Thread by @homemadeguitars

I am going to address the present tense.
Those of you who are old enough remember when they asked Bill Clinton, "Is there a sexual relationship between you and <<her>> and he said, "It depends on what your definition of "is" is."
People just went wild. Everyone knows what Is is!

2. Of course, what they meant was, "Everybody knows there's no difference between "is" and "was"!"
Because there was a relationship, but...
You know. Is. Or was. Or will be.
We developed these tenses in our language over the millennia for a reason.

3. Today, every day, I hear (well, read, technically) "We have the renewables. We just need to transition to them."
OK, do that.
Turn them on, turn off the fossil stuff.
Because, according to that statement, one hundred percent of the needed physical objects already exist.

4. "We have them."
Why the fuck haven't you turned them on?
It's all there, ready to go, and some nefarious cabal is standing guard over the on switch, and making us use fossil fuels instead.
We have them.
It's just a matter of transitioning.
OK. Next week, then? By then?
We have

5. When, in an unguarded moment, John Kerry admitted that at least half of the technology had not yet even been invented, except in vaporware form, all the Big Voices exploded. Michael Mann exploded.
"WE'VE GOT THE TECHNOLOGY," he explained.

6. If you've got the stuff, why the fuck haven't you transitioned yet?
Because you - we - don't have it.
Almost none of it is made.
Not all that many of the factories to make it in are made.
Present tense, English language American version, "to have" is to possess now.

7. The reason this matters is because right after somebody says, "We have," they continue their plans from that point.
They explain emissions from that point.
Actually, mostly they don't. Explain emissions. They assume emissions to be cured. Literally. That's the assumption.

6. They wave this magic wand, we have renewables, there will not be any CO2 emissions and when we build drive our electric cars on our brand new, faster and smoother than ever before, concrete highways, on that day there will be no emissions and it will be fixed.
We write laws.

7. Even if it wasn't a lie it would be a lie.
In the first place, it's a lie that we can live in any way even remotely recognizable from how we live today and not emit carbon roughly like we do today, or faster.
In the second place, it's a lie that we have them.
We have exactly

8. We have precisely
We have absolutely
We have those things which exist on Earth today.
We have ideas, we have thoughts, we have dreams, we have written and video documents, but what we have to use to do things is the actual objects we have already made, plus nature.

9. The conversation about using, for all our needs, things which we have not yet made, and basing the conversation as if we had them to use us not real. We don't have them.
We have what we have. We have, to go along with that, problems. The things we do today interact with todays

10. Problems.

11. In the present tense we have exactly what we have today. What we do with those things tomorrow will have direct input on the day after tomorrow. What we do in ten years with things we have not yet made will have no bearing on the day after tomorrow, or next week, or Christmas

12. 100% of the renewable energy we have today is part of the present tense. It is a component of the mix today. If you want to increase your reliance on renewable energy tomorrow, slow down everything we do with fossil fuels. The percentage of renewables will increase. Free.

13. It is an utter falsehood, blatantly false on the face of it, that building renewables tomorrow will be beneficial to the climate or ecosystem in the present or in the near future, defined as one decade.
It is an utter falsehood.
The present tense is the only reality we have.

14. G's working in the shelter world and I'm alone for supper. Later, y'all.