The Midas Touch
Whatâs âconcensusâ?
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I always cringe a bit when I read these types of sentiments that are anti-science. Nine times out of ten there is some agenda involved (like a belief that global warming is fake) or we are dealing with a Biblical literalist who doesnât like, for example, evolution because this goes against a literalist take on Genesis.
First of all, in Galileoâs time, the scientific method was still developing, data was limited, and institutions often resisted change for philosophical or religious reasons. Today, the process is built to change when new evidence appears. Peer review, reproducibility, global collaboration, and open data mean that wrong ideas get corrected faster.
When it comes to many of the theories of today (like the big bang theory), evidence has interfaced with other evidence so that we now have mutually corroborative evidence, and this mutually corroborative evidence has given rise to a well-founded theory, and this well-founded theory has become a well-corroborated theory, and this well-corroborated theory has become a very well-corroborated theory which is a highly probable theory, and this highly probable theory ought to be given truth value and credence. With many of the theories of today, we are at an extremely mature stage and we really should give the huge amounts of evidence that coalesce both quantitatively and qualitatively the respect that it deserves.
I always cringe when people advocate that science is some sort of consensus.
Anthropogenic global warming nothing more than a tool used by globalists to bring about their political ends. CO2 is a beneficial gas and has not been proved to warm the planet.
Evolution requires more belief than the Bibleâs account of creation.
I take issue with the meme because with the portrait of Tyson, an astrophysicist, the attack is against the hard sciences by which I mean any field where principles can be expressed as precise mathematical laws with very high predictive accuracy (you can repeat the experiments with the same results, like with Newtonâs laws of motion or thermodynamics).
I wouldnât put evolutionary biology and climate science in the same category. I mean you canât rerun Earthâs history in a lab. I guess you can still make predictions, but the predictions are usually probabilistic (âlikely range of outcomesâ) rather than exact.
So go crazy with evolution and global warming, but leave Tyson out of the argument.
While weâre on the topic of global warming, I know almost nothing about this âscience.â And this is mainly because air quality, taking power away from the Middle East, and making sure your country stays relevant in the future are sufficient reasons to aggressively pursue alternative energies.
He claims to be a âscience communicatorâ, is often presented as a scientist, and he made the statement âIâm interested in medical consensus and scientific consensusâŚThe individual scientist does not matterâ. So I think itâs a fitting meme.
Air quality is a pollution issue. Almost completely unrelated.
Last time I checked the middle east didnât have a lot of coal.
How are solar and wind turbines, both of which require replacing every couple of decades, require a lot of energy to construct and install, and are unavailable a lot of the time going to make any country stay relevant?
China dominating in almost every area and each technical hurdle being overcome are happening right before our very eyes. Iâm really surprised there is any debate. But I will bow out of this one. Itâs Friday and the discussion is going down some endless holes.
China is dominating buying raw materials and selling solar and wind hardware back to stupid western countries so they can fulfil their climate change agendas.
Thereâs a reason China is building so many coal fired power stations, rather than using solar and wind.
Countries are buying these technologies from China because itâs the future. China is using coal because itâs a temporary, stop-gap measure while they work toward an economy based on alternative energies.
From Chat GPT:
The use of alternative (renewable) energies in China is trending sharply upward across multiple fronts.
Rapid Growth in Renewable Capacity
⢠By the end of 2024, Chinaâs total installed power capacity hit around 3,348 GW, including substantial contributions from renewables: 520 GW wind, 887 GW solar, plus 436 GW hydropower. Non-fossil sources continue to expand rapidly (Wikipedia).
⢠In 2024 alone, China installed over 373 GW of renewables, raising its total renewable capacity to approximately 1,878 GW (Wikipedia).
⢠Already in the first half of 2025, wind and solar installations nearly doubled year-on-year, with 210 GW of new solar and 50 GW of new wind added (State Council of China).
Clean Electricity & Generation Mix
⢠In 2024, non-fossil fuels (including solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear) accounted for about 38% of Chinaâs electricity, with wind and solar alone contributing around 18% .
⢠For a record-setting monthâApril 2025âwind (13.6%) plus solar (12.4%) together contributed over 25% of total electricity generation .
⢠By May 2024, clean sources (solar, wind, hydro, nuclear) generated 44% of electricityâpushing coal down to a record-low 53% share (Reddit).
Global Leadership and Milestones
⢠China is responsible for an outsized share of the global renewable energy surgeâinstalling more solar in 2023 than the entire world did in 2022, and accounting for roughly two-thirds of global renewable capacity growth (IEA, Afry).
⢠As of now, China is constructing 74% of all solar and wind projects globally, with over 510 GW under development, and operates around 1.5 TW of solar + wind capacity (Financial Times).
⢠In May 2025, China added 93 GW solar and 26 GW windâequivalent to the energy scale of entire countriesâand surpassed 1,000 GW of solar PV capacity (The Guardian).
⢠It reportedly met its 2030 renewable energy goals six years ahead of schedule, according to multiple reports (Le Monde.fr, Reuters, Afry).
Challenges & Next Steps
⢠Despite massive capacity growth, some regions (like Tibet) have seen high curtailment ratesâwith up to ~34% of solar and ~30% of wind going unused due to transmission and grid limitations. National curtailment rose as well (Reuters).
⢠China is now shifting its emphasis toward improving utilisationâthrough investments in energy storage, ultra-high-voltage transmission lines, and hydropower balancing (Reuters).
In Summary
Yesâuse of alternative energies in China is not just increasing, itâs surging. The nation has dramatically expanded its renewable capacity, is a global powerhouse in clean energy deployment, and is transitioning from rapid growth to smarter integration, focusing on making sure all that green power gets used effectively.
