Losing respect for Rand Paul

[shadow]

I don't think that solar energy is less efficient than coal.  I know that profitable solar manufacturing can be...and that the largest manufacturers, even when they beat coal, are not what you or I would consider sustainable or environmentally sound by a wide stretch.  

I think that you're expressing an academic naivety.  The market reality is that these dirty producers dominate, and will be your competition.  You will never be able to compete with them in a "free market"..because all other things being equal, the exploitative model is more cost effective to a producer...that's why we do it in the first place.  You will (and we already do) rely on regulation to even make the attempt, and lose.

Obviously I would use the most cost effective panels or wind turbines on the market. In our current system, I agree I wouldn't be competitive otherwise because there isn't enough regulation.

You assume I'm going to be stupid about it. I'm not stupid. If that's the market I'll play. If governments don't want to regulate industry, I don't think that's right, but unless I work for a company that can afford to lobby the government, that's a constraint I accept.

What's the alternative... not building renewable energy and letting all these conventional energy cronies continue destroying the environment? Give me your practical plan for taking action on climate change, not pushing it off until next decade like most global conferences do, but right now. Because this is one industry that's moving, and it's moving extremely quickly, towards completely reshaping the world's consumption of fossil fuels, and it's doing it through a flawed free market. That's change. Not your one vote towards one of two corrupt candidates, but that's the level of change we need to fight things like climate change.

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What is dirty solar?

It's people who are sexually attracted to the sun?

That's kind of hot, I guess