It’s a crude rule of thumb that was questionably useful when it was first promulgated, and now is entirely adrift from reality.

It hard to see this as anything other than a bad faith comparison.

1. It compares trans-oceanic LNG vs. US domestic coal
2. It makes a lot of assumptions about inefficient and leaky extraction, processing, and transport approaches
3. It only considers CO2 and methane ignoring other ways that LNG is far cleaner than coal

It is important to consider the entire life cycle of LNG, but a more even-handed author would conclude we should address these inefficiencies (e.g. via regulation), rather than fixating on promoting coal.

Direct link to paper: https://scijournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ese3.1934

Ha, I love the backsplanation that they are small and yellow like corn.

That assumes “you” are just the conscious part. If you accept the rest of your brain (and body) as part of “you”, then it’s a less dramatic divide.

I think transforming “it’s possible to think without language” into “language is not a tool for thought” is an overreach. Definitely a lot of our internal voice is post-thought, but crystalizing those thoughts into words can provide footholds for further thought. Some would argue it’s not possible to think through a complex issue without writing:

• https://paulgraham.com/words.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtIzMaLkCaM&t=312s

I guess the argument is that they will raise rent by the maximum, even at excessive risk of losing tenants? Because if the tenants will pay that much, why wouldn’t the landlord charge that anyway?

That is why in California, bees are fish

Every presidential election is important, and it never makes sense to make a “protest vote”. That’s just not how voting works.

I’m sure somebody has cried wolf at every election, but McCain and Romney never aimed to become dictators. Republicans currently have a published plan to institute fascism. It’s pretty obvious that these elections actually are exceptional.

Oh man, don’t stop

You got it! Here’s some other consumer protections the administration has introduced recently:

• Direct filing with the IRS
• Price limits on asthma inhalers and insulin for seniors
• Requiring ISPs to provide consistent up-front information and pricing
• Restrictions on college junk fees and disallowing witholding of transcripts

Hungry for more? Check this out:

White House Statement on Junk Fees

That’s from October, so some of it overlaps, but among other stuff there’s still a “Click to Cancel” rule working its way through the FTC.

Sadly Biden has been spending a bunch of time on lame crap like climate change, human rights, health care, infrastructure, election integrity, etc., so it might take a bit longer for him to single-handedly usher in consumer utopia.

This seems entirely opposite to my observation. I’d say Biden and his administration are unusually focused on unfair or annoying business practices. In just the past two weeks the Biden administration:

• Set clear rules requiring cash refunds for flight delays
• Banned non-compete clauses
• Set new rules on “junk fees” for credit cards
• Increased the minimum salary for overtime exemption
• Expanded fiduciary duty to retirement “advisors”
• Announced a lawsuit against Live Nation (TicketMaster)
• Re-instated net neutrality

The complete rules are here: https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/refundsfinalruleapril2024

The meat of it is the table on pages 9-14 and mostly comprehensible.

Worth noting:

• A change to your flight number is always a “cancellation” and you may choose to accept a refund
  • The expectation is most people would not, for the same reason most don’t cancel their refundable tickets - they want to go on the flight
• There are no carve outs for weather, etc.
  • I am really glad to see this because airlines could claim “weather” for connecting flights, so any weather anywhere meant they could delay your flight

The carbon dividend makes the policy overall progressive, like a mini-UBI. It seems we agree that helping the poorest people is a good thing, and they will benefit the most.

The carbon tax should not be an exclusive policy. Canada estimates its tax will account for 1/3rd of its emissions reductions by 2030. That’s a nice big chunk for one policy, but plainly insufficient on its own. Absolutely fund renewable infrastructure (including subsidies), public transport, walkable/bikeable housing, etc. Set hard limits / bans where appropriate (banning all emissions is not remotely feasible). A carbon tax is highly complementary to these.

Politics is messy. In Canada the Conservative Party (remind me – are they for or against fighting climate change?) opposes the carbon tax, and associates it with Labor, so they have a ton of propaganda against it. Half of Canadians don’t even realize they are getting a huge rebate back, let alone that it’s more than they are paying in taxes (Abacus Data). That’s why it’s important to get people to understand how a carbon tax actually works.

Funny running across this article after reading https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

Spoiler: the author does not have a high opinion of Raghavan.

If you think businesses can just absorb a tax without changes, then great: set the price of carbon emissions at the cost to remove it from the atmosphere and problem solved.

More realistically, theory and practice both predict that businesses will look for cheaper (i.e. less polluting) approaches and consumers will choose cheaper (i.e. less polluting) products. And both will do so in ways that have the highest impact for the lowest effort.

Maybe you can clarify what you mean by taking money out of the equation, because it’s not clear to me what steps that involves or what the expected outcome looks like.

And the best thing to push the government to do is pass a Carbon Tax – tax polluters and give that back to the people.

🎵 Mister every ounce of beer is precious man 🎵

Possibly from here: https://lemmy.world/post/14481959

Note that “could afford” means the rent is 30% or less of their income. This is a pretty reasonable target, but not inviolable, especially when housing is out of whack with the rest of costs.

I don’t think it’s fair to call Slay the Spire (StS) a clone. While Card Quest introduced a lot of the key elements years earlier, StS adds enough innovation that it feels like a totally different game. Definitely would be more fair to say StS popularized a lot of the mechanics rather than invented/pioneered them though.

So to most effectively address climate change we need individuals to change their behavior. So we can just tell everyone to do that, and we are all set, right? Clearly not. We need to:

Tax Carbon

Taxing “carbon” (really all GHG emissions) creates incentives for individuals and companies to use less, making trade-offs and choosing less carbon-intensive products. It moves the threshold for switching over to cleaner and more efficient technologies. People who refuse to acknowledge climate change will still change their behavior for personal benefit. People who want to make the world better will have more options and less reliance on company marketing/greenwashing.

Read what 28 Nobel Laureates and thousands of other economists have to say: https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/

As mentioned on that page, the best use of this tax is to give it back to everyone equally. Those who pollute less than average come out ahead. Those who pollute more pay for it in (indirect) taxes.