Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "Apocalypse Never? | Michael Shellenberger | EP 197" video.

  1. Uranium mines are huge strip-mine affairs and waste disposal is problematic in the not-in-my-backyard sense. Breeder reactors would go a long way towards reducing the footprint, but then you run into nuclear proliferation issues. There's no energy source without trade-offs. That tiny amount of U-235 requires mining megatons of uranium ore and a huge investment of energy (gaseous diffusion, centrifuges, or whatever they use to separate chemically-identical U-235 isotope from its useless U-238 isotope).
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  2. Yes. The only humane way to achieve all the environmental goals we set for ourselves is to get the government and other authoritarians out of the "save the planet" campaign. Prosperity is the key. And the key to prosperity is basic civil and human rights guaranteeing persons and their property. As soon as you're even a little bit prosperous, you tend to seek higher rungs on Maslow's ladder, including the stewardship-of-your-neck-of-the-woods rung. Wood for heating isn't as bad as you think, if it's done properly, with rocket-stove mass heat systems. But the EPA is too slow to embrace the new/old tech, and without its seal of approval, you can't get your home insured if it incorporates such concepts. There's also no way for corporations to get rich off you for implementing simple green tech. The "establishment" wants you on their grid, obeying its orders and regulations. Its idea of an environmental and energy-efficient home is a cracker box on top of the ground that doesn't breathe. Even if these bureaucrats mean well, they're unequipped to stay current and they only ask the most conspicuous robber barons how they should go about ordering us around. There are a lot of old- and new-tech ideas I'd implement in my own house in the suburbs, but most of them are "illegal." I can't capture the rain off my own roof. I can't get a permit for a rocket-stove mass heater, and even if I can, I can't get it insured, because nobody knows what to make of it.
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  3. Even if you believe that our pollution is extinction-level, the LAST people you want to listen to are the people insisting that it's extinction-level. They're all a bunch of money-grubbers, authoritarians, and people who just don't like people! Meanwhile, people in the MILLIONS (maybe reaching BILLIONS) are learning smarter ways of doing things, just by sharing their successes and failures on channels such as Kirsten Dirksen's. And we're getting a LOT smarter about agriculture. The biggest obstacle? Top-down globalists, corporatists and socialists.
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