3263

I really do wish that nuclear power could get a better rep these days. Recent advances have reduced the waste produced significantly, and increased the efficiency greatly. There is just such a PR problem with nuclear power due to very isolated instances of failure due to errors that could be fixed with proper regulations and adherence to them.

Though, our government is not likely to spend any money on nuclear power research, or any money on setting up the regulatory safeguards needed to ensure the safety in future.

It is basically an amazing technology that needs a lot of money upfront to, in the longrun, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and carbon emissions. But, it is bad PR, so no politician will touch it.

Maybe the Trump, “I don’t give a fuck what you think” administration will get it kickstarted. Coal is over, no matter what they try to spin it as. Natural gas fracking has taken over completely, making coal too expensive to bother with.

And, it is not renewable energy policies closing these plants, it is shale oil fracking closing these plants.

3264

The reality is, nuclear power research has continued. That’s why modern reactors are so much better.

The US just isn’t building them. Other nations are.

3265

Hahahahahahahahhah. That’s good.

3266

It’s all how you frame it. Nuclear weapons make us look strong so if we make everything nuclear then we’re extra strong!

3267

“But we have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ballgame. Frankly, I would have said get out of Syria; get out – if we didn’t have the power of weaponry today. The power is so massive that we can’t just leave areas that 50 years ago or 75 years ago we wouldn’t care. It was hand-to-hand combat.”

Actual quote from Donald Trump, in 2015, and he won the primary and we elected him anyway.

3268

I remember way back when, when it was cringe-worthy to have a president pronounce it “nukular”.

Such innocent times.

3269

Opportunity to sound off on proposed EPA rule

https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=EPA-HQ-OA-2017-0190-0042

3270

LOL at the first comment they randomly decided to publish:

image.png1360×930 172 KB

3271

Some good news for once. Well, more a summary of mostly positive indicators. Too little, too late, maybe, but at least we’re heading in the right direction finally.

3272

Some other good news - nuking the Clean Power Regs won’t be that easy:

The Trump administration’s decision to terminate its predecessor’s Clean Power Plan, accomplished via an executive order, would seem to be a carefully crafted decision with an air of finality about it. It neatly avoided rejecting mainstream climate science, opting instead to eliminate the only federal plan for doing anything about it.

The reality is far more complex. Unlike other actions by the Obama administration, which occurred late in his second term, the Clean Power Plan had gone through the entire federal rulemaking process. To get rid of it, the process has to be repeated in its entirety. And the scientific document that formed the foundation for the Clean Power Plan won’t be touched by the reversal. Its existence is likely to leave the Trump EPA in a legally awkward position, one where they’ll have to come up with some regulation to tackle climate change…

…The root of all the challenges faced by Scott Pruitt’s EPA is the greenhouse gas Endangerment Finding. Given that, there would seem to be an obvious path forward: get rid of it. “If they take out the endangerment finding, then the whole house of cards comes down,” said Vermont’s Parenteau. “It’s the linchpin for everything Obama did on climate under the Clean Air Act. You take that out, and you take out the whole infrastructure of carbon regulation.”

…But both Parenteau and Doniger are skeptical that this can happen for a variety of reasons, among them is that doing so would involve the same regulatory process and risk of lawsuits that other rule changes would. An even bigger hurdle is that doing so would require some evidence-based reason. Here, the EPA would run up against the very climate science that the original endangerment finding cited. “I don’t think there’s ever been an environmental issue in which there’s a stronger scientific consensus,” Parenteau told Ars. Doniger said that reversing the Endangerment Finding “is a fool’s errand because the science is so strong in supporting the finding.”

3273

WASHINGTON – EPA.gov, the website for the United States Environmental Protection Agency, is undergoing changes that reflect the agency’s new direction under President Donald Trump and Administrator Scott Pruitt. The process, which involves updating language to reflect the approach of new leadership, is intended to ensure that the public can use the website to understand the agency’s current efforts. The changes will comply with agency ethics and legal guidance, including the use of proper archiving procedures. For instance, a screenshot of the last administration’s website will remain available from the main page.

“As EPA renews its commitment to human health and clean air, land, and water, our website needs to reflect the views of the leadership of the agency,” said J.P. Freire, Associate Administrator for Public Affairs. “We want to eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how we’re protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law.”

The first page to be updated is a page reflecting President Trump’s Executive Order on Energy Independence, which calls for a review of the so-called Clean Power Plan. Language associated with the Clean Power Plan, written by the last administration, is out of date. Similarly, content related to climate and regulation is also being reviewed.

3274

epa.gov doubleplusungood references climate unfacts rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling

3275

Not to mention they are purging all the scientific climate data from the public servers. Fuckers.

3276

The EPA’s Friday press statement did not explicitly refer to changes affecting this site, but it did say that “content related to climate and regulation is also under review.”

The archived EPA climate page notes, in a key section under the “causes of climate change,” that

Recent climate changes, however, cannot be explained by natural causes alone. Research indicates that natural causes do not explain most observed warming, especially warming since the mid-20th century. Rather, it is extremely likely that human activities have been the dominant cause of that warming.

It is this language, when the site was still up, that directly contradicted Pruitt. Pruitt had argued on CNBC last month that “measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”

The EPA’s climate change website stated otherwise, and did so by citing findings of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

3277

“Global warming climate experts will go to their graves like religious fanatics holding onto their precious beliefs and there is nothing we can do about that. The God of Nature has seen fit to disprove their idiotic theories and computer models in a most powerful and mocking way because they would not listen to real scientists who have known better for the 17 years it has been cooling.”

3278

What’s the motivation in posting that? It’s a terrible article in every conceivable way.

I assumed it was talking about February 2017 so I looked up NOAA and found that February 2017 was actually extremely warm: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/extremes/201702.gif

No it’s talking about February 2015, which also happened to be an extremely hot year for the globe: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/1/2/1880-2017

The structure of the article will be extremely misleading to anyone not familiar with the distinction of weather and climate or even statistics. He cherry picks cold things that happen in various cities across a small pocket of the globe.

“To all those people who cling to the theory of global warming, and it is just a theory obviously, to them we should ask if record cold weather and record snow does not disprove the theory of global warming”

Cold weather does not disprove the theory of global warming, just as hot weather does not prove the theory of global warming.

“and to please state exactly what would disprove it?”

Global average yearly temperatures declining below the historical average while CO2 emissions stay constant or increase.

3279

Maybe it was meant for the stupid facebook crap thread.

3280

I actually thought I was in that thread when I originally read it.

3281

Look, I flipped a coin and this thread won. I blame the God of Coinflips.

It fits here as an example of several climate change denial arguments.

3282

No worries, I think it’s important to always consider alternative viewpoints, particularly if the implications for being wrong are large. It’s a good principle for living, but also one that can occasionally be very costly.

I have waded through so many climate change denial websites, articles, speeches, and even a short book to satisfy this principle and to satisfy my misguided friends and relatives who insist on toxic exposure before they will engage in a structured conversation about the health of our planet.

After a long period of pawing through the verbal vomit that people spray over these corners of the blogosphere and Amazon’s self-publishing platform, I have decided that it is impossible to deny that climate change has been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt and simultaneously hold a coherent worldview. Late to the party, I know, but at least I can say to myself that I gave these idiots a fair shake.

The only major argument that is actually possible in a technical sense is that the world’s scientific data has been corrupted and faked due to a global conspiracy, which is basically in the same tier of beliefs as the notion that fluoride is used for mass social control. Every other denialist argument I have come across is a toilet bowl of contradiction and irrationality. Every one of these articles I read reduces my faith in mankind, and in the Christian principle that noone is beyond redemption.