doom_and_gloom ,
@doom_and_gloom@lemmy.ml avatar

I remain thoroughly unconvinced.

MystikIncarnate ,

As a middle class kind of person. My boss still wants me to drive my gasoline powered vehicle an hour each way to get to an office so I can work on systems remotely.

.... Or at least, that's what my old boss wanted me to do. I left that job, but there's a lot of people in a situation where they can and should work from home and never even need a vehicle, yet, because of reasons, they have to get dressed and emit greenhouses gasses to satisfy some capitalists need to control and oversee everything you do to earn a living.

Ridiculous and harmful. Not just to the environment, but to workers, financially and mentally. It's completely unnecessary.

If we want to get serious about this stuff, how about we reduce how much we need to rely on vehicles as a first fucking step. We're pushing electric vehicles on everyone, and a large portion of the population doesn't even really need a car, except to satisfy their bosses need to be in control.

KillingAndKindess ,
@KillingAndKindess@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

🥹

saltesc ,
WhyDoYouPersist ,

Last year, more solar panels were installed in China — the world’s largest carbon emitter — than the US has installed in its entire history.

This is fucking awesome news.

nyar ,

There aren't enough rare earth minerals on the earth to create the necessary equipment for solar, wind, etc to meet our current energy needs. The answer isn't just green energy, we need to actively contract the size of the economy and make less shit that we then throw away.

IchNichtenLichten ,
@IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world avatar

There aren’t enough rare earth minerals on the earth to create the necessary equipment for solar, wind, etc to meet our current energy needs.

Do you have a source on that?

nyar ,

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/carmakers-switch-to-electric-vehicles-strain-supply-of-battery-minerals/

https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions/mineral-requirements-for-clean-energy-transitions

https://thebulletin.org/2024/04/one-problem-for-renewables-not-enough-rare-earths-one-solution-recycling-but-theres-a-hitch/

We aren't doing the recycling necessary to reclaim used materials from ewaste that is needed. While we may "have enough" materials to build enough renewable energy to meet our current needs initially, those materials will eventually need to be replaced, and unless we degrowth the energy output we currently need to be met will only grow. Those materials are only going to get harder and harder to extract, requiring higher and higher fuel consumption as those minerals aren't located in urban centers with easy access to the electrical grid, they will require higher and higher fuel consumption for ICEs, internal combustion engines.

This also isn't considering the continued growth in consumer electronics and the integration of electronics in public and private infrastructure that use those same minerals taking those minerals away from the use in renewables. Then there is the damage to the environment and people that mining those minerals requires, nor the damage that recycling ewaste does to the environment and people.

Without a socialist revolution in the core capitalist countries (global north), the continued growth is going to mean that they will consume the majority of rare earth minerals for both products and renewables, while pushing the impacts on environment and people onto global south countries, until they either refuse to do the damage to themselves or collapse under the strain of climate change, or both. In turn, that will mean a global shift to fascism as capital seeks to protect itself at all cost. Which then will lead to climate wars, over resources, and denying those to people outside the global north.

Renewables are part of the solution, but without socialism and degrowth to consumption levels of that of Cuba, the focus of renewables as the only solution is a pipe dream.

Read How To Blow Up A Pipeline, or Socialist States and the Environment.

IchNichtenLichten ,
@IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world avatar

"Sodium ion devices do not need critical materials, relying on abundant sodium instead of lithium, and no cobalt or nickel. As lithium ion prices rose in 2022, amid predictions of material shortages, sodium ion was tipped as a rival and interest remains strong, even as lithium ion prices have started to fall again."

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/03/22/sodium-ion-batteries-a-viable-alternative-to-lithium/

Unmapped ,

We do need to cut down on overproduction, but nuclear energy is the real solution. We need to be building a bunch of state of the ark nuclear fission plants. They are super safe now, and barely put off waste anymore. They just take so long to build and are so expensive. Plus because of miss information hard to find a place people will let you build one.

IchNichtenLichten ,
@IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world avatar

They just take so long to build and are so expensive.

Exactly. So why advocate for them when renewables + storage are so much quicker and cheaper to build. You're not making sense.

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