Reply To: Climate Crisis: Our Last Chance
They have been in these economic places before.
Trashing the environment for short term profit.
Until it starts to affect profits; even by indirect processes.
Thus, eg;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_1956
Some countries had already switched to non fossil fuel energy production for geo-political strategic reasons due to the undesired dependency on fossil fuels over which they had limited control.
Thus France and Japan were producing 40% of their electricity with nuclear power.
Even though earth quake prone Japan was always probably the worst place in the world to build nuclear reactors.
…..China sees renewables as a source of energy security and not just only to reduce carbon emission.[3] China’s Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Air Pollution issued by China’s State Council in September 2013, illustrates the government’s desire to increase the share of renewables in China’s energy mix.[4] Unlike oil, coal and gas, the supplies of which are finite and subject to geopolitical tensions, renewable energy systems can be built and used wherever there is sufficient water, wind, and sun.[5]
As Chinese renewable manufacturing has grown, the costs of renewable energy technologies have dropped dramatically. Innovation has helped, but the main driver of reduced costs has been market expansion.[5] In 2015, China became the world’s largest producer of photovoltaic power, with 43 GW of total installed capacity.[6][7] From 2005 to 2014, production of solar cells in China has expanded 100-fold.[5] However, China is not expected to achieve grid parity – when an alternate source of energy is as cheap or cheaper than power purchased from the grid—until 2022.[8] In 2017, investments in renewable energy amounted to US$279.8 billion worldwide, with China accounting for US$126.6 billion or 45% of the global investments.[9] …………
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_China
The problem with non fossil fuel energy in the say 1970’s was that oil was so cheap.
It still is really at 50 cents a litre or whatever.
When they did hydro electric power they knew beforehand what they were doing.
Building dams was old hat for water supply as was water going downhill and turbines.
Nuclear energy looked great on paper or theoretically even if the technology was driven by military bomb making and other stuff.
Apparently some scientists wrote some blue sky science fiction stuff in the 1950’s or something about miniature nuclear generators that you could put into a submarine and how great that would be!
When the idiots at the US department of defence asked the scientist to ‘make it happen’ they responded that it was impossible and crazy or ‘utopian’ .
They actually did it in about 5 years or something.
Then the nuclear energy tails were up then; and we shouldn’t have been so timid and we can do anything with this.
The solar or photoelectric stuff, which is now looking quite good, is part of ‘material science’.
That was ‘utopian’ science and has moved ahead but mainly not from any theoretical on paper optimism but just from scientists prating about with alchemical eye of toad and tail of frog stuff.
As with flat colour screens on mobile phones etc.
It is difficult to explain why it took so long to look into wind power as the basics were in place, perhaps scientists can be shits in the sense that researching into and pushing the idea of windmills was silly and less exciting than nuclear fusion or fission.
Can’t help wondering if the situation we are in is a universal problem?
I mean if not here why not elsewhere?
Too much fossil fuel and universal capitalism burns it up and trashs the environment double quick.
Too little and the development of energy dependent technology stops or never really starts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
I think it has gone too far and it is brace for impact.
Although it is an interesting philosophical ‘egotistical’ issue; as I suspect as it won’t start to get really horrible until another 20 years or so.
I will be a bit creaky by then but the young ones will have to live or die with it more or longer than me.
It is hard when you are older and have spare cash not to use it on luxurious bling, stay vegetarian and turning the heating down so as not to trash the planet.