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This essay is far too swooning to take seriously. Mobile payments vs credit card payments aren't a revolution. America has Google and Apple Pay but most Ameri

This essay is far too swooning to take seriously. Mobile payments vs credit card payments aren't a revolution. America has Google and Apple Pay but most Americans still swipe. It's just not that different and it's easier to compartmentalize your spending that way. The idea of an "everything app" like WeChat actually turns me completely off. I don't want everything in one app. I want compartmentalization. I value it, in fact. > The West spent 150 years building coal plants, then natural gas, then slowly adding renewables. China went from burning coal directly to becoming the world's solar panel factory. They make 80% of all solar panels globally. China is also, incidentally the coal king of the world, and has rapidly expanded coal production over the last few decades. Their coal consumption has tripled since 2000. For all the breathless commentary on solar the author spares no ink on China's appetite for coal. The reason people still claim China is a developing country is so that they get a pass on arbitrary restrictions imposed on "developed" Western nations who like to pay lip service to climate change concerns and don't mind the gradual decline that comes along with this antigrowth mindset. Meanwhile the world has outsourced production to China, where coal makes up a majority of the electricity generated. Your country is getting leapfrogged by a competitor who doesn't play by your rules, but at least you can virtue signal to your elite friends while it happens. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_China While California can't build anything these days, I would not hold their dysfunction to the rest of the Union. Florida built high speed rail between West Palm Beach and Orlando in just 4 years, and the route extends to Miami. Tesla built Giga Texas, the second largest building in the world by volume, in 14 months. American tech is also in the lead in self driving navigation. > China skipped the strip mall phase entirely. They went straight from street markets to super-apps that livestream shopping, where one influencer can sell $15 million worth of lipstick in five minutes China was never going to have strip malls. Strip malls are a feature of suburban life. China does not have the same geography nor the same decentralized population distribution as the U.S. has. As for livestream shopping, spare me. Americans don't shop via livestream because we're not entertained by the idea of being pitched crap we don't need. It's not novel to us either, we had the QVC network going back to the 80s. When I buy something, I search, click add to cart, and then checkout. > We’re going to solve climate change with a lot of Chinese technology—or we’re not going to solve it at all. If you buy the idea that we're going to solve for climate change with Chinese tech while China continues to pollute more than ever, I don't know what to tell you. China's "tech" in this case isn't their tech. Japan has produced more of the IP surrounding solar panels than anyone else, followed by the U.S.

triceratops 1y ago
> For all the breathless commentary on solar the author spares no ink on China's appetite for coal. They have a lot of coal so they burn coal. The US has a lot of natural gas so it burns natural gas (and bafflingly, continues to insist on burning coal, even when it's uneconomical). So they're about even. There is one difference. 80% of new electricity generation in China in the past 3 or 4 years has come from solar or other renewable sources. So while they may burn coal now, they won't always burn coal. America has sadly chosen a different path.
- chrisco255 1y ago
  The U.S. has tons of both coal and Natural Gas but it shifted its energy production to Natural Gas in part due to carbon emissions. Coal was cheaper than natural gas, but fracking made natural gas cheaper. Either way, natural gas burns 50-60% cleaner than coal. China still onboarded more than 173GW of coal in the last 5 years. That is 60% additional electricity from coal than Japan spends in a whole year. That is 3x what Germany spends in a year. They continue to pollute more than ever.
  - triceratops 1y ago
    > in part due to carbon emissions... fracking made natural gas cheaper [than coal] Well which one is it? From what I can remember natural gas electric generation took off along with the fracking boom, which is when it became cheaper. If it was really for emissions natural gas should've taken over generation before it became cheap, right? I contend it was purely for economic reasons, and the relative emissions benefits were a nice bonus. > China still onboarded more than 173GW of coal in the last 5 years Citation needed. And again, they don't have natural gas. They have coal. What they don't have is an energy policy that beats down solar power and renewable energy due to ideology and "coal interests". What more do you expect? > That is 3x what Germany spends in a year They have like 12x the population of Germany. It's a meaningless comparison. And they even had a 1 child policy for such a long time. Unlike you with the natural gas I won't claim they did it for the emissions. But just like natural gas it was a bit lucky for the environment, right? Pretend China is 10 separate countries and put this vapid fossil fuel industry talking point out of your mind. The humans are there and they produce carbon emissions. Why do lines on a map matter?

triceratops 1y ago

> For all the breathless commentary on solar the author spares no ink on China's appetite for coal. They have a lot of coal so they burn coal. The US has a lot of natural gas so it burns natural gas (and bafflingly, continues to insist on burning coal, even when it's uneconomical). So they're about even. There is one difference. 80% of new electricity generation in China in the past 3 or 4 years has come from solar or other renewable sources. So while they may burn coal now, they won't always burn coal. America has sadly chosen a different path.

chrisco255 1y ago
The U.S. has tons of both coal and Natural Gas but it shifted its energy production to Natural Gas in part due to carbon emissions. Coal was cheaper than natural gas, but fracking made natural gas cheaper. Either way, natural gas burns 50-60% cleaner than coal. China still onboarded more than 173GW of coal in the last 5 years. That is 60% additional electricity from coal than Japan spends in a whole year. That is 3x what Germany spends in a year. They continue to pollute more than ever.
- triceratops 1y ago
  > in part due to carbon emissions... fracking made natural gas cheaper [than coal] Well which one is it? From what I can remember natural gas electric generation took off along with the fracking boom, which is when it became cheaper. If it was really for emissions natural gas should've taken over generation before it became cheap, right? I contend it was purely for economic reasons, and the relative emissions benefits were a nice bonus. > China still onboarded more than 173GW of coal in the last 5 years Citation needed. And again, they don't have natural gas. They have coal. What they don't have is an energy policy that beats down solar power and renewable energy due to ideology and "coal interests". What more do you expect? > That is 3x what Germany spends in a year They have like 12x the population of Germany. It's a meaningless comparison. And they even had a 1 child policy for such a long time. Unlike you with the natural gas I won't claim they did it for the emissions. But just like natural gas it was a bit lucky for the environment, right? Pretend China is 10 separate countries and put this vapid fossil fuel industry talking point out of your mind. The humans are there and they produce carbon emissions. Why do lines on a map matter?