Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by credit_guy 1011 days ago
It looks like for Al Gore climate change is an opportunity to wage class war. And definitely an opportunity to score political points.

Yes, oil drilling companies made a lot of money from extracting and selling fossil fuels. Yes, those fossil fuels, once burned, created the mess we are in now. But we were the guys who burned them, we are equally culpable.

Instead of appealing to moral outrage, a much simple and equitable solution would be to pass a carbon tax.
2 comments
GoToRO 1010 days ago
Same companies made an ad with a wind turbine on top of Eiffel Tower to mock wind energy. Same companies had direct access to real studies and knew the truth. Meanwhile people were lied constantly. So no, we are not equally culpable.
link
pstuart 1010 days ago
> It looks like for Al Gore climate change is an opportunity to wage class war.

I believe the class war maneuvers are coming from the other side, in making climate change a "liberal issue"; therefore it is something to be dismissed and derided.

And your answer is carbon tax? That's it? It may help a bit but doesn't address the core issue which is we need to stop using fossil fuels, which means actively investing in alternative energy production and management.

link
credit_guy 1009 days ago
But we are actively investing in green energy production. This year (2023) 85% of the new generation capacity is the US is solar, wind, batteries and nuclear, the remaining 15% coming from natural gas [1]. Virtually all the retired capacity was coal (60%) and natural gas (30%). In the US we are moving away from fossil fuels, and we'll get to net zero well ahead of the 2050 target date.

What's Al Gore's problem then? It's easiest to score political points by stoking hate. "How can these guys murder the planet?", basically. Well, these guys are just engaging in a legal and profitable activity. If you don't want them to do that activity, make it illegal or unprofitable (by taxing it). Instead of that, he's trying to shame them out of doing it. Good luck with that.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=57340

link