Busbar Electricity Prices at the Tehachapi Wind Farm This Evening.

[NNadir]

48. I'm very pleased to learn that reality is wonderful. The West Coast is on fire, but it's not...

...about you, is it?

In fact, I didn't even realize that this precious bit of wisdom about the Mississippi River was yours, but thanks for pointing it out. I was typing on a cell phone, while waiting for a meeting.

I am decidedly not "trying" to "insult" you. I am simply drawing reference to your opinion, with which I obviously, based on long education, hard work, and careful reading, I disagree.

I have probably written in my journal on this site, hundreds of technical articles based on readings in the scientific literature to support my positions on the environment. I'm sure you didn't mean to insult me when you informed me that scientists are very narrow minded people.

My journal is here: https://www.democraticunderground.com/~NNadir

It speaks for itself, just as what you write and say speaks for itself.

Your post on the "narrowness of scientists" would be this one:

I'm afraid your viewpoint is far too narrow for me

to take seriously. You are talking about technical issues, which are important of course. But you ignore the fundamental issue that drives it all. Science often sees things from a very narrow perspective, focused on a particular discipline. That is what I'm seeing in your rant.

Note: All posts written by me are my opinion only. Your opinion might differ. I do not normally respond to DU Mail. If I reply with two dots (..), each dot stands for a word. You can choose the words.

I added the emphasis.

I. Don't. Care. What. You. See. In. My. "Rant." I don't care about your dots, your response to DU mails, but I do care about "opinions" held by anyone that hurt other people. I contend that opposing nuclear energy kills people. I couldn't be more clear on that than I am.

In stating this, I agree with another one of those "narrow" scientists, Jim Hansen:

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

Now, Dr. Hansen wrote a wonderful book, called "Storms of My Grandchildren"

It's very clear, as you noted yesterday, that you are one of the best people in the world because you chose not to have children.

Clearly, Dr. Hansen is a lesser being than you, since the title of his book implies he has grandchildren.

But no matter.

If disagreeing with you on an issue I've spent studying intensely over three decades is "insulting" you, well, what can I possibly say?

Do I need to be "nice" and defer to your wisdom? Did you have some wisdom I missed?

Perhaps you think I should shoot my two sons to be as noble as you told me you are because you cared so much about the environment that you remained childless. I concede that my sons are consuming resources that could be used to power moving trucks.

One of my sons is a highly trained engineer, taking graduate courses based on a Presidential Scholar award, and now looking to enter another graduate school to study the materials science aspects of nuclear energy. My other son, when he graduated as an artist was surrounded by the faculty at the reception, all of whom wanted to remark on how talented he was to his parents, my wife and I.

Narrow as I am, I did raise an artist as well as another narrow unidimensional scientist/engineer.

Somehow, I think these young men are more critical to the world than a childless man of my awful generation who writes very amusing and informative posts about real estate deals, moving trucks, and his parents lives and deaths. This kind of color is pleasing to the eye of course, but writing it doesn't not excuse indifference to the future while navel gazing.

I had parents too, as it turns out, both of whom have been dead for decades, neither living to their 90s. I have, in fact, outlived them both. My mother died at 51 from a brain tumor probably generated as a result of occupational exposure. I got over it. Perhaps you're glad she got out of the way and stopped consuming resources, since the existence of my sons offends you.

To wit:

I find it interesting that you mention your "little brat" in the post above.

Below, I replied to your initial post, linking climate change to global population growth. That is the root cause of it, regardless of technological causes. Demand by the global population for energy, for whatever reason, is why we are burning so much fossil fuel.

I bring this up because you have apparently contributed to the growth of the global population, by your own admission.

I did not. In 1965, I made a pledge not to reproduce, due to the clear impact of global population grown. I have fulfilled that pledge. I have no "little brats." At age 75, I'm certain that I will not add any offspring to the flood of humanity. Yet, global population continues to grow, does it not?

Think on that, if you please.

Note: All posts written by me are my opinion only. Your opinion might differ. I do not normally respond to DU Mail. If I reply with two dots (..), each dot stands for a word. You can choose the words.

You seem to believe I should deign to have my thinking directed by you.

You, of course, are above insulting people, just as you are above breeding.

I had other things to do with my life than worry about moving my parents furniture after they died. I lived my whole life that way. I'm not leaving my kids a house, a car, and a big pile of money, but I am leaving them ideas because I care about the future, not about writing or executing my will or for that matter, nobly sparing the world my two sons as an act of ersatz environmentalism.

If you find these objections an act of contempt, you are freely entitled to do so, and who knows, it may be popular to do that, but I regard opposition to nuclear power by anyone as criminal, for reasons I have elaborated for a long time on this and other websites and covered in my journal with literally thousands of references to the primary scientific literature.

I'm not supporting nuclear energy to be popular. I'm supporting it because it's the right thing to do.

My biggest regret in life is the part I took, when I was fairly uneducated and stupid, in opposing the Shoreham nuclear plant and the second Seabrook reactor. My ignorance killed people.

No one, not even me, is so old as to be unable to look away from the mirror into the broader world. I find people who spend their days looking in the mirror to be disinteresting, and should any person find that remark to be insulting, this says something about who and what he or she is than it says about who and what I am.