[snarf21]

This is indeed part of the problem. Life today is just too complicated. Take a simple topic like wind turbines: there is so so much to truly understand about materials, net lifetime carbon offset, environmental issues, recycling, capacity, placement, etc. that is is all but impossible to become a true subject matter expert on this one issue alone. Even gaining a cursory understanding of the issues at hand requires many many hours of reading and research from all positions. And this just makes you knowledgeable on this one small subject.

So what we do in practice is this: Pick the issue I care most about, then assume that any group that agrees with me on that position is a safe source to trust for ALL issues. This is our human need to belong (and tribalism). The problem is that the groups pushing these positions leverage this other'ing to create divisiveness for the sole purpose of making more and more money.

[hakunin]

Yeah. We love the comfort of "getting it", but most of the easy problems have been solved, and we're only left with the hard ones.

People are pleasure-seekers, not truth-seekers. People demand what they can understand and feel good about, even if wrong. There's plenty of supply too. Radical free speech allows anyone to spread lies for huge financial upside, and we don't have any check on this particular type of weapon which is mass-destroying society.

[paulryanrogers]

Is life too complex or do we fail to teach and learn enough about it to have an educated perspective?

I don't have to be a wind turbine expert to know that they're overall better than coal plants. Because at a minimum their source is not finite and their output hasn't been linked to increases in cancer and breathing problems.

[jodrellblank]

but you don't need to be a subject matter expert on wind turbine material strength and recycling options to accept that President Trump's claims that they kill whales is nonsense: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66928305

"I want to be a whale psychiatrist" - President of the United States of America Donald Trump, interviewed on The Joe Rogan Experience, October 2024.

And you don't need to be an expert on wind turbine placement to have an opinion on whether putting one in view of Donald Trump's golf course, and then having President Trump scupper them for revenge, is a sensible way to govern the world's most powerful country's energy economy: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo

From that article: "Before making the transatlantic crossing for his Scottish summer jaunt, the US president urged the UK to "get rid of the windmills and bring back the oil".". The Conservative government under David Cameron made a change to planning policy in 2015 where a single objection could block a whole wind farm - and those planning changes only applied to wind turbines and no other structures - a situation described as a "de facto ban" of on-shore wind farms in England (not Scotland), which lead to a 96% drop in on-shore wind development compared to previous years 2011 to 2015. It continued until Rishi Sunak eased it in 2023 and Labour removed it in 2024.

You don't need to be an expert on wind farm placement or capacity to have a valid opinion on that.

[jadbox]

Since it seems like you may have research this, how do you feel about wind turbines?

[snarf21]

Honestly, I have barely looked into it. The main thing I know is that there is currently about ~7 year payoff in terms of carbon. My general sense is that we should be investing in solar and batteries and not doing wind except in specific isolated situations but I don't have the knowledge to back that up right now.

I'd also argue that people above are making my point for me. It isn't enough to say that wind is better than coal. Lots of things are better than coal. That still doesn't mean that it is the right choice or best use of our time and resources to help combat climate change. The switch to EV is going to be long and slow but attacking electricity generation carbon is something we can do more directly more quickly (assuming the political will). The calculus on the quickest and biggest bang for our buck is insanely complicated.