With respect to the energy issue..

Listening once again to the Space Show broadcast with Moynihan, which I didn't finish yesterday.  I got a little further into it, and I think the reason I stopped is that he starts talking "climate change", and that was it for me.

Keep in mind that fusion research is trying to get to the point that molten-salt reactor tech was 40 years ago.  These folks like to say that everybody is looking for a new energy source, but they keeping overlooking something that was proven in the lab.  Why not implement that?

I'm all for fusion, don't get me wrong.  But fusion is hard.  Fission is doable now.  The problems with fission are manageable, but people are convinced for some reason that the problems aren't manageable.

As long as that capability is available, it should be used, while at the same time, new capabilities can be developed.  The environmentalists are against everything.  Even solar and wind.  There isn't anything out there that will please everybody.  But if the enviros win, everybody loses.  You cannot run a modern society with what they propose.  That's the point, the deep enviros don't want modern tech; because in their view, modern tech causes more problems than it solves.

That kind of thinking assumes that the world before the industrial revolution was a bowl of cherries and that everybody was living in harmony with nature.  That's a lot of wishful thinking.  Environmental degradation can occur with animal species.  It isn't unique to mankind.

Humans are defined by technology.  Even chimps use a type of technology to fish for termites.  Just because humans are better at tech doesn't mean it should stop.  Otherwise, you have to wipe out all intelligent life forms---even the great apes.  Now if you did that, what could be the guarantee that another life form couldn't arise and do what humans are doing?

Isn't it better to keep improving tech as opposed to throwing it out the window?