3 ms·

As someone currently dealing the consequences of being far too cavalier with long term environmental pollutants like PCBs and lead, I would argue that behavior

As someone currently dealing the consequences of being far too cavalier with long term environmental pollutants like PCBs and lead, I would argue that behavior you're describing as being that of a "3 year old" is actually a good example of government sanity, not stupidity. It's reasonable long term caution to avoid creating a bigger problem in the future. The true 3 year old behavior on display here is the market behavior you're advocating: ignoring a potential long term problem in favor of a short term gain. Environmental toxins are not something to be cavalier about. Once soil gets contaminated, it's damned hard and expensive to clean up. Land is one of the single most limited resources we have. We can ultimately live with out lithium ion batteries. We can change our behavior, use other electrical sources, or as the article argues for, find other sources of electrode material. We cannot live with out clean soil in which to grow healthy food. Or on which to live.

rubber_duck 8y ago
>Land is one of the single most limited resources we have. It sounds romantic but is it really ? Even agricultural land is relatively cheap and there are more scarce resources that are needed for development.
- simonh 8y ago
  Cheapness isn’t a measure of importance though. Air is cheap. Water is cheap. That doesn’t mean it’s ok to squander and pollute cheap but essential and very expensive to renew resources until they are not cheap anymore. Water and soil in particular are very important resources to protect, far beyond their price in economic terms. They are vital strategic assets because so much of our economy and ecology depend on them.
  - igor47 8y ago
    Thank you so much for saying what needs to be said! People read too many economists. "Money is the only measure of value and I didn't pay my own mother, so motherhood must be worthless!"
  - rubber_duck 8y ago
    In this case it's a good estimate of scarcity, unlike air, land is property
    - simonh 8y ago
      Not necessarily. If there is 110% as much food as people need food can be cheap, the surplus has little to no value. The price is making not determined by infrastructural constraints and personal preferences. But if there is 1% less food than people need the price will suddenly go through the roof. We see this with oil prices. The price across the demand/supply balance point is nothing like linear.
      - rubber_duck 8y ago
        >But if there is 1% less food than people need the price will suddenly go through the roof. There are plenty of mechanism to stabilize the price, plenty of alternative ways to produce food as price increases just like with Oil
hutzlibu 8y ago
The way I understand your parent poster, is not, that he says don't care about environment, but don't classify Thorium the same as enriched Uranium ...
opportune 8y ago
What does soil have to do with this? You think they’re just going to put the thorium in fertilizer or drop it all over the country from the air? Lithium ion batteries are incredibly important if we want to make a fast transition to green energy. The environmental calculus is 100% in favor of finding a thorium disposal site and making rare earths / lithium cheaper now, rather than being picky about where minerals are mined and pumping way more CO2 into the air due to the delay Localized thorium pollution is something that we can manage and deal with. Global warming, especially if it reaches a runaway tipping point, could displace a billion people, cause massive famines, and destroy tens of trillions of dollars of infrastructure and assets. Also consider that localized thorium pollution would probably be on-par with the pollution from washing coal, which is what would be replaced
- misterprime 8y ago
  >Global warming, especially if it reaches a runaway tipping point Thought we reached that a long time ago, and yet things haven't really changed.
  - opportune 8y ago
    we have somewhat, in that a significant amount is going to happen even if we switch to 100% carbon neutral energy tomorrow. I’m thinking more about a Clathrate Gun kind of event Also things have changed. Something like 10 of the hottest years on record have been within the last 15 years. Global warming is not simply a modeled prediction, it is very much measurable and ongoing
    - misterprime 8y ago
      >Something like 10 of the hottest years on record have been within the last 15 years. Is that based on straight up measurements, or based on measurements that were adjusted based on a realization that the measuring method was flawed to begin with? Aren't the adjustments based on a best guess by people that may have a bias?
- stevew20 8y ago

rubber_duck 8y ago

>Land is one of the single most limited resources we have. It sounds romantic but is it really ? Even agricultural land is relatively cheap and there are more scarce resources that are needed for development.

simonh 8y ago
Cheapness isn’t a measure of importance though. Air is cheap. Water is cheap. That doesn’t mean it’s ok to squander and pollute cheap but essential and very expensive to renew resources until they are not cheap anymore. Water and soil in particular are very important resources to protect, far beyond their price in economic terms. They are vital strategic assets because so much of our economy and ecology depend on them.
- igor47 8y ago
  Thank you so much for saying what needs to be said! People read too many economists. "Money is the only measure of value and I didn't pay my own mother, so motherhood must be worthless!"
- rubber_duck 8y ago
  In this case it's a good estimate of scarcity, unlike air, land is property
  - simonh 8y ago
    Not necessarily. If there is 110% as much food as people need food can be cheap, the surplus has little to no value. The price is making not determined by infrastructural constraints and personal preferences. But if there is 1% less food than people need the price will suddenly go through the roof. We see this with oil prices. The price across the demand/supply balance point is nothing like linear.
    - rubber_duck 8y ago
      >But if there is 1% less food than people need the price will suddenly go through the roof. There are plenty of mechanism to stabilize the price, plenty of alternative ways to produce food as price increases just like with Oil

hutzlibu 8y ago

The way I understand your parent poster, is not, that he says don't care about environment, but don't classify Thorium the same as enriched Uranium ...

opportune 8y ago

What does soil have to do with this? You think they’re just going to put the thorium in fertilizer or drop it all over the country from the air? Lithium ion batteries are incredibly important if we want to make a fast transition to green energy. The environmental calculus is 100% in favor of finding a thorium disposal site and making rare earths / lithium cheaper now, rather than being picky about where minerals are mined and pumping way more CO2 into the air due to the delay Localized thorium pollution is something that we can manage and deal with. Global warming, especially if it reaches a runaway tipping point, could displace a billion people, cause massive famines, and destroy tens of trillions of dollars of infrastructure and assets. Also consider that localized thorium pollution would probably be on-par with the pollution from washing coal, which is what would be replaced

misterprime 8y ago
>Global warming, especially if it reaches a runaway tipping point Thought we reached that a long time ago, and yet things haven't really changed.
- opportune 8y ago
  we have somewhat, in that a significant amount is going to happen even if we switch to 100% carbon neutral energy tomorrow. I’m thinking more about a Clathrate Gun kind of event Also things have changed. Something like 10 of the hottest years on record have been within the last 15 years. Global warming is not simply a modeled prediction, it is very much measurable and ongoing
  - misterprime 8y ago
    >Something like 10 of the hottest years on record have been within the last 15 years. Is that based on straight up measurements, or based on measurements that were adjusted based on a realization that the measuring method was flawed to begin with? Aren't the adjustments based on a best guess by people that may have a bias?
stevew20 8y ago