Morning Ed: Energy & Environment
[EE1] When we talk about climate change as a source of civil conflict, Nature magazine says maybe we should step back. {More}
[EE2] Some exciting new energy sources coming down the pike!
[EE3] Not out loud, dude. Don’t say that out loud.
[EE4] Canada’s oil belt is exploring geothermal power.
[EE5] As with so many things, ocean acidification apparently has winners and losers in the sea.
[EE6] I don’t think the “climate intelligentsia” is the main obstacle when it comes to cutting off the supply of fossil fuels.
[EE7] Climate change is combatting loneliness. In plants.
[EE8] The comparative liabilities of transporting oil by pipeline, rail, truck, and boat.
[EE0]
The cute, sad story of radioactive puppies.
These puppies are radioactive, so it's illegal to rescue them — but this guy is fighting to save them no matter what! pic.twitter.com/CH0wAvZujv
— The Dodo (@dodo) March 11, 2018
EE6 – I still can’t get over that a scientific paper is able to predict results that are wildly different from the lived experience of the 1970s oil supply shocks.Report
Interesting ideas, but I much prefer when such works try to seriously address the negative impacts of such policies.Report
I understand the impulse and am a bit more sympathetic, because despite the rather snarky summaries I’ve seen flying around, these are measures that I haven’t seen considered much by policy experts.
Sometimes to get people to think about costs, you need to convince them there are benefits, first.Report
Here’s some more snark – if choking off supplies at their origin worked, we would have won the drug war years ago between coca eradication in South America and opium eradication in Afghanistan.
(from the source paper)
Did anyone tell these guys that a good many of the major oil producing regions in the world have famously corrupt governments – you know, the actual institutions that will do all that monitoring, reporting, and verification?Report
There’s the spherical cow.
And there’s the spherical cow in a vacuum.Report
We’d have to shut down all domestic production and effectively close our borders to petroleum imports, which means tightly controlling the amount of production/importing we’d have to allow for things like chemical feedstocks and the like. Which strikes me as something that would require a large amount of administration.Report
Perhaps, but when a white paper only talks about the benefits, it comes across as Pollyanna-ish and un-serious.Report
EE2 I feel so dumb. I’d been under the impression that fuel cells were only fit to power plasma rifles.Report
Dibs on a right to own plasma rifles and recharge them in my home.Report
Oh, that’s fun. I’ll have to see if I can find a complete list of displays from the show.Report
Only ones in the 40 watt range.
(Never really understood what a 40 watt plasma rifle was supposed to do. Toast bread at a distance?)Report
EE1: But what will the media do with all the MadLib style reports they have ready for the Water Wars & Climate Conflicts they just know are coming?Report
Use ’em anyway.Report
EE1:
There is very little evidence linking climate change to conflict, for the same reason there is very little evidence linking economic distress to conflict.
Because scientific causality linking of external forces to human behavior is a wildly unscientific endeavor.
Was WWII “caused” by the economic depression of the 1930’s? Was the Civil War “caused” by the different economic engines of the North and South?
Of course not. These factors contributed but assigning them a monocausal value is foolish.
Environmental stress, like water shortages or crop failures are like economic stress like unemployment or inflation. They are just one contributing factor which humans use to make choices.Report
EE8
Count me in Team Pipeline big time.
But as the article mentions, you can’t expect infrastructure to be eternal. Repair/replace is not sexy, but it saves lives and the environment.
Having said that, 50 years old pipelines have paid themselves several times over. It’s only the weak/disjointed regulatory environment we have that does mot enforce repair/replace into what are ,de jure and the facto, concessions to use public rights of way -and impose externalities- for private benefit.Report
Speaking of energy, Ryan is apparently out of it and not seeking re-election. This raises the question of can Republicans stop Nehlen?Report
I was just wondering that myself.
I assume that, given the nature of his district, they can get somebody to run since it should still be safe even with an open seat.
If not, gleep.Report
At this point, would they even want to?
Seriously, I think they are like Roger Rabbit hiding behind the wall, while people like Nehlen, Spencer, and Milo keep tapping, “Shave and a haircut…Shave and a haircut…“Report
It would be a nightmare for them if he were nominated, a bigger one if he were elected.
I know I’m always falling all over myself to defend the Republican Party, but this really would be a bridge too far for them, if only for purely political considerations.Report
I’m not the least bit worried about Nehlen. It’s too safe an R district not to attract some solid candidates and Nehlen got his ass handed to him last time around. Ward and Arpaio benefit from running for a seat likely lost (or, at best, competitive in November). McDaniel benefits from having nearly won before. Nehlen has neither of those dynamics favoring him.Report
I don’t know if it is that safe an R district. Solid since the mid-1990s but it elected Democrats before that. Also from what I’ve heard Bryce was polling six points behind Ryan but that is a difference that could be overcome by November with the right combination of hard work and luck.Report
Yeah, “safe” is probably overselling it in the volatile 2018 environment. But unlike Arizona and various other districts the Republican would be the favorite.Report
That was my thought too, but I have too many bad memories [1] of ludicrous Republicans winning primaries for what should have been winnable seats.
Now, none of had been banned from Gab for doxxing a fellow neo-Nazi [2], and I can’t imagine the GOP at both the state and national level won’t be going all out to stop him. And that should be more than enough.
But I’m not going to totally rest easy until we know a bad-within-normal-tolerances Republican has been nominated on June 2.
[1] Prior to November 2016, they were good memories. But I’ve learned. I’ve definitely learned.
[2] The kinds of things I find myself writing these days.Report
There was a time when I would have made the same comments about Trump, or Roy Moore, or Todd Akin, or Sharon Angle, or Christine McDonnell, when the phrase “National Security Director John Bolton” would have produced guffaws, when “The President announced a major policy initiative on Twitter today..” was a punchline not a headline.
Again, the center of gravity of the Republican Party is found at Gateway Pundit. If Nehlen can get the endorsement of Jim Hoft, he will be their standard bearer.Report
7He ran against Paul “The Establishment” Ryan and lost by 70 points two years ago with full access to Twitter and with Breitbart at his back. He has since lost Twitter and was disowned by Breitbart and he even got kicked off Gab.
I’m more worried about Sheriff Clarke than I am Nehlen and I don’t even think Clarke is going to run.
He’s less Moore ’17 or Akin’ 12 and more Duke ’17. Report
And here is how reprehensible he is:
https://medium.com/@notcolloquial/paul-nehlen-nazi-ideology-on-the-republican-ticket-fcad9438499cReport
See, there was that post a while back whose author I forget, about how the Republican party has morphed into a full revolutionary party where there is no legitimate opposition or extreme boundary.
There isn’t a group of elders who are carefully negotiating the various interests and shepherding the policy positions to a political majority.
What they are now are Jacobins where the passion of the mob is what sets the agenda. When I said Jim Hoft was their kingmaker I meant it.
Bloggers, radio show hosts, Fox personalities; these are the people who set the agenda now and the passion of the mob is not to build something but to burn something down.
When your goal is to burn it all down, there is no “too extreme”. It isn’t necessary for them to actually believe in some ideology or another, all someone has to do to earn the vote of the Republican base is to demonstrate enough rage and hate at the enemy.Report
I sometimes wonder if Nehlen feels like he’s been lied to. I can construct a narrative that he looked around and believe that there was no “too far” and went full Nazi.
The more likely explanation is that he actually believes what he’s saying.
In either case, indications are that he actually discovered “Too Extreme”, or joined David Duke there.Report
Though I agree that they should be able to recruit a State Senator or something by June 1.Report
I’m just afraid said State Senator will turn out to be five marmots in a trench coat on the Wednesday before the election.Report
I laughed- hard.Report
Well good riddance. I mean the randian weasel got his tax cut through so Newt probably can sit comfortable in the knowledge that his title of most ineffectual speaker is safe but still, good riddance.Report
EE6: Voters r dum and will happily support a carbon tax if you convince them that rich oil executives will be the ones paying it. Then when the taxes are passed on in the form of higher prices, they’ll blame said rich oil executives, creating support for even higher taxes on fossil fuels.
Pretty cynical, but they’re not wrong.Report