2016 USA Presidential election thread I: The warm-up

[Jaybar]

Good luck on getting enough power out there to fuel that insatiable urge for water across the Middle East when many countries are having regular brownouts as it stands, never mind including the demands desalinating enough water to meet the demand properly would cause.

Barring a heavy investment in nuclear power (like the West is gonna allow that, HA HA HA), there isn't enough in the Middle East's power generation grid to fix that problem.

Again, the only way to sustain in areas like the Middle East they are going to have to re-centralize near fresh water sources (you know, like how civilization began) and not spread out over irrigable and agricultural land. Denser cities mean more farming available closer to natural fresh water sources (whether rivers, lakes or major aquifers). Oh no, I said that voodoo word, density. I guess we're fucked because it's not government you need to worry about, it's the general populous' uneducated and frightened mindset of the built environment.

[Churchill]

Doesn't ISIS get most their money from Oil and gas?

Or from people in nations who got their money from oil and gas, yes. A really simple way to fuck the ME is to become energy independent/not use oil/gas (and hopefully coal at the same time)

[archibaldcrane]

I'm on it!
http://images.fastcompany.com/upload/610-e-musk-1.jpg

[Roranora]

I love Elon and Tesla, but let's not pretend there isn't a significant release of carbon for manufacture of each battery. Still, it is less O&G-dependent, and I do support this notion to alter the political landscape in the ME, albeit at a glacial pace.

[Churchill]

Until the world is nuclear powered, that isn't happening. China is trying to do it, so is India. France has mostly done it. We are not, the rest of the EU/Russia is not. (Russia's economy largely depends on the 'not')

[Roranora]

Until the world is nuclear powered, that isn't happening.

I think we have some members in another thread working on that.

[archibaldcrane]

I love Elon and Tesla, but let's not pretend there isn't a significant release of carbon for manufacture of each battery. Still, it is less O&G-dependent, and I do support this notion to alter the political landscape in the ME, albeit at a glacial pace.

Let a brother open a gigafactory first yo

http://www.teslarati.com/gigafactory...arbon-neutral/

(and of course, whether something is carbon-neutral or not has nothing to do with whether it supports oil sales from the middle east)

[archibaldcrane]

Until the world is nuclear powered, that isn't happening. China is trying to do it, so is India. France has mostly done it. We are not, the rest of the EU/Russia is not. (Russia's economy largely depends on the 'not')

Sweden does pretty well there too.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/uploade...es_of_elec.png

And yeah the US is pretty much 1/3rd coal (and dropping), 1/3rd natural gas (and rising), 1/3rd "other" (mostly nuclear and hydro) - but that's basically all domestic production. Transportation fuels are where we import, not for electricity.

[Sho]

Carson can only go down I think. He has no Middle East policy. Post Paris debacle, it's gonna be a hard sell to not have one now.

[archibaldcrane]

I love how much of this map is "unpopulated desert areas"

[Churchill]

I don't know about the area around Raqqa, but the Iraq section is basically just the Tigris and Euphrates which are the only places people really live.

Edit: And HWY 1, which is the fastest route to Syria and not un-populated in its own right.

Edit: The only I can think of that exist in the unpopulated zones are Ba'qubah (Shia) and Haditha. Everything to the SE isn't really unpopulated, it's just Shia.

[archibaldcrane]

The only thing worse than my sister getting sent to a mistake of a war, is seeing any good she did patching up injured soldiers as a medic in Mosul to be completely wiped out by the city falling to ISIS afterwards.

[Andalusian girls]

thanks Obama

[archibaldcrane]

Actually that's completely wrong, seeing her get sent to war was way worse than Mosul falling lol

[Andalusian girls]

thanks Bush

[Churchill]

I had some good times in mosul man

[Churchill]

god we fucked those dudes up

[Waraji]

I had some good times in mosul man

[archibaldcrane]

I had some good times in mosul man

When were you there? She was there in 04-05.

[BerenTebogo]

When were you there? She was there in 04-05.

That time Church may have plowed your sister.