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We / they did a lot. We actually took steps and saved the Ozone layer. Invented and made the solar panel economically viable. Electric cars aren't exactly de

We / they did a lot. We actually took steps and saved the Ozone layer. Invented and made the solar panel economically viable. Electric cars aren't exactly designed by the youngest generation either. We / they have taken big steps to stop trade in tropic hardwoods. The generation before us built the systems and societies that we today take for granted. To the best of their abilities, very many of them worked very hard to give something better to us than they got themselves. Go further back and they actually stopped the most well oiled war machine that has ever existed, the nazis. Later they stopped the Soviet by outcompeting them. Hindsight is 20/20. But a little humility should be mandatory I think. And ironically, we have the environmentalists of the past to thank for the fact that we don't have several times as much nuclear power for base load (and also several times less

triceratops 3y ago
> we have the environmentalists of the past to thank for the fact that we don't have several times as much nuclear power for base load Ask yourself why environmentalists succeeded in shutting down nuclear power, the one viable alternative to fossil fuels, when they failed at literally everything else. That might lead you to who was actually responsible.
- skinkestek 3y ago
  Because of Chernobyl. And they did not fail at everything else. They succeeded in a lot of cases. For a rather large win, as I mentioned, the Ozone layer was saved. Another big one was banning of DDT and introduction of regulations on everything from new pesticides / herbicides to emissions (or fuel saving as we used to refer to it until recently).
fulafel 3y ago
This blaming the environmentalists for nuclear's failures is quite a tired argument. In addition to being false (environmentalists didn't have the political capital for it in the critical decades) the enormous public subsidies towards nuclear power in the past 80 years were an opportunity cost away from renewables. If we had spent even a small part of that on renewables r&d investment starting in the same timeframe (40s/50s) we could have transitioned from fossil fuels decades earlier.

triceratops 3y ago

> we have the environmentalists of the past to thank for the fact that we don't have several times as much nuclear power for base load Ask yourself why environmentalists succeeded in shutting down nuclear power, the one viable alternative to fossil fuels, when they failed at literally everything else. That might lead you to who was actually responsible.

skinkestek 3y ago
Because of Chernobyl. And they did not fail at everything else. They succeeded in a lot of cases. For a rather large win, as I mentioned, the Ozone layer was saved. Another big one was banning of DDT and introduction of regulations on everything from new pesticides / herbicides to emissions (or fuel saving as we used to refer to it until recently).

fulafel 3y ago

This blaming the environmentalists for nuclear's failures is quite a tired argument. In addition to being false (environmentalists didn't have the political capital for it in the critical decades) the enormous public subsidies towards nuclear power in the past 80 years were an opportunity cost away from renewables. If we had spent even a small part of that on renewables r&d investment starting in the same timeframe (40s/50s) we could have transitioned from fossil fuels decades earlier.