gpg: WARNING: unsafe enclosing directory permissions on configuration file `/home/nb/.gnupg/gpg.conf'
gpg: external program calls are disabled due to unsafe options file permissions
gpg: keyserver communications error: general error
gpg: keyserver receive failed: general error

% stat .gnupg
  File: ‘.gnupg’
  Size: 4096        Blocks: 8          IO Block: 4096   directory
Device: 1bh/27d Inode: 20578751    Links: 3
Access: (0775/drwxrwxr-x)  Uid: ( 1000/      nb)   Gid: ( 1000/      XXXX)
Access: 2015-08-09 18:14:45.937760752 -0700
Modify: 2015-08-05 20:54:32.860883569 -0700
Change: 2015-08-05 20:54:32.860883569 -0700
 Birth: -

# Set ownership to your own user and primary group
chown -R "$USER:$(id -gn)" ~/.gnupg
# Set permissions to read, write, execute for only yourself, no others
chmod 700 ~/.gnupg
# Set permissions to read, write for only yourself, no others
chmod 600 ~/.gnupg/*