rest of you alone, and we get attacked when we don't. We might as well sway some things in our favor, then.

Before you start mouthing off about human rights abuses and "terrorist acts" by the US, you should look up some other countries. I suggest you start with China, Myanmar, Iraq, Somalia, Serbia, Mexico , Brazil, Colombia, and Peru.

Look who is talking....

The war on "terror" is estimated to cost:
$341.4 million per day http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

$720 Million Each Day http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092102074.html

$100,000 per minute http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002780385_spending03.html

Cost of Terror War Hits 430 Billion http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34040

>We believe in LIMITED government, not anarchy.

You believe in limiting government to the point that society would inevitably collapse. The libertarians I've heard from want to get rid of the FDA (which insures food quality), the EPA (which insures water and air quality), and the IRS (which you can't run a nation of 300 million people without).

>As to Iraq, although the liberal media doesn't tell you about it,
>it appears that commerce is flourishing there, even with the violence.

"Unemployment in Iraq has been between 60-70 percent over the last two years, according to the government in Baghdad."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41284

You call 60% unemployment flourishing? The last time that happened here, we called it the great depression.

How can you say things like that and expect me to take you seriously? The economy can't flourish if people can't get to work without getting hit by sniper fire.

You need to think more clearly about what the world you are trying to create would really be like given the changes you are trying to make, and not what you *want* it to be like. Communists think they have a great system too, but in practice it always fails.

I suggest you take a look at how real world successful societies work, such as in Europe and Japan. They do not follow the model you are suggesting, but embrace a mixture of free market economy and social government social programs. There are numerous societies without a government to maintain law and order, but they are all miserable third world nations wracked by violence.

What a great way to detract attention from its continuing defiance of the world community -- no, not just the US -- on its nuclear processing.

Sorry to bust your bubble, but there is hardly a world consensus on the handling of Iran's nuclear processing other then the United States overbearing pressure on other permanent members of the U.N. Security Counsel plus Germany, well as least behind the scenes:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41064

Besides both Russia and China have not adhered to any sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.N. Security Counsel plus you even have states like Turkey that have told the United States to "piss off" when asked to cut international banking ties with Iran:

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=95039

Didn't here about that little tidbit of information in the western press now did you? Just as you posted don't believe the cut cables are some type of "US information operation" don't believe that western media is somehow giving an accurate description of the situation when in reality they're only parroting statements from US government officials. Now would you like some bread to go with this circus?

"The American press, with very few exceptions, is a kept press. Kept by the big corporations the way a whore is kept by a rich man." - Theodore Dreiser

What a great way to detract attention from its continuing defiance of the world community -- no, not just the US -- on its nuclear processing.

Sorry to bust your bubble, but there is hardly a world consensus on the handling of Iran's nuclear processing other then the United States overbearing pressure on other permanent members of the U.N. security counsel plus Germany, well as least behind the scenes:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41064

Besides both Russia and China have not adhered to any sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.N. Security counsel plus you even have states like Turkey that have told the United States to "piss off" when asked to cut international banking ties with Iran:

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=95039

I guest you didn't here about that little tidbit of information in the western press. Just as you posted not to believe that cut cables are some type of "US information operation" as some have suggested you have to not believe in the western press lack of, or willful omissions, of facts other then statements by US governmental officials and/or major corporations that will benefit from such "disinformation". Now would you like some bread to go with your circus?

"The American press, with very few exceptions, is a kept press. Kept by the big corporations the way a whore is kept by a rich man." - Theodore Dreiser

France had that political will, and now they have the cheapest power and the cleanest air in Europe.

And the most kids with leukaemia.

But Joao Sampaio, a rubber planter from the southern state of Sao Paulo who is the president of the Brazilian Rural Society, an agribusiness association, sees things in a different light. In his view, "the PT created a whole new model of corruption."

"There has always been corruption in Brazil, but it used to be practiced by individuals, and now it involves institutions," including entire parties and Congress, and "public money" diverted from state-run companies, he argued.

Searching some more and Peru's main source of wealth is actually mining and there are lots of polution related to these activities documented.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35846

"Despite the fact that international fibre optic cables run very close to Cuban shores, the rules of the (U.S.) blockade prevent connection to these," said Cuban Informatics and Communications Minister Ramiro Valdés. According to Valdés, Washington agreed to Cuba's connection to the Internet in 1996, but opposed its connection to any fibre optic cable, "meaning that the nation is forced to use a satellite channel with a mere 65 Mbps (megabytes per second) broadband for output and 124 Mbps for input." "The rules also state that any new addition to or modification of the channel requires a license from the U.S. Treasury Department," he said.