German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the Western region of North Rhine Westphalia.

German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.

I thought renewables were cheaper than coal. How is this possible?

  • smollittlefrog@lemdro.idEnglish
    87·
    1 year ago

    Your first link is US only, your second link is about a completely seperate issue. You don’t need to dismantle capitalism to protect the climate.

    In Germany, where I live, the voters could easily vote for the greens “Grüne” and the left “Linke”.

    If those two parties had a majority in government, we’d have a climate friendly system in no time.

    But they don’t. We had a conservative government for 16 years. Now we have a center government, which sadly includes the small government / free market party “FDP”, blocking all significant progress.

    No systemic oppression stops people from voting Left/Greens. But they never did, and never will.

    There’s now an uprise of the far right party “AfD” in Germany, to the point it’s becoming one of the major parties.

    In Germany people have the choice readily available to stop actively damaging the climate.

    But every couple of years, they freely choose to not do that.

    I feel like many left-wing people regularly forget about the billions of people who genuinely do not care to do anything about climate change.

    • Harrison [He/Him]@ttrpg.network
      73·
      1 year ago

      Under capitalism, the capitalist class controls the media, and can use their wealth to control the political class.

      A democracy can only make choices so far as it’s voters are informed, and when a group controls most sources of information, it can control the democracy as a whole.

    • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
      63·
      1 year ago

      You don’t need to dismantle capitalism to protect the climate.

      You absolutely do. If it was profitable to destroy the envrionment capitalism would do it in a heartbeat. And guess what it IS profitable to destroy the environment, that is why it is happening! You cannot protect the environment under capitalism.

      • smollittlefrog@lemdro.idEnglish
        23·
        1 year ago

        You can limit capitalism without abolishing it.

        In Germany people are guaranteed 20/24 paid vacation days. That’s not profitable.

        That’s a limit imposed on capitalism. It can be done and has been done without abolishing capitalism.

        That’s just one of the thousands of policies that limit capitalism.

        You can limit capitalism (as literally every capitalist nation does) without abolishing it.

        Enforcing climate friendlyness would be just another limit.

        • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
          44·
          1 year ago

          When you try to limit capitalism you get nuclear plants being shut down and coal plants being opened and the environment still being destroyed.