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U.S. Presidential Candidates Answer ScienceDebate 2016 Questions

posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the interesting-but-not-surprising dept.

slash2phar writes:

Three of the four major candidates for United States president have responded to America's Top 20 Presidential Science, Engineering, Technology, Health and Environmental Questions. The nonprofit advocacy group ScienceDebate.org has posted their responses online. Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Jill Stein had all responded as of press time, and the group was awaiting responses from Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by fadrian on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:03PM

    by fadrian (3194) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:03PM (#401783) Homepage

    2) Only Hillary has a pro-science stance. Too bad she never mentions nuclear energy as a responsible source for clean energy

    As for your point (2), the entire answer to question 11 in TFA is about nuclear energy and where it fits into an overall energy strategy. I assume the remainder of your points are as well informed.

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  • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:43PM

    by zocalo (302) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:43PM (#401846)
    Yeah, but if you read Clinton's response carefully she's at no point promising to make the construction of new nuclear capacity part of her renewable energy plan. Manage the existing plants, with an implication that she'll be shutting down plants that can't be run safely, and fund some research into new technologies, yes, but there's no statement of intent to build some new plants.
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    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:25PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:25PM (#401868)

      So she does mention it; she just doesn't pledge the exact platform you wanted.

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      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"

      • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:12PM

        by zocalo (302) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:12PM (#401904)
        DECbot's stance, maybe, I wasn't specifically stating one - just pointing out what Clinton's responses actually say about nuclear. For the record though, I'm very much in favour of trying to reduce the overall levels of emissions by any practical means. That includes all the so called clean/renewable energy sources, nuclear included, as well as retrofitting existing coal/oil plants to reduce their impact as a stop gap. They all have some drawbacks, including in terms of environmental impact, but statistically pretty much any of the alternatives is still vastly better options than burning hydrocarbons, IMO.
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        UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:20PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:20PM (#401949) Journal

      Yeah, but if you read Clinton's response carefully she's at no point promising to make the construction of new nuclear capacity part of her renewable energy plan.
       
      What part of "...increase investment in the research, development and deployment of advanced nuclear power." is hard to follow?

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:11PM

        by aristarchus (2645) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:11PM (#401971) Journal

        What part of "...increase investment in the research, development and deployment of advanced nuclear power." is hard to follow?

        I imagine it is the part where it is Hillary Clinton saying it.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by zocalo on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:24PM

        by zocalo (302) on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:24PM (#401976)
        What part of her being a career politician is hard to follow? If there's not a copious amount of salt involved in interpreting whatever she (or any other politician) says and identification of any potential ambiguity/outright lies, you're doing it wrong. In her statement there's no commitment to how large the investment might be, to any kind of timescale for the spend, or any kind of specifics as to what "advanced nuclear power" might actually entail. Based solely on what was written she could just be intending to construct a single R&D thorium plant somewhere rather than initiating the construction of a whole bunch of production reactors and feeding their collective output into the power grid.

        It's standard fare for an election campaign; give vague statements that hopefully don't get anyone (and especially the NIMBYs and special interest groups) up in arms, but have enough wiggle room that people will read into it what they want to hear while allowing you to deliver much less - or nothing - and still claim to have ticked the box. The stuff that leaves almost no room for doubt; that's what they actually hope to do, everything else is a "nice to have" at best, or just a grab for votes.
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        UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:41PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:41PM (#401983)

          Lame. Just lame. You point out a very specific point that she didn't say anything about it, to which you are proven absolutely incorrect. Now you're just embarrassing yourself trying to weasel out of being wrong.