3 ms·

>It is all relative. Hence the "net" part of what I said... All of what you said is fairly self-evident... The article essentially argues to focus on the soft

>It is all relative. Hence the "net" part of what I said... All of what you said is fairly self-evident... The article essentially argues to focus on the soft breeze at our backs instead of the hurricane in our face, which is a bit ridiculous, and only helps the political and financial forces that are the root cause of the hurricane.

s1artibartfast 5y ago
I think you missed my point: There is no headwind - the net is positive. That is to say, renewables are increasing, therefore the net velocity is positive (and accelerating). It is not 100%, so we have further to go (distance traveled). If you want to measure the rate of change, it makes sense to benchmark against where you started and see if you are progressing. In terms of renewable power adoption, the world is making ground, not losing it. The world on a better trajectory than it was 20 years ago, a wouldn't without the effort put in over the last few decades. There is a lot more work to do, and it is not going as fast as one might hope, but that does not negate past accomplishments.
- ravitation 5y ago
  Technically in your framing, there still would be a headwind (i.e. things limiting the rate of the acceleration). Either way, this framing only works in very specific contexts, for example "renewables" or "many countries," many of which we'd arguably make progress on regardless (e.g. the cost of batteries would decrease over time regardless of the impetus of climate change), so it isn't very useful. Global emissions continue to increase, so, if we apply this framing more broadly, the net velocity is still negative (though acceleration has increased). As before, I'd also argue that simply increasing acceleration (towards reducing emissions/mitigating climate change) would happen regardless (e.g. as fossil fuel scarcity increases, usage of alternatives would increase), and still is not very useful. If this is the framing of the article, it frames it this way very poorly, as you said. Instead it presents headwind vs. tailwind as two alternatives (i.e. "[r]ather than [..] we now have [...]") as opposed to things you'd always have (i.e. forces for vs. forces opposed).

s1artibartfast 5y ago

I think you missed my point: There is no headwind - the net is positive. That is to say, renewables are increasing, therefore the net velocity is positive (and accelerating). It is not 100%, so we have further to go (distance traveled). If you want to measure the rate of change, it makes sense to benchmark against where you started and see if you are progressing. In terms of renewable power adoption, the world is making ground, not losing it. The world on a better trajectory than it was 20 years ago, a wouldn't without the effort put in over the last few decades. There is a lot more work to do, and it is not going as fast as one might hope, but that does not negate past accomplishments.

ravitation 5y ago
Technically in your framing, there still would be a headwind (i.e. things limiting the rate of the acceleration). Either way, this framing only works in very specific contexts, for example "renewables" or "many countries," many of which we'd arguably make progress on regardless (e.g. the cost of batteries would decrease over time regardless of the impetus of climate change), so it isn't very useful. Global emissions continue to increase, so, if we apply this framing more broadly, the net velocity is still negative (though acceleration has increased). As before, I'd also argue that simply increasing acceleration (towards reducing emissions/mitigating climate change) would happen regardless (e.g. as fossil fuel scarcity increases, usage of alternatives would increase), and still is not very useful. If this is the framing of the article, it frames it this way very poorly, as you said. Instead it presents headwind vs. tailwind as two alternatives (i.e. "[r]ather than [..] we now have [...]") as opposed to things you'd always have (i.e. forces for vs. forces opposed).