Young People Are Anxious About Climate Change, Say Governments Are Failing Them

There's going to be global famines within my lifetime and a refugee crisis measurable in the hundreds of millions of people. I would say the death toll is unfathomable, but the IPCC makes it very clear that countries worth of people will die.

The Hell I see is the Hell the science has determined is all-but certain: the next 80 years will be a series of tragic trending videos, distant, until it directly affects _you_.

> First, solar and wind are not more environmentally destructive, at least in any appreciable way.

There's many reasons that these forms of energy are arguably worse than nuclear environmentally: such as the substantial amount of prime land they must occupy to generate the same amount of electricity to the second order effects of their limited nature in necessitating batteries to store power when the sun/wind isn't working.

> Second, solar and wind can sustain modern human civilization. > Sixth, all of wind, solar, and nuclear are just electric sources and we face a storage density problem not a generation problem.

I've written about this many times, but this energy storage problem is precisely why wind and solar cannot work to drive human activity. When the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow, you just can't realistically store enough energy to drive refrigeration, industry, and all of the other features of modern life on a mass scale with our current technology level. Nuclear energy doesn't have this constraint.

> Third, clean energy has de facto not been solved because only a small percentage of generation is currently nuclear. > Fourth, even what you describe were possible, construction lead time on known scalable reactor designs is many years.

I'm not concerned. If it's a problem and necessary for humanity, it will eventually happen, and very quickly. I think economics dictates this.

> Fifth, even what you describe were possible, the fuel supply chain is underdeveloped and would take many years to develop.

Not worried. Uranium prices are currently spiking and will continue to spike. And this is a good thing as it incentivizes increased production. Experts more informed than me have said when the spot price of uranium hits around 60-65, many more mines and sources become economically viable and will start scaling up.

> Seventh, the nature of the climate problem is one that has already happened and will continue for decades even if every human ceased to exist immediately.

I have no doubt that climate change fear mongering will exist eternally. Whenever a politician messes up forest management or flood mitigation, it's easier to blame "climate change" than their own competence.

I'm less convinced that it's a real threat to life on Earth. We'll adapt to any challenges, as we always have.

> Eighth, nuclear is still not renewable.

It doesn't matter as we have enough uranium to last many, many, many lifetimes, and far more if sea-water extraction can be done safely. By that point, we'll have other options.

> I could go on but I hope you appreciate that I disagree with you and think you are underinformed about nuclear power.

I'd agree with you that despite trying to stay informed, I don't know nearly enough about nuclear energy. And for that I blame the media who is fixated on trying to clickbait fear rather than informing us about the solutions.

I don't think it's an ad hominem attack. What I've said is true. Just because someone is passionate and interested in medicine in their free time doesn't qualify them as a physician and the same is true in this case. It is possible that Scott Adams will end up being correct, but there are other people that have devoted a lot more time and energy in their lives learning and researching this subject than him, and I would prefer to spend my limited time listening to them instead. I think they are much more likely to be correct.

Your assumption is doing most of the work here.

In my opinion, anything that creates a profit motive for imprisonment and recidivism is an incentive recipe for disaster. So even if justly incarcerated I would probably say no?

But regardless, I don't think assuming just incarceration in China is a great idea.

e.g. [0], "Forced Labor The PRC government has pressured large numbers of Uyghurs, including former detainees, into accepting employment in the formal workforce, particularly in the textile, apparel, agricultural, consumer electronics, and other labor-intensive industries, in Xinjiang and other provinces. Uyghurs who refuse to accept such employment may be threatened with detention. Some factories utilizing Uyghur labor reportedly are tied to global supply chains. Factory employment often involves heavy surveillance and political indoctrination of Uyghurs."

[0] https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10281

> So why do they exist, why are they sticky and so apparently unsolvable?

Warfare and inept or corrupt government are the primary reasons. E.g. deliberate starvation as seen in the Ethiopia-Tigray conflict, and isolationism as seen in North Korea.

> Desalination is prohibitively energy-intensive. More so in a world of shrinking resources.

Israel produces the majority of its domestic water through desalination [1]. This is but one of several ways of improving water supply, others include wastewater reclamation or building new aqueducts.

> You're arguing for precisely why these shortages are a problem but you think you're arguing against their existence. A "shortage" is not simply a hard supply number -- it's also defined by how well the supply is utilized. And the problem is precisely that humans are, and will presumably continue to be, selfish and horrible at using even sufficient or even surplus supplies. So why in the world would anyone think that we'll adequately deal with actually shortages?

However bad you believe our utilization to be, the end result is still cutting world hunger by a third over the last 20 years. And more than halved since 1970. In developed countries, the percentage of land used for agriculture is often declining [2]. I think you're missing the forest for the trees: the reduction in arable land caused by climate change is more than offset by the greater yields delivered by industrialized agriculture, and the assumption that there will be a shortage in staple goods will not hold true.

1. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the...

2. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2012/march/data-feature....