@horgen said:
Glad you don't disagree with doing something about stagnating wages or improved health care for all.
I also have trouble seeing how we will reach a net zero on GHG, but perhaps having it as a goal, or an ambition isn't so bad? Switching from fossil combustion engines to electric ones with energy produced by greener alternatives than coal would help a lot. Side effect will be improved air quality in cities as well. Don't know about the situation where live, but in my city, local emissions are down. NOx in particular.
Jobs would be created with transitioning to renewables. Is there anything unclear about it? If creating and maintaining windmills is the next thing, producing the parts needed at an increased pace than today means possibly more jobs. Maintaining them require people working on that as well. With that said though, you might not be opposed of the idea that it won't be jobs for everyone in the future. As in an unemployment rate at 20% or higher simply because there is no need for more people to be working.
I have no idea how she wants to repair past oppression. Perhaps though she means admitting wrongdoings and working on improving equal treatment?
Why should I disagree? Wage stagnation or bad health care aren't desirable outcomes, and that's a human consideration, not a partisan one. What is partisan is how we should go about to get rid of the most of them as quickly as possible.
There's a big difference between "zero" and "going down". Obviously given the choice with all else equal we'd pick zero no questions asked, the problem is how much effort it takes to get there, how much time, and effort on whose part to justify the "is it worth it?". "All else equal" is not something that works in economics, ever.
There's plenty unclear. First of all, renewables don't work universally. Both wind and solar are extremely sensitive to weather for obvious reasons, and by extension they're also sensitive to geographical position, time of day and extreme events, then there's hydropower. How would you implement renewables in places where none of these sources are comfortably and adequately available? How would you convert the power grid of the East coast when it gets yearly batterings from hurricanes, which are very likely to raze entire solar farms and force weeks-long shutdowns of wind farms?
And who's going to pay for them? Renewables are called so because during the life cycle of one such machine the energy it outputs will outweigh the energy it takes to build it and get rid of its remains when spent, but energy science doesn't only use joules as a currency. Where do you get the materials and labor it takes to do a complete conversion if energy prices are to stay roughly the same to prevent people from just continuing to use non-renewables?
Also, in my comment I should've added that speaking of the environment, the GND also mentions urban energy conservation and not just production, literally stating they want to upgrade infrastructure, industries and households to be as energy efficient as possible. Same problems as above: how would you go about doing it in a span of a few years, two decades at most, if the benefits take several decades just to break even with the costs? Who's going to shoulder the costs and who's going to build those upgraded houses for everyone?
Quite the opposite, I think the idea that improved technology leads to a net number of jobs being lost is pure bullshit. You don't even need to be an expert in economics to recognize this, historical data is more than enough. That's not the point though.
Log in to comment