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A comment on U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer. Parent comment

Re:U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer by marknutter on Monday October 07, 2013 @10:15AM (#6508358)
What's more likely? That we'll convince people to cut their energy consumption in half, or convince people to purchase higher efficiency equipment and slowly move over to cleaner forms of energy as they become available? What's needed in the climate debate is a healthy dose of pragmatism.
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Re:U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer by mikeash on Monday October 07, 2013 @10:27AM (#6508435)
What do you do when "pragmatism" doesn't produce the results you need?

Maybe convincing people to cut their energy consumption in half isn't in the cards. At the same time, maybe that is what is needed. The universe doesn't have to cooperate to give us pragmatic solutions.

If the "impossible" solution is required, and the "pragmatic" solution isn't sufficient... why should climate scientists advocate for the latter over the former?

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Re:U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer by marknutter on Monday October 07, 2013 @11:17AM (#6508743)
Why wouldn't pragmatism produce the results needed? Moving over to Nuclear Power would, without a doubt, solve the climate crisis. Granted, it would introduce other challenges, but we're talking about the lesser of two evils here.
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Re:U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer by mikeash on Monday October 07, 2013 @11:22AM (#6508780)
I don't think a rapid wholesale move to nuclear power is any more pragmatic than a rapid move to cut average per capita energy consumption in half.
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Re:U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer by marknutter on Monday October 07, 2013 @12:07PM (#6509160)
One solution requires the economy to stall, the other does not. Take your best guess as to which one will have better public support.
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Re:U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer by mikeash on Monday October 07, 2013 @01:36PM (#6509817)
Is there a point to ranking impractical solutions?
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Re:U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer by marknutter on Monday October 07, 2013 @04:26PM (#6511005)
Impractical, yet exactly what France did..
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Re:U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer by mikeash on Monday October 07, 2013 @08:37PM (#6512255)
In a different age, when public opinion on nuclear energy was substantially different.
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Re:U.S. is now the world’s biggest oil and gas producer by comrade_ogilvy on Monday October 07, 2013 @02:19PM (#6510132)
Well, for one thing, the "impossible" comes with large error bars and thus is difficult to trust, even those trained in the sciences (or, perhaps, ESPECIALLY for those trained in the sciences). At least the pragmatic buys time, if nothing else.
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