You really need to consider the social aspect of what you’re proposing. A planned transition from fossil fuels is one thing, but an energy crisis is quite another. This will lead to a massive drop in standard of living, people losing jobs, and so on. All of this will lead to social unrest and drive people towards extremism. The right is already on the rise in Europe, and as people become increasingly more desperate we’ll likely see the rise of fascism again.
Well, of course, I would like to find an balanced approach that causes the least suffering. So, investing heavily into renewables and for example taxing CO2 output to give money back to the people, would IMHO be smart strategies no matter what path we take.
But yeah, my problem is that your comment could easily be rewritten to talk about the climate crisis.
Here in Germany, we’ve lost entire cities to floods, while at the same time the ground is drier than it’s been in centuries, leading to important transport rivers drying up, farmers losing crops and whole forests burning down.
Summers are now so hot that if you can’t afford an AC, you’re risking your health.
Hell, many refugees, that fascists love to get riled up against, had to flee their home countries due to catastrophes caused by the climate crisis or conflicts/fascism caused by those.
And finally, the climate crisis can have a direct effect on the energy crisis, too. This summer, France had to lower the capacity of their few remaining nuclear power plants, because the rivers they use for cooling were largely dried up and already coming in at an increased temperature.
So, I’m afraid the balanced approach is going to hurt, no matter what we do.
The climate crisis is very real and it will cause increasing amount of suffering and disasters going forward. The problem is that there is no real solution to this crisis under capitalism.
The actual solution has to be to reorganize the economy away from consumption, and where people aren’t forced to work for the sake of work. Europe needs to drastically reduce energy consumption, but also ensure that people who are going to end up losing their jobs still have a way to live.
Meanwhile, a lot of large scale investment needs to happen into building out alternative energy production, and nuclear has to play a major role there, because it’s by far the most effective way to produce energy reliably outside of fossils.
Unfortunately, none of these things can happen under regimes that hold power in Europe currently. What I’ve described above is a much more likely scenario, and it will likely lead to the scenario you describe in turn.
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You really need to consider the social aspect of what you’re proposing. A planned transition from fossil fuels is one thing, but an energy crisis is quite another. This will lead to a massive drop in standard of living, people losing jobs, and so on. All of this will lead to social unrest and drive people towards extremism. The right is already on the rise in Europe, and as people become increasingly more desperate we’ll likely see the rise of fascism again.
Well, of course, I would like to find an balanced approach that causes the least suffering. So, investing heavily into renewables and for example taxing CO2 output to give money back to the people, would IMHO be smart strategies no matter what path we take.
But yeah, my problem is that your comment could easily be rewritten to talk about the climate crisis.
Here in Germany, we’ve lost entire cities to floods, while at the same time the ground is drier than it’s been in centuries, leading to important transport rivers drying up, farmers losing crops and whole forests burning down.
Summers are now so hot that if you can’t afford an AC, you’re risking your health.
Hell, many refugees, that fascists love to get riled up against, had to flee their home countries due to catastrophes caused by the climate crisis or conflicts/fascism caused by those.
And finally, the climate crisis can have a direct effect on the energy crisis, too. This summer, France had to lower the capacity of their few remaining nuclear power plants, because the rivers they use for cooling were largely dried up and already coming in at an increased temperature.
So, I’m afraid the balanced approach is going to hurt, no matter what we do.
The climate crisis is very real and it will cause increasing amount of suffering and disasters going forward. The problem is that there is no real solution to this crisis under capitalism.
The actual solution has to be to reorganize the economy away from consumption, and where people aren’t forced to work for the sake of work. Europe needs to drastically reduce energy consumption, but also ensure that people who are going to end up losing their jobs still have a way to live.
Meanwhile, a lot of large scale investment needs to happen into building out alternative energy production, and nuclear has to play a major role there, because it’s by far the most effective way to produce energy reliably outside of fossils.
Unfortunately, none of these things can happen under regimes that hold power in Europe currently. What I’ve described above is a much more likely scenario, and it will likely lead to the scenario you describe in turn.