I’d be real curious if you can back those statements up with peer-reviewed sources.

For one thing, it’s not exactly like Uranium is mined in democratic nations with strong labor protections.

Also, “it’s a neat toy” they say, meanwhile Germany produces up to 15% of it’s total energy by solar: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/daten-tools/agorameter/chart/today/power_generation/01.10.2023/30.09.2024/monthly

I’m not saying none of this is true, but at the very least most of this is misleading. We’re figuring out how to recycle old solar panels on an industrial scale: https://youtu.be/FCtEWveySsA

But progress is a bit slower than expected, mostly also because panels are a lot longer-lived than previously assumed (this is a good thing).

Yes, panels use rare minerals, but so does basically everything we consume and use nowadays. There’s two answers to that.

A) does it still make sense climate-wise to use these resources in solar panels? This is what Life Cycle Analyses are for. In general, throughout their life cycle, PV modules help prevent more CO2 emissions than their manufacturing process releases, i.e. they are a net gain (https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/1/252). This is similar to EV vehicles, which break even around 60k km driven depending on your electricity generation (if memory serves https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2023/733112/IPOL_STU(2023)733112_EN.pdf)

b) is there a way to manufacture PV panels less resource-intensive and maybe even without relying on (Chinese) rare earth minerals as much? Yes there is. https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/de/documents/publications/studies/ISE-Sustainable-PV-Manufacturing-in-Europe.pdf and see also sources above for next-gen differences.

That being said, for now it’s still economically more attractive (usually) to implement Chinese panels because they’re flooding the market. Still, it’s a net gain as outlined.

I mean, they’re probably not touching handlebars when riding side by side.

I think that might be volcel? as in voluntary celibate?

yes, I know. I meant it more along the lines of whoever comes up with a method for standardizing bias in media puts their own bias in the methodology.

For example, I feel it is a political statement in itself to have a “bias spectrum” from left to unbiased to right. This implies that both left an right are “biases”, while only the center is truly neutral and therefore an arbiter of truth and facts. Enlightened centrism, anyone?

Also, I disagree with parts of their methodology. The headline “Habitual liar and convicted felon to seek US presidency again” would probably be classified as loaded language, whereas “Donald Trump wants to become president again” would be considered more neutral.

I would argue that the former example is, in fact, more truthful than the latter because it doesn’t omit major reasons why this is newsworthy. But since the mbfc is founded on the illusion idea that there is such a thing as truly neutral common ground, it conflates perspective and bias.

thanks for putting it more succinctly than I did!

I actually meant to start a thread one of these days if we can’t ban it! Glad you started the conversation!

My main concern is that by attributing a tactfulness and political rating to them, we’re attaching weight to that. But who does these ratings? Especially when a pop/mainstream mag like the Rolling Stone is classified as “left” the same that explicitly politically left publications like Jacobin are also “left”. That just strikes me as odd.