ᐅ About Passive Houses, Plastic Bags, and Styrofoam Cladding

Nordlys schrieb:
Guys, I’ve been hearing this type of argument for too long, too often—it honestly makes me quite annoyed.

Could you specify exactly which kind of argument you mean?

Because at least I take your post quite positively, since it says that when decision A is required (for example now because of CO2 reduction), the government should achieve this through measure B:

Nordlys schrieb:
Then you simply shape the market so that it moves in the right direction, and if someone still wants a Cayenne Turbo diesel, okay, the few Cayennes the world will survive.

Nordlys schrieb:
No no, it’s always suspicious when it starts out highly moralistic instead of looking at the facts and what follows from them. Karsten

And how do you deduce anything from “what is” if you don’t have a compass giving you a target? Without such a compass (the morality you criticize is part of such a compass), almost any conclusion is possible—but most of those conclusions you would probably reject yourself.

Imagining how the world should be, and then possibly achieving that it moves somewhat in that direction: if you already detect a self-righteous finger-wagging there, I always ask myself about alternatives.
That’s why I ask (rhetorically) about “the market” and “the state.”

Somewhat moralistic, or as I could also say, "idealistic," is also an -ism. It becomes so whenever you feel your conversation partner no longer talks but lectures: their opinion is fixed, don’t confuse them with facts.

Or put differently: when things become without alternative, when good and evil are clearly divided (Greenpeace and even worse: Sea Shepherd), when coercion to achieve salvation is justified.

Yes, there are rightly named goals: NOx must be reduced. The amount of CO2 must be limited (this does not automatically mean "stop emissions." If I burn something that produces 5 kg CO2 and that thing previously absorbed 5 kg, the net amount is zero despite emissions).

But here is where the moralistic or idealistic approach begins, with prohibitions and commands.
Commands: renunciation, small-scale farming, decentralized, sustainable, without industry
Prohibitions: nuclear power, industrial solutions, fusion energy
For the latter, even research is being stopped.

The consequences: my home region SH is an extreme landscape of wind turbines—very decentralized. The electricity cannot be transported away (large-scale technology is prohibited). The windy open sea, located on the German side, is nearly free for wind power. In Denmark, it’s exactly the opposite. Few turbines on land, many offshore, large relay stations in the sea, and cables bring the wind energy generated so centrally to Copenhagen-Aarhus. The rest on land is handled by ubiquitous small gas-fired combined heat and power plants, which also provide district heating to even the most remote villages. The typical Danish household has no heating system except a simple stove. It receives district heating from natural gas or biogas.

Karsten

Nordlys schrieb:

But this is where the moralizing or idealistic thinking begins—taboos and commandments.
Commandments: renunciation, small-scale farming, decentralization, sustainability, no industry
Taboos: nuclear power, industrial solutions, fusion energy

Nordlys schrieb:

No no, it’s always suspicious when things are approached in an overly moral way instead of looking at how things actually are and what follows from reality. Karsten

Nordlys schrieb:

...moralizing, or I could also say “idealistic,”… this happens whenever you feel your conversation partner has stopped talking and is lecturing instead: their opinion is fixed, don’t confuse them with facts.

Three fascinating posts.
I’ll also look at how things really are: 80% of butterflies dead. Two nuclear power plants exploded, polar bears dying, fish all overfished, oceans full of plastic waste, giraffes going extinct, and so on.

Problem? Not at all! It’s all a matter of priorities. Freedom above all?

Nordlys schrieb:
your interlocutor no longer speaks, he lectures: his opinion is fixed, don’t confuse him with facts.

Discussions on major issues (climate change and CO2, the energy transition, but also geopolitics and refugees, for example) rarely happen between people who debate different opinions based on the same facts. People simply recognize different facts(!) – and a real discussion is therefore impossible. You end up feeling constantly lectured by the other side because “they” act as if they know something that you believe you understand much better.

I try to approach this with logic and science, but even that is seen by some as condescending. After all, the laws of nature also set boundaries on thinking. If something is physically nonsense, you can think it, but it leads nowhere. Pointing that out is already considered a command or prohibition?

An example from your own comment:

Nordlys schrieb:
( ...[ ] If I burn something that produces 5 kg (11 lbs) of CO2 and that thing has previously absorbed 5 kg (11 lbs), the amount is zero despite the emissions).

I would immediately say “stop” at that point. Using this approach, burning oil and coal is no problem – after all, both have absorbed that CO2 millions of years ago which is now just being released again.

Logically correct, if you take your balance approach, would be that you should only burn as much as is simultaneously absorbed elsewhere by other processes. Nobody would think it makes sense to burn today and then reabsorb next year – what happens in the meantime?

So. I have basically shown one of your presented facts as incorrect (or at least poorly phrased). But this is neither to reprimand you nor a moral finger-wagging. It is a note that the cited approach doesn’t deliver on its promise because it is logically flawed. Burning renewable raw material like wood only makes sense if forests are not being cut down faster than they regrow, as a case in point.

If such a comment is seen as a prohibition on thinking or a reprimand, then a fruitful discussion is doomed to fail from the start.

kaho674 schrieb:
Problem? Not at all! It’s all a matter of priorities. Freedom above all?

Well. Karsten considers himself a liberal, not a libertarian. So he’s not generally opposed to regulations imposed by a higher authority. If something needs to be done on a global scale (for example: removing plastic waste from the oceans), he won’t condemn transnational, governmental agreements aimed at achieving that goal. But a plastic bag ban at supermarket checkouts, when alternatives are only available at higher cost? Who knows.

kaho674 schrieb:
3 fascinating posts.
I’m also checking how it is: 80% of butterflies dead, 2 nuclear power plants exploded, polar bears dying, fish all overfished, oceans full of plastic waste, giraffes going extinct, and so on.

Problem? Not at all! It’s all a matter of priorities. Freedom above all?

It’s a pity that instead of a factual response, we get emotional messages from a follower of a certain *-ISM...

Some people simply cannot live without a firm belief. Freedom is indeed complicated...