WASHINGTON — The Democratic chairman of a House panel examining the government’s response to climate change said Tuesday there is evidence that senior Bush administration officials sought repeatedly “to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming.”
[…] Two private advocacy groups, meanwhile, presented to the panel a survey of government climate scientists showing that many of them say they have been subjected to political pressure aimed at downplaying the threat of global warming.The groups presented a survey that shows two in five of the 279 climate scientists who responded to a questionnaire complained that some of their scientific papers had been edited in a way that changed their meaning. Nearly half of the 279 said in response to another question that at some point they had been told to delete reference to “global warming” or “climate change” from a report.
Gosh, appointees are quashing politically incorrect science. Try to hide your shock.
But should I trust these numbers? Unlike the Grand Canyon nutjobs (please don’t send any more PEER press releases, thanks) the Union of Concerned Scientists is an actual organization with actual credibility. So yes. Unless someone borrowed their title it seems clear that some individuals, like their once and future bosses in the private sector, have been busy thumbing the scales.
Tsulagi
Hey, stop your hate-filled George Deutsch bashing! He’s the poster boy for what was to be the 1,000 year Republican Reich. Young, and an unquestioning patriot warrior for Jesus’ chosen party striking fear and regulations upon the evildoers populating this country like unfiltered NASA scientists.
Paul L.
“Anonymous” Government Scientists Send Waxman Into A Tizzy
TenguPhule
Shorter Paul L: Despite being wrong so often, trust those rightwinger sites reporting!
Zifnab
US answer to global warming: smoke and giant space mirrors
Dumb, meet dumber.
Zifnab
I can see clearly now
The rain is gone.
I can see all the obsticales
In my way!!!!!!!!
Hehe. Clearly.
Tim F.
Paul, it takes more than the usual ad hominem argument (partisan activist!) to prove somebody wrong.
Paul L.
You follow the link?
They also released the report on the funding of Global
warmingclimate change skeptics by ExxonMobil. However, who funds them?‘Scientist’ Group’s Funding Comes with Liberal ‘Strings Attached’
Zifnab
Paul, why are you so shrill? Shouldn’t you be posting this over at Red State?
Krista
And that proves that they’re left-leaning Bush-bashers how, exactly? What is it, the word “science”, or is it the word “nonprofit”, or maybe the dreaded word “clean air.”
How twisted has the national dialogue become when wanting clean air and a future safe from nuclear threat somehow translates into Bush-bashing?
TenguPhule
If this is considered liberal vision, what the hell is the conservative vision?
They also released the report on the funding of Global warming climate change skeptics by ExxonMobil.
Shorter Paul L: People who unmask our fraudsters can’t be trusted!
demimondian
Paul, you might want to pick your lies a bit better. Do you know who founded the UCS originally? Here’s a hint: the folks in question knew a lot more about nuclear weapons design than you do.
demimondian
By the way, Tim, per the new Democrat talking points, you and John should rename this category “Republican-American Stupidity”.
Oregonian
And just what has the Bush administration achieved by pressuring scientists and misleading the public?
Survey shows 13 pct of Americans never heard of global warming
As the Shrub-in-Chief would say, “Mission Accomplished!”
DoubtingThomas
Don’t worry Paul, your hero’s Young Pioneers will soon take care of those uppity scientists!
John D.
Paul, using CNS as a news source with no additional references falls somewhere on the far side of “foolish”.
Hell, it falls somewhere on the far side of “criminally mendacious”.
scarshapedstar
My god! They’re opposed to nuclear war! I refuse to take part in such “scientific” idiocy. Next semester I’m switching from Biology to something good an’ conservative, like Economics. I’m sure the AEI will be impressed by my doctoral thesis on the Laffer Curve.
Andrew
So you’re saying they’re intelligent, rational scientists?
Geez, you wingers really need to come up with better smears.
edmund dantes
Whenever you read about the idea of blocking sunlight with giant mirrors does anyone else wonder if the youngsters in the Bush admin have been watching way too much of hte “who shot Mr. Burns” episode of the Simpsons?
Andrew
You’re late to the game, friend. I published “How the Laffer Curve Increases Tax Revenue, Stops Nuclear War, and Brings Us Closer to Jesus” just last year.
Zifnab
Actually, that’s the first thing that came to my mind.
Bubblegum Tate
I know, seriously. Like, remember the Willie Horton ad? Now that’s good character assassination. This Paul L shit is just lame.
The Other Steve
Did you by chance reference my paper where I prove that not only does revenues approach infinity as you lower tax rates to 0%, but if you go beyond that to negative tax rates, the revenues hit super-infinity.
Bubblegum Tate
Ah, c’mon, that’s piker shit. My paper proved that the Laffer Curve cures teh ghey.
Tim F.
Paul, it’s usually considered bad form to answer an accusation of ad hominem with an even larger ad hominem. Between you and Sherard and Jimmy Mack it’s like elementary school around here.
Andrew
We can build a gold plated diptych with the Laffer Curve napkin hanging on one side and burnt toast Jesus on the other.
Charge the pilgrims $12 a viewing and we fix the national debt too.
tBone
Abortion, illegal immigration, terrorism and gayosity could all be solved if only the moonbat nations of the world would sign on to the Laffer Protocol. AND everyone would get a free pony and a snowflake baby. It’s no wonder that far-Left “scientists” are trying to suppress this information while perpetuating the absurd global warming hoax.
Faux News
Paul L. is suspiciously absent now. Which can only mean one thing: it’s time for Darrell to show up, change the topic, and hijack the thread.
Shabbazz
“Look! They support clean air! CLEARLY they’re wack-o-loons!”
The comedy just writes itself!
Vladi G
Pretty much just the opposite, so long as you add the caveat “if that’s what the corporate masters want”.
So in other words, the conservative vision is dirty air, energy, and transportation, if those help increase profit margins; food producued in a manner that may or may not be safe and/or sustainable, depending on what brings in the most money to Republicant donors; and a future that is saddled with the threats of global warming and nuclear war, so long as that what it takes to line the pockets of big oil and military contractors.
It’s really quite simple when you think about it. It can all be boiled down to “what’s good for big business is good for all of us, even if it’s really bad for all of us.”
ConservativelyLiberal
Lets see, cartographers can’t map out the new islands faster than they are appearing at the south end of Greenland. The ice shelf in Antartica has shrunk so much that earth is exposed there. To the north, polar bears are watching the ice they used to walk on disappear. Spin the roulette wheel of evidence and you have a guaranteed loser every single time. Icebergs from the north Atlantic are moving further south in to shipping lanes, cooling ocean waters. The Pacific ocean is warming up. Dead zones on the central Oregon coast are driving fish closer to shore, causing marine life kills as the carbon laden water takes over the deep. And on and on…
Nope, never mind. Go shopping and support the troops. Nothing to see here, move along. Hey! Look! Ponies are running loose around the White House! And they are serving pie there too! Wow, things are better than ever!
Global warming? Naah, it is the fault of those darn volcano eruptions, after all they put out more carbon than us tiny humans ever will. We don’t have to do anything, it will all fix itself when it wants to.
One day, this earth is going to shake us off like a bad habit. This winter here on the south Oregon coast, where we would normally have what we call the monsoon season in January, hardly any rain has fallen. Where our temperatures are normally in the 40’s to 50’s, they have been in the 30’s to 40’s. Our weather is going bonkers, but BushCo says that nothing is wrong.
I think that to be a real Republican, you have to sign up and get your party issued blinders. Just look ahead, never look back or to the side. Too many distractions.
demimondian
Has anyone ever seen them both together in a single thread at the same time?
Zifnab
They’re like Clark Kent and Superman. Both dumb.
Pb
Fucking hippies.
Vladi G
It really is fairly telling that an organization dedicated to sound science, renewable energy, clean air, nuclear anti-proliferation, and general environmental health is immdediately labeled as “left leaning”. It’s really a pretty scathing indictment of the right. What’s kind of surprising is that they aren’t particularly embarrassed about being so anti-human.
Andrew
You know, I kept the new superman movie in my netflix queue after the BJ thread that ripped it to pieces out of some sort of sick fascination. Well, today is the day it arrives.
Luckily, I bought a case of beer two days ago.
Jimmy Mack
That’s my impression as well. We’ve let scientists hide their extremism behind their lab coats for too long, I think sometimes. Being a scientist does not make you an all-knowing objective observer. Many bring the same kind of biases to topics like global warming that partisans too. I say cut them no slack.
TenguPhule
Shorter Jimmy Mack: Bush swears this pony ride will clear up my constipation!
Andrew
I can’t decide if Jimmy Mack is just a really weak spoofer or just fucking stupid.
Either way, lame. Jimmy, you’re gonna have to step up the spoofing/stupidity to the next level. If any regulars are responsible for such work, they should be ashamed. There can be excellence in mediocrity, excellence in stupidity, or excellence in extremism. You, sir, are none of the above.
Andrei
But it [being a scientist] does make them smarter than you.
Jimmy Mack
Stupid because I don’t believe everything partisan scientists say? I would think that even you would admit that we let “experts” get away with too much, like Bill Frist (who was a noted surgeon) doing his video diagnosis. The members of the Union of Concerned Scientists who are not actual climatologists shouldn’t be given any special credence.
ConservativelyLiberal
More like Dumb and Dumber. Maybe Tweedledee and Tweedledum(b)? Or how about Indigestion and Diaherra? Crabs and Head Lice? Athletes Foot and Rectal Itch? Vaginal Tearing and Afterbirth?
I know if I keep trying I should come up with something that fits.
Fixed.
Andrew
Especially when they just diagnose the atmosphere over a video.
Step it up. Really. You’re a half-glass-full of of stupid right now.
Perry Como
They don’t deal with acoustic issues. How “honest” of you.
Tim F.
What is it about scientists, oh lord, that makes conservatives so dependent on the ad hominem fallacy?
Andrew
They learned to fear the white coat because they had to visit the doctor all of the time. Because they got beat up a lot. Because they’re assholes.
Just a theory.
Unfiltered G
Who the hell let Frist get away with that? Certainly no one on the left. I think you have the analogy wrong anyway. Frist wasn’t attacked because he doesn’t have expertise in brain problems (as a doctor his opinion would still have weight even outside his field), it was because he diagnosed a patient he never met personally using the families home movies.
Teak111
Reminds me of Hunt for Red October, how the Russians always had a political officer on board to report back to mother russia. As I recall, that was Sean Conner’s first act, to kill the political officer, but hey, it was only a movie. Not suggesting anything.
Jimmy Mack
I’m not sure why someone would post that to make the Union of Concerned Scientists seem crazy. I think most of us feel the same way.
Vladi G
I can’t remember if Perry Como is a nutjob or not. If not, I don’t get the joke. The science of sound =/= sound science. On the other hand, if Perry is a winger (i.e., seriously making such a comment), than that was probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever read. And that’s saying something in a thread with multiple Jimmy Mack posts.
Pb
Jimmy Mack,
I agree–you should never cut scientists any slack–hold them to their own scientific method and refute their claims instead.
jg
Really? How else would you keep the heartland from hearing what their saying? If you don’t immediately and repeatedly brand them as traitorous, leftist, anti-semitic partisan hacks who are trying to undermine the troops and embolden the enemy, Joe Sixpack might not reflexively ignore them. Can you imagine the chaos if the base came across someone making sense who hadn’t been already approved by Hannity?
Zifnab
Yes. Thank you. Finally, a Republican standing up and saying what everyone else was thinking. Heart surgeons shouldn’t diagnosis brain damage via one-hour video. Now if we can just get you to admit that real estate developer and insurance salesman James Inhofe should shut his hole on Global Warming.
~wiki
Jake
To paraphrase Eric Cartman: Scientists piss them off. With thier facts and empirical method and charts and cool gadgets. Either that or they all think “Dr. Frankenstein,” when they see the word scientist and freak out because they’re afraid one will try to steal their brain. Of course we know the idea of any scientist, no matter how mad, wanting to to steal Paul L or JM’s brain is laughable (even if the scientist were really really hungry) but it makes them feel important.
ConservativelyLiberal
Andrew Says:
Fixed.
Pooh
Well, you better stop after 101, or you might lose your conservative bonifides once you start learning about all the ways in which markets don’t work.
ConservativelyLiberal
Pooh Says:
I agree, but I hope you get a better instructor in college than I did. While he was a good teacher, his monotone delivery of macro & microeconomics made Ben Stein sound lively.
Staying awake in those classes was a real struggle, but I did learn a lot.
Pooh
Hrm:
Pooh
Actually, CL, Micro was one of my favorite classes in college – it convinced me to become an econ major. Where for the next three years I learned why all the models I learned in 101 were bullshit. (Well, the models themselves weren’t and aren’t they are just massively oversimplified, and ignore obvious externalities, market failures, transactions costs, cognitive biases, etc. etc. etc.)
tBone
It’s official. Jimmy Mack = retarded lovechild of Darrell and scs.
Dug Jay
This is a great big load of rubbush. As Iain Murray has testified, “…the UCS report is undeniably Junk Science.” The UCS mailed out over 1600 survey forms to climate scientists and based their assertions of political interference on a small portion of the 297 that got returned. That’s a response rate of just 19 percent. OMB guidelines clearly state that a response rate of less than 80 percent requires an investigation of potential biases and an even closer investigation for a response rate lower than 70 percent. A response rate of lower than twenty percent is clearly vulnerable to the charge of a self-selecting sample, perhaps those with an axe to grind against their bosses, the politically motivated, and so on. In short, it proivides all sorts of legitimate reasons to dismiss the survey as utterly unrepresentative. The fact that these so-called scientists went ahead regardless exposes them for the partisan media manipulators they are….and Waxman as the TOOL that he so obviously is.
The Other Andrew
My favorite part of the hearing was the rather odd belief that the Weather Channel wants to scare people. When they have to resort to that sort of crazy conspiracy theorizing, they’re really getting desparate.
That said, contrary to Jimmy Mack, I don’t think believing in manmade global warming is extremism. The vast majority of scientists do, IIRC.
chriskoz
Jimmy Mack says:
No… stupid because you compare Bill Frist’s video diagnosis to the work of thousands of peer reviewed scientists using the scientific method.
I would ask you to back up the claim of “partisan scientists”, but somehow I think I’d get the same dumbass replies I get everytime I ask someone to back up that claim.
Ahh… what the hell… Jimmy Mack, please provide evidence that the scientist involved in climate and global warming reasearch are “partisan”. (Note: don’t bother if your “evidence” amounts to “look a registered Democtrat!!!” or “they get paid, don’t they?”)
Jimmy Mack
I didn’t say it was. I just said that some scientists are extremist.
Krista
Most of us, yes. But unfortunately, there is a contingent of people out there who think that actually caring about whether or not our world is annihilated means that you’re a tree-hugging America-hating moonbat leftie. And that contingent is loud, and they’ve been quite effective at making it appear as though caring about those aforementioned issues makes one seem weak and effete, while not giving a shit, driving a Hummer, and blustering about nuking other countries is somehow, ridiculously enough, seen as emblematic of “real” and “tough” Americans from the “heartland”.
I wonder if the UCS could get Clint Eastwood or Bruce Willis to do some PSAs for them…?
It couldn’t hurt.
raj
Since Paul L has been suitably dealt with, I’ll merely make one point regarding Zifnab’s January 30th, 2007 at 3:16 pm comment US answer to global warming: smoke and giant space mirrors. What this amounts to is that the US, under Bush, wants to inject sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere to increase the reflectivity of the atmosphere at that level, instead of reducing the CO2 levels in the lower atmosphere.
Increases in sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere in, say, 1945-1975, actually did tend to moderate global warming during that time period. The problem was that increases in sulfate aerosols also resulted in acid rain (remember that?). Merely injecting the sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere (higher up) won’t detract from acid rain, because the sulfate aerosols won’t stay in the stratosphere. They’ll come down, and be washed out of the atmosphere via–acid rain.
The Bushies are idiots. Actually, they aren’t–they think that we are. Witness the Bushies’ recent executive order to require all executive departments of the federal government to filter their orders and regulations through their political filter. But the Bushies aren’t going to be in power forever, and what goes around comes around.
grumpy realist
Guess we’ll have to wait until Houston is under water before some people will admit the existence of global warming…..
Grrr
I am so fucking tired of this argument. It’s just another example of “movement” neoconservatism making an ass of itself in long-term historical context for short-term gain.
Tim F.
Good old Al Maviva, or whoever’s writing for his site these days. It takes chutzpah to drop an ad hominem against the UCS and then complain about me pointing out that scientists always drive rightwingers to ad hominem.
Randy Rager
First, if you believe anything a government paid “scientist” says, you deserve to look like exactly the idiot you do. You can have government grants, or you can have real science. Pick one and only one.
Secondly, real science is doubt, or rather, the process of doubting superstitious belief to the point that you begin conducting actual experiments to determine the nature of whatever subset of reality you happened to be investigating. I personally haven’t seen much of that from the environmental “sciences”. I have seen a shitload of superstitious twaddle that makes astronomy look positively grounded in empirical, verifiable, and repeatable proof.
Third, in the 1300’s, England was producing such good grape crops that French (spit!) merchants were begging the King for laws limiting the import of English wine. Around the same time, Siberia (!) was under cultivation, and a major agricultural center. When those same things happen again, let me know. Personally, I can’t fucking wait. French wine sucks, much like any asshole who Chicken Little’s all over any newspaper article claiming that the sky is about to fall. Or be a little warmer. Or, heaven forfend, warm up enough to end the little Ice Age we’ve been in since around 1400 AD or so.
Finally, as Rich Lowry points out, George Bush, bless his pointy little head, has only been supporting the man made global warming theory since 2001. Now, I’d hate to think that Tim F. is just another lying partisan Bush-bashing shitweasel, but seriously, given the evidence, what else am I supposed to think?
You kids play smart, now.
Tim F.
Well I stand corrected. Instead of just ad hominem we get:
1) ad hominem.
2) Science is shit. Very persuasive, and pleasant.
3) Mistaking local for global phenomena suggests a weak grasp of actual science. You’re not cribbing this jargon from Tech Central Station, right? Tsk.
4) Mistaking lip service for real commitment. You’re either as naive about politics as you are about science, or just spouting your own brand of talking points for the pleasure of hearing yourself talk. Take your time letting me know which.
Pb
Ah yes, the “global warming is awesome” argument, that Amy Poehler put forward–apparently, she looks good in shorts. Now could you come up with something stupider?
Good job.
tBone
Now, I’d hate to think that
Tim F.Randy Rage-on is just another lying partisan Bush-bashingfellating shitweasel, but seriously, given the evidence in that incredibly stupid post, what else am I supposed to think?Oregonian
The competition here is stiff, but I think Randy’s quote may very well be the stupidest thing on this whole thread.
Government grants are the backbone of independent, peer-reviewed research in this country. Pick up any major scientific journal and you’ll have a very hard time finding any author who hasn’t received funding of some sort from the state or federal government. The grants process is intensely competitive, closely monitored, and well insulated from any political pressure.
If you reject the work of scientists who receive government grants, then you are rejecting virtually every treatment at your local hospital, every word of advice from your local ag extention agent, every weather prediction, and every earthquake analysis, as well as big chunks from any high school textbooks for physics, chemistry, or biology.
That brings us to his second quote:
Uh, Randy, I hate to be the one to break it to you but… astronomy IS grounded in “empirical, verifiable, and repeatable proof.” The earth really does move around the sun, the moon really isn’t made of green cheese, and the stars really are many light years away.
Once you get your head around these details, you may find it easier to understand global warming.
Andrew
Well, if you put it that way, let’s go slash and burn some tropical rain forest.
The Other Steve
Ok, let’s acknowledge that climate change is occuring.
Someone answer me this.
Is it bad?
The Other Steve
Astronomy ain’t near as bad as Agronomy.
Nothing is as fruity as people trying to predict the future by watching plants.
The Other Steve
See, maybe Global Warming ain’t so bad after all.
chriskoz
But surely the administration wouldn’t stand by while a major American city is destroyed by rising water levels.
Oh wait… never mind.
Mike
This is so mind-bogglingly stupid I almost don’t know where to begin. I guess I will start with this. Randy, you are now required to turn in your cellphone, stop doing anything based on satellite technology, fly only on airplanes with no de-icing technology, never use a dialysis machine (hopefully you wouldn’t have to, but now you cannot at all), stop using cordless power tools, stop using digital signal processing technology, and the list goes on and on. All developed or greatly improved by NASA with our money. The cost benefit analysis shows clearly that it has been a huge return on our investment, but you can no longer have any of it. Have a nice day back in the fucking dark ages, you moron.
Mike
And Randy, stop using the Internet now, you Fucking idiot.
ConservativelyLiberal
Oregonian (Hey fellow Oregonian, south coaster here! :) ), Randy Rager knows astronomy is just as accurate as astrology. After all, the earth is flat, the earth revolves around King George, and the sun rises and sets on King George’s ass.
Oh, and when the rapture comes, God is taking 144,000 male virgins to Heaven. You can bet ol’ Randy will be drooling at that prospect. Hmmm, maybe the muslims have something right about Heaven having 72 female virgins. At least they have a ratio I like! If you are a guy, do you want to be with 144,000 male virgins, or 72 female virgins?
Betcha I already know Randys’ choice! Go sausagefest!
TenguPhule
Shorter Cold Fury: Stop pointing out we’re stupid.
Pb
The Other Steve,
Some of our largest cities and metropolitan areas are built on low-lying areas on the coast–which would be the first to go if sea levels rose significantly. These areas also generally contain the highest concentrations of people and the largest percentages of liberals in the country. So if you hate people, cities, minorities, the poor, Hollywood, and especially liberals, then you’ll love global warming… No, really–for example, here’s one thread on it, and there’s this guy:
…and this guy:
…and this guy:
Yeah, let’s drown millions upon millions of Americans, and destroy our cities through ignorance and short-sightedness! Ha ha, assholes, very funny, the terrorists have got nothing on you. You fuckers no doubt have Katrina on TIVO for further (nightly) enjoyment.
…so it’s really no wonder that their party is pushing the “global warming is a ridiculous liberal hoax” line (which makes absolutely no sense), because the alternative would be much worse, with their legion of idiot supporters and their ‘culture warriors’ in the media showing their true authoritarian eliminationist colors for all to see.
TenguPhule
Shorter Randy Rodger: I have difficulty communicating from out of my rectum.
spoosmith
There is a great Canadian naturalist named David Suzuki who said something a number of years ago – humans need air to breath, clean water to drink and clean soil to grow food, and we have systematically started destroying all of them. He also said that this is an extraordinary occurence, since humans are supposedly the smartest beings on the planet, why would they destroy all the elements we need to survive?
I’ve always thought that given the backlash against global warming, it might be better to phrase the debate in terms of pollution. In Toronto in the summer, there are more and more smog days where the elderly and asthmatics are advised to stay indoors. The whole “CO2 is actually beneficial” bullshit falls apart when you consider what is spewed out along with the CO2.
It might be political sport to debate the existence of global warming, but how do you contradict the CERTAINTY of smog, acid rain, mercury levels in water, dead zones in the ocean?
Then again, I’m sure there would be an entire cottage industry of paid hacks to argue that acid rain is acutally beneficial and a little mercury never hurt anyone.
Geez.
Krista
You’ve hit the nail on the head. I was having this very discussion the other day with my boyfriend, and I was saying that the mistake that science has made is by steering the debate away from pollution and towards global warming (or climate change). Global warming and climate change are not tangible things that can be seen by the average person, and are therefore too easy to dismiss. Pollution is something that we can actually see in our skies, on our ground, and in our water, and I think that the discussion really has to get back to those basics in order to be at all effective.
Tim F.
Randy Rager…Ed Anger.
Coincidence?
The Other Steve
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to hire moving vans?
The Other Steve
Perhaps Canada should implement clean air laws like we have in the states?
It hardly seems fitting for a country who can’t even clean up it’s own air to be telling other countries what to do about theirs.
This is quite disturbing, as US and Canada share the Great Lakes… Is Canada still dumping into them?
The Other Steve
Which is why we should start supporting more Nuclear power generation, as it’s clean and efficient.
Bombadil
Except for that whole “securely storing the spent fuel rods for hundreds of years” thing.
Krista
Untwist thy knickers, TOS. Last time I checked, David Suzuki is not a government representative. And he’s just as hard on us as he is on every other country.
dslak
And you would be right.
chopper
PoTD. i love it, apparently the only real science comes from the profit-driven private sector that gave us ‘cigarettes are good for you’.
Zifnab
Al Gore givith, and Al Gore can takith away.
Andrew
Cold Fury drone #3 says:
Well, I’m convinced.
Get with the program, drone. We’re only impressed by Al Maviva-length diatribes against science that veer into platitudinous sanctimony about Hillary Clinton.
demimondian
Except that there’s no reason to do that. Reprocessing out the highly radioactive isotopes has the interesting effect of creating a large amount of reusable fuel and a small amount of highly radioactive waste. The highly radioactive stuff is short-lived (or it wouldn’t be highly radioactive), and so does not need to be entombed for “hundreds of years”.
Jimmy Mack
I agree that so-called environmental science has its problems, but what is you problem with astronomy? That seems like a pretty non-political field to me unless you think that the fact that Pluto is no longer called a planet is part of a partisan conspiracy of some kind.
demimondian
The problem that the “libertarians” have is that the US scientific research system has proven to be an unparalleled success — basic research is one of those thing which does pay off for the society at large, but not for any single entity. Unfortunately, the truth is not always convenient: health care systems might be demonstrably inferior, energy sources demonstrably harmful, or profitable industries demonstrably lethal. The only way to prevent the contamination of political discourse by that kind of truth is to make sure that people who would spread it around won’t get any money; that way, they will be shut up.
Bombadil
OK. Why is that not being done?
The Other Steve
Which is why other countries reprocess, while we are still forced into the dark ages because of hyperbolic arguments.
The Other Steve
We haven’t been allowed to build any new nuke technology in this country since Three Mile Island.
So all of our reactors are over 30 years old.
The Other Steve
Oh come on. Without Darrell here, this thread is boring!
Bombadil
Which hyperbolic arguments are those?
Bombadil
I was asking why we don’t reprocess. While none have been built, there are plenty of nukes out there now (I live on the Massachusetts coast, with Seabrook to the north and Plymouth to the south). Why aren’t they reprocessing?
Krista
Fixed.
Andrew
Reprocessing is not cheap.
Even without it, nuclear is much more expensive than coal when you consider the entire process. There’s not a huge constituency for eliminating NRC oversight, so I doubt we will significantly speed up the construction of new plants.
Of course, the real way to fix the problem (if the problem is global warming) is a carbon tax. That’s it for the supply side.
There’s a lot to be done on the demand side, though.
Tim F.
Looks like Randy’s diatribe wasn’t even interesting enough to send over a single flying monkey. At least getting Instagummed is good for an angry, uninformed visitor or two. These guys are pikers.
Zifnab
I don’t know about nuke reactors, but I do know down in Texas they’re trying to start construction on ten “new” coal plants before newer coal regulations can be enacted, specifically so they can save a buck on environmental technology.
Anyone running a power plant seems to love to cut as many corners as physically possible.
Zifnab
Carbon Tax?! That would be r-r-r-regulation! Capitalism as we know it would crumble. You’d be paying $5/megawatt-hour! The poor and the elderly would freeze to death in the streets! Gasoline would cost $200 a barrel! Airplanes would start falling out of the sky! Inflation! War! Widespread famine! The death of the American Democratic System of Government and the fall of Western Civilization!!!
What kind of sick bastard are you, suggesting a Carbon Tax?
The Other Steve
That we can’t build nuclear power, because the byproducts contaminate the world for a 100,000 years.
Hell, we can’t even build wind mills anymore because they kill birds.
The Other Steve
Because you need to build a special type of reactor called a Breeder Reactor, and we’re not allowed because everybody thinks Nuclear power is worse than acid rain from coal fired power plants.
The Other Steve
I got a better idea.
How about we plant more trees?
Andrew
Because that doesn’t fix the problem. Other than that, good idea, dirty hippie.
Andrew
Watch it bubb, or else the ghost of Milton Friedman will deliver a pimp-slap to your sassy mouth.
Bombadil
Let’s assume you’ve passed all the regulatory/environmental challenges, and are ready to build the breeder reactor. How long will it take to build and get on line (assuming no further challenges)? How much would one cost? How long would you be able to run it? When it reaches the end of it’s lifetime, what will it take to shut it down and render it environmentally safe?
Look, I agree that nuclear power has its advantages. It’s clean, doesn’t produce acid rain, no carbon footprint, all that. It does have its environmental impacts on a day-to-day basis, in that the cooling towers discharge a lot of heat (often requiring the plants to be set up near a water supply like a river or the ocean), but those can be mitigated. But the disadvantages, such as what you do with the spent fuel (for non-breeder reactors), the costs not only to build and bring the plant on line, but to secure it from both man-made and natural hazards and to maintain the property long after the plant has reached its useful life expectancy, are too easily glossed over. These issues cannot be ignored, and must be taken into account when costing out a plant and how much you actually pay for the energy produced.
You have a good point about the windmills, though — while there are issues with wind farms, I think the impact on birds is pretty low on the list. Just don’t put them on whooping crane flight paths.
Zifnab
After Three-Mile Island, and after taking a good long look at everything from the ethical leanings of the oil industry to the Hurricane Katrina clean-up, can you blame us for outlawing it?
Imagine a plant meltdown somewhere in the midwest, with hundreds killed, and thousands displaced. And imagine a Republican Congress getting up and saying, “Well, what the hell were they thinking, living next to a nuclear reactor anyway? But don’t worry, we’ve secured billions of dollars to shore up the energy company’s profits and given our civil engineers the underfunded task of building a new shittier reactor which is less efficent, more expensive, and no less dangerous.”
Thank god we’re still burning something as “safe” as coal.
Jonathan
Homemade fusion reactor.
demimondian
You’re right, Zif. You know, only ecologically insensitive nations like France, Japan, and Canada would ever dream of using breeder reactors for civilian power generation. And, you know how insensitive those Japanese are? They reprocess spent fuel!
Zifnab
I’m not saying breeder reactors aren’t safe. I’m just suggesting that nuclear reactors aren’t safe in the hands of big businesses obsessed with profits and a political system that encourages disaster victims to go fuck themselves.
Paddy O'Shea
Bush apologists are just so shrill. And how come they always seem to feel that any questioning of their love object is also a personal attack on them and their beliefs?
Is there such a thing as Contact Narcissism?
Anyway, it looks like The Decider tried to run the press over with a tractor. But at least this time his mistake didn’t kill anybody.
http://www.talk.newsweek.com/politics/default.asp?item=464251
demimondian
But you are suggesting they aren’t safe.
I worked at Argonne National Laboratory during the TMI meltdown — and, make no mistake, it was a full core melt-down. Every f-bombing thing which could go wrong went wrong, including nearly criminal malfeasance n the part of the plant operators running a plant just a few miles from Harrisburg, and *nobody died*. Not a soul even got a lifetime radiological dose, and today, right next to the catacomb of the destroyed unit, the other units happily bubble along, powering Eastern Pennsylvania.
More than that, modern (third-gen) plants are even more stable: a similar set of mistakes and crimes wouldn’t even have caused a melt-down of the fuel, and the critical event would have been passively contained. Breeders *are* safe, and the waste can be managed effectively. If we’d recognize that the engineers who design reactors do care, and have learned, we could be energy-independent, filling in the last part of the Carter plan, and we are not.
Ryan S.
I know I’m late to this thread but I think Andy meant this
which makes his statement even more laughable.
His third is just the medieval warm period argument by a different name.
The Other Steve
This reminds me of a joke…
Person: “My head hurts”
Other Person stomps on Person’s foot
Person: “Damnit! that hurt. Why’d you do that?”
Other Person: “Made you forget about your head hurting, didn’t it?”
Zifnab
But we don’t recognize that engineers care, and have learned. That’s the crux. We don’t trust our energy companies worth a damn. We buy our gas from Exxon because we need gas in our cars, not because we have a great deal of faith that Valdez will never happen again. We pay the power bill to keep the lights on, not to keep the miners in West Virginia safe.
If an energy company wanted to build a reactor in your neighborhood, how many of your neighbors would welcome it? How many would move? How many would flee screaming into the streets for fear of getting immolated in a mushroom cloud or having three-eyed babies? There is such a lack of trust with big business today, that the very idea of building a nuclear plant is… radioactive. If our country can’t handle building coal-burning plants that doesn’t kill us, how can we trust it can build a nuke plant that won’t take out half of Kentucky?
demimondian
Zif, you’re parroting propaganda. The amount of fuel in teh Chernobyl reactor was far greater than any amount ever at a “western world” reactor. It *all* was loosed; the primary containment vessel was destroyed, and there were no back-ups.
The region around the reactor? It’s safe to live in, now, once you get more than about 100 yards from the sarcophagus.
Zifnab
You can call it propaganda if you want, but its a general societal fear. People are horrified of reactors, regardless of their actual safety. People are more afraid of flying than of driving, and yet you’re far less prone to die on a flight than on a drive. I’m not saying its a rational fear, and the irrationality of it is what would probably double again the regulation any new reactor would ever see.
But the fear exists. It’s endemic. And its rooted in a general fear and distrust of big business. Until America sees something resembling business ethics, don’t expect to see any new nuclear reactors. That’s all I’m saying.
Andrew
Plug-in hybrids, in addition to being totally awesome, actually improve the financials for power plant operators. Very powerful mojo!
Not coincidentally, a carbon tax would make them quite practical too.
Bubblegum Tate
Weird…I was just reading about Chernobyl last week for no particular reason (well, OK, for one particular reason: to kill time. But I picked the subject of Chernobyl for no particular reason). It really is a fascinating story of worst-case scenarios happening, and happening fast. Though I should point out that it’s not exactly a done deal–the sarcophagus that was hastily thrown up to contain the nuclear fuel is kind of falling apart, and there’s serious concern that it could just collapse, leaving completely exposed radioactive material just sitting there. Not a pleasant thought.
That said, I’m not against nuclear power. My biggest concerns are probably most people’s biggest concerns: safety (i.e. no more Chernobyls, please) and how we get rid of spent fuel. Breeder reactors are actually a fairly attractive option to me, though, to be clear, it’s not like they completely eliminate radioactive waste, they just minimize it, so there’s still something we need to figure out how to dispose of.
But I do share some of Zif’s concern about such a thing being run by an energy company that would place profit above all else, including safety. I guess I’m sort of a NIMBY in that regard–I wouldn’t mind drawing electricity from a breeder reactor, but I wouldn’t want to live near it.
Jonathan
I trust the engineers, I know they try to do the best job they can. It’s the bean counter, the managers and the politicians who scare me.
If you go and read the entire article you will see that Feynman makes it very clear the engineers knew damn well the Shuttle shouldn’t have been launched when it was, but they were overridden by the managers under political pressure from the politicians.
The same thing will happen with nuclear reactors, you can count on it.
Randy Rager
Any reasonable person could tell from the context that I meant astrology where I said astronomy. But nooo, leave it to you squirrel brains to completely miss that.
Just as you intentionally miss Al’s points at Cold Fury, (19% return invalidates a survey as self selecting, the organization conducting the “study” is hopelessly biased, etc. etc. ad fucking nauseum), you intentionally miss mine. None so blind as will not see, etc.
Good luck with that, and thanks so much for proving all our points for us in such a cultish manner. I’d trust a snake handler with weather related policy before I’d trust you clowns.
numbskull
Yeah, but who cares what you think? Come back when you’ve figured out how to win some elections.
tBone
Rightwing trolls were a lot more fun a couple of years ago, when everything was still going their way. Now we’re left with amateurs like this. Sad.
Jonathan
Astrology is not a typo for astronomy it is instead a malapropism. To malaprop astrology for astronomy is not a sign of great intellect or education since one is a superstition and the other is a hard science. I never even graduated from high school and I certainly wouldn’t make that mistake.
I’d trust Steve Irwin too, but unfortunately he is dead. I saw his widow Terri Irwin and eight year old daughter Bindi on TV a week or two ago and I was very impressed with both of them. Terri Irwin has handled plenty of snakes and other reptiles too, perhaps she could handle weather related policy since Steve is no longer around.
If Terri is too busy, another good choice for weather related policy czar would be Okefenokee Joe .
TenguPhule
Shorter Randy Rodger: Just because I’m a moron, you are too.