Watermelons
And other updates in energy and environment for Q2 2024
Today, updates on degrowther environmentalists, SO2 stratospheric injection, salt injection, solar, nuclear, electrification, iron fertilization, and more.
Watermelons:
Big, strong, and unabashedly green on the outside
Very red on the inside, with little substance
Seeds of black in their heart
Exhibit A: Golden Rice
Vitamin A deficiency kills over 100,000 children every year and leaves over 100,000 more blind. Golden Rice has additional vitamin A and eliminates that problem, saving countless lives and improving many more.
GREENPEACE: Anything genetically modified is bad, therefore it's impossible to prove golden rice is fully safe, therefore it should be banned.
100 NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS: There’s plenty of safety evidence from countries like the US, Canada, and New Zealand. It’s just like rice, except with more Vitamin A. It would be a crime against humanity to stop it.
I’m a watermelon. Who do I side with? Greenpeace, of course! Because genetically-modified organisms are always bad—even in the face of saving millions of children. In fact, now that I think about it, having a few million fewer people might have its silver lining…
In fact, I’d be happy if we had another pandemic. Hopefully, this one would kill a ton of people. THAT would really solve the “environment problem” (ie, humans).
Exhibit B: More Pandemics Please
Exhibit C: More Fossil Fuels Please
Would I want a new Tesla Gigafactory that can replace all these polluting internal combustion cars with clean electric ones? No!
Watermelons storming Tesla's new Gigafactory near Berlin on May 10th:
Why? Because Elon Musk is a rich capitalist, and that’s what matters!
"The fight against this car factory is a fight against every car factory. So that the earth remains our home in the long term, we should be brave enough to creatively redesign this factory. Whether we build buses, ambulances or cargo bikes here is a decision we must make together."—Watermelon group "Disrupt".
Exhibit D: More Land for Solar, Wind, and Protected Wildlife Is Bad
Would I want a deal to connect 160 solar and wind energy projects to the grid, to decarbonize the economy, and in the process double the area dedicated to wildlife?
No, because what if some wildlife is impacted?
"We have a lot of unique features, species, and habitats here.”— Jennifer Filipiak, executive director of the Driftless Area Land Conservancy.
Although when you look into the details…
“After the transmission towers are constructed, there is minimal impact at that point.”—David Drake, wildlife specialist at the University of Wisconsin.
Doesn’t matter. Humans can’t change anything in nature for progress, be it for human flourishing or even nature flourishing. We should just not touch anything and let nature take over, whatever that means.
Capitalism means rapid mass extinction via biodiversity annihilation. Corporations have locked in the destruction of the planet as we knew it.—Ben See
Exhibit E: Let Sequoias Go Extinct
Would I want to replant a burned sequoia grove, so that the endangered trees that take centuries to grow back have a better chance?
No, because:
“Wilderness is for natural processes and natural succession. It’s not supposed to be a managed landscape for tree plantations.”—Chad Hanson, research ecologist and director of the John Muir Project.
Humans should just not touch anything.
Exhibit F: Again, Don’t Produce Electric Vehicles, Dammit!
One of our favorite ways to win in the US is simply to bury our enemies under tons of paperwork, thanks to Environmental Protection Agency bureaucracy. But since we have black seeds at our heart, and the green is only skin deep, we love attacking green projects.
In fact, we prefer to attack green projects.
Exhibit G: Let’s Attack Renewables More
Unfortunately, the government is waking up to our shenanigans and is limiting our ability to impact transmission and solar projects. Ugh.
Exhibit H: The Desert Tortoise Needs More Desert
Exhibit I: Thanos Is Popular on Earth
This is from Paul Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb, which was published decades ago and formed generations of environmentalists:
According to him, the problem is just that there are too many people. He might have added: “of the dirty kind, of course. Not the well civilized people.”
I’ve been studying the history of Degrowth and it’s mired with racism like this, and avoids the much more obvious issue: Ehrlich wasn’t disgusted because there were too many Indians. He was disgusted because they were too poor. The answer is more wealth and technology, not fewer people.
Exhibit J: German Greens
I have already bashed them a lot here, claiming among other things that the closure of nuclear reactors was a stupid mistake that was costly, bad for the environment, and good for Putin. A new paper quantifies that: Keeping and expanding nuclear power would have:
Cut Germany’s CO2 emissions by 73% compared to today
For half the cost (or about €350B less!)
The Anti-Watermelon Reaction
This is just a small sample. If you have more examples, please share them! In the meantime, it looks like Europeans in general, and Germans in particular, are fed up with this.
Unfortunately, it’s unclear that the Watermelons will get the right takeaway:
This is typical, by the way: Movements radicalize as they are proven wrong, because the more reasonable people leave, leaving only the more radical, less rational, people.
As you know, I think technology will solve climate change in particular and environmental issues in general, so environmentalists who block technological development are doubly evil, since they destroy both the economy and the environment, while posing as saviors.
So how is technology going to solve climate change?
Technology for Energy and Climate Change Update
Make Sunsets
According to their newsletter, you are smart and visionary:
NPR and ABC aired in-depth pieces focused on Make Sunsets this month; we have made it into the general public discourse.
Tomas' posts led to over 10x more purchases than NPR and ABC combined. Counterintuitive to us at first, but makes sense on closer examination: we're early. New things get popular niche, then sell niche, then get mainstream notice if they're Really Lucky and Somewhat Talented. That is where we are at; with particularly smart and visionary customers, of course;)
Here’s the impact you’re having:
In a few years, when sulfate injection becomes widespread and we stop global warming to buy ourselves some time, you will legitimately be able to say: I was ahead of the curve on this one, and thanks to people like me, we were able to push this into human consciousness.
Good job!
Have we learned anything about SO2 in the meantime? Yes.
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