[cwperkins]

Thinking all conservatives are against green energy is a smear against conservatives. The debate is much more nuanced and to trivialize a complex issue conservatives generally think that the solution to the problem is through innovation and business investment rather than taxes and government action. As with most issues, I believe the solution is somewhere in the middle and after reading the news the other day where Florida is building the worlds biggest battery, it’s really great to see red states leading!

[ams6110]

Agree. I lean conservative and generally feel that the market will find the best solutions. If solar is economically superior to coal then it will replace coal. We don't need government policies and tax incentives to make that happen.

[tzs]

How is the market going to account for externalities, such as climate change in the case of coal, without nudging from government policies or tax incentives (or anti-incentives)?

[mbostleman]

Because consumers want it. Consumers used to pay 50 cents for a cup of coffee. Now they pay $5. That didn't happen because of government nudging. It happened because a different demand was created.

[tzs]

A fancy $5 coffee drink looks, tastes, and smells different from a 50 cent cup of coffee.

A kilowatt hour of electricity that came from the dirtiest coal plant in the universe and a kilowatt hour of electricity that came from whatever the cleanest source is are completely indistinguishable when they come out of my sockets and go into my appliances.

[mbostleman]

True. But people are very aware of green branding in any form that it presents itself. Idaho's population growth was 2.1% in 2018, tying with Nevada for the highest in the country. I assume this is largely driven by similar population growth in Boise in the same period which was the highest in the top 100 cities in the US by population. I don't have data on this, but given what Moody's says is the demographic driving this (tech workers from the Bay Area and Seattle), I would think that all else being equal, this green image is a huge draw for the state.

[cannonedhamster]

And yet no conservatives seem to be clamoring to rescind oil subsidies or coal subsidies, but the raucous roar comes up at the Republican rallies when something is said about rescinding renewables and bringing back coal. It's literally the platform the President ran on. I don't think it's political to be able to say that the platform a party runs on is something that they support. Am I misunderstanding something here?

[cwperkins]

Well this gets into the domain of realpolitiks. As I understand it the platform was not to reinvigorate coal but rather remove targeted regulation that accelerated the collapse of those communities especially in West Virginia and buy them time to transition. I want to lead the world as much as everyone else, but people argue that a heavy green investment would be a self inflicted wound especially when places like China are the biggest polluters and are still outputting more CO2 and see the results of a gas tax in France that disproportionately affects rural communities. I want sustainable energy as much as everyone else on here does, but we need to transition responsibly as our debt is massive.

[prolepunk]

I'm sorry I'm jumping into a political argument, I'll try my best to stay on point.

From what I read about West Virginia, those communities were collapsing anyway, and what Obama administration did, is to try and support government programs for the former coal miners to learn new trades and get some financial support.

https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?stor...

Not that it is possible to retain any of the coal jobs because they've been automated and the remaining ones are being rapidly automated.

At this point there are more jobs in solar than there are in coal industry.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/2/7/14533618...

Based on this information, in my opinion this is not even realpolitik, its lying -- as in, knowing facts and then misrepresenting and misleading people; because of any number of reasons -- be that coal lobby, or what 'feels right' for the average voter rather then what happens in reality, and I don't know how to deal with that myself because this realization makes me feel anger.

[jhpriestley]

The debate is hardly nuanced, the conservative party (the GOP, supported by almost all self-described conservatives) has been notoriously anti-environment, both tonally and in terms of actual policy.

Tonally: the conservative US President (supported, again, by almost all self-described conservatives) has said that "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive." He has called for an end to the "war" on "beautiful, clean coal".

This kind of anti-environment, pro-fossil fuel bombast isn't restricted to the clownish Trump. "Drill, baby, drill" is from the 2008 election cycle. Republicans have projected an attitude for decades in which dirty, polluting, environmentally destructive activities are seen as manly, powerful, patriotic, American; whereas environmental concerns are played down as trivial, wasteful, overblown, anti-American, effeminate.

Policy-wise, the GOP has supported drilling in ANWR, supported the Keystone XL pipeline, supported coal subsidies, opposed carbon caps, on and on and on. There's no nuance. The GOP has been on the wrong side of every environmental issue for years and years. We are one of the only countries in the world not part of the Paris climate accord.

Here is a long quotation from the RNC's 2016 platform. It barely even pays lip service to environmental concerns, instead harping constantly on the importance of extractive industries, the virtues of coal, etc. US conservatism is not nuanced about environmentalism, it's for the extractive industries and against the environmental concerns that sometimes get in their way.

""" The Democratic Party does not understand that coal is an abundant, clean, affordable, reliable domestic energy resource. Those who mine it and their families should be protected from the Democratic Party’s radical anti-coal agenda.The Democratic Party’s campaign to smother the U.S. energy industry takes many forms, but the permitting process may be its most damaging weapon. It takes an average of 30 days for states to permit an oil or gas well. It takes the federal government longer than seven months. Three decades ago, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) leased 12.2 million acres. In 2014, it leased only one-tenth of that number. Our nuclear industry, cleanly generating almost 20 percent of our electricity from its 99 plants, has a remarkable safety record, but only a handful of plants have been permitted in over three decades. Permitting for a safe, non-polluting hydroelectric facility, even one that is being relicensed, can take many years because of the current President’s hostility to dams. The Keystone Pipeline has become a symbol of everything wrong with the current Administration’s ideological approach. After years of delay, the President killed it to satisfy environmental extremists. We intend to finish that pipeline and others as part of our commitment to North American energy security. Government should not play favorites among energy producers. The taxpayers will not soon forget the current Administration’s subsidies to companies that went bankrupt without producing a kilowatt of energy. The same Administration now requires the Department of Defense, operating with slashed budgets during a time of expanding conflict, to use its scarce resources to generate 25 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2025. Climate change is far from this nation’s most pressing national security issue. This is the triumph of extremism over common sense, and Congress must stop it. We support the development of all forms of energy that are marketable in a free economy without subsidies, including coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and hydropower. A federal judge has struck down the BLM’s rule on hydraulic fracturing and we support upholding this decision. """

Pretty tired of "conservatives" who are either not aware of or not willing to stand behind the policies of actually existing conservatism, or intentionally gaslighting.