Trump's war on the environment

[Eric the Green]

(01-31-2017, 03:46 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: This one might be interesting to debate. How many studies at what confidence intervals, etc:

'Then there's atrazine, perhaps the most controversial pesticide that's used widely on US farm fields. Banned in Europe, it's an endocrine disrupter, a term used for chemicals that mimic hormones and "produce adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune effects in both humans and wildlife," according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.'

While decrying junk science coming from the "Right" the Left need to be careful not to also engage in junk science.

I used to be a big time Greenie (many years ago, before there was even a Green Party here in the US). I found that at least some of the interest groups had lots of non-scientists in them and were really dominated by Gaia worshippers with meager scientific training. Various tin foil notions regarding manufactured substances carried the day. I know in some ideal utopia everything would be organically grown and free range. But that is just not feasible. There is a middle path.

The middle path is the Greenie left path now. The middle path is the path where the facts are, and that path is on the left politically. The partisan alternative is between a livable world and a non-livable world; between old dirty fossil fuels and new green clean high tech. Green tech has advanced quite a bit since it was a pie in the sky ideal in the 1970s. The transition will not be instant. But Republicans have already slowed it down or reversed it whenever they have had the power to do so, and that will continue. The transition would otherwise have been almost complete by now. Now it's being delayed further.

There is no middle ground between the parties on this. Democrats are right and Republicans are wrong. The Republicans don't want any government interference in the market, so that leaves it up to the corporate bosses what happens. That's not a partisan statement; it's just the way the parties are aligned at this time in history. 

We have a choice to make. The world can be powered by solar energy alone; it's a question of ramping it up. Under Trump we do it perhaps too slowly by relying only on the market. Under Hillary we would have had a government that speeded up the process and gave us a better chance for a livable world. We have solar energy available and other alternatives too that give us that chance. There's no excuse for delay.

Talk of the "nuclear option" reminds me of the nuclear energy option. There is some promising new developments in which waste could be used as fuel and safeguards are stronger. Still, I can't support it myself because it's not a renewable resource, and it still might not be safe. But I might not oppose it as a bridge fuel, just as natural gas as been as an alternative to coal. The nuclear fuel bridge option however is much further in the future than gas, although it's a more longer-term option than gas.

There are agricultural options and real food options being developed. Indoor and urban farms are "cropping" up, and may be less vulnerable to pests and add substantially to our food supply. I don't eat all organic myself yet; far from it. I'm not always sure what the truth is about pesticides, but I can't see how they are good to eat. It's better if we develop alternatives.

There are a lot of conspiracy theories and junk science circling around that may not be right wing, but I doubt it could be called left wing either. I guess you can say that such junk just doesn't fly. It doesn't have either wing, IOW. Speaking of flying, concern over "chemtrails" appears to be one such pile of junk that doesn't fly.