I don't know which one will be a bigger problem. The radioactive isotopes nuclear power creates can take up to hundreds, thousands to millions of years to dissipate. It's clear we can't handle nuclear failures or waste whatsoever, it's disgusting how negligent we have been with all of it. If we are going to be ambitious to make our planet healthy, we shouldn't be cranking up another disastrous environmental crisis to stop a disastrous environmental crisis. We'd could be putting our future (potentially not so distant future) into the same shoes we are in today. None of this is to downplay climate change, I couldn't choose which would rank where when the end game outcomes are so variable for both problems.
The Week is laughing about getting rid of all the cows Eliminating cows, and 4 more bold promises in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal 1:40 p.m. Alex Wong/Getty Images Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-N.Y.) highly anticipated Green New Deal is here, and it's packed with some very lofty goals. The freshman congresswoman, along with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass), unveiled a plan to revamp the U.S. economy and eliminate carbon emissions on Thursday, suggesting in an NPR interview that deficit spending might be the best way to pay for it. Here are 5 bold moves the Green New Deal and its accompanying FAQ calls for. 1. "Upgrading all existing buildings in the United States." Yep, that's all 5.6 million commercial buildings in America, not to mention millions of residential buildings on top of that. 2. "Build[ing] out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary." That's in the FAQ. The actual resolution just calls for "overhauling transportation systems ... to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions," including by building railways. 3. "Guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage ... to all people of the United States." Which is only a small chunk of the biggest promise... 4. "Providing all members of society with high-quality health care, affordable, safe and adequate housing, economic security, and access to clean water, air, healthy and affordable food, and nature." That means accounting for the census-projected 360 million people anticipated to make up the U.S. in 2030. 5. Eliminating cows. The FAQ document very reasonably acknowledges that "we aren't sure that we'll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes" in the next ten years. But that insinuates that bovines may be eliminated eventually, seeing as livestock account for a solid sliver of America's carbon emissions. Despite a slew of Democratic backers, NPR says the bill is unlikely to pass. Read the whole proposal here, and more about it at The Week. Kathryn Krawczyk https://theweek.com/speedreads/8225...mises-alexandria-ocasiocortezs-green-new-deal
I'm glad she's putting it all out there so everybody knows just how off-the-wall she is. I'm already longing for the days of her being a marginal fringe voice in the House, having a spectrum of ideas is great for our legislature. They should give her Ron Paul's old desk just for synergy purposes.
We could easily make progress. Come anywhere near their goal in 10 years? Laughable even with Nuclear still being an option. I wonder what a real viable timeline might look like. 50 years? Wanting to further develop wind and solar power is certainly worthwhile. Building high speed rail would be pretty awesome long-term, but will take massive change in our behavior as consumers (I see it more practical for eliminating vehicle traffic than plane traffic). I'm curious just how much we subsidize the airline industry? I know the airline that runs a service from by my house up do DC/Baltimore gets $4.6M from the federal government just to run that one route. Busiest airport in the country (ATL) is less than 100 miles away. I love the convenience and the dirt cheap flights, but that is a lot of money on something like that.
I think it would take at least 5 years, probably closer to 10 years or more in most cases for new nuclear power plants to be planned, designed, built, commissioned and brought up to full capacity etc. So it wouldn't make sense for this timeline goal anyways.
Seriously don’t get why they even entertain this wacko’s crazy rhetoric. You would think distancing yourself as far as possible would be best for your political survival.
Yea, AOC should promise that the "Dream New Deal" will be paid for by Mexico and will have "beautiful" wind/solar contraptions blocking us off from immigrants.. PS. Also, somebody, plz save the hamburgers...
Aren’t we 22 trillion in debt already? As someone who puts great importance on fiscal responsibility in his private life, thats something I really care about in the public sense too but nobody really seems to give a s&&t. Democrat or Republican.
Why is that interesting? Is the left or right required to defend every plan the left or right comes up with?
I don't endorse government-directed investment of taxpayer funds, but if you took the trillions allocated to Green New Deal and instead built/developed nuclear power, it would be far better for the environment and individual quality of life than this proposal. Energy density is the key ingredient to the advancement of civilization and human progress.
Not from me anyway. This plan is stupid. I actually still like AOC as a representative of her district in New York, but her current prominence is completely out of whack. She is one vote out of 400-odd but the national discourse is talking about her all the damn time. Progressives deserve plenty of blame for eating up the AOC phenomenon with a complete suspension of disbelief. Conservatives too, though, for parading her around to tell everyone how evil and socialist! she is. Its not on conservatives to make sure liberals have good, sober ideas, but it does pretty much assure this is the ground of the partisan battle. The Democrats did that the other way in 2016 because they couldn't stop talking about Trump and nativism, made the issue partisan and then lost the partisan battle. My disdain for nuclear might be getting predictable, but it's really not as important to our clean energy future as people think, imo. They are expensive, they're dangerous, they are creating an environmental bomb people don't want to recognize. But more importantly, the grid is evolving to a distributed structure in which many, small, nimble resources can plug in and participate in a market as both a buyer and a seller. Premises will buy power when they need it, sell it when they have excess solar, use energy storage to arbitrage. There's still a place for professional generators, especially kinds that can quickly ramp up and down on price signals, but it'll be hard on plants that have high fixed costs that have to count on being able to run all the time. Now, if someone can make money building nuclear in that economy (while recognizing the real cost of the environmental risk nuclear waste presents), I'm fine with that. I don't think it's possible or needed.
I don't endorse government-directed tax breaks for Big Oil. In both cases, the government is putting its thumb on the free market scale.
If anyone needed proof this lady is about 6 cans shy of a 6- pack here it is. She may be the stupidest and most naive person I have ever seen. If this ever actually ever comes to pass, you can count me out working hard to support this. I will be in the long line.
Interesting thought experiment. If this simplistic scenario became a reality, I think I'd still be in the Work Hard Keep Half line. For one thing, I think I'd be compensated better in my current job than I would from even a generous government program. I'd also get more of the intangible benefits like respect and influence. Maybe the most important thing though is I don't know what I'd do with myself without work. Apart from raising the kids, my life would have no meaning. I'd be posting dumb takes on cf.net even more. So I'd still be on the treadmill regardless. And I think many people would.
the great thing is once the world moves over to Bitcoin, people like AOC will be powerless to try and implement any of this stuff (she readily admits to relying on money printing as a stealth tax to pay for her plan)
