"Decoupling" means growing GDP while decreasing carbon emissions - another hoax

Growth, carbon, and Trump: States are “decoupling” economic growth from emissions growth | Brookings Institution: " largely due to favorable changes in these states’ fuel mixes, such as coal-to-gas power switching and increased reliance on nuclear energy. The shift toward cleaner-burning natural gas has enabled significant decoupling of growth from emissions"

"Decoupling" the latest distraction from degrowth from the growth advocates. Achieved by switching to gas and nuclear from coal. The externalities of coal are well documented. Gas and nuclear are newer and there is more confusion about their true costs. This is the only change.

Pollution caused by #renewables

Fair Observer: "For example, wind/solar require the mining of rare earths. All mining is environmentally devastating, but rare earths mining is especially so. Rare earths mining and refining has devastated, for example, the area around Baotou, China. As The Guardian wrote, “From the air it looks like a huge lake, fed by many tributaries, but on the ground it turns out to be a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world, collectively known as rare earths.” The soil in the region has also been toxified."

What are the negative side-effects of renewables?

The Myth of Renewable Energy and Climate Change - Fair Observer: "For example, wind/solar require the mining of rare earths. All mining is environmentally devastating, but rare earths mining is especially so. Rare earths mining and refining has devastated, for example, the area around Baotou, China. As The Guardian wrote, “From the air it looks like a huge lake, fed by many tributaries, but on the ground it turns out to be a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world, collectively known as rare earths.” The soil in the region has also been toxified."

Destroying earth to save capitalism

The Myth of Renewable Energy and Climate Change - Fair Observer: "Here’s an example. An article in the LA Times headlined “Sacrificing the Desert to Save the Earth,” described how state and federal governments, a big corporation, and big “environmental” organizations/corporations are murdering great swaths of the Mojave Desert to put in industrial solar energy generation facilities. The desert is being sacrificed not, as the article states, to save the earth, but to generate electricity—primarily for industry. The earth doesn’t need this electricity: industry does. But then again, from this narcissistic perspective, industry is the earth. There is and can be nothing except for industry."

Why #freetransit is a better fight than #livingwage

industryweek : "McDonald’s already replaced order takers with automated kiosks in expensive European markets, and the “$15 per hour” and living wage movements in the U.S. means that kiosks have started to replace workers in the U.S. too. "

The end of cheap oil means high unemployment and low wages. But that doesn't mean a frontal attack is the best option. There are dozens of ways to take back a wage increase. Automation is just one of them. And what is the point of trying to get more out of a system that is based on waste and subsidy. First we should stop wasting energy on cars and sprawl.