[AlanE]

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

It's not faith, just basic logic. We must have a global AE system at some point because fossil fuels are finite.

This too is a faith based response but it's dressed up as logic. Religious scholars through out history are very good at doing this and it's entirely legitimate to create a logical argument based on an unquestioned, and unquestionable, axiom.

Your argument doesn't work though because the end point is simply that some alternative to fossil fuels must be in place at the time that fossil fuels become too expensive to use. This conclusion tells us nothing about the need to roll out antiquated and low energy density alternative energy systems as the replacements for fossil fuels. That's just religion talking. It's working from the unquestioned axiom that AE is the road to salvation.

You could argue that we don't need something at this point, but the way oil and coal prices have increased over the past decade indicates that at least starting a global AE system would be a good idea.

Your reasoning can be mirrored in many forms. For instance, instead of rolling out bogus AE as a replacement for fossil fuel energy generation, the "need to do something today" could be used to limit the ability of environmentalists to use any electricity generated by fossil fuels and thus keep them off the internet. See, it's easy to concoct irrational schemes based on the need to "do something today."

The problem here, at the core, is that this religious movement is simply a manifestation of groups wanting to exert control over others. I don't see you writing that you and those who think like you should voluntarily deprive yourself of energy generation sourced from fossil fuels, instead I see you and your ilk advocating that the choices you favor should be imposed on everyone else and that everyone else should bear the expense of rolling out these subpar technologies so as to satisfy your religious need to have your cravings satisfied. This is like religious conservatives who advocate that the government needs to "do something" to enforce chastity while many engage in premarital sex or extramarital sex in their own lives. If someone believes in chastity, then they should live their lives according to that creed, similarly, if someone believes that energy from fossil fuels should be avoided then they should conduct their lives so that they consume no energy produced by fossil fuels. The fact that people don't often live their lives according to the standards that they advocate be imposed on everyone tells me that they're more interested in the process of controlling other people's lives than they are in living true to what they preach.

Environmentalism is mostly a means of achieving the leftist desire to control people. This observation isn't uniquely derived by me, many have noticed this and hence the terms "watermelons" was coined - Green on the outside, Red on the inside. All of the "solutions" coincidently interject government control deeper into societies and all seem to redistribute wealth in one fashion or another. Green is just the tool to achieve the aims of the Reds.

The externalized costs of fossil fuels for example are very high.

I agree with you. My suggestion to you is that you and your fellow travelers, abandon your current strategy of selling snake-oil designed to increase government control of people and instead focus on schemes which change the pricing models so that the externalized costs become internalized to the product and that government control is not expanded over people's freedoms as a result.

Ideally we would be using whatever mix of energy sources has the lowest total cost, but because fossil fuels have established themselves, both in terms of sunk costs in infrastructure and sunk costs in terms of lobbying, we are overpaying for their externalized costs even if their up front costs are lower than AE sources.

Sunk costs are a bogeyman. Sunk costs are immaterial to the decision that anyone faces. Lobbying is immaterial for that implies that there are subsidies or favors that are granted as a result of lobbying and that's clearly not the case with respect to any specific legislation or regulations in comparison to the alternative energy lobby, when it is quite clear that without lobbying and special favors from government (robbing Peter to pay Paul) that there would hardly be any alternative energy industry because it's product is not competitive in the market.

If you wish to make a case that the lobbying in question has nothing to do with legislation and is instead focused on foreign policy and our heavy involvement in the Middle East hellhole, then you have a very strong case. Those costs should be quantified and attached to the price of oil or alternatively we should completely reject any military involvement in the region and thus save hundreds of billions of dollars and allow the price of oil to reflect the cost of geopolitical uncertainty.

Do you see the difference in approach between you and me? You want to impose your vision on everyone but I'm willing to let the chips fall where they may by stripping geopolitical stability, bought with US taxpayer's dollars (and capital borrowed in the name of US taxpayers) from Middle Eastern oil and then allowing people (mighty big of me to allow people to make their own choices, huh?) to react to the new market conditions in the energy sector.