7 ms·

I’d love to go carbon neutral personally, but the price tag - new solar, battery, 2 electric cars, re-wire of the house, electric water heater, electric stove,

I’d love to go carbon neutral personally, but the price tag - new solar, battery, 2 electric cars, re-wire of the house, electric water heater, electric stove, electric heat pump - is probably minimum $100k. And I’m being generous with that figure because that doesnt include possibly needing a new roof before panel install, and possibly needing an electric panel upgrade for those two 220v charging ports you’re gonna need for those cars. Then you probably want your gas line capped/meter removed. The only way you slice this move is Americans accept a certain decrease in quality of life for a time, or the government makes more debt for itself subsidizing these moves than what it did trying to float businesses during Covid.

PaulHoule 3y ago
Right now it is Republicans who are complaining on principle but look at all the leftists who “think the rent is too high” and think another 50 cents here or there are going to break them. (Sorry, if your landlord installs a heat pump your rent goes up, it’s not the perversity of landlords or capitalism, it is that heat pumps cost money and the people who benefit from it will pay for it. Sure the government can subsidize it but that raises taxes which somebody pays.) Pretty soon Bipoc people will be saying they can’t afford it and rhey’ve suffered too much already, other people will say that it gets in the way of their lifestyle (sure, cis people can afford it, but don’t you know what I’ve been through…) and soon they are wearing yellow shirts too and crossing the barricade. Not to mention people in the global South who will be resistant to making land use changes for problems they attribute to the North.
klyrs 3y ago
The perpetual "energy jobs" rallying cry used to justify subsidizing the carbon industries is perplexing to me. If we were on-shoring the manufacturing of heat pumps, water heaters, stoves, solar panels, high efficiency windows, etc. and subsidizing the installation of the same, we'd be swimming in the respectable blue-collar work that Boomers enjoyed.

PaulHoule 3y ago

Right now it is Republicans who are complaining on principle but look at all the leftists who “think the rent is too high” and think another 50 cents here or there are going to break them. (Sorry, if your landlord installs a heat pump your rent goes up, it’s not the perversity of landlords or capitalism, it is that heat pumps cost money and the people who benefit from it will pay for it. Sure the government can subsidize it but that raises taxes which somebody pays.) Pretty soon Bipoc people will be saying they can’t afford it and rhey’ve suffered too much already, other people will say that it gets in the way of their lifestyle (sure, cis people can afford it, but don’t you know what I’ve been through…) and soon they are wearing yellow shirts too and crossing the barricade. Not to mention people in the global South who will be resistant to making land use changes for problems they attribute to the North.

klyrs 3y ago

The perpetual "energy jobs" rallying cry used to justify subsidizing the carbon industries is perplexing to me. If we were on-shoring the manufacturing of heat pumps, water heaters, stoves, solar panels, high efficiency windows, etc. and subsidizing the installation of the same, we'd be swimming in the respectable blue-collar work that Boomers enjoyed.