Labor have banned new north sea oil projects[1], combined with inland fracking being a non-starter this means no new oil projects in the UK.

If you’re looking for good labour climate policy, clean power 2030 is probably their flagship, they also announced a new national forest the other day, plus upped our international climate commitments at COP. Far from perfect, but easily a step up from the conservatives.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gd1q9ejqdo

I’m not very knowledgable on Canadian politics, but agriculture is a sizable part of their GDP[1], seems like a fair enough view to value the jobs and industry it provides over having lower priced dairy?

More importantly, it seems like a choice that’s down to the voters of Canada, and if the USA doesn’t like it, they should negotiate to find something that worksfor both countries, rather than trying to use their economic heft into bullying the world.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/594293/gross-domestic-product-of-canada-by-industry-monthly/

Just in case anyone jumps to conclusions and just reads the headline. This isn’t a response to the latest wave of protest crackdowns. JSO were always a group with one specific demand (it’s in their name) and that demand is now UK government policy.

We’ll never know how much a role JSO played in this, and they aren’t the most popular outside of environmental circles, but as a UK resident, I’m pretty stoked we have people fighting this hard to protect the climate. Hopefully we’ll see some of the same faces in newer groups and movements soon.

So what does Trump’s US do/say about the very obviously increasing natural disasters that are making homes uninsurable, especially in Florida or California.

It’s all well and good to say “we don’t want to acknowledge this exists” (well, actually wait, it’s clearly not well and good!?) but the fact is that climate change will wreck many American homes, and having an official policy that it doesn’t exist makes it hard to do anything about it.

Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m trying to reason around the actions of a deranged facist state government.

I think this is how Trump phrases it. In reality almost all countries have tariffs of some kind to protect key industries. Trump’s demands/bullying/tarrif-mania normally amounts to him wanting specific tarrifs removed to benefit the US.

That sounds awesome! Do you have a link to the article you wrote?

That might be the case, although this study is explicitly comparing new EV to new ICE right? (which seems like the relevant comparison)

There’s a great chapter on geo-engineering in Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything.

Main take aways are that it’s extremely dangerous and in a best case scenario likely to render parts of the global south unhabitable.

I think the most significant question, it’s a quote from a scientist in that chapter, is “Can the same human beings who accidentally engineered the climate crisis, be trusted to engineer a new, safer climate?”. You can draw your own conclusions, but mine is definitely a big no.

Extra point, my own opinion, is that acting like warming is the only thing causing issues for us in climate change is very short sighted. The ocean, our world’s most important ecosystem, is being massively impacted by acidification, if that doesn’t stop, we’ll face big issues, regardless of temperature increase. Plankton creates more than half the worlds oxygen, so, I don’t really know what we’re gonna do without that.

on average, Canadian EVs have up to 77% lower emissions than conventional models

That’s quite a bit less. The headline sounds like “Do ICE vehicles pollite less than EVs ?” is a valid question, is there any argument that’s the case? I’d have guessed EVs were obviously better, and you’d be hard pushed to argue otherwise?

(obviously I’m thinking ‘new ev’ vs ‘new ICE’ - putting second hard vehicles introducrs all sorts of caveats)

Ok, one last question, but can you expand on why you think taxation makes markets less effective? I’m not sure I understand why this should be a given?

I live in the UK, and VAT is applied to some but not all goods. It doesn’t seem to me clear at all that, say, cakes (not taxed) exist in a more competitive environment than say, biscuits (taxed)?

You say we do not need the rich to finance things, however, planned economics are less efficient than market economics because central management of such a complicated structure is very difficult.

I’d question this one a lot- I agree central planning is bad for a lot of things, but it’s great for infrastructure like roads, water supply, transport etc. I think this bears out in the evidence as well- the USA has suprisingly poor water supply, education and rail transport, despite by some measures being the wealthiest country in the world. Compare this to infrastructure standards on Europe or China.

We could probably argue all day and longer on this, but please at least consider wealthy high taxation countries in Europe as a counter example. At the very least, I think they show a successful alternative to low taxation economies.

I’m guessing you expected the downvotes to be fair, but I’d try and actually engage with what you said, since you clearly took the time to think it through and express it well.

What you’re suggesting (that the wealthy classes play an important role in wealth distribution, that’s hampered by tax) is pejoratively referred to as “trickle down economics”[0] and slightly less critically referred to as “supply side economics”[1].

You might want to reduce taxes on the wealthy for some other reason, but the idea that it helps the economy is very poorly evidenced, and there’s quote a lot of evidence to the contrary.

It also seems to miss the fact that a lot of poor countries (take Nigeria[2]) have very low taxation, and many very wealthy countries (take Sweden[3]) have very high taxation.

My two cents are that, sure the rich might spend some money on things that benefit everyone, but it’s probably a lot less than the amount of infrastructure development taxation can fund.

There’s obviously complexities, but the idea that “people will just move” doesn’t seem to happen in reality. I’d also say that, excluding perhaps billionaires, being moderately wealthy in a equitable society with good healthcare, transport, roads, etc, is a lot more desirable than being more wealthy in a society with less of those things. But I guess that’s just my take, I don’t have any evidence for it.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

[2] https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/nigeria/individual/taxes-on-personal-income

[3] https://sweden.se/life/society/taxes-in-sweden