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It is rather ridiculous to fret about the very minor emissions of manufacturing wind turbines and solar panels compared to sticking with fossil fueled energy sources!

We don't see similarly breathless studies of the carbon emissions of all the other manufactured things we need to run our civilization.

Where's the emissions involved in making washing machines? Highways? Primary schools? Oh dear, let's not make those things!

But no, it is only the things that compete with the fossil industry that must be tallied up so NIMBYs can have some excuse to ditch these crucial solutions to our climate problem.

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The goal of building washing machines, highways, etc. is not a cleaner environment. The point of windfarms is, but it defeats the purpose if producing them emits more carbon than they save.

It would defeat the purpose if windfarms made more pollution than they removed, but they don’t. By orders of magnitude. With current processes. They don’t.

Which is great, but the point is that we should "fret" about making sure that's the case.

Listen, I believe you

But only because those studies were done and numbers were produced.

It's important that we actually prove claims like this with facts.

That's such a common framing.

Green energy sources like wind and solar don't remove emissions. They add less.

> Energy transition aspirations are similar. The goal is powering modernity, not addressing the sixth mass extinction. Sure, it could mitigate the CO2 threat (to modernity), but why does the fox care when its decline ultimately traces primarily to things like deforestation, habitat fragmentation, agricultural runoff, pollution, pesticides, mining, manufacturing, or in short: modernity. Pursuit of a giant energy infrastructure replacement requires tremendous material extraction—directly driving many of these ills—only to then provide the energetic means to keep doing all these same things that abundant evidence warns is a prescription for termination of the community of life.

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/03/lets-make-a-deal/

Yeah, these objections are always obviously made in pure bad faith. But it's still worth taking the time to refute them, because not doing so just gives them ammunition.

But refuting them doesn't matter, because they just parrot the original line anyway.

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