Climate change and free markets.

Here is my most recent posting on the skepticblog. It has been a fun challenge so far. The first quote is what I am replying to.

"‘Nuclear power as an alternative to burning coal would reduce carbon emissions, no?’


In a very strict sense, yes, it is understood that using uranium as fuel would not produce carbon.

The logic fail is that there are too many assumptions.

Extraction and refining of Uranium should also be carbon free and energy efficient. How do we ensure that? Non-market government regulations I suspect. The free markets guys will love that I am so sure.

Construction of new sites that are safe for the surrounding human population, natural systems, and secure from threats is not easy. Safe and efficient disposal of waste must also be accounted for. Making a mess with that stuff is orders of magnitude worse than the situation we have with carbon.

How does nuclear power reduce demand for energy? There is an assumption that if we build more nuclear power stations, that the hydrocarbon industry is just going to go away? It seems most likely that some may replace their old coal burners with nuclear, however it is just as likely that there will still be markets for hydrocarbons. I appreciate that this line of thought seriously challenges the paradigms of free market advocates, et al. It would be my assumption that this could be analysed within the context of cognitive dissonance theory:

‘My beliefs say that markets rule the day’
‘the market dictates supply and demand’
‘more supply of energy will reduce the demand for energy’

Snap crackle pop, goes the sound of logic fail.

Nature is not a Walmart world where ‘the more you spend the more you save’. More more more is the dogmatic mantra of the econo-cons that is so threatening to life on earth. If we get more energy from nuclear power, that also means we will run out of uranium sooner. Sure, investors in the mining industry will die rich, however those beautiful children of the future that some pretend to care about will be left in an even worse situation than we have today. That situation will be a world with many more people much more dependant upon massive consumption of energy to sustain itself. By looking at the current populations trends, that is not so far away.

The critics of ‘environmental scare mongering’ tend to gloss over what is parsimonious. We greens are the voice of reason. We like fresh air, clean water, safe neighbourhoods. Greens do not like being held hostage by the nuclear technocracy. We do not like being lied to by an industry that claims it is our only hope for a brighter and better tomorrow. We tend to be skeptical.

The world was just great before the human myths of progress and growth. More is not ‘better’. "

(this next bit was in reply to a kook on the thread who summoned a version of Godwins law on me.)

"Final question: How do we avoid a totalitarian/scientific dictatorship if we become increasingly dependant on nuclear power? Last time I checked, it requires a rather high quotient of scientists to make everything work. Nuclear energy is not a matter of public opinion. We don’t vote on stuff like that even in Pollyanna land."

My words.


I you want to gain a perspective on the state of the climate change debate, please follow the link I post below. By the way, this is a shameless plug for my opinion.

http://skepticblog.org/2010/11/16/throwing-cold-water-on-a-hot-topic/#comment-32348

Please read all of the thread, it is very useful for your own discussions on climate change. I will without shame admit that I was a bit pedantic at times. Please let me know what you think.

Yes, that's me posting as 'Tim'.

Thanks to the horde at Pharyngula for the advice on HTML. I will get the hang of it soon I hope.

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