No one is better at keeping hope alive than Rebecca Solnit, the historian and essayist whose *Hope in the Dark* got me through the first Trump administration and whose *A Paradise Built In Hell* inspired my novel *Walkaway*:
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Truly, Trump's a machine for creating stranded assets at scale. As Solnit writes, that's because Trump has no strategic foresight; strategy being "the ability to plan for things to arise that may counter your agenda, so you can continue to pursue your agenda." Trump's a bully, and he's accustomed to intimidating his adversaries into capitulating. That's why Trump keeps making moves without ever thinking about the countermove he might provoke.
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He can't metabolize the strategic maxim that "the enemy gets a vote."
This is the GOP's whole vibe these days: "how dare you do unto me as I have done unto you?" Solnit points to GOP outrage in response to Democratic gerrymandering in blue states, which Democrats undertook in direct, explicit response to shameless gerrymandering in Texas and other red states. Solnit says that the GOP has "confused having a lot of power with having all the power."
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He can't metabolize the strategic maxim that "the enemy gets a vote."
This is the GOP's whole vibe these days: "how dare you do unto me as I have done unto you?" Solnit points to GOP outrage in response to Democratic gerrymandering in blue states, which Democrats undertook in direct, explicit response to shameless gerrymandering in Texas and other red states. Solnit says that the GOP has "confused having a lot of power with having all the power."
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They are perennially surprised when their attacks on Iran and Minneapolis evince a reaction from the people in Iran and Minneapolis.
This is the defective reasoning that caused Comrade Trump to hormuz the world into the full Gretacene.
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They are perennially surprised when their attacks on Iran and Minneapolis evince a reaction from the people in Iran and Minneapolis.
This is the defective reasoning that caused Comrade Trump to hormuz the world into the full Gretacene.
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Whereas once the case for the energy transition was driven by activists who warned people about the *future* consequences of inaction, Trump has summoned up a new army of people who are worried about the *present* consequences of inaction: such as not being able to drive your car, use your gas stove, or fertilize your crops.
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Whereas once the case for the energy transition was driven by activists who warned people about the *future* consequences of inaction, Trump has summoned up a new army of people who are worried about the *present* consequences of inaction: such as not being able to drive your car, use your gas stove, or fertilize your crops.
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Trump has summoned up *another* army of people, who are worried about the *politics* of oil, the fact that oil leads to wars and can be mobilized as a weapon when it is withheld from your country.
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Trump has summoned up *another* army of people, who are worried about the *politics* of oil, the fact that oil leads to wars and can be mobilized as a weapon when it is withheld from your country.
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Activists couldn't deliver the energy transition on their own - but now there's a coalition that's driving rapid, irreversible change: activists concerned about the future of the planet, in coalition with economic actors concerned about the consequences of not being able to cook, heat your home, or keep the lights on; in coalition with national security hawks worried about the geopolitics of oil.
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Activists couldn't deliver the energy transition on their own - but now there's a coalition that's driving rapid, irreversible change: activists concerned about the future of the planet, in coalition with economic actors concerned about the consequences of not being able to cook, heat your home, or keep the lights on; in coalition with national security hawks worried about the geopolitics of oil.
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That's Comrade Trump's three-part mobilization: human rights, finance, and national security, all insisting that the enemy gets a vote, and voting unanimously for a post-American world.
Last week marked the first Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels conference, attended by representatives from 54 countries who sidestepped the US- and China-dominated UN to ratify the Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty Initiative, whose 18 signatories include Colombia, a major oil producer.
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That's Comrade Trump's three-part mobilization: human rights, finance, and national security, all insisting that the enemy gets a vote, and voting unanimously for a post-American world.
Last week marked the first Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels conference, attended by representatives from 54 countries who sidestepped the US- and China-dominated UN to ratify the Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty Initiative, whose 18 signatories include Colombia, a major oil producer.
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The world is moving on, and Trump continues to insist that he can roll back history to some imaginary era of a Great America. Every time this fails, he doubles down on his failures and sets the stage for more failure to come. Take Trump's decision to have the US blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Not only is this a powerful force for demand destruction - but, as Trita Parsi writes, it's also poison for Trump's own electoral fortunes in America:
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-iran-blockade/
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The world is moving on, and Trump continues to insist that he can roll back history to some imaginary era of a Great America. Every time this fails, he doubles down on his failures and sets the stage for more failure to come. Take Trump's decision to have the US blockade the Strait of Hormuz. Not only is this a powerful force for demand destruction - but, as Trita Parsi writes, it's also poison for Trump's own electoral fortunes in America:
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-iran-blockade/
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Trump won in 2024 by campaigning to improve Americans' cost of living. This is a powerful campaign strategy, and it's not limited to fascists, as Zohran Mamdani can attest. But for this to work, you actually have to reduce the cost of living once you take office, otherwise you will be hated and rejected and hampered in everything you do.
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Trump won in 2024 by campaigning to improve Americans' cost of living. This is a powerful campaign strategy, and it's not limited to fascists, as Zohran Mamdani can attest. But for this to work, you actually have to reduce the cost of living once you take office, otherwise you will be hated and rejected and hampered in everything you do.
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The problem (for Trump - but not for Mamdani!) is that America's high cost of living is driven by corporate profiteering, and the only way to fix it is to make the rich poorer so as to make the poor richer:
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The problem (for Trump - but not for Mamdani!) is that America's high cost of living is driven by corporate profiteering, and the only way to fix it is to make the rich poorer so as to make the poor richer:
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If Trump had chosen to bullshit his way through the Iranian blockade of the strait, allowing the Iranians to collect a $2m toll per tanker (payable in Chinese renminbi!), well, oil would have gone up in price some, but the coming runaway inflation on food and fuel would have been substantially blunted.
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If Trump had chosen to bullshit his way through the Iranian blockade of the strait, allowing the Iranians to collect a $2m toll per tanker (payable in Chinese renminbi!), well, oil would have gone up in price some, but the coming runaway inflation on food and fuel would have been substantially blunted.
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Instead, he decided to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" by adding a US blockade, which means that prices in the US are going to skyrocket, making his base furious and driving turnout for Democrats, along with support for more renewables, even among blood-red Republican rural Texas ranchers, who have had enough of "DEI for fossil fuels":
Renewables are now the ‘Costco’ of energy production, Bill McKibben says
Austin Sierra Club hosted a virtual conversation on May 6 with climate activist Bill McKibben on the current state of environmental affairs.
Austin Free Press (austinfreepress.org)
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Instead, he decided to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" by adding a US blockade, which means that prices in the US are going to skyrocket, making his base furious and driving turnout for Democrats, along with support for more renewables, even among blood-red Republican rural Texas ranchers, who have had enough of "DEI for fossil fuels":
Renewables are now the ‘Costco’ of energy production, Bill McKibben says
Austin Sierra Club hosted a virtual conversation on May 6 with climate activist Bill McKibben on the current state of environmental affairs.
Austin Free Press (austinfreepress.org)
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The renewables transition is now a self-licking ice-cream cone, a flywheel that only spins faster and faster. As Solnit writes, this is true notwithstanding the concerns by some climate advocates about the materials needed for the transition. Sure, there will be *some* extraction involved in mass electrification, and if that's done badly, it will involve stealing and destroying more land from poor and indigenous people. But we don't have to do it badly!
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The renewables transition is now a self-licking ice-cream cone, a flywheel that only spins faster and faster. As Solnit writes, this is true notwithstanding the concerns by some climate advocates about the materials needed for the transition. Sure, there will be *some* extraction involved in mass electrification, and if that's done badly, it will involve stealing and destroying more land from poor and indigenous people. But we don't have to do it badly!
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Meanwhile, *not* transitioning to renewables *absolutely* requires an endless cycle of incredibly destructive and genocidal extraction. Remember, fossil fuels are *fuels*, while renewables are *infrastructure*. Fuels need to be dug up and destroyed every year for so long as we insist on setting old dead shit on fire to survive. We dig up a *lot* of fossil fuels.
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Meanwhile, *not* transitioning to renewables *absolutely* requires an endless cycle of incredibly destructive and genocidal extraction. Remember, fossil fuels are *fuels*, while renewables are *infrastructure*. Fuels need to be dug up and destroyed every year for so long as we insist on setting old dead shit on fire to survive. We dig up a *lot* of fossil fuels.
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The world consumes *seventeen times* more fossil fuels in a year than we will require to electrify the planet *forever*:
The infrastructure of renewables - panels, batteries, transmission lines - requires materials that are often scarce and whose processing involves extremely harmful and polluting processes.
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The world consumes *seventeen times* more fossil fuels in a year than we will require to electrify the planet *forever*:
The infrastructure of renewables - panels, batteries, transmission lines - requires materials that are often scarce and whose processing involves extremely harmful and polluting processes.
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But those materials are all recyclable: we don't recycle them today because we haven't prioritized doing so, not because it it technologically beyond our reach. In 2024, America saw its first all-solar powered solar panel recycling factory, which reclaimed 99% of the materials in a panel that was 20% efficient, and then used those materials to make *two* panels that were each *40%* efficient:
New plant plans to recycle 30% of US' retired solar panels in 2030
SOLARCYCLE's new solar recycling plant in Cedartown, Georgia, aims to process 10 million solar panels each year, starting with an initial capacity of 2 million panels annually.
Interesting Engineering (interestingengineering.com)
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But those materials are all recyclable: we don't recycle them today because we haven't prioritized doing so, not because it it technologically beyond our reach. In 2024, America saw its first all-solar powered solar panel recycling factory, which reclaimed 99% of the materials in a panel that was 20% efficient, and then used those materials to make *two* panels that were each *40%* efficient:
New plant plans to recycle 30% of US' retired solar panels in 2030
SOLARCYCLE's new solar recycling plant in Cedartown, Georgia, aims to process 10 million solar panels each year, starting with an initial capacity of 2 million panels annually.
Interesting Engineering (interestingengineering.com)
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Trump shut that plant down, which means that other countries will get to recycle America's superannuated panels into modern, efficient ones and sell them back to America. America may have blocked any climate reparations for the poor world, but thanks to Comrade Trump, America's still going to end up paying them, in the form of windfall profits for countries whose cleantech economy is racing ahead of America's.
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Trump shut that plant down, which means that other countries will get to recycle America's superannuated panels into modern, efficient ones and sell them back to America. America may have blocked any climate reparations for the poor world, but thanks to Comrade Trump, America's still going to end up paying them, in the form of windfall profits for countries whose cleantech economy is racing ahead of America's.
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Unlike a fossil fuel economy, a cleantech sector does not require that your country have access to some difficult to find, unevenly distributed reservoir of old dead shit or even rare minerals. Not only is lithium far more common than once believed, it's also being phased out for use in batteries and replaced by sodium, the world's sixth-most abundant element:
Sodium-ion batteries: Should we believe the hype?
They are getting cheaper and better, but so are those made with lithium
Chemical & Engineering News (cen.acs.org)
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Unlike a fossil fuel economy, a cleantech sector does not require that your country have access to some difficult to find, unevenly distributed reservoir of old dead shit or even rare minerals. Not only is lithium far more common than once believed, it's also being phased out for use in batteries and replaced by sodium, the world's sixth-most abundant element:
Sodium-ion batteries: Should we believe the hype?
They are getting cheaper and better, but so are those made with lithium
Chemical & Engineering News (cen.acs.org)
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Lithium is set to join cobalt, a notorious conflict mineral, in the cleantech revolution's rear-view mirror as a transitional material used in early, primitive batteries and no longer required.
A post-carbon future is a post-petrostate future is a post-American future. It will run on solar and wind and batteries, which can be brought online cheaply and quickly, every time demand-destruction surges, using materials that are widely distributed around the world.
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Lithium is set to join cobalt, a notorious conflict mineral, in the cleantech revolution's rear-view mirror as a transitional material used in early, primitive batteries and no longer required.
A post-carbon future is a post-petrostate future is a post-American future. It will run on solar and wind and batteries, which can be brought online cheaply and quickly, every time demand-destruction surges, using materials that are widely distributed around the world.
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It won't be a nuclear future, and not just because nuclear materials are (like oil) concentrated according to accidents of geography, nor merely because fissiles are geopolitically catastrophic (like oil).
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It won't be a nuclear future, and not just because nuclear materials are (like oil) concentrated according to accidents of geography, nor merely because fissiles are geopolitically catastrophic (like oil).
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Nuclear plants take at least a decade to bring online, which means that they will always arrive ten years *after* some future Comrade Trump-type kicks off another orgy of demand destruction, and by the time we turn them on, the world will have already bought, improved and recycled two generations of batteries and panels.
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