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What this article claims as "new" has been known for so long, the Onion even turned it into a joke years ago: https://www.theonion.com/scientists-politely-remin

What this article claims as "new" has been known for so long, the Onion even turned it into a joke years ago: https://www.theonion.com/scientists-politely-remind-world-that-clean-energy-tech-1819576507/amp https://www.theonion.com/scientists-politely-remind-world-th... Technology isn't what's stopping us from saving the planet, greedy corporations and corrupt politicians are.

trinovantes 4y ago
I'd say NIMBYism is also a big contributor. Renewable energy farms are rarely located near population centers and convincing rural people to sell their land to generate/transport energy to urban centers is a multiyear process with single holdouts stalling projects. The alternative of invoking eminent domain is also politically unattractive.
- IngoBlechschmid 4y ago
  I agree, and want to add that I feel that NIMBYism would decrease if the residents (as opposed to huge corporations) would earn the profits from those renewable energy farms. You think differently about a wind park at the horizon if you know that each rotation earns turn earns you money.
  - enviclash 4y ago
    I have seen less NIMBY during the last 10 years in some areas, is this a general trend?
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  Most governments are converting coal to Methane gas ("Natural Gas"). Replacing one lobby with another. Most governments are not deploying storage solutions that would allow continous energy supply irrespective of intermitent renewable energy generation. Neither of the above has anything to do with NIMBYs and everything to do with spineless anemic Energy Policy.
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
  Is it surprising that people who are looked down upon and kicked at every opportunity might not want to lower their quality of life so those who never miss a chance to broadcast their hate for rural folks can increase their standard of living even further? "Uneducated rednecks" in "flyover country" at least understand the concept of reaping what one sows.
  - scoopertrooper 4y ago
    Global warning doesn’t care about the aesthetics of your hiking trail. But, no, no, let’s catch it progress towards a sustainable planet on hold because some folks don’t like the look of solar farms.
- bluGill 4y ago
  Farmers love wind farms on their land. Once the windmills are up they farm most of the land as before, and get a nice lease payment from the land they can't farm. NIMBY is the town folks who have to look at them, but don't really get any benefit from them. A few farmers refuse to lease their land for wind turbines, but there are a lot more who have run the numbers and are trying to get someone to lease their land for wind turbines.
ThunderSizzle 4y ago
- becquerel 4y ago
  It is not virtue signalling to identify the cause of a problem. If a man comes into my room and starts stabbing me, I have every right to say "this man is stabbing me". Corporations, capitalist production and other institutions (e.g. global militaries) are a core factor in climate change. My evidence for this is that in the vast span of human history before these things existed, neither did climate change!
  - the_third_wave 4y ago
    > My evidence for this is that in the vast span of human history before these things existed, neither did climate change! We are currently in the Holocene. Do you know what that means? Have a look at this temperature graph and you might get an inkling of the changing climate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene#/media/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene#/media/File:Holocene_... Realise that this graph only shows the interglacial period (Holocene), not what things looked like during the Pleistocene (the last glacial period) or the Younger Dryas. For a more expansive overview have a look at this graph: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Evolution_of_temperature_in_the_Post-Glacial_period_according_to_Greenland_ice_cores_%28Younger_Dryas%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Evolutio...
    - sigmoid10 4y ago
      Temperature variations in ancient times are very unreliable, because they can only be inferred indirectly. The big giveaway for anthropogenic climate change is co2 concentration, since we can directly measure its value hundreds of thousands of years in the past thanks to air bubbles enclosed deep in glaciers: https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/graphic-the-relentless-rise-of-carbon-dioxide/ https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/graphic-the-re... It clearly shows that the atmosphere never looked anything like this since humans climbed down from trees. Bonus fact: All mass extinctions happened when the co2 levels rose over a certain value (we're already at 419ppm, that 393ppm value in the article is from a few years ago): https://johnenglander.net/co2-levels-and-mass-extinction-events/ https://johnenglander.net/co2-levels-and-mass-extinction-eve... If they rise over 600ppm for example, the oceans will acidify and their ecosystems will collapse. Since most of our oxygen comes from oceanic plankton, we'll literally suffocate when that happens - and at the current trend it could happen before the century is over. The largest extinction event ever, the Permian-Triassic event (where 80% of marine life and 70% of terrestrial vertebrates died), is currently thought to have been caused by massive emissions of runaway greenhouse gases in the thawing Siberian tundra - similar to what we are seeing right now.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
We could always have been moving faster, saving more money and more lives, but we really didn't have good science on the last few percent of carbon emissions from the power system. The deniers updated their messaging too, so you regularly see (and see in these comments today) people saying "Yeah, renewable energy is cheaper and cleaner but ... desperately makes up something to justify their believing lots of obvious lies ... in 2050 when we have lots of cheap, clean renewable energy something vague and bad will happen so we should just slow down and burn more fossil fuels for reasons. So it's good to recognize that we now have better answers for the delaying tactic questions.
- pydry 4y ago
  At some point the carbon lobby will lose the political upper hand. This will impact their ability to do public relations/lobbying and that will lead to more taxes and lower profits which will impact their ability still further and so on. I dont think it'll be a linear decline - there is a political feedback loop here. At some point after that deniers and skeptics will likely cease to be a thing as the money to push it will dry up.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    The last 6 months have not helped your cause. Turning off the nuclear plants in Germany and stopping new oil leases in the US has turned out to be a strategic weakness for NATO, and allowed some dictators in Russia and Saudi Arabia to create a recession. Things also aren't looking good for heating in Europe this winter.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      Appropriately, I was just reading a climate change denying article by Bjorn Lomborg from the last Ukraine gas crisis in 2014. He said we shouldn't roll out more solar and more wind, because they are never going to be cheaper than fossil fuels. How does that claim stack up today? He also really doesn't like EVs. Imagine a German (and global) car industry that was making as many EVs as it is today, and growing every year, but 8 years ago, what would that would do to Russia's geopolitical strength.
tomp 4y ago
If “green technology” was superior on it’s own terms (cheaper, more available, etc) it wouldn’t need support from politicians. Hint: it’s not, it’s a massive failure, and stupid countries like Germany are now paying the price.
- jl6 4y ago
  Fossil fuels have two major unaccounted-for externalized costs: pollution, and the national security risk inherent in importing fossils from unsavory regimes. Once you account for these, renewables are far cheaper. All the green movement is really doing is calling for better accounting standards for energy.
  - yisonPylkita 4y ago
    Yet Germany still depends heavily on imported Russian gas despite all of theirs green propaganda
    - _ph_ 4y ago
      The idea was, that gas is certainly much cleaner than oil and coal. And that some gas will be needed in the transition to 100% renewable, gas is ideal for peaker plants. It was of course completely stupid to rely to such a large extend on immported Russian gas, especially since 2014. It is also a lot to blame the previous government for, who curbed the roll out of renewables, or otherwise germany would be much further ahead with its transition as it is. Nevertheless, producing over 50% of all electricity by renewable sources is an achievement for a large industrial nation.
- croes 4y ago
  Yeah sure, because superior always wins ... not. Just look at France on how cheap and available nuclear energy is for instance. Germany is paying the price because politicians blocked green energy they effectively hindered the expansion of solar and wind energy. Take Bavaria as example they don't want wind turbines and prefer nuclear energy but the don't want power lines for wind energy from north Germany or a nuclear repository. Instead their Minister President suggests fracking, not in Bavaria of course.
gonzo41 4y ago
I somewhat think the obvious political decision is to embrace a bit of corruption for the greater good, and just offer the fossil fuel companies the opportunity to transition to green energy and own the next great monopoly. Or just pick new winners. frankly dealing with a monopoly and a bit of corruption is better than dealing with the effects of climate change.
- te_chris 4y ago
  We're already dealing with effects so in this case we get both. Which I guess is what the oil companies want.
  - gonzo41 4y ago
    I guess it's like working at Facebook and Instagram and learning what the product does to young people. The cognitive dissonance must be profound to just keep thinking that 'steady as she goes' will be a fine approach. What's even crazier is that all of the people working in Oil, and Gas, and Coal industries, they have families that will be touched by climate change. Even the wealthy won't escape (See Californian wildfires.)
    - fatherzine 4y ago
      Facebook: we are connecting people. Coal industry: we are heating people's homes.
- username223 4y ago
  I’m on board with corruption for the greater good. Giving Joe Manchin $1 billion and a yacht would be a bargain.
- madaxe_again 4y ago
  You can no more be “a bit” corrupt than you can be “a bit” pregnant. They’d just pocket the monopoly and continue BAU. More profitable in the short term.
Kim_Bruning 4y ago
People have called the Onion the world's most reliable source.
ekianjo 4y ago
> Technology isn't what's stopping us from saving the planet, greedy corporations and corrupt politicians are. and the anti-nuclear crowd that has been brainwashed for 50 years
photochemsyn 4y ago
I'd modify that to 'greedy states and corporations' as the state-run socialist-style nations with excess fossil fuel reserves (Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Russia, etc.) are just as bent on exporting their fossil fuels as those that adhere to Wall Street corporate capitalism models (the USA, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, UAE, etc.). In both cases, the problem is explainable - here's a person sitting on an oil well that brings them US$10 million per year (or equivalent), resulting in a lifestyle of relative luxury and abundance, and you say to them, shut down that oil well, use your saved resources to put up solar and wind turbines and batteries to meet your regional energy needs, and reduce your yearly income by 90% as a result, because no more exports! Short-sighted greed is certainly a universal phenomenon, we can conclude.
manytree 4y ago
> At press time, representatives from the world’s leading economies had signaled that they would continue to heavily rely on fossil fuels until they had something more than an overwhelming scientific consensus to go on. Lol

trinovantes 4y ago

I'd say NIMBYism is also a big contributor. Renewable energy farms are rarely located near population centers and convincing rural people to sell their land to generate/transport energy to urban centers is a multiyear process with single holdouts stalling projects. The alternative of invoking eminent domain is also politically unattractive.

IngoBlechschmid 4y ago
I agree, and want to add that I feel that NIMBYism would decrease if the residents (as opposed to huge corporations) would earn the profits from those renewable energy farms. You think differently about a wind park at the horizon if you know that each rotation earns turn earns you money.
- enviclash 4y ago
  I have seen less NIMBY during the last 10 years in some areas, is this a general trend?
DoingIsLearning 4y ago
Most governments are converting coal to Methane gas ("Natural Gas"). Replacing one lobby with another. Most governments are not deploying storage solutions that would allow continous energy supply irrespective of intermitent renewable energy generation. Neither of the above has anything to do with NIMBYs and everything to do with spineless anemic Energy Policy.
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Is it surprising that people who are looked down upon and kicked at every opportunity might not want to lower their quality of life so those who never miss a chance to broadcast their hate for rural folks can increase their standard of living even further? "Uneducated rednecks" in "flyover country" at least understand the concept of reaping what one sows.
- scoopertrooper 4y ago
  Global warning doesn’t care about the aesthetics of your hiking trail. But, no, no, let’s catch it progress towards a sustainable planet on hold because some folks don’t like the look of solar farms.
bluGill 4y ago
Farmers love wind farms on their land. Once the windmills are up they farm most of the land as before, and get a nice lease payment from the land they can't farm. NIMBY is the town folks who have to look at them, but don't really get any benefit from them. A few farmers refuse to lease their land for wind turbines, but there are a lot more who have run the numbers and are trying to get someone to lease their land for wind turbines.

ThunderSizzle 4y ago

becquerel 4y ago
It is not virtue signalling to identify the cause of a problem. If a man comes into my room and starts stabbing me, I have every right to say "this man is stabbing me". Corporations, capitalist production and other institutions (e.g. global militaries) are a core factor in climate change. My evidence for this is that in the vast span of human history before these things existed, neither did climate change!
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  > My evidence for this is that in the vast span of human history before these things existed, neither did climate change! We are currently in the Holocene. Do you know what that means? Have a look at this temperature graph and you might get an inkling of the changing climate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene#/media/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene#/media/File:Holocene_... Realise that this graph only shows the interglacial period (Holocene), not what things looked like during the Pleistocene (the last glacial period) or the Younger Dryas. For a more expansive overview have a look at this graph: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Evolution_of_temperature_in_the_Post-Glacial_period_according_to_Greenland_ice_cores_%28Younger_Dryas%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Evolutio...
  - sigmoid10 4y ago
    Temperature variations in ancient times are very unreliable, because they can only be inferred indirectly. The big giveaway for anthropogenic climate change is co2 concentration, since we can directly measure its value hundreds of thousands of years in the past thanks to air bubbles enclosed deep in glaciers: https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/graphic-the-relentless-rise-of-carbon-dioxide/ https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/graphic-the-re... It clearly shows that the atmosphere never looked anything like this since humans climbed down from trees. Bonus fact: All mass extinctions happened when the co2 levels rose over a certain value (we're already at 419ppm, that 393ppm value in the article is from a few years ago): https://johnenglander.net/co2-levels-and-mass-extinction-events/ https://johnenglander.net/co2-levels-and-mass-extinction-eve... If they rise over 600ppm for example, the oceans will acidify and their ecosystems will collapse. Since most of our oxygen comes from oceanic plankton, we'll literally suffocate when that happens - and at the current trend it could happen before the century is over. The largest extinction event ever, the Permian-Triassic event (where 80% of marine life and 70% of terrestrial vertebrates died), is currently thought to have been caused by massive emissions of runaway greenhouse gases in the thawing Siberian tundra - similar to what we are seeing right now.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

We could always have been moving faster, saving more money and more lives, but we really didn't have good science on the last few percent of carbon emissions from the power system. The deniers updated their messaging too, so you regularly see (and see in these comments today) people saying "Yeah, renewable energy is cheaper and cleaner but ... desperately makes up something to justify their believing lots of obvious lies ... in 2050 when we have lots of cheap, clean renewable energy something vague and bad will happen so we should just slow down and burn more fossil fuels for reasons. So it's good to recognize that we now have better answers for the delaying tactic questions.

pydry 4y ago
At some point the carbon lobby will lose the political upper hand. This will impact their ability to do public relations/lobbying and that will lead to more taxes and lower profits which will impact their ability still further and so on. I dont think it'll be a linear decline - there is a political feedback loop here. At some point after that deniers and skeptics will likely cease to be a thing as the money to push it will dry up.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  The last 6 months have not helped your cause. Turning off the nuclear plants in Germany and stopping new oil leases in the US has turned out to be a strategic weakness for NATO, and allowed some dictators in Russia and Saudi Arabia to create a recession. Things also aren't looking good for heating in Europe this winter.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Appropriately, I was just reading a climate change denying article by Bjorn Lomborg from the last Ukraine gas crisis in 2014. He said we shouldn't roll out more solar and more wind, because they are never going to be cheaper than fossil fuels. How does that claim stack up today? He also really doesn't like EVs. Imagine a German (and global) car industry that was making as many EVs as it is today, and growing every year, but 8 years ago, what would that would do to Russia's geopolitical strength.

tomp 4y ago

If “green technology” was superior on it’s own terms (cheaper, more available, etc) it wouldn’t need support from politicians. Hint: it’s not, it’s a massive failure, and stupid countries like Germany are now paying the price.

jl6 4y ago
Fossil fuels have two major unaccounted-for externalized costs: pollution, and the national security risk inherent in importing fossils from unsavory regimes. Once you account for these, renewables are far cheaper. All the green movement is really doing is calling for better accounting standards for energy.
- yisonPylkita 4y ago
  Yet Germany still depends heavily on imported Russian gas despite all of theirs green propaganda
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    The idea was, that gas is certainly much cleaner than oil and coal. And that some gas will be needed in the transition to 100% renewable, gas is ideal for peaker plants. It was of course completely stupid to rely to such a large extend on immported Russian gas, especially since 2014. It is also a lot to blame the previous government for, who curbed the roll out of renewables, or otherwise germany would be much further ahead with its transition as it is. Nevertheless, producing over 50% of all electricity by renewable sources is an achievement for a large industrial nation.
croes 4y ago
Yeah sure, because superior always wins ... not. Just look at France on how cheap and available nuclear energy is for instance. Germany is paying the price because politicians blocked green energy they effectively hindered the expansion of solar and wind energy. Take Bavaria as example they don't want wind turbines and prefer nuclear energy but the don't want power lines for wind energy from north Germany or a nuclear repository. Instead their Minister President suggests fracking, not in Bavaria of course.

gonzo41 4y ago

I somewhat think the obvious political decision is to embrace a bit of corruption for the greater good, and just offer the fossil fuel companies the opportunity to transition to green energy and own the next great monopoly. Or just pick new winners. frankly dealing with a monopoly and a bit of corruption is better than dealing with the effects of climate change.

te_chris 4y ago
We're already dealing with effects so in this case we get both. Which I guess is what the oil companies want.
- gonzo41 4y ago
  I guess it's like working at Facebook and Instagram and learning what the product does to young people. The cognitive dissonance must be profound to just keep thinking that 'steady as she goes' will be a fine approach. What's even crazier is that all of the people working in Oil, and Gas, and Coal industries, they have families that will be touched by climate change. Even the wealthy won't escape (See Californian wildfires.)
  - fatherzine 4y ago
    Facebook: we are connecting people. Coal industry: we are heating people's homes.
username223 4y ago
I’m on board with corruption for the greater good. Giving Joe Manchin $1 billion and a yacht would be a bargain.
madaxe_again 4y ago
You can no more be “a bit” corrupt than you can be “a bit” pregnant. They’d just pocket the monopoly and continue BAU. More profitable in the short term.

Kim_Bruning 4y ago

People have called the Onion the world's most reliable source.

ekianjo 4y ago

> Technology isn't what's stopping us from saving the planet, greedy corporations and corrupt politicians are. and the anti-nuclear crowd that has been brainwashed for 50 years

photochemsyn 4y ago

I'd modify that to 'greedy states and corporations' as the state-run socialist-style nations with excess fossil fuel reserves (Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Russia, etc.) are just as bent on exporting their fossil fuels as those that adhere to Wall Street corporate capitalism models (the USA, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, UAE, etc.). In both cases, the problem is explainable - here's a person sitting on an oil well that brings them US$10 million per year (or equivalent), resulting in a lifestyle of relative luxury and abundance, and you say to them, shut down that oil well, use your saved resources to put up solar and wind turbines and batteries to meet your regional energy needs, and reduce your yearly income by 90% as a result, because no more exports! Short-sighted greed is certainly a universal phenomenon, we can conclude.

manytree 4y ago

> At press time, representatives from the world’s leading economies had signaled that they would continue to heavily rely on fossil fuels until they had something more than an overwhelming scientific consensus to go on. Lol