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Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill

theguardian.com

281–290 of 317 posts

Re: Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's going to be hard to convince folks to replace their gas water heaters with electric heat pump models that cost ~3x more and save little to no cost annually. I'm not sure drilling for a heat pump would work in town here, and then the operating cost would still likely be more than gas (heating is at least 75% of my annual consumption). Figuring out how to eliminate those emissions is important, but it sure as hell…

Heat pump is how air conditioners work, a heat pump that heats works in reverse. There's no drilling needed, that would be geothermal. Heat pump water heaters do save about half the cost in electricity over a conventional resistive-only water heater, and are optimal for places with basements, as they also dehumidify; or in warm climates, as they cool the air. So it's also useful for long term perishable storage like…

What kinds of issues did you have with your heat pump? Was it the unit itself, installation? And where do you live?

It's unfortunate that the heat pump ecosystem isn't as developed as it should be. Feels kind of like installing Linux vs buying a Mac — not so seamless.

Re: Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill

#282

The best solution to climate change is a price on Carbon. Anything else is just pork. If we don't want to impose a carbon price on ourselves, we can do it to others via import tariffs.

I think carbon is the wrong thing. We need to go after pollution. People understand pollution, it’s plastic in the lake, or smog in the sky, people don’t understand “carbon” but garbage on the ground is something we can do something about. Climate change is the wrong term. We need to fight a war on pollution.

Pollution and global warming are two separate things we both need to prevent. We do not need to choose, we can and should address both. In Western countries pollution is generally better contained/addressed/regulated than in poorer countries, however Western countries contribute hugely more greenhouse gasses (certainly per capita, and especially US and AUS) than poorer countries. So no, carbon is not the wrong thing. It is the primary, singularly most important things we should address. And indeed, as long as we don't put a properly high prico on it one way or the other we are just fooling around and making the earth that much less inhabitable for our children

Re: Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill

#283
post #186

The best solution to climate change is a price on Carbon. Anything else is just pork. If we don't want to impose a carbon price on ourselves, we can do it to others via import tariffs.

I really wish people would stop thinking that there's this one thing that will fix climate. There isn't. It'll take lots of things. Carbon pricing is a good one if done right, but it's not a silver bullet. There are no silver bullets.

The primary (only even) cause of the climate crisis is the fact that we have burnt and continue to burn a ton of carbon and emit it as CO2 in the atmosphere. And as most of the world functions with some form of capitalism, it makes a lot of sense to put a price on something to make it less desirable. In fact it makes so much sense that until we have put a significant price on fossil carbon use we cannot tell our children that we really tried to do something to prevent this crisis.

Re: Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill

#284

We need “unprecedented measures” to stop and reverse the “unprecedented” damage we have caused to the planet and its climate. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if the past year of climate catastrophes has shown us anything, it’s high time we act. Yes, the proposed changes might be inconvenient but it’s time we suck it up and do the needful. Small steps are not good enough. We need drastic measures.

Let's see. Maybe we start with a 90% tax above 100K income to pay for climate change costs? Will that be acceptable inconvenience to folks here.

[deleted]

Re: Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you want to say is, you don't believe in science.

What you are describing is religion, not science.

Oh yes, I am the problem here. Clearly. That is the logical conclusion to come to under these circumstances.

Seriously?

Re: Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you want to say is, you don't believe in science.

Science is a method, it's not religion. You can't really "believe" in science. You can trust its methods though.

Which this person clearly is not doing. But thanks for making a pointless and pedantic distraction I guess?

Re: Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you want to say is, you don't believe in science.

I really wish this phase could be banned. It's tiresome and in bad faith.

Is that really the problem here? Is that really what you should be focusing on?

Re: Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> intends to reshape the electorate and dilute the voting interests of legal citizens Even if this characterization of the bill were accurate, those people would then be legal citizens. Are they then diluting their own voting interests? At any rate people being born also dilutes voting interests, should we end that too, or are only people born to it inherently worthy of citizenship? Anyways, what, precisely, makes th…

Respectfully, I’m not sure what point you’re making here. Yes this bill would exploit our political process to legally admit many future citizens. I don’t think that makes it ethical, just as I don’t think it was ethical for McConnell to exploit a technicality around a SCOTUS nomination, or for either party to exploit executive orders as a means to legislate. I view the interests of illegal immigrants as less valid b…

"exploit our political process" is a funny way to say "change the law around immigration".

What's the exploit here? We aren't even talking about an executive order here are we? We're talking about an element of a bill being passed through the legislatures of the land. Exactly the mechanism that laws are supposed to go through to change.

Anyways the people who are most viciously opposed to immigration are also the very same people who exploit illegal immigrant labor and have a vested interest in keeping an eternal underclass they can abuse, so you'll forgive me if I have very little sympathy for the 'side' that claims adding more citizens and giving more people intimately affected by the law the right to vote is an 'end run around democracy'.

Also, many of these people had no choice in their alleged "law breaking". Holding people accountable and punishing them for their parents bringing them into the country when they were children is incredibly cruel. Insisting that they should never be able to obtain citizenship in the country they grew up in on top of that because they broke a law that holds almost no moral value would be just pure evil.

Also, the 'exploit' that's actually being abused right now is the comically absurd procedural filibuster, which never should have been a thing in the first place. It, frankly, wasn't wrong to reduce the threshold for supreme court nominations to 50 votes in the senate -- it's wrong to tie up every single vote in a filibuster no one has to actually put anything on the line for.

Re: Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fallacy. A step in the right direction is still better than taking no step at all.

This is simply not true. If a car is barreling towards you, taking a small step towards safety is wasting the time you could have spent jumping out of the way. Not only do you end up just as dead as you would be if you had done nothing at all, but you've wasted the effort of making a decision and moving; effort you could have spent on more pleasant thoughts if you had just decided to die from the outset. Even worse,…

A democracy does not work the same as a human brain trying to prevent an accident. It works with compromises and majorities. Therefore my point still stands.

Re: Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill

#290

I don't think the climate problem can be solved without some form of authoritarianism. For most people, climate change does not affect their everyday lives. It primarily affects future generations, and non-humans. Caring about future generations is a form of long term thinking that most humans don't care for or are not capable of. Most people's long term thinking stops at their five year plan, or their kids' future.…

Yikes. So scary that this is the top comment. Climate change can definitely be addressed at the corporate level with carbon taxes and even caps. No need to throw away our free and open society. The fact that your go-to is to attack human rights is terrifying.

It is not a human right to make the planet uninhabitable for future generations
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