And watching so many small businesses in my small town close, that was not at all a thing I hope climate change policy replicates.
One can wish, but I know that there is huge pressure on the current administration to appease the left wing of the party. Keystone XL is canceled, and the US has rejoined the Paris agreement on the first day of Biden's Presidency. A multi-trillion dollar Green New Deal that will further saddle future generations with debt is looking likely at this point. Whether it will provide the benefits it purports to do is far f…
Trillions used for the GND is debt but trillions sunk into tax cuts for the top 1% is just good economics.
The headline is annoying to me, I feel it should read '2020 emissions in biggest fall since WWII due to pandemic'. The prefix 'climate change' is redundant, I wish the BBC could get back to being more objective.
You find the prefix "Climate Change:" not objective? It is setting the context for the article. Like "COVID-19: Scientists work on a vaccine".
Anecdotally as someone in a family all of whom are thriving financially during the pandemic, here are possible reasons it could be true. * My student loan payments are frozen, I believe the total balance of student loans that are frozen is something like 85% country wide. * People working remotely = low transit expenses. * No live events = low entertainment expenses. * Raging pandemic = low travel expenses. * Investm…
> stock market has been very profitable since march. I made 100% last year just on random long term investment. Hmm. All this makes me wonder if the country opening back up is going to cause the market to flatten out for a bit as people have less money and incentive to invest. Food for thought.
I could also see it flattening due to people having more options again. The majority of the companies that are listed in the public markets are businesses that didn't have to close. Nation wide retailers, tech companies, oil and gas, all the things that were deemed essential or could be done virtually. It's the mom and pop stores and restaurants that took the brunt of the shutdown, when things are more open again those businesses will be the big winners and we might see them take some revenue from the bigger stores.
All it does it prove how fruitless the prevention of climate change is. A total shutdown of the entire world economy on an unprecedented scale still doesn't track enough to prevent climate change. If that isn't a clear indicator of how severe the situation is then I don't know what else is.
Unpopular prediction: we're going to solve global warming by the 22nd century, but we're going to "solve" it with nuclear winter and the destruction of 80-90% of humanity. Once we're down to a billion people or so and most of what passes for advanced civilization has been destroyed, carbon emissions and warming won't be a problem.
Do you realize how cheap sea walls are? The Dutch were building them 800 years ago with medieval technology and resources.
The biggest takeaway here for me is that we collectively achieved something previously considered impossible: by making different behavioral choices, as a species, we achieved the largest cut in CO2 emissions in 75 years. It's tragic that only the threat of a deadly disease could compel such a change, but perhaps we may find other levers to help us achieve such widespread beneficial changes in the future?
All it does it prove how fruitless the prevention of climate change is. A total shutdown of the entire world economy on an unprecedented scale still doesn't track enough to prevent climate change. If that isn't a clear indicator of how severe the situation is then I don't know what else is.
> A total shutdown of the entire world economy on an unprecedented scale
Where did that happen? US GDP is down a few percent, yet emissions plummeted far far further.
Don't forget about the cows eating seaweed development, that will be huge for the climate too
Beef is only 3% of US emissions, meat has very little to do with the US's climate woes.
The big problem is transportation. Ideally we'd have lots more muxed-use walkable neighborhoods than we have. Roughly 50% of people want to live in walkable neighborhoods, but centralized planning has virtually banned this type of low-carbon living over the past 75 years.
I have two young kids. There is no such thing as "lounging". :)
I've been WFH for about 5 years now and also have two young ones so I know the feeling :) I've found that any chore time is now also podcast time. So things like cleaning, laundry, or mowing the lawn I've always got one headphone in (the other ear is for listening for the kids)
Yeah when I'm doing yard work my headphones do double duty for listening to podcasts and being earplugs. But that was true even before I stopped driving anywhere.
Why not set aside some time each day to listen? Take a bath, lounge on the couch/hammock, and enjoy that time not commuting.
I have two young kids. There is no such thing as "lounging". :)
Pretend I'm naïve (better yet don't pretend): can't you set some boundaries? If you need to get out of the house why not go for a walk? Is it because doing something for/by yourself is seen as selfish (even by yourself), while before the commute was imposed by your job, so you could enjoy that alone time guilt-free?
One can wish, but I know that there is huge pressure on the current administration to appease the left wing of the party. Keystone XL is canceled, and the US has rejoined the Paris agreement on the first day of Biden's Presidency. A multi-trillion dollar Green New Deal that will further saddle future generations with debt is looking likely at this point. Whether it will provide the benefits it purports to do is far f…
Trillions used for the GND is debt but trillions sunk into tax cuts for the top 1% is just good economics.
Unironically, yes. Remember tax cuts isn't money just given away, the 1% didn't cause the spending part of the equation. You just think 1% should pay that tab.