The Defense Department will install solar panels on the Pentagon, part of the Biden administration’s plan to promote clean energy and “reestablish the federal government as a sustainability leader.”
The Pentagon is one of 31 government sites that are receiving $104 million in Energy Department grants that are expected to double the amount of carbon-free electricity at federal facilities and create 27 megawatts of clean-energy capacity while leveraging more than $361 million in private investment, the Energy Department said.
…
The solar panels are among several improvements set for the Pentagon, which also will install a heat pump system and solar thermal panels to reduce reliance on natural gas and fuel oil combustion systems
We’ve been ‘accepting’ the good in earnest now for around 50-60 years under the modern global political hegemony. How is that going? Has the world been improving? We get bold decisive action when it relates to things that make life worse for all peoples, and we get incrementalism when it comes to actions which would improve peoples lives. This is the true cost of incrementalism. Its why the world is fucked. No. Halfway solutions aren’t good enough. In fact they are actually worse than no solution at all because the take the space and opportunity where a significant action can be made.
I hear what you are saying but it sounds like “Hey, we have a hole in this boat but instead of trying to stop most of the water from getting in, we’re just gonna let it sink, swim to shore and build a new boat.”
We have a hole in the boat and we’re taking some of the hull nearby to build a little trough so a fraction of the incoming water gets channeled out.
Fixing the hole isn’t accomplished by more manufacturing to offset a tiny fraction of environmental damage. It’s accomplished by reducing ongoing damage and repairing what’s already been done.
Troughs aren’t used on boats to reduce the water level. That’s what you have pumps for.
Manufacturing the material for the hole is gonna have to happen, and when you are alongside at the repair facility you can check for other weak points.
To use the pentagon as an example, the solar panels are a patch for a hole. Water is still getting in, but the pumps aren’t being strained as much. Once you have dealt with that you can focus on the refit.
My point was that solar panels incur additional environmental damage due to their manufacturing, just to offset a sliver of the damage that continues to be done every day.
It’s a lot more effective to stop damaging the environment in the first place than to put a tiny little bandaid on a growing wound.
So they shouldn’t do anything?
They should do something that actually has a significant impact. Instead we get all these little tiny baby steps while the climate crisis is barreling full steam ahead.
That’s assuming that new solar installations are even a net positive.
Have you ever had a hole in your boat?
Guess what. If you don’t fully solve having a hole in your boat, you still have a hole in your boat.
You need to completely fix the fucking hole or you are well and truly fucked.
Taking the time to do a halfway repair instead of fully fixing the issue is how you end up at the bottom of the sea.
I choose that, because I know what it takes to stop water coming in a boat, and sometimes all you can do is limit the ingress to a manageable level until you can sail into harbour to get proper maintenance.
You’re saying if you can’t patch the hole properly at sea, let it sink.
I’m saying there are dudes actively going around and make more holes in the boat with full knowledge of what they are doing. The Pentagon is one of them, the biggest hole maker if all time. They’ve shive a microscopic amount of cork into the most modest and least impactful of the hundreds of thousands of holes they are making. Also, they’re still actively making more holes. All of them far larger than the one you are seeing patched in this story. They regularly argue for Congress to increase their hole making capacity.
It’s greenwashing propaganda. And no, halfway solutions aren’t good enough. We’re not making it to shore, because the philosophy of incrmentalism prevents us from doing enough at once to turn the ship. The fuckers are still drilling new holes, and shifting our bearing a few degrees to port doesn’t get us there.
And you’re bellyaching about the people doing their best to plug their holes while having to bail the water out at the same time.
But don’t the Titanic’s deck chairs look so nice now that we’ve rearranged them?