Your comment is high on inflamatory polemics but lacking in substance. If you'd listed _what_ side effects you do foresee, that would have been a much more interesting comment.
We've had numerous examples now of how pseudo-environmental policies destroyed economies and energy infrastructure in europe (germany becoming super dependant on gaz and coal, and france leaving its nuclear infrastructure to rust), with absolutely 0 effect on climate, (and 0 is a generous number, if anything those policies did worst for climate change than just doing nothin).
I believe it is now time for citizen to ask a little more than just a "it's good for the environment" slogan, whenever state are starting to highly regulate and destroy parts of our economies. Such as serious scientific assessment on the real, numbered impact expected. Hint: it's not going to happen, because this airplane traffic obviously is totally negligible compared to the country CO2 emissions.
My man, you still haven't told me what this regulation is going to affect. What are the side effects? I'm not talking about energy infrastructure in Europe, nor am I interested in a wider discussion about 'eco-bullshit' or 'pseudo-environmental policies'. I'd just like to see your take on the unintended consequences of this policy that you are able to foresee. Furthermore, if the airplane traffic is indeed this negligible, then why does it even bother you in the first place?
I'm a bit sensitive myself, and apologies if I sound harsh, but HN has a permanent anti-regulation erection and seems to attract know-nothings who love to argue that all regulation is bullshit and the free market will fix everything, every time an article on a government intervention or policy is posted. It drives me bananas.
If you're going to be dismissing well-meaning political actions with hand-waving and vague insinuations that it's ecobullshit, one would hope you could do better than just a shrug and a "beats me".
> We've had numerous examples now of how pseudo-environmental policies destroyed economies and energy infrastructure in europe ... france leaving its nuclear infrastructure to rust
I'm the first one to criticize pseudo-environmental policies, and Germany was indeed a mess due to pseudo-environmental policies.
But the state of french nuclear infrastructure is not due to ecologists, it is very stupid to think it is, because it does not make any sense.
The different french government were all way more pro-nuclear than than in other countries, and french nuclear technology was always considered by them as a source of pride. The state of the nuclear infrastructure is a mix of plenty of things: short-term vision from the french politicians (as usual: results of investment take time and they will not be in power when they will come, so what's the point), overconfidence ("we have the best tech, I'm sure it will still be the case in 10 years, let's invest in other stuffs instead"), privatization (the picture would not be as it is today if EDF was not struggling economically because of the shoe-horned privatization that forced them to sell at loss), loss of know-how, ...
One example of how ridiculous it is to blame it on ecologists is when we talk about running nuclear plants. Their situation is very dire. Yet, how can it be the results of ecologists? If they were able to influence the decisions regarding the power plant, they would close it, not pass laws that say "let's decrease checks, let stuffs get corroded, let make the worker condition even worse". Obviously, if the ecologists were able to influence things that led to the situation of running power plants, they would have done things totally differently in order to reach their goal way faster.
it's a very famous fact that the fesseinhem nucleae power plant, for example, was an electoral deal between socialist party and the green one.
But more importantly, the idea that the "renewable energies" had to be pushed forward aggressively, despite all data showing it couldn't replace nuclear or fossile, is a general gospel spread by green activists throughout the world.
Political parties saw that the population were becoming brainwashed by this ideology and adapted, as a way to gain election.
Fessenheim is the proof that the state of the other nuclear plants is not the result of the greens: Fessenheim only does not explain why the other nuclear plants are in disarray.
The situation for Fessenheim is in fact more complicated (the condition to close Fessenheim was to open Flamanville, proof that the government was pushing to maintain nuclear and was not at all anti-nuclear).
Well, you seem to not know the data. I'm a pro-nuclear, and yet, nowadays, nuclear is just too expensive (you cannot do a small project, you can only invest very huge amount for project that will take years) and is sometimes not the solution (increasing the nuclear share is really the exception in scientific studies, not because of "green brainwashing", just because nuclear is just way more complicated to put in place than solar and wind. Solar and wind have the problem of variability of production, but this problem is not as big as other pragmatical problem with nuclear). Not all the decisions that imply choosing something else than nuclear means it's "pseudo-environmental policies", sometimes, it's just the result of science. I also remember that in France, pseudo-science and incorrect data was used to pretend that solar was bad for nuclear. These data were bullshit at the time, but now are even less credible as the facts demonstrate it was not the case.
There are stupidity in the side of the greens, but trust me, brainwashing is as important from the pro-nuclear who just refuse every scientific facts that don't go their way. And there is pro-nuclear brainwashed people in France for a long time, as long as the brainwashed greens. It's very sad to see those people thinking they are smarter when they are just as stupid and bad for the environment.
I'm not sure how you can justify destroying our existingworking nuclear infrastructure with science.
Solar and wind projects were made interesting only through a high level of market-rigging legislation, forcing edf to buy back electricity produced at a much higher cost than nuclear.
Our current abysmal state of energy infrastructure is the result of very politically oriented policies. not science. Hard facts never showed one could replace nuclear power plants with anything else. We actively made ourselves a net importer of electricity.
> I'm not sure how you can justify destroying our existing working nuclear infrastructure with science.
The working nuclear infrastructure was destroyed, but not because of the Greens.
In the case of Fessenheim, the closing was part of a reshuffle of the system to replace it with the more efficient Flamanville (which failed because Flamanville is having big delays, which is one aspect of the failing of the french nuclear infrastructure, still not due to the Greens). You have to understand that the electricity grid is a complex puzzle: you cannot just add an important power plant in the middle without closing other plants (if you supply more electricity than the demand, you have a blackout). I don't agree with the choice of closing Fessenheim, but the arguments behind it are way smarter than the brainwashed "it's the evil Greens". For example, when you build a new nuclear power (which costs A LOT), you need to prove it will makes profit. If at the same time, someone says "Fessenheim, planned to run for 40 years (and therefore close in 2010) will, surprise, run for more years, and will supply the electricity to the same region", then the investors of Flamanville realize that their margin will drop, and the project itself can end up being cancelled.
Closing Fessenheim was both a good politic move to calm down the Greens and the anti-nuclear population while also helping the nuclear sector by boosting the chance of success of Flamanville (removing the old tech of Fessenheim to replace it by Flamanville is a clear gain for the sector). And it was also very good for the brainwashing of the pro-nuclear who were able to pretend that they were victim of the Greens.
> Solar and wind projects were made interesting only through a high level of market-rigging legislation,
Except that nuclear is even more heavily subsidized and that there are a lot of market-rigging legislation to support a market that, normally, should fail. The nuclear market is really crazy: you need to put a lot of money based on predictions of how the electricity will look like in 10 years, crossing your fingers that all the very sensitive elements have no defect, and that you will find competent workers by then (it's not the case for renewable, which does not need huge initial investment, very sensitive elements, high training). This is basically just flipping a coin. No one wants to invest in nuclear, it's just not a good market, and it was able to exist in France only because the government was distorting the market.
> forcing edf to buy back electricity produced at a much higher cost than nuclear.
And again, this is certainly not because of the Greens. The reason is because the pro-nuclear but also pro-private sector french government decided to privatize the electricity sector in France. EDF, while public, had a lot of strong asset, so the government distorted the market by kick-starting possible competitors with this kind of non-sense. The french government idea was that if it's a free market, private competitors will magically stop draining the government money. Except that the nuclear market is way less attractive that they thought it was, and at the same time, the renewable energy market was also very unattractive in France, because the government was so pro-nuclear. So France had the worst of the two sides: no new nuclear, not much new renewable, still having to pay a lot to maintain the sector, and the owner of the nuclear power plant, EDF, now losing a ton of money and not being able to invest to maintain the quality of nuclear.
But, yeah, "it's all the Greens fault". It would be funny if such stupidity was not coming with brainwashed militants who do all they can to stop rational decisions.
