I've lost any and all faith I had in the EU after how it handled coronavirus. Nothing will surprise me now.
EU draft exempts private jets, cargo from jet fuel tax
111–120 of 265 posts
Re: EU draft exempts private jets, cargo from jet fuel tax
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its been the same with lockdown. Enforce totalitarian restrictions and tracking on the plebes, whilst the rich and connected routinely ignore or are excluded from the rules. Its possible that Lockdown is a ploy to distract from the trillions of dollars of money printing that has gone on during the pandemic, to suppress the inflation generated, as well as to normalise location and biological data collection and arbitr…
I don't understand people who think that, at hundreds or thousands of municipal and state levels, political leaders were secretly in meetings with robes nodding excitedly over the opportunity to oppress the masses. Or that an unknown, highly contagious respiratory disease causing hospitals to overflow with no vaccine available didn't warrant some kind of mandates against public interactions. It boggles my mind what k…
The governor of California was photographed holding a fundraising dinner during a phase of lockdown he put in effect.
It'd be hard to come up with a more obvious scenario.
Re: EU draft exempts private jets, cargo from jet fuel tax
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
That and it's also the most wasteful use of fuel, because you're lifting an entire jet and crew for more than likely a single rich jerk who feels too special to fly passenger jets like everyone else. On a carbon-per-person metric, private jets are literally the worst .
Private jets are completely irrelevant to global warming because there are not enough of them. They’re a convenient distraction from the problem that actually curbing global warming will require huge changes in the lifestyle of the global middle class. Not just the super-rich.
> Private jets are completely irrelevant to global warming because there are not enough of them.
They probably are irrelevant, so why exempt them?
> actually curbing global warming will require huge changes in the lifestyle of the global middle class. Not just the super-rich.
I'm of the impression that "middle class lifestyle" itself isn't a big contributor to global warming but rather the manufacture and supply chains. If we electrify industry and transport, the bulk of the problem goes away (as I understand it) and the effects on the middle class are pretty transparent apart from choices to fund the transition to clean energy (e.g., to what extent does the middle class pay for the transition rather than the super rich). In other words, the average middle class lifestyle isn't significantly impacted by whether their goods are manufactured, refined, transported, etc with clean energy or dirty energy.
I get the distinct impression that the "middle class lifestyles will change dramatically" is frequently a euphemism for "we must go full-vegan" by people who are anti-meat. But meat production in the US accounts for only 8% of (co2-equivalent) emissions and those emissions are largely methane and nitrous oxide which dissipate quickly relative to co2 (12 years for methane vs 300-1000 years for co2).
Re: EU draft exempts private jets, cargo from jet fuel tax
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
So we should be okay with the massive pollution now because they're entitled to it because we did it in the past? I think it would be better for developing countries to try and skip as much of the dirty bits as possible and leapfrog to the best we can get from modern technology.
I think that every country deserves a fair opportunity to grow with cheap energy. We took advantage of it, and in the process we created huge externalities. We should clean after our mess first and then try to lecture the developing countries.
By that exact same logic, the next generation of people in every country should be allowed to use as much polluting energy as the last one, because the established generation did so and they are the developing generation.
Re: EU draft exempts private jets, cargo from jet fuel tax
#115> Private jets will enjoy an exemption through classification of "business aviation" as the use of aircraft by firms for carriage of passengers or goods as an "aid to the conduct of their business", if generally considered not for public hire. > A further exemption is given for "pleasure" flights whereby an aircraft is used for "personal or recreational" purposes not associated with a business or professional use. Su…
The actual reason for the exemption is that they cannot impose the tax on non-EU operators, giving the non-EU operators a competitive advantage.
Re: EU draft exempts private jets, cargo from jet fuel tax
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its been the same with lockdown. Enforce totalitarian restrictions and tracking on the plebes, whilst the rich and connected routinely ignore or are excluded from the rules. Its possible that Lockdown is a ploy to distract from the trillions of dollars of money printing that has gone on during the pandemic, to suppress the inflation generated, as well as to normalise location and biological data collection and arbitr…
I don't understand people who think that, at hundreds or thousands of municipal and state levels, political leaders were secretly in meetings with robes nodding excitedly over the opportunity to oppress the masses. Or that an unknown, highly contagious respiratory disease causing hospitals to overflow with no vaccine available didn't warrant some kind of mandates against public interactions. It boggles my mind what k…
There was no hospital overflow. I live in Ukraine and even with a totally rudimentary health system and routinely ignored lockdowns, the health system functioned like any other flu outbreak. The temporary hospitals setup in the USA and UK were never used.
If anything I am quite sure that the few lockdowns we did have worsened the spread of COVID, or at least concentrated it over a shorter timeframe, since people were now packed into shopping centres at reduced hours, were forced to socialise in smaller 'speakeasy' venues, and had a greater interaction with grandparents given the closure of schools. Without lockdowns, the virus would have spread slowly and steadily, and been concentrated in younger groups who have more social interaction with eachother, like influenza each season.
Even under a 'best case' scenario for Lockdown, and using Sweden as an example, we have spent about 50 months in Lockdown in order to save 1 month of life - statiscally for someone of advanced age and with serious existing health problems:
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness...
Is there a health problem in the West? Yes, and its from obesity, which is heavily correlated to negative COVID outcomes:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8...
Sweden and Ukraine far below lockdown countries for deaths per capita: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat...
Annual deaths in Sweden 2020 only 6% higher than 2018, and even then only after a weak 2019 flu/death season:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-...
The COVID death spike in Sweden basically aligns with a once-a-decade flu variant:
https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-...
So is this conspiratorial? I am using all of the available data to create this attitude.
Re: EU draft exempts private jets, cargo from jet fuel tax
#117Yeah, tell people to eat bugs and less meat but step out of the way of fast food industry, or those farms treating cows like bags of potato. Tell people to fly less or use the train and exempt private jets.
But honestly, we deserve worse, it's our fault. We let those fucks FLY ON PRIVATE JETS to davos CLIMATE summit, and accept an increased tax on plastic bags (which incidentally was show to make people use more plastic). Anyway, yeah we deserve worse. It's not their fault. It's ours. We are the ones letting them tell us what to do while they fuck around on private jets.
Re: EU draft exempts private jets, cargo from jet fuel tax
#118Come on EU, can't you do proper accounting?
Tax the fuel, and give certain groups a subsidy when you think it is necessary. That way, accounting is fully transparent, and we don't end up in weird discussions about why some groups of people pay tax and others don't.
Re: EU draft exempts private jets, cargo from jet fuel tax
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
The West has been consuming fossils to fuel their industrial revolution for centuries, but now that is time of the East to use energy and grow, we tell them that energy is bad for the environment and that they have to pay tax or buy expensive energy (renewables)
Where do you get the idea that renewables are expensive energy? Utility scale onshore wind and solar PV are the cheapest form of generation[1] by a long shot. And because of this, 90% of the global electricity generation capacity added in 2020 was renewable. There wasn't a single coal burning power plant built in the US last year, despite political support for coal - it's just too uneconomic. This isn't coercion, tax…
Lazard's analysis is bad at best, but that is a separate discussion.
The main issue is that renewables have huge upfront capital costs combined with 0 storage &transportation capabilities (cannot put your wind energy in a tank). Of course these are not issues for the West, but I don't know how you can go to an isolated Indian village and tell them that they need to spit 20k per household to install solar panels.
Combustible fuels are pay as you go. Want heat tonight? Use some wood just for tonight. Want to move your motorcycle? You need only a jug of gasoline.
Re: EU draft exempts private jets, cargo from jet fuel tax
#120Historically, EU aviation fuel was tax free and applied no VAT. Many US states don't tax jet fuel.
Air traffic causes 2.5% of all CO2 emissions globally. In rich countries about 3%.