• commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    5 days ago

    Creating demand for the alternatives funds their R&D and furthers their availability, which in turn leads to better products for lower prices, which makes further adoption much easier.

    there is no causal link between any of those events, and increased demand decrease availability.

    I don’t really believe what economists claim, v but you don’t even seem to know what they say in the first place

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      5 days ago

      increased demand decrease availability

      In the short term. Over the mid and long terms, highly profitable demand can induce supply in a free market system.

      Solar and Wind electricity are both great cases in point. Once they became more cost-efficient to build and operate than coal plants, the demand for coal plummeted while the demand for new green installations surged.

      I don’t really believe what economists claim

      I’m inclined to follow the data, at least at first glance. We’re entering a CO2 production peak, in large part thanks to the cost-spread between installing/operating new fossil fuel plants and their green peers.

      There are other factors at play. I can’t get the mysterious explosion of the Nordstream II pipeline out of my head and what the consequences of climate change are of that. Then there’s the closing of the Suez trade and the collapse in development of Balkan Crude. But the incredibly cheap alternatives - largely pioneered and industrially propagated by the world’s largest socialist state - can’t be ignored as having a huge influence on consumption habits.

      Can animal-free meat follow the same path? Idk, maybe. But given the way the US developers and investors had to be dragged kicking and screaming into a modern green grid, I suspect we’ll see meat alternatives take off abroad long before they become truly popular in the US.