Scientists issue 'warning to humanity'

[Isapito]

I've heard good things about molten salt cooled reactors that use liquid U233 fuel.

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

Which part/thing/whatever?

It being a problem we need to solve before we all die. We saw claims in the 60s and 70s we'd all be frozen now. Then they claim the ice caps would all be melted by now, you get it. I'm also unsure it's even an issue. With slightly higher global temperatures, we would have more square earth to farm, etc.

Because we changed our regulations and made a better environment.

And yes, it is an issue.

[Neanderthaland]

Which part/thing/whatever?

It being a problem we need to solve before we all die. We saw claims in the 60s and 70s we'd all be frozen now.

Let it go.

Then they claim the ice caps would all be melted by now, you get it. I'm also unsure it's even an issue. With slightly higher global temperatures, we would have more square earth to farm, etc.

Who is "they?"

Because, yeah, if you listen to History Channel "scientists," then I'm sure you'd have heard all kinds of stories. But real scientists have been pretty consistent on this, and on why it's a problem. All of which they've explained over and over again, which means that you really don't have any excuse for this kind of statement at this point.

[Telconi]

I'd go one step past that, more investment in fusion should be our goal.

This. "Green" renewables, while nice and do have their places, cannot realistically compete with fossil fuels like nuclear can.

Can solar and wind support a grid? Probably not. But if each house and business had solar panels, and farms had a handful of turbines, we could drastically reduce the fossil consumption of that grid. Something we absolutely should be doing. I don't see fission as a replacement to fossil fuels, it's at best a sideways step.

[Eisen Wolf Reich]

This. "Green" renewables, while nice and do have their places, cannot realistically compete with fossil fuels like nuclear can.

Nitpick: the sun is a pretty efficient nuclear fusion reactor.

But current solar panels only get a small percentage of the energy realized by this reactor, a man made fusion reactor can get almost all of the power made.

[Eisen Wolf Reich]

This. "Green" renewables, while nice and do have their places, cannot realistically compete with fossil fuels like nuclear can.

Can solar and wind support a grid? Probably not. But if each house and business had solar panels, and farms had a handful of turbines, we could drastically reduce the fossil consumption of that grid. Something we absolutely should be doing. I don't see fission as a replacement to fossil fuels, it's at best a sideways step.

It works wonderfully. Nuclear is actually better for the environment than fossil fuels, considering we could just make a big island to dump the waste onto, or shoot it all into the moon.

[Minoa]

It being a problem we need to solve before we all die. We saw claims in the 60s and 70s we'd all be frozen now.

Let it go.

Then they claim the ice caps would all be melted by now, you get it. I'm also unsure it's even an issue. With slightly higher global temperatures, we would have more square earth to farm, etc.

Who is "they?"

Because, yeah, if you listen to History Channel "scientists," then I'm sure you'd have heard all kinds of stories. But real scientists have been pretty consistent on this, and on why it's a problem. All of which they've explained over and over again, which means that you really don't have any excuse for this kind of statement at this point.

History Channel is total rubbish these days, but the climate change issue isn't. But negative narratives of doom and similar is only going to discourage people from taking action against climate change, out of despair and hopelessness.

[Burkani]

Heh. Sure, climate change might be a thing, but it's hard to believe it's anything close to what the media makes of it.
"Facts and evidence"
Probably paid extra to dramatize and dilute the facts, or simply observed it once and didn't recheck their info.

[Telconi]

Can solar and wind support a grid? Probably not. But if each house and business had solar panels, and farms had a handful of turbines, we could drastically reduce the fossil consumption of that grid. Something we absolutely should be doing. I don't see fission as a replacement to fossil fuels, it's at best a sideways step.

It works wonderfully. Nuclear is actually better for the environment than fossil fuels, considering we could just make a big island to dump the waste onto, or shoot it all into the moon.

It doesn't work 'wonderfully' it's trading one problem now for a possibly much larger problem later on. The goal is to find a sustainable way of genraging energy, not shunt the consequences off onto posterity.

[Eisen Wolf Reich]

Nuclear is our best option. Why?

Relatively Low Costs - Production of the fuel and the reactors are expensive, but once you get the reactor running its cheaper keep running than coal plants.

Higher base load energy - Wind and solar power only work in sunny areas with good sun and in areas with good wind. If you live in somewhere like Siberia, its not gonna work.

Low pollution - Nuclear reactors don't release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the air

Thorium - We currently have enough mined Uranium to last the earth 80 years. Thorium is more efficient than uranium and is starting to replace it, which means nuclear power will be even cheaper.

Sustainable?????? - As I mentioned above, there is a limited amount of fuel for nuclear power available. On the other hand, you could argue that nuclear energy is potentially sustainable by the use of breeder reactors and fusion reactors. Nuclear fusion is the holy grail of harnessing energy. If we can learn to control atomic fusion, the same reactions as those that fuel the sun, we have practically unlimited energy. At the moment, these two methods both have serious challenges that need to be dealt with if we are to start using them on larger scale.

High energy density - A single nuclear reaction releases 10 million times more than a single fossil fuel atom burning.

[Freed Lymonia]

It being a problem we need to solve before we all die. We saw claims in the 60s and 70s we'd all be frozen now.

Let it go.

Then they claim the ice caps would all be melted by now, you get it. I'm also unsure it's even an issue. With slightly higher global temperatures, we would have more square earth to farm, etc.

Who is "they?"

Because, yeah, if you listen to History Channel "scientists," then I'm sure you'd have heard all kinds of stories. But real scientists have been pretty consistent on this, and on why it's a problem. All of which they've explained over and over again, which means that you really don't have any excuse for this kind of statement at this point.

Nope. These were your average joe scientists, and look around you. Are we frozen? No? Then I suggest we don't listen to em with their crappy computer models, because with them, bad goes in bad goes out. Besides. It's arguable it's even an issue let alone us causing it. What caused the earth to defreeze back with cavemen and crap? I wonder what SUVs they were driving.

[The Alma Mater]

Nitpick: the sun is a pretty efficient nuclear fusion reactor.

But current solar panels only get a small percentage of the energy realized by this reactor, a man made fusion reactor can get almost all of the power made.

Considering we - as in humanity - have sofar not even succeeded in building a fusion reactor with a decent output that is quite a bold statement.
Efficient harnassing of solar power otoh can easily power the world. Even with current technology.
It does however require enormous investments.

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

Let it go.


Who is "they?"

Because, yeah, if you listen to History Channel "scientists," then I'm sure you'd have heard all kinds of stories. But real scientists have been pretty consistent on this, and on why it's a problem. All of which they've explained over and over again, which means that you really don't have any excuse for this kind of statement at this point.

Nope. These were your average joe scientists, and look around you. Are we frozen? No? Then I suggest we don't listen to em with their crappy computer models, because with them, bad goes in bad goes out. Besides. It's arguable it's even an issue let alone us causing it. What caused the earth to defreeze back with cavemen and crap? I wonder what SUVs they were driving.

We aren't frozen beacuse we changed our policies.

The amount of carbon we spew out was cut dramatically beacuse of the introduction of the Catalytic converter in 75.

[Krasny-Volny]

And yet again the emphasis is on industrial carbon emissions, completely ignoring the fact that wasteful agricultural practices in the Third World are doing far more damage to our dwindling forests than emissions from First World countries, and that desertification as a result of these idiotic practices is also contributing in no small part to the global rise in temperatures.

Destructive slash and burn in Indonesia, Brazil, Sudan, and the states of central Africa and the Sahel goes completely unchecked while those countries get pats on the back for signing the Paris Accords and agreeing to reduce their (relatively negligible) emissions.

The longer I work with people and organizations in the environmental field the more I'm convinced that carbon emissions as per the Western sense of the concept get so much publicity because a disproportionate number of environmental scientists live in those countries where this is the most serious threat to the local and global environment. That's a serious issue, yeah, but also ignores the fact that the developing nations of the world and the global south in particular are by no means innocent in contributing to the degradation of the earth and their problems are likelier to have more immediate impacts on the lives of millions of people.

[The East Marches II]

And yet again the emphasis is on industrial carbon emissions, completely ignoring the fact that wasteful agricultural practices in the Third World are doing far more damage to our dwindling forests than emissions from First World countries, and that desertification as a result of these idiotic practices is also contributing in no small part to the global rise in temperatures.

Destructive slash and burn in Indonesia, Brazil, Sudan, and the states of central Africa and the Sahel goes completely unchecked while those countries get pats on the back for signing the Paris Accords and agreeing to reduce their (relatively negligible) emissions.

The longer I work with people and organizations in the environmental field the more I'm convinced that carbon emissions as per the Western sense of the concept get so much publicity because a disproportionate number of environmental scientists live in those countries where this is the most serious threat to the local and global environment. That's a serious issue, yeah, but also ignores the fact that the developing nations of the world and the global south in particular are by no means innocent in contributing to the degradation of the earth and their problems are likelier to have more immediate impacts on the lives of millions of people.

That is very interesting, I hadn't thought about this matter from that perspective. You make a good point.

[Rostavykhan]

-snip-

Don't forget matter-antimatter energy, though that's realistically far off unless some genius develops a way to create and store antimatter without blowing the Earth in half.

But yes, nuclear power, especially fusion, is much better than fossil fuels.

[The of Japan]

This. "Green" renewables, while nice and do have their places, cannot realistically compete with fossil fuels like nuclear can.

Can solar and wind support a grid? Probably not. But if each house and business had solar panels, and farms had a handful of turbines, we could drastically reduce the fossil consumption of that grid. Something we absolutely should be doing. I don't see fission as a replacement to fossil fuels, it's at best a sideways step.

If it was decently efficient I would agree

[The of Japan]

And yet again the emphasis is on industrial carbon emissions, completely ignoring the fact that wasteful agricultural practices in the Third World are doing far more damage to our dwindling forests than emissions from First World countries, and that desertification as a result of these idiotic practices is also contributing in no small part to the global rise in temperatures.

Destructive slash and burn in Indonesia, Brazil, Sudan, and the states of central Africa and the Sahel goes completely unchecked while those countries get pats on the back for signing the Paris Accords and agreeing to reduce their (relatively negligible) emissions.

The longer I work with people and organizations in the environmental field the more I'm convinced that carbon emissions as per the Western sense of the concept get so much publicity because a disproportionate number of environmental scientists live in those countries where this is the most serious threat to the local and global environment. That's a serious issue, yeah, but also ignores the fact that the developing nations of the world and the global south in particular are by no means innocent in contributing to the degradation of the earth and their problems are likelier to have more immediate impacts on the lives of millions of people.

Yes

[Aethrys]

We need to take quick and decisive action against these rogue scientists that think they can intimidate us with these threats.

[Nouveau Yathrib]

Heh. Sure, climate change might be a thing, but it's hard to believe it's anything close to what the media makes of it.
"Facts and evidence"
Probably paid extra to dramatize and dilute the facts, or simply observed it once and didn't recheck their info.

You’re absolutely right that the media sensationalizes any and all science regarding our impact on the environment. This happens all across the political spectrum tbh.

And yet again the emphasis is on industrial carbon emissions, completely ignoring the fact that wasteful agricultural practices in the Third World are doing far more damage to our dwindling forests than emissions from First World countries, and that desertification as a result of these idiotic practices is also contributing in no small part to the global rise in temperatures.

Destructive slash and burn in Indonesia, Brazil, Sudan, and the states of central Africa and the Sahel goes completely unchecked while those countries get pats on the back for signing the Paris Accords and agreeing to reduce their (relatively negligible) emissions.

The longer I work with people and organizations in the environmental field the more I'm convinced that carbon emissions as per the Western sense of the concept get so much publicity because a disproportionate number of environmental scientists live in those countries where this is the most serious threat to the local and global environment. That's a serious issue, yeah, but also ignores the fact that the developing nations of the world and the global south in particular are by no means innocent in contributing to the degradation of the earth and their problems are likelier to have more immediate impacts on the lives of millions of people.

YES. This is why developing world and working-class environmentalism needs to be more of a thing.

[Valrifell]

Personally I think that a lot of solar and renewable energy in its current state isn't enough to suffice with our growing power needs. We should go nuclear, a properly built and maintained reactor is almost full-proof.

I'd go one step past that, more investment in fusion should be our goal.

We don't even know if cold fusion is physically possible, might want to stick with fission for the time being.

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

I'd go one step past that, more investment in fusion should be our goal.

We don't even know if cold fusion is physically possible, might want to stick with fission for the time being.

Not cold fusion, just fusion.

[Valrifell]

We don't even know if cold fusion is physically possible, might want to stick with fission for the time being.

Not cold fusion, just fusion.

Regular fusion is what the sun does. The sun is hot. And big.

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

Not cold fusion, just fusion.

Regular fusion is what the sun does. The sun is hot. And big.

It's also what the relatively smaller Wendelstein 7-X does.

[Valrifell]

Regular fusion is what the sun does. The sun is hot. And big.

It's also what the relatively smaller Wendelstein 7-X does.

That's only contained plasma, and hasn't been faced with a live fusion reaction (as far as I read into the article, at least).