Breaking News January 6th Stop the Steal Rally & Capitol Breaching/Storming

[Bacle]

IIRC the Trump administration tried to restart licensing for Yucca Mountain in 2017 and again in 2018, but it keeps getting killed by Nevada democrats in the Senate and House.

That's because Yucca Mountain was built before they found a hidden fault in the mountain itself, which completely fucked their plans for the storage vault to be impregnable to groundwater/rain water migrating down faults.

Yucca Mountain was fucked by geology, not by politics, and people need to stop acting like shutting it down was a political move.

 

[LindyAF]

I’ll have to do more research on this I guess but I’m pretty sure it was political.

 

[S'task]

However I'll give you an issue I rarely hear anyone in the GOP mention, but which does get play in the center and moderates: plastic garbage build up in the oceans.

Give tax breaks to US ships that go out and haul it back for proper sorting and recycling.

This is not a 'dog and pony show' issue, it's one with real ecological and environmental impact that is measurable and not a smokescreen.

This one runs into the core problem that it's going to remind many on the Right of the issues of being the "world police", the US isn't responsible for that plastic garbage, why should we spend the money and effort to clean it up? From a Conservative perspective, if the US ends up footing the bill for cleanup, all it does is enable the bad actors to continue to pollute and push the cost of cleanup onto the US taxpayers, as why should they change their habits when the US will foot the bill.

Note: I'm not saying it's not an issue, or even that cleaning it up is a bad idea, but I hope you can see why there would be objections to the US being the one to pursue solutions to it.

I'll give you a second example of an area the GOP can improve upon environmentally, and deal with an actual issue that the rad-greens try to monopolize and is in the news now.

Cows in most types of livestock operations fart out a lot of methane compared to background environmental levels. The rad-greens want to get rid of cattle, or drastically reduce their number, to deal with this.

However, there are also studies out their involving feeding cows seaweed/kelp, instead of their normal feed, and they found the amount of methane they produce int their farts dropped a fair bit. So instead of getting rid of cows, we may just need to change their diets a bit, and seaweed is but one potential candidate for that. Seaweed farms aren't a 'new' thing, and increasing production of seaweed will also likely help the sea life in those areas, so it's a bonus in a way, that lets coastal communities help their inland kin and stimulate commerce between them.

This is potentially an area we that is more viable to look at and lacks the free rider problem that cleaning up Ocean plastic waste presents. Though one has to balance things. Is the increased cost to produce beef and milk that this would entail, and subsequent knock on negative effects be counterbalanced by the environmental benefits? If global methane output is dominated by US cattle ranching and us doing this would result in a significant percent of worldwide methane gassing going down it might be a viable thing to concern, but if it's like how we've been looking at CO2, where the greens want draconian quality of life lowering cuts in the US but that results in minimal overall impact on the worldwide output... you run into that problem again.

 

[Bacle]

This one runs into the core problem that it's going to remind many on the Right of the issues of being the "world police", the US isn't responsible for that plastic garbage, why should we spend the money and effort to clean it up? From a Conservative perspective, if the US ends up footing the bill for cleanup, all it does is enable the bad actors to continue to pollute and push the cost of cleanup onto the US taxpayers, as why should they change their habits when the US will foot the bill.

Note: I'm not saying it's not an issue, or even that cleaning it up is a bad idea, but I hope you can see why there would be objections to the US being the one to pursue solutions to it.


This is potentially an area we that is more viable to look at and lacks the free rider problem that cleaning up Ocean plastic waste presents. Though one has to balance things. Is the increased cost to produce beef and milk that this would entail, and subsequent knock on negative effects be counterbalanced by the environmental benefits? If global methane output is dominated by US cattle ranching and us doing this would result in a significant percent of worldwide methane gassing going down it might be a viable thing to concern, but if it's like how we've been looking at CO2, where the greens want draconian quality of life lowering cuts in the US but that results in minimal overall impact on the worldwide output... you run into that problem again.

The issues with free riders is a real one, and you are correct in that if the US does things to clean up or address issues, and the rest of those producing the pollution don't, it won't sell well to the GOP.

This is why I said tax incentives/tax breaks for US businesses that do the environmentally friendly thing is the best route to take to get the GOP onboard. Because then the free rider issue is dealt with a bit; the more other's pollute, the more tax breaks US companies get for helping deal with it, even if the US wasn't the source of the problem.

Doing it via tax break also helps keep money in people's pockets, and thus makes it easier to keep prices low for the costumer on the end of the chain.

As for the cows, it comes down to this, would you:

A) Prefer to pay like 5% more for beef (as a hypotheicial increase in cost due shift in the supply chain) and still have beef available to the normal person on a regular basis?

B) Prefer beef to be as pricey as caviar (for example) and only really accessible to the upper crust of society due to scarcity?

My idea gets you close to A and keeps access to beef for the regular person, where as the rad-green are trying for B or worse.

And do not think 'same old, same old' is a viable long term option, because the rad-green aren't going to stop their attacks on beef any time soon.

 

[LordsFire]

And do not think 'same old, same old' is a viable long term option, because the rad-green aren't going to stop their attacks on beef any time soon.

Rather than proposing a radical transformation of the beef industry that would likely spike prices integer multiples, I have an even more radical idea:

Don't preemptively surrender.

For one who likes to criticize the GOP for not fighting seriously, you're awfully keen on surrendering the narrative to the left the same way they so often and foolishly do.

Instead, why not call the people pushing this crap out for the liars they are, and relentlessly criticize them for trying to ruin public health, make poor people eat like medieval peasants, and generally doing the work of the rich and elite in making what are currently commonly available goods into elite-only luxuries?

 

[Bacle]

Rather than proposing a radical transformation of the beef industry that would likely spike prices integer multiples, I have an even more radical idea:

Don't preemptively surrender.

For one who likes to criticize the GOP for not fighting seriously, you're awfully keen on surrendering the narrative to the left the same way they so often and foolishly do.

Instead, why not call the people pushing this crap out for the liars they are, and relentlessly criticize them for trying to ruin public health, make poor people eat like medieval peasants, and generally doing the work of the rich and elite in making what are currently commonly available goods into elite-only luxuries?

Because the concerns about the environment are not just 'Leftist lies', and you are a fool if you think that.

The fact is we cannot do the 'same old, same old' forever, and having a hand in shaping the changes is better than having changes forced on you without your input or consideration.

Accepting minimally invasive or drastic changes, to keep majoring invasive or drastic changes at bay, is what the Right needs to work for in the environmental realm, instead of thinking they can just go with their status quo response.

I'm not going to ignore what I know about the environment just because it goes against part of the GOP's preferred narrative.

 

[LordsFire]

Because the concerns about the environment are not just 'Leftist lies', and you are a fool if you think that.

The fact is we cannot do the 'same old, same old' forever, and having a hand in shaping the changes is better than having changes forced on you without your input or consideration.

Accepting minimally invasive or drastic changes, to keep majoring invasive or drastic changes at bay, is what the Right needs to work for in the environmental realm, instead of thinking they can just go with their status quo response.

I'm not going to ignore what I know about the environment just because it goes against part of the GOP's preferred narrative.

Except that the left has spent the last century proving that they will never, ever accept 'minimally invasive' changes. They will relentlessly push for one change after another, eroding away every right, every freedom, and every bit of opposition to them, until it is ground into dust.

You are literally asking to play exactly the game the left has been playing against the right for so long, and winning far too much of the time.

If you had a better suggestion than 'ship cattle feed from the ocean to inland cattle ranches across the country,.' I might be more inclined to listen to you, but as it is, the idea that this would have minimal effects on the ranching industry is ridiculous.

As things stand, animals that are grown for meat are (last I checked) primarily fed from grazing and the parts of crops that are inedible to humans (corn stalks, etc), so the current costs of feed are pretty small. Just the shipping alone to bring seaweed in to all the ranches would be a very significant cost, and that's before you get into the costs involved in farming and harvesting it.

'5% increase in cost.' Do you have any kind of basis for that projection? Because it seems preposterously optimistic to me.

 

[LindyAF]

Except that the left has spent the last century proving that they will never, ever accept 'minimally invasive' changes. They will relentlessly push for one change after another, eroding away every right, every freedom, and every bit of opposition to them, until it is ground into dust.

I think you're probably right about the specific question of feeding seaweed to cows, but in general the last century has also proved that "standing athwart history yelling stop" is not effective at preventing the left from enacting changes either. What needs to be done is to push our own set of changes, ideally ones that are enough anathema to the left that they can't co-opt them and interfere with the leftists own preferred changes.

That's because Yucca Mountain was built before they found a hidden fault in the mountain itself, which completely fucked their plans for the storage vault to be impregnable to groundwater/rain water migrating down faults.

Yucca Mountain was fucked by geology, not by politics, and people need to stop acting like shutting it down was a political move.

Okay, looking into it more per wikipedia this is questionable. What happened was that the Bow Ridge Fault Line was discovered to be hundreds of feet east to where it was thought to be, beneath a storage pad for spent fuel canisters. Upon discovering this they moved the storage pad several hundred feet to the east. This was criticized (by Nevada officials) because they should have known about the fault line's actual location beforehand, but with the change I'm not sure there's anything to indicate the site is significantly less safe than the original plan.

There's essentially always going to be some risks, regulating nuclear enough that there are zero risks regulates it out of existence, just as it would fossil fuels and even "renewables." And those who wanted to kill Yucca mountain or want to kill any given plant are always going to focus on those risks. Unless something happened where it dramatically changed nearly everyone's opinion, by the risks being orders of magnitude worse than originally thought or something, I think it's fair to say it was hamstrung by politics.

 

[Bacle]

Except that the left has spent the last century proving that they will never, ever accept 'minimally invasive' changes. They will relentlessly push for one change after another, eroding away every right, every freedom, and every bit of opposition to them, until it is ground into dust.

You are literally asking to play exactly the game the left has been playing against the right for so long, and winning far too much of the time.

If you had a better suggestion than 'ship cattle feed from the ocean to inland cattle ranches across the country,.' I might be more inclined to listen to you, but as it is, the idea that this would have minimal effects on the ranching industry is ridiculous.

As things stand, animals that are grown for meat are (last I checked) primarily fed from grazing and the parts of crops that are inedible to humans (corn stalks, etc), so the current costs of feed are pretty small. Just the shipping alone to bring seaweed in to all the ranches would be a very significant cost, and that's before you get into the costs involved in farming and harvesting it.

'5% increase in cost.' Do you have any kind of basis for that projection? Because it seems preposterously optimistic to me.

I gave an idea, not the only workable idea, and I am actually trying to find common ground to work from.

I know admitting the Left isn't always wrong is anathema to some of you, but that only shows why Horseshoe Theory is acturate for US politics.

Unlike some here, I can accept change for environmental reasons, and would prefer the Right to have some ability to shape environmental policy in their favor, rather than just letting the Dems set the narrative, rules, and regs on all of it.

But hey if trying to dig your heels in, and denying there are legit issues with solutions that can benefit the GOP voter base while mollifying a part of the Left, you can keep trying prevent change, instead of trying to guide change in your favor while resolving issues that affect everyone, regardless of politics.

I think you're probably right about the specific question of feeding seaweed to cows, but in general the last century has also proved that "standing athwart history yelling stop" is not effective at preventing the left from enacting changes either. What needs to be done is to push our own set of changes, ideally ones that are enough anathema to the left that they can't co-opt them and interfere with the leftists own preferred changes.

Yes, the Right cannot simply try to prevent change and try to reclaim past glories or social situations that are moot in today's social, ecological, and technological context.

The Right must be willing to adapt and try to guide change, rather than try to prevent change.

Okay, looking into it more per wikipedia this is questionable. What happened was that the Bow Ridge Fault Line was discovered to be hundreds of feet east to where it was thought to be, beneath a storage pad for spent fuel canisters. Upon discovering this they moved the storage pad several hundred feet to the east. This was criticized (by Nevada officials) because they should have known about the fault line's actual location beforehand, but with the change I'm not sure there's anything to indicate the site is significantly less safe than the original plan.

There's essentially always going to be some risks, regulating nuclear enough that there are zero risks regulates it out of existence, just as it would fossil fuels and even "renewables." And those who wanted to kill Yucca mountain or want to kill any given plant are always going to focus on those risks. Unless something happened where it dramatically changed nearly everyone's opinion, by the risks being orders of magnitude worse than originally thought or something, I think it's fair to say it was hamstrung by politics.

Ah, ok, it was a mislocated fault, not a hidden fault.

The reports I saw years ago made it sound like it was a completely new fault in the mountain that was responsible for the issue.

It likely has run partially afoul of the general anti-nuke sentiment in the US, though there may also be engineering issues the fault's location could cause that were not anticipated before.

 

[LindyAF]

It likely has run partially afoul of the general anti-nuke sentiment in the US, though there may also be engineering issues the fault's location could cause that were not anticipated before.

There were, (they moved the storage pad), but they don't seem to have been insurmountable or even hard to surmount.

What Yucca mountain ran afoul of more than anything else tbh was "Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, didn't want it in his state." Like, they even tried to nix making a report on Yucca mountain's safety, which a legal challenge actually forced the feds to finish, and it concluded that yeah it would have been environmentally safe.

 

[Bacle]

There were, (they moved the storage pad), but they don't seem to have been insurmountable or even hard to surmount.

What Yucca mountain ran afoul of more than anything else tbh was "Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, didn't want it in his state." Like, they even tried to nix making a report on Yucca mountain's safety, which a legal challenge actually forced the feds to finish, and it concluded that yeah it would have been environmentally safe.

Ah, forgot Reid was from NV and involved in all that...yeah, that'd foul up any program.

 

[LordsFire]

The Right must be willing to adapt and try to guide change, rather than try to prevent change.

Even the idea that the right wants to 'prevent change' is leftist propaganda.

The right wants change, and has wanted change, basically in all of its history as a political 'side' in the USA.

Abolition of slavery, rolling back the welfare state, a fairer tax system, getting rid of unconstitutional limits on gun ownership and freedom of speech, overturning Roe vs Wade, border security...

There's a whole host of things the political right wants change on.

We just don't want the same changes as the left. Because the left's changes are more or less always destructive.

Also, I don't have a problem with admitting the left is right on some things. The only thing I can think of though, is drug legalization.

 

[BlackDragon98]

I'm all for a big nuclear push. It's more efficient AND better for the environment.

It's the best energy there is, AND it's green friendly.

Until it goes BOOM.

And then we get STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl in real life.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Until it goes BOOM.

And then we get STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl in real life.

With modern reactor design that's not a really a problem to be worth considering given how remote the odds of something happening are. Its actually way more dangerous to keep using older reactor designs which due to NIMBYs and way too much excessive regulation can't be viably replaced

 

[Zachowon]

Until it goes BOOM.

And then we get STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl in real life.

Likely hood of that is HIGHLY unlikely

 

[Bacle]

Until it goes BOOM.

And then we get STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl in real life.

Chernobyl's RBMK design is a simple and dirty design the Soviets made because it was cheap, not because it was safe.

Very, very few other reactor designs are nearly as lacking in safety and containment measures.

 

[Captain X]

Chernobyl's RBMK design is a simple and dirty design the Soviets made because it was cheap, not because it was safe.

Very, very few other reactor designs are nearly as lacking in safety and containment measures.

And even besides that, the only reason it melted down is because they were fucking around with it and violating their own safety protocols.

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Rather than proposing a radical transformation of the beef industry that would likely spike prices integer multiples, I have an even more radical idea:

Don't preemptively surrender.

For one who likes to criticize the GOP for not fighting seriously, you're awfully keen on surrendering the narrative to the left the same way they so often and foolishly do.

Instead, why not call the people pushing this crap out for the liars they are, and relentlessly criticize them for trying to ruin public health, make poor people eat like medieval peasants, and generally doing the work of the rich and elite in making what are currently commonly available goods into elite-only luxuries?

I just wanna point out.

The last time someone fucked with the Beef industry of a country in the America's, half of Africa was starving within six months.

An ancestor of mine overthrew the government in Buenos Aires partially over an attempt to regulate the beef industry. Darwin got all horny about it lol.

American cattle barons forced Obama's DOJ to surrender and abandon the field.

American ranchers tend to react with vehemence and hatred to people who want to force Americans to eat bugs.

I agree, I think an attempt to fuck with American beef creates existential threats to our modern world and any government that attempts to do should be regarded as a renegade government by its own citizens.

You wanna fix global warming?

Do 3 things

1, cripple big cities and demonize urban culture. Get more people out of the cities. Remove bug man!

2, nuclear power plants for days! Make it rain atoms. Also dem penny utility bills will do wonders to combat poverty.

3, dismantle China and force India to get its shit together.

Do that, fix the skies.

Leave cows the fuck alone you bug eating pod dwellers!!!

'5% increase in cost.' Do you have any kind of basis for that projection? Because it seems preposterously optimistic to me.

5% increase would result in 45 dollar burgers at McDonald's.

And it wouldn't be 5% speaking as someone who grew up around the cattle industry it would be more like a 19% increase because regulatory agencies would be all over that shit and that's saying nothing of port taxes taxes tarifs and the UN wanting a piece.

Oh and you can't just harvest kelp forests since that's where yknow 75% of the planets atmosphere comes from.

This is your typical ignorant city dwellers take on agriculture and it needs to stop.

 

[Bear Ribs]

I just wanna point out.

The last time someone fucked with the Beef industry of a country in the America's, half of Africa was starving within six months.

An ancestor of mine overthrew the government in Buenos Aires partially over an attempt to regulate the beef industry. Darwin got all horny about it lol.

American cattle barons forced Obama's DOJ to surrender and abandon the field.

American ranchers tend to react with vehemence and hatred to people who want to force Americans to eat bugs.

I agree, I think an attempt to fuck with American beef creates existential threats to our modern world and any government that attempts to do should be regarded as a renegade government by its own citizens.

You wanna fix global warming?

Do 3 things

1, cripple big cities and demonize urban culture. Get more people out of the cities. Remove bug man!

2, nuclear power plants for days! Make it rain atoms. Also dem penny utility bills will do wonders to combat poverty.

3, dismantle China and force India to get its shit together.

Do that, fix the skies.

Leave cows the fuck alone you bug eating pod dwellers!!!


5% increase would result in 45 dollar burgers at McDonald's.

Yup, Farmers don't get much of the actual value of their produce. For each dollar it costs you at the grocery store, the farmer gets about 14-15 cents*. Increasing the cost even slightly at the farmer/rancher level thus dramatically increases cost at the checkout line.

The situation is made worse by the fact that more processing increases the costs and thus decreases the farmer's share. For fast food it tends towards around 2-4%, so a 1-penny increase in the price of beef roughly translates into an extra quarter for each hamburger. Four cents on the cost of beef is thus an extra dollar from the consumer on every Big Mac. It's not a perfect lineup because there's quite a bit of elasticity in those prices, but it still illustrates how fast tiny changes at the bottom can influence prices at the top.

USDA ERS - Monitoring Trends in Retail Prices and Farm Shares of Food Products

Farm share—the ratio of what farmers receive for a food commodity to what consumers pay for the food product in grocery stores—varies by product and over time. Commodity prices and food marketing costs can rise and fall independently, causing swings in farm share.

www.ers.usda.gov

*This varies quite a bit by crop, some are lower profit than others. Often produce that gets no treatment besides being dug up and washed, like carrots, give a bigger share to the farmer than things that need extensive processing, like cheese, and the tiniest share goes to things with extensive processing and preparation, like cakes or meals out.

 

[Marduk]

I'm not 'PC' on the environment, I'm realistic about it because I understand it.

I got my Bachelor's in General Geology, and have been looking at environmental issues on my own, separate from politics, for years.

The rad-greens are idiots, but mostly in how they want to address problems, not in thinking problems exist.

I want practical and sane environmental policies, and those will only happen when the Right as a whole is willing to admit environmental issues are legit and not just smokescreen. Because the Right cannot effectively counter the rad-greens until they can accept not everything they are worried about is 'Leftist lies'.

Half the things rad-greens consider problems are problems in the confines of their very own radical philosophy and not to anyone else - see: Oregon's recent stunt with their ranchers. You are right about the other half though.

No, there are effective strategies out there that I think the GOP could get onboard with; tax breaks for environmentally friendly activities being one of the easiest ones to sell to the GOP base, and we already agree on nuclear.

However I'll give you an issue I rarely hear anyone in the GOP mention, but which does get play in the center and moderates: plastic garbage build up in the oceans.

Give tax breaks to US ships that go out and haul it back for proper sorting and recycling.

This is not a 'dog and pony show' issue, it's one with real ecological and environmental impact that is measurable and not a smokescreen.

Why should US give money to those who pick it up?
Instead, why not demand that countries that provide the bulk of it pay for it?
You need to add a bit of nationalism to your environmentalism for it to be platable to the right.

And your tax break scheme for that is just a roundabout way to shift the costs of doing it on US budget.

I'll give you a second example of an area the GOP can improve upon environmentally, and deal with an actual issue that the rad-greens try to monopolize and is in the news now.

Cows in most types of livestock operations fart out a lot of methane compared to background environmental levels. The rad-greens want to get rid of cattle, or drastically reduce their number, to deal with this.

However, there are also studies out their involving feeding cows seaweed/kelp, instead of their normal feed, and they found the amount of methane they produce int their farts dropped a fair bit. So instead of getting rid of cows, we may just need to change their diets a bit, and seaweed is but one potential candidate for that. Seaweed farms aren't a 'new' thing, and increasing production of seaweed will also likely help the sea life in those areas, so it's a bonus in a way, that lets coastal communities help their inland kin and stimulate commerce between them.

Things like that are what the GOP needs to think about when it comes to wresting control of narratives and issues aay from the Dems.

And that's another example of "environmental issue" whose relevance outside of green circles is controversial at best - to begin with, the whole "cows make methane" problem is only a small part of the greater catastrophic anthropogenic climate change bundle. If you're not one of the people panicking about climate change, its a nothingburger for you.

Overall, the biggest fault that the right has on environmental matters is vastly insufficient effort in challenging the left's narratives on that in media and education.