Highlands & Islands Greensvia Greenpeace:
hazelnot 
@HI_Greens wind turbines are a hell of a lot better than fossil fuels, but unfortunately still use stuff like lithium, cobalt, and rare earth metals, which without an underlying change in political and economic systems will likely have a similar influence on who imperialist powers decide to invade and/or exploit
@hazelnot This is true, Hazel - but don't forget that technology doesn't stand still. The blades, for example, will eventually be replaced by the newer type, that are easier to recycle. And when a wind farm is "repowered" (ie, gets an upgrade on the nacelle), each turbine will have greater efficiency, and over time material scientists will find replacements for many of the substances you mention.
It's like how transistors replaced vacuum tubes.
It's like how transistors replaced vacuum tubes.
@HI_Greens again, I'm not arguing against clean(er) energy, I think replacing fossil fuels with wind, solar, hydro, etc is great!
My point is that technical solutions don't fix social issues, and while getting rid of fossil fuels is great in lots of ways, this isn't really one of those ways
@hazelnot Reasonably, for example if we lived in a matriarchy, the countries where those elements are extracted would be well-paid for them, and there would be worker safety measures in place.
Maybe if we manage to save ourselves from climate collapse we can get on with the job of getting rid of the patriarchal "me first" way of doing things.
Maybe if we manage to save ourselves from climate collapse we can get on with the job of getting rid of the patriarchal "me first" way of doing things.
@HI_Greens if we lived in a matriarchy we'd still have inequality and social hierarchies. Getting rid of the patriarchy is a good start, but it doesn't need to be replaced with anything else. The most important thing to get rid of though is capitalism.
@hazelnot Capitalism *is* patriarchy. Based on private landownership, both of them.
@HI_Greens you're not entirely wrong, they're interconnected, but they're also kinda on different axes of oppression, it's all intersectional
Capitalism enables and feeds from patriarchy, patriarchy enables and feeds from capitalism. They both enable and feed from racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc as well, but they're not the same thing
They're all different issues and they all need to be tackled. Replacing patriarchy with matriarchy wouldn't be a solution though, because it would preserve a gender hierarchy, and that hierarchy would still enable all the other ones going on, it doesn't matter who's on top
Martin Vermeer FCD@hazelnot @HI_Greens Y'all are missing an essential difference: that lithium (more for battery storage than for wind turbines, and on the way out in favour of sodium, which is as common as sea water), cobalt, rare earth metals (like niobium for the magnets in the direct-drive dynamos) is not *consumed*. It is *incorporated*, and then stays there for 20 years or so, before it is either discarded or recycled. The volumes are very different from oil and gas. There won't ever be a Strait of Hormuz for those things. Replacement technologies or alternative extraction options will always be way cheaper and faster than war, even for those parasites not themselves paying the human price.
@martinvermeer @HI_Greens but under capitalism, Infinite Growth™ is mandatory, so waiting 20 years for the materials to become available again is unacceptable to the ghouls at the top
@hazelnot @HI_Greens That's beside the point. Yes, there are limits to growth and we are running headlong into them, but the availability of these 'rare' materials is not where those limits lie.
Ⓐvebury Rosetta 
🍉🏴🚩The countries where [rare-earth] elements are extracted [for renewables] would be well-paid (?!) for them.
Later down the thread you say capitalism is patriarchy. If that is combined with this desire for matriarchy, then it follows that the abolition of capitalism is desired. Since capitalism depends on the exchange of labour power as a commodity, this demand must retain capitalism, albeit in a friendlier form.
This friendlier form wears the phrase "well-paid". This is a gauge on the rate of exploitation. Therefore, exploitation must still exist unless the workers had the dominant voice in the distribution of surplus product. At that point, labour power will be decommodified and "well-paid" will cease to mean anything.
However, the green party will be elected to a position in a government, where they will hire capitalist companies to perform labour on these turbines. The manufacturing of wind turbines will made with the cheapest possible labour, and local capitalist governments are bound to the world market. Capital as a whole aims to reduce the value of labour power as much as possible, and its means include force. Not only that, but capital aims to scale up, meaning short-term extraction must increase over time insofar as capital remains a social force.
@HI_Greens That being said, this technology will significantly reduce wars for oil and gas, as once the turbines are bought they will be in use for decades. However, this cannot last. Capitalism uses every means available to make their products consumable, requiring constant fresh purchases.