Comments by "Cinderball" (@cinderball1135) on "Agrivoltaics: Solar Panels Bring Life to Struggling Farms | NowThis" video.

@Crow Dog You mistake weather for climate. Climate change doesn't mean you won't still get nice weather from time to time - but it increases the probability of more extreme weather happening more often. Notice I didn't say it causes extreme weather - it increases the probability. Events that would typically have only happened once in a century are now happening nearly every year. We are breaking records for hottest and coldest days across the planet, because as the planet's atmosphere warms, the system has more energy to release in the form of extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and droughts. Fact is, you might be having a nice sunny day on the veranda, but that doesn't mean there ain't historic wildfires burning in California (there are) or that the Great Barrier Reef isn't bleaching to death (it is).
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@2020_Visi0n I'm not planning to. When I write out an educative explanation like above, I'm doing it for the benefit of whomsoever else might be reading the thread, so they can see the holes in the faulty argument from the climate skeptic. I'm under no illusions of being able to change the mind of the person I'm talking to, considering how they'll put anecdotal personal observations and opinions ahead of rafts of scientific evidence. :)
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@2020_Visi0n I would have moved on already, but you're now engaging me in a debate over tactics, haha, so take that for what it's worth. :P I do think there is value in providing a once-and-done rebuttal to misinformation, because it sets the narrative down for neutral and undecided minds that might happen to wander into the comment section. It's best done early, and then not followed-up, because long debates don't really help persuade anyone. In this instance, I didn't spend long debunking their argument, and instead laid out a clear and memorable case for people to understand how to think about climate change. Treat skeptics' comments as an opportunity to once again set out your pro-climate stall, and say your piece. Just spreading the word helps to familiarise people to it, and that helps work on undecideds and neutrals: the more often they see a given argument in a new place, the more likely they are to take it into serious consideration. Also bear in mind that while YOU may be informed, many people are not. It's dangerous to assume that everyone CAN indeed see the holes in a faulty argument - as the whole reason that these are propagated in the first place, is that many people cannot see said holes. Having it spelled out may actually be helpful for those who sense that there might be something off about that comment, but can't put a name to why.
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@2020_Visi0n I ain't assumed nothing. :P You gave me an opportunity to outline what I think is best-practice in dealing with misinformation peddlers, so I took it!
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The solar panels yield electricity he can sell for income, to supplement his business.
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@yamilcoloma6677 Their community has invested in the project, because it will lower the cost of homeowners' energy bills going into the future - that's where the extra needed hit of capital came from. :)
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As hinted at in the video, while deserts may get a lot of sun, they are often very remote from human settlements. There are a few challenges you'd have to overcome to make desert-based solar arrays work - for example, your maintenace crews would presumably have to travel much further to reach a broken or malfunctioning panel. Another potential problem would be due to the desert climate itself, which is extraordinarily unforgiving. Yet another challenge is that across our planet, many of the deserts that we can think of are spread across international borders, and they are often right at the centre of conflict zones. Political instability in those areas may make it risky to set up serious infrastructure. The final problem is the matter of bringing power FROM those deserts to populated areas. The further you are, the more challenging it is, and the more expensive cables you need to lay into the ground to transport it. There are a lot of challenges involved in setting up large solar arrays - and as the video suggests, these are actually largely pre-solved if you install them alongside existing agricultural industries. Farms are typically sited quite close to human settlements, you have potential maintenance staff right there on-hand working on the farm, and arable fields present a much more suitable environment for solar panels, without excessively harsh weather to contend with (i.e. dust storms). Even if only 10% of each field is occupied by a solar panel, that's potentially a colossal surface area that we're giving over to solar generation, and the marvellous thing is that these farmers have discovered they can avoid direct competition between power generation and agriculture, by having the two functions coexist in the same space.
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@Souleth And the sound muted. :3
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@enfomy What point do you think I'm supporting?
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@enfomy If you want to put nature on a pedestal like a paganistic god, that's up to you, but I prefer not to anthropomorphise highly complex environmental processes. It adds little to the conversation, and it doesn't get us any closer to taking concrete steps to fix the climate crisis.
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@enfomy I can definitely agree that these challenges are not insurmountable, and that we all collectively need to put fixing the climate by ending carbon emissions, right up at the very top of our to-do list. :)
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