Anthony Watts proclaims his Greend Credentials
Anthony Watts has put up a post about his solar installations. Just in case any of his readers thought he was becoming altruistic, he assures them that his reasons for adopting clean energy are the same as his reasons for opposing clean energy:
$$MONEY$$.
The price of electricity in California rivals the prices charged in Australia and, where there is a reasonable feed-in tariff, installing grid-connected solar PV is a no-brainer.
Anthony reassures his readers that he still holds the same values as the rest of the 8% Dismissives (the Almighty Dollar is the sole reason for doing anything) and makes it clear that it's greed not green that drove his decision.
(Anyone interested in comparing PV installations at different locations Click Here. The data is mainly from PV householders in Australia but looks as if people from other countries are now contributing data as well.)
Greend with Envy
"My PV is bigger than your PV, so there!"Anthony reveals his insecurity and green envy as he wonders if climate hawks Joe Romm, Bill McKibben, Michael Mann and James Hansen have a solar PV installation. Since Anthony can't hold a candle to them when it comes to science and advocacy, he knows the best he can long for is to hold a solar panel :D
Behaviour more important that beliefs
In the end, it is not so much the beliefs, attitudes, values or world view of individuals that will make the difference, it's behaviour. It matters less what baser motives led Anthony to install solar PV, the effect is the same - clean energy replaced dirty energy.Most decisions we make are driven by a mix of motives. Except for very few very wealthy individuals, cost is a factor as well as values. I'll bet somewhere in there even Anthony Watts had an altruistic thought creep into his brain, that he may be doing some good for the world, not just his hip-pocket.
Ultimately household installations aren't enough. We need to replace all fossil-fuel electricity generators with clean renewable energy generation, fed by solar, wind, wave, geo-thermal or other source.
With people like Watts saying to his luddite followers that 'going green' doesn't mean 'going soft', it might help lower their resistance such that clean energy becomes if not desirable at least acceptable in their little minds. (On his blog, Watts still pushes for oil and coal and promotes 'we're heading for an ice age' articles, so there's a long way to go.)
Climate Hawks - keep working on Businesses and Governments
As long as there are enough Joe Romms and James Hansens and Michael Manns and Bill McKibbens and David Karolys and Tim Flannerys and Will Steffens in the world, and enough big and small companies all around the world doing the R&D and mass production, the price of clean energy will continue to fall and the shift to clean energy will continue.Although clean energy (eg wind and solar) is growing exponentially, we're not yet making the shift quickly enough.
This is the Critical Decade.
Sou you have your bones to pick with HotCopper {I visited and their intro page was enough to chase me away. Life's too short.}
ReplyDeleteAnd I got my bone to pick with fake skeptics in particular the theater over at SkepticForum.
After I shared a little something I posted after sharing a quotes and links from this post and "Has Anthony Watts Become a Leftist-Warmist?" and listened to that interview with Anthony Watts, I couldn't resist posting this:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Oy vey,
What a revealing interview - Anthony Watts clearly exposes his tunnel vision and loopy thinking.
And the interviewer,
jeez, talk about a text book example of one sided {dare I say goal oriented} questioning.
Quote [ Watts himself has said the reason he backed off from viewing global warming as a threat was because he feared that policies to address the problem might involve a rise in taxation. (See about 58 seconds into this video interview = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmIJCGQzCiU ]
~ ~ ~
For all the talk about the profit motive influencing scientists,
not one question about the masses of money seeded by a very few {incredibly wealthy and disgusting hubristic and frighteningly shallow self-obsessive thinking} who through their "ThinkTank" have strategically attacked science as though it was a football game and winning was all that mattered - rather than a struggle to better understand.
We see that right here at SkepticForum - where utter nonsense can be repeated endlessly and all rhetorical tricks are welcome - because the arguing is considered more important than the learning."
http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=19892
Good one - thanks Peter :D That's an interesting discussion board.
Deletesorry about the typos. :-(
ReplyDelete