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by flashback2199 996 days ago
I wonder how they make money. This sounds like grifters living off of government grants. I wonder how widespread the problem is of grifters taking government grants for fake green projects. Perhaps the country made the right move by not doing a green new deal after all. It looks like paying grifters to do science doesn't work very well.
3 comments

So what if a few projects take money and go nowhere. GND was an infrastructure bill for the most part. The country's infrastructure is crumbling so might as well invest in new green infrastructure while employing the people who have been abandoned when all the factories closed down. (The situation in 2018/2019 when this bill was proposed was different than post-pandemic decoupling from China).

The legacy of GND is that it helped influence the Inflation Reduction Act so we sort of got to an extremely watered down version of what the original vision was.

If you call out the problem generally you get denounced as part of the problem. Consider the reaction to "Planet of the Humans". There was a PR full court press from all the environmental groups to try to prevent people from watching it by attacking the messenger and focusing on trivial things while avoiding the discussion about the message.

It's just one example. I'm kind of bitter about the lack of attention to the effectiveness of the green tech movement and actually focusing on reduction of resource use.

I doubt cleaning up everyone's mess will ever be profitable.

And no doubt having the government pay private industry invites grifters.

I think a proper solution will necessarily involve going further left, i.e. government-employed workers. People who can't pocket the difference by cutting corners.