Interesting post. Count me as part of the abundance movement. The potential to produce vast quantities of energy from tiny amounts of material is a major reason I started favoring nuclear energy in the late 1960s.
Do you have any thoughts about the #nuclearenergysilence in the Democratic Party platform released during the DNC last week?
It is democrats that wrecked our nuclear program. For over twenty years, they've been actively taking out nuclear and obstructing new construction. Germany is in big trouble because Merkel took it upon herself to decommission nuclear plants. Now, in desperation, they're burning coal.
Progressives are great at ideas, but suck at common sense.
Perhaps the pendulum has swung, or is swinging to where it should be: An acknowledgement that climate change is real and driven by human industrial activity, but that the threat is not imminent, and the solutions can be pragmatic.
Perhaps more people are coming to understand that progress itself, the “environmental kuznets curve” can solve this problem on its own without the need for drastic rhetoric and action?
As much as I agree with much of the content of this, I really dislike the framing, starting from the title. I think there are few things we can do for the climate more impactful than densifying housing abundance. I’m tempted to say it’s a prerequisite, though it’s more accurate to say that barriers to housing abundance in urban areas has made climate action vastly harder than it needed to be. If we had avoided the turn toward housing and nuclear NIMBYism in the 1970s, there probably wouldn’t be a climate crisis at all, or at least it would be moving far slower.
But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a climate crisis; only that “degrowth” is an unnecessarily painful and sometimes counterproductive way to approach it. We should be lauding the recognition that these things are not really in tension rather than tacitly reinforcing the idea that prioritizing abundance means deprioritizing fighting climate change.
Let's cut to the chase. Progressivism is not known for its high level of rationality. The progressive movement generally exists inside its collective imagination, apart from concerns with reality.
What product are progressives especially known for producing efficiently and competitively? That's right, NONE. Not a damned thing. So, if you want abundance, push the progressives off to the side, and find the people who can produce.
But what about 'saving the planet'? Once again, progressives are legends in their own minds. They've been 'saving the planet' for half a century and have nothing to show for it but smoke and mirrors. And a multi-trillion dollar expense for producing energy the hard way. They insisted on shutting down nuclear plants, when they are singly the BEST way to reduce CO2. That assumes that there is any point to lessening CO2. Outside of the progressive bubble, there is not much evidence that it makes any difference. But maybe it's really stuffy inside that bubble. Fracking has been the single greatest factor in reducing CO2 emissions, as well as particulate pollution. That's because fracking has yielded enough natural gas to largely replace coal fired power plants. Are there downsides to nuclear and fracking? Of course. There're downsides to everything. There're downsides to solar panels and windmills, yet progressives pretend that they are the ultimate answer, that once all energy is produced by solar and wind everything will be just peachy. There hasn't been ten cents worth of real planning put into any of it.
But don't worry. With Kamala, we are assured of laughs and abundant 'joy' as she runs the country into the ground.
They've had 4 yrs to put their policies into action and now they are trying to sell the myth that Trump ran the White House for the past 4 yrs. This is obviously just more marketing and has nothing whatsoever to do with their policy. It's cynical the disdain they have for voters. They think of us as little children they can tell fairy tales to, like Santa Claus & the Easter Bunny.
Once the election is over, they will quickly ignore everything they promised or claimed and be back to Business-As-Usual. Which is worse and worser. Since they have zero self-awareness and zero ability for introspection, pointing out their blatant hypocrisy runs off their shoulders like a summer shower.
I hope that this is a shift to an Abundance agenda, but I am extremely skeptical. There are just too many ideological assumptions and interest groups within the Left that will need to be challenged to do so.
My guess is that it will be just a temporary buzzword in the campaign.
The political parties run with whatever they think will get them the most votes. Of course they're pushing climate change to the side because it was simply a fad. Well, at least the whole rhetoric about the world coming to an end was a fad.
But now, whoever wins this election cycle should begin some projects related to renewable energy sources, especially nuclear. China recently launched their first Thorium Molten Salt Reactor and are set to build another 150 between now and 2035. We're falling behind in technology and energy independence.
Look at Germany who shut off their last 3 reactors in April 2023 and were hoping to be reliant on gas from Russia... well we all know what happened there. Nuclear might be an initial heavy investment but is the best financial decision for the future. While I don't think the world is ending tomorrow, I think it's smart for countries to diversify their energy source portfolio and not be too heavily reliant on single sources of energy.
The USA needs a healthy economy and the world needs a healthy USA esp. in the context of recent and escalating geo political challenges. Speaking as a UK/ Italian citizen. Thanks for a timely encouraging article .
One interesting element of the IRA is that is managed to house climate under the same roof as industrial policy and foreign policy concerns, especially the fear of Chinese domination of the clean tech chain. This multi-pronged objective helped creat the board coalition that allowed passage. This is aligned with the author's argument that other goals besides strict climate "saving" are important to the US population and politicians.
The Democratic party is anything but healthy, but it is good that it has largely given up on its quixotic quest to label humanity as purely terrible. I don't believe for a nanosecond that the leadership or rank and file have any real knowledge to back up their relaxation of dogmatic virtue signalling on the climate. It's all dumb pragmatism all of the time, be it hand wringing and sleepless nights over mother Gaia or moving other totems like decentralizing whiteness, transgender policy on kids or spending money we don't have on per policy ideas.,
To suggest that no serious person believes that our actions in the next few years will determine whether the world can avoid or minimize climate catastrophe shows a remarkable ignorance of what a large portion of the climate science has been saying.
Sir David King for example the science advisor to three British Prime Minister and the founder of the Cambridge center for Climate repair has said that what we do in the next few years will determine the next 10,000 years.
And he is not the only one.
Authoritative research shows the world is on the verge of activating multiple cascading and largely irreversible tipping points that will have catastrophic consequences - in the north Atlantic AMOC, Greenland and other places. There is increasing evidence that AMOC they collapse this century leading to temperatures 10° or more colder throughout Europe.
But sure continue doing your part to minimize this reality.
It will be really interesting to see how you attempt to justify your positions when the world looks back in 15 years and sees that we turned our heads away from Climate towards abundance thus guaranteeing that we will have neither a livable climate nor abundance in the decades to come
Neither democrats nor any one else needs to chose between abundance and the climate. If the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere is causing more harm (including measure's to adapt to the effects of the emissions) that the deadweight loss of preventing the harm then the prevention ought to be a _part of_ any sensible abundance agenda.
This is not to say that many specific proposals for reducing net emissions, perhaps an "abundance" of such proposals, may not be more costly that they are worth. _Those measures_ are incompatible with an abundance agenda.
Ye gods! What a mess of obscurantism. Simple fact: politics is all about...drum roll...politics. When it advances an effective agenda that gathers power and money, it's truth. When it doesn't or stops doing so, it's yesterday's product.
It has nothing to do with reality, doing good, people, the nation or the world. Suddenly doom and gloom are not selling. Need new merch. Overnight. Try joy, patriotism, love and whatever else flies off the shelves. For now.
Alex
Interesting post. Count me as part of the abundance movement. The potential to produce vast quantities of energy from tiny amounts of material is a major reason I started favoring nuclear energy in the late 1960s.
Do you have any thoughts about the #nuclearenergysilence in the Democratic Party platform released during the DNC last week?
It is democrats that wrecked our nuclear program. For over twenty years, they've been actively taking out nuclear and obstructing new construction. Germany is in big trouble because Merkel took it upon herself to decommission nuclear plants. Now, in desperation, they're burning coal.
Progressives are great at ideas, but suck at common sense.
Perhaps the pendulum has swung, or is swinging to where it should be: An acknowledgement that climate change is real and driven by human industrial activity, but that the threat is not imminent, and the solutions can be pragmatic.
Perhaps more people are coming to understand that progress itself, the “environmental kuznets curve” can solve this problem on its own without the need for drastic rhetoric and action?
As much as I agree with much of the content of this, I really dislike the framing, starting from the title. I think there are few things we can do for the climate more impactful than densifying housing abundance. I’m tempted to say it’s a prerequisite, though it’s more accurate to say that barriers to housing abundance in urban areas has made climate action vastly harder than it needed to be. If we had avoided the turn toward housing and nuclear NIMBYism in the 1970s, there probably wouldn’t be a climate crisis at all, or at least it would be moving far slower.
But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a climate crisis; only that “degrowth” is an unnecessarily painful and sometimes counterproductive way to approach it. We should be lauding the recognition that these things are not really in tension rather than tacitly reinforcing the idea that prioritizing abundance means deprioritizing fighting climate change.
Let's cut to the chase. Progressivism is not known for its high level of rationality. The progressive movement generally exists inside its collective imagination, apart from concerns with reality.
What product are progressives especially known for producing efficiently and competitively? That's right, NONE. Not a damned thing. So, if you want abundance, push the progressives off to the side, and find the people who can produce.
But what about 'saving the planet'? Once again, progressives are legends in their own minds. They've been 'saving the planet' for half a century and have nothing to show for it but smoke and mirrors. And a multi-trillion dollar expense for producing energy the hard way. They insisted on shutting down nuclear plants, when they are singly the BEST way to reduce CO2. That assumes that there is any point to lessening CO2. Outside of the progressive bubble, there is not much evidence that it makes any difference. But maybe it's really stuffy inside that bubble. Fracking has been the single greatest factor in reducing CO2 emissions, as well as particulate pollution. That's because fracking has yielded enough natural gas to largely replace coal fired power plants. Are there downsides to nuclear and fracking? Of course. There're downsides to everything. There're downsides to solar panels and windmills, yet progressives pretend that they are the ultimate answer, that once all energy is produced by solar and wind everything will be just peachy. There hasn't been ten cents worth of real planning put into any of it.
But don't worry. With Kamala, we are assured of laughs and abundant 'joy' as she runs the country into the ground.
They've had 4 yrs to put their policies into action and now they are trying to sell the myth that Trump ran the White House for the past 4 yrs. This is obviously just more marketing and has nothing whatsoever to do with their policy. It's cynical the disdain they have for voters. They think of us as little children they can tell fairy tales to, like Santa Claus & the Easter Bunny.
Once the election is over, they will quickly ignore everything they promised or claimed and be back to Business-As-Usual. Which is worse and worser. Since they have zero self-awareness and zero ability for introspection, pointing out their blatant hypocrisy runs off their shoulders like a summer shower.
I hope that this is a shift to an Abundance agenda, but I am extremely skeptical. There are just too many ideological assumptions and interest groups within the Left that will need to be challenged to do so.
My guess is that it will be just a temporary buzzword in the campaign.
The political parties run with whatever they think will get them the most votes. Of course they're pushing climate change to the side because it was simply a fad. Well, at least the whole rhetoric about the world coming to an end was a fad.
But now, whoever wins this election cycle should begin some projects related to renewable energy sources, especially nuclear. China recently launched their first Thorium Molten Salt Reactor and are set to build another 150 between now and 2035. We're falling behind in technology and energy independence.
Look at Germany who shut off their last 3 reactors in April 2023 and were hoping to be reliant on gas from Russia... well we all know what happened there. Nuclear might be an initial heavy investment but is the best financial decision for the future. While I don't think the world is ending tomorrow, I think it's smart for countries to diversify their energy source portfolio and not be too heavily reliant on single sources of energy.
The USA needs a healthy economy and the world needs a healthy USA esp. in the context of recent and escalating geo political challenges. Speaking as a UK/ Italian citizen. Thanks for a timely encouraging article .
One interesting element of the IRA is that is managed to house climate under the same roof as industrial policy and foreign policy concerns, especially the fear of Chinese domination of the clean tech chain. This multi-pronged objective helped creat the board coalition that allowed passage. This is aligned with the author's argument that other goals besides strict climate "saving" are important to the US population and politicians.
The Democratic party is anything but healthy, but it is good that it has largely given up on its quixotic quest to label humanity as purely terrible. I don't believe for a nanosecond that the leadership or rank and file have any real knowledge to back up their relaxation of dogmatic virtue signalling on the climate. It's all dumb pragmatism all of the time, be it hand wringing and sleepless nights over mother Gaia or moving other totems like decentralizing whiteness, transgender policy on kids or spending money we don't have on per policy ideas.,
To suggest that no serious person believes that our actions in the next few years will determine whether the world can avoid or minimize climate catastrophe shows a remarkable ignorance of what a large portion of the climate science has been saying.
Sir David King for example the science advisor to three British Prime Minister and the founder of the Cambridge center for Climate repair has said that what we do in the next few years will determine the next 10,000 years.
And he is not the only one.
Authoritative research shows the world is on the verge of activating multiple cascading and largely irreversible tipping points that will have catastrophic consequences - in the north Atlantic AMOC, Greenland and other places. There is increasing evidence that AMOC they collapse this century leading to temperatures 10° or more colder throughout Europe.
But sure continue doing your part to minimize this reality.
It will be really interesting to see how you attempt to justify your positions when the world looks back in 15 years and sees that we turned our heads away from Climate towards abundance thus guaranteeing that we will have neither a livable climate nor abundance in the decades to come
I heard pretty much the same predictions 30 years ago.
The reality is that even a total elimination of fossil fuels from the US will have a tiny impact on future global temperatures:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/pop-quiz-how-much-does-eliminating
💯 The next 5 years are critical. https://youtu.be/Vl6VhCAeEfQ?si=_pEfZPK7Jcbpf8DD
No.
Neither democrats nor any one else needs to chose between abundance and the climate. If the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere is causing more harm (including measure's to adapt to the effects of the emissions) that the deadweight loss of preventing the harm then the prevention ought to be a _part of_ any sensible abundance agenda.
This is not to say that many specific proposals for reducing net emissions, perhaps an "abundance" of such proposals, may not be more costly that they are worth. _Those measures_ are incompatible with an abundance agenda.
https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/dont-forget-adapting-to-climate-change
https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/market-forces-are-not-enough-to-halt
https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/legal-remedies-for-climate-change
Why are property insurance companies leaving certain areas? They are responsive to long-run risk.
The long run risk is the continued societal collapse the Malthusian Psychopath Parasite creeps who run the Western World are orchestrating.
Ye gods! What a mess of obscurantism. Simple fact: politics is all about...drum roll...politics. When it advances an effective agenda that gathers power and money, it's truth. When it doesn't or stops doing so, it's yesterday's product.
It has nothing to do with reality, doing good, people, the nation or the world. Suddenly doom and gloom are not selling. Need new merch. Overnight. Try joy, patriotism, love and whatever else flies off the shelves. For now.
This passes for leadership.