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DrSOGU t1_iy2tmb9 wrote

Northern Europe, 2042:

"Mummy, why cant we afford food although you and Daddy work every night and day ? And why are there so many people everywhere? And why are they fighting with guns?"

"Because 20 years ago, people felt too uncomfortable to pay a miniscule fraction of their tax money on the transition to renewable power generation."

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MonsieurKilogram t1_iy3nnhg wrote

Sahara solar farm would be POG rn

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DrSOGU t1_iy3qpne wrote

Renewable energy generation is in total cost per kWh in Germany and many places already cheaper then burning oil, gas and coal, even before the war. The most expensive is nuclear power, which requires a huge amount of government subsidies per kWh. In turn, heating and mobility can be (to a great extent) electrified.

We don't have a technological problem. There is no rocket science to be solved before we can proceed. We already have working solutions that are more efficient and cleaner.

We have a purely political problem. We don't scale up at the speed necessary to mitigate climate change. We would have to incentivize and subsidize investments just as we did for coal, oil, gas and nuclear. Cut regulations. Build more electrified high-speed railroads. Incentivize efficient heatpumps and energy efficient buildings.

The system build on individual profit maximization, car and oil corporations buying politics to keep the status quo and so on is too inert. At the same time, people despise the taxation necessary to at least incentivize and build up from the government side.

It's all short-sighted greed and special interest and individualism. But it's not a technological problem.

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