Climate Change/Mass Extinction Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Feels like an important point - for the first time ever more people are employed in green energy than fossil fuels:


Given the national security/green industrial complex angle of the recent law in the US this feels like another important step on renewables as industrial policy (which was also Johnson's big angle - it's the right thing to do but there'll be shedloads of jobs and we can use it to "level up" areas etc).

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/business/gm-zero-emission-vehicles.html

GM will stop making gas cars by 2035.

[The Brain]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/business/gm-zero-emission-vehicles.html

GM will stop making gas cars by 2035.

Beaten by Saab, Delorean, and many others.

[celedhring]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/business/gm-zero-emission-vehicles.html

GM will stop making gas cars by 2035.

Beaten by Saab, Delorean, and many others.

Yeah, by that time sales of new gas cars will be banned in many jurisdictions (EU, UK, several US states), hardly a bold move by GM.

[Admiral Yi]

No, not a bold move, but a sign of the times.

[Syt]

I'm looking forward to the GOP slamming this move and trying to push (state) laws that take away public contracts.

[Admiral Yi]

I'm looking forward to the GOP slamming this move and trying to push (state) laws that take away public contracts.

GM has plants throughout the south.  I don't think the GOP wants to take on GM.

[Tamas]

This feels like a good point to repeat my grievance of regularly seeing very expensive and big "hybrid" cars with their green "look, I have a tax break!" licence plates on the road (my current favourite is the Mustang SUV (?!!) parking on our street sometimes, but boat-sized SUVs also have them), while my old beaten up car having punitive levels of taxes on it while used car prices have risen so that if I wanted to buy this exact same make and year of car, it would cost me right about the same amount despite 6 years have passed since, not to mention something newer. Ok, fine, I COULD buy a hybrid if I wanted to, but I also want a home on this side of 2030. And there must be people genuinly unable to afford better cars, who are getting punished for it while well-off bastards pay little to no tax to reward them for putting in a few batteries to bloody land cruisers.

I don't deny the climate crisis we are in, but "addressing" it has been an upper middle-class circle jerk.   

[Josquius]

Electric cars and hybrids are a huge disreaction from actually addressing climate change.
Increasingly I note a number of people shifting from denial onto being super pro electric cars; anything to minimise change.

[Tamas]

Electric cars and hybrids are a huge disreaction from actually addressing climate change.
Increasingly I note a number of people shifting from denial onto being super pro electric cars; anything to minimise change.

Yep it's "look I bought an expensive big fuel gulper that can sometimes run a mile on its batteries, I have done my bit against climate change, even have a tax break to prove it!"

[Sheilbh]

The growth in numbers of big SUVs in the UK really annoys me. I want to ban them 

[HVC]

The growth in numbers of big SUVs in the UK really annoys me. I want to ban them 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you want to ban nearly all cars?

[Maladict]

The growth in numbers of big SUVs in the UK really annoys me. I want to ban them 

Banning people inclined to buy them would be even more effective.

[Josquius]

Jeeps in the UK are like guns in the US.
They're obviously bad, they obviously need banning.
But when the roads are so full and dangerous you can understand why people want them.
Which in turn makes the roads more full and dangerous....

[Sheilbh]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you want to ban nearly all cars?

It's a baby step