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No this isn't true at all. People in general just want reasonably affordable, clean, and safe energy. Particularly one that can be gotten without bombing brown people or relying on 3rd world near-slave labor. So long as it meets those criteria most people won't care where it comes from. Yes, even if it means a relative few birds.
What does clean energy have to do with shipping jobs overseas? Did you know that there are less than 1 million energy, mining, and oil extraction workers total in the US? That is less than .3% of the entire population of the US, so not much of an impact even if we got rid of all those jobs tomorrow anyways.
You know you catch more flies with honey rather than vinegar right?Most environmentalit's aren't degreed professional's. They are young, generally un-educated, followers, and only know, and follow what they have been brain washed, or programmed to believe.
The fact that it's doing better than the Volt (which keep in mind has a MUCH longer range than the Leaf, thanks to it's hybrid system) says something, and I'm willing to bet that it's pretty much only because it's a good bit cheaper. Once again, like I said, people do want these things, they just don't want to pay crazy money for them. If it was about "range anxiety" or any of that crap, no one would be buying a Leaf and Volts would be selling a good deal better than they are even with the price premium. I'd put good money on the idea that if the Leaf were the same price as similar-sized competitors, it would be selling like crazy.
, but they are very expensive. Their newest model, the Model S, is advertised at 300 miles per charge. Now that's something I would seriously consider, having a decent 300 mile range, as well as performance, and looks, but they are very expensive, and they haven't started production on it yet. Besides, they are a small company, that could very well go out of business tomorrow.
Stopping (or rather postponing) regulations that your own administration created, while at the same time stonewalling oil drilling permits, is like saying "Hey, I just punched you in the face instead of kicking you in the groin! Why aren't you grateful!?"
That conclusion is only defensible if you ignore the benefits people gain from having their own vehicle, and if you assume that everyone lives in an urban environment.
Relatively few? We're talking numbers in the hundreds-of-thousands-to-millions of birds killed. Actually, you're right--it is a relatively small percentage. The problem with wind and solar is that they're expensive.
Sending jobs overseas? Oh, yes. The Obama administration has effectively (and illegally, I might add) placed a moratorium on drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico. There is a large number of drill rigs which have now moved on to other areas of the world, along with their workers. Five coal-fired plants in Pennsylvania due to close over the next few years due to EPA regs, along with their jobs. Do you think that China is going to implement environmental regs like ours? Heck no. Obama rejects the Keystone XL pipeline. So the Canadians start negotiations with the Chinese to send their oil there instead. That means no construction jobs for that pipeline in the US, not to mention the jobs that won't be created at the refineries, nor the revenue from those exports. The list goes on and on and on.
And do you know why businesses are padding their profits right now? Because they have this looming spectre of Obamacare which will kick in in 2014 and increase their costs dramatically.
These already tried this but it didn't work out. The batteries don't fit in the car, they sit in a small little trailer that you hook up to the back of the car. They can also do this with a gas powered generator as a very long range back up too.
No. The reason why the GoM drilling permits are on hold is because the oil companies fucked up big time and tried to cover their tracks and then tried to weasel out of paying damages. Remember that huge clusterfuck of a oil spill from the Deep Horizon back in 2010? Also there are only a few thousand jobs or so associated with the oil drilling business in that area IIRC.
I mostly agree with this. They still have to work out the irregularity of the power generation from these sources too of course which is a surprisingly difficult thing to do, but there is great potential there. Still needs more time in the R&D oven IMO. Personally I'd be happy if we went mostly nuke or started exploring Thorium Reactors instead. Supposedly lots of the R&D has already been done on Thorium Reactors, and they had a working test reactor in the 1960's, so I'm actually a bit more optimistic about them working than Solar/Wind.
We've already talked about this. Even if you fired pretty much all of the US energy sector workers tomorrow it'd hardly make a dent on the economy, and that certainly isn't happening. If anything with all the Nat. Gas drilling and fracking Obama has OK'd he has more than compensated with any jobs that have been lost due to his finally regulating some of the worst abuses we've seen in the last few years.
Actually they are. Not because they want to, but because they're being forced to. Some places in China are getting so polluted that they're being abandoned and the government there is finally starting to take notice of the situation. Abuses are still common but being cracked down on more and more.
No it doesn't. The Keystone pipeline would've created at best around 15,000 temporary jobs that would've lasted around 6 months. The pipeline would've created a massive oil disaster should a major leak occur, which BTW isn't unheard of. Happens all the time over seas in countries like Liberia that no one cares about over here in the US so you don't hear about it. You're making more mountains out of molehills.
Nope. They're padding their profits by outsourcing blue collar jobs and playing stupid financing games that will blow up in a few years long after the current execs and CFO's get to ride off into the sunset, sticking other people (read: you and me) with the bailout bill. Obamacare isn't going to do anything to increase healthcare costs more than they're already rising, which BTW is well over the rate of inflation, while wages stagnate or fall. THAT is the true failure of PPACA and is one of the main reasons why I dislike Obama.
Because what they're doing more closely resembles legalized robbery rather than business a la the Robber Barons during the Gilded Age. Many of these big banks and mega corps aren't really doing anything to add value to the economy as a whole, they're extracting rents to further their bottom line. Or IOW, they're making themselves richer by making everyone else poorer. Healthcare is one of the most obvious cases of this but its made all the more tragic/horrible since known solutions already exist and they're literally making people's lives shorter/crappy by denying or restricting healthcare to further their bottom line.