SirBoostALot

SirBoostALot, 6 days ago

@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, 4 days ago

@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.