Guest essay by Eric Worrall
David Hochschild, environmental commissioner on the California Energy Commission, thinks climate activists should learn lessons from the same sex marriage movement, about how to convince the public to take action on climate change.
How Gay Marriage Suggests A Strategy For Climate Change
Jeff McMahon, CONTRIBUTOR
I cover green technology, energy and the environment from Chicago.
The iPhone shows how rapidly society can change if it wants to, a California energy commissioner said last week, and same-sex marriage shows that change can happen in public policy too.
Climate policy could be next, said David Hochschild, the environmental commissioner on the California Energy Commission and an architect of Proposition B, San Francisco’s successful $100 million solar initiative.
“There was gay marriage nowhere until 2004, then we saw that state by state by state by state it got adopted, and now of course it’s in all 50 states,” Hochschild said during a Stanford University seminar last week. “Over a very short period of time. You go back 12, 13 years and you ask how many people think gay marriage is universal and I think most people would assert, it’s not going to happen.”
…
The iPhone is his model for change potential: “It’s gone from basically not existing to being ubiquitous in a decade,” he said.
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The point well meaning people like Hochschild don’t understand, is there currently is no viable alternative to fossil fuels.
The IDEA of renewables is popular. I like the idea of renewables. Who wouldn’t want a magic solar panel on the roof, which makes all the utility bills go away, forever?
The REALITY is renewables don’t deliver a viable alternative to fossil fuels. The cost and unreliability of renewables is a showstopper.
In 2014, a team of top Google engineers admitted failure – there is no economically feasible means to replace fossil fuels with renewables.
Leading greens like Microsoft Founder Bill Gates and prominent British environmentalist David Attenborough acknowledge the problems – they want a Renewable Energy Apollo Project, to fix the problems which prevent renewables from being a viable solution to the world’s energy needs.
Until the problems identified by Google, Gates and Attenborough are solved, no solution for making renewables viable is available. There may never be a solution to making renewables a viable replacement for fossil fuels.
Hochschild can mount as many public campaigns as he wants, but the most Hochschild will achieve with currently available technology is misery and public waste on a vast scale.
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Instead of reading, Same Sex Marriage The Model for Climate Action, … shouldn’t the subtitle read, …. No-Sex Marriage The Model for Climate Action?? .. in other words, deny basic needs, in order to foster an ideal of self control? … sort of like the priesthood? … hence, religion?
… just an alternate point of view.
It seems some do not understand little Griffin so meaning, renewableso are fine, you just need to stay in doors after dark and reduce the size of the population to match the amount of electric you can generate!
Obvious really
David Hochschild should be careful what he wishes for.
Climate alarmism has relied on party-political division. If his followers discover that many climate-skeptics don’t actually give a flying toss about gay marriage then that may puncture the bubble.
I suppose that one helpful solution to the current “renewables” issue might be that the money governments are willing to put up for “subsidies” for current renewables technology could be used, instead of being given to the companies that built the existing sites, for paying for real research into determining legitimate, affordable renewable systems. The existing companies have already been paid for the building of the facilities, so let them earn a fair market price during the life span of the technology, and maybe by the time these facilities go off line, we will have actual, affordable alternative technologies. If all they have to pay for is maintenance, perhaps we can get a fair rate for electricity that doesn’t require low income homes to have to choose between food and heat. Yes that’s probably a lot of debt that has to be swallowed by someone, but at least it allows for people to live in the present with hope for a future, and just maybe we can find our way to real alternative energy sources that will put carbon based energy sources our of the picture.
It is well known that belief in global warming can lead to … gayness…
For heaven’s sake WUWT, what were you thinking to allow this article?
I think it might be the other way ’round DW.
We should design a conclusive experiment…
Same sex marriage does not impact on most people. For most, it is an irrelevance.
Further, same sex marriage does not cost a dime. I recall that there was a survey that suggested that about 90% of all US citizens would not even be willing to pay US$1 per month to combat climate change.
I guess that it is the economy stupid, and renewables simply are not economic.
Richard; I wrote essentially the same thing before going back to read other comments. Thanks, no offense intended.
The technique they used was to viciously attack anyone who dared to put the case for the protection of children through real marriage. (And to totally ignore the fact that marriage is primarily an institution to protect children from “the stupidity of their parents”)
Marriage was instituted to provide a way to pass property on to one’s legal children while preventing illegitimate children from having a claim on that property. This way royalty could screw around as much as they liked without endangering their hereditary line.
So Tom, since gay “parents” end up going through a complicated legal process to adopt children, far more complex than “marriage”, there really shouldn’t be much of a protection argument?
Wo cares if gay people “marry”? it’s no more meaningful than a legal partnership and anyone can do that. Polyamory (for example) is nothing more than a corporation. It’s perfectly legal to form a corporation of any number of individuals without ever disclosing the sexual proclivities of its principals.
The whole thing was just a dog and pony show. There was never any substance to it.
Bartleby: I used to agree with you. But that was before the courts started fining companies who didn’t want to participate in gay weddings on religious grounds.
Indeed.
However, these days I think it’s more of a make-work program for lawyers.
As I said, it’s a make-work program for lawyers.
Another reason it’s not such a good idea to let judges legislate.
From fertilizer to plastics, there oil products essential to the modern way of life that just can’t be replaced with a windmill.
Society didn’t ‘change’. This was ‘imposed’. Dissenters were persecuted, prosecuted, defamed, and bankrupted.
Grrr…my last comment was meant to respond to Joel.
…make-work for lawyers…don’t let judges legislate…
I’m sure you get it.
Seems a reasonable analogy & comparison.
1 to 2% or marriages are now outside the (previous) norm, and are accepted. So, we should be be shooting for 1 to 2% of energy needs being outside the previous norm … wait a second, we’ve gone past that … as a society we are over-achievers.
So, Mr Hochschild, we’ve passed the upper limit of your analogy, so shut the hell up and leave us alone.
Given renewable problems are related to the rotation and orbit of the planet what ‘tech ‘ can make a difference to that is dam good question. They hope of some magic storage turning up does nothing for the inability to produced power for reason for which there is technological solutions currently or perhaps ever possible .
Let us take a classic example , highest need is in winter , however that is always the time with lest sun and often not much wind. Anyone know a technical solution to that?
Yes. Solar collection and storage systems in both hemispheres.
Now we just need to solve the transmission problem…
David Hochschild’s utterance was the dumbest piece of fliberty-gibberish I’ve witnessed in quite a while…..
Cleaning the lint trap in the ‘drier’ has greater value and satisfaction than reading anymore of this.
Thank you for mentioning this, I’d forgotten to put my bathrobe in the dryer…
Which was far more useful than Hochschild’s rambling.
So, instead of using real science, meaning data based model validation, to convince us, the Totalitarian coercive party wants more PR and then court cases to shut down dissent. Typical.
If you have not read the judges decision on Proposition 8 (constitutional definition of marriage) in California, it is worth a scan (long at 138 pages). Completely ignore which way the actual decision went, that isn’t what concerns me. The law and logic presented are stunning in their incompetence. You would think that in order for a judge to wipe out the decisions of 8.3 million people, their reasoning would have to be flawless with substantial evidence for every point. Instead, you see a judge that used TV commercials as a prime source of truth. No evidence was given that the commercials represented the voters views. A judge that repeatedly claimed the only reason people voted for proposition 8 was to feel superior to other people. Absolutely no evidence was given to support this claim either. The judge refused to allow testimony from pro-proposition 8 supporters on quality of life issues and then featured testimony from an anti-proposition 8 women who said the proposition “made her sad”. Judge Walker also stated in his decision that gay marriage was inherently superior to heterosexual marriage. I would have thought that would have raised a few flags.
I fully expected Proposition 8 to be overturned. What I didn’t expect was a judge to use the decision as a forum to bash those he disagrees with. It wasn’t about truth and logic, it was about anger and punishment for daring to disagree. From my point of view, warmists already use this approach.
Another point was that the judge in this ruling was in a relationship with another man, and hence not a neutral party by any stretch of the imagination.
The judge wanted to get married, and he struck down a ruling that got in his way.
Bad law never lasts long, or when it does, it almost always is overturned, ignored or completely forgotten.
Would that it were so. Killing unborn babies has been legal in the United States for 44 years. Slavery was legal almost everywhere for millennia. The powerless victims of bad laws are rarely asked whether the laws should change.
Forgotten laws are there to bite you.
The dems will try to use the badly written and inept “Logan Act” to destroy the Trump administration.
Lawyers vs lawyers, nobody wins but them, they can do nothing to Trump, he’s lived this his entire life, that’s why they’re so worried.
You’re wrong, Duck. In England, the Corn Laws lasted from 1815 to 1846. For a generation, they made food more expensive than it need have been. More than a little like the CAGW freud, no?
Yes, but I believe this benefited the US in the long run, we got some very good immigrants from this bad law. It’s always the unintended consequences that prove interesting. The be careful of what you wish for outcome.
“Renewable Energy Apollo Project, to fix the problems which prevent renewables from being a viable solution to the world’s energy needs.”
You mean like the sun going down every day?
“You mean like the sun going down every day?”
At one point, NASA proposed attaching huge mirrors to a Lunar Module so you could launch it into Earth orbit and have a guy up there control the orientation to reflect sunlight back to Earth at night. So maybe that’s what they mean.
“The iPhone shows how rapidly society can change if it wants to”
no.
The iphone contrasted with climate change shows that society readily accepts good ideas and rejects bad ideas.
When they converted over from leaded gas to non leaded, they used a cap and trade system. Which worked quite well since there were definite benefits and low cost. Cap and trade in the carbon trade is virtually no benefits and extremely high costs. It’s amazing the number of rabbits the CAGW people try to pull out of the same hat. I brought up cap and trade because it is a lot like selling same sex marriage. Just another trick in this dog and pony show.
“Same Sex Marriage The Model for Climate Action.”
Some have argued “We must overturn Roe VS Wade”. I say to them Roe VS Wade is a double edge sword. If it wasn’t for Roe VS Wader, the government could a couple how many children they can have.
Eric Worrell notes: “the most Hochschild will achieve with currently available technology is misery and public waste on a vast scale.”
He’s a California policy maker Eric. That’s par for the course in CA.
Eric: It’s also worth noting that remarkably few people give a hoot about gay marriage and it has no detectable financial impact on any of them. Hochschild is just a fool, and they’re a dime a dozen. I wonder how many folks at Stanford actually came to listen to his talk?
Finally (I hope), there’s nothing remotely “sustainable” about same sex marriage. Without bi-sexual couples, the entire species would die out in a generation.
So, how again is gay marriage “sustainable”? Sheesh. That anyone would have to explain this…
how again is gay marriage “sustainable”?
Because there are heterosexuals.
I guess your concern would be warranted if there was a serious proposal to ban heterosexual sex…
The big difference between the two is that same-sex marriage doesn’t cost anyone who supports it a dime. If alternative energy were free, of course everyone would support it just as enthusiastically. It has nothing to do with the courts, which can’t require people to support costly energy projects. And the Supreme Court didn’t support it until it was already popular and legalized in many states already, most often through legislation.
“doesn’t cost anyone who supports it a dime”
Unfortunately, if you don’t support it, it could cost you everything you own.
Calexit:
“There was gay marriage nowhere until 2004, then we saw that state by state by state by state it got adopted, and now of course it’s in all 50 states,” Hochschild said during a Stanford University seminar last week. “Over a very short period of time. You go back 12, 13 years and you ask how many people think gay marriage is universal and I think most people would assert, it’s not going to happen.”
or calcession – Californian Secession.
Mind cal stands it.
Was’nt, didn’t, won’t happen.
____________________________________________
Retreat battles are cruel and memorable for long times.
Bartleby, just because same sex marriage is legal, it doesn’t mean anyone but those who are already gay will couple up that way. The survival of the human race is not in doubt, at least not for that reason. Nothing to worry about unless your own sexual desires are deep in the closet.
https://youtu.be/tWccMnKyPNw