5 ms·

The US has been taking steps in the wrong direction wrt climate change and they will undoubtedly be judged to jave been on the wrong side of history on this one

by maest 7mo ago

The US has been taking steps in the wrong direction wrt climate change and they will undoubtedly be judged to jave been on the wrong side of history on this one. In the near term, however, Americans will blame everything except man-made pollution for the fallout from climate change.

sebmellen 7mo ago
Regardless of the politics of the day, where is the long-term, popular will (or capacity) for a "green/electric" revolution in the US? We are massively dependent on fossil fuels, and our quality of life is too. At the same time, we don't have China's industrial capacity or their stomach for massive state-driven subsidies. I don't see how you escape peak oil otherwise.
- maest 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - sebmellen 7mo ago
    Yes, exactly my point. It's too hard to grapple with, so it's easier to ignore.
- Retric 7mo ago
  Oil is just one aspect of climate change, coal was far more important because there’s plenty of coal to case extrem harm. The vast majority of new electricity generation installed in the US over the last 15 years has been wind and solar. That naturally results in fossil fuels being fazed out when existing power plants age and thus need to be replaced. 70% of US electricity came from fossil fuels in 2010, that dropped to 60% by 2020. More significantly it mostly swapped to natural gas which emits far less CO2/KWh than coal. We could go faster but the tail end of the curve represents a small fraction of the CO2 vs the peak. Even natural gas is facing severe pressure from ultra cheap battery backed solar. More importantly natural gas power plants don’t last nearly as long so will get fazed out much faster. EV’s are also about more than tailpipe emissions, making and transporting gasoline is quite harmful before it ends up in a gas tank.
- shimman 7mo ago
  Your comment ignores how much corporate welfare the US already provides. Maybe the better question to ask is why the US government cares so much about making such a small amount of people more rich at the expense of not only the living population but future generations as well. We absolutely have the capacity, it's just being given to already wealthy families to ensure their wealth is contained to themselves rather than the country.
- danaris 7mo ago
  I mean, to some extent, you're not wrong, but if a Democrat were in office right now, we wouldn't be actively fighting the rising tide of solar power. At present, the bare economics of it, without any subsidies, put solar as the most cost-effective new power capacity to add. Last year—2025, the first year of Trump's second term—something like 90% of all new generating capacity in the US was solar. Even with his active antipathy toward it. There no longer needs to be a massive movement willing to pay more for energy just to get it decarbonized. All we need is for the fossil fuel industry and the people in its pay to get out of the way.
  - mullingitover 7mo ago
    > At present, the bare economics of it, without any subsidies, put solar as the most cost-effective new power capacity to add. Not just more cost-effective for new power. The operating expenses for a given coal plant are greater than the buildout cost for the equivalent solar+battery plant. It no longer makes financial sense for coal plants to continue existing in almost all cases. This isn't some environmentalism thing, it's strictly hard math. Fossil energy is no longer viable without taxpayers keeping it on life support.
- mmooss 7mo ago
  IIRC, polls show most Americans support action on climate change. When it's politicized, then they oppose it.
  - bombcar 7mo ago
    There are tons and tons of things that are supported in the abstract and opposed in the particular. It's how everyone is YIMBY until something is happening near them and suddenly they're all NIMBY.
0xffff2 7mo ago
I say this as an American... I can't help but feel that the US will be judged to have been on the wrong side of history in virtually every topic for which there are sides in the last decade if not longer. For reasons I don't understand, we seem to be actively and aggressively working to destroy our country and as many global institutions as we can.
- datsci_est_2015 7mo ago
  > For reasons I don't understand History is full of examples, but maybe not explanations, of the type of behavior coming out of the current administration in the US. They’re not particularly special, or extraordinary, by any measure. They’ve simply made the decision to hit the “defect” button over and over again like a teenage boy discovering porn for the first time. And since the adults that preceded them were reasonable and responsible, they built up plenty of rules and norms, creating many opportunities to now hit “defect”.
  - mmooss 7mo ago
    Could you give us some of these examples?
    - datsci_est_2015 7mo ago
      People spend entire careers doing these types of analyses, so my off-the-cuff comment will always be amateurish in comparison. But here goes anyway, some examples of blunders that come from a place of arrogance, or being overeager to hit the “defect” button: - Various Roman emperors overextending and destroying what their predecessors slowly built - Indigenous peoples (especially the Americas) allying with colonial forces to defeat other indigenous enemies (won the battle, lost the war) - Brexit - Perhaps the most documented regime of all time, 1930s and 40s Germany. Specific event? The eastern offensive Edit: - Royal lineages have plenty of examples, like Louis XVI
      - mmooss 7mo ago
        Those seem like over-ambition or hindsight, which is different than constantly, intentionally doing things in a way that will fail. The indiginous people's choices can't be understood without knowing their political context in regard to other indigenous people and the colonial powers.
crystal_revenge 7mo ago
> wrong side of history on this one. There's not much history left. What we're seeing right now is people getting ready to win the end game of civilization. The oligarchs are well aware of the myriad existential threats to our civilization (and species) and are playing the game to make sure they're the last person alive living in comfort. History will increasingly be told by powerful, oligarchical, modern warlords.
- netsharc 7mo ago
  Huh, warlord tribes roaming the earth, their members formed by descendants of the Loser Ranks of Musk, Zuck, Bezos, Ellison.. that'd be an interesting dystopia. Someone commented along the lines of "I never thought the people bringing about the destruction or the planet would be such dweeby dorks."

by maest 7mo ago

sebmellen 7mo ago

Regardless of the politics of the day, where is the long-term, popular will (or capacity) for a "green/electric" revolution in the US? We are massively dependent on fossil fuels, and our quality of life is too. At the same time, we don't have China's industrial capacity or their stomach for massive state-driven subsidies. I don't see how you escape peak oil otherwise.

maest 7mo ago
[flagged]
- sebmellen 7mo ago
  Yes, exactly my point. It's too hard to grapple with, so it's easier to ignore.
Retric 7mo ago
Oil is just one aspect of climate change, coal was far more important because there’s plenty of coal to case extrem harm. The vast majority of new electricity generation installed in the US over the last 15 years has been wind and solar. That naturally results in fossil fuels being fazed out when existing power plants age and thus need to be replaced. 70% of US electricity came from fossil fuels in 2010, that dropped to 60% by 2020. More significantly it mostly swapped to natural gas which emits far less CO2/KWh than coal. We could go faster but the tail end of the curve represents a small fraction of the CO2 vs the peak. Even natural gas is facing severe pressure from ultra cheap battery backed solar. More importantly natural gas power plants don’t last nearly as long so will get fazed out much faster. EV’s are also about more than tailpipe emissions, making and transporting gasoline is quite harmful before it ends up in a gas tank.
shimman 7mo ago
Your comment ignores how much corporate welfare the US already provides. Maybe the better question to ask is why the US government cares so much about making such a small amount of people more rich at the expense of not only the living population but future generations as well. We absolutely have the capacity, it's just being given to already wealthy families to ensure their wealth is contained to themselves rather than the country.
danaris 7mo ago
I mean, to some extent, you're not wrong, but if a Democrat were in office right now, we wouldn't be actively fighting the rising tide of solar power. At present, the bare economics of it, without any subsidies, put solar as the most cost-effective new power capacity to add. Last year—2025, the first year of Trump's second term—something like 90% of all new generating capacity in the US was solar. Even with his active antipathy toward it. There no longer needs to be a massive movement willing to pay more for energy just to get it decarbonized. All we need is for the fossil fuel industry and the people in its pay to get out of the way.
- mullingitover 7mo ago
  > At present, the bare economics of it, without any subsidies, put solar as the most cost-effective new power capacity to add. Not just more cost-effective for new power. The operating expenses for a given coal plant are greater than the buildout cost for the equivalent solar+battery plant. It no longer makes financial sense for coal plants to continue existing in almost all cases. This isn't some environmentalism thing, it's strictly hard math. Fossil energy is no longer viable without taxpayers keeping it on life support.
mmooss 7mo ago
IIRC, polls show most Americans support action on climate change. When it's politicized, then they oppose it.
- bombcar 7mo ago
  There are tons and tons of things that are supported in the abstract and opposed in the particular. It's how everyone is YIMBY until something is happening near them and suddenly they're all NIMBY.

0xffff2 7mo ago

I say this as an American... I can't help but feel that the US will be judged to have been on the wrong side of history in virtually every topic for which there are sides in the last decade if not longer. For reasons I don't understand, we seem to be actively and aggressively working to destroy our country and as many global institutions as we can.

datsci_est_2015 7mo ago
> For reasons I don't understand History is full of examples, but maybe not explanations, of the type of behavior coming out of the current administration in the US. They’re not particularly special, or extraordinary, by any measure. They’ve simply made the decision to hit the “defect” button over and over again like a teenage boy discovering porn for the first time. And since the adults that preceded them were reasonable and responsible, they built up plenty of rules and norms, creating many opportunities to now hit “defect”.
- mmooss 7mo ago
  Could you give us some of these examples?
  - datsci_est_2015 7mo ago
    People spend entire careers doing these types of analyses, so my off-the-cuff comment will always be amateurish in comparison. But here goes anyway, some examples of blunders that come from a place of arrogance, or being overeager to hit the “defect” button: - Various Roman emperors overextending and destroying what their predecessors slowly built - Indigenous peoples (especially the Americas) allying with colonial forces to defeat other indigenous enemies (won the battle, lost the war) - Brexit - Perhaps the most documented regime of all time, 1930s and 40s Germany. Specific event? The eastern offensive Edit: - Royal lineages have plenty of examples, like Louis XVI
    - mmooss 7mo ago
      Those seem like over-ambition or hindsight, which is different than constantly, intentionally doing things in a way that will fail. The indiginous people's choices can't be understood without knowing their political context in regard to other indigenous people and the colonial powers.

crystal_revenge 7mo ago

> wrong side of history on this one. There's not much history left. What we're seeing right now is people getting ready to win the end game of civilization. The oligarchs are well aware of the myriad existential threats to our civilization (and species) and are playing the game to make sure they're the last person alive living in comfort. History will increasingly be told by powerful, oligarchical, modern warlords.

netsharc 7mo ago
Huh, warlord tribes roaming the earth, their members formed by descendants of the Loser Ranks of Musk, Zuck, Bezos, Ellison.. that'd be an interesting dystopia. Someone commented along the lines of "I never thought the people bringing about the destruction or the planet would be such dweeby dorks."