how much is that * in the window
cape wind opponents are switching to a "costs too much" argument in hopes of finding a judge, any judge, to stop the juggernaut currently rolling towards wind power in nantucket sound. their point includes that generating electricity with these windmill thingies would supposedly result in higher electric bills than relying on nuclear-powered alternatives.
observing the catastrophe in japan, it's obvious that the true costs of nuclear are not currently being figured into our electric bills, and until we find a more accurate way to reckon these things, the true "expense" of clean energy will never be allowed to stand for itself. it's a lot like how it's "cheaper" to ship goods by truck here across these united states because those trucking companies don't carry the debt burden for the construction of all these public roadways that they freely use to their advantage over the private railroad beds. it's never apples to apples, and, unfortunately for us, the bad ones are raining down on our heads. (in the case of japanese nuclear fallout, that would be literally).
i don't know how its even possible to debate that we currently have an oligarchy of special interests that have and are perverting our government in favor of prima facie folly. big pharma, big farma, and the "bigs" go on and on. we have nuke plants and no place to store the waste, let alone consider what might happen if what happened in japan might happen here. all the biggest corporations in this country, including GE that designed those failed japanese nuke plants, (and i won't say "who" because it's a corporation, not a person, which ought to put curbs on such things, though because they can buy politics, doesn't), pay NO federal taxes, yet they somehow wrangle constitutional protections guaranteeing them unlimited spending on perpetuating the status quo. are we daft?
the answer, quite unequivocally, has to be "yes". we are daft. we have built an unsustainable food supply that is dependent on proprietary pesticides and homogenous, genetically modified strains that are catastrophically vulnerable in a way that nature and evolution would scream out to us to avoid. bee populations (necessary to pollinate all this stuff we eat) are crashing. bat populations (necessary to eat all the pests we're otherwise killing ourselves to control) are crashing. yet we pay no attention as we protect monsanto and others from any liability for the costs they are accruing on our behalfs, though will never themselves pay.
power generation is doing to our environment things that cannot be undone, and will take centuries to abate. i hope we are all prepared for our cancers, because we're all on a collision course with more than a few. (do you know that there are currently more than 3200 abandoned oil wells in the gulf of mexico without concrete caps, on top of 27,000 other abandoned wells that have already been identified as major leaking threats?)
perhaps these are the plans to solve our social security and medicare/medicaid budget shortfalls... poison our food and our environment so that it all won't matter anymore.
until then, let's rejoice that in at least one case, i.e. that of cape wind, the government bureaucracy is finally fudging the figures in a better direction.
observing the catastrophe in japan, it's obvious that the true costs of nuclear are not currently being figured into our electric bills, and until we find a more accurate way to reckon these things, the true "expense" of clean energy will never be allowed to stand for itself. it's a lot like how it's "cheaper" to ship goods by truck here across these united states because those trucking companies don't carry the debt burden for the construction of all these public roadways that they freely use to their advantage over the private railroad beds. it's never apples to apples, and, unfortunately for us, the bad ones are raining down on our heads. (in the case of japanese nuclear fallout, that would be literally).
i don't know how its even possible to debate that we currently have an oligarchy of special interests that have and are perverting our government in favor of prima facie folly. big pharma, big farma, and the "bigs" go on and on. we have nuke plants and no place to store the waste, let alone consider what might happen if what happened in japan might happen here. all the biggest corporations in this country, including GE that designed those failed japanese nuke plants, (and i won't say "who" because it's a corporation, not a person, which ought to put curbs on such things, though because they can buy politics, doesn't), pay NO federal taxes, yet they somehow wrangle constitutional protections guaranteeing them unlimited spending on perpetuating the status quo. are we daft?
the answer, quite unequivocally, has to be "yes". we are daft. we have built an unsustainable food supply that is dependent on proprietary pesticides and homogenous, genetically modified strains that are catastrophically vulnerable in a way that nature and evolution would scream out to us to avoid. bee populations (necessary to pollinate all this stuff we eat) are crashing. bat populations (necessary to eat all the pests we're otherwise killing ourselves to control) are crashing. yet we pay no attention as we protect monsanto and others from any liability for the costs they are accruing on our behalfs, though will never themselves pay.
power generation is doing to our environment things that cannot be undone, and will take centuries to abate. i hope we are all prepared for our cancers, because we're all on a collision course with more than a few. (do you know that there are currently more than 3200 abandoned oil wells in the gulf of mexico without concrete caps, on top of 27,000 other abandoned wells that have already been identified as major leaking threats?)
perhaps these are the plans to solve our social security and medicare/medicaid budget shortfalls... poison our food and our environment so that it all won't matter anymore.
until then, let's rejoice that in at least one case, i.e. that of cape wind, the government bureaucracy is finally fudging the figures in a better direction.
posted by kad barma at 8:08 AM
1 Comments:
I am with you on not believing the kinds of numbers we see in these kinds of discussions. I wish there was a fourth branch of government, named for Joe Friday. But, there isn't. The closest we come is the Congressional Research Service (CRS).
As for nuclear power, I think that when the accounting is in the nuclear problem will turn out to be less than the "why did you build homes there" problem. The thing about the Cape Wind project is that it has been an interesting litmus test for those banging on about green energy.
Regards — Cliff
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