Germany hits 62.7% renewables in 2024 energy mix, with solar contributing 14%
The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) reports that Germany generated 72.2 TWh of solar in Germany in 2024, accounting for 14% of total electricity generation.
Not doing nearly enough isn't "positive news". But thanks for proving my point. This is literally not going to do anything for us as a species with the current trajectory we're on, because, again, it's not enough, not even close to it.
Okay, so beyond nihilism, what's your point?
I mean, obviously this is at least an intermediate state towards whatever survivable endgame we want to reach. We need to be at this stage at some point to get to where we want to go.
Should this stage have happened sooner? Probably. Was it possible? Maybe.
But we're here now, so... what's your take? Because you seem concerned about good news discouraging people from something, but you also seem to be claiming there is no valid path forward, which seems way less productive to me.
Nihilism isn't the same as realism. We need to make great leaps, not babysteps. We were on our way to a catastrophic 3 degrees Celsius globally already, and that was before the result of the US election. Do you seriously believe the rest of the world, who already failed to do their own part, is going to now also compensate for the addition of the US emissions under Trump? That's not happening, especially not if we continue to delude us with misleading headlines like this. Toxic positivity is absolutely not helpful when the world needs a serious reality check.
No toxic positivity here.
I will note, though, you haven't met the brief. The closest thing to a target I see there is "great leaps, not baby steps". I'm gonna need something slightly more specific than that.
Trolling much? We've globally agreed to specific targets, so the actual fuck do you want to hear from me?
I want to hear the counterpoint to the progression being made. By all stats I can see, the adoption of solar power specifically is actually beating projections across the board. Overall CO2 reductions are not, and heating targets are out of the question, but this is the one element that is going better than expected, with the relevant asterisks.
You are out here raging virulently at the notion of acknolwedging that, so there must be a specific thing you want out of that process. Or, hell, at least some sort of mental model for what it is that acknowledging the reality of the changes in the energy mix towards renewables is doing to hamper the rest of the climate goals.
I just find it aggressively unproductive when purported climate activists make their online persona into outright denial of any and all possible steps towards curtailing climate change short of... well, I don't even know short of what, which is my point. The implication here is that there is some silver bullet or a switch that we can flip to be done with the problem, as opposed to... you know the foreseeable future being some mix of increasingly sustainable generation and mitigation of the near-inevitable human cost of the processes that have started and can no longer be stopped.
You are out here raging virulently at the notion of acknolwedging that
I'm "raging" (nice delusions / projections btw) about the literal fake news bullshit claim of equating energy with electricity to make people feel good about us doing way too little - and nowhere near enough to prevent a climate collapse, which means ultimately it's leading us straight to the same result.
It's data. Valid data, at that, that captures an important metric.
It's a weird, paradoxic stance to claim that you are deeply motivated to push for genuine climate action while actively and publicly being mad at any report that may hint at progress because anything short of absolute doomerism is automatically a distraction tactic. By that standard you'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming towards energy transition, complaining all the way that nothing is enough until the issue is entirely solved.
Which, of course, is never. Because again, this isn't a problem to solve, it's a situation to manage. Forever.
Man, there's tons of bad news for you to latch on to when it comes to climate change. You really don't need to spend your days actively mad at the few bits showing actual progress. Taken to the extreme, and this is close, it honestly feels just as much like a disinformation tactic, very much in line with the "climate change is real but there's nothing we can do to change it" deflection.
By that standard you'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming towards energy transition
That's highly ironic since I'm apparently the only one who actually would support drastic climate action while everyone else votes for the comfortable fascists that push for coal because their fucking eggs are too expensive.
Whatever, I'm done with this species. It's clear that you all want this to happen so who the fuck am I to stop you all from jumping from the cliff.
So it was nihilism, then.
Look, I hate to break it to you, but you're not that special. You're not the only one who "gets it" and you don't get to be done with the species.
You will have a much easier time at it if you at least try to factor in the concept of the issue being complex and ongoing as opposed to building your entire online footprint around the idea that we could fix this by flipping a switch if we were all committed enough. Not only that, but it would also be a lot more productive in terms of helping promote better outcomes instead of serving as a useful scapegoat for some fashy troll to show how all climate activists are emo kids or something.
Which is not to say that drastic, sometimes painful action won't be needed. Alongside, I'm afraid, significant unavoidable human and economic cost from checks that we've already cashed in.
No, stop the mental gymnastics to make yourself feel better.
The downturn and consequent emissions drop during the pandemic very clearly showed that it is indeed that simple if we're all committed enough. Because that trajectory, if we would've kept it up until 2035, would've pretty much exactly landed us on our emission targets for that date.
The truth of the matter is that no one is ready for that, not corpos, not politicians who want to get (re-)elected, and sure as hell not voters - that much is very clear.
And to be clear, I have a much easier time since I stopped caring. I do my part and that's it, so that at least my conscience remains clean. But if humanity collectively wants to erase itself then be my guest. I'm not stopping you, because I simply can't. And how people act nowadays I am not even sure I want to.
