#subsidizing of fossil fuels

[kp777]

What the fossil fuel industry doesn't want you to know

Al Gore |

TED Countdown Summit, July 2023

In a blistering talk, Nobel Laureate Al Gore looks at the two main obstacles to climate solutions and gives his view of how we might actually solve the environmental crisis in time. You won't want to miss his searing indictment of fossil fuel companies for walking back their climate commitments -- and his call for a global rethink of the roles of polluting industries in politics and finance.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Billboard project

* * * *

One for the history books!

September 12, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

After delivering one of the best debate performances in American political history, Kamala Harris is receiving begrudging and stinting praise from many in the media and commentary class. But 67 million people saw Kamala Harris demonstrate she is made of presidential timber. They witnessed a masterful performance that revealed a penetrating intellect tempered by decency and humanity. On the substance and execution, she should have earned the support of all voters and unqualified praise from the media and political commentators.

Trump's performance was vile and disqualifying. It was worse than Joe Biden’s widely panned debate by far. While Joe Biden turned in a horrible debate performance as measured by the artificial rules of made-for-tv spectacles, Donald Trump made dozens of statements that were objectively depraved, racist, antidemocratic, delusional, and deceitful.

Trump transcended the debate format and devolved into fascist demagoguery that should have resulted in universal condemnation by all voters, the media, and political commentators. If Joe Biden was driven from the presidential race because of his poor debate performance, Trump should be banished from politics, expelled from his party, and relegated to a place of dishonor in the annals of American history.

Talking about the debate is difficult because of the urge to focus on Kamala Harris’s brilliantly executed strategy of baiting Trump into ranting about his insecurities and the horror of Trump's worst-in-the-history-of-the-nation performance on substance.

I get it. Harris’s ninja debating moves and Trump's racist deer-in-the-headlights stare made for riveting television. But we focus on those aspects of the debate to the detriment of the substance of Kamala Harris’s message. She spent a substantial portion of the debate discussing her policies and her plan to help heal the divisions that beset America.

It is disappointing to see so many stories and commentators describe the debate as “fierce” or “contentious.” I heard one commentator on MSNBC bemoan the fact that neither candidate seemed interested in bridging the divide in America. That is false. Kamala Harris promised to be a president for all Americans and to focus on the needs of the people, not the needs and wants of the president. She said, in part,

And I think the American people want better than that. Want better than this. Want someone who understands as I do, I travel our country, we see in each other a friend. We see in each other a neighbor. We don't want a leader who is constantly trying to have Americans point their fingers at each other. I meet with people all the time who tell me "Can we please just have discourse about how we're going to invest in the aspirations and the ambitions and the dreams of the American people?" [¶¶] I've only had one client. The people. And I'll tell you, as a prosecutor I never asked a victim or a witness are you a Republican or a Democrat. The only thing I ever asked them, are you okay? And that's the kind of president we need right now. Someone who cares about you and is not putting themselves first. I intend to be a president for all Americans and focus on what we can do over the next 10 and 20 years to build back up our country by investing right now in you the American people.

Kamala Harris repeatedly offered her policy vision for America, including tax breaks for business startups; subsidizing downpayments for first-time home purchases; incentivizing the construction of starter homes; granting tax credits for families with newborns; investing in American chip technology, quantum computing, and AI; supporting worker’s rights; reducing reliance on fossil fuels; granting tax cuts for the middle class; requiring the ultra-wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes; and protecting the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Medicaid. She also promised to protect reproductive liberty, LGBTQ equality, and voting rights of all Americans.

The media has hounded Kamala Harris for weeks about the alleged absence of policies in her campaign. On Tuesday, she talked about dozens of specific policies—and the media is not saying a word about those policies after the debate.

Not. A. Word.

It’s almost as if the media didn’t really care about Kamala Harris’s policies but were only interested in a talking point they could use to criticize her. Hypocrites!

So, before talking about how well Kamala Harris executed her strategy of baiting Trump and how abhorrent Trump's performance and positions were, let’s give Kamala Harris her due on the substance: She gave a presidential-level discourse on policies that will affect the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans. The fact that Trump and the moderators ignored those policies does not diminish the respect she showed for the American people by clearly setting forth her policies if elected as president.

Among the many insipid criticisms of Kamala Harris was that she used facial expressions to convey her disapproval, amusement, and disbelief over Trump's utterances. This was an effective use of her non-speaking time and allowed her to diminish Trump without saying a word.

Dahlia Lithwick demolishes the critics who faulted Kamala’s facial expressions—a criticism that would only be leveled against a woman. See Dahlia Lithwick, Slate, Harris–Trump debate: Kamala Harris’ face on Tuesday was the stuff of legend. (slate.com). Lithwick writes,

It must be beyond maddening for a political actor to be summoned into a “debate” that is not really a debate, pitted against some frothing amalgam of WWE reenactor and Tasmanian devil, warned that your microphone will be muted while he is speaking, cautioned that he will be allowed to talk over you and the moderators, then be criticized for … blinking? [¶¶] Harris’ face roamed free and far on Tuesday, and it was thoroughly warranted and frequently enjoyable. I think of her mobile, legible face as a satisfying call-and-response to Trump’s lifelong preference for female adulation and Botox. Women have faces. Their faces have expressions. If that was upsetting to you during Tuesday’s debate, you might be dismayed to learn that deep beneath our expressive faces lie thoughts, dreams, frustrations, and other markers of human agency. If a woman smiling freaks you out, imagine what happens when a woman votes.

While talking about Kamala Harris’s facial expressions may seem superficial, it is not. One of Harris’s most significant accomplishments was her ability to show herself to be a likable, relatable human being. She did so by using the medium of television to her advantage. Were the expressive facial reactions real or practiced? It doesn’t matter; they were successful. People liked Kamala Harris. For a candidate who has been on the national scene since 2018, the percentage of voters who still say they don’t “know” her is shocking. But she went some distance in the debate to introduce herself to those voters in a positive way.

Among Harris’s many pointed and powerful answers on Tuesday, none were better than her response to Trump's gloating over the demise of Roe v. Wade. Harris said,

In over 20 states there are Trump abortion bans which make it criminal for a doctor or nurse to provide health care. In one state it provides prison for life. Trump abortion bans that make no exception even for rape and incest. Which—understand what that means. A survivor of a crime, a violation to their body, does not have the right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That is immoral. And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree: The government, and Donald Trump certainly, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body. You want to talk about, this is what people wanted? Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail, and she’s bleeding out in a car in the parking lot? She didn’t want that. Her husband didn’t want that. A 12 or 13-year-old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term? They don’t want that. Understand in his Project 2025, there would be a national abortion—a monitor that would be monitoring your pregnancies, your miscarriages.

There is more room to praise Kamala Harris’s performance in the debate, but we must turn to Trump's horrific statements during the debate. So, let’s get Trump’s “debate performance” out of the way: It was the worst debate performance (in terms of style) in the history of political debates. See The Guardian, Republicans dismayed by Trump’s ‘bad’ and ‘unprepared’ debate performance. Brit Hume of Fox News said, “Let’s make no mistake. Trump had a bad night. We just heard so many of the old grievances that we all know aren’t winners politically.” Coming from a Fox commentator, that is as bad as it gets for Trump.

There were many disgraceful, disqualifying statements during the debate by Trump: Refusing to say that he hoped Ukraine would defeat the Russian invasion; refusing to acknowledge that he lost in 2020; refusing to express any regret for his actions on January 6; claiming that “every Democrat” wanted to “get rid of” Roe v. Wade.; and repeatedly saying that execution of babies after a full-term delivery was permissible under existing law.

To state the obvious, if Kamala Harris had uttered a single statement that was one-tenth as egregious as any of the above, the major media would be calling for her withdrawal from the race.

But Trump's worst statement was the race-baiting claim that Haitian immigrants are capturing domestic pets in Springfield, Ohio and eating them. That trope was originally directed at immigrants from other countries but has been repurposed by Trump to slander Haitian immigrants who are legally in the US.

The claim is false and started as triple-hearsay thrice-removed:

On Sept. 6, a post surfaced on X that shared what looked like a screengrab of a social media post apparently out of Springfield. The retweeted post talked about the person’s “neighbor’s daughter’s friend” seeing a cat hanging from a tree to be butchered and eaten, claiming without evidence that Haitians lived at the house.

So, a “screenshot” of a retweet (three levels removed from personal knowledge) talked about a “neighbor’s daughter’s friend” (three more levels removed from personal knowledge). In short, the claim is the worst sort of internet rumor—intentionally unverifiable. Repeating such a rumor is beneath a candidate for the presidency.

But the crassness of repeating the rumor is the least of the offense. Trump did not repeat a rumor—he asserted the rumor as “fact” for the purpose of stirring racial hatred against Haitian immigrants. The false rumor has been circulating for weeks among right-wing websites that attack Haitian immigrants as the cause of an increase in crime in Springfield. See WaPo, Anatomy of a racist smear: How false claims of pet-eating immigrants caught on.

Trump then leveraged the cat-eating Haitian claim to smear all immigrants as law-breaking, violent, less-than-human invaders whom he would deport en masse from the US. The entire episode was an appeal to the most racist, xenophobic backwaters of American society. It was shameful and divisive. It may lead to violence against immigrants—just as past statements by Trump have led to violence against immigrants in Texas. See NBC (8/5/2019), Trump's anti-immigrant 'invasion' rhetoric was echoed by the El Paso shooter for a reason.

No modern presidential candidate has appealed to racial animus during a presidential debate. Trump's attack on the Haitian community should have been the end of his candidacy. As should his statements about Ukraine, the 2020 election, January 6, and abortion—and that list excludes his dozens of other falsehoods.

In short, the debate should move the needle in favor of Kamala Harris. Whether it will do so is a different question—one that will be determined, in part, by whether the media maintains the same intense focus on Trump's  debate performance that it maintained on Biden’s debate performance in July. On the substance, Trump's debate performance was objectively worse, by far. Let’s hope the media doesn’t get distracted by the less consequential matters.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[odinsblog]

I think the thing that's important for us to remember is that cost volatility is actually all about fossil fuel dependency.

The more that we are dependent on fossil fuels, it means the more we are dependent on global events. As we saw with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as we see with the choices that come out of the UAE, as well as many other regions of the world, oil and gas development and drilling in Latin America, as well as in the United States. The more dependent we are on oil and gas, the more crazy our prices are going to be, and the more up and down our prices are going to be. And the fact that, for example, we have not developed electric or alternative energy vehicles earlier is one of the reasons why we pay such close attention to gas prices to begin with.

And we would not be as sensitive to the changes in energy costs if we weren't so fossil fuel dependent.

And Donald Trump knows that.

The oil and gas industry knows that.

And that is why they finance huge parts of lobbying our government in order to keep the country entirely dependent on fossil fuels.

Now, if you prefer gas cars and gas stoves, you're free to make that choice.

But what we haven't had is accessible and broad choices for something else. EVs have been in development, but for a very long time, they've been financially inaccessible to a lot of people in this country. The Inflation Reduction Act helped change that. We got huge tax breaks for both new and used EVs. If you're trying to buy one off your neighbor or whatever that may be, as well as many other things that are accessible, whether it's induction stoves, heat pumps for one's home, et cetera. But the oil and gas industry is deploying all of their political and special interest money towards one central goal, which is to keep virtually every American completely dependent on their product.

And Donald Trump is very closely aligned with them.

And not only that, but the larger point is that it's not a coincidence that his authoritarian tactics are tied to fossil fuels.

This is a global phenomenon.

And what we are seeing is authoritarianism is very, very closely linked with oil and gas interests around the world.

That's Putin, that's Trump. That's folks like Bolsonaro. That's a lot of the political instability we see out of Saudi Arabia, the UAE.

And I believe that it is not a coincidence, because you have one central industry that has a clear vested, both political and financial interest, and an authoritarian…that is also increasingly becoming politically unpopular, by the way, because the vast majority of Americans believe that the U.S. should start winding down our subsidization of the fossil fuel industry. They want to see clean energy alternatives available to them and financially accessible to them. And they understand that it's just more volatile to be so chained to fossil fuels.

And so the only way that you can really empower both financially a political sect, is through the fossil fuel industry, the oil and gas industry.

The Koch brothers are an oil and gas dynasty who had such large influence on our political system. They come from an oil and gas dynasty, or rather, came. One of them has passed, there's that, but then you see that link crossing across the world, and the ascent of authoritarianism, paired with the fact that every single one of them is very closely aligned to the fossil fuel industry.

And the ascent of the fossil fuel industry is not a coincidence. It's not a mistake.

And in fact, the democratization of our energy system, which is a means of production that has been privatized and concentrated into the hands of the very few, the democratization of our energy system means that people have the potential. We're doing this in Puerto Rico. When you have a battery pack on your house, when the power goes out, you're not as dependent on a central system. You have a backup reserve in case of an emergency, you can give energy to your neighbor.

This is what the democratization of our energy system looks like.

This is also what a fairer economic system that is less volatile for everyday people looks like as well.

And that is a direct threat to authoritarianism.

It's a direct threat to the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of the very few.

But it also represents a shift for the betterment of mankind and our democracy.

—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, noting the link between the fossil fuel industry and authoritarian regimes

[darkmaga-retard]

It is becoming increasingly clear that the ambitious project adopted mainly by OECD countries to subsidize and force an energy transition away from fossil fuels and drive global greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 is failing. An array of corporations and governments at all levels have in recent months announced delays or outright abandonment of aggressive net zero timelines and goals as market forces, resource and capital limitations, and simple realities renders them impractical and unachievable.

In the U.S., this trend has become crystal clear in both the electric vehicles and offshore wind industries over the past twelve months. In the automotive sector, many pure-play EV makers are now either in bankruptcy or teetering on the brink, while legacy carmakers like Ford, GM, Volvo, and Stellantis have spent much of this year having to explain big losses and re-thinking their strategic approaches and investments.

The recent disaster at the Vineyard Wind I project offshore Massachusetts, where the collapse of a 105 meter-long blade littered the Atlantic Ocean and Nantucket Island beaches with chunks of fiberglass core material, forcing federal regulators to shut down the country’s only operational offshore wind project and giving the industry a public relations black eye. It’s also raising public concerns over the vulnerability of such giant blades and turbines perched atop 850-foot-tall towers when rough weather conditions inevitably arise.

[kineticpenguin]

Some dipshit wildly ignorant about how heavily subsidized the entire fossil fuel industry is: "Lemme guess. The solution to climate change is MORE TAXES!"

[probablyasocialecologist]

The standard legend of India’s Green Revolution centers on two propositions. First, India faced a food crisis, with farms mired in tradition and unable to feed an exploding population; and second, Borlaug’s wheat seeds led to record harvests from 1968 on, replacing import dependence with food self-sufficiency.

Recent research shows that both claims are false.

India was importing wheat in the 1960s because of policy decisions, not overpopulation. After the nation achieved independence in 1947, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru prioritized developing heavy industry. U.S. advisers encouraged this strategy and offered to provide India with surplus grain, which India accepted as cheap food for urban workers.

Meanwhile, the government urged Indian farmers to grow nonfood export crops to earn foreign currency. They switched millions of acres from rice to jute production, and by the mid-1960s India was exporting agricultural products.

Borlaug’s miracle seeds were not inherently more productive than many Indian wheat varieties. Rather, they just responded more effectively to high doses of chemical fertilizer. But while India had abundant manure from its cows, it produced almost no chemical fertilizer. It had to start spending heavily to import and subsidize fertilizer.

India did see a wheat boom after 1967, but there is evidence that this expensive new input-intensive approach was not the main cause. Rather, the Indian government established a new policy of paying higher prices for wheat. Unsurprisingly, Indian farmers planted more wheat and less of other crops.

Once India’s 1965-67 drought ended and the Green Revolution began, wheat production sped up, while production trends in other crops like rice, maize and pulses slowed down. Net food grain production, which was much more crucial than wheat production alone, actually resumed at the same growth rate as before.

But grain production became more erratic, forcing India to resume importing food by the mid-1970s. India also became dramatically more dependent on chemical fertilizer.

According to data from Indian economic and agricultural organizations, on the eve of the Green Revolution in 1965, Indian farmers needed 17 pounds (8 kilograms) of fertilizer to grow an average ton of food. By 1980, it took 96 pounds (44 kilograms). So, India replaced imports of wheat, which were virtually free food aid, with imports of fossil fuel-based fertilizer, paid for with precious international currency.

Today, India remains the world’s second-highest fertilizer importer, spending US$17.3 billion in 2022. Perversely, Green Revolution boosters call this extreme and expensive dependence “self-sufficiency.”

[boycritter]

apes mcqs are like.

q: how do we stop the world from exploding

a: use plastic instead of paper packaging

b: subsidize fossil fuel infrastructure

c: reduce amount of coal used for energy

d: drink crude oil at every meal

[nando161mando]

Can anyone who's good at the economy help me with this maths problem?

News headline #1: Climate crisis costing $16m an hour in extreme weather damage.

News headline #2: Fossil fuels being subsidized at rate of $13m a minute, says IMF.

Pillaged from @GreenpeaceEU but on BlueSky: #climate #FossilFuels

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Sophie Shoemaker didn't mince words when they held up a microphone to rally Memorial University students Friday ahead of a march to Confederation Building to protest an oil-producing province's climate policies. 

"No more coal, no more oil, keep your carbon in the soil," Shoemaker chanted with dozens of participants in a protest organized by Fridays for Future St. John's. 

"We deserve to be able to be young and carefree," Shoemaker told demonstrators. "And it is immoral that people in power have put the weight of climate change on our shoulders. I am protesting today to save my children from the burden that has been forced upon myself."

Shoemaker and other organizers focused on several issues, including a demand that the government of Newfoundland and Labrador stop subsidizing fossil fuel production and exploration. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[female-malice]

the lgb alliance is based out of far right headquarters 55 tufton street you dumbass gullible bitch

LGB Alliance was started by lesbians who left Stonewall UK to form an advocacy group for same-sex attracted people.

And this is just a climate blog run by a lesbian bitch.

Ultimately, I don't care who agrees with me and who disagrees with me. If conservatives decide to support gay rights, okay. If conservatives decide to put solar panels on their roofs, okay. If our neoliberal ruling class continues to promote homophobia, anti-government conservatives might swing around to gay rights. If our neoliberal ruling class continues subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, anti-government conservatives might swing around to climate campaigns. If they want to do that, I'm not going to stop them.

Earth is not made up of good guys who agree with you and bad guys who disagree with you. Earth is not a YA novel or a video game. It's a planet with a complex biosphere that's been overrun by humans, our cattle, and our fossil fuel emissions.

I recommend spending more time meditating on the biosphere and less time freaked out about lesbians on tumblr.

[deepdrearn]

Yesterday it was leaked that the Dutch government subsidizes fossil fuels with over 40 billion euro's per year. Today I was out protesting that. We got a taste of what the state monopoly on violence entails. The same state that funds the burning of the planet with insane amounts of money, whips non-violent protesters with water cannons on full force, pulls batons and shouts that they will be hurt if they don't comply.

To be honest, I do not feel empowered. I feel angry, sad, vulnerable and scared. But I am glad that we went and I might just go again.

[kp777]

By Olivia Rosane

Common Dreams

May 15, 2024

"It's past time our leaders take this simple step and stop funding activities that are completely at odds with protecting our climate," one advocate said.

More than 200 environmental and climate advocacy groups sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday demanding that lawmakers stop funding the extraction of fossil fuels on public lands and waters.

The letter argues that Congress' annual approval of taxpayer funds to subsidize oil and gas drilling and coal mining "undermine" the international agreement reached at the United Nations COP28 climate conference last year on the need for "transitioning away from fossil fuels."

"Congress has coddled the fossil fuel industry for decades, scarring millions of acres of public lands in the process," Ashley Nunes, public lands policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. "It's past time our leaders take this simple step and stop funding activities that are completely at odds with protecting our climate."

"Every year that Congress keeps supporting status quo drilling on public lands and offshore waters is a missed opportunity that locks us into a hotter and more dangerous future."

The Center for Biological Diversity was one of 234 groups behind the letter, which was addressed to Senate Appropriations Chair Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Appropriations Vice Chair Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.), House Appropriations Chair Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and House Appropriations Ranking Member Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). Specifically, the letter asks that the lawmakers "zero out funding for all fossil fuel extraction on public lands and offshore waters" in the Department of the Interior's budget for the coming fiscal year.

"Despite the urgency of the climate crisis, year after year, and regardless of the which political party retains control of Congress, Congress continues to direct the Department of the Interior to authorize fossil fuel extraction on our public lands and oceans," the letter states. "This zombie funding continues despite its harmful and lasting impacts to tribal nations, frontline communities, and other groups, as well as its harm to public health, public lands, the climate, and wildlife populations."

The FY 2024 budget, for example, directed more than $160 million toward fossil fuel management on public lands and waters. The amount earmarked for oil and gas management on public lands alone jumped by almost 90% from 2016 to 2023, from $59.7 million to $112.9 million.

Despite calling the climate crisis an "existential threat," U.S. President Joe Biden has approved almost 10,000 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in three years, a similar rate to his predecessors and more in his first two years than former President Donald Trump. Under Biden's watch, the U.S. became the leading producer of oil both in the world and in human history. The groups who signed the letter attributed this in part to Congress' "status quo funding" of fossil fuel programs on public lands.

The letter comes as humanity just sweltered through its hottest year on record, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels made a record jump, and a vast majority of top climate scientists recently surveyed said they predicted 2.5°C of warming by 2100, largely because of a lack of "political will" to phase out fossil fuels and embrace the renewable energy transition.

Indeed, the latest Production Gap analysis concludes that governments' plans through 2030 would produce more than twice the amount of fossil fuels that would be compatible with limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.

"Climate scientists around the world are pleading for change, but Congress continues to let fossil fuel polluters run wild on our public lands," Nunes said. "Every year that Congress keeps supporting status quo drilling on public lands and offshore waters is a missed opportunity that locks us into a hotter and more dangerous future."

In particular, the green groups made the following recommendations for FY2025:

Ending Bureau of Land Management (BLM) funding for new oil and gas approvals;

Ending BLM funding for new coal leases and permits;

Ending Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) funding for all new oil and gas exploration, production, and drilling leases;

Ending the provision of the Inflation Reduction Act that requires Interior to put up at least 2 million acres of land and 60 million of water annually for oil and gas leasing before it can install any new wind and solar;

Putting $80 million toward BLM renewable energy programs; and

Putting $80 million toward BOEM renewable energy programs.

"Congress must end business as usual funding of fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters," the letter concludes. "If Congress fails to change course, it will simply be impossible to limit warming to below 1.5°C and ensure a livable planet for future generations."

[maklodes]

I think that

1) We should probably ease off some of the most restrictive regulations on nuclear power like ALORA and be quicker to approve new methods like triso fuel, while still maintaining reasonable caution about nuclear shit. (“Reasonable caution” is a bit of an applause light, but IDK how to phrase it with more specificity. “Comparable risk-benefit standards with other fuel sources, but maybe we’re too loose with some other fuel sources?”)

2) Even if we regulate nuclear power at a less draconian level, it’s possible that “classically green” power sources like solar, wind, battery storage, self-assembling-and-disassembling concrete block towers,  etc, will win the cost curve cutting race, and “classically green” power will dominate on economic grounds with nuclear still being a niche source for places without cheaper renewable options, (I don’t know this for sure – I just think it’s a possibility.)

And

3) It is entirely possible that “classically green” energy – storage and production combined – will end up being more environmentally destructive than nuclear (or will continue to be insofar as it already is), and an economically rational government attentive to environmental externalities would slightly subsidize nuclear relative to, say, solar. (Actually, a textbook economically rational government probably wouldn’t subsidize any of them, but it would probably tax fossil fuel shit like coal the most, tax solar a tiny amount relative to coal, and maybe tax nuclear an even smaller amount. Let’s ignore how politically feasible this government policy is for now.)

[13thpythagoras]

it’s been over a century but the dirty energy industry is still on training wheels

[darkmaga-retard]

A guide for those watching today's House Budget Committee hearing, where I will be testifying

Alex Epstein

Sep 19, 2024

Today I will be testifying for the House Budget Committee at a hearing called “The Costs of the Biden-Harris Energy Crisis.” The main point I'll be making is that the policy of government-dictated “green” energy, practiced by Biden-Harris and many other governments, is ruinous. When you shackle the most cost-effective and scalable source of energy, fossil fuels, and subsidize unreliable solar and wind, energy necessarily becomes more expensive, less reliable, and less secure.

In preparation for the hearing, I wanted to see what the witness in favor of the Biden-Harris energy policy, Trevor Higgins of Center for American Progress, would say in its defense economically. I saw that he testified recently on this very topic.

I found his claims in favor of government-dictated green energy to be appallingly inaccurate and misleading, so I wanted to make sure that the elected officials at today’s hearing and anyone else hearing these claims had access to refutations of them.

Myth: “Clean electricity has become the most affordable source of energy there is.” Truth: If this were true “clean electricity” wouldn’t need enormous preferences in the form of subsidies, mandates, and no price penalty for unreliability—and “clean energy” opponents wouldn't feel compelled to cripple fossil fuels by punishing investment, production, refining, transportation, and use.1 In reality, since “clean electricity” from unreliable solar and wind can go to near zero at any given time, it depends on reliable electricity. It doesn't replace the cost of reliable electricity, it adds to the cost of reliable electricity. That's why the more solar and wind we've used as a nation the higher our prices have gotten.

Myth: Inflation has slowed since the passage of the IRA, so the IRA worked. (Higgins: “Since the enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act, overall inflation has slowed by two-thirds, grocery price inflation in particular has slowed by nine-tenths, and energy price inflation has not only slowed but fully reversed and dropped 7 percent. Meanwhile, wages have risen 8.5 percent, far outpacing inflation. Since enactment, total employment has grown nearly 4 percent and economic output is up 10 percent. This is an exceptionally strong record.”) Truth: This is a blatantly dishonest example of the “post hoc” fallacy—the first thing happened before the second thing, therefore the first thing caused the second thing. The IRA couldn’t have possibly lowered inflation because its significant effects are not in force yet. And when the IRA’s effects are in force, they will obviously be inflationary due to its huge subsidies, which will increase our debt burden and therefore inflation.2

[queenlua]

my most boomer is opinion is that driving is, in fact, really really fucking awesome

like, is it awesome enough to warrant the absolutely ludicrous degree to which car-centric lifestyles are subsidized in the US? hell no. should we be investing aggressively in public transit, which is ALSO awesome (differently so, but still awesome), and also kills a whole hell of a lot less people and burns a whole hell of a lot less fossil fuels? hell yes.

b u t

it is simply an undeniable fact of the universe that driving real fast is in fact real fun, driving through pretty scenery rules, and the optimal way to listen to most rock/punk/ska albums is in your own lil private metal deathbox so you can scream along as loud as you want. the closest i've ever felt to god is probably when i was 16 and pushing 110mph in a shitty minivan, whizzing through country highways on the way to visit my not!boyfriend on the other side of the state with Less Than Jake blasting so loud it shook the whole damn car. good idea? ABSOLUTELY not. FUN idea? hell to the yeah