"It would sort of be as though Prime Minister David Cameron, an ally of the US, should occasionally threaten to join al-Qaeda."
Well, no. That is the bloomin point. It's more like France telling the US it will stand with Germany in case the US attacks Germany, or - if you want to get all dramatic about it - like the UK saying it would stand with Germany under those conditions. Point is, we're talking about the US attacking an ally, and what its subordinate neighbours might do. Karzai may be losing it, but siding with local powers over an unreliable, remote power is not exactly crazy.
Pie in the sky, almost literally. The problem is that energy isn't used only in sunny climes, nor during the day. Base load systems - like the Fukushima reactor - are needed no matter what. A quick trip through Germany and other countries that have heavily subsidized solar and wind power quickly shows the tremendous difficulty of deploying these devices. I find it very fun to see all these rooftops being fitted with solar panels (and occasionally compact wind-based generators), but it's not something that is economically viable without government support, and it doesn't put a dent in household consumption, unless you invest in large energy storage facilities as well (and take the hit in efficiency).
You get some 100 to 200 Watt per square meter out of solar, in optimum conditions. At higher latitudes, not so much. Each German dwelling uses on average 1.5 ton oil equivalent per year in energy, about 18 MWh. Ignoring temporal mismatch between production and consumption, this would require each house in Germany to have 90 square meters of solar panes. (on average there are about 2000 "sun hours" per year and you can expect 50-100 Watt per square meter in Germany, I'm assuming 100). This is just not realistic, especially for apartment buildings (which are energetically more efficient, but have very little roof space). In the US, residential energy use per household is easily double that of Germany.
That's not to say it's a bad thing to install solar panes - especially if it makes you start looking more closely at your consumption patterns. It's like raising your own chickens and growing your own veg - it's a good idea for a hobby but it's not economically sound and it won't change the world.
"Because when I think of civil war I think of Yugoslavia and that world has a lot of violence that comes with it."
The Yugoslavian wars lasted several years - with varying theaters of war but with consistently high death toll. When it ended in 1995, the death toll stopped. The region remains rife with guns, bombs and war criminals on the run, but there are no bombings, shooting sprees or organized resistance to the government in any of the states. While these nations have plenty of problems (including serious organized crime), fighting an insurgency is not one of them: the civil war is over.
While you may think that a couple of thousand deaths in a nation the size of Iraq is not enough to be considered a problem (and yes the murder rate per capita is actually less than we saw in Louisiana post-Katrina), you can't argue that Iraqis are living in a normal society, nor that there isn't an organized, violent and reasonably succesful resistance against the state. Iraq faces a violent, existentialist threat to its existence which the ex-Yugoslavian states do not. Clearly, the civil war in Iraq isn't over.
I would like to add that if WikiLeaks had as much to do with fomenting the rage that lead to this revolution as was reported, we're all in Assange's debt. If the same happens in Egypt, he's a shoe-in for a Noble.
"What is truly bewildering is why the super-rich in the United States would want to deny reality."
To be honest, some super-rich are perfectly happy to fight for science.
Why do people fight for something? Two reasons, and two reasons only: faith or money. Some people believe that the science is wrong because they already distrust science, because they don't understand it, or because it conflicts with other things they believe (humans are too insignificant to make changes to the world as a whole, humanity can't go extinct since we're god's chosen, ...). But most of them make money from the status quo. That's obvious: they are super-rich, after all. So fighting anything that could upend the ant hill is a natural reflect.
But assuming they are willing to entertain the possibility of climate change, wouldn't they still try to stop it, just in case? Well, no, of course not: they are not in danger. Even if the worst comes to pass, they will be fine. Yes, their private island may disappear, the whole economy might go to hell in a handbasket and most of New York may slide in the sea. But they already have enough money to guarantee that their great-great-grandchildren will never have to do anything productive. They'll buy new estates inland, probably turning a good profit on the development of them while they're at it. They'll go fashion-shopping in Paris if New York becomes uninhabitable. Why the heck would they care?
The fact that funding to NPR is already insufficient has been obvious to me, a long-time listener, for years now. It's easy to tell whether your local station has been affected, just look at how much BBC programming it carries. Buying BBC programming appears to be cheaper than producing it locally. Call it outsourcing of journalism.
If they succeed in removing what little government funding NPR does get, all it will achieve is to give more opportunities for international programming to make it to the US. This is actually a good thing: the one thing the US sorely needs is an international perspective - a glance from outside the Petri dish. But it will certainly push NPR programming leftward (because the rest of the world is more interested in facts than ideology).
"It would sort of be as though Prime Minister David Cameron, an ally of the US, should occasionally threaten to join al-Qaeda."
Well, no. That is the bloomin point. It's more like France telling the US it will stand with Germany in case the US attacks Germany, or - if you want to get all dramatic about it - like the UK saying it would stand with Germany under those conditions. Point is, we're talking about the US attacking an ally, and what its subordinate neighbours might do. Karzai may be losing it, but siding with local powers over an unreliable, remote power is not exactly crazy.
Pie in the sky, almost literally. The problem is that energy isn't used only in sunny climes, nor during the day. Base load systems - like the Fukushima reactor - are needed no matter what. A quick trip through Germany and other countries that have heavily subsidized solar and wind power quickly shows the tremendous difficulty of deploying these devices. I find it very fun to see all these rooftops being fitted with solar panels (and occasionally compact wind-based generators), but it's not something that is economically viable without government support, and it doesn't put a dent in household consumption, unless you invest in large energy storage facilities as well (and take the hit in efficiency).
You get some 100 to 200 Watt per square meter out of solar, in optimum conditions. At higher latitudes, not so much. Each German dwelling uses on average 1.5 ton oil equivalent per year in energy, about 18 MWh. Ignoring temporal mismatch between production and consumption, this would require each house in Germany to have 90 square meters of solar panes. (on average there are about 2000 "sun hours" per year and you can expect 50-100 Watt per square meter in Germany, I'm assuming 100). This is just not realistic, especially for apartment buildings (which are energetically more efficient, but have very little roof space). In the US, residential energy use per household is easily double that of Germany.
That's not to say it's a bad thing to install solar panes - especially if it makes you start looking more closely at your consumption patterns. It's like raising your own chickens and growing your own veg - it's a good idea for a hobby but it's not economically sound and it won't change the world.
Sporkie, you're not making much sense.
"Because when I think of civil war I think of Yugoslavia and that world has a lot of violence that comes with it."
The Yugoslavian wars lasted several years - with varying theaters of war but with consistently high death toll. When it ended in 1995, the death toll stopped. The region remains rife with guns, bombs and war criminals on the run, but there are no bombings, shooting sprees or organized resistance to the government in any of the states. While these nations have plenty of problems (including serious organized crime), fighting an insurgency is not one of them: the civil war is over.
While you may think that a couple of thousand deaths in a nation the size of Iraq is not enough to be considered a problem (and yes the murder rate per capita is actually less than we saw in Louisiana post-Katrina), you can't argue that Iraqis are living in a normal society, nor that there isn't an organized, violent and reasonably succesful resistance against the state. Iraq faces a violent, existentialist threat to its existence which the ex-Yugoslavian states do not. Clearly, the civil war in Iraq isn't over.
I would like to add that if WikiLeaks had as much to do with fomenting the rage that lead to this revolution as was reported, we're all in Assange's debt. If the same happens in Egypt, he's a shoe-in for a Noble.
"What is truly bewildering is why the super-rich in the United States would want to deny reality."
To be honest, some super-rich are perfectly happy to fight for science.
Why do people fight for something? Two reasons, and two reasons only: faith or money. Some people believe that the science is wrong because they already distrust science, because they don't understand it, or because it conflicts with other things they believe (humans are too insignificant to make changes to the world as a whole, humanity can't go extinct since we're god's chosen, ...). But most of them make money from the status quo. That's obvious: they are super-rich, after all. So fighting anything that could upend the ant hill is a natural reflect.
But assuming they are willing to entertain the possibility of climate change, wouldn't they still try to stop it, just in case? Well, no, of course not: they are not in danger. Even if the worst comes to pass, they will be fine. Yes, their private island may disappear, the whole economy might go to hell in a handbasket and most of New York may slide in the sea. But they already have enough money to guarantee that their great-great-grandchildren will never have to do anything productive. They'll buy new estates inland, probably turning a good profit on the development of them while they're at it. They'll go fashion-shopping in Paris if New York becomes uninhabitable. Why the heck would they care?
The fact that funding to NPR is already insufficient has been obvious to me, a long-time listener, for years now. It's easy to tell whether your local station has been affected, just look at how much BBC programming it carries. Buying BBC programming appears to be cheaper than producing it locally. Call it outsourcing of journalism.
If they succeed in removing what little government funding NPR does get, all it will achieve is to give more opportunities for international programming to make it to the US. This is actually a good thing: the one thing the US sorely needs is an international perspective - a glance from outside the Petri dish. But it will certainly push NPR programming leftward (because the rest of the world is more interested in facts than ideology).