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Comment Moral bankruptcy (Score 3, Interesting) 190

All of the fossil fuels run on science. There is geology and chemistry and pollution control and how to make oil flow in a pipeline. If you school won't invest in fossil fuels, there is a chance you won't consider working for them either. The engineering and science may not get done as quickly and the industry may slow as a result of moral objections.

Comment Re:10 myths about fossil fuel divestment (Score 1) 190

Well #6 says "This argument would have merit if there was much evidence to support it. When, for example, the Guardian asked the Wellcome Trust to give instances where engagement had produced change, it could not. And as campaigner Bill McKibben has pointed out, engagement is unlikely to persuade a company to commit to eventually putting itself out of business. In fact some market regulators, such as in the US, do not allow this kind of engagement. "

Comment This might explain (Score 2) 190

"There have been a handful of successful divestment campaigns in recent history, including those targeting violence in Darfur, tobacco advertising, and others, but the largest and most impactful one came to a head around the issue of South African Apartheid. By the mid-1980s, 155 campuses – including some of the most famous in the country – had divested from companies doing business in South Africa. 26 state governments, 22 counties, and 90 cities, including some of the nation’s biggest, took their money from multinationals that did business in the country. The South African divestment campaign helped break the back of the Apartheid government and usher in an era of democracy and equality." http://gofossilfree.org/what-i...

Comment 10 myths about fossil fuel divestment (Score 5, Interesting) 190

10 myths about fossil fuel divestment are put to the sword here: http://www.theguardian.com/env... Yours is #5. "To sell a stock you have to have a buyer. But the amounts being divested are too small to flood the market and cut share prices, so they won’t be going cheap. Also, the buyers of the stock are taking on the risk that the fossil fuel stocks may tank in the future, if the world’s nations fulfil their pledge to keep global warming below 2C by sharply cutting carbon emissions. If these stocks are risky, then the public and value-based institutions primarily targeted by the divestment movement should not be holding them. The argument that owning a stock gives you influence over a company leads us neatly into the next divestment myth."

Submission + - UN backs fossil fuel divestment campaign (theguardian.com)

mdsolar writes: The UN organisation in charge of global climate change negotiations is backing the fast-growing campaign persuading investors to sell off their fossil fuel assets. It said it was lending its “moral authority” to the divestment campaign because it shared the ambition to get a strong deal to tackle global warming at a crunch UN summit in Paris in December.

“We support divestment as it sends a signal to companies, especially coal companies, that the age of ‘burn what you like, when you like’ cannot continue,” said Nick Nuttall, the spokesman for the UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC).

The move is likely to be controversial as the economies of many nations at the negotiating table heavily rely on coal, oil and gas. In 2013, coal-reliant Poland hosted the UNFCCC summit and was castigated for arranging a global coal industry summit alongside. Now, the World Coal Association has criticised the UNFCCC’s decision to back divestment, saying it threatened investment in cleaner coal technologies.

Several analyses have shown that there are more fossil fuels in proven reserves than can be burned if catastrophic global warming is to be avoided, as world leaders have pledged. Divestment campaigners argue that the trillions of dollars companies continue to spend on exploration for even more fossil fuels is a danger to both the climate and investors’ capital.

Comment Imprisonment to death (Score 1) 1081

Imprisonment to death seems to work for civil courts. It used to be that armies on the march or in battle did not have the facilities to deal with mutiny less drastically so they would have to use summary execution, but these days that is probably not the case. The US executed one soldier for desertion in WWII, and that after a court martial. Still, it is the reason officers have sidearms.

It is worth considering that corporal punishment was also a lack of facilities issue. It is cruel and unusual now because prisons are available. But use of stocks or flogging or maiming are a sign of a society too poor to afford prisons. Justice must be seen to be done, and the punishment must be deserved. When a society is poor, it has to have punishments that still seem proportionate.

Submission + - Cost of 2 new SC reactors up to $11 billion because of construction delays (thestate.com)

mdsolar writes: SCANA Corp. on Thursday filed a petition for a hearing before the S.C. Public Service Commission for it to approve higher costs and later completion dates for two reactors under construction at the V.C. Summer plant.

In the petition, SCE&G, the corporation’s electric utility, said the cost for completing the new nuclear units at the Jenkinsville plant are likely to rise by $1.2 billion from its initial $9.8 billion price tag – to $11 billion. Completion of the Unit 2 reactor will be pushed back three years from 2016 to 2019.

The Unit 3 reactor at the plant north of Columbia is not expected to be finished until June 2020, after an initial projected completion date of 2019, the company said.

Comment Doing the whole thing (Score 1) 262

First, I should point out that land area is not an issue for solar. http://www.csmonitor.com/Envir... But when we speak of wind or solar doing the whole job, (about our only choice when the oil, gas, coal and uranium run out) certainly we can see how some energy needs will require fuels. Aviation would be difficult without jet fuel. But synthetic hydrocarbon fuels are already a part of Sachs' Deep Decarbonization Pathways. http://unsdsn.org/what-we-do/d... Calm nights can be handled that way as well.

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