Which is precisely what makes them entirely sociopathic, with regards to changes that are clearly net beneficially to all of humanity. If you put profits ahead of human beings, it’s sociopathic behavior.
Yeah, technically once you cross the wet bit you’re then in Odztrillia, but … you’re still approx. 3,000km from any inhabitants. Transmission losses are going to be terrible. Also, ET or PNG might not be the greatest spots for massive solar farms (lack of land, regular clouds, an ‘interesting’ approach to the rule of law and infrastructure, …)
edit: 3,000km was meant to be a joking exaggeration … but it’s almost literal in the case of QLD (2,600km from the tip of the peninsula to Brisbane) and a wild underestimate in the case of ET. Australia is big
Maybe that explains why the Russians dont see global warming as a significant threat. If the globe does warm they will get more viable agricultural land - a bit like Canada.
Yup, and they both may as well rig up their own solar cells rather than have PNG do it for them.
Besides there’s a shitton of space behind Sydders, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brizzyvegas, Canberra, and Perth - all with copious amounts of sunshine hours - where you could hide many, many square kilometres of panels.
Could this be part of why Putin allegedly helped Trump, since he knew that he was an idiotic populist that would sabotage US efforts to mitigate global warming? Interesting…
I doubt that global warming had much to do with it; neither of them really understands the issue or takes it seriously.
But it does illustrate one point, though: the common US conception of Vlad as some sort of manipulative mastermind is utter bollocks.
This isn’t “Russian chessmaster makes a puppet of the US President”, it’s “a pair of authoritarian, kleptocratic fools conspire together to loot the world”.
Oh, come on, you are spoiling all the paranoiac conspirative fun!
But you may be right. I think Trump’s biggest drive is ego, an Putin’s is self-preservation and, why not, ego too. The global warming thing may just be a nice side effect.
“How do we move from fossil systems toward solar sources without destroying the social fabric of those dependent on revenue from gas and coal?”
Given that those people have been aware of the need to wean ourselves off petrochemical energy for decades, and have done everything in their power to cripple efforts to do so that could have given them a “soft landing”, I don’t give a damn if they starve on the streets.