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That’s what divesting from coal gets you, more expensive energy. Of course this hits the poor classes a lot harder compared to the middle-classes who pride them

That’s what divesting from coal gets you, more expensive energy. Of course this hits the poor classes a lot harder compared to the middle-classes who pride themselves in recycling and driving an EV that costs several tens of thousands of euros but that’s unfortunately the way the world runs, the poor get almost all of the hardships while the better-off get to dictate the discourse. Still sucks, though.

Dma54rhs 5y ago
Most of the people in the world aka energy consumers are not wealthy, if the price doesn't impact the "poor" you can't make people consume less really.
- fsslrisrchr 5y ago
  The poor, in democracy, will vote for their interests. So, unless you abandon democracy, you won't get the poor to vote carbon taxes. How about we start by putting a $1000/flight tax? Seems only fair that the rich, mobile class start reducing their emissions. After all, it's actually the upper classes that consume (by far) energy in gross terms.
  - nivenkos 5y ago
    This just punishes those with family abroad and reduces economic mobility. It'd be hard to tax private jets, so much like the EU has just done with fuel duty, they end up exempting the super-rich and hammering the working class with more taxes.
    - fsslrisrchr 5y ago
      So it punishes me that whose closest family is 500 km away. The next closest is 1000 km away and then half way across the world. A $100/flight tax for a family of 5 would bug me, but wouldn't stop me from flying. $1000/flight certainly would give me a pause. My proposal is against my own interests.
  - mint2 5y ago
    It’s actually more efficient for a person to fly 400mi in a reasonably full plain than it is to drive solo in an average American car
    - fsslrisrchr 5y ago
      While true, this is a very dishonest view of the environmental impact of flying. At best, assuming a full flight and a long route, say >500 mi, (taking off is a large, fixed, cost) an aircraft gets about 100 passenger miles per gallon. Few ppl drive >100 mi by themselves. When I drive >300 mi, it's in a car full of five ppl. My big, mean, SUV gets 28 mpg * 5 passengers = 140 passenger miles/gallon. Or better than any fully laden airplane. The car is also fully laden, and I'm considering adding a hitch so I can attach a tray for more cargo (putting cargo on your roof kills your mpg) Also, I think the pandemic has demonstrated that most flying is discretionary. Stressed out management class types unwinding in a paradise island thousands of miles away. Or traveling to a conference. Very few passengers are a specialist that needs to be onsite. Add to that that flying necessarily means long distance runs, and it enables long distance travel. Meaning flying has enabled the transformation of society from a local, regional society, into a global one. One that consumes far more resources (for example, flying half way across the world to visit grandparents because your job is no longer available in your home country)
- elevaet 5y ago
  The worlds poorest use far less energy than the worlds wealthiest. If we want a world where the worlds poorest can rise, energy policy needs to be softer on the poor, and the richest will have to pay more of the cost. The rich countries rose to the top on the back of historically cheap energy, to some extent. "The average US citizen still consumes more than ten times the energy of the average Indian, 4-5 times that of a Brazilian, and three times more than China" https://ourworldindata.org/energy-access#per-capita-energy-consumption-varies-more-than-10-fold-across-the-world https://ourworldindata.org/energy-access#per-capita-energy-c...
  - Dma54rhs 5y ago
    Of course individually they consume less, when talking about the mass and big numbers, ultra wealthy are a statistical anomaly.
    - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
      Most of the poor energy footprint is not optional: commuting (most can't live in expensive districts), heating a single small apartment, basic food, buy a few leisure things. Almost all the wealthy footprint is discretionary: air travel, luxury purchase, package holidays... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0579-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0579-8 Your "statistical anomaly" is not anecdotal, it's the very symbol of a broken system that was designed not to care. In this situation, I cannot expect the non-wealthy to make big efforts to reduce their consumption while the ultra rich continues to casually destroy the environment. We're letting the rich take almost all the profit but we ask the poor to work harder only because they're more numerous. This can only end with violence or a catastrophe, IMHO.
      - Dma54rhs 5y ago
        Right, but then what are options? Everything hits the poor I agree but if you don't want to then we will just let the global warming to run rampant and watch?
    - elevaet 5y ago
- paganel 5y ago
  So they should market those measures for what they really are, i.e. regressive taxes/measures that, by definition, have a bigger impact on the poor than on the wealthy. The “let’s save the planet!” discourse controlled by the wealthy fails to mention that (with few exceptions, lately).
wyldfire 5y ago
> That’s what divesting from coal gets you, more expensive energy. Only if you ignore its externalities and let someone else pay for them. Coal is wickedly expensive if you consider its costs beyond mining/transportation/storage/combustion.
- paganel 5y ago
  I agree, but right now the externalities are also supported by the better-off, as they can also get cancer and what have you from dirtier air, that’s one of the prime reasons for this push. In the new regime almost all the weight falls on the less-off.
  - kragen 5y ago
    Almost all the cancer falls on the poor, not just because they tend to live closer to power plants (unlike carbon dioxide, CFCs, and even sulfur dioxide, the pollution that causes cancer is fairly localized) and work in coal mines, but because there are more of them.
kragen 5y ago
In most of the world fossil-fuel energy are more expensive than renewable energy, which is why more coal power plants are being shut down than built (in 02020, outside PRC; in 02021, in the world). The advantage of fossil fuels is mostly that they're more predictable. Britain (and the Netherlands, Germany, and a few other places) have a particularly bad version of the problem because they have so little sunlight. But the problem Europe is hitting right now is not unexpectedly high prices, but actually running out. Blackouts, fuel pumps running dry, empty inventories, maybe a lack of natural gas. Such shortages can happen in one or another place because someone gambled and lost, but when they happen systemically, it's because of price controls; I wonder why those aren't mentioned in the article? The international LNG market isn't subject to price controls, but retail utility markets are typically heavily regulated, to the point of routinely forcing electricity distributors into unprofitability from time to time, usually temporarily. Climate change is likely to cause a lot of hydroelectric disruption over the next century as rainfall patterns move the rainfall from where hydroelectric dams have been built to where they haven't.
supperburg 5y ago
Poor people also were against EVs before they went mainstream, so does that count for anything? I would evangelize Tesla and EVs in general in 2010 and the overwhelming majority of people who thought that EVs were “dumb” were poor and lower class. A poor person has the exact same opportunity as a rich person to say the words “that makes sense, let’s try it.”
- ninkendo 5y ago
  A poor person has the exact same opportunity to by a $100k plus Tesla in 2010? Surely you can’t be serious with this argument.
  - supperburg 5y ago
    > to say the words “that makes sense, let’s try it.”
api 5y ago
Cheap gas over the past 10-15 years has driven divestment from coal as much as a push for renewables. As for EVs: they require a tiny fraction of the maintenance of ICE cars and so they will eventually be far cheaper. Used EVs are already an incredible deal in many areas. Where I live you can get a used Leaf with 60-80 miles range (enough for daily commute) that requires basically zero maintenance for <$8000. Charge it at home or at work and the fuel cost is tiny too.

Dma54rhs 5y ago

Most of the people in the world aka energy consumers are not wealthy, if the price doesn't impact the "poor" you can't make people consume less really.

fsslrisrchr 5y ago
The poor, in democracy, will vote for their interests. So, unless you abandon democracy, you won't get the poor to vote carbon taxes. How about we start by putting a $1000/flight tax? Seems only fair that the rich, mobile class start reducing their emissions. After all, it's actually the upper classes that consume (by far) energy in gross terms.
- nivenkos 5y ago
  This just punishes those with family abroad and reduces economic mobility. It'd be hard to tax private jets, so much like the EU has just done with fuel duty, they end up exempting the super-rich and hammering the working class with more taxes.
  - fsslrisrchr 5y ago
    So it punishes me that whose closest family is 500 km away. The next closest is 1000 km away and then half way across the world. A $100/flight tax for a family of 5 would bug me, but wouldn't stop me from flying. $1000/flight certainly would give me a pause. My proposal is against my own interests.
- mint2 5y ago
  It’s actually more efficient for a person to fly 400mi in a reasonably full plain than it is to drive solo in an average American car
  - fsslrisrchr 5y ago
    While true, this is a very dishonest view of the environmental impact of flying. At best, assuming a full flight and a long route, say >500 mi, (taking off is a large, fixed, cost) an aircraft gets about 100 passenger miles per gallon. Few ppl drive >100 mi by themselves. When I drive >300 mi, it's in a car full of five ppl. My big, mean, SUV gets 28 mpg * 5 passengers = 140 passenger miles/gallon. Or better than any fully laden airplane. The car is also fully laden, and I'm considering adding a hitch so I can attach a tray for more cargo (putting cargo on your roof kills your mpg) Also, I think the pandemic has demonstrated that most flying is discretionary. Stressed out management class types unwinding in a paradise island thousands of miles away. Or traveling to a conference. Very few passengers are a specialist that needs to be onsite. Add to that that flying necessarily means long distance runs, and it enables long distance travel. Meaning flying has enabled the transformation of society from a local, regional society, into a global one. One that consumes far more resources (for example, flying half way across the world to visit grandparents because your job is no longer available in your home country)
elevaet 5y ago
The worlds poorest use far less energy than the worlds wealthiest. If we want a world where the worlds poorest can rise, energy policy needs to be softer on the poor, and the richest will have to pay more of the cost. The rich countries rose to the top on the back of historically cheap energy, to some extent. "The average US citizen still consumes more than ten times the energy of the average Indian, 4-5 times that of a Brazilian, and three times more than China" https://ourworldindata.org/energy-access#per-capita-energy-consumption-varies-more-than-10-fold-across-the-world https://ourworldindata.org/energy-access#per-capita-energy-c...
- Dma54rhs 5y ago
  Of course individually they consume less, when talking about the mass and big numbers, ultra wealthy are a statistical anomaly.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    Most of the poor energy footprint is not optional: commuting (most can't live in expensive districts), heating a single small apartment, basic food, buy a few leisure things. Almost all the wealthy footprint is discretionary: air travel, luxury purchase, package holidays... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0579-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0579-8 Your "statistical anomaly" is not anecdotal, it's the very symbol of a broken system that was designed not to care. In this situation, I cannot expect the non-wealthy to make big efforts to reduce their consumption while the ultra rich continues to casually destroy the environment. We're letting the rich take almost all the profit but we ask the poor to work harder only because they're more numerous. This can only end with violence or a catastrophe, IMHO.
    - Dma54rhs 5y ago
      Right, but then what are options? Everything hits the poor I agree but if you don't want to then we will just let the global warming to run rampant and watch?
  - elevaet 5y ago
paganel 5y ago
So they should market those measures for what they really are, i.e. regressive taxes/measures that, by definition, have a bigger impact on the poor than on the wealthy. The “let’s save the planet!” discourse controlled by the wealthy fails to mention that (with few exceptions, lately).

wyldfire 5y ago

> That’s what divesting from coal gets you, more expensive energy. Only if you ignore its externalities and let someone else pay for them. Coal is wickedly expensive if you consider its costs beyond mining/transportation/storage/combustion.

paganel 5y ago
I agree, but right now the externalities are also supported by the better-off, as they can also get cancer and what have you from dirtier air, that’s one of the prime reasons for this push. In the new regime almost all the weight falls on the less-off.
- kragen 5y ago
  Almost all the cancer falls on the poor, not just because they tend to live closer to power plants (unlike carbon dioxide, CFCs, and even sulfur dioxide, the pollution that causes cancer is fairly localized) and work in coal mines, but because there are more of them.

kragen 5y ago

In most of the world fossil-fuel energy are more expensive than renewable energy, which is why more coal power plants are being shut down than built (in 02020, outside PRC; in 02021, in the world). The advantage of fossil fuels is mostly that they're more predictable. Britain (and the Netherlands, Germany, and a few other places) have a particularly bad version of the problem because they have so little sunlight. But the problem Europe is hitting right now is not unexpectedly high prices, but actually running out. Blackouts, fuel pumps running dry, empty inventories, maybe a lack of natural gas. Such shortages can happen in one or another place because someone gambled and lost, but when they happen systemically, it's because of price controls; I wonder why those aren't mentioned in the article? The international LNG market isn't subject to price controls, but retail utility markets are typically heavily regulated, to the point of routinely forcing electricity distributors into unprofitability from time to time, usually temporarily. Climate change is likely to cause a lot of hydroelectric disruption over the next century as rainfall patterns move the rainfall from where hydroelectric dams have been built to where they haven't.

supperburg 5y ago

Poor people also were against EVs before they went mainstream, so does that count for anything? I would evangelize Tesla and EVs in general in 2010 and the overwhelming majority of people who thought that EVs were “dumb” were poor and lower class. A poor person has the exact same opportunity as a rich person to say the words “that makes sense, let’s try it.”

ninkendo 5y ago
A poor person has the exact same opportunity to by a $100k plus Tesla in 2010? Surely you can’t be serious with this argument.
- supperburg 5y ago
  > to say the words “that makes sense, let’s try it.”

api 5y ago

Cheap gas over the past 10-15 years has driven divestment from coal as much as a push for renewables. As for EVs: they require a tiny fraction of the maintenance of ICE cars and so they will eventually be far cheaper. Used EVs are already an incredible deal in many areas. Where I live you can get a used Leaf with 60-80 miles range (enough for daily commute) that requires basically zero maintenance for <$8000. Charge it at home or at work and the fuel cost is tiny too.