Post #3910625

2026-07-18 12:05 UTC

I’m thinking of people like James Howard Kunstler, who argued very strenuously that we were rapidly approaching peak oil production and that, very shortly thereafter, would return to a pre-industrial way of life following massive suffering and death. And since it seems less likely now, got really bummed out and turned into a MAGA crank.

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@HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social 2026-07-18 15:25

Here’s another example, from a blog that has been recommended to me a couple of times. The author, Tom Murphy, aspires to “do the math” in the sense of approaching the climate crisis from a rigorously scientific approach. Murphy cites data on the material costs of building photovoltaic, wind, and other renewable energy generation to make the argument that, in essence, solar and wind power are just as bad as burning fossil fuels. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/08/mm-11-renewable-salvation/ The problem with Murphy’s sources are that a) they’re more than a decade out of date at this point, missing some massive efficiency gains over the last few years, and b) leave out the material costs of all the oil, gas, and coal extracted to generate energy from fossil fuels, all in order to make renewables seem just as bad as coal and oil.

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