Do you think many people may consider it?

….Like you, I accepted the Copernicun position several years ago and discovered from thence the causes of many natural effects which are doubtless inexplicable by the current theories. I have written up many of my reasons and refutations on the subject, but I have not dared until now to bring them into the open, being warned by the fortunes of Copernicus himself, our master, who procured immortal fame among a few but stepped down among the great crowd (for the foolish are numerous), only to be derided and dishonored. I would dare publish my thoughts if there were many like you; but, since there are not, I shall forebear….

[Kepler to Galileo, 1597]

….I could only have wished that you, who have so profound an insight, would choose another way. You advise us, by your personal example, and in discreetly veiled fashion, to retreat before the general ignorance and not to expose ourselves or heedlessly to oppose the violent attacks of the mob of scholars (and in this you follow Plato and Pythagoras, our true perceptors). But after a tremendous task has been begun in our time, first by Copernicus and then by many very learned mathematicians, and when the assertion that the Earth moves can no longer be considered something new, would it not be much better to pull the wagon to its goal by our joint efforts, now that we have got it under way, and gradually, with powerful voices, to shout down the common herd, which really does not weigh the arguments very carefully? Thus perhaps by cleverness we may bring it to a knowledge of the truth. With your arguments you would at the same time help your comrades who endure so many unjust judgments, for they would obtain either comfort from your agreement or protection from your influential position. It is not only your Italians who cannot believe that they move if they do not feel it, but we in Germany also do not by any means endear ourselves with this idea. Yet there are ways by which we protect ourselves against these difficulties….

Be of good cheer, Galileo, and come out publicly. If I judge correctly, there are only a few of the distinguished mathematicians of Europe who would part company with us, so great is the power of truth. If Italy seems a less favorable place for your publication, and if you look for difficulties there, perhaps Germany will allow us this freedom.

Source: Giorgio de Santillana, The Crime of Galileo (1955).

I think that clears up the matter of “scientific peer reviews”.

And this one deals with the “science”:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/graphics/2006/11/05/warm-refs.pdf

Debate over.

Now the issue is what are we going to DO about the bunch of liars who are stampeding our government over a cliff with this fraudulent horse-shit?

p.s. For the record, I am a nominal Democrat, but leaning “centrist” over the idiocy our party is demonstrating over these so-called “environmental” issues.

Reading comprehension issues, muckdog? You are building up a completely fallacious argument.

The rest of your comment is even less coherent than usual.

You sure can pick them! He’s about as credible on global warming, as Ann Coulter is on Race Relations.

Sam, you’re an idiot. You cite the IPCC, but the latest report was in 2006, the previous one in 1999, and yet you post a quote from 1992 before CONCRETE and CONCLUSIVE research was release and validated with a CONSENSUS.

The rest of your ‘facts’ are just more st*pid, and intentionally distorted propaganda.

You’re a fool, a liar, and a dishonest partisan hack.

Actually they only get 76% of their ‘electricity’ from Nuclear. I hate to inform an ignorant j*ck*ss like you of *reality*, but electricity is NOT ALL of the energy needs – even in france. Most cars still run on fossil fuels, and much of the heating and cooking still occurs on natural gas, etc.

So your FAKE FACT of 90% shows exactly how UNINFORMED and ST*PID you really are. Moron!

As for the *design* of Nuclear reactors – source please. Lets see where you’re getting your propaganda! This should be *fun*.

So you know, cookie. Comment by muckdog — April 11, 2007 @ 1:04 am

Like I need a propaganda constrained ignorant fool like you to KNOW? Sorry *cookie*, but it’s YOU that doesn’t know jack sh*t!

I am a moderate when it comes to global warming. Comment by muckdog — April 11, 2007 @ 1:04 am

Repeating a lie doesn’t make it so. There’s NOTHING moderate about you – j*ck*ss.

I just don’t buy into the Armageddon wing of the global warming cultists. Comment by muckdog — April 11, 2007 @ 1:04 am

So you don’t believe the *mainstream*? That still makes you NOT a moderate. J*ck*ss.

And the ultimate hypocrisy from the global warming fatalists is that the simple answer to the elimination of man-made CO2 is to stop burning fossil fuels. Comment by muckdog — April 11, 2007 @ 1:04 am

Yeah, considering fossil fuels are the source of NEW CO2, that’s right. Idiot.

In otherwords, nuclear power. Comment by muckdog — April 11, 2007 @ 1:04 am

Another example of the Poverty of Ideas of the GOP Wingnuts.

Biofuels
Solar
Wind
Wave
Geothermal
Hydro
etc.

You’re an idiot.

We could then use the natural gas, which we’re wasting to produce electricity, to run our automobiles. Comment by muckdog — April 11, 2007 @ 1:04 am

More fossil fuels. J*ck*ss.

We’d have super clean air and would be emitting much less CO2. Comment by muckdog — April 11, 2007 @ 1:04 am

And super polluted superfund sites that potentially leak nuclear waste and contaminate land, water and air. Duhhh…

Plus, there are many scientists who have other views on global warming. Comment by muckdog — April 11, 2007 @ 1:04 am

Five doesn’t count *many*. There is a nearly universal consensus, and the few *deniers* cannot back up their b*llsh*t with peer reviewed work. That means their *views* are just that *views* and not *science*. Just like your *views* are just ignorant opinions, and irrelevant babblings.

And I think they’re worth listening to. Comment by muckdog — April 11, 2007 @ 1:04 am

Tell them to publish peer reviewed papers, and they will be. What you *think* however just shows how st*pid you are.

I’m not interested in burning books or burning folks at the stake for having differing views, which it seems you are. Comment by muckdog — April 11, 2007 @ 1:04 am

Says the KOOK that wants to burn the books of the WHOLE global warming research, and burn the global warming scientists at the stake of propaganda opinions and views that are unsubstantiated with science.

We don’t burn you, or your books, but Inhofe was ready to do just that with scientists. He went on a tirade to halt, overturn and destroy every scientist that went before his panel to discuss the *science* of global warming.

Making your typical FASCIST remarks another example of your TERRORIST PROJECTIONS, and nothing more.

But then, your a cultist.
Comment by muckdog — April 11, 2007 @ 1:04 am

Says the cultist that has no *facts* to support his opinion, yet avoids the ENTIRE WORLD of *SCIENTIFIC* CONSENSUS in his CULTISM.

You’re mentally ill, you whiny prissy little whack job.

Resource Depletion Overpopulation Global Warming
Ozone Depletion Declining Air Quality Potential Food Shortages

Resource Depletion

Fact: Shortage and abundance are most easily measured by price. High and rising prices are signs of shortage; lower and falling prices are signs of ample supply. Relative to wages, 1990 prices for all natural resources in the United States were only half what they were in 1950 and just one-fifth the 1980 price. Mineral resources show a similar price decline: an index of 13 important metals and minerals show a net decline of 31 percent in real prices from 1980 to 1990. Similarly, agricultural products fell by 38 percent during the same period. Since 1980, oil prices have fallen 35 percent in constant dollars and the price of coal has dropped more than 90 percent.

Example: In 1980, Dr. Julian Simon challenged Dr. Paul Ehrlich, perhaps the most notorious of environmentalists predicting future resource depletion, to place a bet on whether or not the price of natural resources would rise or fall in a ten-year span. Ehrlich chose quantities of five metals—chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten—with a total price of $1,000. If the price of the metals was higher than $1,000 in 1990, after adjusting for inflation, Simon agreed to pay Ehrlich the difference. If the price fell, Ehrlich would pay Simon. In 1990, Ehrlich sent Simon a check for $576.07. The real prices of the metals had fallen by this amount since the bet was made.

Sources: Joseph Bast, Peter Hill, Richard Rue, Eco-Sanity. Thomas Lambert, “Defusing the `Population Bomb’ with Free Markets,” Center for the Study of American Business.

Ozone Depletion

Fact: Key evidence is missing that chlorofluorocarbons, found in aerosol cans and foam containers, are in fact causing significant ozone depletion and creating a hole. Between 1962 and the early 1970s, the amount of global ozone rose between 4 and 11 percent. Between 1969 and 1986, ozone levels over the Northern Hemisphere decreased between 1.7 percent and 3 percent. Since 1986, global ozone has been on the rebound, increasing steadily at 0.28 percent. If the gradual accumulation of CFCs in the atmosphere during these years had a net impact on global ozone levels, it is not apparent from this record.

Example: “Although NASA did not acknowledge it, the `danger’ of an ozone hole opening over the Northern Hemisphere was discounted less than a month after the existence of the putative crisis was announced. By late February, weeks after the crisis erupted, satellite data showed that the levels of ozone-destroying chlorine monoxide had dropped significantly and provided absolutely no evidence of a developing ozone hole over the U.S. NASA waited until April 20, 1992 to announce at a press conference that a `large arctic ozone depletion’ had been `averted.’ In other words, no ozone hole had opened up over the U.S. Time, which `hyped’ the `crisis’ story on the front cover in February, buried NASA’s admission in four lines of text in its May 11 issue.”

Sources: Joseph Bast, Peter Hill, Richard Rue, Eco-Sanity. Ronald Bailey, Eco-Scam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse.

Overpopulation

Fact: World population grew at the rate of about 2 percent a year during the 1960s, the fastest in recorded history. Simple arithmetic (performed by Paul Ehrlich in 1968) showed that if this rate continued for 900 years, there would be 60 billion people on the Earth, or 100 persons for each square yard of the Earth’s surface, both land and sea—creating major problems in lack of food, water and natural resources. But the growth rate slowed to 1.75 percent per year during the 1980s and is now expected to drop to 1 percent by the year 2025. A 1 percent growth rate means the Earth’s population would double every 70 years. The United Nations, the World Bank, the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the Population Reference Bureau all now predict that world population will stop growing altogether in about 100 years. World population would peak at between 10 and 12 billion around 2100.

Example: Exactly how big is 10 billion people? If all the people in the entire world today (5.7 billion) came to the U.S., they could all stand inside the city limits of Jacksonville, Florida—and area less than 0.03 percent of the size of the nation. If every man, woman and child in the world was given a house the size of the average American house, they could all live in Texas. Human settlements occupy less than 1 percent of the land area of the world, according to researcher Max Singer. If the world population doubles, settlements will still cover less than 2 percent. But what about room for growing enough food? See “Potential Food Shortages.”

Source: Max Singer, Passage to a Human World, Hudson Institute, Inc.

Air Quality is Declining

Fact: Air quality has improved dramatically since 1975, the first year for which reliable measurements are available. While emissions of some air pollutants remain higher today than in 1940, overall emissions are lower, and continue to fall. One of the main reasons for the improvement was the Clean Air Act passed in 1963 and amended in 1970 and 1990. Another reason is increased use of electricity. Electricity is replacing other sources of energy in manufacturing, services and household appliances. In 1991, for the first time, industrial, commercial and residential sectors of the U.S. economy consumed over half of the energy in the form of electricity. The third reason is that industry is using raw materials more efficiently. New technologies allow businesses to capture and recycle gases and particles that once simply escaped into the air.

Example: A new technology called “clean coal” burning eliminates up to 99 percent of potential sulfur dioxide emissions. Cars built in 1993 emit 97 percent less hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide and 90 percent less nitrogen oxide than a car built 20 years earlier. According to the Reno Gazette-Journal, “Air quality in the Reno-Sparks area has improved over the last decade. A state Bureau of Air Quality report that tracked pollution levels through Nevada between 1988 and 1995 concluded that levels of carbon dioxide and other pollutants remained well below the standard.” A report from Foundation for Clean Air Progress, which tracks air quality in major cities, stated that air quality in Las Vegas is 68 percent cleaner in the past five years than between 1985 and 1990.

Sources: Reno Gazette-Journal. The Foundation for Clean Air Progress. Joseph Bast, Peter Hill, Richard Rue, Eco-Sanity.

Global Warming

Fact: There is considerable dissent from the popular view of global warming, a view based largely on the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. A Gallup poll conducted on February 13, 1992, of members of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society—the two professional societies whose members are most likely to be involved in climate change research—found 18 percent thought some global warming had occurred, 33 percent said insufficient information existed to tell, and 49 percent believed no warming had taken place. By early 1994, even Time magazine, which featured global warming on its cover in 1989, gave up on the theory and decided to warn their readers about a possible impending ice age. But the rising level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which could be responsible for warming, deserves continued study by scientists. It is too early to know whether man-made emissions were responsible for the very small amount of global warming that might have occurred last century, or whether a continued rise of greenhouse gas levels will affect the climate in the future. As of yet, global warming is not an environmental crisis.

Example: If a build-up of greenhouse gases leads directly to temperature increases, then temps over the past 10 year should have increased 0.5 degrees Celsius. In fact, global temps rose only by a statistically insignificant 0.07 degrees Celsius. During the last century, global temps rose just 0.45 degrees Celsius and 0.34 of that increase occurred before World War II, when man-made emissions were lowest. The observed warming in the last 55 years has been so small that temps in the Northern Hemisphere–once predicted to see the largest increases–in fact experienced no significant change.

Sources: World Climate Review, Summer 1993, Joseph Bast, Peter Hill, Richard Rue, Eco-Sanity

Potential Food Shortages

Fact: A group of Dutch scientists led by Dr. P. Buringh at the Agricultural University of Wageningen studied the soil, water, grade and land uses around the world to see how much land is available for agricultural use. About 30 to 50 percent of each region studied was set aside for nonargicultural use, regardless of the land’s suitability for farming. The study found 8.5 billion acres of potential farmland in the world, of which only 40 percent is currently in use. Farmland now occupies less than 10 percent of the Earth’s land area. This means food production could more than double with no changes in current agricultural practices.

Example: Developing countries more than doubled their food production between 1965 and 1988, an increase that outpaced their population growth. China and India, two countries where food shortages were a grim reality during the 1950s and 1960s, are now self-sufficient in grain. Further, with yields less than one-half the present average per acre in the U.S. cornbelt, they could produce enough to feed a world population of 18 billion people.

Source: Thomas Lambert, “Defusing the `Population Bomb’ with Free Markets,” Center for the Study of American Business. u

Popular Environmental Myths,
Part II

Water quality is declining
We are running out of landfill space The Industrial Revolution was a mistake
Recycling is always good Nuclear power is bad Forests are being destroyed

Water Quality is Declining

Fact: The quality of water in the world’s oceans appears to be good, although long-standing problems exist in coastal waters. Fish, shellfish and other marine life suffer from the effects of coastal sewage treatment and industrial discharges. The Council on Environmental Quality reported in 1993 that “in contrast to coastal regions, the open sea lanes remain, for the most part, of minor consequence to communities of organisms living in the open-ocean areas.” The water quality of American’s rivers is improving greatly. The first National Water Quality Inventory, conducted in 1973, found that water pollution levels had decreased considerably in most major waterways during the decade of the 1960s. The cleanup of America’s rivers started in the late 1960s and continued into the `80s. Also during the 1980s about $23 billion a year was spent by governments and private industry to comply with the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. Swimming has resumed in the Hudson River north of New York City. Salmon spawn in Maine’s once-polluted Androscoggin River and the Great Lakes now support a growing sport fishing industry.

Example: The water quality in the Mississippi River dramatically exceeds that of rivers in other industrialized nations. The Rhine River in Germany, for example, has 3.4 times the concentration of nitrates as the Mississippi, 7.5 times as much ammonium and nearly twice the level of biological oxygen demand (indicative of higher amounts of organic pollution).

Source: Joseph Bast, Peter Hill, Richard Rue, Eco-Sanity

We are running out of landfill space

Fact: All of the garbage America produces in the next 1,000 years would fit in an area 44 miles on each side and about 120 feet deep. About 73 percent of all municipal solid waste in the United States ends up in landfills. And despite many potential landfill spaces, the number of landfills actually receiving trash is shrinking. Over the past 10 years, more than half of the 18,500 municipal solid waste landfills that existed in 1979 have closed. Further, once lined and covered, a landfill is not permanently unusable. Parks, golf courses and buildings cover the surface of some covered landfills. Properly sited and operated, landfills pose little threat either to human health or to the environment.

Example: A landfill containing the next 1,000 years’ worth of U.S. garbage would occupy less than one-tenth of one percent of our land.

Source: A. Clark Wiseman, U.S. Wastepaper Recycling Policies: Issues and Effects; Lynn Scarlett, A Consumer’s Guide to Environmental Myths and Realities

The Industrial Revolution was a Mistake

“No, it’s all people’s fault,” said a New York Times opinion editorial. “Certainly industry has played a significant role in destroying habitats, generating pollution and depleting resources. But we’re the ones who signal businesses that what they’re doing is acceptable—every time we open our wallets.” In his book “Earth Politics,” Ernst Ulrich von Weizsacker wrote that “perhaps 90 percent of the extinction of species, soil erosion, forest and wilderness destruction and also desertification are taking place in developing countries.” Therefore, even non-industrialized economies are creating environmental havoc.

Source: The New York Times, opinion editorial, January 21, 1995

Recycling is always good

Fact: Many recycling methods do generate resource and energy savings, but only up to a point. A 1997 Reason Public Policy Institute study that looked carefully at the cost/savings aspect of recycling for six materials—glass, one grade paper, steel, and three kinds of plastic—found that under best-case conditions, at modest levels of recycling, recycling of most of these materials (one exception was one of the plastic resins) resulted in some net benefits. But under less than best-case conditions, and at higher levels of recycled content, most recycling actually generated net costs in terms of total use of economic resources. Also, studies show that recycling itself has environmental side effects. For example, recycling requires production facilities that in some cases may be located hundreds of miles from cities where garbage is collected. Simply getting the product to the facility may require considerable use of fuel and other scare resources. Example: In Rhode Island, the net cost of recycling often exceeds $180 per ton, compared to $120 to $160 per ton for ordinary waste collection and disposal.

Source: Virginia Postrel and Lynn Scarlett, “Talking Trash,” Reason

Nuclear Power is Bad

Fact: One of the biggest misconceptions about the use of nuclear power is that people will be exposed to large amounts of radiation. “The radiation we are exposed to from natural sources is hundreds of times greater than the well-publicized radiation we may some day receive from the nuclear power industry,” wrote Dr. Bernard Cohen, professor of radiation health at the University of Pittsburgh. Federal law requires that radiation from nuclear power plants not exceed five millirems per year. (A millirem is a unit of measurement representing the effect of radiation on the human body.) What about the risks associated with a meltdown or major leaks of radiation? The thick concrete and steel containment domes that cover nuclear reactors in the United States prevent the release of radiation even if a cooling system fails. This was demonstrated during the accident at Three Mile Island. The maximum level of human exposure to radiation resulting from the accident was about 70 millirems, and the average exposure was just 1.2 millirems. Researchers have been unable to find any increase in cancer rates among persons living within a 20-mile radius of the plant since the accident. Also, studies by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission confirm findings that the risks to life and the environment posed by nuclear power, while not zero, are considerably less than what is posed by burning coal, oil and other fuels. Nuclear power has been demonstrated to be a safe and clean source of energy.

Example: A single coast-to-coast airplane flight subjects its passengers to five millirems of radiation in a single day, the same amount a nuclear power plant is allowed to emit over the period of a year.

Source: Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Joseph Bast, Peter Hill, Rich ard Rue, Eco-Sanity

Forests are being destroyed

Fact: “Less logging now occurs in the national forests than at any time since the early 1950s,” writes Hal Salwasser of the U.S. Forest Service. “For example, 29 percent less timber volume was harvested in 1991 than in 1988. The area harvested by clearcutting has declined by 34 percent during the same period, part of a transition to an estimated 70 percent reduction by mid-decade.” In all developed countries in the world, including the United States and Canada, forestry in now conducted on a sustainable yield basis whereby growth exceeds harvests. But even with the advance of sustainable yield forestry, American forests still face threats. The federal government does indeed sell the right to harvest wood on public lands at a loss of millions of dollars each year, in effect subsidizing logging in natural areas that otherwise would not be logged. Some 342,000 miles of government-built roads—eight times the mileage of the U.S. interstate highways system—run through our national forests, causing erosion and encouraging development. Example: According to the U.S. Forest Service, annual timber growth in the nation now exceeds harvest by 37 percent. Annual growth has exceeded harvest every year since 1952. In 1992, just 348,000 acres—six-tenths of one percent of the national forest land open to harvesting—were actually harvested.

The heavy condemnatory breathing on the subject of global warming outdoes anything since high moments of the Inquisition. A respectable columnist (Thomas Friedman of The New York Times) opened his essay last week by writing, “Sometimes you read something about this administration that’s just so shameful it takes your breath away.”

What asphyxiated this critic was the discovery that a White House official had edited “government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming.” The correspondent advises that the culprit had been an oil-industry lobbyist before joining the administration, and on leaving it he took a job with Exxon Mobil.

For those with addled reflexes, here is the story compressed: (1) Anyone who speaks discriminatingly about global warming is conspiring to belittle the threat. Such people end up (2) working for Exxon Mobil, a perpetrator of the great threat the malefactor sought to distract us from.

I’d guess that, in the current mood, I should enter the datum that my father was in the oil business. But having done that, I think it fair to ask: Are we invited to assume that anyone who works in a business that generates greenhouse gases (a) is complicit in the global-warming problem, and (b) should resign and seek work elsewhere? One recalls the plant in Nazi Germany that manufactured the toxic gas Zyklon B. The primary use of this gas was in the extermination camps, whose masters were looking for efficient ways to destroy human beings. Is the community engaged in oil production the contemporary equivalent of the makers of Zyklon B?

Critics are correct in insisting that human enterprises have an effect on climate. What they cannot at this point do is specify exactly how great the damage is, nor how much relief would be effected by specific acts of natural propitiation.

The whole business is eerily religious in feel. Back in the 15th century, the question was: Do you believe in Christ? It was required in Spain by the Inquisition that the answer should be affirmative, leaving to one side subsidiary specifications.

It is required today to believe that carbon-dioxide emissions threaten the basic ecological balance. The assumption then is that inasmuch as a large proportion of the damage is man-made, man-made solutions are necessary. But it is easy to see, right away, that there is a problem in devising appropriate solutions, and in allocating responsibility for them.

To speak in very general terms, the United States is easily the principal offender, given the size of our country and the intensity of our use of fossil-fuel energy. But even accepting the high per-capita rate of consumption in the United States, we face the terrible inadequacy of ameliorative resources. If the United States were (we are dealing in hypotheses) to eliminate the use of oil or gas for power, would that forfeiture be decisive?

Well, no. It would produce about 23 percent global relief, and at a devastating cost to our economy.

As a practical matter, what have modern states undertaken with a view to diminishing greenhouse gases? The answer is: Not very much. What is being done gives off a kind of satisfaction, of the kind felt back then when prayers were recited as apostates were led to the stake to be burned. If you levied a 100 percent surtax on gasoline in the United States, you would certainly reduce the use of it, but the arbiter is there to say: What is a complementary sacrifice we can then expect from India and China? China will soon overtake the United States in the production of greenhouse gases.

At Kyoto, an effort was made 10 years ago to allocate proportional reductions nation by nation. The United States almost uniquely declined to subscribe to the Kyoto protocols. Canada, Japan and the countries of Western Europe subscribed, but some have already fallen short of their goals, and all of them are skeptical about the prospect of making future scheduled reductions. It is estimated that if the United States had subscribed to Kyoto, it would have cost us $100 billion to $400 billion per year.

There is, now and then, offsetting good news. The next report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we have learned, will be less pessimistic than earlier reports. It will predict, e.g., a sea-level increase of up to 23 inches by the end of the century, substantially better than earlier IPCC predictions of 29 inches — and light-years away from the 20 feet predicted by former Vice President Al Gore.

Meanwhile, the Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg said something outside the hearing of the outraged columnist. He noted solemnly that any increase in heat-related deaths should be balanced against the corresponding decrease in cold-related deaths. … We need hope, and self-confidence.

So you know, cookie.

I am a moderate when it comes to global warming. I just don’t buy into the Armageddon wing of the global warming cultists. And the ultimate hypocrisy from the global warming fatalists is that the simple answer to the elimination of man-made CO2 is to stop burning fossil fuels. In otherwords, nuclear power. We could then use the natural gas, which we’re wasting to produce electricity, to run our automobiles. We’d have super clean air and would be emitting much less CO2.

Plus, there are many scientists who have other views on global warming. And I think they’re worth listening to. I’m not interested in burning books or burning folks at the stake for having differing views, which it seems you are. But then, your a cultist.

You don’t know how business works do you? That’s a German design, and GE and other American nuclear companies don’t want to have the competing designs, or pay the high licensing fees.

Then you still have the VAST amounts of nuclear fuel waste to deal with. Nuclear has a BIG and UGLY waste disposal issue. It’s not a clean fuel from an overall environmental perspective.

Yet, you act like a global warming ZEALOT. Moderates waited until 1999, when the IPCC conclusively demonstrated current global warming was man made.

And Gore is the reason we are building more coal plants. Comment by muckdog — April 10, 2007 @ 11:38 pm

People like are the reason we are building more coal plants, dum bass.

Other countries are fighting global warming by building more nuclear power plants. Comment by muckdog — April 10, 2007 @ 11:38 pm

Some other countries are doing others, most are also significantly investing in green technology other than nuclear – something the US should be doing, and isn’t.

The reason the US isn’t investing in Nuclear, is that we don’t own the patents to pebble reactors, the europeans do. It still boils down to the good old boy problem in big government projects.

I guess if you folks can’t legitimately debate Dr. Spencer’s points you attack his religion. Comment by muckdog — April 10, 2007 @ 11:38 pm

Dr. Spencer is a crackpot, and he doesn’t make *points*, he spouts b*llsh*t – just like you!

What’s next here’ a good old fashioned book burning or lynching? Comment by muckdog — April 10, 2007 @ 11:38 pm

No, that’s what you CONS do, j*ck*ss. He can say what he wants, or hadn’t you noticed. We just MAKE FUN of him, and you for you stupidity. Lynching and fragging is what you right wing religious nuts do, j*ck*ss, which is why YOU BROUGHT IT UP! It’s on YOUR MIND – hypocrite – not ours!

Stone the Christian? Feed him to the lions? Throw him in the gas chamber for his religion? Comment by muckdog — April 10, 2007 @ 11:38 pm

Once again, all right wing – FASCIST acts. Just like what you want to do with Al Gore. That’s why you post such hateful lies about him. Project much – st*pid twit?

Which one: fission or fusion?

If fission, what type of fissile material would you suggest in order to have a better waste disposal? What would your stance be when it comes to enviromental hazard?

Comment by Juan C — April 10, 2007 @ 2:12 pm

Pebble bed fission reactor. There is a 0% risk of meltdown (it is literally impossible, with the physics, in a pebble bed reactor), and there is no liquid waste, merely tiny graphite spheres with miniscule amounts of nuclear fuel in each one. Those are the two biggest stumbling blocks nuclear energy has faced since its inception.

This gives us the cleanest source of energy to form a backbone, along with solar, wind, geothermal and other, cleaner forms of energy to supplement it. Once fusion arrives, fission can be phased out as an energy source.

If we’d been switching over to, rather than fighting against nuclear energy so many decades ago, methinks we would have perfected pebble bed reactors years ago, and might very well have moved on to even better, more efficient and cleaner forms of nuclear energy.

And Gore is the reason we are building more coal plants.

Other countries are fighting global warming by building more nuclear power plants.

I guess if you folks can’t legitimately debate Dr. Spencer’s points you attack his religion. What’s next here’ a good old fashioned book burning or lynching? Stone the Christian? Feed him to the lions? Throw him in the gas chamber for his religion?

I’m sorry you have such a low opinion of the human race. And, by the way, I have a few clues here and there.

t-mac