211–220 of 328 posts
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Are trucks an unavoidable reality of transportation? I don't think so. If there are ways to transport those staples aside from using trucks, it seems like an effective tax on using trucks would just be an optimization that encourages alternatives that don't spread as much damage onto general infrastructure.
What are the alternatives? Back every store up to a rail line?
It is 50,000 tons per year. In plastic recycling terms, not that much volume. A very large plastic recycling facility can do about 200,000 tons in a year. http://intelligentliving.co/worlds-largest-climate-neutral-p... A tractor trailer hauls roughly 20 tons - so all the sea nets in the world in a year could be hauled by 2,500 trailers. Not that much in the scheme of things.
> More than 100 million pounds of plastic from industrial fishing gear pollute the oceans each year—threatening marine life ... does the actual fishing itself not ultimately also threaten said marine life?
Fishing can be done sustainably, and is in some fisheries.
I love eating fish but this is a fact we all have to face.
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Water shortage isn't a real environmental issue. It's a result of people building enough water production capacity for most of their needs but not too much excess for peaks. We can simply buy more fresh water if we want more. And of course it's renewable so there's no long term value in trying to reduce usage.
Huh? water usage is a huge environmental issue. Only people far upstream really can say it’s not. We are amazing at not only diverting freshwater from streams and rivers, we’re also really good at pumping it out of the ground and diverting aquifer water from reaching downstream as well. While fresh water is largely renewable, it’s not like it’s an infinite resource and it’s very hard to see the long term effects of c…
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Of course, this ignores that the tracks are mostly privately owned and the private operators prioritize their own freight traffic over the passenger traffic despite the latter being less time sensitive. The one part where the passenger rail does work well is where the government passenger rail company also owns the network...
Well, the whole system (or systems) used to be various private hands when they were first built. The government takeover came later.
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I honestly don't get the point of straws, other than for handicapped people or small children (who have washable sippy bottles and cups anyway). Are people that bad at drinking from cups and glasses?
It's the straw + lid combo that is most advantageous. It lets you drink in a vehicle without worrying about spilling. Reusable options like sippy cups are a non-starter for any sort of takeout or fast food. I recently spent a week in Texas and I must say, the disposable plastic bags and plastic straws were a big improvement in quality of life. I'd gladly pay some extra fees to offset the environmental damage. Banning…
I doesn't work that way, though. Offsetting environmental damage is just capitalism cosplaying as environmentalism, pure feel-good propaganda.
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It's really weird how cars get a pass for so much. It's really weird how trucks get a pass from people who don't give cars a pass. If tire wear is proportional to road wear, the majority of tire-originating microplastics is from semi trucks, not commuter sedans.
The corollary to this argument is that most environmental issues routinely blamed on individual behavior pale in comparison to the externalities from industry and commerce People talk shutting off the faucet while brushing one's teeth but ~70% of global freshwater usage comes from agriculture and ~20% from industry, with municipalities accounting for only 10%
That is the result of a decades old campaign strategy by BP and others [1].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oi...
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Well, the whole system (or systems) used to be various private hands when they were first built. The government takeover came later.
And it was taken over by the government because those private companies were going bankrupt, so it's still not a good promotion for the private market
> The U.S. entry into the war in April 1917 coincided with a downturn in the fortunes of the nation’s railroads: rising taxes and operations costs, combined with prices that were fixed by law, had pushed many railroad companies into receivership as early as late 1915. A year later, in a last-minute bill passed through Congress, Wilson had forced the railroad management to accept union demands for an eight-hour work day.
Government fixed prices, and made one of their factors of production (labour) more expensive.
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For people that don’t know the math behind this, it is astounding. >when you double the weight per axle, you increase the road damage by 16 times >For example, while a truck axle carrying 18,000 pounds is only 9 times heavier than a 2,000-pound automobile axle, it does 5,000 times more damage.
This is why arguments that road-maintenance taxes should be applied to BEVs and bicycles are horseshit. Everything lighter than 4,000 pounds is essentially a rounding error as far as damage to road surface goes.
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Fishing can be done sustainably, and is in some fisheries.
Unless it's some guy with a fishing rod or anchovies -- no industrial fishing is not sustainable. Even salmon farms are fed with 20x the mass of smaller wild fish from the ocean. I love eating fish but this is a fact we all have to face.