There, speaking complete non-sense in an authoritative tone is easy.

I can’t see how they’re going to pull this off in Britain, given the fact that construction & maintenance of these plants will require mostly foreign labour (most likely French contractors) and since we’ve just had wildcat strikes & walkouts from Totals oil refinery due to a few hundred Portugese & Italian workers being hired instead of local labour. Then you have the demographic problem, who the hell is gonna run the bloody things in 20yrs time without serious investments to fill the skills gap???

It was funny to see the BNP (British National Party) trying to seize the moment by sending people in to talk to the strikers, only to be told to FUCK OFF! in as many words :)

Tasmania’s highest temperature on record – with site records broken by large margins in northern and eastern parts of the island.

Highest temperatures recorded in much of Victoria and southern South Australia since 1939 with Adelaide only missing recording their highest maximum temperature by a small margin. Melbourne recorded a new record temperature of 46.4 degrees on February 7.

Adelaide experienced the highest minimum temperature on record at 33.9 degrees on January 29.

The long duration of the event – with records reached for consecutive days over 43 at Adelaide (4) and Melbourne (3).

In December 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced that the Australian Federal government will cut Australia’s carbon emissions by five per cent by 2020 and give billions in greenhouse credits to polluting industries. The low level cuts were denounced by Damien Lawson of Friends of the Earth: “A five per cent target locks Australia into runaway climate change. This target will not stop drought, it will not save the Great Barrier Reef, and it will not prevent ice melting and the sea rising,” Mr Lawson said. “This is an emergency and the government must act within this term. Our carbon emissions must peak in the next year and then continuously decrease if we are to have any hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change.”
According to Mr Lawson emissions cuts of 40 to 50 per cent by 2020 were needed, and he also called for a 100 per cent switch to renewable energy by the same year. Sydney Indymedia

He should figure out what’s wrong with America and the world, honestly and directly communicate his findings to the public, do his best to fix things and then let the results speak for themselves, Jonathan Schell And think of this as kind of a war.

Per usual, the corporate mainstream media has largely ignored this element of the misnamed stimulus package.

Most of the 69 percent who still support Obama are totally unaware of the essential truths you cite.

Volunteer firefighter Captain Nev Jones has been helping to battle blazes in Victoria, Australia. He told the BBC that the speed the fires travelled were “unbelievable”.

“It wase a thick, dense, dirty fog. There was smoke everywhere. It looked like Armageddon or something from a horror movie. I hope I never experience anything like that again.”

The fires followed a week when temperatures hit 47C (117F).

TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) — Australia’s worst fire disaster has killed at least 84 people, destroyed at least 700 homes, and burned a half-million acres of land, media reports said.
Extremely high temperatures and strong winds prompted bush fires that have savaged Victoria, and thousands of firefighters are still struggling to contain fires on several fronts, Australian and international reports said.
“Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria in the last 24 hours,” reports quoted Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as telling reporters as he toured the area of the fires on Sunday.
The premier said the army would deploy to assist emergency-service workers.
He said that a joint federal and state relief fund of $10 million was set up and he asked Australians to donate to the cause, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The Associated Press reported that temperatures on Saturday reached 117 degrees Fahrenheit, or 47 degrees Celsius. Temperatures dropped on Sunday but officials said that accompanying wind changes could push fires in unpredictable directions, AP reported.

Will this get better in the coming years in Australia’, no only harder and in the States California looks to be first for this same thing and in 5 to 7 years then what people.

The path of ruling through illusion has been tried and failed. It is not open to him. He should figure out what’s wrong with America and the world, honestly and directly communicate his findings to the public, do his best to fix things and then let the results speak for themselves. It’s a very simple prescription–but light-years away from anything that has been tried in the United States for a very long time. Jonathan Schell

The real hope is that we can move past a fossil fuel centric market place where the barriers to entry have been erected by those interested in maintaining their current wealth and power to a world where energy systems are evaluated on a rational set of criteria. These criteria include minimizing resources required per unit power, minimizing waste production, and maximizing reliability. Under rational, objective evaluation criteria, fission would be replacing combustion in nearly every application outside of aircraft propulsion – and even that is possible given a bit more time for technology development and proof of safety testing.

If we can do that, we have a reasonably good chance of slowing, then stopping, then reversing the build-up of not only CO2, but also all of the other polluting emissions from burning coal, oil and gas and dumping the deadly combustion waste products into our shared atmosphere.

Of course, since the industry that gathers, distributes and consumes those fuels is a multi-trillion dollar per year business, I do not expect that its leaders and sycophants will readily allow easy capturing of their market share. I even expect that they will continue their deceptive marketing techniques that include spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) about atomic fission through every mouthpiece they can hire. Since many anti-nuclear activists have already proven quite willing to take fossil fuel tainted money, I fully expect that the battles will continue for a very long time.

For those who are truly interested in a human friendly planet with clean air, clean water, abundant resources, and empowered populations, please push past the FUD to learn as much as you can.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast

As to your point regarding the deep religion of technology will save us, we’ll see. The first sign that someone doesn’t have an argument (beyond blind faith) is when they can only make their point by ripping into others without once making a real case, as you have Mr. Keller.

It is not technology, it is the belief that it is the solution to our problem. Intermediate and appropriate technologies make sense as the energy source that allowed industrialization to burgeon diminishes.

I see a world that works. Nothing anti-mankind about that.

Article from: Australian Associated Press

THE The Australian army will be brought in to help in the worst bushfires in Victoria’s history.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered army troops to help firefighters control 26 fires around the state that have claimed at least 26 lives, injured hundreds and destroyed hundreds of properties, Premier John Brumby said.
“The army will become involved, I spoke to the prime minister in the early hours of this morning when I was in Bendigo,” Mr Brumby said.
“He’s obviously triggered the disaster arrangements, so all of the cash payments are flowing through to families and they commence immediately.
“There will also be recovery arrangements put in place. I this morning advised the prime minister we’ll accept his offer in terms of the defence forces.
“They’ll be providing logistics and support. That will tend to be in terms of fuel, logistic support, dozers, some personnel and they will help control what is a very difficult situation.

The temperature anomalies in many parts of Southern Australia are 10 (C). That people is big and Australia is seeing climate change first in a big way nature of the beast. Think of Australia and Northern China as a big California. Honestly and directly communicate his findings to the public.

Technology will get us out of the energy crisis as well as the real or imagined climate change problem. Kindly get out of the way …

The contemporary crises are interwoven, forming a kind of Gordian knot. The world does not have the luxury of dealing with them seriatim.
We’ll all have to have something quite different. Jonathan Schell

What would be something quite different?

The path of ruling through illusion has been tried and failed. It is not open to him. He should figure out what’s wrong with America and the world, honestly and directly communicate his findings to the public, do his best to fix things and then let the results speak for themselves. It’s a very simple prescription–but light-years away from anything that has been tried in the United States for a very long time. Jonathan Schell

Well put and do you read DV Barack? Ruling through illusion is over and you sure couldn’t tell that by watching the Senate or much of the news but darn close to be see by all. Muglamumblebrain are you out there if so tell people what is happening with that little drought problem and now fires in Australia.

He should figure out what’s wrong with America and the world, honestly and directly communicate his findings to the public, do his best to fix things and then let the results speak for themselves and think of this as kind of a war.

You are mis-stating the problem. It is NOT energy independence. It is net energy. Climate change and net energy are spiraling together. This is not necessarily causal in nature.

But again, independence is the short-term issue which keeps us tied to endless unsustainable growth paradigm. We cannot afford to think like that and hope to have a future generation of the human species.

I guess the question to your “energy independence” is: independent of what? The forces of nature? Because it is the latter we must deal with. It is the force of nature which is the reality that is barreling down on us, but foreign oil.

We are fast reaching where the net energy to obtain energy is being exceeded. In other words, our independence is not about a “mix” but about a whole new life style which reduces the complexity of the industrial age we have all grown up in. It will be simplier, slower, and more condusive to non-material, personal growth. But the choice is ours.

If continue on this same jouney, looking for technical fixes, and indendence from fossil without he single most important change – an overhaul of our economics, then we are doomed. The other choice is a little like the picture I tried to paint in the previous paragraph.

max

On a lighter note, I was amused to see that corporate monopolies emit greenhouse gases. Those sort of people certainly do have a tendency to bullshit!

A fourth crisis is the ecological one, comprising global warming, the wholesale human-caused annihilation of species, population growth, water and land shortage, and much else. Like nuclear danger, the planetary ecological crisis threatens something that has never been at stake before our era: the natural foundations of life on which humans and all species depend for survival. Economic and military ups and downs are for a season only. Extinction is forever.

The contemporary crises are interwoven, forming a kind of Gordian knot. The world does not have the luxury of dealing with them seriatim.

We’ll all have to have something quite different.

All the crises are characterized by double standards, which everywhere block the way to solutions. One group of nations, led by the United States, lays claim to the lion’s share of the world’s wealth, to an exclusive right to possess nuclear weapons, to a disproportionate right to pollute the environment and even to a dominant position in world councils, while everyone else is expected to accept second-class status. But since solutions to all the crises must be global to succeed, and global agreement can only be based on equity, the path to success is cut off.

The “uncertainty” about global warming–cooked up by political hacks and backed by self-interested energy companies–is fake, but the Arctic ice is melting anyway.

Reality was not the field of operation in which you acted, and whose limits you must respect; it was, like a play or movie, a scenario to be penned by human authors. Fact had to adjust to ideology, not the other way around.

The path of ruling through illusion has been tried and failed. It is not open to him. He should figure out what’s wrong with America and the world, honestly and directly communicate his findings to the public, do his best to fix things and then let the results speak for themselves. It’s a very simple prescription–but light-years away from anything that has been tried in the United States for a very long time. Jonathan Schell

As I am witting this I am watching the Senate and old, tired, the same old way of thinking is what I see. We need bold, a new way of thinking, reason not illusion and the time is now as we are all out of time. One million to start at the Capital one voice and more will join I know they will. Who can get this started I will help you if I can.

To be a leader you must be dangerous to the status quo. And so far, we have none of that.

Jonathan Schell wrote a pretty good piece in the Nation on this. He talks in terms of Obama, but his insights into the collision course is very valuable. The word must get through the usual Mainstream Media.
Schell in The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090209/schell