Post #4366641

Your initial critique was off base, arguing that discussion of what adaptation will look like is futile or useless, or a bad faith attempt to deflect from reduction of actual carbon emissions (to and beyond net zero). My response to that was simple, that you were wrong because adaptation often involves reduction of carbon emissions by reduction of energy consumption or other emitting activities, and that planning around those adaptive techniques is an important part of addressing the root cause as well (ecological destruction and carbon emissions). You came in with a completely different critique, that nothing I said addressed the need to reduce carbon emissions in power generation. Not only was that a new idea not present in your first comment in this thread, but it’s simply wrong to say that my original comment didn’t address reduction of carbon emissions. I’m talking about reducing energy consumption, and reduction of energy use is tightly linked to reduction of carbon emissions. The mechanism is as I described it in my next comment: reducing demand for the highest polluting activities, including in places like the UK. Your references to the economics of power generation supply and price may be accurate in the us but not in all countries. In the uk for example it would need political change to alter the way in which electricity is priced (everything is pegged to the price of gas supply) so renewables at the network level dont get to outcompete on price as you suggest. The UK has a spot price market for electricity. Here’s a lot of data visualization around the grid of Great Britain, including information about spot prices, carbon emissions, demand statistics, and production statistics by time of day. You can see the actual daily curve in the solar production dramatically cutting in the fossil fuel usage. And yes, spot prices do go negative in the UK on sunny cool days (most recently in June 2026). And yes, in those moments, fossil fuel generation stops in those periods because it makes no sense to burn valuable fuel in order to produce negative-priced electricity. There’s a reason why UK’s fossil fuel consumption has dropped around 40% in the last 20 years. That’s the mechanism by which increased efficiency in energy use reduces actual carbon emissions. Your cynicism around whether we should be talking about adaptation isn’t productive, or even grounded in a strong grasp on the factual fundamentals. Planning and building infrastructure around our hotter future is important, and your dismissive attitude towards that hard work isn’t helpful. If you don’t want to do it, at least get out of the way of the people who will put in the work.