3226: Home Solar

Home Solar

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Title text: "While I try to do my part to destroy the environment, I try not to focus too much on individual responsibility. By pushing for broad policy changes, we can collectively do far more damage to the biosphere than any of us could on our own."

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Explanation

This strip portrays Black Hat and Cueball discussing solar panels that Black Hat has recently installed.

Photovoltaic solar panels generate electricity without the use of any fuel, and therefore produce no carbon dioxide or other emissions, and consume no resources, other than what's involved in the initial manufacture and installation. Individuals can install panels on their own roofs for their own use, and often are able to sell any excess back to the grid. This reduces the load on power plants, and therefore reduces emissions of CO2 and other pollutants. Importantly, this is a move that individuals can make to reduce their carbon footprint, rather than relying on governments or corporations to make changes (which can face a great deal of resistance).

Ever since photovoltaic panels became commercially available, people who are concerned about pollution have been encouraged to install them as a move toward environmental protection. The cost of such panels, however, was initially prohibitive, leading to many people wanting to install solar panels, but arguing that it didn't make financial sense to do so. Over the last few decades, however, [the price of solar cells has fallen dramatically]. Depending on specific conditions (including weather factors, installation costs, local price of electricity, regulation, and government subsidies), home solar panels can often save money over their lifetime, when compared to the costs of grid power.

This strip plays on that, with Black Hat inverting the role of the traditional environmentalist. Being a classhole, Black Hat, isn't merely indifferent to environmental damage, he professes to "hate the environment" and tries to maximize his negative impact. Yet he installed solar panels because it "makes more financial sense". He expresses his desire to have an oil-burning furnace (a notoriously dirty source of home heat), but "the technology just isn't there and the costs are too high".

The joke is that, where environmentalists once felt they had to accept polluting power sources because alternative technologies like photovoltaics cost too much, the situation has flipped and the financials now often favor alternative power. This means that someone who was actively malicious toward the environment might find themselves reluctantly using cleaner technology, solely to save money.

In the last panel, he argues that he burns industrial waste in his yard "to make up for it." This is a play on the idea of carbon offsets and other programs that are intended to allow both people and companies to pay for programs that reduce carbon emissions and/or increase carbon capture. People sometimes argue that such credits allow them to reduce carbon emissions more cheaply than changing their own lifestyle, and so make more sense (though the effectiveness of such programs is subject to debate). Black Hat is sufficiently malicious that he feels the need to burn industrial waste, increasing air pollution with no benefits to anyone (even himself) to offset any accusations of environmental responsibility.

The title text continues this theme by reversing a standard argument about personal responsibility in tackling environmental issues. Many people argue that the effects of individual action are of limited effectiveness in protecting the environment, and we should focus more on broad changes to government and corporate policies that can make changes on a more fundamental level. Black Hat argues that the same is true for efforts to harm the biosphere.

This strip may also be a reference to recent high oil/gasoline prices, going up over 30% in the past two weeks prior to this comic's publication, overwhelmingly due to military activity disrupting fuel (and other) trading, and its knock-on effects globally. As with falling prices for solar cells, rising prices for fossil fuels shifts the calculation around energy prices, making it more likely that installing solar panels would be in someone's best financial interests.

Transcript

[Black Hat and Cueball stand next to a house with solar panels on the roof.]

Cueball: Wait, you got solar panels?

Cueball: I thought you were against renewables.

[Zoom to show only Cueball and Black Hat.]

Black Hat: Oh, definitely. I hate the environment and want to harm it as much as possible.

Black Hat: I'd love to have an oil furnace.

[Zoom in on Black Hat; only his head and shoulders are visible.]

Black Hat: But the technology just isn't there and the cost is too high.

Black Hat: I despise solar, but it makes more financial sense in my situation.

[Zoom out to show Cueball and Black Hat again.]

Black Hat: But with the money I'm saving, I can buy and burn industrial waste in my yard to try to make up for it.

Cueball: Ah, yeah, carbon onsets.

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Discussion

Beep Boop 216.25.182.141 21:49, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Black Hat, because who else??? 64.201.132.210 21:52, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Title text may refer to policy decisions in the second Trump administration which promote the use of fossil fuels or undo existing policies which promote the use of renewables. The burning of industrial waste in his front yard may or may not be an oblique reference to the environmental damage being done in the current war in Iraq, in which petroleum-processing facilities and ships containing oil are being set on fire. 64.201.132.210 21:56, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Possible, and logical. Let's not ignore the possibility that this is just random environmental activism from Randall though, like what he seems to be exhibiting in xkcd #2948. WikipedianPolitician (talk) 22:00, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

Just to note, for future readers who might get confused (who knows what they remember of this particular moment in time, and what's going on in their era), the war is in Iran right now (and/or the region in general, but not particularly in Iraq more than also in plenty of other places nearby). The "War in Iraq" was Bush's thing (Senior or Junior, either or both), mainly, give or take what spilled over into subsequent Administrations. And, by the way, the current President always said that the Iraq thing was a bad idea, and that starting wars was always a bad thing, and... (I could go on. But one can't really do much satire about it, because straight reality is already being plainly ridiculous in its own right.) 81.179.199.253 23:58, 30 March 2026 (UTC)

A side-note from Poland - Przemysław Czarnek, the candidate for the future prime minister of the right-wing Law and Justice (if the win the upcoming elections) was recently talking against renewable sources of electricity... when he was reminded that he put solar panels on the roof of his house a few years ago (and he admitted that thanks to solar panels he saves on electricity bills. --JakubNarebski (talk) 07:18, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

My guess is that it's a reference to Trump's forcing coal power plants to stay open (or in some cases, re-open), which ends up raising the price of power in many of the affected areas. 206.193.5.5

Could be just replacing an environmentalist's excuses for not getting solar with the exact opposite, because Black Hat. Picture the following:

   [Black Hat and Cueball stand next to a house with an oil fill spout outside]
   Cueball: Wait, you have an oil furnace? I thought you were against fossil fuels. 
   [Black Hat and Cueball are still discussing]
   Black Hat: Oh, Definitely. I love the environment and want to save it as much as possible.
   Black Hat: I'd love to have solar panels.
   [Zoom on Black Hat]
   Black Hat: But the technology just isn't there and the cost is too high.
   Black Hat: I despise oil, but it makes more financial sense in my situation.
   [Return to previous zoom]
   Black Hat: But with the money I'm saving, I can buy industrial credits to try to make up for it.
   Cueball: Ah, yeah, carbon offsets.

Granted, that's far less amusing. --DontKillPablo (talk) 00:39, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

There's only one problem with that; the character would then probably be Megan or Ponytail, not Black Hat. 2600:8802:3a10:8e00:889f:9579:d419:5fd8 (talk) 00:54, 31 March 2026 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Or White Hat... 45.178.3.49 15:56, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

That "reversal" is actually a quite accurate description of the situation about 30 years ago. And thus, the joke is actually that the comic is the reversal of that situation. Elektrizikekswerk (talk) 07:43, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

being eco-friendly is OUT. being eco-antagonistic is IN 171.33.202.199 12:26, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't quite understand the comic. Solar panels provide electricity and oil furnaces provide warmth. How does installing solar panels help with heating? You'd have to install a heat pump or use solar thermal energy instead of solar panels. Or is it supposed to mean using AC for heating because it can act as a heat pump? Imurik (talk) 19:38, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

Pretty sure it's referring to an electric heat pump since they are generally significantly cheaper than oil heating, especially at latitudes where rooftop solar is economical (due to higher average winter temperatures). 206.193.5.5 21:14, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

It could be solar water heating, rather than PV. But some places will use electric heaters (centrally or as individual units dotted around the house) rather than fuelled boilers, and they can be supplied/augmented from solar panels energy.

Especially as oil-fired boilers require deliveries of oil, and seem to be more common in in places without mains-gas (gaseous gas, that is, not 'gasoline' gas) or electricity, so probably already logistically less convenient and more expensive, day-to-day, than just converting captured sunlight into heat, one way or another. Assuming you're set up to do enough of that with the available energy (and Black Hat wouldn't skimp).

More efficient is the Heat Pump/exchanger method, of course, leveraging the electricity to just move heat around rather than try to generate it. Or possibly even something using the Peltier Effect. 81.179.199.253 22:34, 31 March 2026 (UTC)

black hat should be ambassador to coal Aaron Liu (talk) 23:34, 6 April 2026 (UTC)
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