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In the effort to try to save the climate, are we destroying the environment?
Before you read my comment, please watch this. Please. I beg you. Do it now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-yALPEpV4w
I ask that you do not down-vote this purely on emotional or ideological grounds. I know that for many people this is a first reaction. This is too important and it deserves discussion.
Another request: Please argue with the facts as presented by scientist who are speaking up. Do not argue with me. I am simply a messenger. I am nobody.
It is hard to be told what you believe is wrong. And, sometimes, it is even harder to accept it. However, a true scientist or someone wishing to based beliefs in scientific fact must always be open to this. This is how people like Galileo dared to suggest that the earth was not the center of the universe. And he was right.
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If you look through my comments on HN you will find a fairly consistent message I have been pounding on for years (both on HN and elsewhere):
We need to start discussing the truth or we are doomed to fail, or worse, cause irreparable damage.
While climate change and our contribution to atmospheric CO2 accumulation are very real issues we must address to the extent possible, we are allowing ourselves to descend into a delusion. This delusion is, from my perspective, mostly driven by politicians for whom the "holier than thou" position, when combined with uninformed masses, results in easy votes. Who isn't receptive to "save the planet for your children"?
I have written extensively about having developed models that indicate we need to more than double our power generation capacity and revamp our entire power distribution system in order to convert out entire ground transportation system to electric power. For sense of scale, this would require a thousand nuclear power plants or thereabouts.
I developed these models many years ago. It wasn't until relatively recently that I was able to confirm my predictions were not far off at all when Elon Musk was asked the question at a conference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcI6FaaDp8g&t=3510s
I have also commented that solar and wind, at scale, will not solve this problem and that they are not at all the clean technologies our collective delusion makes them out to be. A solar farm requires somewhere around 15 to 20 times the land in order to generate the output of a single nuclear power plant and massively more in the materials used to construct it. We we need to cover unimaginable areas of land. Building them would not be clean and green at all. We will kill-off wild life like never before. And the waste generated after the short service life these systems have will end-up polluting out planet even further.
These are not solutions intelligent people in command of the truth would choose. In fact, these are not solutions at all.
I'll repeat: We need to stop the delusion and start to discuss matters based on facts, otherwise known as the truth. We need to stop allowing politicians to drive this insane narrative. All they care about is winning elections. And they are never responsible for the carnage they produce through their actions (or inaction). We need the truth. ASAP.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoHe's not a scientist. He works in Public Relations. Just last week I read something from him about dealing with the drug problem and he had the exact same script "I used to be a lefty, and believed in <list of sensible policies> but now I realise that none of those work, and the evil lefties actually want people to die." His latest book is called "San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities"
- robomartin 5y ago> He's not a scientist. He works in Public Relations. Really? How is this relevant AT ALL? It is a logical fallacy to invalidate an argument based on the messenger [0]. You have to argue against the evidence, not the person's qualifications. If a criminal yells "Fire!" you don't ignore him because of who he is. You look at the evidence and act accordingly. If you want to argue against what he is saying in this video you have to invalidate the evidence he is proposing. Saying "he is just a..." is absolutely meaningless. Math and science do not operate this way. Which is precisely my point. We need to start to discuss the truth. So much of what we do is based on personality worship, it's sick. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoIt's relevant because you said: > Another request: Please argue with the facts as presented by scientist who are speaking up. And had a bit about how we can't trust politicians and need the truth. edit to add: apparently he did PR for the Venezualan government! Ha that's even lower than I expected of him. https://www.desmog.com/michael-shellenberger/ https://www.desmog.com/michael-shellenberger/
- robomartin 5y ago
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago