Billions for Climate Change

[Gregg]

I wear my seatbelt because I wanted my kids to wear theirs so made an "if you will, I will" pact with them. The reason it was important to me is because I believe that for every person who dies in a crash because of being restricted by a belt there are hundreds that are saved by them. Those are simply odds worth playing in my world. I look at climate change much the same way. The evidence that we are warming up is strong enough to convince me that we are. The evidence that the trend is the result of human endeavors is a bit more subjective. So? It is 100% accepted that burning fossil fuels releases any number of volatile, toxic and carcinogenic substances into the environment. That's reason enough for me to work to lower my impact and to support the efforts of others to do the same. Its just playing the odds that less poison in the world would be better than more. If it helps slow the warming trend as well, so much the better.

[Williamsmith]

With my last car, I successfully turned off the seat belt warning beep through an odd series of pressing unrelated buttons a specific number of times and in a particular order. I then enjoyed approximately 5 years of noiseless driving. But, then I was noticed by a young member of the State Police who stopped me for failing to use my turn signal while sitting in a right-hand turn only lane (in my state a driver cannot be stopped for a seatbelt violation only, another violation must be present). The seat belt violation cost me $150.
I turned my seat belt warning system back on that evening. The only thing it protects is my wallet.

The Ohio Highway Patrol is notorious for following the letter of the law and having little regard for what I would call the spirit of the law. I always attributed this to the difference between a Highway Patrol and a State Police. A Highway Patrolman has only one thing on his/her mind....traffic safety. A Trooper In a State Police organization is interested mainly in getting from point A to point B as fast as possible. No time for burnt out headlights, seat beat infractions, items hanging from mirrors and the like. You stand a far greater chance getting a warning from a State Police Trooper than you do a Highway Patrol Trooper. You stand no chance in Ohio, they don't give out warnings.

[LDAHL]

My mother's father was a Chicago Fireman from the forties through the sixties. Some things he saw made him an absolute zealot on the subject of seat belts. All his kids wore them, and all his grandchildren were pretty much indoctrinated from birth to wear them.

He was also fanatically opposed to real Christmas trees, insisting that it would be safer to soak the couch in gasoline and hope for the best. Remember those white aluminum trees? That's what we had.

[Williamsmith]

Is it time to reinvest in a proven clean energy solution .........Nuclear power plants? Clearly current nuclear technology could help achieve the goals set out by this agreement. Let's put the money in a proven technology. No need to downgrade our standard of living. Or is an act of contrition part of the religion?

[bae]

My mother's father was a Chicago Fireman from the forties through the sixties. Some things he saw made him an absolute zealot on the subject of seat belts.

In my infinite spare time, I do vehicular extrications after auto accidents. I have never pulled a corpse out of a car that had a fastened seat belt. I have had to spend an hour to find ejected ...bits... of occupants that were not wearing belts. I carry a thermal imaging camera now to help find them faster, works pretty well before they cool down to ambient temperature.

So wear your seat belts, OK?

[Ultralight]

Is it time to reinvest in a proven clean energy solution .........Nuclear power plants? Clearly current nuclear technology could help achieve the goals set out by this agreement. Let's put the money in a proven technology. No need to downgrade our standard of living. Or is an act of contrition part of the religion?

1. What happens when one malfunctions in a major way?

2. My concern about this, besides a major malfunction, is the idea that we would not have to lower our standard of living. What we do with the energy is as important as how we get that energy. Do we use it to power factories that build SUVs or do you use it to power hospitals? See what I mean?

[Ultralight]

In my infinite spare time, I do vehicular extrications after auto accidents. I have never pulled a corpse out of a car that had a fastened seat belt. I have had to spend an hour to find ejected ...bits... of occupants that were not wearing belts. I carry a thermal imaging camera now to help find them faster, works pretty well before they cool down to ambient temperature.

So wear your seat belts, OK?

Amen, bother!

[Williamsmith]

1. What happens when one malfunctions in a major way?

2. My concern about this, besides a major malfunction, is the idea that we would not have to lower our standard of living. What we do with the energy is as important as how we get that energy. Do we use it to power factories that build SUVs or do you use it to power hospitals? See what I mean?

I spent my childhood and and teen years in the shadow of a major nuclear power plant. If you throw out the Chernobyl accident as an extreme outlier made disastrous by failed management, then you have a record of relative safety compared to the benefit of use as a tool to overcome the imminent and completely certain doom of climate change.

If nuclear power is adopted as the central prong in a three pronged approach to righting the ship of fossil fuel reliance and the other two prongs are a conglomerate of all the other alternative renewable methods plus a gradual reduction of energy usage or increase in energy efficiency wouldn't that make more sense than forcing an implausible solution of worldwide use of all renewable energies coupled with decreases in fossil fuel usage none of which will be accepted and all of which will ensure nothing is accomplished. The world will continue on its fossil fuel binge assuredly. Nuclear will provide a foreseeable way out for everyone.

[Gregg]

Standardization should also be a key in a nuclear future. If every plant had the same design all the parts and all the people could interchange. There should also be a pretty significant net gain in the quality of the response in the event of an incident. Our current system of (almost) every plant having a unique design IS a recipe for disaster. I believe France gets close to 80% of their power from nuclear and that it is standardized proving that it can be done.

Conservation is just as key as where power comes from. What goes to heating/cooling/lighting buildings dwarfs the 1,000 mile salads of the world. Things as simple as more efficient architecture not only reduce the demand they improve the quality of the interior environment. Sunlight shining into an office and on to a concrete floor can not only replace electric lights it can condition the space during the day and then overnight as heat is radiated back from the slab (the thermal battery). The indigenous folks in the desert southwest did essentially the same thing centuries ago and it worked really well. Its cool inside a pueblo during the day when its 110* outside and its warm at night when its 40*. Just one more example of how and why we should include indigenous cultures and traditions with our new technology...

[JaneV2.0]

The notorious Hanford nuclear installation has been leaking radioactive water for years; it may have reached the Columbia River by now. And we live in an active fault zone, so Fukushima lives large. I would consider nuclear power a last resort--at least around here.