[ExI] EP and Peak oil

[Richard Loosemore]

Kevin Freels wrote:
> 
> Richard Loosemore wrote:
>> Sorry, but I just don't accept the analysis.
>>
>> In the 1960s and 70s the greens lobbied hard for less nuclear power and 
>> massive funding of sustainable energy.  Result:  nothing happened.
>>
>> Then Three Mile Island and Chernobyl happened, and nuclear was suddenly 
>> scary as hell.  Overnight, no new plants.
>>
>> Then the greens continued to lobby hard for massive funding of 
>> sustainable energy.  Result:  nothing happened.
>>
>> Then 9/11 and Iraq happened and oil started increasing in price at a 
>> rate that was actually noticeable, and now suddenly nuclear is back on 
>> the agenda.
>>
>> If you see, in this pattern, the pernicious influence of the green 
>> lobby, then what you are seeing, I suggest, is only the blood-stained 
>> back of a whipping boy.
>>
>>
>>   
> I see where you are coming from. And yes, markets are much more powerful 
> than any activist group could be. It takes markets to get things done. 
> Activists can only stop things from being done.

Markets?  Eeek, Iyou have missed my point completely :-) :  it was 
people's brains that did it, not markets or green activism.  People saw 
catastrophic nuclear accidents caused by incompetence, then they drew 
conclusions.  Then they made it clear to the politicians that they would 
not tolerate any expansion of nuclear power.  The greens were irrelevant 
to the process because there was zero correlation between their activity 
and the shift in public opinion.


> It's two different 
> things. We're not talking about what the green movement has 
> accomplished. We are talking about what they have prevented. 


Markets get things done, and activists only *stop* things being done?

Hmmmmm.  The Kyoto Protocol was something that was accomplished, not 
something that was stopped.   Kyoto was not caused by market forces, but 
by activism.


> Ask some 
> average people on the street sometime if they would like to see nuclear 
> power plants spring up all over America as a solution to the oil 
> problems. When they tell you "no", ask why. I am sure you will get an 
> environmental argument long before you get a nuclear weapons or economic 
> argument.


But when you actually do ask those people, you will find a significant 
chunk of those who shout NIMBY! are green-haters.  Again, there is no 
correlation, surely.



Richard Loosemore