8 Likes
Why not?
Most of their stuff is already painted green anyway.
2 Likes
The well-known core competence of GOP politicians.
1 Like
Want to reduce the climate impact of the US military? End the wars, close the bases, bring the troops home and massively cut the budget.
The USA is building ten Ford class carriers. They cost $10 billion each, not including aircraft. No other nation on Earth has more than one large carrier.
How many solar panels and wind turbines can you build for $100,000,000,000?
3 Likes
I was thinking the same about “Debaucherous Waste”.
3 Likes
Better tech would likely make the military more resilient anyway. Like the Honda solar-powered domestic hydrogen generator. Operation Desert Storm would have been so much less smelly.
But seriously - a grid-based self-powering fighting unit, at any scale, eliminates the need for energy supply lines, which is what caused Hitler to fail on the Eastern Front in WW2.
I could really start riffing! Localised hardened communications grids, additive manufacturing units for parts replacement, water and food synthesis.
It’s obvious.
5 Likes
“…and it leaves a carbon footprint smaller than a smoking boot!”
2 Likes
Funny enough, being an out of work precariate lower middle class dad (one of those self taught computer programmers that barely makes it as a contractor) I’m now doing (temp agency) work in a factory building the diesel generators our military uses over seas.
They COULD be greener - the engines have stickers on em saying they are emissions exempt due to some national security act. But I don’t think it would be possible to generate the same power reliably with zero emissions via solar, wind, or whatever in the same situations (IE, quick setup, reasonable portability, etc). Batteries MIGHT cut it short term, but then where does the charge come from?
Maybe she’s thinking we can go nuclear? Would be impressive to see, but present tech for “portable” (say small trailer sized) nuke power is NOT the sort of thing you want in a war zone.
1 Like
Ha! But seriously, we all know it’s been more of a sandy hue for a couple decades now…
4 Likes
From 3 years ago -
And 2 years ago -
6 Likes
The asthma loves it. It’s the rest of you that’s not on board.
1 Like
One of the things I’ve learned is that whenever a group of experts asks the question, “How much would it really cost to solve global warming?” the answer works out to be somewhere around 3% of GDP, sustained over several decades. This seems to hold no matter what modeling methods or reasonable ranges of assumptions and approaches they use, and that percentages hasn’t changed much since at least the late 90s (the problem has gotten harder but the solutions have gotten much cheaper and GDP is larger).
4 Likes
Watching footage of military press briefings for the various iterations of Desert Storm, I remember being struck by the huge variety of snazzy camo’ suits worn by the officers.
1 Like
A bit off topic, but evidence of more corruption from the tRump administration in the renewable energy sector.
Christ, what a bunch of a$$holes. Its a$$holes all the way down.
1 Like
I think it’s great that she’s going all in with some really interesting policy proposals. But, that’s not generally how you win elections. There’s a reason why the best politicians play to your emotion, rather than your intellect (and by best, I mean the best at winning, not the best at governing).
All we can hope for is that her policies shape the direction of whoever occupies the Whitehouse next, because I don’t think it will be her.
In my more paranoid moments, I believe the U.S. military has only one objective: protect petroleum for the ruling class and the military. If we get to the stage where the average citizen has no access to petroleum and “green” technologies are the only ones they have access to, then the conspiracy theorist in me will feel well-vindicated.
1 Like
Drawing down the military would probably be more effective but that’s as likely as me winning the power ball.
1 Like
Fuel cells. A technology that brought men to the moon and back half a century ago.
And you can use renewables to make the hydrogen (or other suitable gases).
2 Likes
I’m fully in favor of massive investment in non-fossil-fuel energy infrastructure, but the military is the last place that initiative should get to. We could much more easily reduce military emissions by not starting wars of aggression, and not maintaining military bases all over the world.
FRY: I’m glad global warming never happened.
LEELA: Actually it did, but thank God nuclear winter cancelled it out.
5 Likes
