this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2025
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Part of the problem with a for-profit energy grid. Base load is always someone else's problem. The spread between production cost and retail sale is all I really care about.
We're going to have these enormous commitments to new energy infrastructure and then someone on Wall Street sneezes, equity prices crash, and now you've got mountains of surplus hardware to clean up.
Zuckerberg wants a data center as big as Manhattan Island just a few years after he sank billions in his failed Metaverse experiment.
But hey! Remember to separate your recyclables! We need to do something to help the planet.
This mentality is incredibly irritating. There is no silver bullet of any sort that is going to solve our many environmental issues. The actual solution is going to be an accumulation of thousands of small "meaningless" actions. So quit with the nihilistic bullishit.
The "actual solution" is several large economy-wide industry-scale structural changes to manufacturing and transportation. That's what we've seen in every country that successfully reduced their carbon emissions.
The very fact that you came in with "thousands" rather than "tens of millions" illustrates that you simply do not want to accept the scale at hand. The average global citizen produces 4 tonnes of carbon/year. The average American produces 16. The Bezos wedding put (conservatively estimated) 1,000 tonnes into the atmosphere, over the span of a long weekend.
You're asking people to piss out the World Trade Center fire and getting angry when anyone suggests that maybe we need a large professional fire department to handle this kind of job.
You’re leaving out a crucial component. The societal shift to a plant-based diet.
I don’t care how “small” my climate actions are, I’m going to keep doing them as it’s my personal responsibility and to show others there is a better way of doing things. We need to stop expecting silverbullets to every problem we face in life as that stunts our growth.
A lot of people say “don’t do anything better because the rich ride private jets!” however that makes their behaviour more permissible since if we can’t be clean ourselves how the hell are we going to convince enough people to hold them accountable at some point for their climate recklessness. We need to ingrain the values of sustainability in people.
That's a consequence of economy-wide, industrial-scale change. Greater cultivation and distribution of fresh greens, gords, beans, etc. Fewer subsidies and natural resources diverted to feedstock and livestock. When a major component of our greenhouse gas emissions comes from alfalfa exported to feed Saudi livestock on the other side of the planet, you need hundreds of Californians to turn vegan in order to net the benefit of one Saudi aristocrat.
I'm not saying "Don't do anything". I'm saying "Don't be the sin-eater for other people's crimes".
If you want to shift the planet away from meat, you can't just settle on opening up a can of beans. You need to petition to stop dumping half your state's water reserve into growing macadamia nuts for Mark Zuckerberg's Texas cattle ranching hobby.
Which can inspired by one person whether they be a friend or family member. People need to be provided with good examples around them to do better. Incremental change is what leads to societal change.
This isn't a Disney movie
It’s isn’t all doom either.