While I was preoccupied with other things, the US left settled on a pair of competing climate change narratives. By the time I looked, the choice was down to just these two, and no other views could be considered.
View #1, Green Abundance, is that combating climate change means unleashing the power of renewable energy. Fortunately, according to this story, renewables are already the cheapest way to go, or if not quite, they will be once they are scaled up through a massive infusion of public investment. And this investment is a golden opportunity to ameliorate other problems like anemic economic growth, un- and underemployment, and sluggish incomes. We will provide green jobs at union wages for everyone who wants one, with special opportunities for workers in the fossil fuel sector. We will do for this generation what FDR’s original New Deal did for our grandparents, restoring prosperity and a building a vibrant middle class. We’ll do it even better this time, because we will design our programs to fight racism, sexism, and the oppression of LGBTQ people, immigrants and indigenous nations, along with every other impediment to social justice. Meanwhile, we will tax the handful of giant corporations that are responsible for most of the carbon emissions, using their ill-gotten gains to finance an environment that’s healthy for people and other living things. Climate change will turn out to be a godsend, because the struggle against it will unite us around an all-inclusive economic, ecological and social agenda.
Growth has to end right now? Let them tell that to the next generations of kids in subsaharan Africa which has 35% electrification.
Which brings up the next point: we are going to need 10X today’s electricity in 100 years. Which brings up: even if we could reach an unbelievable 50% renewable electricity today — that would only amount to 5% of the power we will need 100 years from now.
Even if we do that we would still have to go 50% nuclear (and eventually thermonuclear). So why not just make things simple and go 100% nuclear?
Don’t want to hear about the one bad western (non Russian) world accident in Japan while our civilization self-incinerates.
Eh, I think most hope to move toward some mixture of those, but rather than “end growth” they’d say “different growth”. Growth not so much in terms that correlate with plastic garbage production.
You expect people to be trying to sell a vision of misery?
What about the right?
1) It’s all a Chinese hoax and as long as we don’t let the left do anything all will be well.
2) Just can’t wait for the hard way where we’ll finally get to use all those AR-15s.
Left out of what? The runaway capitalist train – or the corporate Thelma and Louise convertible muscle car driving off a cliff.
If the American form of predatory capitalism doesn’t slow down very quickly, we are looking at an economic Chernobly (speaking of nuclear energy).
I believe we are approaching a global war for natural resources that only a massive shift to renewables can prevent. Yet we have idiot leadership in Brazil and the US who thinks dirty extraction is the answer to economic bliss? It’s nonsense.
Now is not the time to let our libertarian egos get the best of us. Non-violent survival is more important than Intellectual pandering to Wall Street et al.
Sober:
You appear to be new here at Angry Bear. I like to greet people, when its their first time at Angry Bear, and when they go into moderation (except you did not). Anyhoo, welcome to Angry Bear. First time comments and commentators go to moderation (normally) to weed out spam, spammers, and advertising.