Comment by brc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brc | Hacker News Reader

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If you are stating that current poverty should be made worse so that the currently ineffectual emissions reductions through the use of solar panels might benefit their grandchildren by changing the arrival date of spring by one day, then that's a completely bankrupt argument.

'Very slightly higher electricity rates', 'fair share of contribution to solution of climate change'

The fact is, household solar panels has - rounded off to the nearest whole number - 0% changed the amount of co2 emitted in countries like the United States. This is because there has been no change in gas or coal power generation as a result of solar panels. The entire contribution of solar is still less than 1%.

Meanwhile the UK government started collecting statistics on fuel poverty and some areas had 15% fuel poverty - mainly in unemployed households in rented accommodation. This number has doubled since 2005, when 'fight global warming' policies by interfering in the energy market became popular and energy prices have doubled or more.

It's incomprehensible to me that anyone can say 'pay more, suckers, I got mine!' when we are talking about energy for people to keep their homes habitable. And all this for an ineffective response to a far-off problem.

I cannot fathom the popularity of such thinking, when the same people, if presented with any other taxation or cost increase on poor people to subsidise consumption of rich people - would say that it is unthinkable.

It takes 'suffer in silence, it's for your own good' thinking too far.

>If you are stating that current poverty should be made worse

NOBODY is suggesting that.

If you want to fix poverty in the United States, there are several very straightforward ways of doing this - bolstering SNAP, extending medicare, raising the minimum wage, building social housing and creating a job guarantee (as was done during the last depression).

These are, incidentally, all things that anti-solar groups like ALEC are also usually against.

Added to which, solar panels are actually the only form of power generation which is within the reach of poor people, which is why millions of people in the third world are taking advantage of it. Give 0% credit for it (as is available to all big banks in the US to play their gambling games) and literally everybody would be rich enough to take advantage of it.

But if you are increasing energy prices for things like solar subsidies, then you are making poverty worse. There is no avoiding that.

I'm not going to comment on all your other suggestions - that's not the point I want to make. That point is - making poor people pay more for electricity so that rich people can get a rebate is just wrong. There is no justification for it. To fix things, first you have to stop making them worse.

Please point out where I said, or even hinted at, anything like this:

"If you are stating that current poverty should be made worse ... "

Raising electricity prices a fraction of a percent on poor people who are already receiving subsidized utilities, is not making their poverty worse. As you noted, solar isn't widespread, and thus is obviously not raising electricity prices in a meaningful way.

The price of coal moving up or down 1% does more to impact the price a poor person pays for electricity than all of the solar tax credits in the first world combined.

It's clear that the poor in the US are not going to pay a lot more for energy. They're going to receive higher subsidies from the welfare state to compensate for any price increases. Given the poor are already running a negative tax basis, it's accurate to say they're not paying for electricity at all to begin with. And to make this point easily clear: show me the negative tax basis of the average poor person in the US, and then show me the average poor person's electricity bill.

If one actually cared about the poor and their electricity bill, the only meaningful place to start is the Federal Reserve, putting an end to their 40 year debasement of the US dollar and this chart that it has caused:

http://i.imgur.com/LG2LTTT.jpg

Your right, I misread your original comment. However, supporting subsidies for solar through increased prices for everything else does penalise the poor.

We are in agreement about the Fed. Only the debasement goes back further than 40 years - that was merely the acceleration point.

You do know that PPA rooftop solar is zero $ upfront & cheaper than 'normal' electricity, right? Nothing stopping the poor from getting it. In fact, I would be very surprised to hear that PPA customers average income is lower than in the general population.

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