Why the fuck isn’t it number one yet? We’ve known about climate change for decades now. What’s the holdup? Why is he still opening up more land and sea reserves for drilling? He and the rest of the ghouls in DC still serve oil execs and are never going to make any meaningful actions towards climate change.
Because building out additional renewable capacity is becoming increasingly harder. If you look at the countries that presently generate all or most of their electricity from renewables, they generally have some mix of these characteristics:
- Extremely low per capita electricity use, e.g. Global South
- Mostly renewables are hydro and geothermal
- The countries are small enough to just trade with neighbors when needed
The US has largely developed its hydro and geothermal sources, so the options going forward are wind and solar. This is presently a growing mix. Unfortunately, because those are unpredictable, storage is needed. Grid level batteries are not a mature technology, but there is plenty of investment going into the technology. It’ll take some time to build out more wind and solar, and unfortunately Republicans are there the whole way to undermine any meaningful climate action.
Also of note in the US has been the shift from coal, with its higher emissions, to the still bad natural gas. Also less mercury and radioactive material.
China added more solar panels in 2023 than US did in its entire history. If China can expand their renewable infrastructure to such an extent I’m having a hard time believing the US can’t do the same thing.
It’ll take some time to build out more wind and solar, and unfortunately Republicans are there the whole way to undermine any meaningful climate action.
The U.S. is producing more oil than anytime in history right now under Biden. Republicans aren’t the only ones undermining meaningful climate action, this is a fully bipartisan effort.
Both parties serve the same capital interests. Let’s be clear, if they wanted to they absolutely could drastically reduce the amount of oil being drilled and pump billions of dollars into renewable energy research so that the US is no longer reliant on carbon-emitting energies; they just don’t want to.
China may have added a lot of solar panels, but solar and wind only form a tiny portion of the energy mix. The vast majority is coal. Yes, the US should be doing more to push renewables, but China isn’t in a much better position presently.
The US is bragging about how much oil it’s drilling, while China is installing more solar than anyone else, ever. Cope harder.
