Thread by @drvolts

I will be anyone any amount of money that this 45% figure is wildly high.

https://twitter.com/tgradous/status/1385907479637336067

Don't wanna have this whole dumb argument again, but I will quickly explain why Gates' (and similar tech dudes') rhetoric bugs me. First, by way of preface & forestalling familiar objections, here are three true things about the innovation "debate":

1. The world *could* decarbonize entirely with existing technology. It's physically possible. It would just be extremely expensive, especially the last 10-20%.
2. Better technology is better. That's why they call it "better technology." Of course we want it & should develop it!

3. Of course we should aggressively deploy the tech we've got AND aggressively research, demonstrate, & scale up new tech. Once people have their identity-based yelling out of the way, pretty much everyone agrees on this. Because it's f'ing obvious.

So what's the problem then? To me, it's down to political economy. The MAIN thing, the primary thing, is deploying the shit out of solar, wind, & batteries over the next 10 years. All models & modelers agree on this! It is the *necessary precondition* for full decarb.

Guess what? That's not a done deal! It's not like we can check that off our to-do list. We're moving at a *fraction* of the speed we need to be moving & the barriers here are *entirely* political. Bringing those barriers down, making the politics of immediate deployment work ...

... should be No. 1 on our list. Everything else depends on it.

But here's the thing. Politics is ... political. Ew! Self-styled genius tech dudes disdain politics & the people engaged in it. They hate the messiness & ambiguity & unreason. They hate that the solution is not ...

... some clever "disruption" but old-fashioned boring of hard boards, just slogging, frustrating work. It's not sexy enough, it doesn't tickle their egos or imaginations. It's beneath them. So they focus on the future tech we don't have: talk about it, valorize it, prioritize it.

Because future tech is in the future, i.e., not immediately threatening powerful incumbents, everyone loves it. It's utterly safe & consequence-free to support it. Everyone loves "research." It's less stressful to think about & doesn't create awkward tensions among oligarchs.

Again, that's fine: we need the future tech. Innovate away! But most of all we need political momentum in the present. Gates & his fellow tech guys have enormous social capital. If they threw themselves behind near-term industrial policy, it would help move things along.

They just don't want to get in the muck & mud. They want to be heroes. Lobbying for a higher renewable energy tax credits? Why, that's not genius™️! That's not disruptive™️! It's not anything 2.0! It's just boring old organizing & lobbying.

If Gates & his tech brethren could look past their own priors, they'd see what's plain as day: the main barrier to a decarbonized future is not lack of tech, it's the GOP standing in the way of aggressive near-term deployment of existing clean tech.

Sure, if you get in that fight, you probably lose your Genius Visionary card. You become just another partisan, fighting the same long war as the others, facing the same recurring frustrations. But guess what? That fight must be won or all the others are lost.

Anyway, that's why it bugs me when Gates & his ilk wax poetic about shiny future tech. Innovation's not bad. It's necessary. But they elide the fact that the main fight is *political* & they're too prissy about their self-images & identities to get in the f'ing ring. Feh. </fin>