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Meanwhile in America, oil and coal is becoming king again. Climate change you say? Oh well, "thoughts and prayers".

• watwut 1y ago
  Why is this downvoted? It is an accurate observation of the politics.
  • viraptor 1y ago
    Because it's shallow and ragebaity. If anyone wants to discuss that topic, there's so many quality articles these days to submit and talk about.
  • atwrk 1y ago
    Edit: I snarkily replied to an imagined comment, not the one that was actually written...
    • dewey 1y ago
      The parent post says America, not Africa though.
      • atwrk 1y ago
        Oh wow, I stand corrected. No idea how I could have misread that.
• passwordoops 1y ago
  The typical answer to Climate Change isn't "thoughts and prayers" but "go fck yourself"
• bryanlarsen 1y ago
  Even America is building far more renewables than fossil fuel or nuclear, despite the deck being stacked against them.
• MarcelOlsz 1y ago
  How many days worth of coal burning does 90 days of billionaire jets travelling to Bezos wedding count as?
  • hwillis 1y ago
    A 747 burns ~9 tonnes of kerosene per hour, creating ~29.6 tonnes CO2. The Monroe Power Plant produces 3400 MWe at ~1 kg CO2 per kWh, so ~3400 tonnes CO2 per hour. It's a little complicated to weigh stratospheric emissions- the CO2 has a larger impact, and while the water droplets and contrails left by planes somewhat counteracts it (by reflecting incoming infrared) it's harder to compare intangibles like mercury emissions from coal. If you just say its all a wash, that plant is equivalent to 120 747s running full speed. Private jets consume more like .9-1.5 tonnes per hour, so that's equivalent to ~900 billionaires. That's a bit less than half of them which is probably a lot more than were at the wedding. They also probably parked them instead of leaving them circling in the air. If there were 90 billionaires who flew 12 hours each way in their private jets, then they probably released around 2.5 hours worth of Monroe Power Plant time over those 90 days- 8458 tonnes. Fun fact, the pilots and flight attendants probably used ~1000 tonnes of CO2 worth of energy etc and exhaled ~25 tonnes of CO2 in that time. 25 tonnes is small compared to the planes (>.3%), but in those 90 days the planes released just .11% as much as the coal plant. Coal really truly sucks and it's unfair that I can't eat tuna without getting mad hatter disease.
    • MarcelOlsz 1y ago
      Nice, I appreciate the analysis!
• infecto 1y ago
  As much as I don’t like the administration, I don’t think this is necessarily true. Subsidies are being removed but I think most renewable has the chance to hold on its own. I do wish more of the markets worked closer to a an actual market like Texas which incentivizes creativity and trying to maximize. Renewables are so cost effective these days that most areas implement them and then natural gas serves as a useful baseload.
  • krige 1y ago
    At the same time the admin has undercut and gutted many climate tracking projects [0] so it's really not hard to see the underlying intentions. [0] for instance https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-national-assessment-nasa-white-house-057cec699caef90832d8b10f21a6ffe8 https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-national-assessmen...
    • adrianN 1y ago
      I think the point is that it looks like economics beat ecologics and renewables are getting built.
      • infecto 1y ago
        That is what I was leaning towards. Subsidies can be helpful to accelerate things but you have to be making the right bet. Ultimately it’s up to economics to make it a reality. Renewables are economically viable at this point in a lot of markets. The human race cannot make rational decisions at scale unless there is an immediate threat. The market so far in history has done the best job at pushing change. It’s far from perfect but I believe to be the best we have.
        • adrianN 1y ago
          To be fair, renewables are only competitive after untold billions of subsidies have financed R&D