Description:
Comedians Christopher Titus and Rachel Bradley go scorched earth on the ongoing debate surrounding renewable energy. This clip dives into the absurd claims about wind power and the critical role of solar energy in our future, also highlighting the importance of batteries in modern electricity grids. It’s a blistering commentary on the intersection of technology, politics, and climate change.
The blockage of the Strait of Hormuz has thrown many nations dependent on Middle East oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) into crisis. Beyond immediate measures to reduce energy consumption, the Iran war is now causing these countries to accelerate longer-term plans to build out solar and wind power, install batteries to balance their grids, and expand the role of electric vehicles (EVs).
China is the clear winner. The country dominates all three industries and was already promoting them aggressively in export markets before the war. But this major advantage is only part of the postwar story. Beijing is also winning in other manufacturing sectors and electrical infrastructure writ large, and it is positioning itself to win the next generation of energy technologies. China’s progress may be good for the global climate, but as each day of hostilities passes and energy demands grow, it deepens the United States’ long-run geoeconomic challenge.
The Philippines, a historic U.S. ally, illustrates the war’s immediate effects. With 98 percent of its oil imported from the Middle East, the Philippines was the first country to declare an energy emergency and shifted to a four-day work week to reduce consumption. It now plans to speed up construction of renewable energy projects, even though the strategy will deepen its dependence on China, with which it has a long-simmering territorial dispute. Rahul Agrawal, the developer of one of the largest projects, told the Wall Street Journal that its permits arrived just days after the United States and Israel began bombing Iran, rather than usual months. “This is not theory,” he said, “this is actually happening on the ground now.”
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/5899341-clean-energy-transformation-economy/
Sheldon Whitehouse https://e360.yale.edu/features/sheldon-whitehouse-interview?utm_source=climate-desk&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=climate-desk-newsletter-05-31-2026
The US is NOT a dictatorship. China is a dictatorship. The CCP would not let a comedian trash Xi like this guy trashes Trump. China can build all this stuff, because they have more reliable coal plants than anyone else and they don’t get scrutinized on dirty industrial processes.
China did a stunning job getting hundreds of millions of people out of dirt poverty, in part at the cost of extreme pollution (air and water). Now it’s doing a stunning job of cleaning up that pollution (I believed that once China had an established middle class, those people would start to make demands for clean air and water). China will still pay the price of major lung diseases throughout its population for decades to come.
China has shut down the dirtiest and least efficient coal power plants (and slammed private industries that created much of industrial-based pollution). As someone who personally loathes coal power, I do appreciate that their new coal power plants are made to modern standards of efficiency and cleaning emissions of lung pollutants.
Meanwhile, in the US, living standards are going down, maternal mortality is going up, and life expectancy is going down.
It looks like China’s solar boom has peaked:
https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/awkward-truths?r=kv1q8&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
“The media can’t seem to explain the collapse in China’s domestic solar installations.”
“The media can’t seem to explain the collapse in China’s domestic solar installations.”
Duh, reduction in subsidies for domestic projects. Soon its growth will only be powered by the fact that it is merely cost-effective to install solar. As usual, accelerated installation to beat a deadline means there are even fewer projects right after the deadline passes, and instead of “insanely high” additions of solar, China’s addition of solar to its grids will continue as merely high
Meanwhile, thanks in part to Operation Epic Fuckup, Chinese companies will continue to enjoy exporting PV, EVs and batteries to the rest of the world…until the factories they’re setting up around the world (Mexico, Vietnam, Brazil, Turkey) start producing domestically.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/chart-why-chinas-solar-boom-is-slowing-down/