German environmental groups file objection against Tesla gigafactory permit • Hacker News Board

Re: German environmental groups file objection against Tesla gigafactory permit

#91

Post by Retric » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 10:47 AM UTC

CRConrad wrote: post #90

Retric wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not the ones reading these petitions, so it’s arguably irrelevant what we think about them. I suspect many environmental groups do limit themselves to reasonable exceptions, but when any group can do something some will object to everything. As such it’s not about environmental groups doing this but rather specific groups.

> As such it’s not about environmental groups doing this but rather specific groups. After a while, you get to the point where it's up to the "environmental groups" to police themselves: If The Reasonably Lush Greens don't want all environmental concerns to be written off as Luddite obscurantism, then The Reasonably Lush Greens should regularly put out press releases like "One-in-a-trillion Risk Of Poison Gas Dischar…

Except these aren’t meaningless issues, any construction has negative environmental impacts they just not have negative impacts in everything.

Group A wants to protect wetlands, group B wants to protect deserts. Collectively their going to object to more projects than they do individually. It’s not group A’s job to police group B, and they are definitely not talking to you.

Re: German environmental groups file objection against Tesla gigafactory permit

#92

Post by CRConrad » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 12:55 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #91

CRConrad wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As such it’s not about environmental groups doing this but rather specific groups. After a while, you get to the point where it's up to the "environmental groups" to police themselves: If The Reasonably Lush Greens don't want all environmental concerns to be written off as Luddite obscurantism, then The Reasonably Lush Greens should regularly put out press releases like "One-in-a-trillion Risk Of Poison Gas Dischar…

Except these aren’t meaningless issues, any construction has negative environmental impacts they just not have negative impacts in everything. Group A wants to protect wetlands, group B wants to protect deserts. Collectively their going to object to more projects than they do individually. It’s not group A’s job to police group B, and they are definitely not talking to you.

> Except these aren’t meaningless issues

Has anyone said they are, or are you just tilting at windmills?

> It’s not group A’s job to police group B

At the moment, that is (obviously, judging from your comment) how most people see it. What I'm saying is it should be their job.

> and they are definitely not talking to you.

Oh? Funny, here I thought groups with a political agenda are actually talking to everybody, in an effort to get wide-spread support for their agenda (environmental or whatever it may be). And if they're not talking to me, then whom are they talking to? If not me, as one of the general electorate, then apparently not to anybody else in that general group either, but only to some rarefied few? The particular "stakeholders" in each particular issue, perhaps? Then WTF is the use of making their letter to those administrators an "open" letter, for everyone else to see?

But OK, great, if they're not talking to us, the great unwashed public, then we are of course free to ignore whatever they have to say. It's not us they're talking to, after all. (Are you quite sure you had thought that through all the way to its logical conclusion, and that you're speaking for them all in this?)

Re: German environmental groups file objection against Tesla gigafactory permit

#93

Post by Retric » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 1:15 PM UTC

CRConrad wrote: post #92

Retric wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except these aren’t meaningless issues, any construction has negative environmental impacts they just not have negative impacts in everything. Group A wants to protect wetlands, group B wants to protect deserts. Collectively their going to object to more projects than they do individually. It’s not group A’s job to police group B, and they are definitely not talking to you.

> Except these aren’t meaningless issues Has anyone said they are, or are you just tilting at windmills? > It’s not group A’s job to police group B At the moment, that is (obviously, judging from your comment) how most people see it. What I'm saying is it should be their job. > and they are definitely not talking to you. Oh? Funny, here I thought groups with a political agenda are actually talking to everybody, in an…

It’s not that they are ignoring you because they don’t care. Talking to the general public is expensive, only some groups have funding for meaningful outreach.

Filling out some paperwork is dramatically less expensive, thus individual groups allocate their funds based on their objectives. And of course anyone can call themselves an environmental group, many of them care more about NIMBY than the environment.

Honestly, I simply view this as a free speech issue. Anyone can object to anything for any reason and that’s OK. It’s only going to be obstructionist when they have a point.

Re: German environmental groups file objection against Tesla gigafactory permit

#94

Post by CRConrad » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #93

CRConrad wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except these aren’t meaningless issues Has anyone said they are, or are you just tilting at windmills? > It’s not group A’s job to police group B At the moment, that is (obviously, judging from your comment) how most people see it. What I'm saying is it should be their job. > and they are definitely not talking to you. Oh? Funny, here I thought groups with a political agenda are actually talking to everybody, in an…

It’s not that they are ignoring you because they don’t care. Talking to the general public is expensive, only some groups have funding for meaningful outreach. Filling out some paperwork is dramatically less expensive, thus individual groups allocate their funds based on their objectives. And of course anyone can call themselves an environmental group, many of them care more about NIMBY than the environment. Honestly…

> I simply view this as a free speech issue. Anyone can object to anything for any reason and that’s OK.

As long as they do so by just generally exercising their free speech, sure. I got the impression the problem with the German Greens is that they go beyond this.

> It’s only going to be obstructionist when they have a point.

No, it's far more obstructionist when they don't have a point, and still protest not only in a general participating-in-the-debate fashion but by lodging formal complaints in various municipal and regional environmental-protection processes, over shit they know (or should have known) is irrelevant / insignificant / impossible. "Gumming up the works" for no real reason. And that's the impression I got from comments up-threads of what (at least many of) the German Greens are doing.

Re: German environmental groups file objection against Tesla gigafactory permit

#95

Post by Mrdarknezz » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 10:50 AM UTC

tankenmate wrote: post #74

Mrdarknezz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well building a battery factory in EUs worst CO2 polluter kinda makes no sense from an environmental viewpoint. Better to build it in Sweden or France which have a heavy Nuclear/Hydro mix in their grid.

That is a bit of a strawman argument as then you should also argue for stopping all industry in Germany that has a heavy use of electricity (which battery manufacturing doesn't really compared to other things like aluminium smeltering). Germany is moving to more renewable sources of energy and Tesla also plans to put solar panels on the rooves of its buildings.

Germany have not took any steps to increase their clean non-intermittent energy sources. Until they do they will be stuck with gas.