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Countering bad arguments
Just some notes on countering bad arguments against decarbonization etc.
- Claim: you shouldn't lower your carbon footprint because the term was invented by fossil fuel companies to trick
people into taking responsibility for their actions.
Reality: even if that's true, a broken clock is right twice a day and people should take responsibility for their actions.
- Claim: we shouldn't be the change we wish to see in the world. Instead, we should wait for the worst people in the world
(e.g. fossil fuel companies) to become the best people in the world, and follow their good example.
Reality: this is preposterously divorced from reality.
- Claim: you shouldn't do good things because a good thing by itself doesn't fix the whole world.
Reality: you're not responsible for the whole world but you are responsible for your own actions. Besides, it feels awesome to align your actions with your beliefs.
- Claim: you shouldn't do good things (be a good person) because other people will do bad things (being a bad person),
invalidating the good you did. Instead you should be a bad person.
Reality: be honest with yourself, whoever says this is just telling on themselves.
- Claim: it costs money to do the right thing.
Reality: This is simply a claim that gets repeated a lot without evidence, and since people hear it enough, they believe it. But Project Drawdown did the math and showed that climate solutions save money. It should be obvious that wasting 5% of your food is cheaper than wasting 30% of your food. It should be obvious that using 5MWh of electricity per year is less expensive than 10MWh per year. It should be obvious that a bicycle is cheaper than a $70,000 pickup truck. It should be obvious that beans are cheaper than beef. It should be obvious that 20,000 gallons of water per year will cost less than 75,000 gallons of water per year. It should be obvious that doing the right thing will save you enormous amounts of money year after year.
- Claim: hydrogen is a pipe dream and we should put all our eggs in the electric vehicle basket.
Reality: EVs are great but hydrogen has the potential to complement other non-fossil fuel based systems.
- Universal Hydrogen's 40-passenger hydrogen electric plane completes maiden flight [Video]
- Michael Strizki's Fantastic Solar Hydrogen Home
- Touring the Hydrogen House - Michael Strizki
- New Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell car review - DrivingElectric
Since hydrogen can be harvested with green energy, and since it can power cars, homes and airplanes, hydrogen solutions should be expanded and improved to complement electric battery technology.