One thing people seem to misunderstand is where renewable skepticism is coming from. Sure there are some lingering climate deniers that don't like renewables ou

One thing people seem to misunderstand is where renewable skepticism is coming from. Sure there are some lingering climate deniers that don't like renewables out of principle, but a growing amount of criticism comes from people (I put myself in this camp) that see renewables as distracting us from the real and immediate need for decarbonization. I'm very skeptical about renewables ability to address any of our climate problems, but that stems more deeply from the clear observation that globally, we are not replacing fossil fuels with renewables, but rather supplementing fossil fuel energy. Globally all sources of energy production have continued to rise. And to preempt any "but Germany/Sweden/etc!?", the planet does not care about some local success if globally emissions rise. The problem is that most renewable advocates argue that renewables will solve our energy and carbon problems so we don't need to consider any other method of decarbonization that will necessarily result in economic contraction. Our way of life is absolutely unsustainable. I would certainly hope that renewables would allow us to have a less severe economic contraction then without, but the idea that we can just keep on with current economic growth and that renewables will magically allow this to happen without permanent and catastrophic impacts on our climate is dangerously naive. The original argument for renewables was that they would help us with decarbonization. They objectively do not. We do objectively know that reduced economic activity does reduce emissions. If we want to avoid catastrophic climate change we need immediate and aggressive decarbonization. Maybe renewables will have a major part to play in our less industrial future, but alone they have proven incapable of even mitigating this problem.