> I hope you are right that this isn's worth worrying about, but I'm not
> convinced.
>
> mt
>
I agree with Fernbach that reactionary backlash underpinned by financial
self-interest is to be expected. However, I'm perceiving that acceptance of
AGW is rapidly going mainstream, and with a fairly certain shift in US
balance of power back to Democrats, the hard-core AGW denialists are likely
to lose relevance.
What worries me more is the next wave of denialism by entrenched ideologues
that is likely to further delay progress toward atmospheric stabilization of
GHG. We can see the swell of the next wave forming already on the horizon,
from your cite (Chait's article "Why the right goes nuclear over global
warming" in the LA Times:) "In reality, nuclear plants may be a small part
of the answer, but you couldn't build enough to make a major dent."
The emissions scenarios in the TAR agree on a consensus of sorts:
stabilization by 2100 cannot be achieved without at least six times more
nuclear power plants than exist today. That seems to me to be more than "a
small part" of the answer, although I quite agree that it is not the whole
answer: it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for stabilization.
Parsing the next phrase, "you couldn't build enough to make a major dent",
begs the question, "why not?" Building 50 plants per year for 50 years
would achieve the minimum inventory as indicated in the TAR stabilization
scenarios. That is a rate of construction that is somewhat higher than the
maximum historical rate of 30 per year achieved in the 1970s, but certainly
not impossible in a world that is building 150 coal plants per year.
So now appearing in the Op-Ed pages we have a new rhetorical distraction
from what must be done, and overcoming the next ideological obstacle will
also require honest hard work, as did the first. Coal mine owners and
miners' unions alike resist GW, and also NP. Let's hope we get past it
within a decade or two, the clock is ticking.
-dl
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