Is California becoming a National Security Risk to the U.S.?

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 11/15/2018 at 8:23 PM, Enthalpic said:

San Diego is awesome; if I ever left Canada it would be to move there.

Cali brings in tourism bucks and grows a lot of food - it's far more valuable than most flyover states.

 

 

California is the most beautiful state, has the most agricultural products and the best weather. Unfortunately, it also has the most smog, the most poor people, the most expensive housing, the worst traffic, and the most people leaving the state. Unfortunately, they tend to bring their socialist politics with them. Their energy rates are the highest in the country due to renewable use and stopping fossil fuel development. Their gasoline prices are also the highest. I lived half of my life there, and still winter there with my relatives. My nephew and his family just moved to a house on 25 acres in MIssouri for the same price as his other one on 1/8th of an acre.  He spent all his life in California but went to college in Missouri. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

9 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

 

Unfortunately, it also has the most smog.

[]...

Their energy rates are the highest in the country due to renewable use and stopping fossil fuel development. Their gasoline prices are also the highest.

Those points are connected... they are trying to solve a problem and are leading the world via 'State of California' regulations.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Enthalpic

[ronwagn + 6,290]

1 minute ago, Enthalpic said:

Those points are connected... they are trying to solve a problem and are leading the world via 'State of California' regulations.

Yes, they are related but they are too committed to "renewables". They should be using their abundant natural gas to run all of their trucking and other heavy vehicles. Wind and solar cannot do that job, and I don't think that electric vehicles will ever compete in heavy trucking. They were smart in closing San Onofre at least. Nuclear is also not competitive if you consider the long range costs. Los Angeles is commendable for using all natural gas buses and many other municipalities do also. Increased natural gas usage has made America a leader in clean air improvement. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

7 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

Yes, they are related but they are too committed to "renewables". They should be using their abundant natural gas to run all of their trucking and other heavy vehicles. Wind and solar cannot do that job, and I don't think that electric vehicles will ever compete in heavy trucking. They were smart in closing San Onofre at least. Nuclear is also not competitive if you consider the long range costs. Los Angeles is commendable for using all natural gas buses and many other municipalities do also.

I agree with much of that. 

Just think of how many people have been saved by "this product contains a substance known to cause cancer by the State of California" AKA your country / state knows too but won't tell you or demand its removal.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Enthalpic

[ronwagn + 6,290]

5 minutes ago, Enthalpic said:

I agree with much of that. 

Just think of how many people have been saved by "this product contains a substance known to cause cancer by the State of California" AKA your country / state knows too but won't tell you or demand its removal.

You are referring to what substance? Natural gas is used inside of homes for cooking, and in unvented heaters with just a window cracked. It also runs almost all heating in the world. Diesel has proven carcinogens and particulates that cause lung disease. Maybe California should ban natural gas ranges.  

Edited November 21, 2018 by ronwagn

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

1 hour ago, DDube said:

 

I saw my first Tesla in my town of 35,000 people the other day. It was a model X. I remarked to a friend (who has recently bought a Leaf? or another one of the more modest EVs) wow, it's big! Like an SUV. And I added, Ah well, I'm never going to spend 100K on a new car. Obviously I am way behind the times as he said, "nah, more like 250,000." 

Wow. This is in NZD but you get the picure. So I've just Googled it before posting this and am reading an article on nzautocar. Model S, based on battery pack. $126,000-$150,000. Model X - 75kWh to 100kWh is $145,000 to $224,000.

So I ask you Is this really "changing our shitty dirty ways of doing things to something more sustainable."??

Or is it just more shitty ways of doing things, wrapped in a vanity project for its creator and purchasers? I'd suggest you need to think again before preaching about morals.

 

Tesla choose to start selling luxury cars (Model S and X) because it's easier to make money with expensive cars than with cheaper ones. And as a brand new car manufacturer they were lacking the initial capacity to produce in huge numbers. Then increasing the industrial capacity will allow to produce more affordable cars. The Model 3 is cheaper than Model S and X and produced in higher numbers. Smaller and cheaper models are also planned in the coming years, helped by the falling price of batteries.

New technologies are initially expensive and the early adopters are usually rich. Then with mass production the price goes down and they are massively adopted. Think about the first mobile phones or the first personal computers. Tesla has a business model more inspired by the Silicon Valley Tech companies than by the car industry.

Model S and X were also built to prove that an electric car can be a high performance beautiful luxury car. Until Tesla entered the car market electric cars were essentially associated with little ugly cubic microcars and were not very attracting. Musk has successfully changed our vision of an electric car.

 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

2 hours ago, ronwagn said:

You are referring to what substance? Natural gas is used inside of homes for cooking, and in unvented heaters with just a window cracked. It also runs almost all heating in the world. Diesel has proven carcinogens and particulates that cause lung disease. Maybe California should ban natural gas ranges.  

Lots of stuff doesn't get banned - it just gets a label saying it contains poison; like cigarettes.  "Knowledge is power!"

 

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

1 hour ago, Enthalpic said:

Lots of stuff doesn't get banned - it just gets a label saying it contains poison; like cigarettes.  "Knowledge is power!"

 

 

Well, you have to know what you are talking about. Try using references. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur There is a trace of sulfur left in natural gas after filtration. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

22 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

Well, you have to know what you are talking about. Try using references. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur There is a trace of sulfur left in natural gas after filtration. 

I'm pro natural gas...

[David Jones + 84]

Your real national security threat is anthropogenic global warming and the resultant rapid climate change, or at the very least it is one of the highest order threats due to its global and seemingly exponential nature. Ignoring that will lead to great, potentially catastrophic pains down the line which are only just getting started now. It's a shame that many states do not recognize the danger properly. Or is it that the people at the top do recognize the danger but are somehow convinced they and theirs will be kept safe by their wealth. I can promise them that this will not be the case. The issue is so broad in nature that it will eventually touch each and every member of our species should we fail to respond accordingly and in time.

California is one of the states that is responding, I suggest those that aren't should reconsider their position while there is still a chance to limit the damages substantially. In a few decades, we will not only have to deal with extensive and recurring damages on a much broader scale but will concurrently have to rebuild the entire energy infrastructure at pace and will be faced with the prospect of removing gigantic quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere while at the same time traditional energy resources are likely to dwindle. That is a situation we should do our best to avoid because the strain could be sufficient to unravel civilization as we know it.

[DA? + 301]

12 hours ago, DDube said:

So I ask you Is this really "changing our shitty dirty ways of doing things to something more sustainable."??

Or is it just more shitty ways of doing things, wrapped in a vanity project for its creator and purchasers? I'd suggest you need to think again before preaching about morals.

It's a way of getting the wealthier to subsides the R&D for cheaper better EV's. Theres a reason why all of a sudden car manufactures are getting serious about EV's in large numbers.

[DA? + 301]

11 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Their energy rates are the highest in the country due to renewable use and stopping fossil fuel development.

Not really, has far much more to do with how the market is run there. take a look at that solar and wind prices.

[John Gammage + 19]

SERWIN, Eric, OK, I stand corrected on the coal transportation issue through CA, my source was clearly at fault, but please tone down your rhetoric a bit too. There's a real person here who's a Brit/US citizen, just retired after >40 years in the O&G industry after working on some of the most environmentally sensitive jobs in the history of the industry. 

[jaycee + 348]

16 hours ago, DA? said:

Are you talking about Ivanka with her emails and tRump? Are we still calling out "Lock her up" for this sort of thing?

DA

been thinkin u being a UK cit and all that how do you see the big issue in the UK just now? Would you accept or take your chances?

[Janet Alderton + 124]

On 11/21/2018 at 12:25 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

Your perception is obviously different than my perception.

Check out the November Scientific American. It is all about income disparities. The United States has the greatest income disparity in the world, and the consequences are not pretty.

[Ronald Stein + 23]

Sounds like Scientific American is addressing CA which has the highest poverty and homeless rate in America. Do you have a pdf of the article?

[Janet Alderton + 124]

On 11/14/2018 at 3:16 PM, Tom Kirkman said:

I wouldn't particularly mind if California seceded from the rest of the U.S. 

And no, I'm not joking.  Decades ago, I lived a few years in southern California.  It's like a different universe than the rest of the U.S.

The current direction that California is heading - including its craziness about keeping oil and natural gas in the ground - is not the same direction as the rest of the country.  

Actually, California is not "keeping its oil and gas in the ground".

The state of California is the third largest producer of fossil fuels within the United States.

A few Google searches would give you a better grounding in reality. 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

1 minute ago, Janet Alderton said:

Actually, California is not "keeping its oil and gas in the ground".

The state of California is the third largest producer of fossil fuels within the United States.

A few Google searches would give you a better grounding in reality. 

I think Tom uses duckduckgo.... google can't be trusted.

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

17 minutes ago, Janet Alderton said:

Check out the November Scientific American. It is all about income disparities. The United States has the greatest income disparity in the world, and the consequences are not pretty.

But they got Trump elected, so he could make the disparity even bigger... 

[TXPower + 643]

3 minutes ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

I think Tom uses duckduckgo.... google can't be trusted.

Finally, truth.

[DA? + 301]

6 hours ago, jaycee said:

DA

been thinkin u being a UK cit and all that how do you see the big issue in the UK just now? Would you accept or take your chances?

I'm out of the UK. Maybe this will teach many there that it's no longer a Empire ruling half the world.

[DA? + 301]

2 hours ago, Ronald Stein said:

Sounds like Scientific American is addressing CA which has the highest poverty and homeless rate in America. Do you have a pdf of the article?

You can't see me face palming can you. The reason why California has a high homeless rate is the climate and they actually help them rather than treating them as vermin to be chased out of town.

[Janet Alderton + 124]

3 hours ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

But they got Trump elected, so he could make the disparity even bigger... 

Hi Rasmus,

The United States democracy has quite a few quirks that give minorities a larger say than their absolute percentage of the population would otherwise grant them:

Each state's governor and state legislature that are in power after the census that occurs every 10 years can draw up new boundaries for the legislative districts. This usually results in favoring the political party that is in control at the state level. At the federal level, the House of Representatives is also affected by this "redistricting". For presidential elections, the structure of the Electoral College affects how each political party chooses its Presidential candidate. Primary elections are held in each state to choose the "electors" who are sent to each party's presidential nominating convention. The temporal order of the presidential primaries has great influence on who is ultimately selected as each party's candidate. Some proportion of the electors are selected by the party's leadership instead of via the primary elections.

Additionally, the Senate in Washington, D.C. has two Senators that represent each state -no matter how large or small the state's population. In the history of the United States, some states were able to divide themselves into two states and thus gain greater influence in the U.S. Senate. North and South Dakota, North and South Carolina, East and West Virginia were formed in this manner.  

Then there are the rules governing the financing of political campaigns. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out earlier rules that more strictly limited campaign contributions. The Court ruled that Corporations are "people' that can contribute unlimited amounts to candidates. Political Action Committees can also spend large amounts during campaigns as long as they advocate for policies and not for candidates.

I may have gotten some details of this very complex system wrong and am open to correction.  

[jaycee + 348]

5 hours ago, DA? said:

I'm out of the UK. Maybe this will teach many there that it's no longer a Empire ruling half the world.

missing the point there a bit DA. What's your view on the big decision take it or leave it?

[DA? + 301]

8 hours ago, jaycee said:

missing the point there a bit DA. What's your view on the big decision take it or leave it?

What take the deal that Europes given them or none. Britains bent over the barrel so they have to take what they are given. Brexit was the biggest con out there.