Comment by tbrownaw

8 hours ago

I do not see how the second sentence follows from the first.

I would think the claim in the second sentence would only be relevant in case of the inverse of the claim in the first sentence.

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tbrownaw

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DaiPlusPlus  8 hours ago

> I do not see how the second sentence follows from the first.

Point 1 on the list is "Make Solar Energy Economical".

Solar is economical today - mostly due to China investing (and heavily subsidising) in solar for the past couple of decades; but compare to the US where certain particular big-businesses (oil companies, mostly) were instead cynically funding disinformation efforts and getting into bed with the Republican party (which dovetailed with the GOP's allying with other science-denying movements of the Bush Jr era like creationism and public-health matters with abstinence-only sex-ed and defunding gun safety research efforts) - means we're decades behind where we could have been...

Consider an alternative past, where the GOP had the backbone to resist the oil industry's corruptive influence and instead made a big bet on American Solar; it's entirely possible that instead of MAGA today we'd instead have a right-wing coalition strongly supporting solar and wind energy because they align nicely with American rugged individualism - whereas the current situation on the right is an unprincipled farce with inconsistencies in policy positions at every turn.

  • slongfield  8 hours ago

    This is not a particularly new struggle: Jimmy Carter installed American-made solar water panels on the White House in 1979, then Reagan tore them out.

  • xnx  6 hours ago

    Improving panels or batteries (e.g. through automated material discovery) would make solar energy economical in a lot more regions.