Comment on Is energy access a human right?
sj_zero 1 year ago
There's two ways that energy access could be considered a human right.
In one way, energy access is considered a human right in that everyone is given energy for free.
In the other way, energy access is considered a human right in that everyone has the right to purchase possess and utilize energy.
Something I think a lot of the current group of activists don't understand is that without energy, people die en masse. And they want to end access to energy, which isn't good. In much of the world, if you can't hit your home over the winter, you're dead. We also require energy to grow food, to transport food, to build and maintain shelter. Energy is simply an important thing. If anyone tries to make it so that individuals are locked out of acquiring energy, that's certainly something that would be effectively a death sentence. To be less abstract, if we were to tell certain people that they are not allowed to buy food, that certainly would be considered an atrocity.
On the other hand, when people say that something is a human right and therefore people need to be given it free of charge, that's a very dangerous cliff. The energy has to come from somewhere, and it's not easy to acquire. Even unimaginably huge sources of energy such as major hydroelectric dams still have a limited amount of power available, and pricing systems are a way to manage the scarce resource.
That being said, I think that there is a moral element to governments using taxpayer money to produce common goods such as hydroelectric dams to produce energy long term for the people represented by that government. By engaging in such projects, even if they are not going to give the power away for free, and they are making it available for the people, which in my view would fulfill a right to energy, particularly if there's enough energy to provide it at a relatively low cost.
ex_06@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Why the strawman out of nowhere my friend :)
activistPnk@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
I was sure you were joking because no one would seriously think @sj_zero@lotide.fbxl.net was misrepresenting your argument - his post wasn’t even a reply to you. But then I see that you doubled down on that later.
sj_zero 1 year ago
It isn't a strawman when people are calling for exactly that by demanding we stop using fossil fuels immediately, which many are.
Reasonable people can see there's a need to transition into something sustainable and less continuously polluting (all industrial scale energy production has an environmental impact, but dumping thousands of tons of gas into the air 24/7/365 is particularly continuously polluting), but people saying we need to just stop using oil(like the name of a certain activist group demands) or that we need to stop right now(As a certain activist screamed at the UN to do) are calling to end access to energy with the corresponding consequences.
Recently I had a deep review of my book "The Graysonian Ethic" done, and two of the recurring themes throughout the book was the balance between idealism and realism and considering both the short and long term consequences of decisions. The need for a balanced approach between urgent action and the potential consequences aligns with the overarching themes. The book emphasizes the importance of considering both short-term and long-term consequences of our actions, as well as the complexities involved in making decisions that impact individuals and humanity as a whole.
ex_06@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
You ask for 10 to receive 7-6-5…
And btw a lot are asking to stop subsidizing fossil fuels to start subsidizing renewables with that same amount of money
It’s a strawman cause we are talking about no particular case. Seems to me that it’s just another attack to just stop oil and similar people, which I don’t like lol
People will die anyway if we don’t stop with fossil fuels also.
It’s really a matter of what path we want to achieve: