Solar project to destroy thousands of Joshua trees in the Mojave Desert
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/solar-project-destroy-thousands-joshua-100000768.html
It’s crazy to me that a destructive photovoltaic solar project like this one is considered reasonable, but a new nuclear power plant within or adjacent to a city is beyond the pale.
- Fukushima
- Chernobyl
- Threre Mile IslandReasons why a new nuclear power plant within or adjacent to a city is beyond the pale.
The whole article reads like a few locals had time on their hands and maybe in the case of the high school teacher, needed a cause to make himself feel important (some teachers are like that, they got into teaching just so they could impose their beliefs on others. Everybody talks about the damage bad cops do, but no one talks about teachers unless they have gone the route of certain notorious priests). There has never been a major project of any kind that didn’t make someone upset but in the grand scheme of things I think the benefits of this one will outweigh the downsides, however if I lived in the area I might feel differently. But at least a solar project is not going to make the land for hundreds of square miles uninhabitable for years to come.
Funny thing is that when I went to read that article, a couple artices down was an article about how Japan and Norway are still killing whales (https://ca.news.yahoo.com/japan-determined-keep-hunting-whales-210015567.html). I would be a whole lot more upset about that that the loss of a few trees in the desert. What I don’t get is why if they are so concerned about the trees, the government down there didn’t require that they be transplanted rather that simply cut down. There are these big machines called tree spades that can transplant fairly latge trees, roots and all from one place to another. Let the compllaining residents take a tree or two in their yards, then move the rest to another location in the desert.
Uncritically lumping Chernobyl in with TMI and fukushima loses you all credibility.
Chernobyl, where a critically mismanaged and politically nigh guaranteed failed emergency response to a similarly guaranteed foreseen design failure leading to hundreds of thousands of dosed people across all of Europe
… Compared to events largely which have had no detectable radiological health effects on non workers anywhere.
The nuclear industry is far and away the safest and most scrutinized of any industry, try to be honest when you’re making arguments.
The reason people don’t want to put nuclear facilities in convenient places is paranoia.
Complaining about Joshua trees for this is somewhat silly, it’s not one or the other, but the environmental impact is worth discussing.
@Umbrias @SirBoostALot @usa The Joshua trees are relevant because it’s an indictment of the system that produces the incentives that make destroying a forest of them a good business plan. We have the technology to safely generate plenty of reliable, clean electricity nearby to where people will use it. Instead, we go out into the desert and then pick one of the worst spots in the desert just to cheaply conjure up some renewable energy credits and call it good for the environment. It’s sickening.
@fathermcgruder @Umbrias @usa And where I disagree with you vehemently is on the “safely” part. I don’t want to live anywhere near a nuclear power plant, and I think a lot of people feel the same way. I know you believe that Chernobyl and Fukushima were one off disasters that could not possibly happen in North America, but if you are wrong a whole lot of people could die very painful deaths, or very slow and painful deaths depending on the exposure level.
The Joshua trees are kind of a red herring; they are only incidental to the issue, and honestly few people actually care about them except perhaps those living in that area (and I’m not saying that is a good thing, but I’m just saying that most people would not think them a very desirable tree). We can have cheap, safe energy from the sun and wind but some people don’t like that and would prefer to take the chance of exposing potentially millions of people to radiation sickness. THAT is what is sickening.
By the way, do you have any financial interest in, or are you employed by the nuclear power industry? There are not that many people who want to see more nuke plants built so I’m wonder what your reasons are for being so pushy about this.
@SirBoostALot @Umbrias @usa I have no affiliation with the nuclear power industry. I just think global warming is an important problem that cannot be solved by wind and solar power. The risks associated with nuclear power are very small and completely outweighed by the benefits.
The Joshua trees are not a red herring. Their sacrifice is completely unnecessary and it exemplifies the insanity of our clean energy policies.
@fathermcgruder @Umbrias @usa I have no idea why you think global warming cannot be solved by wind and solar power, at least in part, and I especially don’t know why you keep insisting that dangerous nuclear fission power plants are a solution - there are MANY people who would disagree with you on that. At this point we are just talking in circles and it is clear we will never agree so if you think you are going to somehow talk me into agreeing with you, you could not be more wrong. So let it drop here, or else annoy me once more and I’ll just block you, but honestly I think you are just so wrong in your beliefs. The only thing we might ever agree on is that more effort should have been made to save the trees, but while that may seem really important to you, it’s not something that will cause me to lose any sleep. I’d actually be far more concerned about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest but there is nothing I can do about that either.
When I wwas in elementary school, there was a very large sand dune that was visible from my house. But a sand mining company had been taking it down by bit for years. There was one teacher at the elementary school I attended that was REALLY upset about that, in her mind it was terrible that they were destroying this dune and no one was doing anything about it. So she got the kids involved in writing letters to legislators and such, but the problem was she was the only one who cared that much. We kids certainly didn’t, the legislators didn’t, and of course the sand mine owners and employees weren’t paying a bit of attention to her and thought she was a kook. So, do you know what happened? They completely removed that dune, all but about the bottom 50 feet of it. And then they moved on and started mining other sand accumulations in the area, wherever they could get property rights.
I always wondered how that teacher felt at the end of her life, knowing she had raged against something she could not change and that almost no one else cared about. I wonder if she ever realized that many of her students thought she was a little crazy. I’m telling you this because I fear you are going down that path. People care about the Amazon rainforest. People care about majestic forests of spruces and pines. Almost no one outside of a few local people cares about a bunch what what many would call scrub trees. And maybe they are underestimating the value of those trees, that’s certainly possible, but it sounds like this project has already received all the necessary approvals so all your rage is very unlikely to stop it, and it will just make you bitter. I suggest, to paraphrase the old poem, that you have the wisdom to understand that there are some things you cannot change and that you accept that and move on to try to make a difference in ways where more people will support your efforts.
@SirBoostALot @Umbrias @usa Once again you are missing the point about the trees. They are not being harvested. They are being cleared away to make room for a PV solar plant that could go in any other sunny location. I do not personally care very much about them, but they are part of a special piece of wilderness that is being destroyed for no good reason. As for nuclear power safety and importance, here is a good article to help you find some perspective: https://earth.org/nuclear-which-is-the-safest-energy-source/#:~:text=A%202013%20study%20commissioned%20by,fuels%20from%20entering%20into%20the
Again fukushima had no radiation related health impacts to non workers. Not “millions of people”, the worst case for that plant happened, and still no radiation poisoning.
@Umbrias So the lives of the workers were totally meaningless to you. Well they were not meaningless to their wives and children, or to theie friends and other family members. It is a terrible lie to say there was no radiation poisoning; workers there got radiation poisoning. That is not something that should happen to anyone, and it is not a risk that any worker should have to accept just to hold a job.
Also, I suspect that all the effects haven’t manifested yet. As the people that were in the vicinity of that plat get older I would not be surprised to see “cancer clusters” form. Of course we may never know, particularly if the Japanese government is complicit in burying the actual effects,
Radiation related effects among workers was not high. Additionally, radiation workers do accept higher risk of dose due to direct financial benefit. A few workers received clinical doses of radiation, while the vast majority received much less than the alara linear no threshold exposure limits. You are at greater risk increase in general from things like working in a grocery store, or working a construction site, or any other industrial plant, than really any nuclear worker has of radiation poisoning. It’s hilariously dishonest and misinformed with how paranoid folks are about radiation. Hilariously radiation workers generally receive less dose than the general public because they work in buildings with large amounts of voicers, metal, and incidental shielding!
The general public around fukushima is more likely to get cancer from red meat than they are from the fukushima event.
Regardless, fukushima and Chernobyl are entirely incomparable.
