Elecgric Vehicles - F250 Lightning - Event Date: 16 Mar 2022

Well I've certainly met people who deny the climate is changing. There are also people who deny the earth is round. So they exisf, all the physical evidence to the contrary. It is not perjorative to say that someone denies physical evidence if they do, just a statement of fact.

I haven't heard anyone on this forum say they believe either of those things. But really its ok with me if they did, I've long since learned that people believe all sorts of things which are contrary to evidence. We all have sent that.

In any event, I've been well aware of the need to make a shift in the energy economy as soon as possible since the late 1970s, hence my choice of a career in photovoltaics. That is not hubris and arrogance, it is my assessment of the implications of the climate science. I assure you that it had nothing to do with government funded pronouncements or the media hype, none of which existed then. Hardly anyone even knew what photovoltaics was.

I completely agree thst it's all about the economics. We had commercially available solar in the late 1970s, you could buy all you wanted for a mere $15 per watt (in 1980 dollars). Now it's about 50 cents a watt, in 2022 dollars. The work over that 40 plus year period was to achieve that cost reduction so that solar became economically competitive with fossil fuel alternatives. Once the basic economics were in place customers were able to excercize their emotions which in the end are critical to making a buy decision.

So as I said, I really don't mind if someone buys an EV because it's faster, quieter, cheaper, more convenient, gives what you feel is higher community status. reduces your exposure to price fluctuations, or even because its greener. All those attributes are the result of a lot of hard work by many smart people to make EVs attractive to a broad audience.

As for climate change, discussions regarding the science behind it are not political just because someone perhaps might want to make them so. Science is science, we should be able to discuss it here. Decisions regarding public policy are by definition political and so are out of bounds.

One cannot reasonably argue that a scientific development should not be actionable because the science might change. That simply becomes a justification for inaction. If a business leader took that viewpoint his board of directors would fire him immediately. Leadership requires making timely decisions without all the data you would like. Point in a direction and go based on the best data available. If you have to adjust your course later when more info turns up then you do that. The keys to success are being out in front, being right more often than wrong, and being able to quickly make course adjustments as more data becomes available.