I wish instead of focusing on the common man's dinner plate we'd instead consider maybe ending the global empires. Much more carbon being burned hourly by militaries protecting megacorporate interests.
It's not a competition because the common man's plate is always the one the rich and powerful will ask for sacrifices from.
We're living it right now, tent cities while we're told by the elites the economy is doing better than ever.
We're living it right now, tent cities while we're told by the elites the economy is doing better than ever.
You are absolutely incorrect that everyone else is supposed to follow these rules.
The biggest companies in the world and of advocating for all of these rules to prevent local competition, then they use their factories in China that are powered by the dirtiest coal to manufacture everything, and ship it around the oceans on ships powered by bunker fuel. There is a big reason why China has grown to burn about half the carbon on the planet.
So with the vast majority of carbon emitting industries just outsourced so that they can be our picture of Dorian Gray for the environment, they come around to further attack the poor buggers who don't get to just outsource all of their carbon consumption to countries without environmental laws.
That's the sort of thing that's really starting to bother me. People advocate for rules that they never have to follow, companies end up calling for things that don't apply to them because they just move their businesses to places that don't have those rules. People who never have to turn their car on in 40 below to drive 12 hours to the next city advocate for cars that simply can't do that, and for sources of energy that won't produce any power for months of the year.
My government spent $500 billion in the past 8 years in debt alone. That doubled the debt. That's enough money to build enough hydroelectric stations to not just power our entire country electrically multiple times over and convert much of our transportation and industry to carbon neutral energy, but the power of a good chunk of our neighbors. We can become the most environmentally friendly economy on the planet for centuries on such an investment. Instead, we spent that money on basically nothing, and jacked up everyone's taxes (for the luxury of heating our homes in near arctic conditions), and have been implementing a bunch of methods to restrict the amount of food available.
All you have to do to find out what they're really up to is look what they are doing and look what they're not doing.
The biggest companies in the world and of advocating for all of these rules to prevent local competition, then they use their factories in China that are powered by the dirtiest coal to manufacture everything, and ship it around the oceans on ships powered by bunker fuel. There is a big reason why China has grown to burn about half the carbon on the planet.
So with the vast majority of carbon emitting industries just outsourced so that they can be our picture of Dorian Gray for the environment, they come around to further attack the poor buggers who don't get to just outsource all of their carbon consumption to countries without environmental laws.
That's the sort of thing that's really starting to bother me. People advocate for rules that they never have to follow, companies end up calling for things that don't apply to them because they just move their businesses to places that don't have those rules. People who never have to turn their car on in 40 below to drive 12 hours to the next city advocate for cars that simply can't do that, and for sources of energy that won't produce any power for months of the year.
My government spent $500 billion in the past 8 years in debt alone. That doubled the debt. That's enough money to build enough hydroelectric stations to not just power our entire country electrically multiple times over and convert much of our transportation and industry to carbon neutral energy, but the power of a good chunk of our neighbors. We can become the most environmentally friendly economy on the planet for centuries on such an investment. Instead, we spent that money on basically nothing, and jacked up everyone's taxes (for the luxury of heating our homes in near arctic conditions), and have been implementing a bunch of methods to restrict the amount of food available.
All you have to do to find out what they're really up to is look what they are doing and look what they're not doing.
I understand what you're saying here, but the image I've painted is one where the powerless are asked to make the sacrifices but it doesn't help anyway because if the powerful need to harm the earth they'll just do it anyway, and they are.
The peasants will starve to death while the nobles hold banquets, and nobles and their hangers on go "oh well the peasants really just need to understand that there are sacrifices to be made" -- Every sacrifice the peasants make just goes to larger piles of food being wasted on banquets.
The peasants will starve to death while the nobles hold banquets, and nobles and their hangers on go "oh well the peasants really just need to understand that there are sacrifices to be made" -- Every sacrifice the peasants make just goes to larger piles of food being wasted on banquets.
The most effective solution isn't to make people's lives harder, but to make their lives easier.
Manitoba, Quebec, and Norway all have large amounts of green energy through hydroelectric. Not everywhere can use hydroelectric, but as a first step anywhere that can use it should be using it (and a key point is that if we care about climate change then we need to accept the short term environmental cost of creating sustainable generating stations). In each jurisdiction (and many others), cheap carbon neutral energy starts off outcompeting carbon energy so fossil fuels aren't used for electricity generation. Then that cheap energy ends up supplanting fossil fuel use for home heating. In addition, industry will end up using the easy to use inexpensive electricity for what it does instead of burning fossil fuels -- a plant producing steam in Ontario (with somewhat higher electricity rates) will burn propane to produce steam for process use, but in Manitoba (with somewhat lower electricity rates) will use an electrical boiler.
For places that don't have the geography for hydroelectric, nuclear is a good option #2, as well as importing green energy from jurisdictions that have it.
So if we do that, we've already massively reduced carbon use in electricity generation, home heating, and industry.
So how about transportation, another major use of carbon?
The current strategy of EVs is unworkable on several fronts.
For personal transportation, we could have a larger immediate impact by making it easy to manufacture, easy to buy, easy to own, easy to use much smaller scale EVs. We could today make it easy to use city cars that cost less than $5,000, have limited range, and are good for daily commuting and can be charged on a standard wall receptacle with a normal breaker. It wouldn't get you to the next city and some people might still keep a second vehicle for long distance travel, but for many people such a vehicle would enable vehicle ownership where it wasn't possible before, and many people would likely consider such a vehicle for their daily use despite its limitations. These are something that can be manufactured locally if we make them easy to build and sell as well. Such vehicles will be less safe than a modern ICE vehicle in terms of stuff like crash tests but is climate change an existential threat or not? If it is, then something with such a large impact should be an acceptable trade-off, particularly since such vehicles would operate at lower speeds and not spend time on the highway.
For public transportation, this is a problem we've had solved for over 100 years. In my city we had electric buses that operated using overhead lines that worked in some of the most brutal weather conditions out there, as well as street cars that also function properly without batteries (batteries being massively environmentally damaging). They operated off of grid power. Let's just return to using these known good solutions. One major problem with public transit is that losers ruin it for everyone, so enforce a code of conduct on public transit and if you can't follow it you're kicked off (and the driver has the right to kick you out and they can easily get the police involved if need be) -- decent people should feel safe on public transit, and I'm also not opposed to making it free to use for people who are following the rules. Most countries have the capacity to build such streetcars themselves once we get rid of all the impractical advanced technologies being used ostensibly solely to let such vehicles be made proprietary.
Finally, there should be massive import taxes on any country that doesn't have the same level of environmental and labor protection as a given western country. Burn the picture of Dorian Gray so we need to live with the consequences of our choices.
All these solutions combined should make people's lives better, while also massively reducing the use of fossil fuels in electricity production, home heating, industry, and transportation.
Manitoba, Quebec, and Norway all have large amounts of green energy through hydroelectric. Not everywhere can use hydroelectric, but as a first step anywhere that can use it should be using it (and a key point is that if we care about climate change then we need to accept the short term environmental cost of creating sustainable generating stations). In each jurisdiction (and many others), cheap carbon neutral energy starts off outcompeting carbon energy so fossil fuels aren't used for electricity generation. Then that cheap energy ends up supplanting fossil fuel use for home heating. In addition, industry will end up using the easy to use inexpensive electricity for what it does instead of burning fossil fuels -- a plant producing steam in Ontario (with somewhat higher electricity rates) will burn propane to produce steam for process use, but in Manitoba (with somewhat lower electricity rates) will use an electrical boiler.
For places that don't have the geography for hydroelectric, nuclear is a good option #2, as well as importing green energy from jurisdictions that have it.
So if we do that, we've already massively reduced carbon use in electricity generation, home heating, and industry.
So how about transportation, another major use of carbon?
The current strategy of EVs is unworkable on several fronts.
For personal transportation, we could have a larger immediate impact by making it easy to manufacture, easy to buy, easy to own, easy to use much smaller scale EVs. We could today make it easy to use city cars that cost less than $5,000, have limited range, and are good for daily commuting and can be charged on a standard wall receptacle with a normal breaker. It wouldn't get you to the next city and some people might still keep a second vehicle for long distance travel, but for many people such a vehicle would enable vehicle ownership where it wasn't possible before, and many people would likely consider such a vehicle for their daily use despite its limitations. These are something that can be manufactured locally if we make them easy to build and sell as well. Such vehicles will be less safe than a modern ICE vehicle in terms of stuff like crash tests but is climate change an existential threat or not? If it is, then something with such a large impact should be an acceptable trade-off, particularly since such vehicles would operate at lower speeds and not spend time on the highway.
For public transportation, this is a problem we've had solved for over 100 years. In my city we had electric buses that operated using overhead lines that worked in some of the most brutal weather conditions out there, as well as street cars that also function properly without batteries (batteries being massively environmentally damaging). They operated off of grid power. Let's just return to using these known good solutions. One major problem with public transit is that losers ruin it for everyone, so enforce a code of conduct on public transit and if you can't follow it you're kicked off (and the driver has the right to kick you out and they can easily get the police involved if need be) -- decent people should feel safe on public transit, and I'm also not opposed to making it free to use for people who are following the rules. Most countries have the capacity to build such streetcars themselves once we get rid of all the impractical advanced technologies being used ostensibly solely to let such vehicles be made proprietary.
Finally, there should be massive import taxes on any country that doesn't have the same level of environmental and labor protection as a given western country. Burn the picture of Dorian Gray so we need to live with the consequences of our choices.
All these solutions combined should make people's lives better, while also massively reducing the use of fossil fuels in electricity production, home heating, industry, and transportation.
To continue...
I think one key difference between the current paradigm and my proposals is that we can do everything I suggest with current technology levels. We don't need major grid upgrades to add the equivalent of one normal breaker circuit to people's homes for small EVs for example.
Another major part is it'll make people's lives generally better which should be a key goal of sustainability. Currently we keep asking for more sacrifices and ironically that makes sustainability unsustainable because eventually people are going to push back because they keep being asked to give more and more when many people are struggling as it is.
Ideally, I think with enough green energy, stuff like nitrogen fertilizer could be produced from air and water reducing a major component of fossil fuels use. Doing the right things would be a virtuous cycle where doing good things means that more good thjngs happen.
I tend to think "green jobs" are a lie by politicians. Truly sustainable infrastructure such as hydro dams generally don't require a lot of jobs to keep running -- that's what makes it inexpensive in part, the water does most of the work. Instead, we can promote general jobs enabled by beneficial green investments. We can bring jobs back from places like China and manufacture things we need using green energy and locally sourced sustainable materials.
One other major thing on that topic is that recycling should be massively improved. If a city has a recycling plant, local industry should be able to buy recycled materials from it. If they can't then it isn't a recycling program and should be disbanded or repaired. It was a huge scandal a few years back that many "recycled" materials were just being dumped in Asia.
I think one key difference between the current paradigm and my proposals is that we can do everything I suggest with current technology levels. We don't need major grid upgrades to add the equivalent of one normal breaker circuit to people's homes for small EVs for example.
Another major part is it'll make people's lives generally better which should be a key goal of sustainability. Currently we keep asking for more sacrifices and ironically that makes sustainability unsustainable because eventually people are going to push back because they keep being asked to give more and more when many people are struggling as it is.
Ideally, I think with enough green energy, stuff like nitrogen fertilizer could be produced from air and water reducing a major component of fossil fuels use. Doing the right things would be a virtuous cycle where doing good things means that more good thjngs happen.
I tend to think "green jobs" are a lie by politicians. Truly sustainable infrastructure such as hydro dams generally don't require a lot of jobs to keep running -- that's what makes it inexpensive in part, the water does most of the work. Instead, we can promote general jobs enabled by beneficial green investments. We can bring jobs back from places like China and manufacture things we need using green energy and locally sourced sustainable materials.
One other major thing on that topic is that recycling should be massively improved. If a city has a recycling plant, local industry should be able to buy recycled materials from it. If they can't then it isn't a recycling program and should be disbanded or repaired. It was a huge scandal a few years back that many "recycled" materials were just being dumped in Asia.
That is why I call China the west's painting of Dorian Gray. In the story of the painting of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, a man led a hedonistic life but instead of suffering the consequences a painting in his attic suffered.
In the end of the novel, Dorian feels the weight of his crimes regardless of the immediately visible consequences, and stabs the picture taking on all his sins stored in the photo and immediately dying. If any sacrifices asked of the common man are to be meaningful, we must stab the painting as well, and stop letting it carry the burden of the sins of the rich and powerful.
In the end of the novel, Dorian feels the weight of his crimes regardless of the immediately visible consequences, and stabs the picture taking on all his sins stored in the photo and immediately dying. If any sacrifices asked of the common man are to be meaningful, we must stab the painting as well, and stop letting it carry the burden of the sins of the rich and powerful.
My issue isn't that China is using energy -- I agree that it isn't wrong to use energy to pull their people out of poverty, and you can make the same argument for much of Africa. My issue is that we allow western companies who pretend to care about the environment to ship all their manufacturing of our stuff over there and use the dirtiest power to make our stuff while they talk about how much they care about the environment and push for rules that don't apply to them.
That's where the import tax for dirty manufacturing should come in. Just level the playing field for clean manufacturers. China happens to be the largest example, but it appears that other countries in southern asia will be taking that mantle over, and the same issue remains -- Coal burned in China or India or Vietnam is exactly the same as coal burned in Virginia or Germany.
That's where the import tax for dirty manufacturing should come in. Just level the playing field for clean manufacturers. China happens to be the largest example, but it appears that other countries in southern asia will be taking that mantle over, and the same issue remains -- Coal burned in China or India or Vietnam is exactly the same as coal burned in Virginia or Germany.
Really, the key is competent government providing proper common goods.
It reminds me of the US vs. Canada's healthcare. The latter is not perfect, but provides healthcare to everyone (and often life changing treatment that many Americans would never be able to get) whereas the former actually pays as much public money per capita on healthcare but fails not because the money isn't there but because they're willfully incompetent due to corruption. In Canada, public healthcare is generally considered a "third rail", something non-negotiable. Even the PPC, a fringe party with extreme views on reducing the size of federal government, claims it will improve healthcare funding to the provinces.
I think we could find some serious common ground on things like lobbying -- money shouldn't be able to buy unlimited speech to push the interests of the super-rich.
Neoliberalism ends up another thing twisted into something useful for the powerful -- There's a good argument that we don't live in anything like neoliberalism since our great grandparents often didn't pay an income tax but today blue collar workers can be in the 50% tax bracket, and we live in one of the most bureaucratic and tightly controlled times in world history. However, we have lots of cut-outs made in the name of neoliberalism when it comes time to similarly regulate the powerful. There certainly is two sets of rules. They cry for regulations when it'll shut down competition, but cry for neoliberalism when regulations might actually affect their business.
One thing I've seen in Canada with the carbon tax is it ended up being a mop to clean up a mess of incompetent government. The Ontario government caused a bunch of "green projects" to be pushed through, in particular solar and wind, by giving them incredible sweetheart deals. At the beginning, up to 80 cents per kilowatt hour, which has had massive ramifications including driving up electricity costs. This means that homes that were once affordable to heat using carbon neutral electricity get power bills that look like mortgage payments. This disproportionately affects the poor or working class (my little sister lives in such a house since she works in a grocery store and her power bills look like my mortgage payments), since people with just a bit more money can afford to switch to fossil fuels (one guy I knew installed a propane heater in his house that was previously heated with hydroelectricity and it saved him 600 bucks a month in the cold months), then they drive up the cost of fossil fuels as well. That's the opposite
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-to-cut-rates-paid-for-wind-solar-power-1.1157717
In 8 years we've seen the carbon tax be implemented and continually drive up the cost of fossil fuel energy (including energy required to heat our homes which despite claims by our Prime Minister is not a luxury in Canada), but we're still wasting effort on ineffective green energy that make lobbyists happy and make celebrities down in Southern California happy instead of hydroelectric that'll actually make people's lives better.
Nuclear is a compromise, but I'd prefer not using it as well -- Anyone who knows what it takes to mine an ounce of specialized metal and refine it knows it's an ugly process that often puts you in the middle of nowhere. We can build dams that can last centuries and hydroelectric infrastructure on such dams could similarly provide power for centuries. On timeframes that long, the reservoir can become a new healthy ecosystem itself.
It reminds me of the US vs. Canada's healthcare. The latter is not perfect, but provides healthcare to everyone (and often life changing treatment that many Americans would never be able to get) whereas the former actually pays as much public money per capita on healthcare but fails not because the money isn't there but because they're willfully incompetent due to corruption. In Canada, public healthcare is generally considered a "third rail", something non-negotiable. Even the PPC, a fringe party with extreme views on reducing the size of federal government, claims it will improve healthcare funding to the provinces.
I think we could find some serious common ground on things like lobbying -- money shouldn't be able to buy unlimited speech to push the interests of the super-rich.
Neoliberalism ends up another thing twisted into something useful for the powerful -- There's a good argument that we don't live in anything like neoliberalism since our great grandparents often didn't pay an income tax but today blue collar workers can be in the 50% tax bracket, and we live in one of the most bureaucratic and tightly controlled times in world history. However, we have lots of cut-outs made in the name of neoliberalism when it comes time to similarly regulate the powerful. There certainly is two sets of rules. They cry for regulations when it'll shut down competition, but cry for neoliberalism when regulations might actually affect their business.
One thing I've seen in Canada with the carbon tax is it ended up being a mop to clean up a mess of incompetent government. The Ontario government caused a bunch of "green projects" to be pushed through, in particular solar and wind, by giving them incredible sweetheart deals. At the beginning, up to 80 cents per kilowatt hour, which has had massive ramifications including driving up electricity costs. This means that homes that were once affordable to heat using carbon neutral electricity get power bills that look like mortgage payments. This disproportionately affects the poor or working class (my little sister lives in such a house since she works in a grocery store and her power bills look like my mortgage payments), since people with just a bit more money can afford to switch to fossil fuels (one guy I knew installed a propane heater in his house that was previously heated with hydroelectricity and it saved him 600 bucks a month in the cold months), then they drive up the cost of fossil fuels as well. That's the opposite
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-to-cut-rates-paid-for-wind-solar-power-1.1157717
In 8 years we've seen the carbon tax be implemented and continually drive up the cost of fossil fuel energy (including energy required to heat our homes which despite claims by our Prime Minister is not a luxury in Canada), but we're still wasting effort on ineffective green energy that make lobbyists happy and make celebrities down in Southern California happy instead of hydroelectric that'll actually make people's lives better.
Nuclear is a compromise, but I'd prefer not using it as well -- Anyone who knows what it takes to mine an ounce of specialized metal and refine it knows it's an ugly process that often puts you in the middle of nowhere. We can build dams that can last centuries and hydroelectric infrastructure on such dams could similarly provide power for centuries. On timeframes that long, the reservoir can become a new healthy ecosystem itself.
How are we supposed to fill our universities with people who pay full price and our cities with people lying to banks to take out million dollar loans if we do that?
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No, Canada's got some serious problems to face with respect to the implementation of MAID. Stories that are morally reprehensible to anyone with an ounce of good in their conscience.
It's good to allow terminally ill people to get help to stop their suffering. One longstanding family friend had terminal cancer and instead of having to suffer through a long and pointless treatment that would inevitably end in death, he was able to choose the day and go in and end things before the last tragic steps.
On the other hand, there's a lot of really morally repugnant stories that came out of the MAID program. For some monsterous bureaucrats it became the first choice instead of the absolute last resort; It became something being pushed for by the state instead of a freedom afforded to individuals.
In one case, A paralympic athlete asked for a chair lift for their house and was referred to MAID.
https://aleteia.org/2022/12/07/disabled-canadian-veteran-says-she-was-offered-suicide-in-lieu-of-chair-lift/
In another case, a veteran with PTSD was offered MAID instead of help.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/22/canadian-soldier-with-ptsd-outraged-when-va-suggested-euthanasia/
In yet another case, someone applied for MAID not because of their medical conditions but because they couldn't get help with living costs, and they went through with it -- the woman who applied for MAID on the grounds of potential poverty is dead now, successfully killed by the state.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/11/canada-cases-right-to-die-laws
Only under strong public backlash did the ruling coalition choose to delay plans to allow people to kill themselves solely for mental health reasons.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/maid-mental-illness-health-1.7101021
Once the state killing you legally is on the table, that's something that has to be treated with the most serious gravity, and moral weight, and the present ruling coalition lacks the moral foundation to be making such calls.
It's good to allow terminally ill people to get help to stop their suffering. One longstanding family friend had terminal cancer and instead of having to suffer through a long and pointless treatment that would inevitably end in death, he was able to choose the day and go in and end things before the last tragic steps.
On the other hand, there's a lot of really morally repugnant stories that came out of the MAID program. For some monsterous bureaucrats it became the first choice instead of the absolute last resort; It became something being pushed for by the state instead of a freedom afforded to individuals.
In one case, A paralympic athlete asked for a chair lift for their house and was referred to MAID.
https://aleteia.org/2022/12/07/disabled-canadian-veteran-says-she-was-offered-suicide-in-lieu-of-chair-lift/
In another case, a veteran with PTSD was offered MAID instead of help.
https://nypost.com/2022/08/22/canadian-soldier-with-ptsd-outraged-when-va-suggested-euthanasia/
In yet another case, someone applied for MAID not because of their medical conditions but because they couldn't get help with living costs, and they went through with it -- the woman who applied for MAID on the grounds of potential poverty is dead now, successfully killed by the state.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/11/canada-cases-right-to-die-laws
Only under strong public backlash did the ruling coalition choose to delay plans to allow people to kill themselves solely for mental health reasons.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/maid-mental-illness-health-1.7101021
Once the state killing you legally is on the table, that's something that has to be treated with the most serious gravity, and moral weight, and the present ruling coalition lacks the moral foundation to be making such calls.