His first few stabs at draining the swamp aren't working too well.I think there is an awful lot of hand wringing and fear of what Trump may do. One thing, however, to keep in mind is that Trump has to make literally THOUSANDS of political appointments. And he doesn't have nearly that many qualified political operatives in his rolodex. So you can expect to see a lot of GOP rehashes. Oddly that may be somewhat comforting to some of you Dem types - the notion that by default he'll have to work with the "establishment" and can't really drain the proverbial swamp. He really has no choice.
I think there is an awful lot of hand wringing and fear of what Trump may do. One thing, however, to keep in mind is that Trump has to make literally THOUSANDS of political appointments. And he doesn't have nearly that many qualified political operatives in his rolodex. So you can expect to see a lot of GOP rehashes. Oddly that may be somewhat comforting to some of you Dem types - the notion that by default he'll have to work with the "establishment" and can't really drain the proverbial swamp. He really has no choice.
So I see scientific / engineering solutions could go a couple ways. 1) re-terraform the earth- think the giant CO2 processors in Seaquest or the artificial tree that was engineered that absorbs 10x the carbon of a normal tree. 2) could go the Snowpiercer route where we try to fix the problem and end up creating a massive issue worse than before. I think 1 has some promise as long as we keep our eyes on 2.
If we're past the tipping point then why not STFU already? Jesus H. Christ. If you're really worried about it, go bug the Chinese about it. They're only getting worse every year with their total disregard for everything environmental, be it pollution or animals that they harvest for some bullshit reason. The other emerging economies in India and Brazil will be right behind them.
The environmental stuff has been co-opted by the lunatics on the left and pubs are a bit too business friendly for my tastes at times Hit polluters with fines, hit willful polluters with enormous fines. up the MPG requirements for autos every 10 years or so, and continue to invest in green technologies, which are so much more efficient now than they were just a few years ago. The problem will fix itself.
And throw this thread into the Lectro thread where it can be a one stop shop.
If we're past the tipping point then why not STFU already? Jesus H. Christ. If you're really worried about it, go bug the Chinese about it. They're only getting worse every year with their total disregard for everything environmental, be it pollution or animals that they harvest for some bullshit reason. The other emerging economies in India and Brazil will be right behind them.
The environmental stuff has been co-opted by the lunatics on the left and pubs are a bit too business friendly for my tastes at times Hit polluters with fines, hit willful polluters with enormous fines. up the MPG requirements for autos every 10 years or so, and continue to invest in green technologies, which are so much more efficient now than they were just a few years ago. The problem will fix itself.
And throw this thread into the Lectro thread where it can be a one stop shop.
That's not what ELC was saying, at least I don't think so. Business people aren't going to fine themselves and set MPG requirements themselves. They probably won't invest in green tech themselves either.
No they won't set mileage standards themselves. The government has to do that, and the government has to enforce some semblance of a standard when it comes to polluters. I think that in spite of the generalizations of those on the left, most on the right agree on that basic truth. The arguments always come about with how much is too much regulation and what rules are needed or unnecessary.
In the end, business responds to consumer demand and the bottom line. Both factors are more favorable for green energy tech now than they ever have been, and that is not going to change under Trump. That is how we lead-- through innovation. We invent shit and the Chinese figure out how to manufacture it cheaply. All this fuss over climate agreements and saving the earth is just bureaucratic brouhaha.
If we're past the tipping point then why not STFU already? Jesus H. Christ. If you're really worried about it, go bug the Chinese about it. They're only getting worse every year with their total disregard for everything environmental, be it pollution or animals that they harvest for some bullshit reason. The other emerging economies in India and Brazil will be right behind them.
The environmental stuff has been co-opted by the lunatics on the left and pubs are a bit too business friendly for my tastes at times Hit polluters with fines, hit willful polluters with enormous fines. up the MPG requirements for autos every 10 years or so, and continue to invest in green technologies, which are so much more efficient now than they were just a few years ago. The problem will fix itself.
And throw this thread into the Lectro thread where it can be a one stop shop.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...anging-the-climate-we-re-changing-life-itself
The earth has warmed barely a single degree Celsius, and yet virtually no place on the planet is unaffected by climate change. That’s the conclusion of both a new study published in the journal Science and a popular-science book out this week, The Unnatural World, by David Biello, the science curator at TED and a Scientific American contributing editor.
“This new age is not just climate change,” Biello writes, “it is everything change: the sky, the sea, the land, the rocks, life itself.”
The Science article reviews dozens of field studies and assembles them into a mosaic of ubiquitous change, from the genes of organisms to entire regions. More than 80 percent of the 94 biological and ecological systems surveyed show signs of the changing climate. Led by Brett Scheffers of the University of Florida, a team of 17 scientists trawled academic journals and enumerated observed changes across terrestrial, marine, and freshwater environments. The study’s seven pages are a dense catalog of pervasive, dynamic weirdness that paint a picture of changing ecosystems.
No particular item should strike fear in the hearts of readers but, taken together, the data portray a living world that’s trying to cope. Some highlights: Pink salmon are migrating about two weeks earlier in the summer than they did 40 years ago, spawning in ever-warmer waters and causing the fish’s genome to change. Southern flying squirrels, native to the eastern U.S., are becoming northern flying squirrels, now native to the Pacific Northwest, Canada, and Alaska. Colors—which help determine an animal’s sensitivity to light and consequently its ability to thrive in unfamiliar conditions—are shifting in butterflies, dragonflies, and birds. Some places have new diseases, and old diseases have arrived in new places.
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Other than the disease part, the rest of this paragraph is not "scary" - it just suggests change in the natural world.
I consider myself pro-environment, but we can't get up in arms because butterflies change colors. That is just evolution. And different species have gone extinct throughout history. Similarly, new species have been and continue to be discovered and catalogued. The environmental movement, if it ever takes off, is going to take off only when you point to direct impacts on humans. I am not saying that is "right," I am just saying it is accurate.