Biden Announces $2 Trillion Climate Plan (nytimes.com)
- Reference: 0133358632
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/07/14/1836241/biden-announces-2-trillion-climate-plan
- Source link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/biden-climate-plan.html
> In a speech in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Biden built on his plans, released last week, for reviving the economy in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, with a new focus on enhancing the nation's infrastructure and emphasizing the importance of putting the United States on a path to significantly cut fossil fuel emissions. "These are the most critical investments we can make for the long-term health and vitality of both the American economy and the physical health and safety of the American people," he said, repeatedly criticizing President Trump's leadership on issues including climate and the pandemic. "When Donald Trump thinks about climate change, the only word he can muster is 'hoax.' When I think about climate change, the word I think of is 'jobs.'"
>
> The proposal is the second plank in Mr. Biden's economic recovery plan. His team sees an opportunity to take direct aim at Mr. Trump, who has struggled to deliver on his pledges to finance major improvements to American infrastructure. Republicans are sure to criticize the proposal as an attack on jobs in the energy sector -- but the plan will also test whether Mr. Biden has found a way to win over environmental activists and other progressives who have long been skeptical about the scope of his ambitions on climate. His plan outlines specific and aggressive targets, including achieving an emissions-free power sector by 2035 and upgrading four million buildings over four years to meet the highest standards for energy efficiency. The plan also calls for establishing an office of environmental and climate justice at the Department of Justice and developing a broad set of tools to address how "environmental policy decisions of the past have failed communities of color."
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/us/politics/biden-climate-plan.html
[2] https://slashdot.org/~DogDude
He's also backing Net Neutrality (Score:1, Funny)
I have lots of issues with Biden (I don't trust him on the TPP, he wants to means test Social Security & he attacked Section 230) but he's got his upsides. This plus the thought of competent leadership on the pandemic makes me actually want to vote for him as opposed to just voting against the other guy.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Of the 330 million or so residents of the U.S. about 300 million would make a more competent President than Biden.
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Gee, maybe the Republicans should have nominated one of them.
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Have to agree with you there, unfortunately there's that other 30 million who will help to make sure that the even worst choice stays in office.
Damn, I never thought I'd see a presidential election where the choices were Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber (take your pick which is which.) HL Mencken was right.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart
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> Of the 330 million or so residents of the U.S. about 300 million would make a more competent President than Biden.
I've got things growing in my refrigerator that would make a better President than either major party's candidate.
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> Of the 330 million or so residents of the U.S. about 300 million would make a more competent President than Biden.
Yea but 329,999,999 would make a better president than Trump. Sorry, I'm not normally partisan but you made that one so easy. This will be another South Park election.
yawn (Score:2)
Where is my infrastructure and UBI? Climate shit doesnt do anything for my pocketbook and world dominance.
Details of the plan are important (Score:5, Insightful)
From the details that have been released this looks like a really good plan. There's a lot for solar and wind, a lot going to research also. But one thing I'm most happy about is that this isn't remotely the "Green New Deal." The Green New Deal was mostly social programs which had been tacked on to dealing with climate change in order to get more support, and the people who made it even admitted that [1]https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aocs-top-aide-admits-green-new-deal-about-the-economy-not-the-climate [foxnews.com]. The truth is that climate change is one of the most serious threats humanity faces today, and whether or not one agrees with the proposals from the GND, tying them into climate change was, and remains a really bad idea in terms of the scale of the problems involved. The Biden proposal will create jobs and help repair falling apart US infrastructure. But it will do so as secondary effects. This is what a serious plan to deal with climate change should look like.
[1] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aocs-top-aide-admits-green-new-deal-about-the-economy-not-the-climate
Re: Details of the plan are important (Score:2)
We definitely need new infrastructure after 30 years of not doing that but I'm also 99% sure it has nothing to do with a "green new deal", which years later, there is still no dialog as to how we finance it or how it makes any kind of sense that we take a financial bullet for a world still heavily invested in coal futures
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In fairness, calling it the "New Deal" is perfectly clear that it's a social program.
Solyndra 2.0 (Score:2, Interesting)
How can I waste, uh, change the world with, this sweet, sweet booty?
This is why I can't take this seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
"environmental policy decisions of the past have failed communities of color."
Is there ever an end to this stupid racist pandering? If I was a "person of color" I'd be insulted.
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There's a lot of examples of this. For example, African-Americans are more likely to have asthma than the rest of the population [1]https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=4&lvlid=15 [hhs.gov]. Part of that is due to hire smoking rates in the homes, but a major part is also more exposure to pollutants [2]https://www.ajmc.com/focus-of-the-week/princeton-study-being-black-doesnt-cause-asthma-the-neighborhood-does [ajmc.com]. They are more likely to live near coal and oil powerplants for example. Similarly, lead poisoning
[1] https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=4&lvlid=15
[2] https://www.ajmc.com/focus-of-the-week/princeton-study-being-black-doesnt-cause-asthma-the-neighborhood-does
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So a solution would be to grow the economic standing of minorities, and push for more affordable housing (which often means a bit more sprawl). [1]Rising incomes [brookings.edu] and a [2]falling unemploymenr rate [stlouisfed.org] would be great ways to address that. And would grow the GDP considerably more than buying more windmills and solar panels and [3]increasing the costs of electricity [forbes.com].
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/10/03/black-household-income-is-rising-across-the-united-states/
[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS14000031
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianmurray1/2019/06/17/the-paradox-of-declining-renewable-costs-and-rising-electricity-prices/#54f7184561d5
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Being "pandered to" might be insulting, but it means you aren't being lynched.
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> "Is there ever an end to this stupid racist pandering?"
No. Everything is racist, sexist, gender-identist, ageist, classist, or whatever-ist. That is the "in" thing. It is identity politics in action. Hook some supposed victim group to your platform or proposal and start pushing it. Nothing is based on facts or reason, or wanting a real discussion or exploration of actual causes or solutions, just pandering and finger pointing to get votes or support. It is truly disheartening and divisive and has
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Sorry, SJW, you're asking me to prove a negative. You show me where "environmental policy" has "failed communities of color".
What a bunch of horseshit.
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> It's it untrue? Can you give examples of where they are mistaken?
You're asking the wrong question. If a policy fails everyone , calling particular attention to the demographic you are addressing is nothing but pandering. Sure, black people have been affected, but so has everyone else .
For instance, despite supposedly being protected from harm by the pale complexion of their skin, I have an aunt and uncle who (so far as I know) each still receive regular checks from the federal government as a sort of, "Remember that time...well, dozens of times...we dropped fallout on you
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Those policies have failed EVERYONE, not just communities of color. But I guess this is like saying "all lives matter" and thus will get me downmodded...
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Failed everyone but things like redlining ensured that black people often got the worst of it.
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[1]Redlining was ended 50 years ago [washingtonpost.com], and today doesn't exist; it's economic income in a given area. Note that is not necessarily racially based, and "redlined" neighborhoods that gentrify tend to do quite well. It's not about race - it's about economic stability and income for an area, and that means loans are inherently going to be more risky, thus higher rates apply.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/03/28/redlining-was-banned-50-years-ago-its-still-hurting-minorities-today/
No More Mr. Limpdick? (Score:2)
The problem I saw with Biden was similar to Hillary - they don't make anyone's dick hard. Figuratively speaking. Well maybe literally too. Anyway...
If the Biden crew can link the economic recovery to addressing the existential human problem of our generation and the next and the next, which is climate change... they start to build what looks like a compelling and cohesive vision for the nation. Emotionally, it looks like a combination of the Apollo program with the New Deal. That could hit Trump right in th
2 Tril. Where? (Score:2)
That's 2 trillion into the pockets of his buddies. Do you think we need to spend more? Politicians on both sides make me sick. Like a credit card payment, it will catch up to us someday.
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That's 2 trillion into the pockets of his buddies.
Oh fuck off. The money is not going to his buddies. It's going to companies who will employ people with good paying jobs.
[1]Going into the pockets of his buddies [time.com] is the purview of the con artist [2]who continues to violate the Constitution [nytimes.com]. Oddly, not one word from Republicans on all this corruption and illegality.
Also, are you against the $7.5 trillion the central planning committee has already spent to once again bail out multi-billion dollar corporations, or
[1] https://time.com/5863616/trump-ppp-bailout-loans/
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/us/politics/betsy-devos-coronavirus-religious-schools.html
Conservative estimate (Score:2)
> His plan outlines specific and aggressive targets, including achieving an emissions-free power sector by 2035...
Judging by the [1]current trend [slashdot.org], the power sector will get there on their own by that time, no further intervention required. The subsidies worked. Wind power is cheap, plentiful, and so widespread that it is starting to achieve the "wind is always blowing somewhere" affect. Installing a handful of grid scale batteries around the country would probably be wise, which this money could help finance, but actually shutting down the last of the coal plants is already inevitable. Running them is too expensive.
[1] https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/07/13/2031201/us-utilities-are-cleaning-up-their-act-with-emissions-down-8
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> Installing a handful of grid scale batteries around the country would probably be wise, which this money could help finance, but actually shutting down the last of the coal plants is already inevitable.
A grid scale battery? And how big would this grid scale battery be? Let's see here, 1 hr of backup for CA alone is 50% of the worlds Li battery output. And CA is ~1% of the world's energy usage. And batteries degrade over time so that's a continual thing. So 1 hr of backup for the globe would be 50 years of battery production so given a 20 year rotation, you would need to add 250% to the world's battery output to put just 1 hr of backup in place. Oh, so you are going to move power around the grid. Th
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> Judging by the current trend [slashdot.org], the power sector will get there on their own by that time, no further intervention required.
Switching from coal to natural gas (as in your link) is not a trend that will ever get CO2 emissions to zero.
Paid for by HIGH taxes, killing the economy (Score:2)
The only winners in sleepy Joe's plan will be his self-serving donors, Xi Jinping, and of course sleepy Joe and his family..
Re:Great plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Except the people will be roasting their pets over open trash fires to survive.
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So you're saying you remember that time when the US invested in a bunch of green energy companies and a couple of them didn't succeed, so the government should never consider giving money to companies ever again
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So Solyndra lied, got money in good faith and failed. The Recovery and Reinvestment Act still was a net profit for the US government.
If you're upset about that, I'm sure you're absolutely livid about [1]the paycheck protection program [marketwatch.com] which is already shaping up to be a doondoggle.
=Smidge=
[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/over-500000-businesses-got-ppp-loans-but-are-listed-as-retaining-zero-jobs-treasury-department-data-show-2020-07-08
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Oh, don't get your panties in a twist, it's just for consumption by the party faithful. Neither he nor his advisors have the slightest illusion that any portion of it will ever become law, the DNC's own corporate sponsors would ensure that any such proposal would be DOA.
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That's some bullshit.
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America doesn't have money. You gave it up when you declared your independence from us Brits. The moment you put the Queen back onto your little pieces of paper that's when you'll have money again!
Until then are you playing a game of pretend with false money. Why do you there bother what you spend it on? You might as well use your Queenless currency and use it to make your country a nicer place, which would be a real improvement and fare better than worrying over your funny money.
Re: Great plan (Score:2)
Given an election between candidates Biden and a lump of coal, the lump of coal has a bloody good chance of winning election.
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There is zero chance any of this passes even if he were to win.
Re:It's about fucking time (Score:5, Interesting)
"Most rational people understand"
And most rational people are in the minority and therefore never have a chance in hell of getting the correct things done because all of their time is spend trying to convince the "irrational majority" that they are wrong.
By the way... no rational person would think any of this shit is rational. I guess your bullshit just got called!
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No, I think it's past time trying to convince the Trump cult that AGW is "real". I think that the Biden team has rightfully just decided to ignore all of those people, and push forward with what needs to be done. Trying to educate conspiracy theorists is wasting time that we don't have.
It's the same thing any time we need to push forward as a nation. You'll never convince all of the crazies and uneducated and the self-serving, so you just make laws that force them to do the right thing. If we waited t
Re:It's about fucking time (Score:4, Interesting)
[1]Biden's plan [joebiden.com] is one of the best I've seen, for several reasons.
1 ) It plans to get net CO2 emissions to 0 (a lot of plans don't, which is a fail from the outset).
2 ) It addresses the car problem (through a combination of electric and biofuel).
3 ) It addresses the electricity problem (through solar, wind, and nuclear).
4 ) It allows nuclear as part of the solution (blindseer will be happy).
5 ) It admits that new technology will be required, and invests in it.
I personally am not very worried about AGW, but I do see this as a plan that can actually achieve the stated goal, whereas many other plans had no hope of achieving their stated goal.
[1] https://joebiden.com/climate/
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> 4 ) It allows nuclear as part of the solution (blindseer will be happy).
Guess there has to be at least one realistic solution that will actually address the problem in there. Tends to make better policy that way. The other 95% of it is mostly subsides to important political blocks: Iowa farmers (biofuel), Texas land owners (wind), Rich Greenies (EVs and solar), political contributors (wind). Getting CO2 to 0 is silly and not even environmentally desirable (or even realistic without massive capture). A slow decrease (which is environmentally desirable) in total atmospheric C
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Rational people understand that this is nothing more than a desperate pandering attempt to get the radical Left Bernie/AOC wing on board and not riot against him too. Biden won't even remember giving this speech by tomorrow.
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Sure they can. Do you think the DNC for an instant ever considers what anyone but the banksters and megacorps actually need? If so then you haven't been paying attention since Terry McAuliffe and the Clintons took over the party in the 1990s.
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[1]Check the GDP rate [tradingeconomics.com] and set the range to, say, 1990-01-01 to today. It's all over the place until Q1 2017 nice and flat. And most (honest) people recognize that the current economic downturn is because Governments are forcing the economy to halt, via shut-downs. Outside of that, the last 3 years have been remarkably stable in terms of economic growth, historically.
[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth
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The government has no f***ing business doing this. It will skim money of the top, bottom, and sides. Contracts will go to buddies who have no intention of producing anything, and contracts will go to companies who have already worked in the field and they'll simply post-date their old results. Nothing good can come of this.
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How do you propose tackling climate change, if not federal governments?
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A plan is probably a good idea to get storage and other things implemented faster than market forces would implement them but as far as power generation goes renewable power generation, particularly Wind and PV have gotten so cheap the entire power market is remaking around them at a pace that was even 10 years ago considered impossible.
So such a plan regarding electricity generation isn't much of an improvement, what I'd really like to see is carbon taxes that would speed the shift of the transportation ma
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I agree 100%.
Right now, after living through an administration that is doing everything possible to harm the environment, I'm thrilled to have any sort of aggressive plan to try to mitigate the change, even if it's not absolutely perfect. It's a very big step in the right direction.
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> It's about fucking time he stepped up and did this. $2 Trillion probably isn't enough, but it's a good start. And 2035 is a reasonable time frame, as well.
Isn't there some sort of adage that states something to the effect of, "If a Politician proposes a deadline beyond their maximum term of office, they're completely full of shit?"
'35 probably would be a reasonable time frame, but it'd probably require both House and Senate to agree on fighting Climate Change being a real problem for at least 8 years as well as the Presidency being on board.
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You're right. But, our government must look beyond the next election cycle, and must attempt to get things accomplished. Sure, another Republican Congress and/or Executive Branch could come along and destroy everything, but that shouldn't stop us from trying to get something done. The alternative (ie: not doing anything) is pretty horrible.
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> The alternative (ie: not doing anything) is pretty horrible.
Much more likely your grand children, and their children, are going to have a substantially better standard of living than you do.
I hope you don't keep your kids awake at night telling them how they are all gonna die in the conflagration.
Re:Wait... this if for climate change? (Score:5, Insightful)
> If you want people to believe that climate change is real, and all you AGW believers should actually ACT like it is real instead of saying it is real and never changing how you live.
That's a good point - the average citizen of any random country is sooo empowered to change global behavior! It's never been easier!
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If enough decided to address their own living standards - yes, they could change it. If there are not enough people to do that, then clearly it's not democratic to try to force the change through (not enough people really give a shit about it).
Re:Wait... this if for climate change? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want people to believe that climate change is real
It is real, regardless of what you believe.
Sincerely,
A scientist
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You missed the point. If you make it sound so bad and the world is going to end next year, and here is 2 trillion dollars to help fix it. (keep printing the money and more debt, where is the plan to PAY for it) then people will question, and you will make people who don't. If you would just give the facts, and be honest, like say these are models and this is the worst case scenario, you would attract more people to your cause. Also, government spending has NEVER worked to get the economy going again. Fu
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If you make it sound so bad and the world is going to end next year
I didn't read that anywhere in the article or in Biden's proposal. Who is telling you that the world is ending next year?
Also, government spending has NEVER worked to get the economy going again.
False. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
If you would just give the facts, and be honest, like say these are models and this is the worst case scenario, you would attract more people to your cause.
Facts have been available for severa
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal
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That the world is going to end next year is just insane. The scientists are saying it will be in 9 years.
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Climate has always changed, and always will. And the data is still inconclusive about the degree to which man and CO2 impact changes we are seeing today, to any level of significance.
Sincerely,
A scientist and engineer
except.. (Score:2)
It is real, regardless of what you believe. By scientists, you mean a person who ignores all data that disagrees with you? Then, yes, yes you are a scientist. If you take into account long term data, and not merely cherry pick things the hottest years of the last 100 years, then you are a real scientist who weights all facts. You are just a sheep.
Say bahhhh
Sincerely,
A real scientist
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Many people believe that climate change is an important issue, and that the current leadership has done little, if anything, to "move the ball forward". It is difficult to pick an area where Trump has done less. It is nice to see someone propose something real.
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> I believe this is where you have to clean up your own bedrooms first before you tell others how to clean up the world.
So, what, I can't advocate for addressing climate change if I drive a car, use electricity or eat food that was grown on a commercial farm?
Please tell us what criteria you expect "AGW believers" to meet before you take the problem seriously, as if how individuals act has any bearing on the facts of observable reality...
=Smidge=
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Act like it's real by voting to spend serious money on it?
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> If you want people to believe that climate change is real, and all you AGW believers should actually ACT like it is real instead of saying it is real and never changing how you live.
As someone who has done so, I agree with you. However, there are major hurdles that I simply cannot get past. Industrial pollution accounts for 70% of all the pollution in the US. Therefore, we need to incentivize not polluting while disincentivizing polluting.
A simple "carbon tax" on everything that would increase over time would shift the nation toward better energy sources. This taxes would be used to pay companies that actually captured CO2 and turned it into either something useful or back into soo
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> If you want people to believe that climate change is real, and all you AGW believers should actually ACT like it is real instead of saying it is real and never changing how you live.
This 100%! I'd love to live in a dense, culture-rich neighborhood, but [1]cities routinely rob from those neighborhoods and spend the tax revenue in affluent, low-density neighborhoods [strongtowns.org], making dense neighborhoods artificially expensive compared to low-density suburbs which [2]generate half as much tax revenue per housing unit and cos [streetsblog.org]
[1] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborhoods-make-the-best-investment
[2] https://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/05/08/nashville-study-walkable-infill-development-provides-the-most-revenue/
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> If you want people to believe that climate change is real, and all you AGW believers should actually ACT like it is real
I guess one of the most impactful actions is to vote - at the ballot box, and with each dollar you spend.
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Will the $2T allow room for him to bail out his top donors like they did with Solyndra?
You mean the company Obama cut off when he found out they had falsified their documents? Or did you mean like the central planning committee under Powell which is at $7.5 trillion and counting of monies given to bail out businesses who apparently can't exist for more than a few days without the taxpayers footing the bill.
Also, that program where Solyndra got called out [1]makes money for the government [bloomberg.com]. Needless
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-12/u-s-expects-5-billion-from-program-that-funded-solyndra
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Shall I go and start looking up citations for all the skeezy shit that happened in 16 years of the Bush era and start posting them, or are you going to sit down and STFU?
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thats politics for ya though...
one side bitching about the waste on the other because they are not the ones that got to waste it.
Meanwhile, the voters lose, but they also deserve to lose because those politicians are literally voted in by them! I almost never feel sorry for people that are hurt by their own governments. I only feel sorry for the children that never had a chance.. those are the innocent ones.
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A lot more of it will go to the military.
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[1]Check where spending is going [cbpp.org]; 72% goes to welfare/retirement benefits right now.That's over 4 times the amount that goes to defense and international aid/spending.
[1] https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-dollars-go#:~:text=In%20fiscal%20year%202019%2C%20the,billion)%20was%20financed%20by%20borrowing.
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It's amazing how small a trillion dollars seems these days.
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> When I think about climate change, all I can think about is taxes.
I'm a biologist. Whenever I think about climate change, all I can think about is mass economic and environmental devastation. I wish "taxes" was my biggest concern.
hoax (Score:5, Funny)
But what if climate change is a hoax and we end up making the world a better place for nothing?
This is an old joke (Score:4, Informative)
it comes from [1]here [duckduckgo.com]. It shouldn't have been modded troll.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=climate+change+hoax+cartoon&t=hk&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fclimatesanity.files.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F01%2Fcartoon-from-trenberth-ams-paper.jpg
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The definition of troll is anyone saying something that people did not like. Like every other word that is being changed to mean something it does not nowadays. Take your pick the list is massive.
racist, bigot, homophobe, treehugger, bleeding heart, feminist, master/slave, blackhole, white/black list, democracy, socialist, capitalist, I mean I could fill up this fucking forum with all the words being used today that no longer mean what they originally meant.
Everyone of those words now have 'active' Pavlov
No, that's not a troll (Score:5, Insightful)
a troll is someone posting to a conversation without the intention of adding anything to that conversation. A troll is trying to either derail the conversation and get it off track from any useful point or they are just trying to make the readers upset or angry.
You can be as racist, bigoted, homophobic, treehuggering, bleeding heart, etc, etc as you want and not be a troll if your points are made out of a genuine but misguided attempt to engage in conversation or debate.
You become a troll when your goal isn't to discuss those topics and how they pertain the the thread but are instead posting to cause confusion, anger and frustration.
For the troll the act of trolling is an end in and of itself.
Re: (Score:2)
"You become a troll when your goal isn't to discuss those topics and how they pertain the the thread but are instead posting to cause confusion, anger and frustration. "
so just like I said... the truth hurts don't it?
I just said exactly what you said but in a different way. The moment someone fails to understand the context, they are at risk of misunderstanding and not see how they do in fact pertain to the thread. But I know... it's convenient to say things don't apply when you need them to not apply. I
No, that's not what you said (Score:3, Interesting)
you said a troll is, and I quote, "The definition of troll is anyone saying something that people did not like."
This is a common right wing talking point (and sadly I see some people on the left parroting it when they should know better). It comes out of the "Free Speech Absolutist" line of thought that holds that all ideas must be treated as equally valuable no matter what.
Going back further it was a tactic the Nazis and Italian Fascists used shield themselves until they were in power and could clam
Re: (Score:2)
oh, I know what I said, and I stand by that. All I am saying is that the moment you don't like what you read you can always claim it is off topic or does not add to the conversation, regardless of the facts or intention of the poster.
I don't care who's side you think I am on here and it comes out of my own head, whether it matches up with someone else's famous work. I have read lots of things all over the place, but I do not remember reading "Free Speech Absolutist".
" line of thought that holds that all
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Go read some history. You're repeating it.
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Yes, those definitions certainly have changed. Shall we return to the original meanings! For example...
Bigot: An overly sanctimonious religious believer
Master/Slave: A human who owns another human, and the human who is owned
Black hole: A mass so dense that nothing can emerge from its gravitational pull, even light
Democracy: A political system where every citizen has an equal say in the running of the country, as long as they're male, not slaves or the descendents of immigrants, and wealthy enough to sp
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"Yes, those definitions certainly have changed. Shall we return to the original meanings! For example... "
Good point...
So lets follow your example and lets allow the words to change over time just like we have allowed.
Tomorrow people with the online names of "menbiller" no longer can be called human and therefor have no rights.
Black people are slaves again because all the words in the constitution setting them free now mean something else.
You no longer have 1st Amendment freedoms all those got changed too.
Y
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Interesting cartoon. Unfortunately it exhibits a common misunderstanding of economics. Making things "better" cannot be measured based on "what I think is better." It has to be based on what everyone thinks is better. And the way you do that is by allowing each person to buy whatever they want, essentially voting with their dollars. Usually the purchase decision is made primarily on the basis of lowest price. If you give up buying low-priced stuff, to buy high-priced stuff which accomplishes the same
Better is not a Democracy (Score:2)
better means more food, shelter, healthcare, education and with cleaner air and water. It is something that can be measured statistically. Better is not up for debate on a societal level. We're not arguing over chocolate & vanilla ice cream, we're arguing over how much ice cream we'll be able to produce.
Voting with your dollars doesn't work for many, many things. For healthcare I can't vote with my dollars because I don't have enough information (not being a medical doctor) and I don't use enough he
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Assuming you are trying to be funny but even if not, I can answer that question, it would still be a BETTER place for no reason possibly.
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Haha funny. Not.
The assumption is that fighting global warming will reduce pollution. Nope. See the VW dieselgate and the pollution resulting from manufacturing solar panels, batteries, unrecyclable windmills etc. All cause environmental damage while chasing the magical "low-carbon" ideal.
Want to reduce pollution? Go nuclear for cheap, reliable, safe, and clean energy. Even if global warming doesn't happen, we'll still be better off.
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[1]Link [wordpress.com]
Source for the cartoon with the "joke".
[1] https://climatesanity.wordpress.com/tag/what-if-its-all-a-big-hoax-and-we-create-a-better-world-for-nothing/
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Only a liberal would say $2 trillion is "nothing".
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*unless it's used to buy war planes, then the conservatives suddenly forget how many zeros are in Trillion.
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In the context of the current US fiscal nightmare, $2 trillion is indeed trivial.
Of course, it will also mostly be wasted and not accomplish much, but that's a given for government spending.
Re:hoax (Score:4, Insightful)
Because axing nuclear plants and building intermittent power grid that causes blackouts when wind isn't blowing without installing a massive expensive reserve is not making world a better place. Nor does increasing prices of electricity so that poor people have even more problems because of it make a world a better place.
These things aimed at overwhelmingly rich green audience. They make world worse for poor and middle class people. The people who actually care about the size of their electric bill, rather than viewing it as "less that I spend in a day on hookers and blow" as rich greens do.
Something that Germany discovered when their Energiewende project aimed at the exactly that same goal with exact same slogans but in German resulted in what they ended up calling "energy poverty". Situation where poor people could not afford electricity, and resulted in a massive scandal that forced government to compensate for massive increase in electricity costs for the poorest people with various social programs. A typical "band aid on band aid on a wound we ourselves inflicted" solution.
Best part? This program also broke the CO2 reduction trend that Germany was on prior to it, and caused Germany to miss its 2020 climate targets that they were on track to meet before it. Because shockingly, wind and solar are utter garbage for base power, so Germans had to build up... coal. And not just any coal. Lignite. The coal that's something like 20% water by volume. That's pretty much the worst CO2 emitter among coal types. But it's cheap, so it could provide some small compensation against spiking electricity prices and transmission bills that were going through the roof in Germany, as they were desperate to try to move all that Baltic wind electricity to the rest of the country. Latest massive lignite powered plant was opened earlier this year in Germany, so this is an ongoing trend.
Which to surprise of Green movement and pretty much no one else is really expensive and utterly unnecessary if you're not stupid enough to pretend that wind and solar fetishism or revolutionary "we must destroy everything that exists to build utopia that exists in our dreams" is the same thing as environmentalism.
Biden's plan according to OP is even dumber than Energiewende. It's literally advocating for forced rebuilding of massive amount of housing in addition to solar and wind fetishism that defined Enerigewende. This was one of the most mocked aspects of the old far left "Green New Deal" right next to "social security for those unwilling to work", because it demonstrated just how utterly disconnected from reality those rich greens are. There's not even a bit of comprehension of actual costs, both economic and environmental of a project of massive rebuild of existing housing and much tighter thermal emissions tolerances on new ones, nor the massive problems such things cause. There's just the burning revolutionary need to raze the old to the ground and build the utopia on the ruins.
As an example, a much lesser variant of this was passed here in Finland almost two decades ago, and we now have new buildings that mould up within a few years of being built, causing debilitating lung and skin illness. Evacuating new schools within a few years of them being built because they mould up and start making children sick and need to have a very expensive and toxic cleaning has become a norm in last few years. With rapidly erectable builder barracks functioning as "temporary" multi-year replacements while school building is cleaned and much of insulation is ripped out to allow for circulation of air which prevents moulding. As well as more minor issues like inability to make phone calls from inside the building because of metallic insulation layer on the windows making apartments faraday cages. That even before the massively increased living costs of course, as it costs a lot extra to shove that extra insulation in, while keeping moulding away for at least a few years to keep warranty maintenance costs from going through the
[1]Read the rest of this comment...
[1] https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=16776178&cid=60298248
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What if we could make the world a MUCH better place for $2 trillion, by addressing clean water and sanitation for a few billion people?
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I'm sure those countries will happily accept your donation.
Taxing people on that scale to help people in other countries is not going to happen though.
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Isn't that what we're doing by trying to stop "climate change" at a global level? If not - then we should focus intently on what can be done to cut China's emissions as they are the highest by a large margin.
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The easiest way to cut China's emissions would be to ban all imports from China. I don't forsee the Democrats doing that.
Failing that, you can't do much about China's emissions. You can maybe do something about your own.
Personally I think it's probably too late, we should be spending what remaining wealth we have on mitigation and making sure we have enough food and water in a 3-4 degree warmer world. But hey, pissing away another 2 trillion of fake fiat isn't going to hurt anything at this point.
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I agree with you. Especially given the climate change that has been seen in the last 2000 years that's on the same scale as what we're told is going to come. Worry about mitigation and making it easier to deal with a changing climate, than trying to stop anything. And the side effects will tend to improve lives for billions more (more power, more clean water, more reliable bridges and breakwaters, etc).
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All of human history has taken in place in a narrower temperature band than we're going to see in the next 30 years, let alone the next hundred.
You should not underestimate the scale of changes coming your way.
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> But what if climate change is a hoax and we end up making the world a better place for nothing?
Two trillion dollar may be nothing to you, but I doubt that it will be enough to make the world a better place. At least when the next ice age comes will all of this nonsense be over.
This is all about elections anyway. With some luck will we see Trump announce his plans for building Snowpiercer.
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I only have 5 mod points today so I won't use one just to try to change you from 'funny' to 'insightful', but I will do this: Go to the head of the class, sir, well done, and hear, hear.
Re:hoax (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is this considered a troll?
Because the pool of moderators includes people who's political biases rob them of all objectivity, motivating them to down-mod any post that they disagree with politically, regardless of whatever merits the post may have.
I actually think such people are in the majority, so most posts that say anything thought-provoking undergo a moderation war, with the final status often being a function of the biases of that's days selection of moderators, more than anything else.
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> we are already past the point of no return.
{Citations needed}
They THINK we're 'past the point of no return'. It's just a THEORY however. It's not in any way shape or form set in stone!
What you're proposing is essentially 'palliative care' when all possible treatment options haven't been explored yet.
If we expand your apparent logic, why not just declare the world to be Mad Max Land , suspend all laws, and go out with a bang? Would be a faster death and therefore less cruel for our species, which you apparently have already written off!