EV Movement, Plastic Bag Bans, etc. - Is Motive Really Environment or Control? (solar, recycling)

[jbg]

I have my doubts about, and seriously distrust the motives of the push for conversion to electric vehicles ("EV's). The goal of the EV movement is to restrict the freedom of movement. The environmental benefits are minuscule. We will not be generating nearly all our electricity by wind and solar in 2035. Europe's approaching disastrous winter shows that you cannot simply decree away hydrocarbon use. In addition, in order to make the required batteries, other major environmental damage is required. See, e.g. Electric Cars Are Not Particularly Green - Blowing Up Mountain Not Environmental Virtue. See also the article, The Lithium Gold Rush: Inside the Race to Power Electric Vehicles in the far from "denier" New York Times (link), points out that there is much environmental damage from manufacturing electric automobiles. The people and powers that are pushing the EV movement are either incredibly dumb, which I do not believe, are childlike, i.e. implicitly saying "we have to do something", or are willfully deceptive.

Academics have long disparaged the "affluent lifestyle" and what they see as over-consumption. This is an excerpt from a summary (link) of The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, written in 1958, which I am currently reading (the book price was $0.75, which shows how long it has been on my family bookshelf):

In The Affluent Society, Galbraith addresses a major problem in American society—overconsumption of goods. Put simply, the American people buy things they don’t need, and things they don’t really want because advertisers tell them that they do need these things. We live in a society where advertisers and marketers control our spending habits.

This foreshadowed by other authors and thinkers, such as Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck. One of the opening paragraphs of The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford reads:

Much has been written of late about the affluent society in which we live, and much fun poked at some of the irrational "status symbols" set out like golden snares to trap the unwary consumer at every turn. Until recently, little has been said about the most irrational and weirdest of the lot, lying in ambush for all of us at the end of the road- -the modern American funeral.

This line of thinking from academia has seeped into the culture, is totally unmoored from reality, and pops up in policy decisions such as recycling of garbage (largely useless for a variety of reasons), suppression of "ozone emissions" by refrigerators and air conditioning, plastic bag bans, and other measures that make life more difficult without much if any offsetting gain. A side note; they even want to ban paper bags.

The September 1, 2022 New York Times says it all; Why Do Some People in New Jersey Suddenly Have Bags and Bags of Bags? (link)and Germany Announces New L.N.G. Facility, Calling It a Green Move From Russian Energy (link) are both about the futility of "feel good" environmental moves. A quote from the article about bags: "Dr. Miller said the bag situation in New Jersey was emblematic of a lot of environmental policies. “If we don’t pay attention to the unintended impacts of policies such as the plastic waste ban, we run into the potential of playing environmental Whac-a-Mole,” she said. “We solve one environmental problem only to create or exacerbate another problem.”

Add to it the sudden decision of the California legislature, which "voted to extend the life of Diablo Canyon, California’s last nuclear power plant, by five years, a step once unthinkable to many environmentalists (link). As far as the article about Germany goes, I thought the whole point was to eliminate natural gas.

What are we accomplishing by all this harem-skarem activity other than salving our consciences for being affluent?

 

[Revoltingest]

If something is compelling & worth addressing,
then expect public policy to push it, eg, preventing
more microplastics from pervading everything
& everyone. So banning disposable plastic products
is a useful public heath measure.
But if you see government controlling something
that doesn't warrant it....this is worth fighting, eg,
making birth control illegal, which is imposition of
religious views of a minority upon the majority.

I know people who think that government institutes
policies solely to train us to be more submissive.
But they never have evidence for this conspiracy.

 

[jbg]

I know people who think that government institutes policies solely to train us to be more submissive. But they never have evidence for this conspiracy.

These people may not be the most articulate. I will try.

When measures appear pointless and draconian, it is hard to deduce another explanation. For example, with waste recycling, it is a fact that much material that people laboriously separate and put into their own bins winds up going to exactly the same place as regular trash. Worse, It may be dumped into the ocean or shipped to China. Most, but not all, recycling is a chimera.

Another example was Covid restrictions. The government lied to us when they said that the restrictions were to "flatten the curve" and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. Two weeks turned into two months. Then very gradual reopening started when there was armed revolt at the capital in Lansing, Michigan and the Wisconsin Supreme Court struct down most regulations. I believe both were on May 23, 2020 but I haven't checked.

EV's are an even better example. We are going to bulldoze mountains to gain the lithium and cobalt needed for the batteries. There is no net energy gain. Why is this being done? So the powers that be can say they are "doing something" about "climate change." It's more like a Fourth Grade civics project, such as litter collection in the school parking lot than anything; though not even as useful.

 

[Quintessence]

The goal of the EV movement is to restrict the freedom of movement.

I had to re-read this several times to make sure I was reading correctly, because I've literally never heard of this as a well-informed person on this topic and it sounds like a baseless conspiracy theory.

And it still sounds like a conspiracy theory after reading through the rest of the OP. That's not to say there weren't a few fair points, but... come on, now. The goal of EV is to get off fossil fuels to help address climate change. Whether or not it is a good or effective means of doing that is up for analysis, but to suggest it's about restricting movement doesn't hold a charge.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I don't know about you, but I hate cars, and hate driving. The roads they made around here are dangerous, and you are more responsible for the mistakes you make on them, than the designers ever will be. They are becoming overcrowded, and many people have made note of this. I would not care if the majority of transit went back to us using horses. It's the greenest thing there is, and humans have way more historical experience with them, to know how to relate them socially. We aren't ready for cars.

 

[Revoltingest]

These people may not be the most articulate. I will try.

When measures appear pointless and draconian, it is hard to deduce another explanation. For example, with waste recycling, it is a fact that much material that people laboriously separate and put into their own bins winds up going to exactly the same place as regular trash. Worse, It may be dumped into the ocean or shipped to China. Most, but not all, recycling is a chimera.

Never forget the often best explanation
for governmental mischief...incompetence.
Leaders are selected by achieving popularity
with voters...not with competence. Government
employees are usually people who couldn't make
it in the private sector, & had to settle.

Another example was Covid restrictions. The government lied to us when they said that the restrictions were to "flatten the curve" and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. Two weeks turned into two months. Then very gradual reopening started when there was armed revolt at the capital in Lansing, Michigan and the Wisconsin Supreme Court struct down most regulations. I believe both were on May 23, 2020 but I haven't checked.

Where you see lies & conspiracy, I see initially
poor, but later improving understanding of the
novel coronavirus ( SARS-CoV-2).
Note the term "novel, which should suggest our
never having encountered its ilk before. We had
to learn about it by trial & error.
States handled it differently...some better than
others. It took a awhile for MI's governor to
settle down, & become reasonable.

EV's are an even better example. We are going to bulldoze mountains to gain the lithium and cobalt needed for the batteries. There is no net energy gain. Why is this being done? So the powers that be can say they are "doing something" about "climate change." It's more like a Fourth Grade civics project, such as litter collection in the school parking lot than anything; though not even as useful.

EVs are a topic to complex to explore in this thread.
But they do have a useful place in the mix. (I prefer
hybrids.) We have other threads for that.

 

[Subduction Zone]

These people may not be the most articulate. I will try.

When measures appear pointless and draconian, it is hard to deduce another explanation. For example, with waste recycling, it is a fact that much material that people laboriously separate and put into their own bins winds up going to exactly the same place as regular trash. Worse, It may be dumped into the ocean or shipped to China. Most, but not all, recycling is a chimera.

Another example was Covid restrictions. The government lied to us when they said that the restrictions were to "flatten the curve" and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. Two weeks turned into two months. Then very gradual reopening started when there was armed revolt at the capital in Lansing, Michigan and the Wisconsin Supreme Court struct down most regulations. I believe both were on May 23, 2020 but I haven't checked.

EV's are an even better example. We are going to bulldoze mountains to gain the lithium and cobalt needed for the batteries. There is no net energy gain. Why is this being done? So the powers that be can say they are "doing something" about "climate change." It's more like a Fourth Grade civics project, such as litter collection in the school parking lot than anything; though not even as useful.

You have most of your science wrong. First off they did flatten the curve. We never had an outbreak as bad as Italy and Spain had at the onset of the disease, except for perhaps in New York City where the population density is so high that it is very hard to prevent a rapid spread. And your date may be correct. But by then we had a supply of masks. Counter measures were in place.

And yes, a lot of recycling does not go where it is supposed to. But to make recycling centers work there first needs to be a large and steady supply. In other words we kneed to learn how to recycle first. And I do not see how ten minutes of sorting garbage a week is "draconian"".

As to EV's the choice is either EV's or no V's. Like it or not AGW is real and a serious threat. Will the results of AGW occur overnight? No. It is much more like the old tale of a frog in a pot of water on a stove. By the time the frog notices it it is too late. (guess what? In reality even frogs are not that dumb). And not all lithium comes from mines. A good percentage of it comes from salt deserts. Water is pumped out of underground lakes and then dried and the minerals are then refined:

Lithium mining: What you should know about the contentious issue.

It is a problem, but one has to look at the big picture. Coal mining is even worse. More mountains have been knocked down for coal than just about anything else. And that leaves a huge pollution problem on land and of course adds to the CO2 in the atmosphere. EV's are not perfect. No one claimed that they are. They are far better than what we are currently using.

 

[Revoltingest]

. I would not care if the majority of transit went back to us using horses. It's the greenest thing there is, and humans have way more historical experience with them, to know how to relate them socially. We aren't ready for cars.

Horses might be "green" but they're horribly
inefficient. Bicycles are the most energy efficient
form of travel.
Science of Cycling: Human Power | Exploratorium
But they suck for hauling heavy.
I recently hauled this from MN to MI.
(7' tall, & 9400#)

 

[sun rise]

The goal of the EV movement is to restrict the freedom of movement.

Very very very wrong.

The environmental benefits are minuscule

Wrong. Slowing climate change is FAR from minuscule.

We will not be generating nearly all our electricity by wind and solar in 2035.

I'm not concerned about an arbitrary deadline but with rapid progress which is being made:

By 2026, global renewable electricity capacity is forecast to rise more than 60% from 2020 levels to over 4 800 GW – equivalent to the current total global power capacity of fossil fuels and nuclear combined. Renewables are set to account for almost 95% of the increase in global power capacity through 2026, with solar PV alone providing more than half. The amount of renewable capacity added over the period of 2021 to 2026 is expected to be 50% higher than from 2015 to 2020.

Europe's approaching disastrous winter shows that you cannot simply decree away hydrocarbon use.

The Ukraine war and the need to crush Russia economically is behind the problem Europe has.

Another example was Covid restrictions. The government lied to us when they said that the restrictions were to "flatten the curve" and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.

I don't know where you're getting the lies you repeat here but the data was published which showed hospitals being overwhelmed. Restrictions were needed until COVID evolved to be less lethal, enough masks were available as well as vaccines.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Horses might be "green" but they're horribly
inefficient. Bicycle are the most energy efficent
form of travel.

They fertilize the land too, so farmers might benefit. And if they die, they would recycle back into the earth with relative speed, whereas a bike might take a long time to disintegrate

But they suck for hauling heavy.
I recently hauled this from MN to MI.

My simulated world would have occasional, but rare, things like trucks in it. What is in the picture, some kind of water well

 

[Revoltingest]

They fertilize the land too, so farmers might benefit. And if they die, they would recycle back into the earth with relative speed, whereas a bike might take a long time to disintegrate

Unless the economy contracts greatly, replacing cars &
trucks with horse drawn wagons would mean more &/or
wider roads to accommodate the vastly slower traffic, ie,
many more vehicle hours spent on the road.

My simulated world would have occasional, but rare, things like trucks in it. What is in the picture, some kind of water well

It's an 1867 Bement & Dougherty vertical boring mill.
I think I've found the right permanent home for it.
A museum in eastern PA. I'll say where when it's
a done deal.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I have my doubts about, and seriously distrust the motives of the push for conversion to electric vehicles ("EV's). The goal of the EV movement is to restrict the freedom of movement. The environmental benefits are minuscule. We will not be generating nearly all our electricity by wind and solar in 2035. Europe's approaching disastrous winter shows that you cannot simply decree away hydrocarbon use. In addition, in order to make the required batteries, other major environmental damage is required. See, e.g. Electric Cars Are Not Particularly Green - Blowing Up Mountain Not Environmental Virtue. See also the article, The Lithium Gold Rush: Inside the Race to Power Electric Vehicles in the far from "denier" New York Times (link), points out that there is much environmental damage from manufacturing electric automobiles. The people and powers that are pushing the EV movement are either incredibly dumb, which I do not believe, are childlike, i.e. implicitly saying "we have to do something", or are willfully deceptive.

Academics have long disparaged the "affluent lifestyle" and what they see as over-consumption. This is an excerpt from a summary (link) of The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, written in 1958, which I am currently reading (the book price was $0.75, which shows how long it has been on my family bookshelf):

​

This foreshadowed by other authors and thinkers, such as Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck. One of the opening paragraphs of The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford reads:

​

This line of thinking from academia has seeped into the culture, is totally unmoored from reality, and pops up in policy decisions such as recycling of garbage (largely useless for a variety of reasons), suppression of "ozone emissions" by refrigerators and air conditioning, plastic bag bans, and other measures that make life more difficult without much if any offsetting gain. A side note; they even want to ban paper bags.

The September 1, 2022 New York Times says it all; Why Do Some People in New Jersey Suddenly Have Bags and Bags of Bags? (link)and Germany Announces New L.N.G. Facility, Calling It a Green Move From Russian Energy (link) are both about the futility of "feel good" environmental moves. A quote from the article about bags: "Dr. Miller said the bag situation in New Jersey was emblematic of a lot of environmental policies. “If we don’t pay attention to the unintended impacts of policies such as the plastic waste ban, we run into the potential of playing environmental Whac-a-Mole,” she said. “We solve one environmental problem only to create or exacerbate another problem.”

Add to it the sudden decision of the California legislature, which "voted to extend the life of Diablo Canyon, California’s last nuclear power plant, by five years, a step once unthinkable to many environmentalists (link). As far as the article about Germany goes, I thought the whole point was to eliminate natural gas.

What are we accomplishing by all this harem-skarem activity other than salving our consciences for being affluent?

It's about creating legal mechanisms for the small stuff so they can use those same, now established legal mechanisms for larger and more serious stuff.

Less freedoms for the common person means more power and control for the ruling class.

That's where we are headed towards at an incredible rate and the nanny state is the means to accomplish that.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Unless the economy contracts greatly, replacing cars &
trucks with horse drawn wagons would mean more &/or
wider roads to accommodate the vastly slower traffic, ie,
many more vehicle hours spent on the road

Good. Everyone should slow down and think more, and read a book or something.

 

[Revoltingest]

Good. Everyone should slow down and think more, and read a book or something.

Read a book?
I'd rather post here while watching TV.

 

[Heyo]

I have my doubts about, and seriously distrust the motives of the push for conversion to electric vehicles ("EV's). The goal of the EV movement is to restrict the freedom of movement. The environmental benefits are minuscule. We will not be generating nearly all our electricity by wind and solar in 2035. Europe's approaching disastrous winter shows that you cannot simply decree away hydrocarbon use. In addition, in order to make the required batteries, other major environmental damage is required. See, e.g. Electric Cars Are Not Particularly Green - Blowing Up Mountain Not Environmental Virtue. See also the article, The Lithium Gold Rush: Inside the Race to Power Electric Vehicles in the far from "denier" New York Times (link), points out that there is much environmental damage from manufacturing electric automobiles. The people and powers that are pushing the EV movement are either incredibly dumb, which I do not believe, are childlike, i.e. implicitly saying "we have to do something", or are willfully deceptive.

Academics have long disparaged the "affluent lifestyle" and what they see as over-consumption. This is an excerpt from a summary (link) of The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, written in 1958, which I am currently reading (the book price was $0.75, which shows how long it has been on my family bookshelf):

​

This foreshadowed by other authors and thinkers, such as Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck. One of the opening paragraphs of The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford reads:

​

This line of thinking from academia has seeped into the culture, is totally unmoored from reality, and pops up in policy decisions such as recycling of garbage (largely useless for a variety of reasons), suppression of "ozone emissions" by refrigerators and air conditioning, plastic bag bans, and other measures that make life more difficult without much if any offsetting gain. A side note; they even want to ban paper bags.

The September 1, 2022 New York Times says it all; Why Do Some People in New Jersey Suddenly Have Bags and Bags of Bags? (link)and Germany Announces New L.N.G. Facility, Calling It a Green Move From Russian Energy (link) are both about the futility of "feel good" environmental moves. A quote from the article about bags: "Dr. Miller said the bag situation in New Jersey was emblematic of a lot of environmental policies. “If we don’t pay attention to the unintended impacts of policies such as the plastic waste ban, we run into the potential of playing environmental Whac-a-Mole,” she said. “We solve one environmental problem only to create or exacerbate another problem.”

Add to it the sudden decision of the California legislature, which "voted to extend the life of Diablo Canyon, California’s last nuclear power plant, by five years, a step once unthinkable to many environmentalists (link). As far as the article about Germany goes, I thought the whole point was to eliminate natural gas.

What are we accomplishing by all this harem-skarem activity other than salving our consciences for being affluent?

Where to begin? You mixed a lot of things in there which aren't as much related as you think they are.

First of which is the difference between what a person can do and what a government does. People buy EVs because they personally either want to do something about climate change or want to look like they care. (And some are just interested in the superior performance of an electric motor.)

Many of them are, what you call "childlike". They want to do something. Usually something not too drastically. Something that still conforms to their affluent lifestyle. And EVs are just that, something that helps a bit but isn't a radical change.
And they wouldn't have to change their political stance either. You can be, and stay, a conservative and own an EV.

Governments have to make other decisions but they basically end up doing the same things, little measures with minimal effort and maximal acclaim, without looking for maximal climate effect.

Once the climate effects really start to hurt, government will have to take more drastic measures. There is the idea that we will get "green" dictatorships which will reduce environmental impact with the most effective measures like mandatory birth control, very high carbon taxes, maxed out restriction on everything environmentally active.

 

[Ella S.]

The new policies are inefficient. They do a bit more than absolutely nothing, but they might as well be doing nothing, especially when electric cars are still usually powered by electricity generated in fossil fuel power plants.

Optimistically, they're a step in the right direction and could open the door for more dramatic policies, which will be necessary in the face of climate catastrophe.

Realistically, this will probably go nowhere and, even if it does go somewhere, it's almost certainly not going to lead to the radical changes to our entire infrastructure that we actually need. Well, more realistically, the changes that we needed decades ago.

It's pretty much too late now. Anything we do to try to combat global warming at this point isn't going to be enough unless we discover a way to reverse the damage that we've already done. If we can discover a way to reverse the damage and if we put more dramatic policies in place, then we might stand some chance of avoiding human extinction. The policies you're seeing now could be the necessary doorway to that, but I can understand why they seem like too little, too late.

If there's any conspiracy going on, it's the fact that these policies are made to look like they're doing something good for the environment despite the fact that they almost completely overlook the more major sources of pollution. Why wouldn't they? Pretty much every president has helped the oil industry in some way because there's major financial incentive to do so, and their own hired scientists do well to obfuscate how bad the issue has actually become.

The answer isn't to fight back against this policy. It's to demand more. The fossil fuel industry needs to be held accountable for knowingly contributing to an indirect mass murder.

 

[Curious George]

I have my doubts about, and seriously distrust the motives of the push for conversion to electric vehicles ("EV's). The goal of the EV movement is to restrict the freedom of movement. The environmental benefits are minuscule. We will not be generating nearly all our electricity by wind and solar in 2035. Europe's approaching disastrous winter shows that you cannot simply decree away hydrocarbon use. In addition, in order to make the required batteries, other major environmental damage is required. See, e.g. Electric Cars Are Not Particularly Green - Blowing Up Mountain Not Environmental Virtue. See also the article, The Lithium Gold Rush: Inside the Race to Power Electric Vehicles in the far from "denier" New York Times (link), points out that there is much environmental damage from manufacturing electric automobiles. The people and powers that are pushing the EV movement are either incredibly dumb, which I do not believe, are childlike, i.e. implicitly saying "we have to do something", or are willfully deceptive.

Academics have long disparaged the "affluent lifestyle" and what they see as over-consumption. This is an excerpt from a summary (link) of The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, written in 1958, which I am currently reading (the book price was $0.75, which shows how long it has been on my family bookshelf):

​

This foreshadowed by other authors and thinkers, such as Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck. One of the opening paragraphs of The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford reads:

​

This line of thinking from academia has seeped into the culture, is totally unmoored from reality, and pops up in policy decisions such as recycling of garbage (largely useless for a variety of reasons), suppression of "ozone emissions" by refrigerators and air conditioning, plastic bag bans, and other measures that make life more difficult without much if any offsetting gain. A side note; they even want to ban paper bags.

The September 1, 2022 New York Times says it all; Why Do Some People in New Jersey Suddenly Have Bags and Bags of Bags? (link)and Germany Announces New L.N.G. Facility, Calling It a Green Move From Russian Energy (link) are both about the futility of "feel good" environmental moves. A quote from the article about bags: "Dr. Miller said the bag situation in New Jersey was emblematic of a lot of environmental policies. “If we don’t pay attention to the unintended impacts of policies such as the plastic waste ban, we run into the potential of playing environmental Whac-a-Mole,” she said. “We solve one environmental problem only to create or exacerbate another problem.”

Add to it the sudden decision of the California legislature, which "voted to extend the life of Diablo Canyon, California’s last nuclear power plant, by five years, a step once unthinkable to many environmentalists (link). As far as the article about Germany goes, I thought the whole point was to eliminate natural gas.

What are we accomplishing by all this harem-skarem activity other than salving our consciences for being affluent?

I think that you have swallowed one flavor of propaganda while the guy driving a Tesla using reusable bags and metal straws has swallowed another flavor. Is there an alternative though? What would you suggest?

 

[exchemist]

These people may not be the most articulate. I will try.

When measures appear pointless and draconian, it is hard to deduce another explanation. For example, with waste recycling, it is a fact that much material that people laboriously separate and put into their own bins winds up going to exactly the same place as regular trash. Worse, It may be dumped into the ocean or shipped to China. Most, but not all, recycling is a chimera.

Another example was Covid restrictions. The government lied to us when they said that the restrictions were to "flatten the curve" and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. Two weeks turned into two months. Then very gradual reopening started when there was armed revolt at the capital in Lansing, Michigan and the Wisconsin Supreme Court struct down most regulations. I believe both were on May 23, 2020 but I haven't checked.

EV's are an even better example. We are going to bulldoze mountains to gain the lithium and cobalt needed for the batteries. There is no net energy gain. Why is this being done? So the powers that be can say they are "doing something" about "climate change." It's more like a Fourth Grade civics project, such as litter collection in the school parking lot than anything; though not even as useful.

I have my doubts about, and seriously distrust the motives of the push for conversion to electric vehicles ("EV's). The goal of the EV movement is to restrict the freedom of movement. The environmental benefits are minuscule. We will not be generating nearly all our electricity by wind and solar in 2035. Europe's approaching disastrous winter shows that you cannot simply decree away hydrocarbon use. In addition, in order to make the required batteries, other major environmental damage is required. See, e.g. Electric Cars Are Not Particularly Green - Blowing Up Mountain Not Environmental Virtue. See also the article, The Lithium Gold Rush: Inside the Race to Power Electric Vehicles in the far from "denier" New York Times (link), points out that there is much environmental damage from manufacturing electric automobiles. The people and powers that are pushing the EV movement are either incredibly dumb, which I do not believe, are childlike, i.e. implicitly saying "we have to do something", or are willfully deceptive.

Academics have long disparaged the "affluent lifestyle" and what they see as over-consumption. This is an excerpt from a summary (link) of The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith, written in 1958, which I am currently reading (the book price was $0.75, which shows how long it has been on my family bookshelf):

​

This foreshadowed by other authors and thinkers, such as Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck. One of the opening paragraphs of The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford reads:

​

This line of thinking from academia has seeped into the culture, is totally unmoored from reality, and pops up in policy decisions such as recycling of garbage (largely useless for a variety of reasons), suppression of "ozone emissions" by refrigerators and air conditioning, plastic bag bans, and other measures that make life more difficult without much if any offsetting gain. A side note; they even want to ban paper bags.

The September 1, 2022 New York Times says it all; Why Do Some People in New Jersey Suddenly Have Bags and Bags of Bags? (link)and Germany Announces New L.N.G. Facility, Calling It a Green Move From Russian Energy (link) are both about the futility of "feel good" environmental moves. A quote from the article about bags: "Dr. Miller said the bag situation in New Jersey was emblematic of a lot of environmental policies. “If we don’t pay attention to the unintended impacts of policies such as the plastic waste ban, we run into the potential of playing environmental Whac-a-Mole,” she said. “We solve one environmental problem only to create or exacerbate another problem.”

Add to it the sudden decision of the California legislature, which "voted to extend the life of Diablo Canyon, California’s last nuclear power plant, by five years, a step once unthinkable to many environmentalists (link). As far as the article about Germany goes, I thought the whole point was to eliminate natural gas.

What are we accomplishing by all this harem-skarem activity other than salving our consciences for being affluent?

What European disastrous winter is that? Can you explain in more detail?

(To me, it looks as if the "disastrous winter" seems to be the extreme climate event going on in N. America.)

 

[Revoltingest]

(To me, it looks as if the "disastrous winter" seems to be the extreme climate event going on in N. America.)

There's nothing "extreme" about our climate this
winter in N Ameristan. Note also that "weather" is
not "climate"
We had a brief cold snap. We have them every winter.
And this one was much milder than some I've seen here.
But news media loves to make every dust devil into the
tornado of the century. Don't fall for that.

 

[tytlyf]

Wonderful....more paranoid delusions.