Comments

1

Can anyone explain why this five person vote in NH is getting so much attention? Is it just because it's a positive news story about bloomberg?

2

Here's my fascinating story of the day. For those of you who think Bernie Sanders is this raving radical socialist, keep in mind he's got nothing on the UK's Conservative PM Boris Johnson. See this in today's NY Times, "Boris Johnson Backs HS2, U.K.’s $130 Billion Railroad Plan:"
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/europe/boris-johnson-hs2.html

I can only dream that one of the Democratic contenders would make an infrastructure plan centered on high-speed rail a centerpiece of their campaign. I can only dream of such a plan becoming a reality in the regressive, provincial backwater that is California.

Any way we could get BoJo to run against Trump? I mean, he was born in the Upper East Side of NYC after all.

3

@1 Superstition.

4

@1
Because that small NH town has always opened the polling place at midnight - hence these are the earliest actual returns in the primary.

5

"centered on high-speed rail"

Maybe because we have no where near the density of European countries and building a nationwide network would be astronomically expensive and could never compete with cheaper and faster air travel.

Just a thought.

Want to build fast trains? Build them from airports into cities, and don't have them meander through neighborhoods like the Rainier Valley.

5

@2
Boris Johnson could beat Trump on hair style alone!

6

@4 I suppose that makes some sense, especially after seeing the media go absolutely bananas when the Iowa results weren't instantaneous.

7

Sorry, Mr. Drive-By Burner Account @5, but nobody's talking about a nationwide network. And yet you feel the need to raise that strawman to buttress your argument. There are various corridors between major region metros that would benefit enormously from high-speed rail.

Facing the reality of climate change and fossil fuels being a finite resource, cheap air travel is just about the least sustainable activity out there. (Well, maybe after the Jordan Peterson gout-inducing diet.) Now, you can certainly make the case that it's popular, and for the people on my side of the climate change debate, that's a challenge.

Anyway, don't you want to go back to your core competency of questioning Greta Thunberg's mental health and physical attractiveness?

8

@7: So Bernie and all the rest of the D candidates flying around in private jets have no credibility in terms of their stance on climate change. Private jets are the worst offender. From now until November it will be demonstrated on a daily basis.

10

Raindrop @8, you're absolutely right that private jets are the worst. And believe me, whenever I hear about these candidates gallivanting around in them, I absolutely cringe.

I wouldn't go so far as to call them hypocrites, but I'll welcome policies from them that will give them less incentive to do that in the future.

12

Yes, our taxes don’t go towards our health care, retirement, the kids’ education, or social safety networks. They go to pentagon black holes as we ease regulations to ensure corporations the right to further pollute the air we breathe and the water we drink.

Since when this is considered “news”? Don’t let those lefty hippies control our media and ruin our freedom. We are free because we have guns and will always defend the constitution.

13

"Individual choices are effectively meaningless because we’re each one of 7 billion drops in a planet-sized bucket."

Really? We've been harangued to death by progressives and bleeding heart libs that individual choices do make a difference.

Obviously Bernie is apathetic about climate change as he could easily travel commercial with no great impact on scheduling.

If Bernie can finance an entire presidential campaign on individual contributions as he trashes the 1% and billionaires, he should at least have the grace and courtesy to fly like the 1% and billionaires.

14

Obviously @7 is correct, and we need nationwide high speed rail lines so we don't have to fly except when crossing oceans.

15

~8 people flying around in chartered aircraft is a raindrop in the bucket compared to the obvious air traffic that already exists when you want to fly out to see your mom among thousands of others simultaneously in the air right now.

17

"...Maybe because we have no where near the density of European countries and building a nationwide network..."

Nobody is proposing a "nationwide network" you colossal dumb fuck.

The networks proposed are precisely those that go through that highest US population density. Some even MORE dense than say the high speed line from Milan to Rome, FI. FFS. There isn't a straw man you won't let bend you over and fuck you up the ass is there?

18

"We've been harangued to death by progressives and bleeding heart libs that individual choices do make a difference."

Not all personal decision effect the same problems or have the same impact in total. Differst issues require different strategies.

Ten thousand people boycotting a a racist bus system will change the public policy on race. But ten thousand people boycotting flying isn't significant enough to stop CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere.

For instance you staying home wasting your life all day doing nothing might not impact climate change but it certainly saves the rest of humanity from having to deal with your loser ass.

19

The bible (and all other "sacred texts") are nonsense designed to keep stupid people in their place. They have no place in any modern person's library.

20

@19: Unless of course you study literary history, or literature in general. Or anthropology/sociology.

Or just want to be a person who is aware of other cultures and their heritages.

Not everyone is incapable of holding an idea in their head or consuming media without subscribing to it.

21

Would ten million people boycotting flying be significant enough to stop CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere?

At some point you have to make an intellectual and moral distinction rather than relying on arbitrary numeric thresholds that always seem to fit the malleable arguments made by progressives.

22

@21 HAHA Tem million? Okay.

Well. You seem pretty confident in something you know nothing about. You need to understand the scales we're talking about? It might make you appreciate the problem we face.

So here is a starling number: About 4.1 billion people flew on last year. That number goes up every year. FOUR BILLION. First you have to appreciate how big a billion is. Can you?

Next: Flying is only about 2.5% of global carbon emissions. Only 2.5 %. That's not nothing but and it will go up, but it nots the biggest contributor.

Since 1 milllion / 1 billion = 1,000,000/1,000,000,000 = 1/1,000 = 0.1%
You ca do the math here.

... I am confident that 10 million would have no appreciable impact on carbon emissions what so ever. It might put an end to airline if they all banned one single airline.

So you have to also understand that you'd have to organize this over hundreds of airlines and hundreds of countries.

While one government — the US or China — just getting three or four individual corporations under their laws to cut emissions by regulations might net you 18% of total emissions.

Tem million individuals MIGHT contribute to a popular "tipping point" for development of say a new consumer innovation. Like hybrid cars did. And that's good. But it won't REVERSE or mitigate climate change.

Individuals can't build sea walls and move coastal populations in the hundreds of millions or do the thousands of massive infrastructure changes necessary to mitigate and adapt a world of billions of humans to the climate crisis.

Get it yet?

24

"Everyone was standing their broom upright yesterday because a viral trend claimed that it was the only day a broom could do that due to how the gravitational pull was or something. That's apparently a hoax and brooms can just stand up on their own regularly. I admit to being duped by this."

There is no hope for our future.

25

"hundreds of countries" oops... I mean "dozens."

26

Daily CO2
Feb. 10, 2020: 416.08 ppm
Feb. 10, 2019: 411.97 ppm
Let's face it, any meaningful action to address this is years away. Perhaps decades if Republicans consolidate their power.
Reconcile yourself to the fact that your grandchildren are doomed.

27

@23 "Sure but this misses the point entirely because on a global scale"

He was even more wrong than that.

Ten million people not flying is less than a drop in the bucket. Even a hundred million wouldn't really see much impact. Four billion people fly every year. That is a huge number.

A hundred million person boycott of flying would have an impact economically. Probably not a good one. It might effect how airlines do business for sure. But it would not impact how much carbon goes into the atmosphere by any significant amount.

Morons like Raindrip don't understand scales. Much less critical thought. They don't get that how much 4 billion is - that 4 billion people and more fly every year. And that of course flying only contributes about 2.5 - 3% of carbon emissions.

However Electricity & heat is 24.9%. A good chunk of the electricity generation isn't consumer usage it's industrial source from handful of individual corporations. Target just those companies and you reduce more emissions.

These big corporations who have spent billions lobbying against climate crisis legislations are the ones promoting individual action. Not these mythical straw-leftists.

And the Tu quoque logically fallacies Raindrip uses to batter his straw leftists with won't build sea walls either.

28

"Reconcile yourself to the fact that your grandchildren are doomed."

Nonsense. That the next Rightwing tactic. The first is to deny the problem. The second is obfuscate the source of the problem. The third is to claim it's too late to do anything.

And that is bullshit. The Climate Crisis is solvable. And it's certainly survivable.

30

@23: climate change is a problem only collective action can fix.

@27: A hundred million person boycott of flying would have an impact economically. Probably not a good one. It might effect how airlines do business for sure. But it would not impact how much carbon goes into the atmosphere by any significant amount.

Make up your mind guys on the better messaging. Ping Greta if needed.

31

@30 FFS you idiot. Can you do math? Or did your eyes just glaze over hen I outlined the actual statistical facts for you and you retreated right back to the same idiot fallacies we just debunked? Use some critical thinking for once.

Collective action organized by governments will have the MOST impact. Dumbfuck. How is that so hard to understand.

Christ. You really are quite possibly the stupidest person in here. Even Feebs can formulate a terrible argument better than you.

34

@31: Collective action by government is essentially laws, and not individually inspired altruism for the greater good. These two overlap of course, but I think history shows us the latter is preferable.

35

@28- "The Climate Crisis is solvable. And it's certainly survivable."
Hand-wave away Professor. You and your soul-mate Cliff Mass are filled with can-do optimism.

36

"the US spends far more on entitlements than it does on the military. Far, far more."

So what? People are simply terrible at calculating probabilities and assessing risk.

I mean calculate your lifetime probability of having a fatal terrorist or enemy combatant encounter. It's probably less that the odds of being eaten by a shark.

Then calculate your lifetime odds of getting a chronic disease. Or having something like a heart attack, or cancer, or suffering from an old age related disease. Or a serious economic disruption effecting your stability. It's almost 100%.

Gee. I wonder which is worth society spending more money to deal with?

37

"You and your soul-mate Cliff Mass are filled with can-do optimism."

Well. We're doomed. Nobody is stopping you from self-euthanizing right now.

38

@34 what the fuck are you talking about? Talk about needing to make up your mind. Pick an argument, man. Moron. I think we can go back to ignoring you.

39

@38: I know you're desperate, but vulgarity and insults lose their potency and diminish your credibility when used repeatedly.

40

@11 yes. And maybe more importantly 99% of people mistake symbolic action as making up for self-exceptions. They drive a Prius to the airport to fly whenever they feel like it for example. Huge structural problems are never solved by individual actions, always by institutional reform, period.

41

@36 yep. No to mention that defense spending is far, far more than we need to keep well defended. We could have a fully effective range of responses for a third of the cost, just not the capacity to get into several pointless ground wars overseas at the same time.

42

@17 The Green New Deal is proposing a nationwide network of high speed rail so you cant say nobody. Also where are these recommendations on high speed rail? I've only heard of the one from SF to LA and Portland - Seattle - Vancouver.

43

@37: Was that really necessary? I used to your rabid rage on me, but kallipugos? Why?

46

"Rail is the transportation system of the past."

Oh FFS. Gee. That must be why every single other developed wealthy nation is expanding rail.

Christ. I mean do you fucking morons even bother with cursory research before you vomit out this fucking total nonsense?

So. Please tell us what is the mass transportation of the future? Autonomous cars? On roads? Only because short sighted dip shits like American right-wingers can't stand to invest anything that might benefit brown people.

47

Our military budget is not inflated merely to defend our interests, but because the Pentagon acts as the world market arms dealer, in concerto with the NRA and PCM mercenary lords, as well as Lockheed cum SpaceX rocket drone spy satellite sabotage for hire neowarmongers playing strategic parity with their space forces.

Of course they need oil, because whoever blocks out the sun from space junk first and makes any chance of leaving orbit ever improbable, wins at Space. It's like these numbnuts never watched Gundam Wing and shit. Pay attention you cretins.


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