In the trenches of Australia's climate wars, our conservative Leader of the Opposition is currently proposing... nuclear power stations
Which is not, in itself, a stupid thing to say! Nuclear power plants do indeed produce power without carbon emissions! Huzzah!
But Australia currently has no nuclear power plants. Nada. Zip. We would be starting from absolute scratch, with no infrastructure or local expertise. We do have uranium, so that's something, I guess.
Meanwhile, Australia has the highest level of domestic rooftop solar generation in the world.
Experts have said getting online power would take a decade and be ruinously expensive. Basically they are pointing and laughing. But our very own Potato is persisting, because fuck renewables, right?
I think they’re nice, but they’re not a Mustang and shouldn’t be called that. The actual current generation Mustang would be a total beast if electrified.
"So far, however, Biden’s climate change policies, his biggest achievement if you ask me, have for various reasons gone largely unnoticed by many voters."
For some reason. Ya know, I'd be as ignorant about Biden's climate accomplishments as most, if it wasn't for Wonkette. Mostly you, Dok. It's not covered by the MSM. But sure, Biden is old and Trump said something outrageous, we sure do know that!
Apart from the IRA, the BIL, the CHIPS act, the Paris Agreement, the power plant standards, procurement of electric vehicles, the moratorium on oil and gas leasing on public lands, and all the other stuff, what has Joe Biden ever done for the climate?
Thanks for this climate series. I agree that the Biden Administration has done more than any other to fight climate change. I am very pleased with the advances and increases in the amount of renewable energy now on the grid and coming soon. My only serious concern is the Administration's zealous backing of new commercial nuclear power plants. They cost a huge amount that will be provided by taxpayer subsidies, take a long time to build and in fact, will be threatened by the heat and storms now occurring. And they make waste that we have no answer for. I celebrate renewables and love EVs but will be fighting nukes in any way I can.
I don’t blame you for being pessimistic on the nukes. BUT. Fukushima was basically a woodshed with a reactor inside in a vulnerable area. Over the 70 or so years since it was built we have learned quite a bit
AND. BIG. AND. It is now possible that what is currently the radioactive waste. Could possibly be repurposed to produce energy until the end of its half life
Beyond that. Even if we decide to go all-in on nuclear because it's great for base load and all that: how long before the first new plants that are being dreamt up start delivering power? 25 years?
We're much better off overbuilding solar and wind, and plugging in batteries as fast as they can be produced. That's far better and cheaper than decades of delay and emissions and accelerating climate crisis.
Yes, this is so great! Any issues/policies a person cares about require a livable planet to implement. Trump would absolutely decimate our chances of slowing climate change at all, so enumerating Biden’s environmental wins loudly and often is really important.
One brilliant idea I've seen in use is solar panels OVER parking lots. So the cars are in the shade and the panels get the sun and make electrics. Good times! Plus, you don't fry when getting into your car.
It's almost like most news orgs deliberately don't cover stuff like this because it WOULD boost him among younger voters, which their Republican billionaire owners don't want.
Also, harder to understand than "Joe Biden Old!" and "Donald Trump a convicted felon!" because it requires reading comprehension and the attention span of something longer than a flea. i.e. NOT the news orgs prime audiences.
Whether it’s Donald Trump staging an insurrection on January 6, 2021 or Joe Biden running for a second term, both sides show an obsessive urge to stay in power.
Here's the rub of it though. Things like the IRA are big the same way the ACA was big: it was the "biggest ____ bill in history" that created new labyrinthine mechanisms to get around the major moneyed interests rather than taking on their industry directly. Sure, it's better than the awfulness that came before and any improvement is welcome, but what it ends up doing is placating rather than galvanizing. After all, we haven't heard much about a public option, even after a world-altering pandemic.
Speaking strictly for myself, the reason that I'm not heaping praise on Biden for the IRA is that the real actions needed to ensure the planet's survival, namely a dismantling of the fossil fuel industry and drastic reduction in the American military, are yet to be even considered political viable let alone acted on. And in the meantime horrific headline after horrific headline comes out about a new drought or flood or superstorm. If there was a sense that there was even bigger climate legislation on the horizon, it might help get young people hyped, but I've only heard about what's been passed already, not what they plan for a second term.
1. Not the government's business to be dismantling an entire industry. Deincentivizing it economically by removing tax breaks and enforcing regulations? Sure. Dismantling it via laws? Nope.
2. Forget "not politically viable" it's not ECONOMICALLY viable today.
This is my problem with the "stop oil today!" crowd. They have no options regarding what to replace that with TODAY. Removing oil from the power generation equation today and not having a viable alternative today means years of blackouts, heat deaths, people freezing to death in the winter, gasoline shortages on a daily basis, and sky rocketing home heating costs.
Is it trending in the correct direction thanks to Biden? Yes.
Is it feasible to stop drilling for oil today, tomorrow, or for the foreseeable immediate future? No.
Primitivists don't ponder the human costs of a large percent of the world dying off. They always figure that they are the rugged survivors who would make the cut
On top of the other bullshit, you're ignoring the fact that the US military has acknowledged climate change as a reality for decades and has worked on reducing their carbon footprint *within their mission* for as long.
Nellis AFB in Vegas has a huge solar array to provide a lot of their electricity, and I'm sure it's not the only one. The US Navy is acutely aware of seal level rise and is working on it within their mission, too.
Davis Monthan in Tucson put on an absolute shit load of solar. Ground mount and on all the base housing, and probably other places I couldn't see from outside the gates.
They know it makes them more resilient to attacks and power outages, saves money, and buffers them from Base Realignment and Closure discussions.
"The huge list of accomplishments isn't something worth recognizing because they haven't explicitly laid out specific legislation before they even know what the congressional landscape is like."
Given the way that all large systems are slow to change, this is how it's going to work in the USA. This is, after all, the third-most populous nation on Earth.
And we're managing to do these steps despite having deliberately weak federalism that a lot of our purported betters don't have. Second you don't get bigger climate legislation on the horizon without enough of a safety margin to counteract the rural, unreconstructed portions of the United States.
Oh yeah that's another thing that our supposed betters don't have, a Constitutional system that gives outsized power to rural, unreconstructed conservatives (initially intended to help them with their chattel slavery).
Yet despite these, when we have the right people in power, the USA makes strides and tries to pull forward. It's never easy. And we backslide because like every nation there are selfish factors. This is why for example, racist Europeans will gladly destroy their liberal, climate-friendly systems in order to stick it to brown migrants.
But hell if climate legislation that does things was easy many more countries would have been doing it. We're also laying foundations for future growth and building capacity for renewables, which is what we should be doing. There's a lot more pieces that need to be worked on beyond "President says do this, it happens."
USA stopped giving a fuck when it started sucking the Middle East dry of sweet crude in the 1940s. Just imported more oil to burn in cars in order to avoid having to take any action on considering what a sensible energy policy would even look like. It wasn't until the 1970s that a clue was noticed when OPEC turned off the tap for a while. I am old enough to remember then and the sensible policies Americans took when they imagined that they couldn't drive a massive Cadillac with all whale-skin leather interior and and big brown baby seal eyes for headlights, driving around in that baby at 115 MPH, getting one mile per gallon, suckin' down Quarter-Pounder cheeseburgers from McDonalds in the old-fashioned non-biodegradable Styrofoam container and tossing them out the window when they're done. They shot each other at the gas-pump. Everything else since then has been shooting each other at the gas-pump. You want to disengage with fossil fuels? Stop the boats full of cheap ME oil first and see how you can extract North American oil in a way enough to let everyone still drive around or find an local alternative.
And we have all that institutional knowledge to build on. This is a needed start. But it's not just one solution. A whole lot of things have to be done, and we have a fragile coalition on our side. And we have to essentially advocate for structural changes in American life in a population that is (at best) propagandized.
It's one thing to pronounce from on-high what we should be doing. But when it comes to the actual sausage making people want to tune out and get cynical, "Oh they're all corrupt." But that isn't the case. There ARE people fighting for us. It's incumbent upon us to not leave them twisting in the wind when it comes to our ballots. Literally the least we can do and yet it's extremely important.
We need to reward moves like this not only because they build capacity for the future but they smooth the transition so people start to say "Okay that wasn't so bad, and wow being renewable/greener actually saves me money!"
My guy, we can't kill the planet. We can make it unlivable for us, but the planet will be fine til the sun goes red giant and flash fries whatever is left
OK so how would one pass a ban on fossil fuels given the current court and current legislative makeup. Or again is Biden supposed to shred laws to get to your desired outcome while ignoring that a GOP president could use the same method to destroy the same laws?
He could try running on expanding the court and nationalizing the US oil interests. That would let the government draw it down as needed. But we've had that conversation before.
I say we solve it by outlawing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Then only outlaws will have carbon dioxide in their atmospheres. Hey, I've solved climate change! Or a big part of it, anyway. And if you think that's good, just wait until you hear my two-cork solution for dealing with cow methane.
And I'm telling you what has to happen to avoid the worst of climate change. The fact that I'm meeting scoffing disbelief instead of a sense of urgency illustrates my point: there's no political viability even among those that claim to care about climate change for what's required.
and we are telling you that your "nothing is good enough short of this literally impossible thing we can only do if Joe Biden goes out and murders his entire opposition until only five Democrats are left" is not actually helping.
YOU aren't helping by saying nothing good is good enough.
And frankly, William, I'm about ready to ban you just for being fucking dumb and aggravating. And nobody, not one person, will miss you.
Yeah, it's wild when the left or rathe the “left" demand Biden go full dictator. But yeah military funding is set by Congress among numerous other issues. It's like he wants to tank Biden so the fascist right can have enough votes to alter the Constitution at will
Or kinda like when the dirtbag brigade saw Biden actually get us out of Afghanistan (the forever war no one wanted and the excuse they'd been using to claim BOTH PARTIES R THE SAME) and immediately lost their shit because... something something stupid shit libs, YOU'RE the REAL fascists.🙄
That will always piss me off. That was a goal for 20 fucking years. I remember marching about that in the early oughts. This is one of the reasons wedge grenades are so useful against Democrats though, because we do have an annoyingly squishy coalition, and some folks are REALLY into one issue that they'll just bring up at election time. They never protest about it when the GOP is in power though!
I love when this was touted as the ultimate solution for all our foreign policy woes except this was the *exact* thing President Klan Robe got impeached for.
The US military is the largest greenhouse gas producer and dwarfs all other militaries on earth. So yeah, despite being 5% of the population, you punch above your weight.
Which only underscores the need to get our own houses in order. Remember, Canada isn't exempt from this either; we're several extraction companies in a trench coat calling itself a country.
In the trenches of Australia's climate wars, our conservative Leader of the Opposition is currently proposing... nuclear power stations
Which is not, in itself, a stupid thing to say! Nuclear power plants do indeed produce power without carbon emissions! Huzzah!
But Australia currently has no nuclear power plants. Nada. Zip. We would be starting from absolute scratch, with no infrastructure or local expertise. We do have uranium, so that's something, I guess.
Meanwhile, Australia has the highest level of domestic rooftop solar generation in the world.
Experts have said getting online power would take a decade and be ruinously expensive. Basically they are pointing and laughing. But our very own Potato is persisting, because fuck renewables, right?
Conservatives suck.
Saved... but I do wish there was a way to send this to the offspring that would guarantee that he'd read it.
I won't stop trying, though.
I've Clipped and Saved. Will forward.
I have done my part : No Great Grandkids because No Grandkids because No Kids! Please... please hold your applause!
Yah! When's he goingg to do any climate things FOR ME?
Still waiting for my pony, or a Mustang Mach E in a pinch.
I saw an electric Mustang at the showroom. It was nice. It was also $60K.
I think they’re nice, but they’re not a Mustang and shouldn’t be called that. The actual current generation Mustang would be a total beast if electrified.
"So far, however, Biden’s climate change policies, his biggest achievement if you ask me, have for various reasons gone largely unnoticed by many voters."
For some reason. Ya know, I'd be as ignorant about Biden's climate accomplishments as most, if it wasn't for Wonkette. Mostly you, Dok. It's not covered by the MSM. But sure, Biden is old and Trump said something outrageous, we sure do know that!
I happen to read and consume a lot of climate news, but Dok fills in some gaps that I didn't know about.
You're doing a real service here, Wonkette!
The thing about that is, I'm positive what he's saying is true.
Luxury homes on these beaches are losing value fast, as effects of climate change hit hard [https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/14/luxury-homes-on-these-beaches-are-losing-value-fast-as-effects-of-climate-change-hit-hard.html]
Gosh, who could have predicted that?!?
Finally, it's affecting rich people. Something. Will. Get. Done.
Oddly enough, those radical libs in the insurance industry did.
But why would Republicans listen to those guys.
Have they considered building up the shore with dead bodies from India from the most recent heat wave there?
Apart from the IRA, the BIL, the CHIPS act, the Paris Agreement, the power plant standards, procurement of electric vehicles, the moratorium on oil and gas leasing on public lands, and all the other stuff, what has Joe Biden ever done for the climate?
We don't burn a lotta ammo in Afghanistan anymore.
OK, but the freeze on leases on public lands was overruled in federal court, so Biden really hasn't done anything.
Thanks for this climate series. I agree that the Biden Administration has done more than any other to fight climate change. I am very pleased with the advances and increases in the amount of renewable energy now on the grid and coming soon. My only serious concern is the Administration's zealous backing of new commercial nuclear power plants. They cost a huge amount that will be provided by taxpayer subsidies, take a long time to build and in fact, will be threatened by the heat and storms now occurring. And they make waste that we have no answer for. I celebrate renewables and love EVs but will be fighting nukes in any way I can.
you and me both Judy! We seem to be alone on "wait what, Fukushima JUST HAPPENED DO YOU REMEMBER IT."
I don’t blame you for being pessimistic on the nukes. BUT. Fukushima was basically a woodshed with a reactor inside in a vulnerable area. Over the 70 or so years since it was built we have learned quite a bit
AND. BIG. AND. It is now possible that what is currently the radioactive waste. Could possibly be repurposed to produce energy until the end of its half life
Nothing wrong with an open mind. Right?
Beyond that. Even if we decide to go all-in on nuclear because it's great for base load and all that: how long before the first new plants that are being dreamt up start delivering power? 25 years?
We're much better off overbuilding solar and wind, and plugging in batteries as fast as they can be produced. That's far better and cheaper than decades of delay and emissions and accelerating climate crisis.
Bring back Fukuppy!
This is amazing, Dok. Thanks for putting it together and in advance for the future columns! Sharing and bookmarking and sharing some more.
Yes, this is so great! Any issues/policies a person cares about require a livable planet to implement. Trump would absolutely decimate our chances of slowing climate change at all, so enumerating Biden’s environmental wins loudly and often is really important.
If you put solar panels over all the crop land, who is going to grow the feedstock for our factory farms?
One brilliant idea I've seen in use is solar panels OVER parking lots. So the cars are in the shade and the panels get the sun and make electrics. Good times! Plus, you don't fry when getting into your car.
It's almost like most news orgs deliberately don't cover stuff like this because it WOULD boost him among younger voters, which their Republican billionaire owners don't want.
Also, harder to understand than "Joe Biden Old!" and "Donald Trump a convicted felon!" because it requires reading comprehension and the attention span of something longer than a flea. i.e. NOT the news orgs prime audiences.
Exactly.
Ding
Ding
Fucking DING!
The NYT was going to do a huge piece on Biden’s climate change record but then he bent over slow to retie a shoe and it got pushed.
Dang, I wish this were hyperbole.
NYT Pitchbot:
Whether it’s Donald Trump staging an insurrection on January 6, 2021 or Joe Biden running for a second term, both sides show an obsessive urge to stay in power.
Here's the rub of it though. Things like the IRA are big the same way the ACA was big: it was the "biggest ____ bill in history" that created new labyrinthine mechanisms to get around the major moneyed interests rather than taking on their industry directly. Sure, it's better than the awfulness that came before and any improvement is welcome, but what it ends up doing is placating rather than galvanizing. After all, we haven't heard much about a public option, even after a world-altering pandemic.
Speaking strictly for myself, the reason that I'm not heaping praise on Biden for the IRA is that the real actions needed to ensure the planet's survival, namely a dismantling of the fossil fuel industry and drastic reduction in the American military, are yet to be even considered political viable let alone acted on. And in the meantime horrific headline after horrific headline comes out about a new drought or flood or superstorm. If there was a sense that there was even bigger climate legislation on the horizon, it might help get young people hyped, but I've only heard about what's been passed already, not what they plan for a second term.
Good luck with that
"a dismantling of the fossil fuel industry"
1. Not the government's business to be dismantling an entire industry. Deincentivizing it economically by removing tax breaks and enforcing regulations? Sure. Dismantling it via laws? Nope.
2. Forget "not politically viable" it's not ECONOMICALLY viable today.
This is my problem with the "stop oil today!" crowd. They have no options regarding what to replace that with TODAY. Removing oil from the power generation equation today and not having a viable alternative today means years of blackouts, heat deaths, people freezing to death in the winter, gasoline shortages on a daily basis, and sky rocketing home heating costs.
Is it trending in the correct direction thanks to Biden? Yes.
Is it feasible to stop drilling for oil today, tomorrow, or for the foreseeable immediate future? No.
Reality is for "corporatists."
Primitivists don't ponder the human costs of a large percent of the world dying off. They always figure that they are the rugged survivors who would make the cut
All the obese incels in camo? We'll eat them last.
Too rich to eat at once with all the salt, fat, invermectin, and colloidal silver
That's right, gotta feed 'em right for a bit before they're safe to eat.
Tanks for the memories
I'll take a platoon of M1s please.
On top of the other bullshit, you're ignoring the fact that the US military has acknowledged climate change as a reality for decades and has worked on reducing their carbon footprint *within their mission* for as long.
Nellis AFB in Vegas has a huge solar array to provide a lot of their electricity, and I'm sure it's not the only one. The US Navy is acutely aware of seal level rise and is working on it within their mission, too.
Davis Monthan in Tucson put on an absolute shit load of solar. Ground mount and on all the base housing, and probably other places I couldn't see from outside the gates.
They know it makes them more resilient to attacks and power outages, saves money, and buffers them from Base Realignment and Closure discussions.
"The huge list of accomplishments isn't something worth recognizing because they haven't explicitly laid out specific legislation before they even know what the congressional landscape is like."
That's one hell of a take.
Given the way that all large systems are slow to change, this is how it's going to work in the USA. This is, after all, the third-most populous nation on Earth.
And we're managing to do these steps despite having deliberately weak federalism that a lot of our purported betters don't have. Second you don't get bigger climate legislation on the horizon without enough of a safety margin to counteract the rural, unreconstructed portions of the United States.
Oh yeah that's another thing that our supposed betters don't have, a Constitutional system that gives outsized power to rural, unreconstructed conservatives (initially intended to help them with their chattel slavery).
Yet despite these, when we have the right people in power, the USA makes strides and tries to pull forward. It's never easy. And we backslide because like every nation there are selfish factors. This is why for example, racist Europeans will gladly destroy their liberal, climate-friendly systems in order to stick it to brown migrants.
But hell if climate legislation that does things was easy many more countries would have been doing it. We're also laying foundations for future growth and building capacity for renewables, which is what we should be doing. There's a lot more pieces that need to be worked on beyond "President says do this, it happens."
USA stopped giving a fuck when it started sucking the Middle East dry of sweet crude in the 1940s. Just imported more oil to burn in cars in order to avoid having to take any action on considering what a sensible energy policy would even look like. It wasn't until the 1970s that a clue was noticed when OPEC turned off the tap for a while. I am old enough to remember then and the sensible policies Americans took when they imagined that they couldn't drive a massive Cadillac with all whale-skin leather interior and and big brown baby seal eyes for headlights, driving around in that baby at 115 MPH, getting one mile per gallon, suckin' down Quarter-Pounder cheeseburgers from McDonalds in the old-fashioned non-biodegradable Styrofoam container and tossing them out the window when they're done. They shot each other at the gas-pump. Everything else since then has been shooting each other at the gas-pump. You want to disengage with fossil fuels? Stop the boats full of cheap ME oil first and see how you can extract North American oil in a way enough to let everyone still drive around or find an local alternative.
And we have all that institutional knowledge to build on. This is a needed start. But it's not just one solution. A whole lot of things have to be done, and we have a fragile coalition on our side. And we have to essentially advocate for structural changes in American life in a population that is (at best) propagandized.
It's one thing to pronounce from on-high what we should be doing. But when it comes to the actual sausage making people want to tune out and get cynical, "Oh they're all corrupt." But that isn't the case. There ARE people fighting for us. It's incumbent upon us to not leave them twisting in the wind when it comes to our ballots. Literally the least we can do and yet it's extremely important.
We need to reward moves like this not only because they build capacity for the future but they smooth the transition so people start to say "Okay that wasn't so bad, and wow being renewable/greener actually saves me money!"
Yep climate change is so easy everyone... oh most other nations are like us, go figure
Oh and going back to the public option, since that vote, when have Dems had 60 votes in the Senate and control of the House? I'll wait
Jesus, you are *exhausting*.
Joe Biden hasn't *literally dismantled the oil companies and anything short of that is bullshit*?
You are ridiculous.
Do you think the planet will survive with them intact?
My guy, we can't kill the planet. We can make it unlivable for us, but the planet will be fine til the sun goes red giant and flash fries whatever is left
Fortunately, we’re patient!
Thanks for the clarification. This discussion is predicated on *our* survival as a species.
Well you are pretty illiterate and were being hysterical.
Par for the course for that one.
yes. you put them on the solar panel teat instead.
Not Exxon-Mobil's business model.
OK so how would one pass a ban on fossil fuels given the current court and current legislative makeup. Or again is Biden supposed to shred laws to get to your desired outcome while ignoring that a GOP president could use the same method to destroy the same laws?
He could try running on expanding the court and nationalizing the US oil interests. That would let the government draw it down as needed. But we've had that conversation before.
All Biden has to do is cut the US military by 50%. Easy easy, and surely will have zero electoral blowback
I say we solve it by outlawing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Then only outlaws will have carbon dioxide in their atmospheres. Hey, I've solved climate change! Or a big part of it, anyway. And if you think that's good, just wait until you hear my two-cork solution for dealing with cow methane.
not even electoral blowback, not even talking about politics.
Maybe Justin Trudeau can (spoiler he can't) but in the US *ONE GUY CANT DO THAT*
And I'm telling you what has to happen to avoid the worst of climate change. The fact that I'm meeting scoffing disbelief instead of a sense of urgency illustrates my point: there's no political viability even among those that claim to care about climate change for what's required.
Dude....
and we are telling you that your "nothing is good enough short of this literally impossible thing we can only do if Joe Biden goes out and murders his entire opposition until only five Democrats are left" is not actually helping.
YOU aren't helping by saying nothing good is good enough.
And frankly, William, I'm about ready to ban you just for being fucking dumb and aggravating. And nobody, not one person, will miss you.
I'll cheer the whole time, Captain my Captain
No we are pragmatists that understand wanting something isn't the same as getting it. Again show us HOW.
Oh yeah you think Biden can just make it happen. You dropped your nose, clown
Sure he can with Leftist Magic Fairy Dust!!
Yeah, it's wild when the left or rathe the “left" demand Biden go full dictator. But yeah military funding is set by Congress among numerous other issues. It's like he wants to tank Biden so the fascist right can have enough votes to alter the Constitution at will
Or kinda like when the dirtbag brigade saw Biden actually get us out of Afghanistan (the forever war no one wanted and the excuse they'd been using to claim BOTH PARTIES R THE SAME) and immediately lost their shit because... something something stupid shit libs, YOU'RE the REAL fascists.🙄
God they're obnoxious.
That will always piss me off. That was a goal for 20 fucking years. I remember marching about that in the early oughts. This is one of the reasons wedge grenades are so useful against Democrats though, because we do have an annoyingly squishy coalition, and some folks are REALLY into one issue that they'll just bring up at election time. They never protest about it when the GOP is in power though!
I love when this was touted as the ultimate solution for all our foreign policy woes except this was the *exact* thing President Klan Robe got impeached for.
We get it. You hate America, democrats, or any progress not on your exact terms. Fuck off back north on your unicorn that shits your name
I bet there's one senator he loves
We're on track for at least 2.5C increase in global temperatures, more likely 3C. And the climate cares little about egos.
Ah so it's all on the Dems to fix climate change despite the US being 5% of the population. You are a total clown
The US military is the largest greenhouse gas producer and dwarfs all other militaries on earth. So yeah, despite being 5% of the population, you punch above your weight.
Except China is the largest producer of greenhouse emissions. Along with Russia. One is almost entirely reliant on coal and the other is a petro state
Which only underscores the need to get our own houses in order. Remember, Canada isn't exempt from this either; we're several extraction companies in a trench coat calling itself a country.
Murc's Law is cruise control for cool, even on the left!