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| ▲ | seec 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This. Germany has been strong arming policies around electricity in the EU for quite a while. Forcing their neighbors to sell their electricity for cheap when it is the most expensive in the market while assuming none of the costs and risks. And they are disrupting neighbors' energy production economics when they offload their overproduction precisely when nobody wants it. That's German superiority complex in all it's "glory". | |
| ▲ | jamil7 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The problem of meeting demand is in industrial use and residential heating, both of which aren’t typically electrified in Germany. The problem has more to do with an active war and an industrial sector built on cheap Russian gas. | | |
| ▲ | aldonius 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Yes, and if they want to net-zero all their energy, not just their electricity, they will need to do some mix of: 1. electrify those applications currently served by gas
2. import or manufacture carbon-neutral synthetic gas
3. buy a heck of a lot of offsets | | |
| ▲ | prewett 3 days ago | parent [-] | | And since we don't have the technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere efficiently, buying offsets is spending a lot of money fooling yourself. |
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| ▲ | peterpost2 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That is largely due to the war in Ukraine and Russian gas/oil being a big no-no in Europe right now. Continuing to burn fossil fuel is simply not an option. Not if we want to comfortable keep living on this planet. | |
| ▲ | cycomanic 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | None of the European countries meat their energy demands by themselves. All of them regularly import and export electricity from/to their neighbors. That's a good thing and is driving down electricity prices not up. The reason countries buy electricity from their neighbors is because it's cheaper not because they couldn't meat the demands themselves. Now Germany is by no means perfect, heating is largely gas based which increases emissions. Ironically the law that was trying to change this, had a big counter campaign that likely contributed to the change of government. So while the greens energiewende are often blamed for Germanys dependency on gas (although the dependency had been going for much longer), it's the conservatives who likely had a much bigger impact on Germany sticking with gas by preventing to move heating to electricity. | |
| ▲ | jacquesm 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's a huge success considering where they would have been if not for doing that, and then energy prices would have been higher still. |
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| ▲ | myrmidon 3 days ago | parent [-] | | First: This whole reneable thing was done to reduce negative externalities from pollution and CO2 emissions that were simply not paid for previously. Arguing that "the economy would be better of without pollution/emission limits" is a bit like arguing that dumping trash in the next river is cheaper than proper disposal: Sure, your industrialists are gonna save a few bucks right now, but someone will have to pick up the bill regardless-- with interest. | | |
| ▲ | 542354234235 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I found that it is much better for my household budget to dump my trash in my neighbor's yard rather than to pay for trash pickup. | |
| ▲ | pfortuny 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Oh, no, I was not arguing that, I was simply stating that becoming "green" is not necessarily better per se. There are many factors to consider. | |
| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sure, but people's rent and bills are due now and if they can't pay up, you can't gaslighting them with "your sacrifice is necessary for the future of the environment" which is a luxury belief. Why haven't shareholders of energy companies also made sacrifices to save the environment? How come only the consumers have to? Do you understand why people are pissed off with the switch? | | |
| ▲ | goodpoint 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > "your sacrifice is necessary for the future of the environment" which is a luxury belief. The cost of food, water, energy and other things are going up *because* of climate change. What kinda "luxury belief" is that? | | |
| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Source? Because EU pollutes less now than before, but my groceries are even more expensive so your point is moot. So why should I accept to be spit-roasted like this with no return on my sacrifices? Maybe greedy corporate profiteering is the real culprit here squeezing people and not people using the AC or driving to work? | | |
| ▲ | goodpoint 3 days ago | parent [-] | | There is absolutely overwhelming evidence that climate change is impacting agriculture. | | |
| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 3 days ago | parent [-] | | You're dodging my question. I asked why hasn't our economic sacrifice to save the environment resulted in a reduction in grocery prices, if environmental damage is what's causing them to go up? We reduced the economic damage but prices are still going up. So what gives? Is it environmentalism or corporate greed? | | |
| ▲ | two_handfuls 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Has CO2 returned to pre-industrial levels? Has the ice shelf re-frozen? How about permafrost? We are not yet at the point where things are good again yet. We are just reducing further damage at this point. | |
| ▲ | cycomanic 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Because there are lags in the system? Because we are not doing enough? Do you always expect immediate feedback on everything you do? If that's the case I guess you never invest in anything because that's by definition a bet that it will make things better (or less worse) in the future. So your proposal is to further delay making anyone pay for changes, because previous generations profited? So at the end of the chain (which will likely not be very long anymore) some generation will be completely screwed. |
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| ▲ | 542354234235 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > future of the environment The environment consists of natural resources. Those resources have value and are "owned" by the people. You can save money by not changing the oil in your car, right up until the engine seizes up. Preserving the value of valuable assets through proper care and maintenance isn't exactly a high concept abstract concept. | |
| ▲ | myrmidon 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Sure, but people's rent and bills are due now and if they can't pay up, you can't gaslighting them with "your sacrifice is necessary for the future of the environment" which is a luxury belief. My point of view is that "we have to curb emissions now before consequences grow too dire" is not a "luxury belief": the actual luxury is/was consuming fuel and fossil products without ever paying for the externalities. It was a luxury we could not actually afford at any point, basically just got it on credit in the past, and all that credit is coming due within the century. > Why haven't shareholders of energy companies also made sacrifices to save the environment? How come only the consumers have to? Because overall most of the benefit did go to consumers. People basically got a gallon of gas for 30 cents in 1960 when it probably needed to be a dollar or more, but companies like Shell only ever saw a small fraction of that retail price, and there is absolutely no way you could claw back that difference (or anything close, really) from them. > Do you understand why people are pissed off with the switch? I do understand the feeling of getting things denied that you took for granted, but I have little sympathy for selfishness. | | |
| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 3 days ago | parent [-] | | >the actual luxury is/was consuming fuel and fossil products without ever paying for the externalities. Then why do current generations have to pay for the profits that the previous generations have banked? >but companies like Shell only ever saw a small fraction of that retail price, and there is absolutely no way you could claw back that difference YES, nothing we can do about the corporate overlords who screwed us, let's instead claw it back from the current generation of people instead of from Shell shareholders, that's will go down well politically for sure and not cause extremist rise to power. How is this not a luxury belief? >I do understand the feeling of getting things denied that you took for granted, but I have little sympathy for selfishness. It's not selfishness to afford necessities for a decent life especially when more and more of your paycheck goes towards taxes and necessities. | | |
| ▲ | 542354234235 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | >Then why do current generations have to pay for the profits that the previous generations have banked? Life isn't fair and time travel doesn't exist. We are stuck with the world we have now and have to deal with the realities, including suffering the consequences for things not your fault. It isn't fair that a son gets cancer because his mother smoked around him all his life, but he is still the one that has to go through chemo. | | |
| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 3 days ago | parent [-] | | >Life isn't fair This argument can be used to justify whatever actions you want. You know that, right? For example, I'm gonna take your house and when you ask why, it's because "life isn't fair". However, various forms of fairness to balance out past wrong doings can always be achieved if desired, but it usually requires force or democratically if over 50% of people can unite on it. | | |
| ▲ | 542354234235 2 days ago | parent [-] | | >This argument can be used to justify whatever actions you want Yes, which is why I wrote more than 3 words. It is why I used the cancer analogy. This generation is left holding the bag, and it has to be dealt with. Stomping your foot and saying it's not fair does nothing to cancer, nor does it do anything to climate change. I’m not saying a specific policy decision is right or wrong. I’m saying this generation has to deal with it, regardless of fairness. |
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| ▲ | myrmidon 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Then why do current generations have to pay for the profits that the previous generations have banked? Because the vast majority of "profits" (externalities that were not paid for) were not banked, they were simply not paid. Even if every person that enjoyed cheap fossil products in the past had the price difference on some separate bank account, taking that to fund environmental policies would be very difficult in western countries because of democracy and demographics (very difficult to get majorities when working against the interests of elderly voters). > YES, nothing we can do about the corporate overlords who screwed us, let's instead claw it back from the current generation of people instead of from Shell shareholders, that's will go down well politically for sure and not cause extremist rise to power. How is this not a luxury belief? Again, the Shell corporate overlords only siphoned off a very small fraction of the gains, even taking the whole corporation would be completely insufficient. The main beneficiaries in the past were not Shell and BP, but the end consumers instead. Just heaping blame on corporations or past generations is not helping anything. You could certainly nationalize the whole petroleum industry and confiscate pension funds, but approaches like that have very detrimental side effects. > It's not selfishness to afford necessities for a decent life especially when more and more of your paycheck goes towards taxes and necessities. I would argue that if you discover that a past lifestyle was financed by unsustainably pushing the hidden costs of energy elsewhere (and into the future), then still refusing to pay those hidden costs after the discovery is the very definition of selfish. | |
| ▲ | ZeroGravitas 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's cheaper for the current generation to deal with climate change than to ignore it. You're effectively advocating for some small subset of that generation to try to disadvantage another larger subset, at a net loss to society, and hope they don't damage themselves in the process. While complaining about selfishness of previous generations. | | |
| ▲ | ponector 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Depends on the country, but overall I'll say the opposite is true: cheaper is to ignore it. Climate change will not stop even if Germany switched to 100% renewables. And globally it is also not a top priority. | | |
| ▲ | seec 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Basically this.
But he is probably rich enough to not care because the effort that will be asked of him will be small relative to his purchasing power. So, he can pretend to be "good" for doing the right thing, while more unfortunate people will pay the real cost without any guarantee that the climate situation will improve and that their children will have a chance at a "better life". Not that they care that much because children are becoming unaffordable for much of the lower class. The problem with the green ideology is that it's a global problem and clearly global fossil fuel use reduction isn't happening.
And the countries using it don't care because not using it is much worse than the promise of a better world in the future.
If your life is shit right now (compared to the rich world) the promise of a better world far out in the future is just propaganda. |
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