President Neelix threatens to pull California wildfire money

[Darth Wedgius]

I've lived in California a log time, and I've gone out on the deck to tan in January. The hottest it was round here in 2017 was spring, not summer. If you want to point the finger at global warming you need to look at longer-term temperatures than one specific incident.

I believe in anthropogenic global warming, just like I believe smoking makes lung cancer more likely, but a heavy smoker can get lung cancer for reasons independent of smoking.

[Yukaphile]

We really need to switch over to alternate energy. Though good luck getting past the big oil companies to start doing that. I feel jealous of all the progress other countries are making. And then you get ignorant people here who are terrified of solar panels thinking it will give you cancer... somehow. Why that? If you're going to be so ridiculously blind to both facts and science, why not take the full leap of faith into the land of fiction and believe that it will give you superpowers like Superman has?

[Antiboyscout]

We really need to switch over to alternate energy. Though good luck getting past the big oil companies to start doing that. I feel jealous of all the progress other countries are making. And then you get ignorant people here who are terrified of solar panels thinking it will give you cancer... somehow. Why that? If you're going to be so ridiculously blind to both facts and science, why not take the full leap of faith into the land of fiction and believe that it will give you superpowers like Superman has?

China is the country that has brought more solar capacity online than any other. They are also not only the largest producer of CO2 they have also had the largest increases in production year after year.

The US, despite having dropped out of the Paris Accords, has reduced its CO2 output more than any other country in the last few years.

As for Europe, Spain, the country with the "best" solar potential, had some of the biggest increases in CO2 emissions.

[Yukaphile]

OMFG... are you seriously going to start trying to claim that clean and free energy is going to increase global warming and climate change? Not the, you know, actual fossil fuels that we're still using? Bet you believe solar panels cause cancer too. Hey, why not go stand near one? You're wrong, you know. They'll actually give you superpowers from our yellow sun.

[cilantro]

I can vouch for this. My mom says in Minnesota, when she was a child in the 1950s? It got to be -40, -50 F temperature wise. Nowadays it only gets -20 F at its most unbearable. What does that tell you?

Last February where I was, we had roughly two weeks of the temps being in 40s-50s. Totally not normal.

[Antiboyscout]

OMFG... are you seriously going to start trying to claim that clean and free energy is going to increase global warming and climate change? Not the, you know, actual fossil fuels that we're still using? Bet you believe solar panels cause cancer too. Hey, why not go stand near one? You're wrong, you know. They'll actually give you superpowers from our yellow sun.

Have you seen a Chinese solar panel factory? Do you know how much toxic runoff they create? Do you know what chemicals go into making a solar panel? The heavy metals inside can and will leak out given enough time. Not to mention the stripmineing used to get those materials in the first place. same problem with batteries.

[Antiboyscout]

OMFG... are you seriously going to start trying to claim that clean and free energy is going to increase global warming and climate change? Not the, you know, actual fossil fuels that we're still using? Bet you believe solar panels cause cancer too. Hey, why not go stand near one? You're wrong, you know. They'll actually give you superpowers from our yellow sun.

Base load is the problem. Wind is intermittent and the sun doesn't shine at night, so how do you get constant power at all times? The more renewable power fluctuates the larger the base load needs to be. This leads to wasted power production.

The bigger problem is that Europe is not good for solar but they keep building anyway. It's too north and too cold with too much rain. It's a waste.

The biggest problem is the lack of natural gas. It's no coincidence that when sanctions on Russia were started, Europe started failing it its climate goals. Petroleum has done far more to to reduce CO2 output than anything Renewables have done.

[Yukaphile]

... the sun doesn't shine at night... that is seriously the argument you are going to be using... that we should stick to fossil fuels, which are going to eventually run out... because the sun goes down at night... hrrrnnn...

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Yuka, don't bother with him. He's certain that the truth is whatever Mr. Neelix says it is.

[Yukaphile]

You know, I was trying to find that hilarious, over-the-top sketch Lewis Black had ten or so years ago with the "Red, White and Screwed" HBO special where he went on that long spiel about solar energy, that we can't use it because of precisely the argument this guy unironically uses. The sun goes down at night. Because it's "too hard." "Makes me wanna go poopy." Top-notch comedy. Alas, couldn't find it.

Still, throw in wind turbines, and geothermal and even water power to supplement solar energy, and there you go. Fossil fuels are going to run out. Even if you want to ignore how badly fracking is fucking up the planet and our own country, whatever. That is only a brief extension, and not a guarantee - because a finite resource won't last forever. And hell, if the debt wasn't so high with the GOP slashing essential services and giving tax breaks to the super rich, then maybe we could fund research into alternate energy besides wind, solar, water, and geothermal? My God, think of the possibilities! I don't get how it's possible to be this IGNORANT.