I would like to second this in relation to slashdot there are many seemingly informed people (well, as far as a slashdot reader can be held over an average person re: science) who simply refute the science entirely, even refute that we should be "taking out insurance" on the risk.
We know it isn't going to be "day after tommorow", but it could have serious economic consequences for many regions and disrupt food supply etc. Maybe that isn't worth eating solar powered cooked tofu yet, but I think it's worth putting a hell of a lot of seed money into solutions which will provide us with neat tech anyway.
And re: the "why not nuclear?" crowd, I have only this to say:
I know the technology is perfectly safe, but that's not my objection it's to do with disposal of waste. Why do you trust corporations and government to dispose of radioactive waste? They are two of the most dodgy institutions of all time who have a track record in messing simple things up let alone complex ones.
I say more R&D $$ to scientists working on solar, tidal, hydrogen and wind tech and make up the gaps in current production with limited and pre-existing nuclear.
The US government spends around 300 billion in peace time (i.e. before Iraq) on it's military budget. You could solve world hunger and the energy crisis with half that and still have enough money to kick China's ass in a hot war twice over, why are you so beholden to the military industrial complex one of your own presidents warned you about in his final speech.
This stuff would be easy, I don't know why people are so allergic to it. Because they like to beat up on lefty straw-men protesters who they see as being unscientific? I don't know, but what I do know is there are good reasons to take action and they aren't based on saving the tofu birds from being unable to hug trees, it's purely a risk assesment which says:
"hey, that money the most polluting nation on earth spends to keep safe, well it won't keep them safe if there is a food shortage and a heap of wars due to climate change, so they should put some of that security money into stopping climate change.... and it will be money well spent because all the science points to it being a pretty big security issue."
There is a reason NASA doesn't send the latest "working" laptops up to the space station, it's because you can only say something is "rock solid" after very extensive testing.
My gmail account isn't any better or worse that it would have been, it's just I know not to run anything mission critical off it.
More things should be in beta, there are too many things that claim to be rock solid that aren't.
At the same time, I don't condone the abuse of "beta" to avoid offering proper support... but we haven't seen widespread abuse (yet) whereas we have seen widespread abuse of people claiming things are solid and secure when they are not.
If you want to use debian unstable or fedora vs debian woody or red hat enterprise it's better to be making an informed decision than one based on marketing.
Slashdot Mirror
I would like to second this in relation to slashdot there are many seemingly informed people (well, as far as a slashdot reader can be held over an average person re: science) who simply refute the science entirely, even refute that we should be "taking out insurance" on the risk.
We know it isn't going to be "day after tommorow", but it could have serious economic consequences for many regions and disrupt food supply etc. Maybe that isn't worth eating solar powered cooked tofu yet, but I think it's worth putting a hell of a lot of seed money into solutions which will provide us with neat tech anyway.
And re: the "why not nuclear?" crowd, I have only this to say:
I know the technology is perfectly safe, but that's not my objection it's to do with disposal of waste. Why do you trust corporations and government to dispose of radioactive waste? They are two of the most dodgy institutions of all time who have a track record in messing simple things up let alone complex ones.
I say more R&D $$ to scientists working on solar, tidal, hydrogen and wind tech and make up the gaps in current production with limited and pre-existing nuclear.
The US government spends around 300 billion in peace time (i.e. before Iraq) on it's military budget. You could solve world hunger and the energy crisis with half that and still have enough money to kick China's ass in a hot war twice over, why are you so beholden to the military industrial complex one of your own presidents warned you about in his final speech.
This stuff would be easy, I don't know why people are so allergic to it. Because they like to beat up on lefty straw-men protesters who they see as being unscientific? I don't know, but what I do know is there are good reasons to take action and they aren't based on saving the tofu birds from being unable to hug trees, it's purely a risk assesment which says:
"hey, that money the most polluting nation on earth spends to keep safe, well it won't keep them safe if there is a food shortage and a heap of wars due to climate change, so they should put some of that security money into stopping climate change.... and it will be money well spent because all the science points to it being a pretty big security issue."
It clarifies between "working" and "rock solid".
There is a reason NASA doesn't send the latest "working" laptops up to the space station, it's because you can only say something is "rock solid" after very extensive testing.
My gmail account isn't any better or worse that it would have been, it's just I know not to run anything mission critical off it.
More things should be in beta, there are too many things that claim to be rock solid that aren't.
At the same time, I don't condone the abuse of "beta" to avoid offering proper support... but we haven't seen widespread abuse (yet) whereas we have seen widespread abuse of people claiming things are solid and secure when they are not.
If you want to use debian unstable or fedora vs debian woody or red hat enterprise it's better to be making an informed decision than one based on marketing.