I repeat and will continue to repeat the only way to step off the path of destruction is the immediate reduction of all energy use, and resource use. The equation that you and I get told repeatedly is a false one..
Renewables come with a permanently destructive permanently, toxic permanently, life ending legacy.
In order to build it, we have to kill the planet.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
this is the trap of perfectionism
there is nothing wrong with your argument, but you've decided to make another argument your enemy. even though that argument is a good thing, it is not a perfect thing, so you think you can complain
you can't
is it good we reduce our reliance on fossil fuels?
yes
is it good to reduce resource use, your agenda?
also yes
but why make enemies of these fine goals
applaud both, push both
don't make them enemies. that is a lie
And I will add to this comment that I have placed myself in a situation where I do not drive my car except for maybe once a year out of necessity to visit family during Christmas because the alternatives are not available to me now.
The cheapest most efficient world saving effort is to get rid of cars and to be able to feed ourselves from our regional watersheds. The important thing to do is to change to it, not obsess about EV or solar panels.
Take, for example, hydroelectric power. When you damn a river, it becomes a source of methane production… and in the end, if you cost everything out that hydroelectric power is generating twice as much carbon per kilowatt hour is a freaking cold plant.
Again, I emphasize, if you slap a label of green on hydroelectric because it doesn’t burn fossil fuels, but ends up doing more damage what exactly have we gained?
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @benroyce @blogdiva@mastodon.social
Good for you. Now if only we lived in an ideal world where cars are not the only way of transport for many people 🤨
@GhostOnTheHalfShell I also cringe at greenwashing, and roll my eyes at increased renewable percentages. Show me the absolute numbers (spoiler: fossil fuel emissions are still going up, even or especially in China--that's how they're powering the electric grid).
BUT it is not feasible to take cars away in the US unless you put in alternatives like public transportation. That's not happening right now. For those who must drive, an EV is a good solution IF you can afford it.
@dnkboston @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
using EVs instead of fossil fuels is not "greenwashing"
it obviously results in less fossil fuel use
it is without a doubt a good thing
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
You seemed to have taken my point about perfectionism: falsely asserting it as the enemy of good, and completely ignored it
You need to work on this problem of yours
I will go after you further to say that "hydroelectric is as bad (worse?!) as fossil fuels" is a stupid fucking lie
Do you work for fossil fuel companies?
If not, pause and think how you sound
And note the real value of this moronic "perfect is the enemy of good" stupid bullshit you are shilling
“ According to Ana Simeon, writing for the Watershed Sentinel, “Québec’s largest reservoir, Caniapiscau, has a carbon footprint double that of coal power: about 2,200g CO2-equivalent per kilowatt/hour.” Dams: twice as bad as coal when you calculate total costs?”
@benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva I used to work in the oil industry, I know is bad but unfortunately necessary for certain fields. Sustainable and renewable energy is better for other fields though. One of several examples were unfortunately can't be substituted is global logistics. Having all the citizens with EV and keep big ships with containers is not the final solution.
At least reducing a bit of carbon emissions though
I would like to suggest that the ad hominem is out of place.
That reservoir of water produces high amounts of methane which you probably know is 28 times more powerful, a greenhouse gas than CO2. There are many other consequences to damming a river that are destructive to ecological function, and ultimately to the carbon cycle itself.
There is no cheap out and the chief point of damming up water and exporting it to someplace else is to benefit industry
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
unread
uninterested
another whiny toxic idealist
fighting the real left in service of the fossil fuel industry
and too fucking stupid to see it
stop following me and fuck you, you pathetic loser
@benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
Is it fair to say you're both right, in a way? Ben, please don't wax so vehement, we all know and respect you.
@benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva Also, "stop using energy & live off the land" is completely unrealistic and, if enforced, even worse than the technofascists.
Why? Because in order to get there, literally billions of people have to die - there's no way the current Earth population can all sustain ourselves by growing a fucking veggie garden.
Pre-industrial world population was less than 1bn, so who is to be condemned to starve to death, or euthanized, maybe...?
@benroyce might I suggest they may have a point there?
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240326-how-hydroelectric-dams-are-a-hidden-source-of-carbon-emissions
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
@punissuer @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
i don't deny that point in the least
what i deny is this "well it's better, but it's not perfect, so let's just sit around and whine about being perfect, and thereby only help the status quo of terrible"
@benroyce I don't know about you, but to me, this was new information. If that 2,200g CO2e/kWh is correct – which I don't know yet – and my math checks out, then a BEV powered by hydroelectric energy really isn't better than a smaller ICE car at all.
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
@punissuer @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
But it doesn't change the overall need to get off fossil fuels
Nevermind you can work to reduce the methane production from hydroelectric
So this issue you note is absolutely true, but it doesnt change the overall equation
In the end it only becomes a piece of whataboutism in defense of fossil fuels
Which I am not accusing you of. I'm just asking you to look at the big picture
@jwcph @benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva it is one reason why we should not encourage people to have children, and should not discourage contraception.
@ArchaeoIain @benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva What the fuck are you talking about!?
You think we can population control ourselves back to a few hundred million people - and do you think handing out condoms will make it happen fast enough to be ANY help at all in the fight for a better environment on Earth?
@jwcph @benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva That is not what I said. It is the logic of your statement though. It is clear that government policies or even evil religions which encourage population growth and ban contraception are aiming in the opposite direction partly because the dominant economic models are derived from agrarian societies where more people could produce more so growth arose from growing population. Simple really.
STOP
Mama Gaya is enough.
the death cult of settler colonialist, extractivist capitalism is the problem.
there's a reason LAND REDISTRIBUTION WARS started after the wars of independence across all the Américas.
no nation can survive when capitalists control all the land. you cant cash crop ecosystems into profits without genocide and ecocide.
kill capalism to save us all.
malthusianism is eugenics & racist. deprogram that shit.
@tuban_muzuru @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
no
oppose stupidity that only helps the fossil fuel industry
we don't respect stupidity. toxic idealism is our enemy as surely as MAGA. the effect of this idiocy is the same as MAGA: support for the fossil fuel industry. because the whiny useless perfectionist doesn't understand that doesn't mean we respect that
respecting stupidity is part of what got us into this current mess
@benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
The fossil fuel addiction will be solved like the coal addiction before it. Solar and wind have come into their own, now cometh the better battery.
I'm driving a Pacifica hybrid. We have solar panels on the house roof. When the Better Battery arrives, we can make long trips without gas at all, but that day ain't here yet
@tuban_muzuru @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
good
and thank you
and now you understand the idiocy of GhostOnTheHalfShell, arguing against that, merely out of toxic idealism
this marks that account as a shill of the fossil fuel industry or just too fucking stupid to see that the only real world effect of their perfectionist bullshit is to help the fossil fuel industry
@benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
@GhostOnTheHalfShell looks at the problem from a kinetic energy perspective. Everything has undeniable conseqences - look at Lake Mead,
@benroyce @tuban_muzuru @blogdiva
It’s your assertion without proof that I am being perfectionist. One I am saying is that the top priority should be getting rid of cars. The cheapest pathway to do that is to restructure our land use patterns when you look at all the costs.
The cheapest cleanest energy is the shit we never dig up or burn. The best way to accomplish that is to structure our communities to diminish the need to dig up or burn anything.
@tuban_muzuru @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
right so we get our energy from the sun rather than digging it up. vast improvement
@benroyce @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
Global warming melted the glaciers and snowmass which filled Lake Mead. They'll never let it disappear completely, but hydro power will soon be gone
@tuban_muzuru @GhostOnTheHalfShell @blogdiva
i don't understand
@benroyce @tuban_muzuru @blogdiva
The Limits to Growth in 1972.
You want to argue that PV and EV manufacture would somehow magically bring us within those limits. My assertion is that this is not the case, and that the proper engineering outlook is to look at the actual budget and remain within those bounds..
To manufacture all this green stuff, you have to continue to destroy the productive capacity of the planet.
Necessarily, you have to look at other choices
