There is really a strong argument that energy independence should have put renewable energy as part of the defense budget and been rolled out a long time ago if not for this stupid culture war that has formed around it. Let’s rectify that issue already.
They think it’s a hoax meant to funnel money into the pockets of scammers pushing these new green techs. They think it’s just enriching liars who want to vilify things these people loved, all while making things somehow worse. Their vision isn’t of a better future, they see a scammer getting rich while their power goes out every time it’s cloudy outside or the wind stops.
its true, I love oil SO MUCH and these climate scientists are just SO MEAN to oil, it makes me sad. im sad for my friend, oil.
good thing we can always trust oil execs. they’re such honest guys!
It’s really funny that you bring up the rolling blackouts. I’m assuming you are meaning in Texas, but since wind and solar there have been perfectly consistent while it is the coal burning plants that have been failing to meet the needs of the state and crashing their janky power grid your point is really quite stupid.
The having fewer billionaires is always left out and always the reason none of the other stuff seems to matter
Why would renewable energy necessarily mean fewer billionaires? Major solar/wind generation plants have to be built by someone and somewhere, it seems like the best you’re doing is making billionaires pivot their investments/changing which people the billionaires are.
Beats me
It’s called ✨nationalised/socialised utilities✨.
Imagine not being able to even, well, imagine, a world where profit isn’t the one and only motive for human behaviour… 🙄
Why does moving to renewables necessarily mean nationalized/socialized utilities? Imagine not being able to imagine a world where one thing you support is not inexorably tied to every other thing you support.
Not a denier, but people fear the immediate costs. It’s not clear what meaningful climate action looks like. But realistically it would very likely mean a higher cost of living in the immediate future, because not all economic sectors can be trivially decarbonized. There are also possible immediate benefits. But in any case that’s what people fear.
When the higher cost of living is more important than actually living.
Educated populations tend to be more liberal, and exhibit more critical thinking. It’s not a guarantee, but it tends to form a shield against blind indoctrination and especially religious fundamentalism.
Conservatives do not want an educated population.
Educated populations tend to be more liberal
Liberally educated populations tend to be more liberal. Kids coming out of Bob Jones University, Arizona State, and Yale can be as archly conservative as anyone you see on FOX News or read the byline of in the WSJ.
Conservatives do not want an educated population.
Conservatives want conservative propaganda to be the believes that decide who is taken seriously and who is dismissed as unserious, uneducated, and extremist. There’s a rich body of conservative literature and ideology that you need to absorb before you can be taken seriously in the upper eschalons of the movement. The rank-and-file might revel in being a bunch of Know-Nothings, but the prelate class requires you to be well-versed in their dogma.
Education helps establish your priors and cements your conviction. People who don’t know anything on a subject can be easily swayed. People who have a ingested a certain quantity of coherently structured works are much more intransigent. That’s why institutions like the SCOTUS are such a joke. Its nine people who already made up their minds compromising to form a majority opinion before the case even starts, not nine idiot-savants rapidly accumulating an education on diverse subjects from a variety of experts before crafting a well-considered conclusion.
Liberally educated populations tend to be more liberal. Kids coming out of Bob Jones University, Arizona State, and Yale can be as archly conservative as anyone you see on FOX News or read the byline of in the WSJ.
The quality of the education matters. I’d argue that Jesuit priests, despite being educated in highly religious schools, tend to be the more liberal branch of Catholicism due to their emphasis on logic and analysis.
What I’m saying is that a good education is one that emphasizes critical thinking; that indoctrination is not education; and that people with strong critical thinking skills tend to be liberal. I believe that it’s because the antithesis of dogma is critical thinking. Sure, it’s not a guarantee, and the fact that Einstein was staunchly religious, and that Jesuits exist prove that you can have good logic and critical thinking skills and still be prone to religiosity. However, history shows that educated populations tend to be more progressive and less prone to falling for rhetoric and ideology.
Your point is important, though, and I’ll emphasize my comment that it’s important to distinguish between indoctrination and education. PragerU tried to call itself a university, but that doesn’t make it one; and education curriculum directed by governments tend to include a fair amount of indoctrination.
There’s a scene in The West Wing where Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) is talking to, I think, Ainsley Hayes (Emily Procter). As I remember it, there was a paper arguing a conservative viewpoint on something, and Sam reveals that he wrote the paper as part of a debate exercise. I always thought that was the epitome of a good education: being able to switch your viewpoint and really understand the other side’s argument to the point where you can win a debate arguing for something you oppose. It reflects that you deeply understand both sides, not just your own dogma or opinions; it reflects that your position is probably based on the fact that you’ve considered both sides and chose your position thoughtfully. A good education will force people to debate a viewpoint they disagree with; a bad one will only have them debate the position they already hold. I wish I could find that clip on YouTube; I may have to rewatch the entire series (at least up until Sorkin left) just to find it again.
I’d argue that Jesuit priests, despite being educated in highly religious schools, tend to be the more liberal branch of Catholicism due to their emphasis on logic and analysis.
I’d say it has more to do with their proletariat recruitment and lifestyle, but sure. Logic and analysis definitely have their role.
What I’m saying is that a good education is one that emphasizes critical thinking
Critical thinking is an engine, but you need the initial conditions to fuel it. Thomas Aquinas and Isaac Newton were both profound critical thinkers, but they came to remarkably different realizations over their lifetimes. We have critical thinkers who can’t agree on shit all the time, and not just in the gulf between religion and science. Go into the realm of particle physics and you’ll have people sharply divided on the fundamental nature of the universe despite enjoying ample expertise in their areas of study.
Go into public policy and you’ll find the same divides. Critical thinking still needs a moral basis. Otherwise, you’re just a paperclip maximizing engine, logically and emotionlessly determining the most efficient way to turn the whole world into consumer widgets.
There’s a scene in The West Wing where Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) is talking to, I think, Ainsley Hayes (Emily Procter). As I remember it, there was a paper arguing a conservative viewpoint on something, and Sam reveals that he wrote the paper as part of a debate exercise. I always thought that was the epitome of a good education: being able to switch your viewpoint and really understand the other side’s argument to the point where you can win a debate arguing for something you oppose.
Part of the joke of West Wing is that Rob Lowe is playing a conservative in a liberal administration. They all kinda are. That’s Aaron Sorkin’s brand of politics. Do conservatism from the left. So of course you’ve got Seaborn writing a paper from a conservative perspective and demonstrating a competency in conservative thinking and then having a conversation with another conservative about what Real Conservatism Really Means. These are two conservatives talking to each other about a shared ideological framework.
Go back and look at what the ostensibly liberal President of an ostensibly liberal party actually accomplishes while in office and you’re going to find - Budget Cuts, Foreign Wars, and Privatization of Education and Social Security. Basically the Bush Administration’s agenda for the second term in office.
A good education will force people to debate a viewpoint they disagree with
Show me the Aaron Sorkin character who credibly and sincerely makes an argument in favor of the Cuban Revolution. The closest they come is “Ninety Miles Away” and its not exactly flattering to Castro.
The core is about change. To accept climate change means they have to make changes to their lifestyle, and they don’t like having to change. Beyond that, it’s rationalizations and bad faith arguments from the usual grifters and corporations layered on top of that to justify the position they chose emotionally.
But how will people know the size of my pp if my car doesn’t go vroom vroom.
Speakers with specially designed amplification spaces and vibrators attached to the frame.
Obviously.
unstable countries with bad human rights
those are always preceded by a us coup, to extract oil cheaply and in peace.
All of those things lower profits of the current few people profiting the most (oligarchy).
The rest is just like sports - ‘my team is better than yours regardless of record’.
One of the rationales of sane people regarding alternative energy sources is the cost of using “more expensive” energy sources when cheap (at least for the time being), albeit more polluting, alternatives like coal and natural gas are readily available.
The argument is that if Country A switches to full renewables, in the time it takes for the prices to become low enough to be competitive against coal, Country B, which is unscrupulous in its development and continues using coal as its main energy source, would gain a significant advantage over Country A.
You could even argue that for Country B, switching to alternative energy sources would be unfair, considering that Country A enjoyed decades of rapid growth and development using cheap coal, whereas Country B would not. Since Country A won’t fully switch to alternative energy sources to maintain its supremacy, and Country B won’t change for the sake of its development, we’re effectively in a deadlock.
Personally, I think all countries should work together and switch to renewable energy sources to reduce the impact of climate change. Unfortunately, the world is not so simple, and the conflict is more nuanced than simply “keeping profits vs. creating a better world.”
If only all the countries could come to some kind of climate energy agreement. Maybe they can meet someplace like oh say Paris or something and sign an agreement like that. 🤔
We’re already at the point that renewables are far cheaper than the alternatives. It’s just the capital costs that are higher (compared to keeping existing FF), but that’s not a huge issue for rich, developed countries.
So rich countries can massively invest in renewables and press their advantage. Ideally, these rich countries also subsidise renewable energy in developing countries (and to some extent, they are). But even without that in many cases it’s cheaper to just skip building a whole FF industry altogether and go straight to renewables.
I think it’s mostly tribalism and fear.
For everyone, to some extent, belief is social. You tend to believe what your in-group believes. If your in-group is big on science and admitting fault and such, it’s not so bad. But if your beliefs are… I’m too tired to be nice… Right wing dog shit ahistorical afactual nonsense… then you’re in a worse place as far as having beliefs that match reality goes.
Secondly, fear. Admitting climate change and pollution exist means admitting uncomfortable truths. It means admitting things need to change, that the future may be from, and you have some culpability in the current state. The way things are now is familiar and comforting. Most people are, frankly, cowards, and will go to great lengths to avoid this kind of fear. Especially if it involves them not being a completely faultless person.
The longer you go being a denialist, I imagine the harder it is to change. Admitting fault isn’t something most people do well. Again, because they are on some fundamental level cowards. Many people are deeply uncomfortable with admitting they were wrong about anything. Admitting you were fooled by climate denialism is a blow to the ego. Can’t have that. Better stick to the current stance. And if it happens that the in-group also believes that, great, that’s comforting.
We should probably come up with a way to make right wingers (the most scared people of all) think that addressing climate change plays into their in-group. Convince them solar is AMERICAN INGENUITY and that coal is a Chinese plot to poison the white race, and maybe you’d make some surprising (and awful) allies.
That or, like, completely destroy the Republican party, spend fifty years hard deploying green technology, and wait for conservatives to defend it because that’s what they know, now.
The argument (I say this as a midwesterner who has lots of relatives and such who are regurgitating the prepublication lines) always comes back to “the tech isn’t there yet” “you can’t recycle panels or turbine blades” “panels and turbine blades don’t last worth a damn”.
Whether or not any of that is true idk so how can I argue? My plate is pretty full on reading material.
So find the arguments they’re using and go from there.
Big car doesn’t go vroom vroom
I can also list only positive things about a thing being argued for, while omitting any of its consequences.
What exactly are the consequences in this case?
Can you list the consequences or are you just giving soundbites?
