It's fucking bonkers to me that the UK's leader was selected by only .13% of the population. I don't know shit about how the UK's political system works, but I've read that Parliament could force a no confidence vote and a general election. If Labour were to win the election and have another Brexit referendum, it seems likely they'd stay in the EU. As it is, it feels like we're watching a slow motion car crash.
Maybe I'm just fucking clueless -- always a good probability -- but what in the hell was the argument in favor of brexit to begin with? Like did everyone just not foresee all this shit? Or were they trying to strong arm the EU and they called GB's bluff?
Bernie has unveiled his massive climate plan, and while there's a lot good in there, I really fucking wish Democrats would stop vilifying nuclear. We need it, and we need it badly. Economics may prove solar and wind to be cheaper once the externalities of fossil fuels are all internalized, but my money is that the price point of nuclear will still look good when you don't have cheap natural gas to fall back on. Either way, there is zero reason for us to decommission nuclear plants early, as every bit of generation we don't get from nuclear is one we'll have to get from fossil fuels until we have a 100% renewable grid.
It's my understanding that the main argument for leaving the EU is that it would prevent people from emigrating to the UK for economic reasons. That sounds xenophobic to me, but I don't live there and don't know for sure.
Hey, good thinking. Almost the weekend! I like the scope of Bernie's plan. I am going to go reread it more thoroughly. Aetius, you say massive, but.....I am thinking we are going to need something massive. Or tech that as yet does not exist, upon which we cannot count rn. ETA: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthe...61873c26ec4075c609b/optimized/full.pdf#page=1
This gives a good background of some of the reasons and Britain's historical 'one foot in, one foot out' relationship with the EU. National sovereignty was one of primary reasons for leaving. Bear in mind too that the EU is rife with corruption, and unlike politicians at home the British people don't even have the option to remove those bureaucrats. EU leaders are often appointed with little to no reason given, and nothing resembling a democratic process whatsoever. It's why this exchange between Nigel Farage and Rompuy was so famous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bypLwI5AQvY When the EU began it's main function was to prevent a third world war, and to facilitate trade across member states. Since then it's morphed well beyond these objectives, continuously adding additional laws and regulations member states had to adhere to, lest they be punished for leaving. It was bad timing to push for the formation of an EU army during the Brexit vote. For some the possibility of being drafted and drawn into conflicts they had no say in was a last straw. Adherents to the remain camp claimed that this was ridiculous while the leave camp asked why they were forming an army in the first place. There's way too many reasons to cover in one post. Immigration, trade, Britain was paying in more than it was getting out, foreign policy, and the addition of member states below the standards of living threshold of existing members were all major factors in Britain leaving. When Britain voted out the remain camp (the majority of whom are in the labor party) never accepted the result. They put their political energy into crafting theories as to why the vote was unfair (it wasn't) and trying to get a second referendum. Delegates representing pro remain areas of Britain obstructed any efforts to leave the EU (this is a very significant portion of representation in parliament). Meanwhile the leave camp largely ran a campaign of false promises, and continues to do so. The gist was that in leaving, Britain would be able retain nearly all the benefits of being a member state while only retaining EU laws and regulations the British people wanted to adhere to. When facing opposition stating that this was impossible they greatly exaggerated British negotiating power. Britain does have meaningful negotiating power, but not nearly enough to get the terms the leave camp campaigned on. In short, Brexit faced a remain side who ventured into all out obstruction, while the leave camp can't agree to a deal either because they're chasing a pipe dream.
Yeah that’s one of the things I read and all the sudden the political stuff we have here in the US doesn’t seem that bad after all. Not that it’s great by any means, but it could certainly be a lot worse. Thanks for the perspective and your explanation.
I know, right? It's kind of sad measuring ourselves against the failures of the rest of the world, but at least we're not Britain.
I'm 100% in favor of massive. I'm about as far down the "lets do this WWII+Apollo-combined-style" road as one can go. I just hate a lot of (especially older) progressive Democrats' objection to nuclear power. It's counter productive technologically, and it's especially counter productive politically as the Republicans get to hit you with the "you're not serious about climate, you just want to enact your radical environmental agenda" argument. There is no fuel we know of that is as energy dense as Uranium, and we have power stations that are built, operating, and safe. Turning them off would be moronic.
I'm with you. As much as I dislike Sanders' platform in general, I would absolutely vote for him on the basis of this alone. We need to do something massive, and the only good time to start was yesterday.
Anyone ever read The White Plague? I’m really wondering if some someone with the means doesn’t won’t just get pissed at everyone, specifically the moronic fuckwits that are running things, and say “fuck it” and kicks off the next major world event.
This is one of the things I really like about Bernie. The rest of the field is toeing the line in a much more incremental policy despite climate science demonstrating we need drastic action. However, Bernie also thinks his plan "pays for itself". This is what I don't like about him. He's either incredibly naive, or intentionally lying to claim that. Because it's Bernie I would go with the former. It would be nice if one of the candidates could just admit to the American people that investment in infrastructure of this scope is going to raise their tax bill, not just the billionaire class.
This is my biggest hang up on the calls for clean/renewable energy by environmentalists. It’s already here, and it works just fine. Sure, it’s not fusion energy and the results of a nuclear core failure can be catastrophic. But 3-mile Island was 40 years ago, Chernobyl was the result of compounding retardation, and Fukushima was caused by an earthquake. Id take that risk over burning coal or oil constantly. Also, what the fuck can be done about the rain forest? As much as I would love Trump to send in the Army/Army CoE to help fight it, it’s sovereign territory of another country so how can the rest of the world force them to comply?
Every person I see argue against nuclear is older. Yeah solar and wind are better, but nuclear is better than oil/gas to fill the gap til we get there. Don't know how long it takes to build a nuclear reactor, but we should at least be maintaining the ones we have. I think we need to start paying Brazil, Peru etc to stop tearing down their rainforests. The reason they're doing it is to create more farm land and mining sites for export, so I think money is the only thing the will speak to them is cash.
I mean, were never going to supplement with just wind and solar, at least never in our lifetimes. Its just too inefficient and doesn't scale for industrial/grid-wide application. It requires a redesign of the entire thing. Nuclear plants take 4-5 years to build from scratch.