7 ms·

America’s $800B climate splurge is feeding a new lobbying ecosystem

93 points by lxm 4y ago

babelthuap 4y ago
[flagged]
- blockwriter 4y ago
  Those girls must also _be_ in their 70s.
- throwaway1777 4y ago
  Failing dollar will take a very long time if it even happens. The dollar is actually pretty strong right now despite people trying to hype china pushing the yuan.
  - nostrebored 4y ago
    The dollar is strong because it is the global reserve currency. As more countries move away from the dollar due to factors like our use of sanctions, runaway debt, and a general shift towards physical asset stores of value, the dollar has room to rapidly weaken.
    - babelthuap 4y ago
      The dollar will be around for a while, at least another decade and change but it will eventually fade away as the reserve. Way too many people on the other side who want stuff. It's really not any harder than that. Hard for people that have only known running water and toilets their entire life to comprehend it. These people on the other side are tired of it. They want these things and the US is keeping them from having it. EV's for all...meh. Yeah no. Things are about to go in an entirely different direction. Can't just go around raping countries anymore.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    The dollar is higher because of interest rates, war, lack of global grow and more onshoring. Many US dollars are leaving China but growth is on the rise in China as the country moves into the next phase of preparing for war
rob74 4y ago
https://archive.is/rVgD4 https://archive.is/rVgD4
rob74 4y ago
So? Anywhere where there are economic interests, there will be lobbying for those interests too, that's unfortunately a fact of life. Still, I would take the renewable energy lobbyists above the gun lobbyists anytime!
- conk 4y ago
  Evil lobbyists accidentally creating a cleaner world is something I can live with.
  - ggm 4y ago
    If the outcome is demonstrably beneficial yes. But there's greenwashing, and huge amounts of it. So.. if Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) proposals get significant funding, thats a giant black hole of fugitive methane gas coming back to haunt us: It doesn't work except to push MORE extraction from tired wells. (ie, fracking)
    - SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
      I don’t see any scenario where this is worse than the status quo in the narrative put forth by grandparent comment. Is the implication here that the end result of the efforts mentioned is somehow more greenhouse gas emissions? If so, I would love to hear more of the rationale and statistics behind it. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the decent (not even good, but way better than the shit world we live in now)
      - andromeduck 4y ago
        Germany.
      - prepend 4y ago
        The scenario where it is worse is that it results in less overall improvement because now we are paying for show projects brought on by lobbyists rather than valid investment in useful projects. If we don’t have evidence based evaluation and selection and rather lobbyist based selection then we will not make sound investments and this can harm the environment. Ie spending $100B on bullshit rather than effective clean energy or whatnot. I was working on an island in Uganda and we drove past a solar energy array. Me and the other foreigners were like “oh cool, that’s really nice” and the local collaborators we were with explained that it was the result of $100M in foreign funding and would have cost about $500k if it used local firms. And that it displaced a local firm that was trying to do solar stuff. Instead they flew in people from outside the country and continent even to install and perform routine maintenance. The local collaborator said it produces the electricity of a small diesel generator. This is just an anecdote and I was never able to check the numbers, but it’s an example of how we can do harm by trying to do good. Bullshit projects and funding can harm good projects. So please let horrible be the enemy of minimally effective. And don’t pretend that horrible is good and minimally effective is perfect.
aaronbrethorst 4y ago
“When he ran for office he promised to drain the swamp, but he turned out to be the biggest crocodile of them all.” This sounds like a 'too good to be true' quote. A long-time advocate of upgrading the power grid reports gleefully that he is suddenly very popular as electrifying industries struggle to work out how to get transmission lines and other power infrastructure built. 'A long time advocate for not poisoning our children reports gleefully that he is suddenly very popular as de-toxifying industries struggle to work out how to stop poisoning our children.' — The Economist could've chosen a number of ways to frame this totally anonymous not-even-a-quote, and shockingly chose the one that makes the supposed speaker sound maximally venal.
Proven 4y ago
[dead]
lifeisstillgood 4y ago
So the obvious question is "how do I get some?" - or rather this can't just be subsidies to existing energy companies. What starts ups will be created out of this 800bn?
- HPsquared 4y ago
  Instead of marketing, you need lobbyists and legal experts.
- hackeraccount 4y ago
  You don't want to be the guy panning for gold. Most of those people will get nothing and tiny minority will get a lot. You want to be the guy selling pans. It might have a lower ceiling but it's definitely got a lower floor.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rvense 4y ago
My company applied for an EU innovation grant last year. The way you do it, apparently, is you contact one of a handful of companies who specialize in helping with these applications and you promise them a cut of what you might get. It's growth, Jim, but not as we (thought we) knew it...
- paganel 4y ago
  Unfortunately that has always been the case when it comes to applying for EU funds, unless you're a very big company and you have a dedicated department for that (and even then I'd say in some cases it makes more sense to outsource this process to companies which do that for a living).
  - japanuspus 4y ago
    Nevertheless tenured academics are expected to handle this themselves in parallel with teaching and research...
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      My university has “valorization” staff to help.
    - blitzar 4y ago
      A skilled academic who knows how to write those things will have a strike rate orders of magnitude better than a medicore one. That is why there are professionals ... they do it better.
- dimitar 4y ago
  These companies are not doing any lobbying though, they are helping with the huge amount of paperwork and compliance work that needs to be done.
  - LilBytes 4y ago
    They're helping you navigate regulation capture. We're not talking about stopping water contamination here, we're talking about funding. It's balmy.
TheChaplain 4y ago
Would you say I am pessimistic if I believe that a tiny fraction of those actually care about the environment while the rest is in for the easy money?
- refurb 4y ago
  I'm not sure it matters? If you're going to leverage capitalism to clean up the environment, you'll get exactly that as long as the incentives align (you don't get money unless you deliver a cleaner environment). If someone gets filthy rich improving the planet, then they win and we win.
  - DharmaPolice 4y ago
    But that's the problem. If everyone is only doing this for the money then as soon as incentives shift and they have an opportunity to make more money by pouring toxic waste into the ocean then they'll do it. It's like companies who are "passionate about customer service" (both in rhetoric and reality). We understand that they're still motivated by profit but if they have this additional almost ideological commitment to good customer service (or product quality or whatever) then there is at least a chance that they will at least think twice in screwing over their customers for a small profit increase.
    - dr_dshiv 4y ago
      Well, this is why we develop environmentalism as a demand driven market—consumers will punish businesses that are inauthentic. But that is still small peanuts—we need people to maximize profits by doing the right thing. Rational alignment of interests is the goal, not enhanced individual morality. One is much more likely to lead to systematic rapid change.
    - refurb 4y ago
      Sure that's the problem, but what are you going to do to solve it? Change everyone's mind?
- _gmax0 4y ago
refurb 4y ago
I don't think anyone is surprised? If the government promises to spend $800B, you're going to have people advocating on how it's spent.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Good, lobbies are a constant. So, it's nicer to have lobbies obsessing about renewable tech and solutions to climate change rather than actively working to promote the burning of oil and coal. Nothing good has ever come out of that.
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  As long as it is not just performative and achieves results, I am all for it.
- runeks 4y ago
  > Good, lobbies are a constant. What? Are you suggesting that whenever one company hires a lobbyist a lobbyist from another company magically disappears?
  - namdnay 4y ago
    not a constant quantity, a constant phenomenon
alecco 4y ago
The injected anti-Trump rant at the beginning of the article is weird. Was this added as an olive branch to appease the mob?
throwaway22032 4y ago
Aligning capitalism with green policies is exactly what we need to do in order to succeed. The idea that everyone should just eat grubs and ride a bike and if they don't we deserved it is completely ridiculous. It doesn't and cannot work to have a system in which anyone who "cheats" gets orders of magnitude of advantage over the others. When the car I want to buy with my £3-5k budget is electric we'll be there. Whilst I have to "decide" to spend £30k more in order to get anything even reasonably equivalent, we're not.
quantum_state 4y ago
The lobbying ecosystem is a form of corruption and a cancer of the system…
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I'll add "lobbying" to my long list of things that the media suddenly discover is bad when it hurts fossil fuel interests.
Glench 4y ago
A small point but is it really a “splurge” to spend money on ensuring the planet’s climate isn’t terrible? Splurge usually means impulsive greed, but in this case that money is “desperate attempt to ensure survival.”
Yizahi 4y ago
"Lobbying ecosystem" is nice term to describe a corrupt economy. Next time IMF asks for some meaningful reforms in my country, we can reply to them that we have a lobbying ecosystem, duh.
osigurdson 4y ago
The public should demand high quality models for any CCS project. Also, comprehensive MMV (measurement, monitoring and verification) needs to be included. The technology can work but the potential for corruption is pretty high imo.
sproketboy 4y ago
[dead]

93 points by lxm 4y ago

babelthuap 4y ago

[flagged]

blockwriter 4y ago
Those girls must also _be_ in their 70s.
throwaway1777 4y ago
Failing dollar will take a very long time if it even happens. The dollar is actually pretty strong right now despite people trying to hype china pushing the yuan.
- nostrebored 4y ago
  The dollar is strong because it is the global reserve currency. As more countries move away from the dollar due to factors like our use of sanctions, runaway debt, and a general shift towards physical asset stores of value, the dollar has room to rapidly weaken.
  - babelthuap 4y ago
    The dollar will be around for a while, at least another decade and change but it will eventually fade away as the reserve. Way too many people on the other side who want stuff. It's really not any harder than that. Hard for people that have only known running water and toilets their entire life to comprehend it. These people on the other side are tired of it. They want these things and the US is keeping them from having it. EV's for all...meh. Yeah no. Things are about to go in an entirely different direction. Can't just go around raping countries anymore.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  The dollar is higher because of interest rates, war, lack of global grow and more onshoring. Many US dollars are leaving China but growth is on the rise in China as the country moves into the next phase of preparing for war

rob74 4y ago

https://archive.is/rVgD4 https://archive.is/rVgD4

rob74 4y ago

So? Anywhere where there are economic interests, there will be lobbying for those interests too, that's unfortunately a fact of life. Still, I would take the renewable energy lobbyists above the gun lobbyists anytime!

conk 4y ago
Evil lobbyists accidentally creating a cleaner world is something I can live with.
- ggm 4y ago
  If the outcome is demonstrably beneficial yes. But there's greenwashing, and huge amounts of it. So.. if Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) proposals get significant funding, thats a giant black hole of fugitive methane gas coming back to haunt us: It doesn't work except to push MORE extraction from tired wells. (ie, fracking)
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
    I don’t see any scenario where this is worse than the status quo in the narrative put forth by grandparent comment. Is the implication here that the end result of the efforts mentioned is somehow more greenhouse gas emissions? If so, I would love to hear more of the rationale and statistics behind it. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the decent (not even good, but way better than the shit world we live in now)
    - andromeduck 4y ago
      Germany.
    - prepend 4y ago
      The scenario where it is worse is that it results in less overall improvement because now we are paying for show projects brought on by lobbyists rather than valid investment in useful projects. If we don’t have evidence based evaluation and selection and rather lobbyist based selection then we will not make sound investments and this can harm the environment. Ie spending $100B on bullshit rather than effective clean energy or whatnot. I was working on an island in Uganda and we drove past a solar energy array. Me and the other foreigners were like “oh cool, that’s really nice” and the local collaborators we were with explained that it was the result of $100M in foreign funding and would have cost about $500k if it used local firms. And that it displaced a local firm that was trying to do solar stuff. Instead they flew in people from outside the country and continent even to install and perform routine maintenance. The local collaborator said it produces the electricity of a small diesel generator. This is just an anecdote and I was never able to check the numbers, but it’s an example of how we can do harm by trying to do good. Bullshit projects and funding can harm good projects. So please let horrible be the enemy of minimally effective. And don’t pretend that horrible is good and minimally effective is perfect.

aaronbrethorst 4y ago

“When he ran for office he promised to drain the swamp, but he turned out to be the biggest crocodile of them all.” This sounds like a 'too good to be true' quote. A long-time advocate of upgrading the power grid reports gleefully that he is suddenly very popular as electrifying industries struggle to work out how to get transmission lines and other power infrastructure built. 'A long time advocate for not poisoning our children reports gleefully that he is suddenly very popular as de-toxifying industries struggle to work out how to stop poisoning our children.' — The Economist could've chosen a number of ways to frame this totally anonymous not-even-a-quote, and shockingly chose the one that makes the supposed speaker sound maximally venal.

Proven 4y ago

[dead]

lifeisstillgood 4y ago

So the obvious question is "how do I get some?" - or rather this can't just be subsidies to existing energy companies. What starts ups will be created out of this 800bn?

HPsquared 4y ago
Instead of marketing, you need lobbyists and legal experts.
hackeraccount 4y ago
You don't want to be the guy panning for gold. Most of those people will get nothing and tiny minority will get a lot. You want to be the guy selling pans. It might have a lower ceiling but it's definitely got a lower floor.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rvense 4y ago

My company applied for an EU innovation grant last year. The way you do it, apparently, is you contact one of a handful of companies who specialize in helping with these applications and you promise them a cut of what you might get. It's growth, Jim, but not as we (thought we) knew it...

paganel 4y ago
Unfortunately that has always been the case when it comes to applying for EU funds, unless you're a very big company and you have a dedicated department for that (and even then I'd say in some cases it makes more sense to outsource this process to companies which do that for a living).
- japanuspus 4y ago
  Nevertheless tenured academics are expected to handle this themselves in parallel with teaching and research...
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    My university has “valorization” staff to help.
  - blitzar 4y ago
    A skilled academic who knows how to write those things will have a strike rate orders of magnitude better than a medicore one. That is why there are professionals ... they do it better.
dimitar 4y ago
These companies are not doing any lobbying though, they are helping with the huge amount of paperwork and compliance work that needs to be done.
- LilBytes 4y ago
  They're helping you navigate regulation capture. We're not talking about stopping water contamination here, we're talking about funding. It's balmy.

TheChaplain 4y ago

Would you say I am pessimistic if I believe that a tiny fraction of those actually care about the environment while the rest is in for the easy money?

refurb 4y ago
I'm not sure it matters? If you're going to leverage capitalism to clean up the environment, you'll get exactly that as long as the incentives align (you don't get money unless you deliver a cleaner environment). If someone gets filthy rich improving the planet, then they win and we win.
- DharmaPolice 4y ago
  But that's the problem. If everyone is only doing this for the money then as soon as incentives shift and they have an opportunity to make more money by pouring toxic waste into the ocean then they'll do it. It's like companies who are "passionate about customer service" (both in rhetoric and reality). We understand that they're still motivated by profit but if they have this additional almost ideological commitment to good customer service (or product quality or whatever) then there is at least a chance that they will at least think twice in screwing over their customers for a small profit increase.
  - dr_dshiv 4y ago
    Well, this is why we develop environmentalism as a demand driven market—consumers will punish businesses that are inauthentic. But that is still small peanuts—we need people to maximize profits by doing the right thing. Rational alignment of interests is the goal, not enhanced individual morality. One is much more likely to lead to systematic rapid change.
  - refurb 4y ago
    Sure that's the problem, but what are you going to do to solve it? Change everyone's mind?
_gmax0 4y ago

refurb 4y ago

I don't think anyone is surprised? If the government promises to spend $800B, you're going to have people advocating on how it's spent.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

Good, lobbies are a constant. So, it's nicer to have lobbies obsessing about renewable tech and solutions to climate change rather than actively working to promote the burning of oil and coal. Nothing good has ever come out of that.

PartiallyTyped 4y ago
As long as it is not just performative and achieves results, I am all for it.
runeks 4y ago
> Good, lobbies are a constant. What? Are you suggesting that whenever one company hires a lobbyist a lobbyist from another company magically disappears?
- namdnay 4y ago
  not a constant quantity, a constant phenomenon

alecco 4y ago

The injected anti-Trump rant at the beginning of the article is weird. Was this added as an olive branch to appease the mob?

throwaway22032 4y ago

Aligning capitalism with green policies is exactly what we need to do in order to succeed. The idea that everyone should just eat grubs and ride a bike and if they don't we deserved it is completely ridiculous. It doesn't and cannot work to have a system in which anyone who "cheats" gets orders of magnitude of advantage over the others. When the car I want to buy with my £3-5k budget is electric we'll be there. Whilst I have to "decide" to spend £30k more in order to get anything even reasonably equivalent, we're not.

quantum_state 4y ago

The lobbying ecosystem is a form of corruption and a cancer of the system…

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

I'll add "lobbying" to my long list of things that the media suddenly discover is bad when it hurts fossil fuel interests.

Glench 4y ago

A small point but is it really a “splurge” to spend money on ensuring the planet’s climate isn’t terrible? Splurge usually means impulsive greed, but in this case that money is “desperate attempt to ensure survival.”

Yizahi 4y ago

"Lobbying ecosystem" is nice term to describe a corrupt economy. Next time IMF asks for some meaningful reforms in my country, we can reply to them that we have a lobbying ecosystem, duh.

osigurdson 4y ago

The public should demand high quality models for any CCS project. Also, comprehensive MMV (measurement, monitoring and verification) needs to be included. The technology can work but the potential for corruption is pretty high imo.

sproketboy 4y ago

[dead]