Comments Policy

I welcome comments, posts, suggestions and informed debate, from a wide range of perspectives. However, personal attacks, insulting/vulgar posts, or repetitious/false tirades will not be tolerated and can result in moderation or banning. Trolls will be warned, and then banned. I have limited tolerance for such behaviour. 

This is a website for people concerned about mitigating climate change, protecting biodiversity, whilst also enhancing human well being and growing our civilisation. A core goal is to seek timely, cost effective and technology-driven solutions. If you are not interested in these focal areas, and are instead looking to aggravate those who are, then go elsewhere. It’s a big internet, and there are plenty of ‘alternative’ places in which you can rant.

Commenting rules:

Civility – Clear-minded criticism is welcomed, but play the ball and not the person. Rudeness will not be tolerated. This includes speculation about motives or what ‘sort of person’ someone is. Civility, gentle humour and staying on topic are superior debating tools.

Relevance and Evidence – Please maintain focus on the topic at hand. Do not attempt to solve big problems in a single comment, or to offer as fact what are simply opinions about complex matters. Please avoid posts that are convoluted, irrelevant (Off Topic -there is a separate Open Thread thread for these) repetitious or circular. To avoid this provide scientific data, links, references, etc. to support your arguments.

Citing literature and other sources — appropriate and interesting citations and links within comments are welcomed, but please DO NOT cite material that you have not yourself read, digested and understood. As a general rule, please introduce any and every link or reference with a short description of the material, your judgement on its quality, and the specific reason you are including it (i.e. how it is relevant to the discussion).

Politics — The BNC blog does not support any particular political ideology. Blatant political tirades (of any persuasion) and attempts to rally support for any political party will not be tolerated. When presenting facts, please frame them in a politically non-partisan manner. Obviously the odd, off-the-cuff political comment is permissible.

Moderator — Any moderator decision has the blog owner’s full support. Please desist from appealing any such decision.

Formatting — For guidelines on how to format comments and search the website and comments, read this.

9 replies on “Comments Policy”

Great enlightening article. He’s wrong about Ontario though. I live here and we have built over a dozen of gas plants recently. Windmills cost $9.5 million each. No one can convince me that they will each produce 10 million dollars worth of electricity each with of energy each over their lifetimes especially when we are already paying competing jurisdictions over $1.2 billion a year to take our excess power.

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Barry, I’m fully supportive of respectful and factual commentary, but I think you have a responsibility to follow these rules as well and ensure your commentator and supporters do so too. Your response to Dr Helen Caldicott could hardly be called respectful. I also think bias and declaring conflict of interest is important. You’ve been commissioned to write papers for the energy and mining sector! You support for Nuclear over any other option is clear. Ultimately this debate will come down to community opinion in the end. I’m quite happy to declare my preference is for renewables, clean and green. I will base my opinion on the analysis of the next generation of IV technology by Physicist’s who are interested in a honest factual analysis of the science not just promoting their point of view. I support rigorous peer testing.

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Grace, I follow these rules. The response to Caldicott by Geoff Russell was factual and supported by evidence. I have been commissioned to write papers yes, but not for payments. I was asked if I would be willing to submit, and I agreed. No $$, no hint or implication of reward. My financial interests are declared, on the record, here: http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/about-the-commission/disclosure-of-potentially-relevant-roles-interests-expert-advisory-committee/

The debate does not ultimately come down to opinion, it comes down to evidence and facts. That is quite different. This is science and engineering, not sociology.

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Edward Greisch — The USA had short cycle, carbon moderated reactors for making weapons plutonium. I visited one at Hanford in the early 1950s. All are now in safe-store for eventual disposal.

My understanding is that the same is true in Britain, France and Russia. I don’t know about China.

In any case, it is not a concern for the power industry except many still intermingle and confuse the two.

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DBB: I think you are correct. We [US, Britain, France and Russia] no longer need more Pu239.

Who is the web site owner and who are the moderators?

Who is PeterF?
BNC MODERATOR
I am unsure as to which site you refer.
If it is BNC I am sure you know Professor Barry Brook is the site owner.
Prof Brook and the moderators of BNC have been on holiday since Christmas Eve.
Peter F is just another commenter.
We are now back and I have spent some time checking the comments made over that period.
It would be far too time consuming to go back and moderate them all and the conversation would be disjointed if I did.
Would everyone please re-read the Comments Policy and abide by same. Thank you.

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Multiple posts : duplicate comments or repeats will not be published. Users should only post one review per experience. The NHS website uses a trusted third party (called icuc.social) to provide moderation services. This company is based in the UK and is required to keep your details confidential and secure, in keeping with our own privacy policy.

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I’m quite confused by the recent advice of and comments by Shellenberger, adviser to the IPCC. Specifically:
Here are some facts few people know:
● Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction”
● The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”
● Climate change is not making natural disasters worse
● Fires have declined 25 per cent around the world since 2003
● The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska
● The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California
● Carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations and have been declining in Britain, Germany and France since the mid-1970s
● The Netherlands became rich, not poor, while adapting to life below sea level
●We produce 25 per cent more food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter
● Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change
● Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels, and
● Preventing future pandemics requires more, not less, “industrial” agriculture.
How can these points be correct?
I thought we needed to tax carbon production? I think we are at a tipping point and crisis is here and now?

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