Is This the Year We Doom Civilization?
We may be losing our last, best chance to limit climate change
Remember those videos of yahoos rolling coal just to vex Prius drivers? Idiots who thought being filthy was cool?
Those idiots now rule the country. President Xi is laughing uncontrollably.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
On Monday House Republicans released the final parts of their proposed tax and budget bill — and it’s the stuff of nightmares. As Bobby Kogan of the Center for American Progress documents , the bill would impose the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP — the program formerly known as food stamps — in history. Millions of low-income Americans would lose health coverage; millions would go hungry. Many of those suffering would be children.
The purpose of these cuts, sadism aside, would be to partially offset the cost of huge tax cuts for the rich — cuts that would still explode the budget deficit. The cruelty is mind-boggling. In fact, I have both a suggestion and a prediction for major media organizations: I’d like to see them do focus groups with ordinary voters, describing these plans. My prediction, based on what we’ve seen in the past, is that many voters will simply refuse to believe the policy descriptions, insisting that elected officials can’t possibly be that vicious.
But they can be and are.
And yet the brutality of the cuts to the social safety net isn’t what bothers me most about what’s about to happen to public policy. Even worse is the assault on renewable energy. From the Financial Times :
Republicans have outlined far-reaching plans to gut government support for clean energy as part of a series of legislative proposals to fund sweeping tax cuts promised by US President Donald Trump.
Congressional lawmakers on the powerful House ways and means committee, which is responsible for writing tax law, on Monday released draft legislation that would end renewable energy subsidies and scrap tax breaks for electric vehicle purchases.
Meanwhile, fossil fuels would receive billions in subsidies.
Are we just looking at money-driven politics as usual? To some extent. If you look at data on political spending by industry groups, oil and gas is overwhelmingly pro-G.O.P.:
Source: Open Secrets
While alternative energy mostly backs Democrats:
Source: Open Secrets
But this goes beyond the usual role of money in politics, in two ways.
First, it’s obvious that MAGA politicians hate renewable energy in ways that go beyond the fact that they get a lot of money from the fossil fuel sector. Consider what’s happening in Texas, which leads the nation in wind power. You might think that the state’s politicians would embrace a rapidly growing industry that is boosting its economy. But no. According to the Houston Chronicle ,
Texas Republicans are getting closer than ever to killing the state’s renewable energy boom, according to the clean energy industry — not only by halting new development in its tracks, but also by possibly sending scores of existing projects to an early grave.
Why does MAGA hate renewables? They consider them woke because they help fight climate change, which they insist is a hoax. And they’re cleaner than burning fossil fuels, which means that they aren’t manly.
It’s all kind of funny — or would be if it weren’t so tragic.
At this point there’s no legitimate way to deny that man-made climate change is an existential threat. According to researchers at NASA — whose work is, of course, on the chopping block — 2024 was the warmest year on record . But the politics of climate action have always been extremely difficult. The threat isn’t always obvious, since there are still cold days; it’s global, not local; and it’s long-term, with the big payoffs to doing something decades in the future.
As a result, the Economics 101 answer to pollution — put a price on emissions — has seemed politically out of reach. As far as I know, every government that has tried to impose some form of carbon tax has paid a large political price. Around 15 years ago it was hard to avoid feeling despair about our chances of steering away from catastrophe.
Then came a miracle: Dramatic technological progress in renewable energy, making it drastically cheaper, especially but not only as a way of generating electricity. The International Renewable Energy Agency has a striking chart showing how the cost of electricity generation from various renewable sources has plunged compared with the cost of generation from fossil fuels:
Source: IRENA
This technological miracle suddenly made an alternative climate strategy possible, one that was all carrots, no sticks. Instead of using carbon prices or regulations to force people to stop burning fossil fuels, policymakers could subsidize and promote renewable energy, nudging us toward an electrified economy with wind and solar — plus, probably, nuclear, which has its place — providing the electricity. Instead of telling people to eat their spinach, we could be advertising job-creating investments.
Given how cheap renewables have become, the subsidies probably wouldn’t have to be that large. Wind and solar have been taking off on their own:
Source: Energy Information Agency
What we mostly needed, arguably, was a push to overcome the network externalities chicken-and-egg issues — e.g., people reluctant to buy electric vehicles unless there are plenty of charging stations, businesses unwilling to build enough charging stations unless large numbers of people buy electric cars.
What I’m describing, of course, is something like the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which was actually mainly about climate and not at all about inflation.
And the renewable technology miracle, with the policy possibilities it offered, came just in time. True, even with serious climate change policy finally possible in the United States, and even with other major economies adopting I.R.A.-type policies, it’s too late to avoid a damaging rise in global temperatures. Climate-related disasters are already on the rise, and would keep rising even if we stopped emissions tomorrow. But as of a few months ago there was hope of avoiding the worst.
Well, abandon all hope, ye who enter an era of MAGA rule.
OK, all may not be lost. There are already enough jobs tied to IRA-linked subsidies, enough businesses that made big bets on the new climate policy, that actual policy may not be as bad as what emerged from the Ways and Means Committee.
But things really have taken a grim turn. And a lot of it isn’t even about money. It’s just about spite.
Whatever
Tags
Who is online
229 visitors
Why does MAGA hate renewables? They consider them woke because they help fight climate change, which they insist is a hoax. And they’re cleaner than burning fossil fuels, which means that they aren’t manly.
It’s all kind of funny — or would be if it weren’t so tragic.
Because the LWNJs want to make them mandatory, even if the technology isn't ready. Also, they view pointing out that the technology isn't ready to be only slightly less egregious than a hate crime.
I saw an nbc news clip the other from 43 years ago claiming Florida would be underwater by 2010 if we didn’t act immediately. How long will people fall for the “we only have X years to act” schtick?
It’s like watching the reasonabilists cult from parks and rec play out in the real world.
"Conversations" with MAGA_True_Believers© here on NT have become a total waste of time. MAGA_True_Believers© almost never propose anything; they deny, deflect, derail. They waste everyone's time. I, for one, have decided not to let them waste any more of my time. From now on, I will simply copy/paste this in response to "standard" MAGA_True_Believer© Comments.
Be well.
[✘]
[✘]
Right? I mean, the climate is exactly the same as it was 43 years ago, nothing has changed since then. People who fell for the whole "climate change is coming if we don't change our ways!" schtick are just stupid idiots as the evidence 43 years later proves, I mean Florida isn't completely submerged so everything is fine, right?
But sure, let's keep telling people there's nothing to worry about because Florida hasn't dropped below sea level, yet.
those brainiac scientists all have an agenda ... /s
Do you imagine the climate ever remains perfectly static for 43 years? Or do you just want to argue against strawmen of your own creation?
nd improved reporting
Lol. it's 5 times worse thanks to reporting !
sotto voice : deaths are down
's keep telling people there's nothing to worry about because Florida hasn't dropped below sea level, yet.
How many times will you fall for it is the question? It's the perfect non-falsifiable scam. No matter how many times they are wrong, they still claim to be correct because someday...
There are so many Ron Swansons making generational fortunes off this..
The debate has never been whether or not climates change over time, anyone with more than a room temp IQ can figure that out. The debate has been whether or not human actions are accelerating those changes making human habitation more difficult in more places around the globe.
You pointed out the claim about Florida going under water hasn't happened thus you infer that proves that man's effect on global climate change must be some sort of hoax and is not to be believed, that people who believe such things are "falling" for some "schtick".
The problem is that if it was just "changing climate, nothing to do with man" why was the predicted direction it was heading and the approximate rate at which it was changing prove correct? Scientists said that based on these activities and the warming of the ocean we would see the sea levels rise in Florida, and we did.
Just because some of the worst possible scenarios that some said were possible 43 years ago haven't been shown to be 100% accurate doesn't mean the data they were collecting and interpreting was completely wrong either.
Says the guy who starts off his argument with "the climate is exactly the same as it was 43 years ago, nothing has changed since then." Sad you have to construct strawmen against "room temperature IQ" level arguments to try score a point. I guess water finds its level.
fer that proves that man's effect on global climate change must be some sort of hoax and is not to be believed, that people who believe such things are "falling" for some "schtick"
ANother strawman! Keep fighting your imaginary opponents.
As long as they put solar panel farms in areas that can't be farmed for produce/grains. I would like to install solar panels on my roof.
But that isn't what's happening. Anything around here, if it isn't already farmed, is considered wetlands and can't be developed, unless you're a cannabis grower.
We have many farms in this area that signed leases for solar and some since Trump one and still no solar, but as long as the lease payments are made you're locked in and all the solar has to do is put in a few and the farmer loses the entire leased property to a fence that can't be crossed even by the land owner for twenty years.
that's horrible!
That's not quite the end of it. The developer installs the solar array, fences, and connections to the utility and places each array under a LLC, this LLC when the lease is over, per agreement, then pays for the removal of all and returns the property to the landowner, but a funny thing has been happening, the LLC's have been going bankrupt leaving the landowner with the removal costs, which are astronomical and now you have to fight the government to remove them for they are considered toxic waste don'tcha know.
For the foreseeable future, fossil fuels will remain our main sources of energy. Wind and solar are too costly and even worse, they are unreliable and intermittent. You can make all the unsupported statements you want about a coming climate catastrophe, but no one here is convinced of your expertise on the subject. And the ongoing tone of arrogant, know-it-all condescension doesn't help your argument
Colorado's forced march to energy uncertainty - Complete Colorado
Look into your source.
Says the member who gets most of his sources from blogs (opinion pieces).
I'd explain why I'm not answering you, but TPTB consider that such a Comment has no value. So feel free to imagine whatever you please.
Good manners have no value on NT.
If alternative energy sources are supposedly more affordable, why did the solar farm in Nevada close 2/3 of the field to save taxpayers money?
Ivanpah Solar Generating Facility near Las Vegas faces cloudy future | Energy | Business
The end of civilization can be traced to 1994 when Bill Clinton signed NAFTA. Clinton's NIMBY environmentalism cannot save the planet. Clinton placed the world's population in chains -- over extended supply chains that turned everyone into slaves of finance. It was Bill Clinton who turned the global economy into a giant game of Monopoly that can only be kept going by printing more Monopoly money.
The only reason wind and solar electricity generation is economically viable is because there is fossil fuel backup. When electricity storage and the added generation capacity needed by that storage are included, the economics don't look so favorable. Only shyster economists try to flimflam the public using Paul Krugman's arguments. Avoid disappointment and future regret, buy Krugman's junk at inflated prices so he has a bright and prosperous future. Krugman is hyping gold plated slugs as an investment.