RE: The World's Transition to Renewable Energies
May 30, 2024 at 8:58 pm
(This post was last modified: May 30, 2024 at 9:05 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
If the so called climate emergency was a fucking lie it wouldn't matter whether or not china or india (or anyone else) kept dumping carbon. A person can believe it's not real, or they can believe it is real and other actors will not stop. Believing both is kind of odd.
You make a solid point we'll have to grapple with, though. Half the world reached peak ff use years ago, but the other half is either still increasing or yet to develop...and we can assume that they will dump some amount of carbon if/when they do. Net zero emissions is a great goal for a country like the us, aside from hinky accounting schemes, ofc. Without some plan to change the face of future development on a global scale it won't have the effect we hope, though, and will look more than a little bit like a naked attempt to slam the development door shut behind us. Yet another reason we need some sort of plan in addition to a green new deal in order to handle those predictable outcomes, circumstances, and relationships that could or might make the whole enterprise moot.
Nuclear was a missed opportunity...I think... with a very interesting relationship to the environmental movement in the us, particularly in the current moment. Largely as a consequence of the us environmental movement growing out of socialist environmentalism, cemented by the chernobyl disaster and subsequent soviet disinfo ops. If we're leaving ff for concern of the harm to human life...nuclear waste, and what will inevitably be described as nuclear proliferation in the third world, are a pretty straight-line focus from there. I don't mean this as an endorsement. IMO, nuclear is an improvement over ff. The us could do both. Other nations might be better served by one or the other depending on their circumstances, willingness, and ability. Then again, as above, other nations may have a vested interest in dumping even more carbon because they are a petrostate, expect beneficial outcomes from climate change, or both (hello russia, again!).
I think that, in the end, for the us transition to have the effect that environmentalists hope for it has to be so compelling that other nations follow out of base self interest. I think that can be said of individuals, too. Seeing as how plenty of americans are themselves skeptical, we aren't there yet.
You make a solid point we'll have to grapple with, though. Half the world reached peak ff use years ago, but the other half is either still increasing or yet to develop...and we can assume that they will dump some amount of carbon if/when they do. Net zero emissions is a great goal for a country like the us, aside from hinky accounting schemes, ofc. Without some plan to change the face of future development on a global scale it won't have the effect we hope, though, and will look more than a little bit like a naked attempt to slam the development door shut behind us. Yet another reason we need some sort of plan in addition to a green new deal in order to handle those predictable outcomes, circumstances, and relationships that could or might make the whole enterprise moot.
Nuclear was a missed opportunity...I think... with a very interesting relationship to the environmental movement in the us, particularly in the current moment. Largely as a consequence of the us environmental movement growing out of socialist environmentalism, cemented by the chernobyl disaster and subsequent soviet disinfo ops. If we're leaving ff for concern of the harm to human life...nuclear waste, and what will inevitably be described as nuclear proliferation in the third world, are a pretty straight-line focus from there. I don't mean this as an endorsement. IMO, nuclear is an improvement over ff. The us could do both. Other nations might be better served by one or the other depending on their circumstances, willingness, and ability. Then again, as above, other nations may have a vested interest in dumping even more carbon because they are a petrostate, expect beneficial outcomes from climate change, or both (hello russia, again!).
I think that, in the end, for the us transition to have the effect that environmentalists hope for it has to be so compelling that other nations follow out of base self interest. I think that can be said of individuals, too. Seeing as how plenty of americans are themselves skeptical, we aren't there yet.
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