101–110 of 150 posts
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> Electric ground transportation is the future. It's a relatively less evil, for now. We still haven't found a good way of dealing with old batteries and it's a huge environmental problem.
Do hydrogen fuel cells have major issues, other than the chicken-and-egg problem of hydrogen refueling stations?
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According to environmentalists in Germany, nuclear and pro-environment are indeed mutually exclusive. But I prefer not to copy all of my opinions from the group I most agree with. FWIW I think nuclear is good in principle, but neither states nor companies have proven responsible enough to handle it. So I'm kind of against nuclear but not in this dogmatic way. The practical difference is that I think there should be f…
> FWIW I think nuclear is good in principle, but neither states nor companies have proven responsible enough to handle it. So the currently operating nuclear plants that have gone without incident are dismissed? Why so?
Gone without incident, or just gone without incident documentation? There seems to be an awfully good success rate in finding unreported incidents when people start looking a bit more closely.
As a person, she's extremely obstinate. For a leader, this trait can be advantageous - after all, who wants a leader who changes their minds all the time - but for the rest of Europe it's a curse. Somehow she is unable to admit she made some serious mistakes, and we're all suffering because of it.
Like cancelling the 2002 nuclear shutdown deal in 2010 and then reenacting a new, poorly planned one in 2011 because a plant several thousand miles away ran into issues?
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Where do you get this rise from? 2009 - 10.7% 2013 - 8.4% 2017 - 8-10% (projections) Only B-W has a ruling Green Party, I'd they they're still mostly at 10% everywhere else.
Living in Baden-Württemberg is probably the reason. Green is the strongest party there (2016 30%). They are ahead of CDU (Merkels party) for two periods now.
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That's actually the opposite of the perception of Angela Merkel in Germany. In Germany she is seen as populist, because she changes her mind quite often or waits until the public opinion is clear. Only in the refugee crisis, she was seen as following moral principles having not made any concessions to right wing politics (which earned her a lot of respect and a lot of hate). Make no mistake, generally her team is ver…
> she was seen as following moral principles having not made any concessions to right wing politics Well, Bavarians might disagree with both "moral principles" and "right wing". Especially CDU is hardly "right wing".
Some Bavarian politicians may have other moral principles. But Merkel defended the German constitution which has no limit for asylum seekers and she also followed her christian upbringing.
THE whole CDU is clearly not right anymore, but take Erika Steinbach as an example of the (former) right wing. Or the critics from the CSU. There is also a large group of voters right from CDU/CSU - a voter domain which other politicians from CDU/CSU also claim(ed) for themselves. Politicians from the CDU moved to the AFD ... a prominent example is Alexander Gauland, who was 40 years member of the CDU.
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+1 Many people commute by train from the "suburbs" or the smaller cities sprinkled around the larger cities, partly because it's convenient, partly because traffic is really bad in major cities.
> partly because traffic is really bad in major cities. This is particularly relevant in the European context, where most cities were not built for cars and now cannot be significantly altered.
I fail to understand why German automotive industry is lobbing pro diesels. All German car makers make both gasoline and diesel engines, if diesels were banned or taxed to be more expensive customers wouldn't resign from buying cars but would choose some other available option (gasoline, hybrid, electric).
I think it's because they have a technical edge (well...) in diesel engines for cars and / or because they sell so many of them, especially in Germany itself. Markets favoring diesel engines thus favor German car makers.
That's because there are tax advantages for Diesel. Originally a subsidy for agriculture (because their machines all ran on Diesel), it made Diesel motors a favorite for those who need to drive a lot (incl huge corporate fleets).
Changing any of that is a highly contentious political issue. Merkel's political style doesn't deal well with these.
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Their design is still fairly naive in dealing with worst-case scenarios (eg lack of core catchers).
I'm not sure what that means. Are you pointing out a severe deficiency that makes their whole operational record somehow moot?
Whether or not you consider this a severe enough deficit to necessitate a shutdown is a matter of policy.
As to any operation record, just keep in mind that the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant had one dating back to 1971.
The article voices a bunch of valid criticism, but I really wish it could have done so without turning environmental damage into a contest and using unsubstantiated superlatives. Is it not enough to criticize someone without claiming that they are the worst ? The jab at Trump felt misplaced as well.
However the jab at Trump shows what is wrong with the political level of environmental activity. there is so much more implied by the Paris Accords that it actually will do and heaps of FUD to convince you it must be done or we are all doomed with a good dose of of thanks thrown to the politicians who so boldly stood up for it. So the sycophants in press, special interest groups, and science, were all dutifully march…
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> other countries call it corruption, in Germany is called corporatism. That's insulting, and factually inaccurate - unless you have evidence to substantiate this hyperbole? > for example, the way the Greek crisis was managed The Greek crisis had other origins, and the financial checks/obligations upon joining the Euro are supposed to mitigate against the risk of not being able to devalue a national currency to e.g.…
It's actually a pet-peeve of mine that corporatism (Rheinland model) could be easily seen as enabling certain forms of corruption. It's very clean: hardly any bribery or extortion in this model. But networking, clientilism and favoritism are widespread. Those are aspects of corruption, but more on a systemic level than on an individual level. You won't find a police officer solliciting euros, but you will find that a…