[mbgerring]

It’s also from focused efforts to close coal plants, and rapid, massive deployment of solar in the last 20 years, and new technology emerging (better batteries and dispatch technologies) to make solar into a 24/7 resource.

For whatever reason, there’s a strong motivation for people to dismiss the gigantic global effort to transition the energy system away from fossil fuels, and claim that all that effort isn’t really doing anything. Thankfully, this is not true — determined people can change things for the better.

[KennyBlanken]

> It’s also from focused efforts to close coal plants,

For many years coal has been more expensive than solar and wind. That's why utilities are decommissioning the plants.

[mbgerring]

It’s true, and the strategy of climate activists in the early 2000s and 2010s was to do everything they could to make coal and other fossil fuels as expensive as possible: by reducing access to capital, increasing the cost of legal and regulatory hurdles, sometime delaying projects through physical blockades, etc etc.

[amanaplanacanal]

It would be nice if we could get industries to pay for the pollution they cause, but I'll take what I can get.

[ZeroGravitas]

Some utilities didn't have direct market pressures to close coal because they were regulated and the regulator allowed them to recover costs plus a profit on top.

[ToucanLoucan]

> For whatever reason, there’s a strong motivation for people to dismiss the gigantic global effort to transition the energy system away from fossil fuels, and claim that all that effort isn’t really doing anything.

Because renewable energy is Communism, or something.

But seriously: $$$$. The Fossil Fuel industry, before it finally dies, will make big Tobacco look downright merciful. The owners of these companies and their media co-conspirators should be tried in the Hague for what they have done to our planet just to keep making fucking money.

[jwr]

> The Fossil Fuel industry, before it finally dies, will make big Tobacco look downright merciful.

This should not be surprising when one realizes that this industry is the biggest industry that humanity ever created (in terms of monetary value). Nothing ever is or was bigger than energy from fossil fuels. Predictably, those who profit from this, behave like selfish [...] and fight tooth and nail to keep their profits.

[pfdietz]

Energy is 10% of global GDP, about $10 T a year.

I remember this when anyone complains large scale use of solar and wind would be expensive. So is large scale use of any energy source.

[ZeroGravitas]

Putting the planet aside for a moment, the unnecessary death and illness they've inflicted on the human race will be staggering.

[SoftTalker]

I would disagree, I think that plentiful affordable energy has been a huge benefit to the human race. Transportation, refrigeration, manufacturing, simply having electricity in the home, most everything we take for granted in terms of our current standard of living traces back to abundant and cheap energy.

But there is no reason to hang on to the old, dirty technology if there are now better alternatives. And if the economics work, the market will follow, as it seems to be doing. You can't fake lower costs.

Nuclear should have replaced coal decades ago but the economics didn't actually work, even though the environmental benefit would have been real.

[ToucanLoucan]

Oh for fucking sure. I consider humans as much a part of the planet as anything else, but also very valid to call it out specifically.

Mass death of species too numerous to name, the biosphere itself, property damage from rising ocean levels, the soon to fail air currents, all the damage and death from extreme weather events, all of it. All of it could've been fucking prevented and it wasn't, because profits.

I wish I believed in hell for people like this.