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> Understandably, people don't want to give up their existing comforts and habits. Sure. > Understandably, people that don't have these comforts feel its only

> Understandably, people don't want to give up their existing comforts and habits. Sure. > Understandably, people that don't have these comforts feel its only fair that they too get access to them. Yep. > Understandably, people don't want to see wind or solar parks or other intrusive installations in their backyard. ...Sorry, you lost me. Particularly with repeating the basically-propaganda that industrial-scale wind or solar installations would be literally in people's backyards. Now, I can't speak for you, but every wind or solar farm I've seen people opposing—and I live in the middle of farm country, which means both lots of wide-open spaces for such things, and lots of conservative people who think they're (sometimes literally) the Devil's work—were well away from their actual houses. They were solar farms on the neighboring farmer's land (so, nearly a mile from their house), or windmills Anywhere Within Their Sight Lines. I'm sure there are some places where someone wants to install an industrial wind turbine that would be close enough to someone's house that they would, say, be concerned it might fall on it—those things are tall. But that's an incredibly rare case. And frankly, I can't see any legitimate reason to object to someone else building a wind farm on their property. I have zero sympathy for people who are more concerned with their own "pristine views" or property values than they are with sustainable energy generation. So it seems to me that your apparent insoluble dilemma falls apart as soon as you take away the entitlement and short-sightedness of some of the richest and most arrogant among us.

nologic01 3y ago
I wish i could share your optimism that it is only extreme behavior that opposes the adoption of renewable technologies. But we already have growing evidence that many new frictions show up and they are not obviously short-sighted. E.g., land based wind-turbines might be on pristine hilltop locations, need access roads that might require deforestation. Geothermal units might create their own local pollution etc. The gigantic scale of required alternatives if we are to maintain current energy use patterns will only increase tensions. These are further compounded by the economic and control aspects of that transition (who benefits directly): eg building an installation that aims to serve datacenters and a global social media noise instead of powering the local community.

nologic01 3y ago

I wish i could share your optimism that it is only extreme behavior that opposes the adoption of renewable technologies. But we already have growing evidence that many new frictions show up and they are not obviously short-sighted. E.g., land based wind-turbines might be on pristine hilltop locations, need access roads that might require deforestation. Geothermal units might create their own local pollution etc. The gigantic scale of required alternatives if we are to maintain current energy use patterns will only increase tensions. These are further compounded by the economic and control aspects of that transition (who benefits directly): eg building an installation that aims to serve datacenters and a global social media noise instead of powering the local community.