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Originally Posted by Visionary
Jimmy, the reason why your post has elicited such response is that we live in a wholly secular age. In the place of garden variety religion, renewables, green politics have become the "new opiate".
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I think that new "opiate" is a perceived "need to improve", or rather its temporary satisfaction. It manifests itself in bigger/fancier housing, bigger/fancier cars, bigger/fancier whatever and a generally more wasteful lifestyle with satisfaction cycles becoming shorter and shorter. It's a disorder that comes in many flavours. Some more damaging, some less. Most forms demand more resources, and renewables promise to deliver those with less weight on one's conscience. That's where they fit in, not a an "opiate" in their own right. Making petrol/diesel engines more efficient falls in the same category. And in both we try to extract benefits from it faster than they can be delivered, and without even considering keeping things as they are but with less strain on resources. 'Cause, you know, we gotta see/feel an improvement personally or it didn't happen, right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Visionary
As a community of citizen scientists, we really should hold ourselves to a higher standard.
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Absolutely, but statements like this ain't it
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Originally Posted by Visionary
It's a nonsense that renewables are cheap, renewables are only cheap when electricity is very, very expensive.
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You are ignoring at least two elements here, time and externalised cost.
On the latter:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Visionary
dumping Gov money onto renewables can also make renewables "inexpensive".
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Correct. And the same can be done by making someone else (cheap labour) or something else (the environment) pay for the difference between what your cheap fuel/power/clothes etc cost and what they should cost.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Visionary
...yet we have the most expensive electricity in the developed world,
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Really?
Dunno, those 20 countries with higher rates don't look 3rd world to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Visionary
In terms of what we can do.... follow the maths, don't quote from sources that seek to distort the math, hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard one step above the political malaise that has created the mess we are in, you know, balance the equation.
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