(Op-Ed) George Monbiot: "Climate change deniers have won"

[ray245]

Either that, or we would have to change our lifestyle accordingly. Maybe someone would reintroduce trams as public transports?

Singapore style monorails would be good, but I am afraid a lot of cities might not be so densely populated to make this viable. That being said Perth's public transport is pretty meh. Can't speak for other countries though.

What about good old trains then for countries that isn't densely populated?

[mr friendly guy]

Either that, or we would have to change our lifestyle accordingly. Maybe someone would reintroduce trams as public transports?

Singapore style monorails would be good, but I am afraid a lot of cities might not be so densely populated to make this viable. That being said Perth's public transport is pretty meh. Can't speak for other countries though.

What about good old trains then for countries that isn't densely populated?

Do you mean within a city or between states / provinces? Because if the city itself isn't densely populated, its going to run into problems. If public transport has to travel further distances to get the same number of people its going to cost more, and that affects economic viability. Granted I am no expert nor have I done much research into this matter.

[Vehrec]

That's a really poor basis for policy. By that standard, why worry about housing standards, plumbing, rights, etc? WE BEAT THE NEANDERTHALS WITHOUT IT WE'LL BE FINE. Not to mention the hilarious hypocrisy of pollution changing environment to harm humans = NATURE IS A COLD BITCH.

Aly's original line was:

Strap yourselves in. Our civilization is in for a bumpy ride.

The last time human civilization underwent climate change on a scale this large as is hypothesized, we were basically hunter-gatherers with virtually no technic base to speak of and our food pyramid was highly susceptible to climactic change through prey animal's ranges shrinking or moving.

Now? We have highly advanced agriculture and animal husbandry methods, a whole courncoupia of portable power production methods ranging from ye olde ICE running off anything from gasoline to a variety of other fuels to future technologies like fuel cells.

Sheppy, most of these technologies are just used to further max out our population, not to provide any sort of safety net. Your highly advanced agriculture levels can be expected to, in the event of failure, condemn millions to starvation, not thousands or a few scattered tribes. We are still vulnerable to climate change-we've learned to ride out the year to year changes, and even a few decade long phenomena, but human society still struggles to cope with concepts like the finite size of fisheries and the limitations of agriculture.

The people who STILL rely on hunter-gatherer methods or very low subsistence grazing to generate their food staples in the 21st fucking century are going to be hit hard -- giving more impetus to further urbanization in Africa for example.

These are the groups least able to urbanize as well. Great idea, force the people with the fewest skills and least ability to function in an urban society to migrate to such societies. They can't really DO anything there of course, so the slums just swell with farmers who can't farm any longer, herders with no herds, and bushmen who will be set upon by both in a fit of cannibalism for the magic in their flesh.

There's also the fact that the more advanced technic societies like the US, Russia and China will not hesitate to throw the third world under the bus if need be. You only need to look at the recent fires in Russia -- Putin simply went 'that's it, no more foreign grain exports from Russia for this year'.

This of course will increase the stresses on low-technic societies which are prone to chronic food shortages, and we'll see more wars and violence in Africa.

Oh yes, obviously this is a thing to be celebrated. Bangladesh vomits 50 million starving refugees into India and Burma, and the first world sips its carefully hoarded wine bottles. How delightfully civilized!

But elsewhere? You'll see an uptick in the price of food by a few percentage points as technic civilization adapts to the new environment (like for example reducing the amount of farm subsidies so that more food is grown instead of letting the fields lie fallow). With a lowered amount of arable land due to CC, this means that a higher percentage of it will be in use rather than being left to lay fallow via subsidies.

Intensification of modern agriculture leads to Bad Things sheppy po. Soils can only support so much abuse before we start killing their ecosystems, and that is ignoring the need for fertilizer and farm equipment. High outputs require high inputs, remember? I think we're looking at a lot more than just a 'few percentage points' increase in prices, especially as the supply of hydrocarbons continues to be drawn down.

[Hamstray]

As for the environmental impact I will leave the issue of waste disposal to more knowledgeable people, however if you are worried about explosions and all that, I suggest Pebble Bed Reactors, made in.... China.

If the nuclear industry was interested in waste disposal they would have adopted fast reactor designs (i.e.:IFR) and phased out LWRs some time ago. Oh wait, they sort of tried, but gave in to anti-nuclear crowd pressure and rather lobbied to preserve their outdated generation II based structures instead. Fast reactors are going to be in trend in near future though (in Japan and Russia at least). It will however take ages to burn up current stockpiles of spent nuclear fuel, though it could ensure the maintenance of current nuclear waste storage at least, instead of just dumping it somewhere.

[Zaune]

That's not solely a concern with nuclear power, though. Look up the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. But here's the thing. How many government-operated facilities have suffered a catastrophic failure as a result of cost-cutting on maintenance? Your government may be more trustworthy on this than you think.

If the government was running it in-house, that'd be one thing; with a few unfortunate exceptions, our politicians tend to let the civil service get on with running these things day-to-day and not ask too many questions.
But the last few administrations have outsourced everything they can possibly get away with, and as I alluded to in my earlier post, those outsourcing firms tend not to be very good. And the 'Controvery' section of the Wikipedia page on Sellafield makes chilling reading wherever you stand on nuclear power.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Oh yes, obviously this is a thing to be celebrated. Bangladesh vomits 50 million starving refugees into India and Burma, and the first world sips its carefully hoarded wine bottles. How delightfully civilized!

I think that's the point Shep is making, which I suspect will happen. And by the way, India won't do a fib for Bangladesh, even if the whole lot of them starves to death. Yes, it sounds all barbaric, but when it comes to the crunch, no one is going to give a shit really.

[Zaune]

I think that's the point Shep is making, which I suspect will happen. And by the way, India won't do a fib for Bangladesh, even if the whole lot of them starves to death. Yes, it sounds all barbaric, but when it comes to the crunch, no one is going to give a shit really.

They'll start giving a shit pretty damned quickly once those starving desperate refugees start turning up here, though perhaps not in the way Vehrec (or Shep) would prefer. Refugees entering western Europe usually end up in glorified internment camps as it is, Q only knows what will be done with them once things start getting really bad.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I think that's the point Shep is making, which I suspect will happen. And by the way, India won't do a fib for Bangladesh, even if the whole lot of them starves to death. Yes, it sounds all barbaric, but when it comes to the crunch, no one is going to give a shit really.

They'll start giving a shit pretty damned quickly once those starving desperate refugees start turning up here, though perhaps not in the way Vehrec (or Shep) would prefer. Refugees entering western Europe usually end up in glorified internment camps as it is, Q only knows what will be done with them once things start getting really bad.

Nope. They will send in the army and the navy and bottle up the refugees at the border.

During the Vietnam war, lots of boat people were turned away, or they were interned in camps in offshore islands.

Quite frankly, really, no one will care. The human race in my opinion, is so self-centered that even the most altruistic will blanch at the thought of having the food cash to intern any of the refugees.

[Bakustra]

That's not solely a concern with nuclear power, though. Look up the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. But here's the thing. How many government-operated facilities have suffered a catastrophic failure as a result of cost-cutting on maintenance? Your government may be more trustworthy on this than you think.

If the government was running it in-house, that'd be one thing; with a few unfortunate exceptions, our politicians tend to let the civil service get on with running these things day-to-day and not ask too many questions.
But the last few administrations have outsourced everything they can possibly get away with, and as I alluded to in my earlier post, those outsourcing firms tend not to be very good. And the 'Controvery' section of the Wikipedia page on Sellafield makes chilling reading wherever you stand on nuclear power.

That's not a question of nuclear power itself, though, but rather of responsible government. But that punctures Starglider's earlier assertions about objections to nuclear power. In other words, your objections are not that nuclear power is too dangerous to be used, but rather that you don't feel that the UK government runs it safely enough, as far as I can tell. That is not an unreasonable objection, even though we could argue about it.

stuff

That's what I mean by new technologies/societal change. We need to reduce our dependence on automobiles to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Current electric cars have lengthy recharge times and short ranges, so we need to either rebuild our society to make that viable, or improve electric cars. The same for hybrid cars. Things are similar for making greener factories. Those are all separate from the question of cheap electricity, so just adopting nuclear power won't be enough to really slow climate change.

When it comes to environmental impact, I was referring more to things like heat pollution. Acknowledging faults is a better strategy than the old method of declaring perfection. It's harder to tear apart a defense of something that acknowledges its flaws.

I think that's the point Shep is making, which I suspect will happen. And by the way, India won't do a fib for Bangladesh, even if the whole lot of them starves to death. Yes, it sounds all barbaric, but when it comes to the crunch, no one is going to give a shit really.

They'll start giving a shit pretty damned quickly once those starving desperate refugees start turning up here, though perhaps not in the way Vehrec (or Shep) would prefer. Refugees entering western Europe usually end up in glorified internment camps as it is, Q only knows what will be done with them once things start getting really bad.

Nope. They will send in the army and the navy and bottle up the refugees at the border.

During the Vietnam war, lots of boat people were turned away, or they were interned in camps in offshore islands.

Quite frankly, really, no one will care. The human race in my opinion, is so self-centered that even the most altruistic will blanch at the thought of having the food cash to intern any of the refugees.

So why exactly did some French villages shelter Jews during the Holocaust, then? I doubt that your pessimistic outlook on humanity is quite compatible with history.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

So why exactly did some French villages shelter Jews during the Holocaust, then? I doubt that your pessimistic outlook on humanity is quite compatible with history.

And how does a few Jews compare against a few billion starving people in Africa and also in India, China, and else where?

We already don't give a shit about the starving and dying in Africa, and that is going to change, when?

You go give up all your life savings to help a few poor and dying in Africa, then I'll change my mind. Oh wait, you won't, right?

[Bakustra]

So why exactly did some French villages shelter Jews during the Holocaust, then? I doubt that your pessimistic outlook on humanity is quite compatible with history.

And how does a few Jews compare against a few billion starving people in Africa and also in India, China, and else where?

We already don't give a shit about the starving and dying in Africa, and that is going to change, when?

You go give up all your life savings to help a few poor and dying in Africa, then I'll change my mind. Oh wait, you won't, right?

I point out that people do behave altruistically, and you respond with "Not altruistically enough!! Give all your money to charity and swear a vow of poverty or I won't believe you!!!". Heh. I guess that since you haven't followed your own "advice" that this is a defense mechanism of yours, right?

But let's take a look at this claim. You say that we (Americans? The developed world? Non-Africans?) "don't give a shit". Well, let's take a look at the World Giving Index 2010 report. What the report indicates is that overall, 30% of the world's population gave to charity in the last year, and 45% volunteered time for charity in the same period. Individual nations tended to vary more. More than two-thirds of all Australians, New Zealanders, Americans, Canadians, Brits, and Dutch gave to charity in the last year. Overall, altruistic behavior is far more common than your "model" allows. Even in impoverished nations in Africa and South America, more than a third of the population still went out of their way to help a stranger, and Morocco is fifth in the world when it comes to charitable donation. The report doesn't track where the money goes, but it punctures the idea that Africa is poor because people are selfish.

Here's a better explanation: elites don't care and average people don't know how to help. That explains the poverty of Africa and paucity of aid while remaining consistent with the findings in the report.

[Zaune]

@Bakustra: I don't just feel that the UK government isn't running it safely, I feel that short of a massive sea-change in our political culture, the UK government will never run it safely. None of our major parties seem capable of thinking outside the next election, or to have the self-confidence to turn around and tell Big Business that actually, a profit motive doesn't automatically mean you do a better job.

[Anguirus]

Hunter-gatherer tribes =! modern civilization.

In a very real sense, the survival of the human species itself (which I'd guess as "fairly likely") is not of as much interest as the fate of our current civilization. For all the damage it's caused and harm it's wreaked, it has allowed us to "stand on the shoulders of giants" and understand so very much about the universe. However, most of that data and reasoning has been preserved in the form of ink on paper and digital bits. If some real badness goes down, our greatest achievements could easily be so thoroughly lost that the next great civilization (if it's even coming) would only be getting a leg up through a determined process of archaeology, not by actual records.

Our goal should be to minimize the death and destruction that will be caused by environmental change. This includes preserving the biodiversity that Shep has so much scorn for (we are currently in the middle of a mass extinction that is unprecedented in Earth's history, and yes I do know what I'm talking about, and the sheer weight of the responsibility we bear for that should make any decently reflective human being sick), and not trading good agricultural land for shitty hypothetical far-North fantasylands. As much as I appreciate the good that capitalism and representative democracy have done for people, as an ideology it simply may not be fit to deal with climate change (as Bass expertly pointed out, it's a perfect storm of a public policy problem). This doesn't mean that we should launch a revolution, it just means knowing that we can't depend on this system to address this problem.

Starglider's right, in a cartoony sort of way. Nuclear power needed to be part of the solution from the get-go. Maturity means telling the difference between real and dangerous, yet ultimately solvable problems, such as negligence on the part of plant operators, insufficient regulation, and dealing with waste, and insolvable problems, like the fact that oil and coal are both incredibly destructive and incredibly finite, and that solar/wind/everything else that's not nuclear CANNOT keep up with demand without assuming a divine intervention.

I'm still enough of an optimist to think that a significant chunk of our society will survive the next few hundred years with a bit of belated infrastructure-building and a very jaded attitude. And perhaps we will have a little more collective wisdom in that case, passing down to our children that the world was different once, and we changed it.

But on my bad days, I want to rush out into the backyard and start carving The Origin of Species into big stone tablets in ten different languages.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I point out that people do behave altruistically, and you respond with "Not altruistically enough!! Give all your money to charity and swear a vow of poverty or I won't believe you!!!". Heh. I guess that since you haven't followed your own "advice" that this is a defense mechanism of yours, right?

Because I don't give a shit either. Flat simple.

But let's take a look at this claim. You say that we (Americans? The developed world? Non-Africans?) "don't give a shit". Well, let's take a look at the World Giving Index 2010 report. What the report indicates is that overall, 30% of the world's population gave to charity in the last year, and 45% volunteered time for charity in the same period. Individual nations tended to vary more. More than two-thirds of all Australians, New Zealanders, Americans, Canadians, Brits, and Dutch gave to charity in the last year. Overall, altruistic behavior is far more common than your "model" allows. Even in impoverished nations in Africa and South America, more than a third of the population still went out of their way to help a stranger, and Morocco is fifth in the world when it comes to charitable donation. The report doesn't track where the money goes, but it punctures the idea that Africa is poor because people are selfish.

Here's a better explanation: elites don't care and average people don't know how to help. That explains the poverty of Africa and paucity of aid while remaining consistent with the findings in the report.

And all that is a pittance compared to what is truly needed to help them. Helping them isn't just giving them food. It is about giving them an education all the way to university etc. Anything less is simply a pittance and useless and does not raise them out of their poverty.

With the amount of bitching going on about socialism, will that happen? Nope.

[Soontir C'boath]

So you think that this is the environmentalists' fault? Would you be willing to prove that they consciously decided to oppose nuclear power for ideological reasons rather than an honest mistrust? Because frankly, it's the nuclear power companies that dropped the ball. They trumpeted how perfectly safe nuclear power was, and so when it failed to live up on one ground people lost faith in it completely. I suppose you could blame the media for this misconception, except that Chernobyl, Fermi, Three Mile Island, and Windscale all took place before or at the beginning of tabloidization of the media. In order to get environmentalists on your side, you'd have to convince them of the safety, viability, and usefulness of nuclear power. One problem is that many misconceptions have been allowed to fester, such as those about nuclear waste.

Would you mind giving the contrary sources stating as such?

For Three Mile Island, I remember reading about how much of a clusterfuck it was made by the media when they overblew the circumstances that had actually occurred from it. While those at Three Mile Island tried to state that any of the radiative leak that managed to come out of it was barely enough to harm anyone, the media and environmentalists ignored them and went nuts over it.

Considering TMI's failsafes worked, I find it hard to believe it was 'honest mistrust' in this case.

[Bakustra]

So you think that this is the environmentalists' fault? Would you be willing to prove that they consciously decided to oppose nuclear power for ideological reasons rather than an honest mistrust? Because frankly, it's the nuclear power companies that dropped the ball. They trumpeted how perfectly safe nuclear power was, and so when it failed to live up on one ground people lost faith in it completely. I suppose you could blame the media for this misconception, except that Chernobyl, Fermi, Three Mile Island, and Windscale all took place before or at the beginning of tabloidization of the media. In order to get environmentalists on your side, you'd have to convince them of the safety, viability, and usefulness of nuclear power. One problem is that many misconceptions have been allowed to fester, such as those about nuclear waste.

Would you mind giving the contrary sources stating as such?

For Three Mile Island, I remember reading about how much of a clusterfuck it was made by the media when they overblew the circumstances that had actually occurred from it. While those at Three Mile Island tried to state that any of the radiative leak that managed to come out of it was barely enough to harm anyone, the media and environmentalists ignored them and went nuts over it.

CNN was founded in 1980. Fox News was founded in 1996. Only Chernobyl was after the foundation of the first 24-hour news channel, which is what I would signal as the start of the tabloidization of the news media. I can't find specific images of the materials, but Westinghouse and others put out materials that stressed the safeness of nuclear power and its environmental friendliness. So when Three Mile Island malfunctioned, and Chernobyl exploded, people no longer trusted what the power companies had said. For that matter, in the case of Three Mile Island, Metropolitan Edison's approach to PR has been classified as disastrous, which is what precipitated unfavorable media coverage. The miscommunication between the company and the governor led, for example, to the disastrous evacuation advisory, which overshadowed the company's statements. The article in question is unabashedly anti-nuclear, but the facts about the handling of the disaster are still damning.

[Bakustra]

I point out that people do behave altruistically, and you respond with "Not altruistically enough!! Give all your money to charity and swear a vow of poverty or I won't believe you!!!". Heh. I guess that since you haven't followed your own "advice" that this is a defense mechanism of yours, right?

Because I don't give a shit either. Flat simple.

Thank you for admitting it, but not for projecting it.

But let's take a look at this claim. You say that we (Americans? The developed world? Non-Africans?) "don't give a shit". Well, let's take a look at the World Giving Index 2010 report. What the report indicates is that overall, 30% of the world's population gave to charity in the last year, and 45% volunteered time for charity in the same period. Individual nations tended to vary more. More than two-thirds of all Australians, New Zealanders, Americans, Canadians, Brits, and Dutch gave to charity in the last year. Overall, altruistic behavior is far more common than your "model" allows. Even in impoverished nations in Africa and South America, more than a third of the population still went out of their way to help a stranger, and Morocco is fifth in the world when it comes to charitable donation. The report doesn't track where the money goes, but it punctures the idea that Africa is poor because people are selfish.

Here's a better explanation: elites don't care and average people don't know how to help. That explains the poverty of Africa and paucity of aid while remaining consistent with the findings in the report.

And all that is a pittance compared to what is truly needed to help them. Helping them isn't just giving them food. It is about giving them an education all the way to university etc. Anything less is simply a pittance and useless and does not raise them out of their poverty.

With the amount of bitching going on about socialism, will that happen? Nope.

Still punctures your claim that this is because people are too selfish, rather than being ignorant of the best course of action. (Ps: There are a number of charitable organizations that do things like buy livestock, seeds, and equipment with donations and give them to impoverished villages. So much for "only giving them food", eh?) But you'll no doubt pretend that this is clearly a conscious decision on the part of Americans, rather than being born of ignorance.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

still punctures your claim that this is because people are too selfish, rather than being ignorant of the best course of action. (Ps: There are a number of charitable organizations that do things like buy livestock, seeds, and equipment with donations and give them to impoverished villages. So much for "only giving them food", eh?) But you'll no doubt pretend that this is clearly a conscious decision on the part of Americans, rather than being born of ignorance.

No, it's still a matter of being selfish. Because all this charity work is about feel good factor, and making themselves feel good that they are doing something right rather than truly making people's lives better. This is a matter of self-delusions because few if ever will ever bring it upon themselves to help them. Ignorance is being too generous.

And you still haven't answered the challenge of giving up your life savings for the poor. Betcha you won't but give say a pittance to the poor, right?

[Bakustra]

still punctures your claim that this is because people are too selfish, rather than being ignorant of the best course of action. (Ps: There are a number of charitable organizations that do things like buy livestock, seeds, and equipment with donations and give them to impoverished villages. So much for "only giving them food", eh?) But you'll no doubt pretend that this is clearly a conscious decision on the part of Americans, rather than being born of ignorance.

No, it's still a matter of being selfish. Because all this charity work is about feel good factor, and making themselves feel good that they are doing something right rather than truly making people's lives better. This is a matter of self-delusions because few if ever will ever bring it upon themselves to help them. Ignorance is being too generous.

And you still haven't answered the challenge of giving up your life savings for the poor. Betcha you won't but give say a pittance to the poor, right?

So you've moved from "people are too selfish to be altruistic!!" to "people are selfish in their altruism!!". Two questions. One, how exactly do you know the minds of other people? Is it congenital, or a learned skill? Two, does it matter? If people are helped, then does it matter that the helper did it to feel good about herself? A third question. You imply that this is a willful ignorance. Do you have evidence, or are you just taking your personal beliefs and projecting them upon the world?

No, I would not give my life's savings to the poor currently. As of right now, I am in college, and so if I were to make such a donation, I would only be able to give perhaps ten thousand dollars with all my savings and possessions. In doing so, that would almost certainly be the last such donation I would be able to make for decades. However, if I complete my education, I will be in a position to potentially give ten thousand dollars a year to charities. Of course, you shall fixate on the first sentence or else puke up some study about how people often have hidden motives and dance and sing about how inferior I am. But this is irrelevant. There are differences between swearing a vow of poverty and never giving, or only giving rarely. There are gradations, and the fact that you don't recognize this lends me to mistrust that you have a fully-functioning brain.

[Soontir C'boath]

CNN was founded in 1980. Fox News was founded in 1996. Only Chernobyl was after the foundation of the first 24-hour news channel, which is what I would signal as the start of the tabloidization of the news media.

I still don't see how those channels need to be available when network news served just fine exasperating the problem.

I can't find specific images of the materials, but Westinghouse and others put out materials that stressed the safeness of nuclear power and its environmental friendliness. So when Three Mile Island malfunctioned, and Chernobyl exploded, people no longer trusted what the power companies had said. For that matter, in the case of Three Mile Island, Metropolitan Edison's approach to PR has been classified as disastrous, which is what precipitated unfavorable media coverage. The miscommunication between the company and the governor led, for example, to the disastrous evacuation advisory, which overshadowed the company's statements. The article in question is unabashedly anti-nuclear, but the facts about the handling of the disaster are still damning.

Yes, I recognized it was a PR disaster given I said as much already with the network news channels no less. This still doesn't give environmentalists any leg to stand on for 'honest mistrust' when they do not bother with any research themselves (if they're so against the man in the white coat) and continue to perpetuate false facts to this day such as radiation is transferred to the water used to siphon heat away and senseless scaremongering.

As for Chernobyl, that goddamn piece of shit should have never been built. Even by the safety and construction standards held at the time, it never would have passed approval.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

So you've moved from "people are too selfish to be altruistic!!" to "people are selfish in their altruism!!".

Does it matter in how they are being selfish?

Two questions. One, how exactly do you know the minds of other people? Is it congenital, or a learned skill? Two, does it matter? If people are helped, then does it matter that the helper did it to feel good about herself? A third question. You imply that this is a willful ignorance. Do you have evidence, or are you just taking your personal beliefs and projecting them upon the world?

Name me one government that has made an effort to help the poor in the most vigorous form. A government reflects the culture, the desires and the nature of its people. That itself gives a very good guide on how people think. That's all the evidence you need. People have behaved in a tribalistic fashion for God knows how long. THat isn't going to change, and still remains the way how humans have behaved for generations.

And willful ignorance? Have the news media go on ranting on the poor and before long, people will quit reading the papers rather than read sob stories. That is the reason why problems in Africa rarely go highlighted in the press. Who wants to read bad news everyday?

No, I would not give my life's savings to the poor currently. As of right now, I am in college, and so if I were to make such a donation, I would only be able to give perhaps ten thousand dollars with all my savings and possessions. In doing so, that would almost certainly be the last such donation I would be able to make for decades. However, if I complete my education, I will be in a position to potentially give ten thousand dollars a year to charities. Of course, you shall fixate on the first sentence or else puke up some study about how people often have hidden motives and dance and sing about how inferior I am. But this is irrelevant. There are differences between swearing a vow of poverty and never giving, or only giving rarely. There are gradations, and the fact that you don't recognize this lends me to mistrust that you have a fully-functioning brain.

Yeah whatever. Still proves my point. A pittance of cash isn't going to save anyone, except prolonging their suffering, or clean up the enviromental crap left behind by multinational countries like the oil crap in Nigeria.

[Bakustra]

CNN was founded in 1980. Fox News was founded in 1996. Only Chernobyl was after the foundation of the first 24-hour news channel, which is what I would signal as the start of the tabloidization of the news media.

I still don't see how those channels need to be available when network news served just fine exasperating the problem.

The company was acting evasive and its responses were often bizarre. The media simply reported and the ineptitude of the people involved did the rest.

I can't find specific images of the materials, but Westinghouse and others put out materials that stressed the safeness of nuclear power and its environmental friendliness. So when Three Mile Island malfunctioned, and Chernobyl exploded, people no longer trusted what the power companies had said. For that matter, in the case of Three Mile Island, Metropolitan Edison's approach to PR has been classified as disastrous, which is what precipitated unfavorable media coverage. The miscommunication between the company and the governor led, for example, to the disastrous evacuation advisory, which overshadowed the company's statements. The article in question is unabashedly anti-nuclear, but the facts about the handling of the disaster are still damning.

Yes, I recognized it was a PR disaster given I said as much already with the network news channels no less. This still doesn't give environmentalists any leg to stand on for 'honest mistrust' when they do not bother with any research themselves (if they're so against the man in the white coat) and continue to perpetuate false facts to this day such as radiation is transferred to the water used to siphon heat away and senseless scaremongering.

As for Chernobyl, that goddamn piece of shit should have never been built. Even by the safety and construction standards held at the time, it never would have passed approval.

The Greenpeace site does not say anything about radioactive water heating. What research can they do, exactly? They can build their own reactors, how? Mistrust is central to the anti-nuclear movement as it stands today. The reason they make false statements like that is that they assume that the companies and government are lying about everything. It's a conspiratorial mindset, but insisting that anti-nuclear activists are insincere- as Starglider indicated- renders you incapable of convincing them.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

As for Chernobyl, that goddamn piece of shit should have never been built. Even by the safety and construction standards held at the time, it never would have passed approval.

Chernobyl blew up not because of safety issues but rather some guys decided to do an experiment on the reactor and modified the reactor.

[Soontir C'boath]

I'll rescind this post as it seems I'll have to reread about Chernobyl but I'm pretty sure the materials used, the fail safes not working, and inept employees not knowing what to do were the primary reasons for its failure.

[Bakustra]

So you've moved from "people are too selfish to be altruistic!!" to "people are selfish in their altruism!!".

Does it matter in how they are being selfish?

If people are being helped by one and not the other, yes it does matter, unless you are psychotically virtue-ethical or deontological.

Two questions. One, how exactly do you know the minds of other people? Is it congenital, or a learned skill? Two, does it matter? If people are helped, then does it matter that the helper did it to feel good about herself? A third question. You imply that this is a willful ignorance. Do you have evidence, or are you just taking your personal beliefs and projecting them upon the world?

Name me one government that has made an effort to help the poor in the most vigorous form. A government reflects the culture, the desires and the nature of its people. That itself gives a very good guide on how people think. That's all the evidence you need. People have behaved in a tribalistic fashion for God knows how long. THat isn't going to change, and still remains the way how humans have behaved for generations.

And willful ignorance? Have the news media go on ranting on the poor and before long, people will quit reading the papers rather than read sob stories. That is the reason why problems in Africa rarely go highlighted in the press. Who wants to read bad news everyday?

LBJ's Great Society. Atlee's NHS. Bismarck's social security. All of these were deliberate efforts to improve the lot of citizens and reduce the effects of poverty. Oh, whoops, you said most vigorous. Since you're defining this freely, of course no government can actually be named, because you will freely shift the goalposts to avoid conceding that there might be some argument against blind misanthropy. Fucker. The Soviet Union's efforts should be considered a vigorous effort to help the poor regardless, but that probably doesn't count either. I'm not playing your stupid little game any further. Either define "most vigorous" in a clear way that could be achieved by a government, or take your ball and go home, asshole.

That's not willful ignorance, though. If news media don't report it, then how are people supposed to find out about it? Apart from "obviously they should research random stuff until they find out about it, otherwise people are all worthless", of course. This should ideally be kept within the realms of sanity, not insanity.

No, I would not give my life's savings to the poor currently. As of right now, I am in college, and so if I were to make such a donation, I would only be able to give perhaps ten thousand dollars with all my savings and possessions. In doing so, that would almost certainly be the last such donation I would be able to make for decades. However, if I complete my education, I will be in a position to potentially give ten thousand dollars a year to charities. Of course, you shall fixate on the first sentence or else puke up some study about how people often have hidden motives and dance and sing about how inferior I am. But this is irrelevant. There are differences between swearing a vow of poverty and never giving, or only giving rarely. There are gradations, and the fact that you don't recognize this lends me to mistrust that you have a fully-functioning brain.

Yeah whatever. Still proves my point. A pittance of cash isn't going to save anyone, except prolonging their suffering, or clean up the enviromental crap left behind by multinational countries like the oil crap in Nigeria.

Dancing and singing, much like I predicted.