> But this age of bits-enabled protest has coincided with a slowdown in atoms-related progress. Altogether, America has too much venting and not enough inventi

> But this age of bits-enabled protest has coincided with a slowdown in atoms-related progress. Altogether, America has too much venting and not enough inventing. We say that we want to save the planet from climate change—but in practice, many Americans are basically dead set against the clean-energy revolution, with even liberal states shutting down zero-carbon nuclear plants and protesting solar-power projects. This implication that people are doing "too much" online protest seems like an insidious attempt to censor unwanted political discourse online, especially at a time when mass social gatherings can be dangerous super-spreader events. (The term "slacktivism" is another example of this attempt to disparage people's efforts to use the internet to raise awareness of important issues.) As for why "we say" we are against climate change, but "many Americans" are against solving it, has the author considered that the people against solving it might not be the ones who think it is a problem? Without providing statistics, it's completely possible that these could be disjoint sets, and it's not inconceivable that some minority of people want to stop climate change but think that current efforts are enough (or that other proposals are not worth the cost). The examples given are slightly weasel-worded, not listing which "liberal states" and which "solar-power projects" they mean, nor what the objections to those climate change measures are (nor how much support those policies really have), but it suffices to point out that California planning to eventually shut down its last nuclear power plant (which is on a fault line, and built in the 60's) can be compatible with climate goals, especially as the plant generated only 18.3 TWh in 2018, whereas solar generation alone increased by 23.0 TWh between 2013 and 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_California#Electricity_system_data https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_California#Electrici...