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I don't think the two sides you describe are correct, at least globally. In the UK, 70-80% of people agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening, and t

I don't think the two sides you describe are correct, at least globally. In the UK, 70-80% of people agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening, and the Green party (who have the kind of position you're describing) only get 5% of the vote. You're presenting everyone who thinks that action needs to be taken as part of a much smaller, unrepresentative group. Also, I agree that flat blocking of nuclear is unreasonable. But in my opinion disagreement on the issue is a relatively marginal issue in the general sweep of tackling climate change. Again, in the UK, we're just at the end of an open commissioning process for new nuclear, led by the centre right party, with agreement across all major parties. Despite that level of political support, and a complete lack of protectionism (to the extent that one of the leading bids is funded by a Chinese state-owned energy company!) it is still going to be very expensive, and has a very long development and construction time. Undoubtedly it's sensible for baseline demand (i.e. continuous 24hr demand which doesn't require scaling up or down), but to me it's not going to be a make or break solution either way. It's not sensible to completely tie yourself in to an expensive, monolithic technology to come online in 20 years, and operate for 50 years thereafter. It's an important hedge which we should definitely take up, but it's not the total solution which people present.

CWuestefeld 10y ago
flat blocking of nuclear is unreasonable. But in my opinion disagreement on the issue is a relatively marginal issue in the general sweep of tackling climate change. The new DNC platform coming out of the convention this week doesn't seem to agree with you. It focuses solely on renewable sources, sweeping nuclear under the carpet. 70-80% of people agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening I don't understand why those concerned about climate change continue to insist on putting the word "anthropogenic" in there. It's mostly irrelevant to the conversation, and comes off as little more than finger-pointing. If there's a problem that needs to be addressed, whether it's caused by humans or not isn't really the issue. If there were an asteroid heading toward the earth, we wouldn't say "we didn't throw that rock at ourselves, so we'll ignore it". Likewise, the discussion over climate change should be on the climate change; trying to make the cause of the problem part of its name just creates additional contention.
- sdoering 10y ago
  The point is, that if it isn't anthropomorphic, then there is (at least in some peoples' minds) nothing to do about it and we can safely ignore it. We can keep doing our stuff without second thoughts. So "finger pointing" to humanity isn't that bad of a tactic to get things done.
  - CWuestefeld 10y ago
    You seem to be arguing that if there were an asteroid that's going to collide with the earth, we would all ignore it.
    - akiselev 10y ago
      And the Morning Strawman Award goes to... drum roll... CWuestefeld. If it's anthropogenic then it is a brand new phenomena in geological time and will throw many ecological systems into disarray or destroy them completely because they never evolved the adaptations. If it's not anthropogenic, then no big deal this is a regular cyclical warm period that the Earth goes through naturally. If it's a natural cycle that we're not contributing to then we have nothing to fix. What in the world does this have to do with asteroids?
      - CWuestefeld 10y ago
        If it's not anthropogenic, then no big deal this is a regular cyclical warm period that the Earth goes through naturally. Your conclusion doesn't follow. Just because man didn't create it [1] doesn't mean that it's necessarily cyclical. The earth has changed in many ways in its lifetime. Some of those changes are indeed parts of cycles. Other changes are strictly one-way. [1] hypothetically; I'm not actually making that claim, just following that line of argument
        akiselev 10y ago
        If its neither cyclical nor anthropogenic then what can we do about it other than adapt to higher temperatures? If it's not human caused than there is nothing we can do short of geoengineering on a mind boggling scale which makes no sense. If centuries of industrialization haven't caused climate change then what's the chance that we can reverse a natural process on a planetary scale?
pjc50 10y ago
There's a big gap between "something should be done" and "we should do this specific thing" in which so much politics must happen. Really the UK needs some kind of energy strategy other than hoping for the market and the Large Combustion Plant directive to sort it out. It needs to be a "yes, and" strategy - there's no reason to set up a dichotomy between renewables and nuclear, that merely prevents progress on either. We need to keep provisioning renewables until the night-time issue becomes significant. Really we ought to have done more with tidal and wave power rather than allow Pelamis to become bankrupt. Personally I have 4kW of solar on my roof and take a bus to work.

CWuestefeld 10y ago

flat blocking of nuclear is unreasonable. But in my opinion disagreement on the issue is a relatively marginal issue in the general sweep of tackling climate change. The new DNC platform coming out of the convention this week doesn't seem to agree with you. It focuses solely on renewable sources, sweeping nuclear under the carpet. 70-80% of people agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening I don't understand why those concerned about climate change continue to insist on putting the word "anthropogenic" in there. It's mostly irrelevant to the conversation, and comes off as little more than finger-pointing. If there's a problem that needs to be addressed, whether it's caused by humans or not isn't really the issue. If there were an asteroid heading toward the earth, we wouldn't say "we didn't throw that rock at ourselves, so we'll ignore it". Likewise, the discussion over climate change should be on the climate change; trying to make the cause of the problem part of its name just creates additional contention.

sdoering 10y ago
The point is, that if it isn't anthropomorphic, then there is (at least in some peoples' minds) nothing to do about it and we can safely ignore it. We can keep doing our stuff without second thoughts. So "finger pointing" to humanity isn't that bad of a tactic to get things done.
- CWuestefeld 10y ago
  You seem to be arguing that if there were an asteroid that's going to collide with the earth, we would all ignore it.
  - akiselev 10y ago
    And the Morning Strawman Award goes to... drum roll... CWuestefeld. If it's anthropogenic then it is a brand new phenomena in geological time and will throw many ecological systems into disarray or destroy them completely because they never evolved the adaptations. If it's not anthropogenic, then no big deal this is a regular cyclical warm period that the Earth goes through naturally. If it's a natural cycle that we're not contributing to then we have nothing to fix. What in the world does this have to do with asteroids?
    - CWuestefeld 10y ago
      If it's not anthropogenic, then no big deal this is a regular cyclical warm period that the Earth goes through naturally. Your conclusion doesn't follow. Just because man didn't create it [1] doesn't mean that it's necessarily cyclical. The earth has changed in many ways in its lifetime. Some of those changes are indeed parts of cycles. Other changes are strictly one-way. [1] hypothetically; I'm not actually making that claim, just following that line of argument
      - akiselev 10y ago
        If its neither cyclical nor anthropogenic then what can we do about it other than adapt to higher temperatures? If it's not human caused than there is nothing we can do short of geoengineering on a mind boggling scale which makes no sense. If centuries of industrialization haven't caused climate change then what's the chance that we can reverse a natural process on a planetary scale?

pjc50 10y ago

There's a big gap between "something should be done" and "we should do this specific thing" in which so much politics must happen. Really the UK needs some kind of energy strategy other than hoping for the market and the Large Combustion Plant directive to sort it out. It needs to be a "yes, and" strategy - there's no reason to set up a dichotomy between renewables and nuclear, that merely prevents progress on either. We need to keep provisioning renewables until the night-time issue becomes significant. Really we ought to have done more with tidal and wave power rather than allow Pelamis to become bankrupt. Personally I have 4kW of solar on my roof and take a bus to work.