Re: global warming is b/s? nice hatchet job

[Rich Kulawiec <rsk () gsp org>]

On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 12:31:24PM -0700, Tomas L. Byrnes wrote:
> Let's build lots of nuclear reactors, and go to electric cars and
> delivery vans, with bio-diesel for heavy carriage, off road, boats, and
> work trucks/towing.

Speaking as a physicist (although my focus was E&M and QM, not nuclear
and/or particle physics): no, please.  It will take too long, it's not
a global solution (nor is that desirable in the case of politically
unstable countries), it's too expensive and there are way too many
people with bad intentions strolling around who lack only fissionable
raw materials to get started building something very unpleasant.
(And of course there's TMI: I happened to be inside a nuclear power
plant that day and found it a unique vantage point from which to
observe the proceedings.  There was some...concern, to say the least.)

The best answer to this problem is the simplest and the one that
nobody wants to hear: use less.  For example: there isn't the
slightest reason for any security conference to happen, per se.
There's no need to heat/cool a meeting place, no need to expend
jet fuel/gasoline/diesel transporting people to it, etc.  It's
completely possible to do the entire thing virtually -- and while
that also uses some energy, of course, it's far less.

s/security/NANOG/
s/security/IETF/
s/security/ACM/
s/security/IEEE/
etc.

We're among the most net-literate people on the planet, and yet
we've failed to use it to maximum advantage and thus reduce our
energy consumption.

Just one example, of course, but there are many others.  We just
don't *want* to make changes, creatures of habit that we are.  So
instead of phasing out the obsolete notion of "business travel" a
decade ago when the Internet made it possible to do so, we've continued
to waste money, time and energy on it.  We turn our major cities
into gridlock twice a day five days a week because "telecommute" is
still a scary unknown to so many ignorant fools.  And in order to
fuel all this, we rip the tops off mountains in Appalachia and make
highly dubious deals with repressive governments or their proxies.

"A hard rain's a-gonna fall."

---Rsk
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