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When the environmental left starts taking nuclear energy and carbon taxes more seriously, I’ll start taking these warnings more seriously. As of now, the impres

When the environmental left starts taking nuclear energy and carbon taxes more seriously, I’ll start taking these warnings more seriously. As of now, the impression I am left with is that the people making these dire warnings think climate change is less dangerous than new generation nuclear power plants, which aren’t particularly dangerous all things considered.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago
It's not the "environmental left" that's holding back carbon taxes. In fact, most of the world has embraced carbon taxes, including China, California, Washington, Canada, EU and so on. The USA is a bit of an outlier here, and it's not because the environmental left are in control there.
- BenFranklin100 3y ago
  https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/04/26/the-weird-but-hopeful-politics-of-a-carbon-tax/ https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/04/26/the-weird-but-hopef... https://time.com/5447748/washington-state-carbon-tax-climate-change/ https://time.com/5447748/washington-state-carbon-tax-climate... https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/09/carbon-tax-climate-change-environmentalists-1052210 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/09/carbon-tax-climate... EDIT: To provide context on why the Left finds carbon taxes dubious, it’s that carbon taxes are very likely regressive. That is, they are though to hit poorer people harder: https://www.nber.org/digest/jan10/how-regressive-price-carbon https://www.nber.org/digest/jan10/how-regressive-price-carbo... I agree, but I think this is an example of the perfect being the enemy of the good. We can craft companion policies that lessen the regressive nature of carbon taxes, while still maintaining the benefits of carbon taxes. Also, please address my main point about the environmental Left’s rabid opposition to nuclear power over the last 40 years.
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    Can you highlight polls or some other data source showing that the "environmental Left" is rabidly opposed to nuclear power? The best current poll reporting I can find don't distinguish beyond major political party: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/23/americans-continue-to-express-mixed-views-about-nuclear-power/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/23/americans... You're also mentioning their opposition over the last 40 years, yet not comparing it to the latest and greatest nuclear power plants. Presumably many people are unaware of advances in nuclear power technology. Edit to add: Thirdly, if the rabid environmental Left is opposed to nuclear power, I'd expect them to also be opposed to most of consumerism for other reasons (such as the environmental impacts of resource extraction). If they believe necessary power can be had from non-nuclear, non-carbon-intensive power plants (such as wind or solar), then to support nuclear power would be basically supporting the continuation of a consumerism that they generally see as bad for the environment. To only take greenhouse gas emissions seriously when rabid environmental Leftists completely change their worldview seems counter-productive. You have to take it on its own evidentiary basis.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    None of those links support your claim. > “This aversion to taxes in the U.S. is high and should not be underestimated,” Yeah, the environmental left really hate taxes. > AOC tweeted in 2019 that “carbon tax or cap-and-trade … could be part of a solution [but] they are inadequate as the whole answer Not thinking something is the sole answer is not the same as not supporting it. If it was then I (and AOC) don't support any climate policy because we support at least 2. Several of them talk about carbon taxes being voted down by the general population, so unless you think the "environmental left" have a majority support that doesn't matter. I'm also sick of the yellow vest protest being mispreresented: > The movement was initially motivated by rising crude oil and fuel prices, a high cost of living, and economic inequality. The movement argued that a disproportionate burden of taxation in France was falling on the working and middle classes,[71][72][73] especially in rural and peri-urban areas.[32][74] The protesters called for lower fuel taxes, a reintroduction of the solidarity tax on wealth, a minimum wage increase,[39] among other things. People seem really keen to skip over all the inequality bits that fed into it, taking the sole lesson that "you can't tax carbon" which is only really true in the US. France is part of the EU's carbon trading scheme. It already taxes carbon.
- sacnoradhq 3y ago
  It's the corrupt politicians like Joe Manchin, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and Henry Cuellar who have their palms greased by big oil who are the problem.
- engineer_22 3y ago
  China USA, Canada and EU combined don't make up most of the world. Together they're less than half.
  - ZeroGravitas 3y ago
    https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/ https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/ Currently implemented policies cover 23% of all Carbon emmissions, and more are in the process of being set up, including carbon tariffs which effectively impose it on exports for countries that don't have their own carbon price. The US is resposible for about 28%, so that's a good chunk of "the rest of the world" as measured by CO2 output.
hotpotamus 3y ago
How about if they start bombing pipelines and refineries? Would that help you to take them seriously?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
credit_guy 3y ago
I think you are mistaken. Follow the money. The Biden administration allocated a lot of money for nuclear energy. Much more than the Trump administration or the Bush administration. Could they do more? Of course, one can always do more, for example, they could restart the Yucca mountain nuclear waste repository, which was shut down not because of scientific or technological reasons, but simply because it was defunded by politicians. But still, the Biden administration did more for nuclear than probably the last 5 administrations combined.
yongjik 3y ago
That's a bit like saying "I'm trapped in a theater with a fire but the sprinkler system is sabotaged because a bunch of idiots decided public water system is the work of the devil, and that's why I'm not worried about the fire at all!" Sadly, Mother Nature doesn't care how many idiots we're sharing the planet with. We won't get any sympathy points.
kuhewa 3y ago
> As of now, the impression I am left with is that the people making these dire warnings think climate change is less dangerous than new generation nuclear power plants, which aren’t particularly dangerous all things considered. Are you sure the nuclear-related danger being weighed against climate change isn't the danger of relying on nuclear plants to reduce emissions? Because unless things change unrealistically faat, they aren't going to be able to do much in terms of keeping warming <2 °C. It isn't the environmental left's fault that the economics of building a nuclear project are absolutely terrible. I'd also point out there are large parts of the left that are ambivalent or pro nuclear, and finally that the people providing the data and climate projections (i.e., climate scientists) are not typically environmental activists. Even if they were, it is probably a 'tu quoque' sort of logical fallacy to suggest bad ideas about policy response have bearing on the actual projections they produce.

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

It's not the "environmental left" that's holding back carbon taxes. In fact, most of the world has embraced carbon taxes, including China, California, Washington, Canada, EU and so on. The USA is a bit of an outlier here, and it's not because the environmental left are in control there.

BenFranklin100 3y ago
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/04/26/the-weird-but-hopeful-politics-of-a-carbon-tax/ https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/04/26/the-weird-but-hopef... https://time.com/5447748/washington-state-carbon-tax-climate-change/ https://time.com/5447748/washington-state-carbon-tax-climate... https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/09/carbon-tax-climate-change-environmentalists-1052210 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/09/carbon-tax-climate... EDIT: To provide context on why the Left finds carbon taxes dubious, it’s that carbon taxes are very likely regressive. That is, they are though to hit poorer people harder: https://www.nber.org/digest/jan10/how-regressive-price-carbon https://www.nber.org/digest/jan10/how-regressive-price-carbo... I agree, but I think this is an example of the perfect being the enemy of the good. We can craft companion policies that lessen the regressive nature of carbon taxes, while still maintaining the benefits of carbon taxes. Also, please address my main point about the environmental Left’s rabid opposition to nuclear power over the last 40 years.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  Can you highlight polls or some other data source showing that the "environmental Left" is rabidly opposed to nuclear power? The best current poll reporting I can find don't distinguish beyond major political party: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/23/americans-continue-to-express-mixed-views-about-nuclear-power/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/23/americans... You're also mentioning their opposition over the last 40 years, yet not comparing it to the latest and greatest nuclear power plants. Presumably many people are unaware of advances in nuclear power technology. Edit to add: Thirdly, if the rabid environmental Left is opposed to nuclear power, I'd expect them to also be opposed to most of consumerism for other reasons (such as the environmental impacts of resource extraction). If they believe necessary power can be had from non-nuclear, non-carbon-intensive power plants (such as wind or solar), then to support nuclear power would be basically supporting the continuation of a consumerism that they generally see as bad for the environment. To only take greenhouse gas emissions seriously when rabid environmental Leftists completely change their worldview seems counter-productive. You have to take it on its own evidentiary basis.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  None of those links support your claim. > “This aversion to taxes in the U.S. is high and should not be underestimated,” Yeah, the environmental left really hate taxes. > AOC tweeted in 2019 that “carbon tax or cap-and-trade … could be part of a solution [but] they are inadequate as the whole answer Not thinking something is the sole answer is not the same as not supporting it. If it was then I (and AOC) don't support any climate policy because we support at least 2. Several of them talk about carbon taxes being voted down by the general population, so unless you think the "environmental left" have a majority support that doesn't matter. I'm also sick of the yellow vest protest being mispreresented: > The movement was initially motivated by rising crude oil and fuel prices, a high cost of living, and economic inequality. The movement argued that a disproportionate burden of taxation in France was falling on the working and middle classes,[71][72][73] especially in rural and peri-urban areas.[32][74] The protesters called for lower fuel taxes, a reintroduction of the solidarity tax on wealth, a minimum wage increase,[39] among other things. People seem really keen to skip over all the inequality bits that fed into it, taking the sole lesson that "you can't tax carbon" which is only really true in the US. France is part of the EU's carbon trading scheme. It already taxes carbon.
sacnoradhq 3y ago
It's the corrupt politicians like Joe Manchin, Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and Henry Cuellar who have their palms greased by big oil who are the problem.
engineer_22 3y ago
China USA, Canada and EU combined don't make up most of the world. Together they're less than half.
- ZeroGravitas 3y ago
  https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/ https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/ Currently implemented policies cover 23% of all Carbon emmissions, and more are in the process of being set up, including carbon tariffs which effectively impose it on exports for countries that don't have their own carbon price. The US is resposible for about 28%, so that's a good chunk of "the rest of the world" as measured by CO2 output.

hotpotamus 3y ago

How about if they start bombing pipelines and refineries? Would that help you to take them seriously?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

credit_guy 3y ago

I think you are mistaken. Follow the money. The Biden administration allocated a lot of money for nuclear energy. Much more than the Trump administration or the Bush administration. Could they do more? Of course, one can always do more, for example, they could restart the Yucca mountain nuclear waste repository, which was shut down not because of scientific or technological reasons, but simply because it was defunded by politicians. But still, the Biden administration did more for nuclear than probably the last 5 administrations combined.

yongjik 3y ago

That's a bit like saying "I'm trapped in a theater with a fire but the sprinkler system is sabotaged because a bunch of idiots decided public water system is the work of the devil, and that's why I'm not worried about the fire at all!" Sadly, Mother Nature doesn't care how many idiots we're sharing the planet with. We won't get any sympathy points.

kuhewa 3y ago

> As of now, the impression I am left with is that the people making these dire warnings think climate change is less dangerous than new generation nuclear power plants, which aren’t particularly dangerous all things considered. Are you sure the nuclear-related danger being weighed against climate change isn't the danger of relying on nuclear plants to reduce emissions? Because unless things change unrealistically faat, they aren't going to be able to do much in terms of keeping warming <2 °C. It isn't the environmental left's fault that the economics of building a nuclear project are absolutely terrible. I'd also point out there are large parts of the left that are ambivalent or pro nuclear, and finally that the people providing the data and climate projections (i.e., climate scientists) are not typically environmental activists. Even if they were, it is probably a 'tu quoque' sort of logical fallacy to suggest bad ideas about policy response have bearing on the actual projections they produce.