Various political observations recently

Sorry Draginol, while you definitely have a point re the scientists, that point about MPG is just silly. I did not choose to be posted to the school I was given. However, I did choose to buy a fuel efficient car for that very reason. In fact it was all the right wing thought on JU that made me think about how I could exercise my capitalist power to make a difference, rather than doing silly things like chaining myself to trees. This, along with parking and riding when possible, are the two main ways I do this. Expecting people to just up and move house to fit in with their job is one of the most unpractical suggestions I have ever heard from a right winger.

People do this all the time.  It is not uncommon for people to move to accommodate a job change, but I think you're missing the point.  The point is that even though being demonized by this lady for driving an SUV, in actuality she is using more fuel than he is.  And when the option is presented to her to change the situation, it becomes an insurmountable obstacle for her.  So, it's OK to suggest someone get a new hybrid car (and all the environmental costs of manufacturing said car), but it is not OK to suggest that someone move closer to where they work, even to the point where they may not have to drive to work at all?  This seems a little one sided to me.  If your primary concern is really to help the environment, and not just to feel good about thinking that you helped the environment, then such a request shouldn't be so bothersome.

To bring another side to this, I'd also like to point out that fuel efficient does not necessarily mean environmentally friendly.  If you drive a hybrid car, say a gas/electric, you also have to factor in the environmental cost of adding that load on your power gird.  And if you live in an area where your power is generated by coal plants, what is the environmental result of having to burn that much more coal?  Similarly, what are the costs in manufacturing hydrogen fuel cells, or having farmers grow more corn for E85 rather than more sustainable crops?

On a final note, I'd like to play devils advocate and note that if Draginol did drive a 40MPG vehicle, he'd only be using a little over a gallon a week rather than one every 3 days .  Still better than my old Buick though.  I need a new car.

How is it silly CS?

If you want to outlaw SUVs and tell me how bad I am for owning one, don't turn around and start trying to make excuses as to why you burn far more gallons of gas than I do.

I don't expect anyone to move. But I'm not the one who was advocating that SUVs should be illegal.

It's not that practical to try and make people only travel a certain number of miles to work since there are a scarce number of houses close to the main work locations, so some people will have to be further away (typically those who are poorer and so can't afford to pay much more for the convenience of a shorter travel to work). However it is far more feasible to require people to reduce their emissions per mile traveled, since it is possible for everyone to do it, and there aren't such great regressive effects (that is you can get fairly cheap cars with low emissions, while very expensive cars can have high emissions, so the impact isn't mostly on the poor).

The best method though is to just tax the actgual resource in question - rather than trying to make people live much closer to work to use less fuel (doesn't address people using very inefficient cars on short journeys), or make them drive cars that can meet specific efficiency measures to use less fuel (which wouldn't effectively address the issue of people driving very long distances on efficient cars), just make sure everyones interests are more closely focused on efficiency regardless of the distance they drive by making the fuel more expensive (ideally by an amount roughly equal to the damage it is thought to cause).

That is a little bit prejudiced insofar as you outright deny the usefulness of the breeding pattern of fruitflies in comparison for something that is useful in developing new materials and technology. Those are different fields of research and will have different usage later on anyway. I don't think that stating what sort of political belief a researcher has contributes anything meaningful in a debate unless you mean to say that liberal scientists "waste" their time with uselss stuff (things that can't be turned into a profit right away) and that conservative scientists only have the promise of profit spurning them on. While this may be true for some, I very much doubt that this division is mainly a political one. I like humanities - not very useful in a capitalist sense - but nevertheless important. Research shouldn't be valued alone based on how much profit you can make, it is increasing knowledge in all different areas of science that is important, wanting to understand the universe and everything in it better. 

People in Germany pay more for gas than in the US, so driving an SUV would be really expensive and that is why cars that have very proficient motors which use very little gas are popular. Being environmentally conscious is only a bonus in that, because you need a car to be able to have a life (unless you live in a big city with a good public transportation system). And a big car is better protection in accidents, and if I had a family that would be  my immidiate main concern, not the environment.

Sure, it's more feasible to just ban cars we don't like. But we're not talking about what's feasible. We're talking about what would actually be materially beneficial for reducing emissions.

For example, the lady I was debating with objects to higher gas taxes because she has to drive so many miles.  But wouldn't THAT be the most feasible thing to do? Just greatly increase the cost of gas and let people figure out ways on an individual basis?

So why is she and other liberals against increasing the gas tax but want to ban SUVs? Because it makes THEM feel good about themselves. See, they "care". Even though it wouldn't actually do anything helpful for the environment.

Like you said, the best solution would be to tax gas more. A lot more.  IF your goal is to really reduce emissions.  

What it boils down to is that activist environmentalists are willing to enact laws that stifle someone else's lifestyle but not their own. I have an SUV because I use it. It would negatively impact my lifestyle to not have it. 

But don't tell me that this lady has to live 30 miles away from work.  Think about that distance.  The reason she won't move closer is that it would cramp her lifestyle. She'd have to get a smaller house or wouldn't be able to have as much land.   However they want to spin it, it still boils down to her not wanting HER lifestyle negatively impacted but she's perfectly happy to crimp my lifestyle to make herself feel good.

My SUV is a German vehicle. (BMW X5).

How is it prejudice to argue that both types of research should be counted as "scientists"?

You're totally flipping the argument backward here.  

A Pew Research survey goes out and interviews a bunch of university researchers, while excluding researchers in the commercial realm and surprise surprise, those university researchers are mostly Democrats.

Left wing journalists then proceed to trumpet this highly biased statistic as "proof" that Democrats are the party of reason and logic while Republicans are really just a bunch of red neck, creation supporting witch burners.

I didn't understand the statement  the same way you did.. I tried to remember the name of the senator (Bob Dole? I think it was in the 80ies) that pushed a bill on how universities have to patent their research findings or they can't sell them to make money. Everything is pretty much profit oriented because the universities and other scientific institutions have to patent their findings in order to get funds (but this is just what I vaguely remember from doing research on the FDA a few years back).  It might have changed in the meantime. Everything is profit oriented, democrat or republican doesn't really matter in research where it is always about hard cash, either from the results or in needed funds to do the research. Just one good result into the research of a new drug can make enough profit to make all the other research that yielded nothing useable worth while.

Oh Draginol, at it again I see!

You bring up a good point, but I think one that can be clarified. 9 times out of 10, the fellow working for a software company or in the private sector is an -engineer- not a scientist. And as society and technology become more and more complicated there are, absolutely grey areas where it can be hard to distinguish between the two.

VERY broadly speaking, scientists are subject to peer review while engineers generally are not, or if they are it's on a voluntary basis.... Scientist comes up with a new theory or model they have to publish it in a journal and have it dissected to stand up to scrutiny.... engineer comes up with a new doohickey for Omni Consumer Products (just watched Robocop, which BTW is a timeless classic) and it will be kept under lock and key until new units are rolling off the production line and the patent's taken care of, blah blah blah.

The natural order of things goes: technician/technologist, engineer, scientist. All of them are critical to keeping society running although all of them will secretely think they are the most important.

1) Scientist comes up with fucked up, abstract concept

2) Engineer takes fucked up, abstract concept and tries to turn it into a practical application

3) Technician gets fucked up new device from engineer and says "I have to make this work?!?"

4) Windows Vista is the result.... hyuck hyuck

Well, to be honest I drive a Jeep Liberty which is TERRIBLE on gas mileage. However, I usually only drive it once or twice a week to get groceries and the like. On average, I drive it just under 3,000 miles per year which aint too bad if you ask me!

Don't forget the inventors!

The Pew survey was done in conjunction with the AAAS, which publishes Science and has about a million subscribers. As Pew uses modern polling methods, and there's almost certainly engineers with subscriptions to Science/memberships in AAAS, I suspect there was a representative sample of computer scientists in the survey. Caveat - I couldn't find the actual methodology, so if you have, we'd have a better picture.

She might not be able to - I couldn't afford to live much closer to my work. Property in the city/around Parliament House costs a fortune and the rents are insane too. But you're right overall - the key to reducing usage is to increase the price of consumables. It worked when petrol prices rocketed just before the GFC. Usage went down until the oil producers realised what they'd done and lowered prices again.

It works for smoking so there's no reason it wouldn't work for fuel.

There is another wrinkle to this, and not a 'good' one.

With some notable exceptions (I can't pass through the cost of providing health insurance to my employees - the 'prices' I can charge are fixed by third parties, so I guess that makes me something of an altruist), the cost of employer-paid health insurance premiums is passed along to the consumer in the form of a higher price for goods or services.  Meaning more than just the covered 88% are actually 'paying in' as you say.  This makes the argument for singletax-payer even more untenable as you'd be going from somewhere well north of 90% of people effectively 'paying in' down to that 60%.  Of course, what singletax-payer advocates don't or won't say is that the 60% figure will itself move significantly north once a singletax-payer system is implemented - the 60% of us currently paying taxes can't come close to funding it, the money just isn't there.

I use public transport.

I walk to the train stop and take the train.

If more Americans did that rather than drive cars and complain about those who "don't care", that would be an option in more American cities as well. (Don't tell me you don't have public transportation in your city. Build it. That would an excellent starting point for those who "care" about the environment.)

I have run into people at work who chastised me for not worrying about global warming and who drive to work every day even though they live even closer to the office than I.

Some switch off their computer screens before the drive home to save energy.

You know what? Tax petrol.

Tax petrol such that all the bad effects can be paid for out of that tax and then let people wonder how to use less of it to save money.

Unfortunately that system would actually help the environment and not just transfer money from one group to another. Environmentalists are often just socialists in a new dress.

I think perhaps a higher proportion of engineers than scientists are Republicans.

Doers are often Republicans, "thinkers" are often Democrats.

Scientists obviously support whichever side is willing to invest (other people's) money into research that might lead to nothing. Republicans tend to vote against these things. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong.

Lawyers are also predominantly Democrats. Does this mean that Democrats are both scientifically brilliant and notorious ambulance chasers? What scientists and lawyers have in common is a need for large amounts of other people's money which those other people are not willing to give to them voluntarily.

Cities generally do have public transportation.  It also generally sucks.  Were I to use the bus system in my city to commute to my university, it would take me nearly two hours to get there, one way.  Driving my car, it takes me 10-12 minutes.

Telling us to "build it" sounds all and good, but as they say, easier said than done.

I personally am one of those demons who "doesn't care" in every sense of the term.  I guess my problem is that, like Draginol, I seem to be a bit more practical than most environmental activists.
Wind power is stupid, it causes ecological damage far beyond its potential power output.  DDT was outlawed for less cause.
Fuel cells are stupid.  Their manufacture creates far more CO2 and other pollutants than they save over their lifetime.
Ethanol is stupid.  Emissions are just as bad, but instead of oil, we use corn and sugar cane.  What's the point?

Speaking of alternate fuels, if people wanted to save the environment, they would use electric plug-in cars without exception.  But they don't, because they worry that the more limited driving range will harm their lifestyle.  I believe you're absolutely right about the activists, Draginol - they want change, but only if it doesn't affect them.

I guess I'm a demon because I have a hard time taking the environment seriously when even the tree-huggers are unconcerned by its "peril."

Oh, and as for the whole engineer/scientist debate, everyone should consider the fact that many engineers can also be scientists.  Whether or not someone is a scientist is not determined by what degree they hold, but what they do.

We all pollute because it is more convenient. That's nothing new.

The question is, how much inconvenience are environmentalists willing to take on themselves to save the environment?

It seems to me like they are only willing to charge other people for their ideals.

Everything is easier said than done. The issue here is that many people tend to talk a lot about the environment but simply aren't willing to spend the money to build the things that would actually help.

Heck, even we here in Ireland managed to build a tram. And the general attitude here is "We don't plan. We review.".

If every treehugger paid 2000 dollars per year into a public transport fund, don't you think public transportation could be improved dramatically at the same scale as we gain new treehuggers?

Public transportation is very good in certain parts of the US and horrible in others. The bay area in California has a solid system (Bart I think), I went from Sacramento to the Airport in San Francisco with the train - very european. But my friends in Sacramento warned me not to take the citybus there - too dangerous.

The east coast is densly populated and has a good public transportation system where alot of people live. But as soon as you live outside on the country side, a suburb or similiar conditions, there won't be public transport. The car is not only a means to go somewhere, it is also part of american culture - freedom of going everywhere you want, and in poorer areas (South) very much needed because you need to be able to move around if you change jobs and cities. I did a survey on countrysongs once for a class and my thesis was that you could find almost every issue of american society today in country songs, most songs are about peoples lives. And many many many songs feature being on the road, roadtrip etc.

The point to all this is that limited range in cars is probably percieved as sth similiar like clipping a the wings of a bird and people can't afford it when their life situation changes and they have to pack up and leave.

I already tried to make the point about the ethical and moral obligation of protecting the environment, and the common consesus here seems to be that the economy is more important and that activists are only nuts or almost terrorists which in turn makes their demands sound almost like extortion. The question is really if man can afford to brush this "issue" (environment) off as "crazy" and unnceccessary. And just to say this once more, environmental issues are NOT limited to global warming, there are a enough other issues that are a threat, or can be a threat, like pollution in all its forms, nuclear power - how secure are your plants? The US has over 100 nuclear power plants - what do you do with the nuclear waste? How much more uranium is there anyway, I read that is a very limited resources in itself, etc pp.

Well, looking at nuclear power as an environmental hazard is quite silly.  Nuclear power, per Kh/h of electricity produced, is the safest form of electricty by far, and the cleanest (ecosystem side effects included).  Uranium is not terribly limited, since over 90% (I don't remember the exact number here) of the Earth's crust contains uranium - the problem is finding deposits large enough to mine.

As for nuclear plant security, in the US they're as well guarded as Area 51.  Forget getting into one if you don't belong there.  Also, nuclear power plants don't use enriched uranium as fuel, meaning you couldn't take the fuel and make a bomb from it.  Third, studies on the containment buildings of nuclear reactors have shown that the average nuclear power plant could withstand the equivalent of the 9/11 attacks (both of them) without failing.

But hey, don't take my word for it:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/default.aspx

Your words in gods ear. Right now there is quite a frenzy going on in Germany because a reactor here is constantly having trouble and little accidents. But its all a super nonrisk business, of course! hah.

It is only NOT a healthhazard as long as nothng happens, which you can only guarantee 99%. This wouldn't really be a problem but the remaining 1% could have a pretty huge consequence. I know that the example of Chernobyl has been overused and usually it is argued "well THAT was in backwards USSR, nothing like that could ever happen "here"". Human error is always possible, a stupid accident that nobody could predict is always possible and then a radioactive non-healthhazard would be a non-problem for the next few hundred years.

You conveniently forgot to mention your solution for nuclear waste as well.

I am not lobbying to deactivate all nuclear powerplants, we need energy and as long nothing happens it is the preferred alternative to burning fossil fuels, but it not a foolproof method and people should be aware of the risks and problems. Scientists and technicians and engineers hopefully find another less risky way to generate energy in the future.

You'd be incredibly naive if you truly believe that nuclear power is not dangerous.

Yeah, I mean, really..... that whole notion of that crazy thing called gravity, the earth revolving around the sun and the periodic table, what a bunch of mamby-pamby existential HOGWASH, right!?!

I honestly don't believe that scientists vs engineers have a political inclination either way. Trying to prove one vs the other is often like trying to make a connection between the colour of shirt a person has chosen to wear vs what kind of driver they are behind the wheel... there is no connection!

The true environmentalists practice what they preach. This is true for anything in life. However,  you are painting with very broad brushstrokes here, stereotyping "environmental activists" as city-dwelling, prius driving folks who only want to feel good about themselves instead of enacting any changes.

I know lots of 'environmental activists' who would disagree with you entirely. These are folks who use solar and wind for their homes and grow as much of their food in community collective gardens as possible.... you want to talk about pollution, sit down and calculate how much fuel is burned in shipping your clothes, electronics and food all over the world so we can have our consumerist lifestyle and buy peaches in January from the supermarket!

There's also another kind of environmental activism which often goes unmentioned, and that is community activisim- ensuring that corporations carry out their due dilligence, which is often sorely neglected in the name of profits. This means that say, nearby to your community a mine wanted to set up shop. In order to ensure that the mine isn't going to start pissing cadmium or mercury into your nearby river, local concerned citizens are a key component of the mix.... doing your homework on the company that's moving in, their track record in the past and then actively participating in the civic meetings that occur.

Most folks aren't aware that whenever a mine or other industry opens up that the review boards are open to the public, or, they just don't care enough to attend. A mine loves nothing more than for an empty house in which it's just the local board/council and the company hack, they kill a few hours and the council says "well, no comments from the public so let's pull out the ol' rubber-stamp!"

A great example of when things break down is in Kingsville, Texas. I keep using this example as it still blows me away. Turns out a uranium mining outfit came into the area. Local authority (I think it was a State-level organization) basically rubber-stamped the operation, company cut ALL KINDS of corners in order to get as much mineral out of the ground as fast as possible. This resulted in the water tables getting contaminated, there was a clean up effort but it was way too late at that point.

So, now, you have an entire town that has a pretty much permanently ruined water supply, no joke. That's one town that could have used a few more environmental activists to make life miserable for the mine and things might have turned out differently!

I have used both public transporation and personal vehicle and I can say with little if any worry that I will drive my car when possible over public transportation. Not only is public transportation bad when it comes to timing, it's uncomfortable, it's disgusting, the people on it are inconciderate and it's more inconvenient than useful. BTW, it confuses me a bit but how exactly is public transportation better for the enviroment? Sure 1 bus can carry many people but the damn thing throws more polution than almost anything out there. The same goes for the trains here. I drive my car to work, and then back, a train or a bus drive for several hours a day non stop.

More inconvenient than useful - it probably is to someone who is used to be able to come and go as they please without worrying about bus- and trainschedules. If you had a good public transportation system you'd see the benefits quickly. No need for parking spaces, you can do something else while notdriving and sitting in a train like homework or reading or sleeping. Trust me, good public transportation is a blessing, even if it had nothing to do with environmental issues.

More inconvenient than useful - it probably is to someone who is used to be able to come and go as they please without worrying about bus- and trainschedules. If you had a good public transportation system you'd see the benefits quickly. No need for parking spaces, you can do something else while notdriving and sitting in a train like homework or reading or sleeping. Trust me, good public transportation is a blessing, even if it had nothing to do with environmental issues.

That might be true in some cases but unless you have travelled in the public transportation of New York and South Florida, your concept is but a pipe dream.