Energy addiction
One poster outs me as a devious
communist, another outs me as a
MAGA Republican:
Because without your doing that, your arguments are barely distinguishable from those of a coal-rolling Republican-voting all-American redneck. "My consumption isn't enough to matter." "Al Gore doesn't practice what he preaches, why should I?" "Climate change is just a made-up excuse for the elites to stick it to the little guy, again." "You're not the boss of me."
I hate it when people blame their difficulties with making distinctions on the object that they are
barely able to distinguish from its opposite. Myriad seems to think that his alleged difficulty is an argument for those two opposites being alike, so when I criticize his alleged attempts at doing something about global warming, be it bicycling, recycling bottles or voting for politicians who don't do what they promised to do, it is somehow the same thing as being in denial of global warming like
"a coal-rolling Republican-voting all-American redneck."
And after this variation of the ad hominem theme, Myriad can forget all about having made it all up himself:
Your motivations for so arguing might be different (maybe; you don't seem to like it when other speculate on your motivations, so I won't). But the advice comes out the same: go ahead and consume, or else you're being a sucker.
My motivations for so arguing!!! Myriad is the one who presented MAGA arguments as if they were mine. He has continually misrepresented my arguments and does so once again. I am supposed to have said (or at least meant):
"go ahead and consume, or else you're being a sucker," even though I have made it clear from the start that the point isn't
consumption of energy, it's
production of energy. If the source of that energy is solar and wind, it doesn't matter how much energy you consume: It doesn't emit CO
2 - very much
unlike the energy consumed if it is produced by burning fossil fuels.
At this point, I have to assume that Myriad deliberately ignores this not-at-all minor detail before he goes on to compare my arguments with those of MAGA with which they have nothing whatsoever in common. To Myriad, it doesn't matter how energy is
produced. People have to be challenged to reduce
"their consumption thereof." People who like to consume energy are either consumers of
"frivolous high-energy luxuries" or
addicts because Myriad's idealist idea of saving the world from global warming, i.e. CO
2 emission, is to deprive the energy producers of consumption.
Energy itself isn't merely a modern convenience and necessity. It's an actual
drug:
My advice is far more challenging: individuals should reduce their dependency on the products of government and corporate industry, especially for frivolous high-energy luxuries, by reducing their consumption thereof. We have a population of addicts and instead of daydreaming about all the dealers having a change of heart and making better cleaner smack free for everyone, how about we get off the **** first. The slogan "less energy, stimulation, and stuff" (aka LESS), popular among certain segments of the slightly saner fringe, expresses this. That would allow voters to be less motivated to make compromising choices in the interest of keeping the "good times" rolling. To be fair, it's probably just as much a pipe dream as whatever solution it is you're not telling, but at least I can put it into words to be discussed.
Sacrifices and austerity presented as the solution to the greenhouse effect, which kind of explains why cold showers appear to play such an important role in Myriad's agenda.
And for the umpteenth time he tells lie that I'm not telling him what the solution is when the problem is that he doesn't like any solution that doesn't include his regiment of austerity. I have not only said it again and again, other people have mentioned how it
actually works in the
real world and not in Myriad's pipe-dream world:
Also, I'm now using an app that tells me when the electricity price is low because a surplus of green energy is produced (sunny, windy days), and then I try to defer my dishwasher and washing machine running to those times. But that could be automated with available technology in no time.
I don't think Hans sounds like an electricity junkie. And since we are in for
a couple of stormy days in the very near future, I hope that his dishwasher and laundry basket are already full to the brim.
So what? I value the effective measures, not the argument about why they didn't happen. Unless the argument about why they didn't happen suggests ways to make them happen despite those reasons. Which yours doesn't.
I actually like effective measures and not the excuses for why they didn't happen, but Myriad doesn't like it when those excuses are criticized. And the effective measures
did happen. And they are
still happening, and they should be happening much faster than they are. They just didn't happen where Myriad lives, apparently.
And now that we have returned to the theme of ineffective measures, for instance voting for people who aren't bound by any promises they make: In
post 462, he forgot about this part of the post he replied to:
No, Biden didn't just ban fracking (CNN, Jan 27, 2021)
Update: Biden Promised a Ban – He’s Doing the Opposite (Food and Water Watch, Sep 15, 2021)
Biden Fracking Ban At A Standstill Amid Global Energy Crisis (Earth.org, May 8, 2022)
Joe Biden Broke His 2020 Pledge on Fracking. Good. (Washington Monthly, Mar 7, 2023)
But, but, but ...
Don't worry! You'll still get to vote for him the next time, and on somebody like him the next time, and the next time, and the next time, and ...
I
don't wonder why he forgot about this.
This is a thread about global warming. I have argued and used examples to show how the current electoral system is used as an argument against effective measures against global warming. I also did it in the other climate thread when arguments like this were presented against measures to end global warming:
