Oregon county seeks to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for extreme heat
Oregon county seeks to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for extreme heat
Multnomah County's heat dome conditions killed 69 people in 2021.
cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/14335558
When scientific studies showed that the extreme temperatures were caused by heat domes, which experts say are influenced by climate change, county officials didn’t just chalk it up to a random weather occurrence. They started researching the large fossil fuel companies whose emissions are driving the climate crisis—including ExxonMobil, Shell, and Chevron—and sued them.
Now, 11 months after the suit was filed, Multnomah County is preparing to move forward with the case in Oregon state court after a federal judge in June settled a monthslong debate over where the suit should be heard.
In the end we need any solution that reduces emissions. Nuclear could be one of those, especially the thorium reactors that can burn some of the existing nuclear waste, are looking promising. Other than that, renewables are the way to go for sure. Still it won't solve other carbon sources, its just the energy sector. It cannot fix agriculture emissions, but maybe indirectly the building emissions, with new tech like electrically recycled concrete or green steel.
Will this happen in our current society... probably not, its just more profitable to fck the planet.
3Nuclear power is the best alternative to fossil fuels. Yet the same people who are screaming about climate change are often terrified of the idea. If we really want to slow global warming, we need to build more nuclear plants instead of giving in to the uneducated idiots who think "nuclear is scary."
1If we really want to slow global warming, we need to build more nuclear plants
Nope. Nuclear energy production is already becoming less effective and less safe due to the very problem you claim that it's the only fix for, and it's only getting worse.
Nuclear might have been a viable solution at one point, but it isn't now.
A combination of renewable energy is, though. It has none of the drawbacks of nuclear, is many times faster to build and get operational, and is also much cheaper. And yes, it's capable of producing several times the world's energy needs when fully utilized.
Only significant drawback is having to retool the grid to better accommodate decentralized production, but that's nowhere near as significant as the many upsides.
So no, it's not just "uneducated idiots who think nuclear is scary“ who realize that nuclear isn't the magic bullet that you guys and the fossil fuel industries pretend that it is.
6The very first (and only) comment on the article you linked referred to a "dry cooling" method that negates what you're saying about warm or scarce water. Nuclear fission certainly has its drawbacks, but it still remains our best option for power generation. Fear-mongering and trying to convince people that nuclear isn't viable is part of the reason why tons of greenhouse gasses are constantly spewed out of fossil-fuel plants.
1
You are absolutely correct. Not to mention that -- considering only normal operation -- coal plants release more uncontained radioactivity into the environment. (I'm VERY aware of the caveat that I specified "normal operation" and "uncontained", before anyone brings it up.)
0Nuclear is terrifying, but global warming is an existential nightmare. I'll take nuclear any day.
0Nothing about nuclear power generation needs to be terrifying. The incidents that have scared people into thinking "nuclear is bad" all happened in poorly regulated (Chernobyl or 3-mile Island) or outdated (Fukushima) power stations. It's like saying that air travel is dangerous because a privately-owned vintage plane from the 1950s crashed. There are so many regulations, engineering controls, and governmental policies that keep nuclear power safe. The problem is that we're not putting enough resources into modernizing old plants and building new ones, and that's exactly because people are scared.
1