German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.

I thought renewables were cheaper than coal. How is this possible?

  • smollittlefrog@lemdro.id
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    1 year ago

    Luckily many people live in democracies where they can simply vote to enact climate policies.

    Sadly most people living in those democracies choose to continue enabling climate change.

    The reason nothing is being done against climate change isn’t corrupt politicians. It’s the millions of people voting for them.

    • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Lol, no.

      The fault lies with those who built and benefit from the system, not those trapped in it who are merely given the illusion of choice.

      Get off your high horse and aim your anger at the right people, otherwise all you are doing is enabling their rigged system.

      • smollittlefrog@lemdro.id
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        1 year ago

        Your first link is US only, your second link is about a completely seperate issue. You don’t need to dismantle capitalism to protect the climate.

        In Germany, where I live, the voters could easily vote for the greens “Grüne” and the left “Linke”.

        If those two parties had a majority in government, we’d have a climate friendly system in no time.

        But they don’t. We had a conservative government for 16 years. Now we have a center government, which sadly includes the small government / free market party “FDP”, blocking all significant progress.

        No systemic oppression stops people from voting Left/Greens. But they never did, and never will.

        There’s now an uprise of the far right party “AfD” in Germany, to the point it’s becoming one of the major parties.

        In Germany people have the choice readily available to stop actively damaging the climate.

        But every couple of years, they freely choose to not do that.

        I feel like many left-wing people regularly forget about the billions of people who genuinely do not care to do anything about climate change.

        • Harrison [He/Him]@ttrpg.network
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          1 year ago

          Under capitalism, the capitalist class controls the media, and can use their wealth to control the political class.

          A democracy can only make choices so far as it’s voters are informed, and when a group controls most sources of information, it can control the democracy as a whole.

        • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          You don’t need to dismantle capitalism to protect the climate.

          You absolutely do. If it was profitable to destroy the envrionment capitalism would do it in a heartbeat. And guess what it IS profitable to destroy the environment, that is why it is happening! You cannot protect the environment under capitalism.

          • smollittlefrog@lemdro.id
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            1 year ago

            You can limit capitalism without abolishing it.

            In Germany people are guaranteed 20/24 paid vacation days. That’s not profitable.

            That’s a limit imposed on capitalism. It can be done and has been done without abolishing capitalism.

            That’s just one of the thousands of policies that limit capitalism.

            You can limit capitalism (as literally every capitalist nation does) without abolishing it.

            Enforcing climate friendlyness would be just another limit.

            • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              When you try to limit capitalism you get nuclear plants being shut down and coal plants being opened and the environment still being destroyed.

          • jarfil@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            When you try to dismantle capitalism… you get capitalism under a different name, with a dictator on top of it. Better hope the dictator wants to protect the environment, and that he knows how to! (see: Great Chinese Famine)

    • nik282000@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Most people don’t have a ‘green’ option for which they can vote.

      We won’t touch the Greenbelt.

      -Doug Ford, 2018

      Ford says he’s confident nothing criminal took place in Greenbelt land swap amid RCMP probe.

      -CBC news, 2023

      Not that he was a green leaning politician to begin with but this is just another example of blatant lies used by politicians to get elected and totally fuckover their country.

    • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      But the millions of people have been denied education, mislead, and propagandized by the corrupt politicians, it’s probably not productive to blame victims here.

      • smollittlefrog@lemdro.id
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        1 year ago

        I do not believe the majority of people don’t know about the effects of climate change. I believe that the majority of people voting against climate friendly policies simply choose to not think long term.

        Someone who votes to continue the status quo is to be blamed for the status quo.

    • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      No they can’t? If it was as simple as voting for green policies we’d see more of them. The only thing people can do is vote for greenwashed policies that do not impact the bottom line of industry.