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> Why do many environmental activists seem to want to go back to a shitty past rather than move forward to bright future. They don't. That's fossil fuel propog

> Why do many environmental activists seem to want to go back to a shitty past rather than move forward to bright future. They don't. That's fossil fuel propoganda that you've fallen for and are now spreading. In reality fossil fuel is crap and we don't need it.

fragmede 1mo ago
They do, because "greens" being anti-nuclear isn't just a fossil fuel talking point. We could have had widely deployed fission power by now, but politicing against it, in which greens were complicit in, managed to stall that out. While it was stalled out, perfect being the enemy of the good, guess which coal and oil plants ran in the meantime‽
- hvb2 1mo ago
  The biggest blocker to nuclear in most places is that it needs the backing of a country in order to be built. The financial risk is just to big. Pair this with their decade+ timeline and you have a mix that means that it's a long term goal. Us as voters have made long term goals unfeasible, we mostly run after what was in the news yesterday.
  - cucumber3732842 1mo ago
    >The biggest blocker to nuclear in most places is that it needs the backing of a country in order to be built. And who was complicit in creating that state of affairs? Why did this technology not trickle down from the nation state to the enterprise and eventually the everyman the way that the material technologies of electronics and aerospace, the other high technologies of the time, did?
    - hvb2 1mo ago
      > And who was complicit in creating that state of affairs? Financial institutions? Because the issue is getting a loan for say 8 billion that you might start repaying 10 to 15 years from now assuming it all pans out. As much as you want to blame people for this, I don't think that's really the biggest reason. Most projects don't even get off the ground as the political will to back it is missing. > Why did this technology not trickle down from the nation state to the enterprise and eventually the everyman Uh, the cold war, nuclear proliferation etcetera. And I would argue that makes a lot of sense, even today.
      - cucumber3732842 1mo ago
        >Financial institutions? Because the issue is getting a loan for say 8 billion that you might start repaying 10 to 15 years from now assuming it all pans out. Sometime in the last third of the 20th century the bankers and industry looked around, they looked at the heavy industry that normally ran on decade long investment and reinvestment cycles and they looked at the state and federal regulators who had just been empowered to fairly unilaterally take action with net effects on the same order as most industries profit margins and they were like "nah we good, quarter to quarter is how it's gonna be now". That's why nothing big gets built in boring but necessary industries, nuclear or otherwise. >Most projects don't even get off the ground as the political will to back it is missing. The fact that you need "political will" to plug generation capacity into the grid is the problem. >Uh, the cold war, nuclear proliferation etcetera. And I would argue that makes a lot of sense, even today. Disagree. The economic potential is too great. If there was a market there they'd find a way to make it safe enough.
      - Gangway0829 1mo ago
        You wouldn't need 8 billion dollars to set up an NPP if not for hysteria driven regulation in all countries not called France.
    - chermi 1mo ago
      Ooh pick me I know! It's basically that meme of shooting the guy in the chair. Their predecessors did everything in their power, in collusion with oil companies, to ban nuclear by all channels available - regulation, lying, fear-mongering. Then nuclear doesn't advance for decades and not enough is built (btw killing the really-existing-50-years-ago right in our laps green energy solution). Then they say nuclear is shitty tech that has no hope and has proven to be slow and expensive, and therefore it's a waste to put in effort into it. (Guess what state solar was in before we put effort into it + didn't make it effectively illegal?) The anti-nuke environmentalists, with the help of oil, bear the biggest blame for global warming. Fuck amory lovins, fuck ed lyman. I'm a broken record, but I'll say for the 100th time. How is everyone so damn certain nuclear is the one technology that doesn't improve with innovation, iteration, and scale? And don't tell me learning curves have proven it doesn't without looking up the preconditions for learning curves to apply.
- mcv 1mo ago
  I'm pretty green, and opposed nuclear power back in the 1980s, but I now consider that a mistake. We've remained far too dependent on coal and oil. If nuclear power would have prevented more coal plants from being opened, that would have been a massive win for the environment. I still consider nuclear worse than solar, and I see it only as transitional tech until we can go fully green, but coal is so much worse, that nuclear should have been considered the better alternative. By now, I think nuclear's window of opportunity has closed, because solar is just so ridiculously cheap right now. But if anyone wants to do it safely, I'm not against it.
retired 1mo ago
I would love to live in a world where I don’t need fossil fuels.
an_account 1mo ago
> In reality fossil fuel is crap and we don't need it. I agree, which is why I was advocating for clean electricity to do the dredging. The end of this article advocates for going back hand labor, which is what I was pushing back on as an unpractical return to a shitty past.
- ZeroGravitas 1mo ago
  This particular author isn't an environmentalist as much as a low tech enthusiast. Hence, solar and wind power generating electricity, which are clean and green technologies but are not "low tech" do not fit his particular niche interest. Though the article was from 2018. I think he may have evolved slightly as solar PV begins to feel more like a bit of lumber or a steel girder or anything else you can pick up at a hardware store and so passes his somewhat fuzzy and arbitrary definition of low tech.
dcrazy 1mo ago
Asserting fossil fuels are crap betrays you as an ideologue, rather than someone who is solution-oriented. Fossil fuels have amazing energy density, fantastic refueling characteristics, and a highly developed production and delivery infrastructure. Electricity only has the last one, and even then you have to take marks off for lack of widespread DC in most places on Earth where you can fill a Jerry can with 93 octane. I know that I can only afford to drive an EV because of a stack of dependencies that work out Just So for myself. I would love for the world to move en masse away from fossil fuels and hydrocarbons in general, but that’s not gonna happen by telling the people who deploy these systems in the real world that the energy source their entire systems are built around is inferior and unnecessary.
- defrost 1mo ago
  > Asserting fossil fuels are crap is a coarse short hand for saying they have negative externalities which are horrendous and that only really become unquestionable as the boiling frog dies. This is not an ideological stance, more a thermodynamic one- ( my background includes a decade and more in exploration geophysics for resource mapping and extraction at multiple large country / continental scale measuring and modelling gravity, tides, magnetics, radiometrics, atmospheric temperature and density (not so much actual gas mix, although yes, isotopes) ) > Fossil fuels have amazing energy density, fantastic refueling characteristics, which cannot be denied. They also increase the insulation factor of the atmosphere in a slow steady fashion that traps energy that would be radiated to space were it not for human fossil fuel usage . > and a highly developed production and delivery infrastructure. So do drug cartels. We are in that time when it's humanities best interest to reduce fossil fuel usage as much as possible, as fast as possible, and look to means of extracting some of the excess CO2 from the atmosphere that has been added by humans.
  - dcrazy 1mo ago
    “In reality fossil fuel is crap and we don’t need it” The second half of that sentence is what makes it clearly an ideological assertion.
- bluefirebrand 1mo ago
poulpy123 1mo ago
The article here is considering dredging the Netherlands by hand. Are they also big fossil fuel ?
- defrost 1mo ago
  > Are they also big fossil fuel ? They derive 39% of total Dutch energy use from oil, 36% from natural gas, and 7% from coal. That's, what, 82% of Dutch energy usage from fossil fuel sources. ~ https://www.iea.org/countries/the-netherlands/oil https://www.iea.org/countries/the-netherlands/oil Unless you're asking about Dutch state and citizen investment in Oil and Gas companies and markets?
  - skew-aberration 1mo ago
    Note that this is still a significant undercount, as European countries import a large fraction of their carbon footprint as embodied carbon in manufactured goods. For Netherlands, it seems like the proportion is quite high, with approx 4-5 tonnes of their 13 tonnes per capita footprint comes from embodied carbon of imported goods. If that had been burned domestically, the energy mix would be over 90% fossil fuels (e.g something like: 82 * (1 + 13/9) / (100 + 82 * (13/9)) ) > However, people who live in the Netherlands also buy products and services from abroad. The greenhouse gases released as a result of producing those products and services can be attributed to Dutch economic consumption. Similarly, greenhouse gas emissions released as a result of the production of products and services that are exported can be attributed to economic consumption abroad. > In the period 2008-2021, the balance of these emissions – imports minus exports – was positive. This means that more greenhouse gases are emitted abroad as a result of Dutch economic consumption than vice versa. The emissions balance decreased from 5.3 tons to 2.0 tons of CO2 equivalent per capita between 2008 and 2017. As the Dutch economy picked up once again, the balance rose to 4.2 tons per capita by 2021. https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/dossier/greenhouse-gas-emissions/what-is-our-greenhouse-gas-footprint- https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/dossier/greenhouse-gas-emissions/wh... Somewhat above the European average https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/fichier/6478761/IA74_Vanglaise.pdf https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/fichier/6478761/IA74_Va...
chermi 1mo ago
My actual conversations have revealed otherwise. Were they false flaggers?

fragmede 1mo ago

They do, because "greens" being anti-nuclear isn't just a fossil fuel talking point. We could have had widely deployed fission power by now, but politicing against it, in which greens were complicit in, managed to stall that out. While it was stalled out, perfect being the enemy of the good, guess which coal and oil plants ran in the meantime‽

hvb2 1mo ago
The biggest blocker to nuclear in most places is that it needs the backing of a country in order to be built. The financial risk is just to big. Pair this with their decade+ timeline and you have a mix that means that it's a long term goal. Us as voters have made long term goals unfeasible, we mostly run after what was in the news yesterday.
- cucumber3732842 1mo ago
  >The biggest blocker to nuclear in most places is that it needs the backing of a country in order to be built. And who was complicit in creating that state of affairs? Why did this technology not trickle down from the nation state to the enterprise and eventually the everyman the way that the material technologies of electronics and aerospace, the other high technologies of the time, did?
  - hvb2 1mo ago
    > And who was complicit in creating that state of affairs? Financial institutions? Because the issue is getting a loan for say 8 billion that you might start repaying 10 to 15 years from now assuming it all pans out. As much as you want to blame people for this, I don't think that's really the biggest reason. Most projects don't even get off the ground as the political will to back it is missing. > Why did this technology not trickle down from the nation state to the enterprise and eventually the everyman Uh, the cold war, nuclear proliferation etcetera. And I would argue that makes a lot of sense, even today.
    - cucumber3732842 1mo ago
      >Financial institutions? Because the issue is getting a loan for say 8 billion that you might start repaying 10 to 15 years from now assuming it all pans out. Sometime in the last third of the 20th century the bankers and industry looked around, they looked at the heavy industry that normally ran on decade long investment and reinvestment cycles and they looked at the state and federal regulators who had just been empowered to fairly unilaterally take action with net effects on the same order as most industries profit margins and they were like "nah we good, quarter to quarter is how it's gonna be now". That's why nothing big gets built in boring but necessary industries, nuclear or otherwise. >Most projects don't even get off the ground as the political will to back it is missing. The fact that you need "political will" to plug generation capacity into the grid is the problem. >Uh, the cold war, nuclear proliferation etcetera. And I would argue that makes a lot of sense, even today. Disagree. The economic potential is too great. If there was a market there they'd find a way to make it safe enough.
    - Gangway0829 1mo ago
      You wouldn't need 8 billion dollars to set up an NPP if not for hysteria driven regulation in all countries not called France.
  - chermi 1mo ago
    Ooh pick me I know! It's basically that meme of shooting the guy in the chair. Their predecessors did everything in their power, in collusion with oil companies, to ban nuclear by all channels available - regulation, lying, fear-mongering. Then nuclear doesn't advance for decades and not enough is built (btw killing the really-existing-50-years-ago right in our laps green energy solution). Then they say nuclear is shitty tech that has no hope and has proven to be slow and expensive, and therefore it's a waste to put in effort into it. (Guess what state solar was in before we put effort into it + didn't make it effectively illegal?) The anti-nuke environmentalists, with the help of oil, bear the biggest blame for global warming. Fuck amory lovins, fuck ed lyman. I'm a broken record, but I'll say for the 100th time. How is everyone so damn certain nuclear is the one technology that doesn't improve with innovation, iteration, and scale? And don't tell me learning curves have proven it doesn't without looking up the preconditions for learning curves to apply.
mcv 1mo ago
I'm pretty green, and opposed nuclear power back in the 1980s, but I now consider that a mistake. We've remained far too dependent on coal and oil. If nuclear power would have prevented more coal plants from being opened, that would have been a massive win for the environment. I still consider nuclear worse than solar, and I see it only as transitional tech until we can go fully green, but coal is so much worse, that nuclear should have been considered the better alternative. By now, I think nuclear's window of opportunity has closed, because solar is just so ridiculously cheap right now. But if anyone wants to do it safely, I'm not against it.

retired 1mo ago

I would love to live in a world where I don’t need fossil fuels.

an_account 1mo ago

> In reality fossil fuel is crap and we don't need it. I agree, which is why I was advocating for clean electricity to do the dredging. The end of this article advocates for going back hand labor, which is what I was pushing back on as an unpractical return to a shitty past.

ZeroGravitas 1mo ago
This particular author isn't an environmentalist as much as a low tech enthusiast. Hence, solar and wind power generating electricity, which are clean and green technologies but are not "low tech" do not fit his particular niche interest. Though the article was from 2018. I think he may have evolved slightly as solar PV begins to feel more like a bit of lumber or a steel girder or anything else you can pick up at a hardware store and so passes his somewhat fuzzy and arbitrary definition of low tech.

dcrazy 1mo ago

Asserting fossil fuels are crap betrays you as an ideologue, rather than someone who is solution-oriented. Fossil fuels have amazing energy density, fantastic refueling characteristics, and a highly developed production and delivery infrastructure. Electricity only has the last one, and even then you have to take marks off for lack of widespread DC in most places on Earth where you can fill a Jerry can with 93 octane. I know that I can only afford to drive an EV because of a stack of dependencies that work out Just So for myself. I would love for the world to move en masse away from fossil fuels and hydrocarbons in general, but that’s not gonna happen by telling the people who deploy these systems in the real world that the energy source their entire systems are built around is inferior and unnecessary.

defrost 1mo ago
> Asserting fossil fuels are crap is a coarse short hand for saying they have negative externalities which are horrendous and that only really become unquestionable as the boiling frog dies. This is not an ideological stance, more a thermodynamic one- ( my background includes a decade and more in exploration geophysics for resource mapping and extraction at multiple large country / continental scale measuring and modelling gravity, tides, magnetics, radiometrics, atmospheric temperature and density (not so much actual gas mix, although yes, isotopes) ) > Fossil fuels have amazing energy density, fantastic refueling characteristics, which cannot be denied. They also increase the insulation factor of the atmosphere in a slow steady fashion that traps energy that would be radiated to space were it not for human fossil fuel usage . > and a highly developed production and delivery infrastructure. So do drug cartels. We are in that time when it's humanities best interest to reduce fossil fuel usage as much as possible, as fast as possible, and look to means of extracting some of the excess CO2 from the atmosphere that has been added by humans.
- dcrazy 1mo ago
  “In reality fossil fuel is crap and we don’t need it” The second half of that sentence is what makes it clearly an ideological assertion.
bluefirebrand 1mo ago

poulpy123 1mo ago

The article here is considering dredging the Netherlands by hand. Are they also big fossil fuel ?

defrost 1mo ago
> Are they also big fossil fuel ? They derive 39% of total Dutch energy use from oil, 36% from natural gas, and 7% from coal. That's, what, 82% of Dutch energy usage from fossil fuel sources. ~ https://www.iea.org/countries/the-netherlands/oil https://www.iea.org/countries/the-netherlands/oil Unless you're asking about Dutch state and citizen investment in Oil and Gas companies and markets?
- skew-aberration 1mo ago
  Note that this is still a significant undercount, as European countries import a large fraction of their carbon footprint as embodied carbon in manufactured goods. For Netherlands, it seems like the proportion is quite high, with approx 4-5 tonnes of their 13 tonnes per capita footprint comes from embodied carbon of imported goods. If that had been burned domestically, the energy mix would be over 90% fossil fuels (e.g something like: 82 * (1 + 13/9) / (100 + 82 * (13/9)) ) > However, people who live in the Netherlands also buy products and services from abroad. The greenhouse gases released as a result of producing those products and services can be attributed to Dutch economic consumption. Similarly, greenhouse gas emissions released as a result of the production of products and services that are exported can be attributed to economic consumption abroad. > In the period 2008-2021, the balance of these emissions – imports minus exports – was positive. This means that more greenhouse gases are emitted abroad as a result of Dutch economic consumption than vice versa. The emissions balance decreased from 5.3 tons to 2.0 tons of CO2 equivalent per capita between 2008 and 2017. As the Dutch economy picked up once again, the balance rose to 4.2 tons per capita by 2021. https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/dossier/greenhouse-gas-emissions/what-is-our-greenhouse-gas-footprint- https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/dossier/greenhouse-gas-emissions/wh... Somewhat above the European average https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/fichier/6478761/IA74_Vanglaise.pdf https://www.insee.fr/en/statistiques/fichier/6478761/IA74_Va...

chermi 1mo ago

My actual conversations have revealed otherwise. Were they false flaggers?