No, seriously. Have any of y’all read this shit? I can feel my brain leaking out of my ears, I don’t even know where to start. To say that this is some bullshit is such an understatement. In fact, I’m getting so fucking angry even thinking about how insanely bad this shit is, I just keep typing about it while not explaining anything or adding anything meaningful to the discussion. So here, if you want to feel visceral rage, observe the immense amount of bullshit spewing out of this cursed fucking “environmentalism” page: https://joebiden.com/clean-energy/
I’m so sorry Jesus fucking Christ I’m going to blow my fucking brains out in minecraft
Actually, I'm going to add another comment on to this, because it strikes me that the most disconcerting sentence on that page by far is the very last one:
"And, Biden will establish a new Environmental and Climate Justice Division within the Justice Department, as proposed by Governor Inslee, to complement the work of the Environment and Natural Resources Division and hold polluters accountable."
Mainly, because it's literally the only sentence on the entire page that deals with holding polluters accountable. It seems to me that any serious effort to combat climate change while maintaining a capitalist economy (which unfortunately, is probably going to stay around for a while, so we should also seriously consider this subject) should consist of two very difficult endeavours.
The first spans the entirety of the rest of this page, and concerns the creation of a sustainable, green infrastructure, which I'm using as a pretty all-encompassing concept here.
The second, equally important and challenging endeavour is to create a strict set of rules within which any company can operate sustainably, and to find a way to make sure companies actually follow those rules. So far, governments around the world have been trying to do that by imposing fines and to put it bluntly, the effectiveness of that has been fuck all. Companies will either find ways to make more money from breaking rules than the sum of any fines imposed, or simply move their operations to places where the rules are less strict.
If no serious solutions for this second problem are found, it pretty much doesn't matter how good the first half of your plan is (and Biden's plan is NOT good). To Biden's team, finding a way to do this is literally a one-sentence afterthought.
I've thought about that a lot. If we assume a capitalist economy, shouldn't we just push for 100% renewable (+nuke) power generation + having all ICE cars off the road by 2030, and call it a day? I suppose also include something in there about helping the rest of the world achieve the same?
I'm not an expert on climate change but I do have a Bachelor's in mechanical engineering, which gives me some insight into how a lot of industries work. Pretty much the entire materials industry (I.e. production of metals, polymers ceramics for use in other products) is pretty terrible for the environment, and the solution to fix that isn't as clear cut. Recycling helps but the truth is that pretty much every industry pollutes, and the answer to that pollution is rarely as simple as it is when it comes to clean energy production. What's needed is a fundamental shift in how we produce basically everything, and that costs money, and if we want to do it smoothly, that takes time. We do not have that time, so the conclusion to draw here is that a) we should have started decades ago and b) combating climate change cannot be a set policies set to the side, but should rather be the driving force behind our entire economic vision (see also: the Green New Deal).
I'd also like to point out that helping the rest of the world to achieve the same is a rather significant problem to have as an afterthought.
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Lol, taking Inslee's lead on holding anyone to account. When he decreed a shutdown of all non-essential businesses some of us wondered what would happen to the employers that just, you know, ignored it. Honor system.
. . .