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Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota wants to padlock the E.P.A.â(TM)s doors, as does former Speaker Newt Gingrich. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas wants to impose an immediate moratorium on environmental regulation.

Representative Ron Paul of Texas wants environmental disputes settled by the states or the courts. Herman Cain, a businessman, wants to put many environmental regulations in the hands of an independent commission that includes oil and gas executives. Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former Utah governor, thinks most new environmental regulations should be shelved until the economy improves.

Only Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, has a kind word for the E.P.A., and that is qualified by his opposition to proposed regulation of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming.

But maybe they're just talk? No, not if you remember George Bush.

No, it's not bullshit. It's not a topic I have studied at great length, but the early evidence is pretty convincing. The main problem seems to come from Benzene and related chemicals, which already exist in the petroleum deposits, being pushed into the water table. The actual fracking chemicals seem to be less of an issue. The way the regulatory agencies ignored and minimized the issues early on, despite evidence there may have been substantial risks, stinks of corruption and payoffs. No offense intended, but are you a sock puppet for oil and gas companies, or do you have a financial interest in hydraulic fracturing?

Here are some suspected cases of groundwater contamination that may be due to hydraulic fracturing

Look, I'm well aware of the dire state of the North American natural gas supply. Without additional natural gas supplies brought online by hydraulic fracturing there is substantial risk of failure to maintain sufficient pressure in the gas mains - which would be a disaster. Nonetheless, any industrial process with the potential to poison large-scale water supplies must be used very carefully, if at all.

The game's final cutscene will undoubtedly be the player receiving the Pulitzer Prize or possibly the Nobel Peace Prize for reporting atrocities. How could the game possibly end otherwise?

if he were going to gitmo it would probably have happened sometime in the last decade... this is old news. it's still cool, but it is old.

http://www.google.com/search?q=john+coster-mullen&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_samuels
http://www.mediabistro.com/unbeige/how-john-coster-mullen-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-reverse-engineer-the-bomb_b6222
http://docs.nrdc.org/nuclear/files/nuc_04110001a_024.pdf

A "new refrigerator" is, supposedly, more efficient than the last one. The emergence of IT made entire armies of secretaries, messengers, archive managers, human computers etc obsolete, changing society profoundly. The comparison to an iterative development of an existing technology strikes me as moot.

A very interesting expanded comparison between IT and refrigerators can be made. The introduction of refrigerators also changed society profoundly (though perhaps not quite as profoundly as IT). The ability to ship food long distances and store it for long periods of time throughout the supply chain, right down into the kitchen, the invention of new food products (Birdeye's flash frozen vegetables, etc.) had major economic and social implications. But this was in the first half of the 20th century, long before the life experience of /. readers.

And since 1972 there has also been a genuine revolution in refrigerator technology. Prices of refrigerators have plummeted, and efficiency has sky-rocketed. This chart only takes us to 1997, but it shows a near-tripling in energy efficiency over 25 years, and the progress has not stopped since then. A new 18 cubic foot refrigerator uses 350 kWh per year, which is an average energy consumption of only 40 watts. Most PCs use more power than this, even taking into account the long periods of idling.

I suggest that computer processor energy consumption needs to follow a curve like that of refrigerators as a share of the national energy consumption - reverse its still climbing share of national energy consumption, and begin a long decline.

The problem with you "alternative" energy types is that you have no sense of proportion. You could entirely cover the Sahara (according to a British study) in photovoltaic cells and still not cover Europe's energy needs.

Citation requested.

Here's my own: A Solar Grand Plan. Another one, Hooked on Subsidies. Yet, another one, The elusive negawatt. Still another: Renewable Energy Maps of Nevada. Also Renewable Energy for America.

That isn't to say we shouldn't move to more alternative fuels (we should), but to naively think that will be sufficient is just blind.

To say alternative energy can't be sufficient is just blind. Requiring people to pay the full cost of the energy they use, including but not only eliminating subsidies and paying for pollution, then people won't be as wasteful.

Falcon

Exactly. The safest, most efficient form of energy we have right now is nuclear energy but of course we can't have that because its nuclear! We need to focus on the here and now and the here and now is nuclear.

It's a tad ironic - your statement juxtaposed with your sig. Do you realize that nuclear power has enormous, truly enormous government subsidies (from tax revenue)? Without those subsidies the industry would be completely dead in the water, as opposed to severely moribund. There are several reasons (and discoverable by a trivial search) for this, among them the very long lead time involved in plant siting, design and construction. But as a 'free market' short term proposition, nucs aren't glowing very brightly.

What the builder is bitching about is not interest rates on the capital cost. Those are lower than they've ever been in US business history. It's the down payment. The issue for private lenders is that an unfinished nuclear plant has zero to negative value. So the company has to put in enough up-front money to convince lenders the job will be finished. The industry had convinced the U.S. Government to subsidize the down payment, but there's a sizable charge for that to be paid over time, and this builder is bitching about it.

I'm trying to get the clearest objective picture I can about what's going on the food industry, and it doesn't look pretty. Sorry. I'm sure you have access to information that I don't, and follow these things more closely. I rely on reports by journalists, researchers, government agencies, and activists who also have access to information that I don't, and who also follow these things more closely than I do. Just because I'm not in the field doesn't mean I can't try to find what's going on and form an opinion. I will see if I can find the Journal of Dairy Science report you're talking about.

Anyway, you can accuse me of FUD, but there are real, serious, and ongoing health consequences to food industry practices:
* Mad Cow Disease: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3355625.stm
* E Coli in Spinach: http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/4198816.html
* Salmonella in Eggs: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/business/23eggs.html?_r=1&ref=business

People die when industry cuts corners and regulatory agencies don't do their job.

More of my resources:
* Agricultural Antibiotic Use Contributes To 'Super-Bugs' In Humans - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050705010900.htm
* Denmark's Case for Antibiotic-Free Animals - http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/10/eveningnews/main6195054.shtml
* The above article cites Professor Ellen Silbergeld - http://faculty.jhsph.edu/Default.cfm?faculty_id=648
* The true cost of cheap chicken - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-true-cost-of-cheap-chicken-768062.html
* Agriculture Pollution report from Defra (UK government) - http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/landmanage/water/csf/index.htm
* Wikipedia page on Factory Farming - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_farming

Activists (I am listing them separately, to be fair):
* http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/ffarms.asp
* http://www.ciwf.org.uk/
* http://www.farmsanctuary.org/issues/factoryfarming/
* http://www.iowasource.com/health/CAFO_airqu_0805.html
* Food, Inc. (movie)
* Ominvore's Dillemma, Michael Pollan
* Eating Animals, Michael Safran Foer

Perhaps you have magic eyes that can look at a piece of fish and see the mercury in it. Do you have any useful advice (i.e. not platitudes) for those of us with normal vision?

The cocksucking regulators do. As do a large number of medical, consumer, and environmental advocacy groups.

The 5 easy steps to being green and adverting the worst effects of climate change and peak oil. And these strategies create stable and local job growth which is the best economic sense: 1) Stop SprawL!!! 2) R.R.Recycle! 3) ReForest/FoodForest!/VirginForest!! 4) Wind!/GeoThermal!!/Solar! 5) Electric&OpenSource Trains!!/Cars/Media! http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/solutions/ http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1989

Figures are for the number of people jailed per 100,000 population, for 2007. There is a more up to date list (7th edition) but I couldn't find a link for it that didn't require a PDF download.

We are free for this one number alone. But don't you worry, the powers that be want to "change" that too. Reuters

About half the US population is sitting in jail as a result of drug related offenses - due the the war on drugs and 3 strikes policies there. It's also a big part of the reason why California is going bankrupt.

Why is it that the people most involved with drug trafficking never get caught?
These sites may open your eyes if you have the guts to do so.Site 1
Site 2
As to California's problems, do you think that this may have had something to do with it? Site 3

Of course, as everyone know, Australia is entirely populated by criminals, which may account for the relatively low percentage of us locked up here.

As everyone "knows" America was first made up of religious radicals and status quo malcontents and they were sent west across the Atlantic ocean by the same people who sent criminals to Botany Bay.

Here's a summaryof the five. (You can get reasonable translations from google.)

Here's a summary of Operation Torch, the one that didn't work.

In every case, these were gas flares, on dry ground with solid rock of known composition around the wellhead.

here is a pdf of the NRC's reports on the USSR peaceful blasts program. In a similar project, the US did a peaceful blast called Project Rulison to open a crack and increase natural gas flow from an underground pocket. What they found was that while it did increase gas flow, the gas was wildly radioactive, so there's a good possibility that doing the same thing with an underground oil flow could well radioactively contaminate the oil.

Which means that it's likely the best outcome would be to stop this leak, leaving a big contaminated and useless oil source, and the worst would be that it would increase the leak *and* make it radioactive as well.

Hmm. A bit more homework and it appears that legally can take over and direct an oil spill response. See http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dpettit/the_coast_guard_is_in_charge_i.html.

However the Coast Guard did not. http://www.hstoday.us/content/view/13385/149/

"Regardless of what happens after the top kill, [Adm. Thad Allen] told HSToday.us that it would not be appropriate for the federal government to exert direct control over the disaster response efforts currently led by BP.

"I think it's legally possible. I don't think it's advisable," Allen declared."

Since nobody's posted any links:
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/lspeer/oil_dispersants_spell_trouble.html

The best solution seems to be to burn it off.
http://echinoblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/spiny-skinned-canaries-in-coal-mine.html

Even the first step must be in the right direction.

http://www.nrdc.org/air/transportation/images/aoilpolicy2_2.gif

How is solid evidence of shrinking polar caps not highly damaging? ...

It's rather cyclical and more likely caused by the sun than by humans.

There is something absolutely wrong with the kind of media coverage. You're telling me that a transposition of digits within a report full of otherwise solid information is "highly damaging"? This is a false sense of even-handedness at best.

How is solid evidence of shrinking polar caps not highly damaging? The hard empirical fact that we've taken the atmospheric CO2 level from ~280 parts per million to over 370? The increasing ocean acidity from absorbing this increased CO2? The fact that widespread deforestation in the midst of de-sequestering carbon locked in oil and carbon and putting it back into the atmosphere on this level has a significant impact?

The question that will matter to all of us in coming years is not whether the IPCC had, in the midst of a large report of substance, accidentally transposed numbers when discussing a real and dangerous trend. It's not about whether or not you like Al Gore. It's not about the way scientists chattered in their emails while creating and testing computer simulations. This coverage of personality cult or anti-cult, the minor gaffes in an overwhelming body of documented evidence being treated even-handedly as if it thwarts all the rest, it is responsible for promoting complacency or belligerency in the face of a severe environmental threat.

Will we come to our senses already, or will it take soaring food prices and flooded cities and islands first?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0420_040420_earthday.html

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/fcons/fcons4.asp

Now with handy maps!
http://nexialinstitute.com/world_60_m.htm

You are wrong.

For small displays (i.e. monitor sized) LCDs are much more efficient than CRTs. But at larger sizes plasmas in particular and even some LCDs can be less efficient than comparably sized CRTs.

Sources:
http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/energyeff/tv.pdf (page 17)
http://www.home.agilent.com/agilent/redirector.jspx?action=ref&cc=CN&lc=chi&ckey=1484550&cname=AGILENT_EDITORIAL

At the same time, the majority of the population is not willing to pay the 20% (or more) hit to GDP it would take to prevent more CO2 from going into the atmosphere.

Cite. please. NRDC estimates the cost doing nothing could be as high as 3.6% of GDP. The IEA estimates the cost of a 50% reduction in CO2 would run about 1.1% of world GDP over the next 30 years.

Of course penalizing industries is far less popular than subsidizing others, so it's not going to happen.

Don't be too sure about that.

http://www.nrdc.org/media/2008/080228.asp

32 Coal-Fired Power Plants in 13 States Now Up in the Air After Major Court Ruling on Mercury

U.S. Motor vehicle fuel economy peaked in about 1987 (see Figure 1). In a nationwide road challenge, the 1959 AMC Rambler American beat the current CAFE standard of 25mpg. The proposed standard finally exceeds the estimated 30mpg(hwy) for the 1978 Cadillac diesel.
 
    Indeed we lost a few decades of progress. Chalk that up to SEC regulations which punish R&D, government meddling and bailouts (Chrysler) which crused the smallest and most innovative U.S. car company (AMC) and helped an oligopoly avoid serious competition for long enough to become too big to fail.

I'll call your bullshit and raise you a citation please:

http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf
http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanair/factsheets/power.asp
http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/sources.asp
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/oarpg/t3/fact_sheets/fs_util.pdf

Wow, it certainly seems that a lot of people think that coal power plants are the prime emitters of mercury. Care to show some citations that say otherwise?

No? Then please keep your BS to yourself.

And the cattle in North America today quite frequently have environmental management for their waste.

Bison never did.

Sure they did. We like to call their "environmental management for their waste" nature.

And while we're at it, I'm guessing (because I don't know) that the bison of yore lived a lot longer than the cattle of today (on average), and that bison birth rates were lower. And I'm guessing (because I don't know) that the most environmentally expensive part of an herbivore's life cycle is the birth and first year or 2 of growth.

It is my understanding (sorry, no citation) that the grasses bison live off of are also easier on the environment.

But seriously...farmers pollute the environment? What kind of crap propaganda have you been reading?

Maybe...
http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/ffarms.asp

Claimers: Yeah, I'm a vegetarian. No, I'm not a vegan. Yes, I'm sitting on a leather couch. Yes, I'm a hypocrite. No, I'm not sorry.

Oh no! Give up bottled water?

It was a poor way to bring up the point that the Bush administration has done a lot to hurt the environment. It was pretty surprising to see that someone they tried to do to benefit the environment got shot down.

For a (somewhat-biased) record: http://www.nrdc.org/BushRecord/

Bush's record is not the point. The point is that when someone does something you don't like, you bash them. When someone does something that you DO like, you praise them.

Now that we have the ground rules in place let's bring it back to the topic at hand. The GGP bashed the Prez, as you did, after doing he did something GOOD for the environment. Which takes us back to our rule we established earlier:
When you bash someone all the time, even when they do something good, you lose all credibility and look like a little partisan bitch.

It was a poor way to bring up the point that the Bush administration has done a lot to hurt the environment. It was pretty surprising to see that someone they tried to do to benefit the environment got shot down.

For a (somewhat-biased) record: http://www.nrdc.org/BushRecord/

I was listening to NPR this morning and they were bringing up decent points regarding drilling off the coasts. The impact would be negligble and would take a while for it to show any signs of impact. According to this article from Time - Will Drilling More Mean Cheaper Gas?, which mines some quotes and data from the EIA of the DOE, found that drilling ANWR would only decrease the cost of gas by 3.5 cents per gallon by 2027. When it comes to offshore drilling, the National Resources Defense Council says that it will only cut down by a similar amount, 3-4 cents per gallon.

Shale oil I'm really interested in because I heard that the major barrier was the cost effectiveness. With oil at about $140/barrel, I can only hope to see a more concerted effort in refining that oil at a cheaper price. Do we have the necessary infrustructure to do so and make an immediate impact?

You know, science used to be a prestigious profession, and used to be respected. Now, the only persistent emotions I see towards science and technology is spite.

Unfortunately, I think that's in part because science has jumped into the political realm, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes intentionally. Global warming, stem cell research, cloning, take your pick. Science is becoming a tool of the governments. And it no longer places ethical boundaries on itself. Environmentalism for some has become the new, secular religion. Tell the children mommy and daddy are hurting the cute penguins so we need to herd the people into urban areas and force mass transit.

It all sounds nice and reasonable and the frog is enjoying his warm bath. Unfortunately, the news doesn't report much about history either.

The problem with Bush on environmental issues is that he's all talk. The environmental policies he promotes may sound good up front, but as with so much of what he says, things look worse and worse the more you look at them.

In 2003 he proposed a "hydrogen fuel initiative". Sounds good. But what if instead of wasting money on something that won't be feasible for ten or fifteen years we concentrate on high-yield biofuels like algae?

You say in his 2006 state of the union address he heavily promoted biofuels? Sounds good. But Bush and the rest of the government seem to back corn ethanol exclusively. Which is a shame since it's practically the least energy-dense crop possible, and there are questions as the whether or not the energy you get is worth the energy put in.

And let's not even talk about the Bush administration's clear skies initiative and clean water act.

To me it's obvious that the problem is a lack of scientific understanding in the areas of the government responsible for implementing policy. Bush's solution is to throw money at things that sound good but aren't practical (giving him a false image of environmental stewardship), while paving the way for big business. Congress doesn't appear to have any idea of the science behind the mandates they argue about. We need realistic and common sense discourse about what works and what doesn't. Unfortunately this topic is too politicized for that. In the end everyone loses.

The problem with Bush on environmental issues is that he's all talk. The environmental policies he promotes may sound good up front, but as with so much of what he says, things look worse and worse the more you look at them.

In 2003 he proposed a "hydrogen fuel initiative". Sounds good. But what if instead of wasting money on something that won't be feasible for ten or fifteen years we concentrate on high-yield biofuels like algae?

You say in his 2006 state of the union address he heavily promoted biofuels? Sounds good. But Bush and the rest of the government seem to back corn ethanol exclusively. Which is a shame since it's practically the least energy-dense crop possible, and there are questions as the whether or not the energy you get is worth the energy put in.

And let's not even talk about the Bush administration's clear skies initiative and clean water act.

To me it's obvious that the problem is a lack of scientific understanding in the areas of the government responsible for implementing policy. Bush's solution is to throw money at things that sound good but aren't practical (giving him a false image of environmental stewardship), while paving the way for big business. Congress doesn't appear to have any idea of the science behind the mandates they argue about. We need realistic and common sense discourse about what works and what doesn't. Unfortunately this topic is too politicized for that. In the end everyone loses.

Why shouldn't coal be an option? The NRDC has a great article on clean coal that effectively lays out the case for and against it.

The pros of clean coal include (1) zero carbon emission; (2) almost none of the particulate emissions associated with traditional coal; (3) a 300 year supply of coal; (4) a significant chunk of that supply being in the US; and (5) minimal additional investment in plant upgrades since most coal plants are old and need to be upgraded already anyway.

The cons of clean coal include (1) CO2 sequestration (clean coal gets zero carbon status by capturing the CO2 from plaints and injecting it into underground reservoirs); (2) Environmental impact associated with mining the coal (this includes physical impact and the carbon emissions associated with mining); and (3) using the captured CO2 to produce oil (process explain in the article).

There are two sides to this debate, and some of the pro arguments are extremely compelling, especially if you are concerned with energy independence. To say categorically that coal should not be an option is to ignore a potentially great energy source. The solution to getting away form oil dependence is not just solar power. It includes wind, solar, nuclear, coal, geothermal and any other power source that is NOT oil. In fact a combination of sources is probably the bets way balance energy demand. The less dependent society becomes on one particular source, the less it will be held hostage by the downsides of using that source, and the more likely it will be to accept the introduction of a new source. It's just like the argument for multiple operating systems. People are more likely to switch to Linux, OSX, or BSD if they have had exposure to multiple OS's and not just Windows for all of their life.

It's true that people in developing nations will be the most affected by the estimated 160,000 deaths a year due to global warming - see http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/09/6 0640. However, in France in 2003, over 15,000 people died from the heatwave, which is generally accepted to be a more common occurrence as global warming increases. In Greece recently, 60 people died in horrific fires over a major part of the Peloponnese, including some trying to escape in cars.

More prosaically, there will be wider impacts that are less likely to kill you, but could well affect your health (e.g. dengue fever and West Nile), wellbeing (more frequent hurricanes, droughts and other extreme weather) and wealth (the US economy will take a dive if it doesn't do anything about global warming). See http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/fcons.asp for some impacts.

So don't be so damn smug and ill-informed - you will be affected in some way, and far more than by local air pollution.

What we have here is the "Obvious Troll Post" or, the OTP.
The OTP is identified by 3 characteristics
1. Post author lashes out irrationally
ex. What we're doing is unforgivable.
2. Post author incorrectly states opinion or misheard info as fact with out checking
ex. They probably have a very finite rate of reproduction, their numbers are low and getting lower, and we're even killing the old ones.
3. Post author will not support their facty facts with a link... (aka lazy posting) ex. sonar from U.S. Navy submarines kill whales and ruin their hearing (here is an easily found link)
Also, though this is just a gripe about posters in general, the "am I right, I hope somebody agrees with me" insecurity in posting
ex. Is anybody else alarmed about the news that we just killed an old whale?

Whoever thought to mod this insightful does not recognize the OTP, but hopefully, in the future, they will

Anonymous Coward for a reason - Hope this helps clear up this murky area :)

Coal power plants cause 24,000 premature deaths a year nationwide.

Estimates of deaths linked to nuclear power in the US since 1957 range from 0 to a few hundred.

I guess it is the psychological catastrophe effect. 45,000 people die every year in automobile wrecks and no one pays attention. 100 die in a plane crash and it is a national event.

According to the CIA World Factbook of 2007, the US is currently consuming 20.7 million barrels of oil per day. Let's suppose that "the amount of technically recoverable oil in the ANWR 1002 area 'is estimated to be between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels ... with a mean value of 7.7 billion barrels.'"

Quick, do the math. 7.7 billion divided by 20.7 million per day gives us ... 371 days -- just over a year's worth. And it will take about 10 years for the drilling to come online.

Personally, I don't think it's worth it -- but I'm not an oil investor. ;)

I agree with your points, but I would like to point out that passenger cars account for 40% of our oil use in 2004. The link is from a tree hugger site, but it references the Annual Energy Information Administration Annual Assessment from 2004. This was on the first page of a quick google search. Considering that the EIA estimates that 2/3 of all oil use in the US is for transportation, and 2/3 of that oil is gasoline, I'd say that the 40% number quoted by the site is pretty accurate.

So yes, lowering gas consumption of passenger cars by even 5% would have a noticeable impact on the US oil consumption. Doubling the gas mileage would reduce our oil useage by 20%.... something to think about.

1st: Something with a 10k half-life actually isn't that dangerous, especially if you spread it around(dilution), rather than trying to keep it concentrated. It even neglects that there's still 90-99% usable fuel in that 'waste', it just needs some reprocessing. Some of the newer designs are even capable of using it with minimal reprocessing.

Should the last 65 years* be considered statically significant on the performance for the next 100,000?
* By the way, it's not good:

Not good? Compared to what? Coal power?

Particulate emissions from power blamed for 30,000 deaths/year
Coal power blamed for 22,000 premature deaths, in the USA, per year

From your links:
2000-2006: 13 workers exposed to 'slight' or 'trace' levels of radiation, one plant had increased radioactive levels about 10% over ambient for "several days" in Hungary. This was considered a critical event. Overall level probably still less than ambient in Colorado Springs. Deaths: None.
1990's: Deaths: 2 Japanese workers at a uranium reprocessing facility who violated procedures. Will likely increase to 3 eventually. Exposed: 2k or so Russian workers exposed to up to 50mSv(half the allowed 5 year dosage). Happened at a plutonium reprocessing facility; most likely nuclear weapons related. Unknown number(but probably under ten) Georgian soldiers; from a military training source, not nuclear power.
1980s: Chernobyl, currently blamed for 93k possible future deaths by Greenpeace(hardly a dispartial source), current death toll by the other side is placed at just over a hundred. The models predicting thousands of deaths use the linear no-threshold model, which is in dispute. Studys on low level radiation exposure actually suggest a negative correlation with cancer(IE more radiation, up to a point, leads to less cancer). Besides Chernobyl, there was 1 other civilian fatality, and 13 Russian navy members died in two submarine accidents. There were four other exposure incidents; half military half civilian, two escaped containment.

I'm skipping earlier than the 1980s. Nuclear power in the '70s was just under development, it'd be like using the model-T to express car safety. The models are just that different.

Even if we take greenpeace's number, pad to to 100k for two decades, that's still 1/6th the death toll as experienced in the USA ALONE for coal power over the same time. And Chernobyl was a worse than worst case scenario; especially when compared to the safety of US plants.

Even Russian power plants are far safer today; Chernobyl was their wakeup, as TMI was ours.

Yes, folks, the same government nannies will have your neighbors throwing mercury into the trash. Never mind that it will get into the ground and your water supplies, costs more, is inferior light and sends money to the Chinese communists.

Never mind that the same thinking banned DDT which meant millions of Africans have died from malaria or that liberated prisoners from the Nazi death camps were bathed in DDT to kill the bugs living on them or that "Silent Spring" has been shown to be a work of fiction.

Never mind that banning asbestos created more danger because removing asbestos is more dangerous than using it properly, automobile brakes are nowhere near as capable, costs increased and, oh, yeah, the WTC would have stood longer because it was designed to survive airplane hits provided the guts were protected by asbestos so it would have stood a few more hours.

OnEarth Magazine published an excellent piece last summer reporting on this situation: The Vanishing.

Btw, I found this recommendation. They seem to outline some reasonable guidelines to follow for the Prudhoe Bay region and NG.

Penn & Teller are great when it comes to con men, but on other subjects they fail it. Hard. They were wrong about glass recycling. They were wrong about second-hand smoke, using as their sole sources of information a "think tank" run by a woman whose reports echo whatever her tobacco and oil companies want them to as well as to a court case which was vacated by a higher court. They were also as wrong about global warming as Michael Crichton in his horrible passion play, State of Confusion which was wrong, wrong, wrong.

This doesn't mean that anyone challenging a popularly held idea or even accepted theory should be silenced. Far from it. Science needs theories questioned. However, when the questions are being raised by shills in order to confuse and are based in fallacy and reference already disproven works, that's when such "scientists" should have their credentials stripped.

Black bears are scavengers, so acting dead is just playing right into their hand. In fact, they've been behind most of the play dead propaganda in the hopes of easier meals...

Grizzlies too will take the easy food. Those living around Yellowstone have found they need bear proof trash cans and need to empty them daily. More and more grizzlies are leaving the park and going into national forests along with onto private property. The magazine On Earth has an article on this, The Rancher and the Grizzly: A Love Story.

ummmm perhaps it was there naturally? From http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/qarsenic.asp:

"5. How does arsenic get into water supplies?

Most arsenic enters water supplies either from natural deposits in the earth or from industrial and agricultural pollution. Arsenic is a natural element of the earth's crust. It is used in industry and agriculture, and for other purposes. It also is a byproduct of copper smelting, mining and coal burning. U.S. industries release thousands of pounds of arsenic into the environment every year."

The nuclear non-proliferation treaty requires that nuclear powers work towards nuclear disarmament. The US rejects all proposals calling for nuclear disarmament.

See this graph.

Sudden massive uptrend in CO2? So what? If, as you choose to believe, the uptick in CO2 is purely manmade, and the uptrick in CO2 is purely the cause of global change, then you might have a point. I'm not at all so sure that either are established.

Why should things ALWAYS be the way they are today? It's somewhat interesting as the kind of ultimate in conservatism.

Melting icecaps--well, that doesn't totally jive with actual evidence out there--in fact there's been some recent articles discussing glacial growth.

You seem awfully invested in being sure that EVERYTHING that happens environmentally is a sign of the coming apocalypse that you laid out in your last post--THIS is the reason I have trouble with people that take stands like you, and I don't think the so-called global consensus is anything like you make it out to be. Besides which, since when has "consensus" EVER had anything to do with science? Science isn't a consensus game--we're not talking english lit or such here.

Again, let's talk the 1970s--30 years ago, there was STRONG consensus towards global cooling.

When I read your post I see fear fear fear, in that many words--look back on your posts--they are obsessed with how bad things will be. I don't get it. Things always change.

tree farms

Yep, the true greens still hate nuclear power. Why? Pragmatism... not idealism.

Have you read any of the arguments presented by the NRDC, FOE (Friends of the Earth) or Greenpeace? Here's a couple (sorry for the pdfs):
NRDC
FOE

Nuclear power is an unrealistic way to slow down global warming, poses more safety risks, is a national security threat and costs way more than switching to 100% renewable energy. Unfortunately, the US Government has a habit of illegally blocking renewable technologies such as wind power. Despite what the mainstream corporate media says we can meet the energy needs of the entire US with wind and solar power. Both the cost of wind and solar are rapidly dropping. Why should we punish taxpayers to support nuclear, when you can let clean renewable technology take over without doing anything?

P.S.
F--- the F---ing birds that are stupid enough to fly into wind turbines (or into the side of buildings for that matter). True environmentalists don't give a shit about birds when our oceans are turning to acid.

That's strange, since the protocol has never been submitted to the Senate for ratification. The 98-0 vote may refer to a non-binding vote on a resolution relating to how the negotionations were to take place (see http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/akyotoqa.asp).