JT going over the fine details on why Capitalism isn’t going to make climate change better, even green capitalism (like anyone here really needed to know)
Have’t watched this video yet, but here are my thoughts on the subject.
My job is commercial solar sales. I drive around to small-medium businesses, mostly light industry (steel fabricating, wire extrusion, stone cutting, paper products, etc). Single sites with relatively high energy draw. I usually meet directly with the owner of these businesses, because they are pretty small. I make a very straightforward case: for a not insignificant upfront cost, I will put extremely low maintenance hardware on your roof. Between tax and energy savings, the system will pay for itself in 4-6 years. For three decades past that, it will power your building for free. It’s an absolute no-brainer idea.
Almost nobody goes for it. These small business dipshits are psychologically incapable of thinking to even that medium term, and the immediate necessity of quarterly growth means smart, long term investments are simply inconceivable. The solar is cheap. The work is easy. The hardware lasts basically forever. The deal is very good. These businesses are in a constant state of precarity, and that drives their owners into a financial paranoia where they have to extract maximum value now, before the whole thing goes bust. They cut costs, they drive away experienced and effective workers, and they make their situation more precarious, driving the vicious cycle.
It’s nice when I occasionally sell a substantial array. It has a bigger climate impact than all the lifestyle changes I and 100 other people could make, and I take genuine pride in that. Yet it’s a constant uphill battle - despite the braindead economics of it - because capitalists are fucking awful at capitalism.
We are slowly cutting emissions in the US, going through a snails-pace transition to green energy. With a modicum of central planning, the transition could be fast, aggressive, and drive massive economic growth. We are crippled by short termism.
As a homeowner who gets solar panel salesmen every other week, the reason i haven’t sprung for it is because it feels like a scam. I don’t wanna read 50 pages of legal paperwork to figure out the conditions under which i may or may not be liable for damages and other shit that can go wrong.
It’s way easier to just say “no” or hide behind the curtain when you see salespeople because 90% of them are selling snake oil. Either that or trying to get you to sign something that states you owe them $750 six years from now for some reason because you don’t keep a lawyer on retainer to read a contract for a newspaper subscription.
A ton of home solar companies, the kind that do door-to-door, are scammy for sure. The solar system you end up with is generally fine, but the sales process has two main problems. First, they want to get you in on some kind of hyper-aggressive financing or indirect ownership scheme, which means your savings are basically negated and you ownership is tenuous or nonexistent - not something you want for hardware permanently affixed to your roof and electrical system. Second, they are usually sales-only companies that contract out to a third party builder. That means that once you buy from them (at an inflated rate so both companies can profit) they cut and run and you’re left with a totally different company to actually complete the work.
My company does residential as well as commercial, but we don’t really have any outside sales pipeline for that. People call in, we negotiate a price, and then we build the system for them. We don’t do any financing on that front - you figure out how to pay for it, you own it, we do maintenance. That’s relatively unusual.
We are slowly cutting emissions in the US, going through a snails-pace transition to green energy. With a modicum of central planning, the transition could be fast, aggressive, and drive massive economic growth. We are crippled by short termism.
:an-eco-heart: Public works and central planning are a must. :an-eco-heart:
I will put extremely low maintenance hardware on your roof.
This has always been my intense point of skepticism. Nothing in this country is built to last 30 years anymore. You show up with a piece of hardware that’s supposed to last 30 years and I’m going to assume its scrap in 15.
That’s just been my life as an American consumer. My phone can’t last three years. My headphones can’t last three months. I just can’t convince myself that this tech exists.
I certainly try, but with current interest rates and available length of loans, most are understandably iffy about it. Small businesses tend to have shoddy credit, and if they don’t it’s because they don’t take out loans. Big businesses are ready to take out loans, but they’re a small part of my customer base and move extremely slowly. Most successful sales are somebody who has cash in the bank or qualifies for the USDA’s big green energy grant, REAP.
what about condos and such? do apartment buildings in cities make up for better clientele?
The hardware lasts basically forever.
meanwhile: AOC meets with Bolivian fascists to help the coup for her rare earth mineral “solarpunk” utopia
Solarpunk is so annoying. You never see solar breeders , the solar envelope or solar process heat. It’s just mysteriously powered old buildings and over the top greenery with ruthless exploitation thousands of kilometers away.
Our reception by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was radically different from that I received from her predecessor, Joe Crowley. When, in 2004, I requested a meeting on behalf of the Queens Antiwar Coalition, we were granted prompt and respectful access to the Congressman. We did not have high hopes of changing his vote on the Iraq, but we felt it was important that he hear from his constituents.
So, apparently, did he. We were greeted warmly in his rather funky local office – a striking contrast with AOC’s soulless corporate-style digs, where underlings refer to her as “the Boss” – and were encouraged to speak our piece. Crowley never pretended to be an opponent of US imperialism, but he gave us a respectful hearing, stated his position, and engaged in what felt like meaningful discussion of the war. At a minimum, as Twitter’s bluecheck pundits would say, we felt “seen.”
AOC, by contrast, has no time for people who cannot help her to burnish her brand as she prepares to run for higher office. As a local staffer (who declined to introduce himself) proudly informed us: “She refuses 99 percent of meeting requests from constituents.”
I get the frustration and annoyance over a candidate refusing to personally meet with constituents. I’ve been to a few Dan Crenshaw events where I raised a question and got heckled by a bunch of out of town fanbois, and that man’s consistent services were non-fucking-existent.
The Celebrity Congressperson really puts a stake through the idea of democratic representation.
At the same time… I have no idea how you influence any of these assholes to do anything anymore. If Crowley were still in office, does anyone think he’d be shy about glad handing some mooks from Bolivia over their coup? Does anyone think the coup would have failed sooner based on the actions of a coalition of Queens anti-war activists’ attentive congressman?
The love letter to Crowley for just kinda shaking their hands is what’s really off-putting about this article. You don’t change anything. You just got to “feel seen”. If AOC had shaken your hand, what then? Would you be writing a love letter to her as well?
But I’m actually curious. I wouldn’t put it past her, I just didn’t see it
Overall a very good video, probably the best I’ve seen on the subject, but the problems he figuratively puts in a box and addresses later are still problems outside of capitalism. There’s a reason that the peak renewable supply of electricity in China was over 50% of total electricity generated, but it only averaged 29% over the course of a year. Coal can work 24/7, and even in a zero exploitation environment, most renewables can’t. Except nuclear, but that’s another story.
Except nuclear, but that’s another story.
I think it says something that China also happens to be trailblazing nuclear energy in a way Americans aren’t.
Per CIApedia, by way of Forbes, by way of the Baker Institute
As of February 2023, China has 55 plants with 57GW in operation, 22 under construction with 24 GW and more than 70 planned with 88GW.
“You’re dumb” - JT 2023
He calls utopian sci-fi nerds stupid for thinking their graphs about solar will matter to capitalists who want at least an 8% return for them to profit
I am always pro Eco-friendly power generation and genuine “green” ideologies and stuff. However I don’t care if it’s the greenest Matrix terminal shade of green if that green is coated on the machine of capital.
