On the other hand, Coca Cola cans probably haven't changed significantly in the last 30 years, beyond different paint stencils. Unfortunately, phones and portable computing devices like tablets have become almost as much fashion accessories as utilitarian devices, with model lines being revamped on at longest a yearly basis. That requires more frequent reconfiguration/reprogramming of any robotic production line. That requires expensive technical skills and associated fixed costs that are harder to recuperate over a short product life cycle than would using a big screen to show a few hundred cheap unskilled labourers how to perform a new process.

Some workers at Foxconn were made to clean iPhone screens with a cleaner that is a known neurotoxin but weren't given adequate protective gear. The neurotoxicity led to hand tremors to a point were they were eventually laid off due to an inability to do their job. So yes, I expect that is worse than the local job examples you have given, although when migrant farm workers get sprayed with pesticides it probably comes close.

"Hydrogen" is a form of energy storage and transport, not an energy source.

Can't we just, um, adapt?

Oh, we will. At least those who are not living on mineral resource poor island nations expected to disappear underwater will. However consider that for many people currently living in barely habitable areas, AGW turning those lands into inhabitable locations will mean two things: population migration which makes the economic migration of the last 30 years (that already have the Tea Partiers in a lather) look like peanuts, and brutal wars over water and arable land. The last is good if you're into supplying weaponry for the highest bidder. However wars were the stakes are survival, and not just ideology, tend to be the most brutal because possible repercussions over "war crimes" don't matter if your alternative is watching your family/tribe/country drown or starve to death. And once a people have become habituated to that sort of conflict, they will use those tactics to compete for other resources, including ones you might find useful. Finally, for some, no forced adaptation will be possible and AGW-caused change will simply result in death.

I'm reminded of when the hole in the ozone layer was discovered in the 80s and entrenched economic interests fought controls over CFCs and recommended wearing UV-blocking sunglasses and sunblock, omitting how you were supposed to pull that off for the wildlife and livestock. Humans are very good at adapting, but the members of the food chains that we depend on are rarely as gifted in that regard, with dire consequences.

In short, adaptation of this sort usually implies drastic, traumatic change. So saying I'm not willing to change now because I can always adapt later, is sort of like saying I'm not willing to stop drinking heavily now and can deal with treating cirrhosis of the liver when I have to.

I can't help thinking that the "magical" anti-science meddling of religious wing-nut Republicans across the red states (with particularly egregious examples Kansas, Texas, and Alabama) doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence in their ability to fix the education system.

Punctuation is important :-)

Alex: Sorry Tragedy, I'm afraid that's not quite correct. . Paul? Paul: What is "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." ?

Um, if you've got 28Vdc, would you really need much more than a Zener diode and a resistor?

Alternatively, they could find and use a Kindle exploit.

Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about that. In an enterprise setting, it means rolling out updates is somewhat simpler. However in an enterprise environment, you've proably got some kind of infrastructure for rolling out updates and would prefer to have more explicit control over update deployment to be able to do regression testing first. As an individual user, do I really want every major shrinkwrapped application setting up a service with admin privilege to update itself? That would be a lot of network-capable code with admin privileges that could have bugs that lead to privilege escalation attacks. On my personal computer, I think I prefer to control that more explicitly.