Comment on Over 1,600 Scientists and Professionals Sign ‘No Climate Emergency’ Declaration
airrow@hilariouschaos.com 6 months agoOk so like how can the world transition to clean / green energy, got any info or thoughts?
Are you advocating for a massive reduction in consumption in order to be totally green?
Do you think this will be adopted naturally inevitably at some point when clean / green energy becomes affordable?
I’ve seen some people post complaints that lithium is often mined with slave labor and isn’t sustainable (we can’t recycle it yet). So is there a better thing we should use instead of that?
oil / gas pollution
Can this destruction be mitigated?
glimse@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’m not advocating for anything as I’m not a climate scientist…but then again, most people on this CLINTEL declaration aren’t, either.
I think green energy would have already had mass-adoption if not for the lobbyists in oil and gas industries. It’s no secret they’ve been fighting the inevitable for decades in order to keep raking in the dough as their profits rely on control of the source energy…and the sun and wind are free so they don’t like it.
Yes there are tons of ways to store energy without lithium. Sand batteries and pumped hydro storage are continually proven successful. Lithium mining is an environmental concern but it pales in comparison
No, the destruction from oil/gas cannot be truly mitigated to any meaningful degree. It can be reduced but never eliminated…and even then, the industry is known to lie about it. Look no further than the chasm between their self-reported emissions and actual emissions.
airrow@hilariouschaos.com 6 months ago
this kind of seems doubtful. if it was cheaper then “capitalists” would just adopt it because it would save money. So at least some people are skeptical it is cheaper.
Thoughts on nuclear energy? Personally I am skeptical of it, it’s also risky.
the skepticism you have towards oil / gas industries lobbying is now how conservatives seem to feel about “green energy”, that it’s an inefficient scam being pushed by government and a “green industry”. Which leads me kind of split thinking maybe there are elements of either side that are correct. basically like fossil fuels are there so we’re probably going to use them until they run out, then people will be forced to switch; or economics will make people switch. So it’ll just sort itself out, but maybe some plans should be in place in case the techno-industrial system encounters energy shortages all of the sudden.
Again they must still not be thought to be costly or something. I’ve seen other alternative battery ideas like compressed air suggested… there’s some kind of disconnect though on why these things aren’t being used yet (not cost effective enough yet?).
Well I guess the idea is emissions can be countered with trees sucking in the bad polluted air and bringing out clean air. Is there anything like this process that holds up, or no? If green tech has emissions (in creating it), does this give some kind of justification to use the fossil fuels (the pro-gas industry might simply argue they emit more, but green tech emits, so who cares - this kind of thing?)
glimse@lemmy.world 6 months ago
We had electric cars in the 70s before the oil industry (literally) crushed them. Solar advancements have been stifled by the same industry since the technology began…imagine if governments invested there instead of approving a thousand more oil rigs.
Cheaper for them doesn’t mean more profit. Like I said, they control the material required for energy creation - THAT’S the money maker. You can’t control the supply of solar and wind so you can’t control the prices. That is a problem for the capitalists in charge.
I think fission is better than fossil fuels but it’s not the perfect solution. I think fusion, when technology proofs it viable, will exist in tandem with green energy.
The “skepticism” I have toward oil and gas is based on evidence so it’s not at all comparable to the conservatives’ view on green energy which is based on…fear mongering I guess? Those industries have massive lobbies which have proven time and time again to be massive liars. This isn’t an opinion, it’s publicly-available information.
Pumped hydro and sand batteries are being used already, there just isn’t mass adoption. It goes back to my first point - there’s way less money to be skimmed off the top when an industry doesn’t have a monopoly. There is no reason to have these alternative batteries already out there when they’re not essential to fossil fuels production (they use “standard” storage technologies).
Sure, you could plant billions of trees to offset it…but there’s no profit there so they won’t do it. Emissions aren’t the only pollution coming from fossil fuels that poisons the environment. There’s liquid and solid pollutants coming out of those factories.
If you’re asking about the pollution from creating the solar panels…yeah that’s gonna exist. But it’s an infinitesimal amount compared to pretty much any part of fossil fuels production.
Fossil fuels will never go away because we need them for other things but we can - and should - move away from using them as actual fuels.
airrow@hilariouschaos.com 6 months ago
actually I’ve read we’ve had them for a century: …lowtechmagazine.com/…/overview-of-early-electric…
I’ve also heard EVs were a suppressed technology with documentaries like “Who Killed The Electric Car?”
A centrist take might be that both are just technologies, gas and EV… I think EV could become more popular but there are problems: lack of current infrastructure for EVs, they take longer to charge (range issues), seems like there would be a loss of energy transmitting to a battery and then using it versus the direct use of energy by gas vehicles when they burn it, and so on.
Right now ebikes seem like an uncontested efficient vehicle versus gas vehicles, where they can replace a car commute
It’s actually surprising that you have this view… seems lacking understanding of the other side’s perspective? The conservatives would say you’re fearmongering that there’s a climate emergency that justifies needing “green tech” to solve it that’s not at all based on evidence. They would point to evidence that there have been many failed climate predictions: nationalreview.com/…/weve-had-six-years-left-to-s…
so is there somewhere I can buy them, or other consumers? So we can slowly begin the process of supplanting the “old tech” with the “new”?
I guess couldn’t you profit by selectively tearing down trees as they grow or harvesting from them as they grow (acorns or some thing that can be sold or wood?) to financially sustain such projects?
Anything that could be done to mitigate these pollutants?
I think that’s probably a sticking point they’ll latch on to - “well solar pollutes too, so what’s the point?”
Like a lot of the non-fuel uses? But could other plant-based plastics replace them?
thx for the non-downvotes :)