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When I say I don't want my taxes going to send weapons to the Ukraine here, I am called an FSB stooge or what have you. Yet people pile in all day and talk abo

When I say I don't want my taxes going to send weapons to the Ukraine here, I am called an FSB stooge or what have you. Yet people pile in all day and talk about how it doesn't make sense to quickly switch to wind, solar, nuclear, hydro and other renewables, which in Europe and elsewhere means gas from Russia, and somehow no one raises the FSB flag. Maybe renewable supporters just don't have that idiotic knee-jerk reaction as much.

andrewflnr 4y ago
Almost like buying energy and funding the defense of a democracy from an invasion aren't exactly the same situation.
- VictorPath 4y ago
  > funding the defense of a democracy The funding coming on my back out of my labor and my taxes. Is this the democracy which started when it forcibly overthrew the elected government, banned a number of political parties right after that, and which just banned the second largest political party recently? Some democracy.
  - dralley 4y ago
    >Is this the democracy which started when it forcibly overthrew the elected government The "elected government" which restricted rights of speech and protests, ordered police to open fire on protesters killing more than 50 people, and then fled to Russia. >and which just banned the second largest political party recently The head of that political party is Victor Medvechuk, a close associate of Putin who proudly claimed that Putin is his daughter's godfather, who was charged with treason and put on house arrest a year ago for funneling money to the DPR / LPR whomst Ukraine has been at war with for 8 years, and was recently captured while attempting to flee the country in a stolen Ukrainian military uniform after escaping his house arrest. And the point of it, for those that don't know, is to remove the last shreds of legitimacy from any BS referendums Russia might try to hold in occupied territor, in which a minor pro-Russian politician whose party had low-single-digit support in previous elections is suddenly "elected".
  - signatoremo 4y ago
    Not your taxes. Your compatriot’s tax money, collectively. I’m not aware of any Western country where the majority is against supporting Ukraine. You are the minority. > Is this the democracy which started when it forcibly overthrew the elected government You just parrot a blatant lie by Russia
  - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
    Not intending to be inflammatory, but how would you feel about your taxes going to funding the invasion of Ukraine? I'm not a big fan of my country's military spending, and it's probably trivial even in terms of percentage of GDP, in comparison to that of the US, Russia or China. In terms of regime change "approach", if the US did manufacture the overthrow of the previous Ukraine government, it has the appearance of a much lower cost of human life than the approach Putin is taking. And I'm no fan of the US' "manifest destiny" ego trip but I don't want to get too far into whataboutism.
BLKNSLVR 4y ago
For years I've wondered why renewable energy hasn't been considered under the auspices of national security. I think the primary reason is that the fossil fuel lobby outranks national security on any topic too complicated for the majority of the general voting populace to understand (ie. anything less subtle than big boom-boom bad makes). It's politically interesting (cringe), the line between assisting Ukraine's defense by sending weapons and funding as opposed to actively committing troops and implementing a no-fly-zone etc. Interesting that Russia is now accusing NATO of effectively conducting a proxy war against Russia - it seems that Russia wants to have war declared upon it in order to post-justify their invasion as "see, this is what was going to happen anyway" - it doesn't have to make sense to anyone other than the Russian leadership in order for them to be assured of the righteousness of their own cause.
- breckenedge 4y ago
  > For years I've wondered why renewable energy hasn't been considered under the auspices of national security. Energy independence used to come up more often in US elections until prices collapsed in 2014ish and the US became a net exporter of refined petroleum products. The whole “Nuclear Renaissance” that began under W. was derailed by insanely cheap natural gas production, so it just kinda fell off everyone’s radar since people in the US considered the problem solved for the time being.
  - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
    My context is Australia which is 100% dependent upon imported petroleum whilst also having abundant wide open spaces and sunshine. In combination with a government that frequently dog whistles national security.
- fy20 4y ago
  I think it's just that politicians always knew that any real push would be expensive and raise energy prices. Everyone wants to go green, but if that involves doubling energy costs, then how many people are still going to say yes? That would not be popular with their constitutes, so bye bye political career. Nobody could make the hard choice and they hoped that technology would solve the issue eventually - which to be fair, it did look like that was going to happen. On the other hand, we have this situation. In my country natural gas prices have risen 40% in the last month and some items in supermarkets are close to double what they were a year ago.
pjc50 4y ago
Proper renewable expansion means less gas, not more. Every watt-hour generated renewably displaces one watt-hour of gas. (The German nuclear shutdown looks extremely bad in hindsight, though)

andrewflnr 4y ago

Almost like buying energy and funding the defense of a democracy from an invasion aren't exactly the same situation.

VictorPath 4y ago
> funding the defense of a democracy The funding coming on my back out of my labor and my taxes. Is this the democracy which started when it forcibly overthrew the elected government, banned a number of political parties right after that, and which just banned the second largest political party recently? Some democracy.
- dralley 4y ago
  >Is this the democracy which started when it forcibly overthrew the elected government The "elected government" which restricted rights of speech and protests, ordered police to open fire on protesters killing more than 50 people, and then fled to Russia. >and which just banned the second largest political party recently The head of that political party is Victor Medvechuk, a close associate of Putin who proudly claimed that Putin is his daughter's godfather, who was charged with treason and put on house arrest a year ago for funneling money to the DPR / LPR whomst Ukraine has been at war with for 8 years, and was recently captured while attempting to flee the country in a stolen Ukrainian military uniform after escaping his house arrest. And the point of it, for those that don't know, is to remove the last shreds of legitimacy from any BS referendums Russia might try to hold in occupied territor, in which a minor pro-Russian politician whose party had low-single-digit support in previous elections is suddenly "elected".
- signatoremo 4y ago
  Not your taxes. Your compatriot’s tax money, collectively. I’m not aware of any Western country where the majority is against supporting Ukraine. You are the minority. > Is this the democracy which started when it forcibly overthrew the elected government You just parrot a blatant lie by Russia
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  Not intending to be inflammatory, but how would you feel about your taxes going to funding the invasion of Ukraine? I'm not a big fan of my country's military spending, and it's probably trivial even in terms of percentage of GDP, in comparison to that of the US, Russia or China. In terms of regime change "approach", if the US did manufacture the overthrow of the previous Ukraine government, it has the appearance of a much lower cost of human life than the approach Putin is taking. And I'm no fan of the US' "manifest destiny" ego trip but I don't want to get too far into whataboutism.

BLKNSLVR 4y ago

For years I've wondered why renewable energy hasn't been considered under the auspices of national security. I think the primary reason is that the fossil fuel lobby outranks national security on any topic too complicated for the majority of the general voting populace to understand (ie. anything less subtle than big boom-boom bad makes). It's politically interesting (cringe), the line between assisting Ukraine's defense by sending weapons and funding as opposed to actively committing troops and implementing a no-fly-zone etc. Interesting that Russia is now accusing NATO of effectively conducting a proxy war against Russia - it seems that Russia wants to have war declared upon it in order to post-justify their invasion as "see, this is what was going to happen anyway" - it doesn't have to make sense to anyone other than the Russian leadership in order for them to be assured of the righteousness of their own cause.

breckenedge 4y ago
> For years I've wondered why renewable energy hasn't been considered under the auspices of national security. Energy independence used to come up more often in US elections until prices collapsed in 2014ish and the US became a net exporter of refined petroleum products. The whole “Nuclear Renaissance” that began under W. was derailed by insanely cheap natural gas production, so it just kinda fell off everyone’s radar since people in the US considered the problem solved for the time being.
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  My context is Australia which is 100% dependent upon imported petroleum whilst also having abundant wide open spaces and sunshine. In combination with a government that frequently dog whistles national security.
fy20 4y ago
I think it's just that politicians always knew that any real push would be expensive and raise energy prices. Everyone wants to go green, but if that involves doubling energy costs, then how many people are still going to say yes? That would not be popular with their constitutes, so bye bye political career. Nobody could make the hard choice and they hoped that technology would solve the issue eventually - which to be fair, it did look like that was going to happen. On the other hand, we have this situation. In my country natural gas prices have risen 40% in the last month and some items in supermarkets are close to double what they were a year ago.

pjc50 4y ago

Proper renewable expansion means less gas, not more. Every watt-hour generated renewably displaces one watt-hour of gas. (The German nuclear shutdown looks extremely bad in hindsight, though)