Radical capitalism doesn't provide incentives for sustainable living.
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Radical capitalism doesn't provide incentives for sustainable living.
There DEFINITELY IS a way to switch to 100% renewable energy right now that doesn’t break the bank and put the economy at a disadvantage or leave people unemployed.
We could easily convert, but…
Those in charge of the dirty fuel industries stand to lose out so therefore they lobby the government to keep them profitable.
Billi you might think you have some flowery idea about how capitalism works but it’s not. THIS is how capitalism works and it won’t change unless the ones in charge do something.
We’ve got a federal election coming up and (since I always vote early to get it out of the way) I voted yesterday. I voted Greens all the way baby.
Not promoting radical BS capitalism of Enron or wall st bankers with too big to fuck schemes.
Dollar speaks.
You won’t wake big energy or car companies up by begging them. GM fucking had a decent EV. But why should it compete with itself?
Now that Tesla is around, GM has been awaken to face the new reality to convert and change and try to lead the market or suffer a slow death.
This is why capitalism works better than socialism. If we’re more socialistic, we’d heavy handedly force GM to change. It might work out, but stupid politicians may also cause GM to fail, or not... because we could bail them out again... and eventually GM doesn’t have to worry about whether product is a success or failure...
Entrepreneurs tend to have better visions and better grasp of actual market demands. Of course, if they don’t, that’s cool, they’ll fail at a smaller scale and nobody will know. Only if they succeed can they scale up to become bigger. But if a government’s social experiment fails, all taxpayers will not only know it, but also feel it. All of our eggs in one government basket is just much more riskier then allowing healthy market competition.
Government can play a role of regulating that market of course... I don’t believe in absolutely free market... for otherwise there wouldn’t the Enron and financial tsunamis that nearly wiped us all out.
Honestly, nuclear is our only real hope. But they lack of people wanting to learn about how inherently safe it is, prevents it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rare White Ape
I was watching an interview with Jay Inslee last night where nuclear was brought up. You could tell he wanted nothing of it because he said he'd only go to it if [insert long list of improbable benchmarks here]. Rather than use the cleanest and most efficient fuel available, people want to first go full NIMBY and then hold out hope for radical unicorn farts to be bottled to fulfill our energy needs.
/rant
They can build a reactor in my backyard if I get free energy for life.
Tyler I know how good nuclear is, but it’s possible to to go even better and use nothing but renewables.
Use a combination of technologies and storage options and you can provide base load power to almost everyone.
For example, in Denmark they’re building so many wind farms that in some areas they’ll have surplus energy available, and they’ll use that to extract hydrogen from water, which can be used to run gas turbine generators that currently use natural gas. Hydrogen when burned emits water, of course.
I’ve heard of a hydroelectric station in the UK that pumps water from the lower reservoir up to a dam during the day using solar, then uses that stored gravitational potential energy to power turbines at night as the water flows back down again. So the dam in the upper reservoir is basically a big solar power battery made of water.
The Western Australian government is funding a pilot program to extract hydrogen using a similar setup to the Denmark scheme, which will then be exported to India and China. Those two countries are some of the biggest polluters in the world, but they’re also the largest customers for renewable electricity because they’re switching over at a massive rate (although still not massive enough to save the world, it dwarfs Australia’s renewables uptake) and they are in the market for big hydrogen supply to feed into the gas turbines.
So it’s not a matter of just using solar or just using wind. It’s a combination of sources, and smart people are working on it and already have the answers. We just need to free our respective policymakers from the shackles of the big business oligarchs that control our energy and our media.
There’s the potential to make a fuckton of money in renewables, but the old businesses have their grip firmly around our necks, ensuring that they and their shareholders still rake in the dough. They’re just relying on the majority of the population to stick to their incorrect belief that renewable energy is for hippies and vote accordingly.
The NSW hydro system is a stored energy system, not a power generation. Don’t get enough rain for that.
Currently it’s mostly using excess baseload capacity at very offpeak times, then putting back in at peak.
This could help if we get more solar.
But the “big picture” is more than just climate change, it’s plastic pollution and deforestation. We actually have to change quite a few things. It takes effort, money and a willingness to do it.
Do I think these problems will “wipe out” humans - no.
But it could leave the planet a much shittier place, with a lot less wonder and a lot more suffering.
If we could get this sorted, as well as cease the blowing up and marginalisation of poor countries, we could be rocketing across the cosmos and exploring the universe together.
Yes, we are too late. We need to be taking massive, sweeping action to stave this off, right now, and we can't even all agree that it's a real problem yet. Worse still, we're all grappling with massive social inequality, which is a more immediate threat that takes a lot of focus away from dealing with climate change.
I estimate that we will either wither away slowly, or more likely, the global struggle for the resources that remain and the refugee crisis this will cause will eventually lead a nuclear armed country to use their weapons, effectively ending organized society much more abruptly.
I'm trying to appreciate the fact that it's at least nice to live at the time when human technology and society is the most advanced it will ever be.
Absolutely not having kids. Having kids at this stage is a cruel act. If you love kids, the most generous thing you can do at this point is to not have them.