Because fighting climate change goes far, far beyond nuclear power, even if Bernie were as rigid against scientific and logical argument as Trump (and I don’t believe he is).
Obama did too, so that point was very underwhelming.
Well, since it is clear that they lied to you about how bad it really is to not depend on nuclear power on one state (that news was exaggerated and while it still makes the change more difficult, is not impossible to do and there are indeed democrats in power that supports it.) So yes, my point stands. What Trump and the Republicans is doing is demonstrated to be worse because besides not mitigating the issue, there will be less preparation for the changes coming thanks to the demonstrated dumbassX1000 position of the Republicans in power.
But just in that article he’s made other, non-nuclear bad environmental decisions too. That said, I agree…he probably is better than Trump wrt the environment, taken all together. But, again, he shouldn’t be anyone’s poster child or really anything. I mean, it’s faint praise being better than Trump on, well, anything. He’s not a Dem, but if he gets the nomination I think the actual Dems should hold his feet to the fire on his actual environmental record and use this to push for real change in their attitudes. Like I said, he (and several others that are prominent Democrats) are a bit like anti-vaxers wrt anti-scientific horseshit they are pushing in the effort to help fix climate change. That’s almost worst than just being an asshole polluter pushing for coal, especially when we all know that the market forces are going to finish off coal in the end anyway, and all Trump’s antics haven’t really changed that tide.
I don’t necessarily disagree with any of this; I’m just saying Bernie is a lot better than Trump on the issue of climate change and the environment in general (and nearly every other issue).
I agree, as I said, but I can’t think of anyone who ISN’T better than Trump on just about (hell, let’s not quibble…take ‘just about’ out of the equation) everything. Trump is a poor bar, IMHO, to measure anyone against.
**XT **also missed my post on that Bernie article, it is clear that there is a weapons grade obfuscation of the facts by the Forbes contributor, it comes by implying that there was a 16% increase in emissions, when in reality is about 2.8 from 2014, because that was the date the nuclear plant closed. Comparing the change of emissions from the 90s to today was done by the Forbes contributor as a way to make the situation worse and I do call that a lie by omission from the Forbes guy.
Also omitted: that the nuclear plant closed because natural gas was cheaper, and it was an economical decision by the **private **energy supplier.
Agreed.
I didn’t see your reply…you and Shodan seemed focused on your own battle, and I, unfortunately, wasn’t really paying that much attention except broadly.
So, I looked at the article you linked too. It says that what will replace the 4% of their power they were getting from the nuke plant is, as wind and natural gas…according to your article:
So…half of the energy production that was being done by the nuclear power plant will be natural gas, with the rest coming from wind and other sources (efficiencies and the like, I presume some solar, etc). That doesn’t sound like that great a trade off, to me. Yes, you are right about this:
I didn’t omit this, I saw it in the other article. But I’m frankly scratching my head…are you saying it’s ok to replace a green energy source with one that releases CO2 because of economic considerations?? It seems a bad decision from an environmental standpoint, no? It also doesn’t seem, to me, to be something to defend Bernie over, though frankly if he had said he was doing it for purely economic reasons (because the natural gas is cheaper, presumably after the investment costs and from an ROI perspective considering both the new installed wind, solar, efficiency stuff and the new natural gas plants) I could understand that. From MY perspective that would be justification. But I don’t see how it can be from yours. You and others have talked about vast social sacrifices that would cost billions, even trillions to change the trajectory of climate change. This is, in the greater scheme of things, a small change…but it’s an upward change, even by your article, though not as much as in the other linked article. That plant could have run until the 2030’s, again according to your article, and even if it was running at a financial loss (which the government could have subsidized, no?) it would have been running at a CO2 out of the atmosphere gain…right? What do you see as the justification for Bernie’s decision from your perspective, or am I missing something (always a possibility as I’m doing this between meetings). No snark, I’m really asking as I want to understand and also have things straight in my own mind.
Sanders is pushing a solution that costs a huge amount and won’t work. Trump is pushing, at least to some degree, a solution that might work. And this makes Sanders better on climate change.
I guess combating AGW is only the second most urgent issue before the world. Combating Trump seems to be No. 1 with a bullet. Millions may die in the floods and droughts and wars y’all are predicting - but at least you won’t have to admit that Trump was ever right about anything, ever.
Regards,
Shodan
Ironically, even given the other objections against it, biomass power would have been a good weapon in the fight against global warming had we also started also reducing our emissions in other ways because it is renewable – in the medium term. But we don’t now have the luxury of waiting decades for the replacement biomass to reabsorb the carbon we emit now.
Some of this debate is premature, anyway. After all, Trump hasn’t yet brought back those coal mining jobs he was promising on the campaign trail. That’s gonna be a game changer.
Uh, that was not a reply to you but to Shodan, who also poo-pooed the idea that government intervention, regulations and education was needed regarding the nuclear front. In reality, free enterprise in the USA is also giving us nuclear plant closures.
BTW, if there had been a carbon emissions tax in place, it would be likely that then the Nuclear plant would had been more economical than coal or natural gas.
Then all our pollution problems will be over: after all, it will be clean coal, because billboards never lie.
Once again, fighting climate change involves a whole host of issues, and electricity generation (and nuclear power in particular) is only a part of those issues. Overall, I think Bernie is better on this very large and complicated set of issue that make up fighting climate change than Trump. You are free to disagree, but declaring that I’m wrong based on a single aspect of a very large set of issues doesn’t make any sense.
One of the most important elements of fighting climate change is recognizing the existance of climate change, and the involvement of human activity – on that very important aspect, Bernie is far, far better than Trump. Same goes for the usage of fossil fuels, carbon usage, and many other very important aspects.
Further, I recognize that what Trump says on any particular issue often has virtually nothing to do with what he actually plans to do, or will eventually do, on an issue.
Oh, I know the market also has close plants, but it’s a combination of forces that does so. But I wasn’t asking Shodan, as I assume his answer would be similar to mine from a market perspective…really, what I’m asking is from BERNIE’S perspective, and assuming a real green energy and CO2 emissions drop strategy, how does this make sense? Again, had he fought for the plant to be subsidized by the government and free market types has squashed it because having the government subsidize stuff (that isn’t stuff they want subsidized), then I’d understand supporting Bernie on this. Or, had he decided because of market forces and said that, I’d understand that. But it seems he was touting this (incorrectly) as a win because they got rid of a dreaded nuclear power plant. THAT seems…egregious…to me at least. I don’t know exactly what Bernie’s role actually was in allowing or enabling or whatever that plant to be shut down, but from an environmental perspective, and looked at as just another small piece of the overall picture, it seems a bad move. And it seems someone like you should be calling him (and whoever else was responsible) out on it…big time. I know you aren’t an anti-nuke. I know you are really into mitigating climate change, and I know you know how serious all this stuff is. Hell, most of what little I know comes from reading your posts on this subject.
I know you were fighting with Shodan on something related but not really talking about this aspect. It’s why I asked you the questions I did, especially when you seemed to be posting with me in mind in the post I quoted. I guess, overall, my own perspective on this is it was stupid to allow a nuclear power plant to be decommissioned (with all that entails) decades before it would be, and to allow it to be replaced (well, half of it’s production) to be replaced by natural gas. This doesn’t even get into the addition of GHG that would be emitted in building and making all the stuff to replace the nuke plant…just that half of the energy produced for decades will be CO2 emitting from here on out.
Considering that Trump is for nuclear while ignoring why is that he should, yes he is still wrong. And that is because he should not be in the business of picking winners and losers such as likes to do with coal.
Again, the reality is that not having nuclear makes it harder, but not impossible. And that was demonstrated on how the increase in CO2 emissions in Bernie’s Vermont was not as dire as painted by Forbes. It pointed that more closures of coal plants and more solar or wind power to reduce the emissions. But yeah, a bit of government controlled nuclear power should be considered.
And that shows that you also missed that I said to Shodan that I did indeed criticize Bernie regarding his nuclear power position in the past.
Still, I do have to point that again, a lot of what was directed at Bernie here comes from what in many right wing media books is written as being a lie. There a misleading effort going on when telling Forbes readers that there was an increase of 16% in pollution when it was actually 2.8% since the nuclear plant was closed in Vermont.
Not mentioned by Forbes was that other pollution items like NO2 and particulates actually declined after the nuclear plant was closed, of course the nuclear plant was not doing that, but if there was any consistency then the item of closing coal plants should not had been ignored by the likes of Forbes on their way to get at Bernie.
But, still less than coal. And Natural Gas is looking to be on the losing end soon.
No. Sanders is pushing for a concerted effort to move to clean energy across all energy sectors in recognition of climate change being a major problem, which is just what other sensible nations are doing. Trump has declared climate change to be a hoax and current warming to be just a natural thing that will quickly “bounce back”. His nuclear “solution” that you seem to like so much is to provide federal funding guarantees to one single nuclear plant whose design and implementation is so fucked up that it’s five years behind schedule and likely to cost over $28 billion by the time it’s done. One power plant. In all of the US. Where all the 8,652 power plants in the US combined produce just 28% of the total CO2 emissions, and about half of them are coal-fired, which your guy is trying to increase and pushing coal – the worst possible fossil fuel by far – as the greatest thing since sliced bread. But Trump has “a solution that might work”? :rolleyes:
What Trump “plans” to do on any issue is always exactly the same plan: “we’ll see”. And the result we always end up seeing is (a) nothing changes or things get worse, (b) some variant of “who knew it was so complicated?”, and (c) the whole thing being forgotten.
But it IS an increase. While overall the US has declined, though only slightly. Yes, it’s not as extreme as Bloomberg apparently tried to make it out to be, but it still is a step in the wrong direction.
No, I admitted I missed that exchange and if you called Bernie out then…good on you, man! My apologies.
Maybe. Looks like the bulk of their green power comes from hydro, and that too is a dwindling source, and no new hydro dams can, IIRC, be built in the US (I guess they could get some from Canada?) so seems kind of a dead end as a model for other power companies. I don’t see anything that can replace natural gas on the horizon. I also don’t think using Tesla Powerwalls (which ARE very cool and I’m planning to get one myself next year to go with my own solar at my house) is very scalable at this point wrt the power grid. If they can make it work, I’m all for it though, and I hope my skepticism is unfounded.
What it need to not be missed is that that increase is still related to fossil fuel emissions. The point there is that what is needed next is not going to be the end of the world as many on the right paint it.
Cool there. 
A bit uncool here, 
specifically the bit about replacing natural gas, what part of the “energy supply was already 90% carbon-free” are you missing? As I pointed before the changes needed are not going to send us back to the stone age as many on the right imply, the change needed for the largest supplier of energy in Vermont is about 10%, and by the numbers that Green Mountain Power supplied, there are growth opportunities in wind, solar and even nuclear power.