Accept Good News in the Face of the Apocalypse

But stay skeptical.

Here are some of the headlines I saw in the past week:

1. Nuclear fusion edges closer to reality thanks to a new tungsten reactor.

2. Renewables generated a record 30% of global electricity in 2023 (Global Electricity Review Ember, 2024).

Here’s a picture showing the trend in electricity production:

Accept good news. But remain vigilant.

These stories, and those like them, are good news. An increasing rate of renewable energy in the global energy mix is a good thing. Yes, solar, wind, and all clean energy source have their problems. The materials aren’t very recyclable, expansion of these technologies will require mining that harms the environment and vulnerable communities.

Accept the good news. Even cheer it. And then ask hard questions about just how good the news is.

We could achieve nuclear fusion tomorrow but still have the nice problem of having to build tens of thousands of fusion power stations and finding ways to get the energy to where it needs to go consistently. Those are engineering problems to look forward to.  

I read about this fusion breakthrough in a couple of different articles. None of them told me exactly how this would speed up the reality of fusion. The fusion news is nice, but it doesn’t look like this has sped up the timeline for fusion energy powering your life. At least it is too early to say if this development makes fusion power any closer to reality.

Let’s take a critical look at the details from the renewable energy report by Ember with the 30% renewables headline. Here is a snippet:

Renewables provided 30% of global electricity for the first time in 2023, growth in solar and wind pushed the world past 30% renewable electricity for the first time. Renewables have expanded from 19% of global electricity in 2000, driven by an increase in solar and wind from 0.2% in 2000 to a record 13.4% in 2023. China was the main contributor in 2023, accounting for 51% of the additional global solar generation and 60% of new global wind generation. Combined with nuclear, the world generated almost 40% of its electricity from low-carbon sources in 2023. As a result, the CO2 intensity of global power generation reached a new record low, 12% lower than its peak in 2007.

Some caveats are in order. Electricity generation is not the same as CO2 PPM, which still went up from 2023 to 2024. Growth in fossil fuel electricity use grew less than 1% last year, but it still grew. It needs to fall at a fast rate. This report doesn’t cover the emissions from other sources such as automobiles, agriculture, shipping, airline travel, and many other sources of greenhouse gases. I’ve read the work of Ember before and I’m confident that all of these numbers are real and supportable. But I will wait for more stories like this, and more years like this before I know we are on to a sustainable trend for electricity use.

The headline here is good news. Accept it as such. But ask the question of what is left out of the headline to get a better idea of what work still needs to be done.

But cut the headline writer some slack. A more thorough headline would say: Global electricity production is now 30% from clean sources, but that doesn’t include the manufacture of those “green” technologies, doesn’t take into account the physical damage from mining and communities, and does not cover automobile travel, air travel, ocean shipping, agriculture, including deforestation and cows farting.

That second headline is truer, but it’s not a headline, it’s a paragraph. I’m also certain my high school English teachers would make me split that into smaller more manageable sentences, but you get the point.

That 30% of electricity came from renewable sources last year is good news. Good job world.

Now do better.

Don’t be a doomer.

It is easy to read about climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, or several dire environmental stories and lose hope. But doom scrolling through stories that confirm an apocalyptic worldview isn’t helpful.

I’m not telling you to overdose on hopeium. I’m telling you to keep a level head. Things are bad. It’s easy to just say things are bad and to make people mad. It’s easy to blame someone and make people mad.

But that doesn’t solve anything. I’ve noticed that the things that I write that get the most clicks are critical of rich people. They are easily to dislike. If I wanted more clicks, I would be yelling at rich people twice a week.

But that doesn’t help in the long run. If I am not educating anyone, or helping people think of solutions to problems, I’m failing.

So, please read from as many sources as you can. Those that seem hopeful and those that don’t. Then form your own opinion.

Due to what I write and what I read, my search engine, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other social media providers tend to try to provide me with doomscrolling nightmare fuel.

If I watch one video on civilization collapse on YouTube, the next time I open YouTube I get bombarded with apocalypse porn.

My LinkedIn feed tends to send me stories that are like mine. I don’t want that, but that is what the algorithm gives me.

Change the algorithm.

I risk starting a longer thought piece here on social media algorithms, but I’ll be brief. The purveyors of social media know that giving us more of the same keeps us on their sites more, and for longer.

We need to recognize that and ask for a better algorithm and if we don’t get it, we should walk away.

I would love to have the choice of “dissenting voices” on my LinkedIn or Facebook feed so that I hear from people who aren’t like me.

It’s not a public square if there are high walls around you that don’t let you out or anyone that isn’t like you in. That’s a bubble, and it isn’t healthy for society.

In the short run that might be profitable, but in the long run, it makes us less informed and less interested in being informed.

That’s not good.

Hold those in power to account.

Don’t shoot the messenger, but always realize they are coming from a point of view. That point of view may be educational, commercial, political, or some other angle. Information from some large media organization or some individual always has a point of view.

My point of view is that I think we need to normalize the discussion of degrowth, post-growth, or the well-being economy because that is where we are headed. The sooner we get there the better. But that is my opinion. Feel free to disagree with me or poke holes in my reasoning. I can take it.

I’ll end the same way I ended my post on Tuesday because it’s good advice. I’m not the first to say it. After you read something, think about it. Consider the source. Are they trying to inform you? Are they trying to confuse you? Are they trying to make you mad?

Do people define themselves by what they hate or what they love? If it’s what they hate, you can stop listening to them. They don’t want a solution. If it is what they love, go talk to them, and listen. They want to find a solution, and they probably need help.