Solar is neither cheaper than coal, nor more efficient. Solar is incredibly expensive, and causing a massive number of environmental problems, and the amount of power it provides is nowhere near what coal provides. I don't even like coal. I prefer to expand natural gas enough to make coal irrelevant. We do have the natural resources to easily manage it. The problem comes in with pipelines and safety.

Solar power is only considered "cheaper" when the grid is considered. If I go and get my home outfitted with panels, spending thousands of $$$, to get them hooked up at all, they have to be attached to the grid. At any point, any excess power that's generated is automatically "sold into" the grid. I have no control over that. So even if I generate 10x the power I use during daytime hours, I will only "keep" what I use, the rest is gone. The best part? I have enough panels that even given premium times (night), I still end up at a net positive? Nope. Not going to make a dime off any of that power. The lowest my bill can go is the $35/month connection fee simply to be on the grid. I can't legally disconnect from the grid (though they can shut me off), but to have power at all, even from my own panels, I have to pay them that base rate. Once you get down to that base rate, that's your bottom line. They won't pay you. So for instance, my currrent electric bill is $75/month on average. To get solar installed it would run me approximately $18,000. The absolute maximum I would gain in savings per month is $40/month. So it'd take approximately 450 months aka 37.5 years to break even. Catch? 25-30 years is the lifespan of solar panels in the best of conditions. Now, you can talk about solar batteries to try to help store some of that power, but what's the point? You're still going to have to pay the baseline grid fees. That won't "save" you any money. So who is solar cheaper to? The power company. Because many customers end up putting many times more power back into the grid than they actually use for a tiny percentage of the standard rate, and the power company can turn around and sell that power at standard rates, while minimizing the amounts of natural gas and coal they have to burn to support the grid. And thus, for suckers to invest into solar for their homes makes power in general cheaper and more profitable to companies who operate the grid.

Now, not all states/cities have laws that force you to be connected to the grid. But the majority do. And those that don't, you still have the added expense of purchasing the solar batteries for nighttime and low light usage. At a total cost range of roughly $7K-$15k and an expected lifespan of 5-15 years, on top of the panel installation... Well, let's just say breaking even isn't a thing. Ever. There's usually a winner when it comes to solar. It's just never going to be you. Nor is it likely to be the environment.

I like some of the theorized power solutions they're coming up with, and if they could improve solar panels to be effective without many of the rare and toxic heavy metals needed, there's potential. But it hasn't been done, and as it is, it's every bit as environmentally destructive as natural gas (quite a bit more so), while simultaneously being more expensive.

lol

Real solutions:
Have less or no kids because it's taxing on the planets resources. Probably best thing you can do.
Plant native trees
Support sustainable companies and practices
Educate the young

We should just kill all humans right? Problem solved

No

Average number of children in the US is currently 1.9. That means for every 2 adults, only 1.9 children are being born. That falls below "population sustainment levels". How exactly will having fewer children help anything?

What will "plant native trees" resolve for climate change, exactly? This is a strange statement in an of itself, because it's virtually meaningless. Shouldn't you be encouraging biodiversity, and other, more useful policy?

"Sustainable companies and practices" is simply a generalization. A call to action without a real plan.

Educate the young about what? We've been teaching "global warming" and then "climate change" for three generations now.

Good and its working.

Any more downy comments you got for me?

This post was edited by addone on Sep 21 2020 11:14pm

1. Far too many people where? What actual policy are you promoting? You say have fewer children, I bring up the absolutely fair point of who and where. Your nonsense about "the rest of the world" is exactly that, nonsense. Throughout the western world, the average children per family ranges from 1.5 to 2.5 depending on locale. In the Middle East and Africa, averages go as high as 9 per family. What would you suggest the UK or US or Australia or Germany do? Stop having kids entirely? The alleged problem you're complaining about is not a western world problem. Further, what resources are not sustainable, exactly? "Have less kids" is an inherently useless remark as far as I'm concerned because it's not a real solution to anything.

2. How did we go from "planting native trees" to just planting trees? Once again, your words are mostly meaningless. We already do plant trees. Deforestation where, how? This is yet another local issue, not to be solved by a specific nation. The US had reached a level of outplanting what was harvested back in the 90's, and now plant several times what's harvested. Globally, there are more trees than any time in the last 100 years. Some 3 trillion trees, which is a staggering number. Are there areas that have been deforested? Sure! Where? Why? It's a local issue that will not be solved by any policy passed by my nation. So what kind of action do you expect, exactly?

3. What companies are changing which policies? Are you referring to companies that purchase extra carbon credits so they can cause more emissions? Companies that only reduce emissions so they can sell credits and make a profit based on decreased production? Again, you're being far too vague for your words to be meaningful.

4. What's working about the current education plan? As it stands right now, we have a lot of people who know just enough to say, "THIS IS A PROBLEM, SOMEBODY SHOULD FIX IT!" Okay, there are problems. While there's more trees than ever, biodiversity and old growth has suffered tremendously. Rather than replanting cash crops on state and federal lands that now disallow most logging and clearing of underbrush, perhaps it's time to attempt to replant old growth forest. They won't grow as fast, and other issues related to storms and runoff may well be a concern, but without the biodiversity and a regular logging and controlled burn schedule, wildfires tend to get worse, not better.

As I said, if you want to have a discussion about how we can fix problems, by all means. If you simply wish to screech, "THIS IS A PROBLEM!!!" that's simply not useful. Everyone knows there's problems. What, if anything, can we do to resolve them?

First of all i was giving broad strokes but practical non the less, going into very specifics would require many words and too much time to explain in a simple post.
Secondly if you cannot wrap your head around the overpopulation and the amount of resources it takes to support a human being and that having less people would put less strain on the environment then i am afraid there is no point in continuing the conversation.
I mean you mentioned that western countries are not producing as many kids but you forget that our lifestyle demands a lot more resources usually at an expense of other countries you cannot look at the entire environmental changes and not take into account the whole.

I do believe the planet can house more people but they would have to be more sustainable in their living. Back in the day for instance pioneers/early settlers would chop down any huge tree for firewood and think nothing of it. Or hunt some endangered specie that we have now for sport. Because the world had different numbers back then it would still be able to recover despite our careless past. Now we are reaching the point where you cannot do that anymore without big consequences.

Okay, you brought up one great point that I'd like to hammer down on, if you have the patience, because I really am interested in your viewpoint. Again, to note first that I'm going to address it from a very Americanized point of view, I believe the bolded point is very important. First I have several questions regarding your flat statement:

1. What lifestyle demands a lot more resources at the expense of other nations? In my average day, I eat food that was grown in the US, drink and take care of hygiene tasks in water that was purified in the US using local sources, power my internet and fuel my vehicle with power produced in the US. Indeed, the US provides a massive amount of power resources, food, and fresh clean drinking water to many areas in Africa and the middle east. Who is the drain on what resources? I will need more information for that to make sense, simply because while I think I know what you're driving at, I'd rather not put words in your mouth.

2. What portion of living is unsustainable? We've already made it clear that at least in the western world, the majority of the basics such as food, shelter, and clean water, we can manage perfectly well in a completely sustainable way. Power requirements are great on current systems for 90 years minimum, extending out to 500+ years if coal comes back into favor or nuclear comes back into favor. Ideally, neither would be relied on, which is why we invest billions per year into alternative power sources. But for now, they're perfectly fine. So which part are you pointing at?

3. Again, with the (mostly useless) "what if" scenario, what if the western world stopped having children entirely. Who's going to take over the medical care, food, water, and other responsibilities we have largely taken on to make the third world's very lives sustainable?

I don't know that I disagree with the premise that there are some things that are very wrong. I'm merely not certain that pointing a finger in the direction of western society is going to fix anything, or whether it'll intensify the issues.