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It's really funny how people suddenly start caring about desert ecosystems. Just like they suddenly started caring about child slaves in the Congo mining cobalt for EV batteries. Those people never cared when the cobalt was mainly used as a catalyst for refining gasoline. Funny how that works, eh? But anyway. It's simply not true that building solar farms will somehow create a barren wasteland. The opposite is true. Solar farms can often help improve biodiversity on the land they're installed on.
It is possible and necessary to care about both.
The original comment is entirely valid. Deserts are not empty and those ecosystems have a complex relationship with other parts of the web of life.
The most important thing we can realize is the earth is a series of complex interconnected systems. We evolved under conditions where we were small compared the systems regeneration abilities. This is no longer true and we do have to consider how any project will affect and shift the earth's systems.
Its worth noting that CO2 emissions are not the only vector by which we are pushing the earth systems to collapse and they are interlinked. We can't push ahead on solutions that only tackle one aspect of the problem or we likely will be as unstuck as we are now.
The answer to some people using real issues to push for climate delay is not to pretend those issues don't exist (that will make the backlash worse!) but to get on top of them and study the whole positive and negative aspects and make an informed decision about the best options to tackle all the systemic challenges we face.
You have to choose: kill a few snakes and scorpions in a desert, destroy the entire planet with co2 production, or go back to live in a tent and use the horse you have parked in your garage. It's up to you.
Just worth saying that the tone is uncessarily. We rely directly and indirect on ecosystems (even ones far away from where we live) and we must get on top of our impact on them to survive.
We aren't in a position globally of just killing a few snakes but out threatening the viability of the whole web of life and risking ecosystem collapse certain areas.
We absolutely have to be questioning which projects help alleviate those issues as a whole as they are interlinked!
Also I think its worth challenging your strawman of go back to live in a tent. It is based on a misunderstanding of human prehistory and its relationship to the environment. Additionally, there is a huge spectrum in energy demands for different technologies and lifestyles and how much we can sustain is a key question for environmentalism.
I sjmply don't understand (and actually can't stand anymore) climate integralism when it comes to go against any form of energy production, from wind to solar to ocean waves thinking they protect wildlife. It just doesn't make sense anymore today when you see temperature rising every single year. If you go against renewables it's like saying 'lets continue like this, just reduce a bit your consumptions and we'll be ok". But that does not take into account the fact that almost all billions humans on earth are going to improve their lifestyle (assuming you ignore some old style white suprematists who think of flying cars)
Not suggesting we go against renewables at all and don't think anyone on here would be. We do need to be able to have the conversation about the negative externalities of them though so we can attempt to mitigate the effects and operationally decide on the details (how, where etc).
On lifestyles: there's huge variation in what people consider an improved lifestyle (espcially internationally). The implications for energy and emissions of those differences are also huge. There are certainly behaviours that we almost certainly can't sustain (never mind flying cars any level of flying where the majority of people fly like the top 10%).
There are inevitably and unfortunately going to be trade offs and we need to be open and honest about that if we are to get people on board. And because of the power base of the FF industry we will need sizable minorities of majorities of activite support for the transition from across all society.
I absolutely understand the frustration as we look and feel the impacts of the the failures of historic climate change policy but we still have to get it right.
I agree and we can't stall because of uncertainty we have to move forward on the basis of the best knowns now.
What I would say though we do have a lot of the analytic and scientific tools in place to assess these kinds of impacts and sadly we are quite far away from t being applied consistently. Even adaptation gets barely any funding and political focus and it gets less and less as you move to other related issues like biodiversity loss or the other planetary boundaries we are crossing. Part of the reason for that is that Climate Change is still being largely treated as a technical/technological challenge (switch this technology and the problem goes away) rather than the challenge to the whole economic and culture systems of the world that it is.
Need a systems view to be embedded or we run the real risk of pushing the problems around rather than solving.
What do you mean with FF industry?
Only that they (and a few of the big demand industries like car manufacturers) have captured a number of the political and economic engines of society in order to promote FF usage and ensure that it continues. That includes some really dirty tactics.
Given the unequal nature of global decisional making means (in my view) only a broad large sizable majority (or maybe a large enough minority) of ordinary people being mobilised across different sectors, countries and strategies can really take on that level of entrenched power.
One of the reasons it is so important to get on top of cultural, behavioural and lifestyle change is that the FF companies are so good at marketing and manfuacting demand for the product. Avoid FF use in Electricity or in one country they'll move to a different use case or different market. The only way to tackle that in my view is relentless focus on supply as well as alternatives (I.e. you had yo start turning the taps off whilst turning on green supply) as well as working on a wholesale shift in the mindset of human culture away from extractive colonial one to someting more contemplative about our role within earth's systems. So the average person (and organsiation) will need to, on some level , consider the impacts of thoer actions far beyond the first order impacts.
this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2024
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