There's a ton of stuff going on all the time which no amunt of insurance will cover.
And what exactly would that be? Essentially everything has insurance.
Fukushima is a bit different
Yeah. And what's stopping other stuff to be "a bit different"?
And even there the environmental impact was somewhat limited.
Japan got damn lucky the wind blew everything seawards. If the fallout had hit Tokyo, this would have been a very different story.
replacing their energy output with coal
And who did that? Nobody. There were no new coal plants to replace anything. That statement is straight up misleading. The old plants were kept running, yes, and they kept emitting, yes. And that's always the thing that's being brought up, "they could have taken the coal plants offline sooner had they just kept the nuke plants running a little longer". But that's an entirely different thing than "they replaced nuclear with coal". Nobody did that. Had they not tanked the German market for renewables, the coal plants would have been taken offline earlier, too, but for some reason that's never the sob story. Instead, people keep bringing up nuke plants time and time again, which is just weird. Yeah, coal and nuclear both destroy the planet. Let's not see which one's marginally worse but instead maybe just push something that's actually good for the planet?
Well, if that's so rare and can essentially be ignored, I'm sure you'll easily find insurance for nuclear plants that will cover the cost of a potential disaster. I mean, after all, it evens out over all the nuke plants, right? The market handles it, right?
Emphasis is misleading. If you think that an "assumption" is called an assumption because there's no evidence, you don't know how words are used in science. Also, it's supposed to be the other way round... If radiation damages cells (which I guess you don't seriously doubt) there needs to be evidence for a threshold, not for there not being one. Also:
Many expert scientific panels have been convened on the risks of ionizing radiation. Most explicitly support the LNT model and none have concluded that evidence exists for a threshold, with the exception of the French Academy of Sciences in a 2005 report.
The "controversy" chapter on that page is worth a read, but the point there is still pretty clear: most scientists do not see any indication for the existence of a threshold.
/edit
Also notice which country the scientists are from that don't agree on the lnt model... The one country that went all in on nuclear power. No shit, Sherlock.
Nuclear works well with fucking nothing because it doesn't work... because it's just too fucking expensive, has to be shut down when it's too hot and is so dangerous you can't even find insurance. Base load can be provided by hydro, gas (which can be sourced sustainably) or batteries, all of which is cheaper, less dangerous and more easily available than nuclear.
We also believe the dynamic macro environment has contributed to a more cautious consumer
Am I getting this right? Is this double speak for "the government is fucking up so badly, people try to save some wealth for the inevitable fall of society"?
You should replay it. It is imho the highlight of the series because of a few changes compared to other civ games:
Focusing on the terraforming and colonisation of alpha Centauri allowed them to have an actual story where you uncovered stuff about the planet and its indigenous lifeforms while you played. It's from the 90s, so there is no branching storylines, alternative endings or stuff like that, but even after repeated playthroughs it's nice to have some progression that's more than a tech tree.
Having only seven leaders (and having them all in every game, no smaller or larger games) might seem weird and tbh, larger maps feel a bit empty. However, each technology, city improvement or wonder gives you some (well narrated) text bits of one of them, giving them so much more character than the leaders in your average game of civ. The hatred for Miriam has become a meme, which wouldn't have happened if these characters weren't extremely well written. Ironically this is imho of of the reasons why the add on didn't work as well - the few bits that were added for each of the new factions just weren't enough.
Although there are more differences, like eg a unit design workshop, the game loop feels quite similar to civ. It's like they took civ 4, polished it and just decided to make it... Dunno, meaningful. And while that's not per se relevant for in game decisions such as "where to settle" or "what to build", it just makes the whole experience so much better. It's still my comfort game that I boot up for another play on my deck every now and then.
Every single day it's that fucker again. I'm from Europe, technically he shouldn't have any direct impact on my life and be an occasional footnote about what's going on on the other continent. And yet here we are, day after day wondering how much better the whole world could have been off if only one jerk had had slightly better aim.
And what exactly would that be? Essentially everything has insurance.
Yeah. And what's stopping other stuff to be "a bit different"?
Japan got damn lucky the wind blew everything seawards. If the fallout had hit Tokyo, this would have been a very different story.
And who did that? Nobody. There were no new coal plants to replace anything. That statement is straight up misleading. The old plants were kept running, yes, and they kept emitting, yes. And that's always the thing that's being brought up, "they could have taken the coal plants offline sooner had they just kept the nuke plants running a little longer". But that's an entirely different thing than "they replaced nuclear with coal". Nobody did that. Had they not tanked the German market for renewables, the coal plants would have been taken offline earlier, too, but for some reason that's never the sob story. Instead, people keep bringing up nuke plants time and time again, which is just weird. Yeah, coal and nuclear both destroy the planet. Let's not see which one's marginally worse but instead maybe just push something that's actually good for the planet?