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snehk

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So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced?

Ensure that the prices decrease for people with existing contracts. The hatred comes from people being told that it's better and cheaper now while the price is significantly higher than before.

If I didn't have solar panels on my roof that basically cover all my energy needs, I'd be absolutely furious seeing politicians pat themselves on the back for shutting down nuclear power plants and talking about how energy is now cheaper at some foreign exchange where I can not buy while I pay more and more every month.

my provider only produces green energy. But in the past raising gas prices would have also raised my prices, regardless. So yes, regular consumers can profit from this.

It's one single grid. You get coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and everything else. If you buy from a provider, you get that mix.

Has this benefitted the regular/average consumer?

Nope. They pay more than they were with the "old" energy mix of more gas and nuclear.

Telling people it could be worse isn't really something to be proud of.

I personally now have solar panels on the roof and a heat pump so we only use electricity and don't rely on gas. Germany's strategy is really beneficial to households like my own. Unless you're relatively well off or on benefits, you're losing big time. The costs are constantly increasing with people telling others to just take money (you don't have) to install some solar panels on the house (you don't own) or buy an electric car (you can't afford).

Google the following:

Friedrich Merz insult – house search (2024)

"Pimmel" tweet and Andy Grote complaint (2021)

Robert Habeck "Schwachkopf" meme case (2024 / 2025)

They're all politicians. Houses were raided in all cases.

[dead] 1 year ago

The poster explained it. The government secretly silencing voices behind closed doors is pretty evil. Or is that only when Russia does it?

No, it's not good for most people. It's only good for those who rely on welfare programs. It's not sustainable as the money has to come from somewhere. The government has never before seen tax revenue but they still cannot pay the bills and they constantly come up with new ideas to take more money from people.

Let me give you an example. Regular workers in Germany pay for health insurance - people on welfare don't. It's paid for by the government. The government raised welfare payments and promised the insurance companies that they'd cover the costs of insurance for those on welfare. The government then said "Well, we'll pay amount x" but amount x is not enough. The insurance companies now need money so they've raised the rates for every working person to make up for this.

You cannot trust this article. Just check out the cases where they basically tell poor people that euthanasia is always an option. It's horrible. If they don't talk about where the program goes horribly wrong, we shouldn't listen to them when they talk about the supposed positives.

[...] so customers who got screwed need to sue and win individually for the same issue which is favorable for the companies doing the screwing as without the precedent of common law

This is factually false.

(some) Rental agreements, internet, telco and gym memberships are my favorite infamous examples. They're almost universally regarded as anti-consumer, with tonnes of sketchy clauses, but German lawmakers do nothing to improve that for the consumer.

Any examples here? The fact that contracts like these, if you forgot to cancel them, can only renew for one month is better than anything I've seen anywhere else. Also that you must be able to cancel anything online with the click of a button if the contract was made online. Add that to the fact that any clause is worthless if it includes something a reasonable person wouldn't expect. I don't know many countries that actually enforce this - Germany does all the time.

The whole law should have been forcing sites to not ignore DoNotTrack bworser settings. It's a prime example of the EU being utterly useless because they don't understand the underlying issue and then choose a "solution" that's as much in your face as possible but doesn't change anything about the original problem. It's the whole plastic straw thing in digital form.

"Your grandpa/dad was able to support a family on a single income, have two cars, a house and a nice vacation every year and you struggle to pay for food and a place to live? That's a lie. Look at these stats, dummy."

And if all their demands were met today - or let's say the UK ceases to exist today and doesn't emit anything anymore - how would that impact climate change?

Last time I checked the methods of measuring temperature via satellites was not percise enough to even account for that scenario. It's like stealing ten people's drinking water so that you can put out a big forest fire. Knowing it will not at all impact the forest fire but it will sure as hell make the ten people angry. And then celebrating yourself for doing something. It's beyond stupid.

They're almost as bad as the ones in Germany who glued themselves to the streets and then couldn't show up to court because they flew to Bali. These people are seriously something.

What I'm really surprised about is how X is still operating in the US or here in Europe.

Me too, which is crazy. I remember when news outlets in Europe were complaining about how Russia forbids websites where people could talk freely, complained about arrests over social media posts. That was maybe a decade ago. Hearing "bad fake news hate speech bad" over and over again somehow does something, I guess. You start to seriously question why something that allows people to share text and pictures is not banned.