No they haven't. Police forces' power goes through actual Courts that enforce Constitutional rights above police authority.
ICE/Border Patrol's authority comes through civil law and non-Article III 'immigration' court. Congress explicitly authorized ICE to be something else when they placed ICE in an alternative 'civil law'/immigration system hoping to make them not have to follow the burdens placed on Police/Justice/Judges/Courts by the Constitution.
You can't have one party whose goal it to make sure government doesn't function in order to push their policy of 'shrink government' be in charge of making government function. No system will work when half the system is hostile to the system.
If the Republicans will happy spend money until we are all broke if it means we can limit the government's spending (huh? what? make that make sense) they will break it all (and are trying) in whatever way they can.
Yep. Toilet schedules for every department should go through Congress, apparently. It's a deliberate design to flood an already very narrow zone, lawmaking.
My first thought when seeing this was "OH! There must be new science." That does not seem to be the case. I'm going to need to adjust my understanding of how the world works.
I suspect that the "Champion of Beautiful, Clean Coal" is just living up to his side of the contract.[0]
Some wishfully frame HN as science and tech, others as views from smart people on complex issues of topical importance, but regardless, political overlap with science or complexity causes flagging "because politics". Forces that degrade discussion are high on political topics, but ... sheesh. A forum with high ability to contribute to rational discourse on complex issues of importance is really hamstrung by this. /rant
Wouldn't this increase US exposure to foreign intervention in the future? Although China is the worst offender, since a while now they are getting their stuff together. They suffered and later fixed some gross air pollutions in their cities.
The rest of the world is also pretty much on board with this clean air and climate change stuff as it turns out people generally like clean air, so if this sticks at some point the only logical next step would be to compel US to stop polluting the world.
If I understand correctly, this also removes EPA ability to regulate car emissions, arguing that it will allow for cheaper cars. Why would US public really wants newly made clunkers on their cities? Polluting cars are horrible city life quality downgrade that even the rich can't escape.
Also, will this allow to put the banned due to the dieselgate VW vehicles back on the roads?
China was an offender at the time yes. But even so, since 1980, when effects of climate change were first known, US has emitted 250Gt and China only 263 Gt, which in per capita terms places US at 690t/p and China at 185 t/p. This is despite China having one child policy since 1979 (which by the way has been heavily criticized by the US).
In all, the case for US being the real villain here keeps getting stronger and stronger.
I don’t know by what means foreign countries would intervene in the US. They’d just ignore whatever is requested of them.
But it will increase US dependency on foreign countries in the long term. EVs are the future and if US manufacturers aren’t working on them then they’ll continue to lose market share to foreign companies.
The means would initially be similar to those used against other mildly-rogue regimes such those of Serbia and Mali: withdrawal of cooperation, fines, and limited sanctions.
If we get to the late 2040s and the rest of the world is within touching distance of net zero but the US remains as an extreme outlier in its refusal to decarbonise, then we could well see harsher measures such as those applied to the likes of Russia and Venezuela.
US is 350M people, let's say everyone is climate change sceptic and together with Russia, Australia and Saudi Arabia it totals to about 550M people.
In the rest of the world the idea that you can just just pump as much as smoke you like and it will magically disappear isn't popular. Maybe because they all had some polluting industry around that made them miserable or maybe because they live in dirty overcrowded cities and noticed that smog isn't pleasant or maybe because they don't have much fossil energy sources, they are generally not skeptical of the idea that "not polluting is good". Just as with vaccines or abortion, climate change or simply the desire to live in a clean environment isn't a divisive topic in most of the world.
So its going to be 8B people trying to compel 0.5B people to live in clean environments and take care of the output of their industries. I think the 8B will be able to do that one way or another.
That ship sailed with the destruction of the global world order. The polluting industries probably don't have to be polluting when you take care of the pollutants.
The rest of the world is not on board. Western Europe, United States, and Australia take “breathing considered harmful“ seriously. No other country does, and nobody else is deliberately suppressing their growth. There are plenty of countries taking western money to pretend that they do.
Generally these things follow a Kuznets Curve where you get rich from polluting and then are eventually rich enough to care about poisoning your children.
China's bad air around the time of their Olympics is pointed to as being a turning point that could have toppled the government if not dealt with.
Slightly uniquely they seem to have discovered a way to become even richer by cleaning up their pollution, the timing for EV and renewables working out well, and presumably many other nations will try to follow that pattern going forward.
Even just buying these things from China will make both sides of the trade richer compared with dirtier alternatives.
Believe it or not, most of the people on earth don't worship growth. No one cares about growth just as no one cares about climate change, people want improvement on their lives and a future that can be good. Some policies like paper straws downgrade it and other policies like clean air upgrade it.
When you start thinking in more abstract terms, growth v.s. climate change associated risks is a false dichotomy.
Of course people at first all they care is to get out of a bad situation like poverty but once they are out of poverty they start caring for other things like the future of their children. Apart of fossil energy producing countries like USA/Russia/Australia, people don't pretend that pollution is no biggie.
Despite this, since 1980, US, EU and Australia have been the biggest polluters since 1980 when climate change was first known to be man made. (Read my other comment)
I’m pretty sure that’s not remotely true. Look at the state of the Ganges River or the visibility in any major Chinese Metropolitan area. Many countries just ignore these patently obvious ecological disasters. The notion that climate was in a pleasant homeostasis until European people arrived is absurd on its face and contrary to geological record.
You are being scammed. Billionaires just want an excuse to assert control over all human activity. Climate Doom is an eschatological religion for atheists. Conserve forests, control industrial waste, substitute toxic products, of course. But your breath is an existential threat to all life on Earth? It’s ridiculous and it has completely derailed productive environmental efforts with carbon-trade scams and a regulatory priesthood demanding sacrifice. Meanwhile serious people can barely get a hearing on aquifer depletion, topsoil loss, overfishing, food quality, or source water protection.
> The rest of the world is also pretty much on board with this clean air and climate change stuff as it turns out people generally like clean air
Are you sure about that? Or you mistaking the world's opinion for that of the out-of-touch elites living in their lofty ivory towers? Because in the world, outside the media controlled by these elites, I see the exact opposite: it turns out THE WORLD generally like electricity at 2 cents per kwh (not 50 cents how elites like it), no matter how much carbon dioxide it emits.
In fact, wind and solar often bid negative amounts to sell power.
For those confused by this, the way a utility buys power is they take bids from powerplants, and then "fill their bucket" with the cheapest options, the most expensive, cheapest option is what everyone gets paid. So if you can compete in a market with coal and coal is 8 cents/kwh, and you have zero operational costs, you can bid negative values to always be in the bucket and be compensated 8 cents/kwh.
It's ironic how you're (unknowingly) doing the fossil fuel industry's bidding while ranting about an ominous elite that doesn't care about regular people.
Trump has a couple of more years left on this planet. He'll never see the effects of his policies, but he'll do everything to please his donors. That's about it.
CFCs are bad because they make the government get cancer. CO2 is fine because it'll make your grandchildren die in a heatwave or drown in a flood, that won't happen in the next few election cycles.
The joke in the refrigeration industry is that "it's not bad for the environment until DuPont's patent expires".
Now obviously they were bad for the environment all along, but I don't think it's a coincidence that nothing was done about CFCs until the 3rd world got good at making them cheap.
The joke is getting a little out of date though since the new stuff is hydrocarbons and CO2 (and you can't patent those).
How exactly is this not just like a global policy thing rather than EPA? Surely our emissions affect other countries' qualities of life so the decision is not just up to us.
Beyond its role in climate change, elevated concentrations of CO₂ pose a direct physiological threat to human health, ranging from inflammation to respiratory stress. The Trump presidency is trying to protect coal and oil for some reason. Money, lobbying, bribery anyone?
We need to look past the political noise and focus on the immediate data: CO₂ is a pollutant that harms human physiology. Regardless of where you stand on climate policy, we should all agree that breathing toxic air is unacceptable. We need to prioritize respiratory health and cognitive safety above partisan loyalty
This is a bad take. CO2 will not harm your personal health in the short term, in the amounts measured in current atmospheric readings. You personally have a higher percentage of CO2 in your body every time you breathe. You currently breathe about 430 ppm of CO2. Toxic levels are above 5000 ppm (40000 is regarded as immediately dangerous).
You're arguing the right side but you're using the wrong arguments. This is actually counter productive.
It is sad that climate change has become a political issue and has grown so polarized that there is no middle ground anymore. One faction protests to ban everything related to fossil fuels and even goes so far as to disrupt public life and impose its ideology on others (e.g., Klima Klebers in Germany), while the other faction ignores the devastating effects of climate change on humans and future generations and pushes for increased greenhouse gas emissions. We need to meet in the middle and work together to ensure human well being without deindustrializing. In this respect, every political party and side has failed miserably over the last 30 years or so.
You’re comparing an extreme minority on one side to the mainstream view on the other.
Democrats are not banning everything related to fossil fuels, nor do they disrupt public life. They have simply applied subsidies to encourage environmental friendly choices. Which is exactly the middle ground you are asking for.
> and impose its ideology on others (e.g., Klima Klebers in Germany)
what does "impose its ideology" mean?
they were protesting for the government to uphold their own promises and use low hanging fruits which are even beneficial beyond reducing green house gases.
Are you sure it's not just media magnifying the extremes? In my own bubble and honestly most of what I see online most people seem to believe in a middle ground.
The problem is that there isn't really a middle ground. The damage is done and no actions taken now will have a quick, politically measurable effect. The people arguing against action are relying on the delay between action and effect. If you can't see it now (despite actual measurable data being available for at least the last 2 decades) then it must be a lie.
I'm still not sure what the climate change denialists see as the goal of "big climate". All of the money and profit is on the side of continuing to fuck the climate. All of the projects to alleviate the problem are expensive and have very little profit to be gained, but apparently it's a conspiracy of academics on minimum wage in various university research centers who are determined to take the money from our wonderful oil and mining benefactors (who have nothing but our best interests at heart). What's worse is they want to push technology that gives us energy for free! Must be a bunch of communists or something!
The argument that Congress should pass law to allow specific actions by the executive branch is quite reasonable.
If only it wasn't being cherry picked to neuter the EPA while Border Patrol and ICE take it upon themselves to act as police forces on domestic soil.
Congress has authorized ICE and Border Patrol to act as police forces on domestic soil
No they haven't. Police forces' power goes through actual Courts that enforce Constitutional rights above police authority.
ICE/Border Patrol's authority comes through civil law and non-Article III 'immigration' court. Congress explicitly authorized ICE to be something else when they placed ICE in an alternative 'civil law'/immigration system hoping to make them not have to follow the burdens placed on Police/Justice/Judges/Courts by the Constitution.
democracy . . .
You can't have one party whose goal it to make sure government doesn't function in order to push their policy of 'shrink government' be in charge of making government function. No system will work when half the system is hostile to the system.
If the Republicans will happy spend money until we are all broke if it means we can limit the government's spending (huh? what? make that make sense) they will break it all (and are trying) in whatever way they can.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
Yep. Toilet schedules for every department should go through Congress, apparently. It's a deliberate design to flood an already very narrow zone, lawmaking.
My first thought when seeing this was "OH! There must be new science." That does not seem to be the case. I'm going to need to adjust my understanding of how the world works.
I suspect that the "Champion of Beautiful, Clean Coal" is just living up to his side of the contract.[0]
[0] https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/budget...
I wish I could unsubscribe from all US related news. It's just so depressing these days.
Don't worry, this will probably be flagged to death and gone from the front page real soon.
EDIT: and it's gone. From #1 on the front page to page 14 or so in about 35 minutes. To be honest, that took a lot longer than I expected.
Some wishfully frame HN as science and tech, others as views from smart people on complex issues of topical importance, but regardless, political overlap with science or complexity causes flagging "because politics". Forces that degrade discussion are high on political topics, but ... sheesh. A forum with high ability to contribute to rational discourse on complex issues of importance is really hamstrung by this. /rant
That US administration wishes you would unsubscribe too.
Yeah, I'd love to cancel my subscription to the administration too.
Would you take a moment to consider that the ostrich maneuver ended with the animal on the dinner table?
Wouldn't this increase US exposure to foreign intervention in the future? Although China is the worst offender, since a while now they are getting their stuff together. They suffered and later fixed some gross air pollutions in their cities.
The rest of the world is also pretty much on board with this clean air and climate change stuff as it turns out people generally like clean air, so if this sticks at some point the only logical next step would be to compel US to stop polluting the world.
If I understand correctly, this also removes EPA ability to regulate car emissions, arguing that it will allow for cheaper cars. Why would US public really wants newly made clunkers on their cities? Polluting cars are horrible city life quality downgrade that even the rich can't escape.
Also, will this allow to put the banned due to the dieselgate VW vehicles back on the roads?
China was an offender at the time yes. But even so, since 1980, when effects of climate change were first known, US has emitted 250Gt and China only 263 Gt, which in per capita terms places US at 690t/p and China at 185 t/p. This is despite China having one child policy since 1979 (which by the way has been heavily criticized by the US).
In all, the case for US being the real villain here keeps getting stronger and stronger.
I enjoyed the 2009 book Ultimatum about this scenario -- what could you do to make a global polluter to stop if they were endangering the world? https://www.amazon.com/Ultimatum-Matthew-Glass-ebook/dp/B002...
I don’t know by what means foreign countries would intervene in the US. They’d just ignore whatever is requested of them.
But it will increase US dependency on foreign countries in the long term. EVs are the future and if US manufacturers aren’t working on them then they’ll continue to lose market share to foreign companies.
The means would initially be similar to those used against other mildly-rogue regimes such those of Serbia and Mali: withdrawal of cooperation, fines, and limited sanctions.
If we get to the late 2040s and the rest of the world is within touching distance of net zero but the US remains as an extreme outlier in its refusal to decarbonise, then we could well see harsher measures such as those applied to the likes of Russia and Venezuela.
US is 350M people, let's say everyone is climate change sceptic and together with Russia, Australia and Saudi Arabia it totals to about 550M people.
In the rest of the world the idea that you can just just pump as much as smoke you like and it will magically disappear isn't popular. Maybe because they all had some polluting industry around that made them miserable or maybe because they live in dirty overcrowded cities and noticed that smog isn't pleasant or maybe because they don't have much fossil energy sources, they are generally not skeptical of the idea that "not polluting is good". Just as with vaccines or abortion, climate change or simply the desire to live in a clean environment isn't a divisive topic in most of the world.
So its going to be 8B people trying to compel 0.5B people to live in clean environments and take care of the output of their industries. I think the 8B will be able to do that one way or another.
Or to move your polluting industry there
That ship sailed with the destruction of the global world order. The polluting industries probably don't have to be polluting when you take care of the pollutants.
The rest of the world is not on board. Western Europe, United States, and Australia take “breathing considered harmful“ seriously. No other country does, and nobody else is deliberately suppressing their growth. There are plenty of countries taking western money to pretend that they do.
Generally these things follow a Kuznets Curve where you get rich from polluting and then are eventually rich enough to care about poisoning your children.
China's bad air around the time of their Olympics is pointed to as being a turning point that could have toppled the government if not dealt with.
Slightly uniquely they seem to have discovered a way to become even richer by cleaning up their pollution, the timing for EV and renewables working out well, and presumably many other nations will try to follow that pattern going forward.
Even just buying these things from China will make both sides of the trade richer compared with dirtier alternatives.
Believe it or not, most of the people on earth don't worship growth. No one cares about growth just as no one cares about climate change, people want improvement on their lives and a future that can be good. Some policies like paper straws downgrade it and other policies like clean air upgrade it.
When you start thinking in more abstract terms, growth v.s. climate change associated risks is a false dichotomy.
Of course people at first all they care is to get out of a bad situation like poverty but once they are out of poverty they start caring for other things like the future of their children. Apart of fossil energy producing countries like USA/Russia/Australia, people don't pretend that pollution is no biggie.
Despite this, since 1980, US, EU and Australia have been the biggest polluters since 1980 when climate change was first known to be man made. (Read my other comment)
I’m pretty sure that’s not remotely true. Look at the state of the Ganges River or the visibility in any major Chinese Metropolitan area. Many countries just ignore these patently obvious ecological disasters. The notion that climate was in a pleasant homeostasis until European people arrived is absurd on its face and contrary to geological record.
You are being scammed. Billionaires just want an excuse to assert control over all human activity. Climate Doom is an eschatological religion for atheists. Conserve forests, control industrial waste, substitute toxic products, of course. But your breath is an existential threat to all life on Earth? It’s ridiculous and it has completely derailed productive environmental efforts with carbon-trade scams and a regulatory priesthood demanding sacrifice. Meanwhile serious people can barely get a hearing on aquifer depletion, topsoil loss, overfishing, food quality, or source water protection.
> The rest of the world is also pretty much on board with this clean air and climate change stuff as it turns out people generally like clean air
Are you sure about that? Or you mistaking the world's opinion for that of the out-of-touch elites living in their lofty ivory towers? Because in the world, outside the media controlled by these elites, I see the exact opposite: it turns out THE WORLD generally like electricity at 2 cents per kwh (not 50 cents how elites like it), no matter how much carbon dioxide it emits.
AFAICT the only 2c/kwh electricity is solar or hydro.
In fact, wind and solar often bid negative amounts to sell power.
For those confused by this, the way a utility buys power is they take bids from powerplants, and then "fill their bucket" with the cheapest options, the most expensive, cheapest option is what everyone gets paid. So if you can compete in a market with coal and coal is 8 cents/kwh, and you have zero operational costs, you can bid negative values to always be in the bucket and be compensated 8 cents/kwh.
It's ironic how you're (unknowingly) doing the fossil fuel industry's bidding while ranting about an ominous elite that doesn't care about regular people.
I'm pretty sure. Once I sniffed air as a non-elite and I like it clean.
One step closer to Spaceballs
every day the US strays further from the light :(
I think we should lock them all in a room filled with CO2 and methane and then ask them if they still think they're not harmful.
Sounds like healthcare costs are going up in the USA.
Trump has a couple of more years left on this planet. He'll never see the effects of his policies, but he'll do everything to please his donors. That's about it.
Donors? Most of these people are paying bribes, not donating.
Why is this flagged? Is the climate no longer a science story?
You mean CO2 is not the same as CFCs?
CFCs are bad because they make the government get cancer. CO2 is fine because it'll make your grandchildren die in a heatwave or drown in a flood, that won't happen in the next few election cycles.
The joke in the refrigeration industry is that "it's not bad for the environment until DuPont's patent expires".
Now obviously they were bad for the environment all along, but I don't think it's a coincidence that nothing was done about CFCs until the 3rd world got good at making them cheap.
The joke is getting a little out of date though since the new stuff is hydrocarbons and CO2 (and you can't patent those).
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46994006
How exactly is this not just like a global policy thing rather than EPA? Surely our emissions affect other countries' qualities of life so the decision is not just up to us.
The US has refused to sign onto international climate agreements. Who’s going to enforce that policy against the US?
Shameful
Beyond its role in climate change, elevated concentrations of CO₂ pose a direct physiological threat to human health, ranging from inflammation to respiratory stress. The Trump presidency is trying to protect coal and oil for some reason. Money, lobbying, bribery anyone?
We need to look past the political noise and focus on the immediate data: CO₂ is a pollutant that harms human physiology. Regardless of where you stand on climate policy, we should all agree that breathing toxic air is unacceptable. We need to prioritize respiratory health and cognitive safety above partisan loyalty
https://open.substack.com/pub/minimallysustained/p/beyond-th...
This is a bad take. CO2 will not harm your personal health in the short term, in the amounts measured in current atmospheric readings. You personally have a higher percentage of CO2 in your body every time you breathe. You currently breathe about 430 ppm of CO2. Toxic levels are above 5000 ppm (40000 is regarded as immediately dangerous).
You're arguing the right side but you're using the wrong arguments. This is actually counter productive.
You breathe out CO2. Maybe you should stop doing that?
It is sad that climate change has become a political issue and has grown so polarized that there is no middle ground anymore. One faction protests to ban everything related to fossil fuels and even goes so far as to disrupt public life and impose its ideology on others (e.g., Klima Klebers in Germany), while the other faction ignores the devastating effects of climate change on humans and future generations and pushes for increased greenhouse gas emissions. We need to meet in the middle and work together to ensure human well being without deindustrializing. In this respect, every political party and side has failed miserably over the last 30 years or so.
You’re comparing an extreme minority on one side to the mainstream view on the other.
Democrats are not banning everything related to fossil fuels, nor do they disrupt public life. They have simply applied subsidies to encourage environmental friendly choices. Which is exactly the middle ground you are asking for.
I think the days of playing softball are over. Whatever administration comes after this one, the gloves will still be off, and the hand heavy.
> and impose its ideology on others (e.g., Klima Klebers in Germany)
what does "impose its ideology" mean?
they were protesting for the government to uphold their own promises and use low hanging fruits which are even beneficial beyond reducing green house gases.
Are you sure it's not just media magnifying the extremes? In my own bubble and honestly most of what I see online most people seem to believe in a middle ground.
The problem is that there isn't really a middle ground. The damage is done and no actions taken now will have a quick, politically measurable effect. The people arguing against action are relying on the delay between action and effect. If you can't see it now (despite actual measurable data being available for at least the last 2 decades) then it must be a lie.
I'm still not sure what the climate change denialists see as the goal of "big climate". All of the money and profit is on the side of continuing to fuck the climate. All of the projects to alleviate the problem are expensive and have very little profit to be gained, but apparently it's a conspiracy of academics on minimum wage in various university research centers who are determined to take the money from our wonderful oil and mining benefactors (who have nothing but our best interests at heart). What's worse is they want to push technology that gives us energy for free! Must be a bunch of communists or something!