Basically, it is this thinking that makes a lot of people suspicious about climate change. If all things that you would do to combat climate change are things the progressives/environmentalists want to do anyway (increase taxes, more government regulation of industry, more urbanization, more public transportation, etc) and nothing that they would not want to do, people on the other side of the political spectrum have their bs detector go off.
Unfortunately the left is as anti-science as the right when it comes to their sacred cows.
Yeah and it was a good comment without the us v them environmental bait. I say this as someone who supports nuclear but accepts the reality that building a new plant is essentially impossible to supply urban areas now. It has plenty of applications but we mostly live in democracies and even countries with strong nuclear support have been all cutting back after Fukushima, much to my dismay.
Small modular reactors should have a future for remote communities and a few other applications, space especially. The actual tech behind modern modular reactors is exciting[0]. Besides that the game is up for traditional nuclear plants that require decades to be built against horrendous public opposition in the face of a solar or wind farm that can be hooked up in a year for the same price. It's simply not viable anymore.
[0] https://www.nuscalepower.com/benefits/built-for-resilience
Russia is huge, China is 80% empty, America is sparse, Australia is 95% percent empty and India has a desert too. Power supply would be an issue but can be solved. (Numbers likely hyperbolic).
Instant solution of middle East problem. Perhaps that's why? Maybe Mideast is what stops nuclear plants, just like saudis, via Citibank, decided Obama cabinet?
Bill Gates is trying to invent some slow wave something reactor needed to make that work but it is not working yet.
I support Nuclear Energy too, but I can see it has difficulty gaining traction for a huge list of reasons, and this is across the political, social and economic spectrum. But basically the need for Nuclear is largely obsolete -- it was the only attractive option when Solar (and Wind to an extent) wasn't so cheap. Solar costs about the same or less, is available more or less everywhere, and has no contamination issues.
Also of very worthy note IMO is that the (electrical) energy supply isn't the whole picture. A good chunk of emissions are from transportation sector and some from industrial processes. There is also advocacy in those sectors (which comes off as 'progressive') simply because of consistency and necessity to achieve a reasonable climate plan. Note that nuclear energy, or solar energy, can't solely avoid incoming disasters.
> I don't see why this needs to be politicized this heavily
One huge reason is that the coincident ideologies of the left can't be taken seriously by those on the right. Or, put another way, they don't believe them.
Specifically, if one was truly serious about the urgency of solving climate change, they would not simultaneously advocate for raising the standard of living of non-Western populations to Western levels, before the carbon footprint required of said standard of living was dramatically reduced first.
Carbon emission reduction right now, with the urgency required to prevent collapse, is fundamentally incompatible with open borders. So when someone on the right sees an open-borders advocate clamoring for immediate carbon emissions reductions, the conclusion is not necessarily that they don't believe the science, it's that they don't believe you do. And the only valid conclusion is that you're motivated by politics, not by legitimate concern for the species.
Progressive/environmentalists are a smart bunch, and the movement has enough history. They figured already what's useful, why and how - now their predictions are getting more visible, have more support. To consider that bs just because somebody figured it earlier than you and now has even more arguments is sad.
"Do what we say or we all die" is also not a great message...even if it's true (which, personally, I doubt).
Or perhaps you're taking the other rational position - that even if we did what they say, we'll still die...
Oh, and the joke boils down to no such thing. It is very explicitly 'even if we were somehow wrong about climate change, there are so many other huge advantages to getting rid of fossil fuels'.
Anyway, my point was simple. If you want to sell people on "huge advantages to getting rid of fossil fuels" then sell them on that. Don't use a stick when you could use a carrot. This stuff is political. It's about persuasion, personal relationships, talking to people like they're not idiots (even if they are), showing respect, and so on. It's not about being right.
What is expected is: increasing, and increasingly damaging weather events yoy. Destruction of a bunch of viable agricultural land, and abrupt change in more. Destruction of a lot of low lying infrastructure close to water. Secondary effects include mass migrations and health crisis in some populations affected by previous. etc. Things get more expensive and painful all over.
Almost all of the policy making in this area so far, globally, has not been evidence based (or even evidence acknowledging). That's the real thing to change.
There isn't a clear cut answer to any of this, just risk management and mitigation. But the action so far has been almost entirely "delay, this is hard". And so the problem, and probable impacts, gets worse.
It's a little like a nation-state version of ignoring your credit card debt because you don't want to think about it. And then arguing around the dinner table about how bad it is without anyone having looked at a statement in years.
Because it amounts to "you have no choice, look at these graphs, do as I say" and people don't like hearing that.
You have a scientist's bias against politics. Most people on HN have it. But we're stuck with politics and politics is about persuasion. You have to convince people and people are not rational automatons. You don't convince people by "showing them irrefutable evidence". First, because no evidence is actually irrefutable and second, because it frames the conversation in terms of "I am smart, I have knowledge, I have research, you are ignorant, you need my knowledge to choose correctly". That's not going to convince people even if it's true.
Finally, it's a good thing that politics is about persuasion. The only alternatives are worse.
It doesn't, though. I'm not saying you can take the politics out of something like this, or that you should. The last thing I am is a technocrat. But policy makers should be working from good information when they can.
What I am saying is that the politicians, for the most part, are choosing avoidance and the arguments being made for the most part are superficial and often naive, both for and against. It's up you and I (and everyone, at least in a democratic society) to insist they hold themselves to a higher standard and actually do the work.
The (actual, not media) science, for the most part is not contentious - but that doesn't actually mean that the scientists know what is best from a policy point of view.
However, the politicians are mostly operating in a way that avoids too much contact with what is known. It's the easier path, but incredibly unlikely to lead to anything useful.
This is the best advice to all sides.
I have found in the past that the best way to convince people is not to try to "convince" them that my "view" is correct but to listen to their views.
I call this being a "Cardboard engineer". It does not work for everyone.
It is an economic incentive, but whether it's "good enough" depends on the costs of the transition- which are certainly dependent on how quick it needs to be.
Also, a good chunk of plastic can be produced from natural gas, using ethylene instead of the naptha from crude oil.
Even if you don't believe in climate change - which I do not think is a reasonable position at this point - I would hope we can all agree that not having to rely on oil any more is a good enough economic incentive for everyone.
[1] https://solar-power-now.com/what-if-we-create-a-better-world...