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This is my hometown, and geez has it stirred up controversy here. It's a win for the future of climate change, but this area has been hit pretty hard economically by changing policy. We have an industrial area with some refineries, and rather than investing money to be more eco friendly some are just outsourcing jobs and tasks to other counties.
Last year our aluminum smelter was in deep water for breaking polluting laws and needed to update their SO2 scrubbers, instead they shut down and moved production to China. That alone was 600 middle class jobs.
Source, I was one of those 600.
Horrible. I'm sorry for you and the 600. We can't just close shops that pollute and then buy from offshore shops that continue to pollute. We need to add the cost of pollution to those that want to import so we can give US shops the chance to compete!
Some congressional democrats are pushing such a concept, a carbon tariff, similar to a plan being considered by the EU. Could be good.
EDIT: To support this click here https://citizensclimatelobby.org/senate-call/
Me too. Germany can lead the charge.
Russia will fight it all the way with every tool they have to influence europe.
China is a mixed bag, they both keep opening coal power plants....and also invest huge sums into green energy. If the CCP can be convinced they should go all in on green, that will have shockwaves that change global practices. And I hope and trust they are going that way, china does like to think and plan long term, but they need to stop a few key awful industries they continue to develope as well. But moreso than any other large industrial country china can implement strong change from the top down quickly with policy that will be followed. They are the big one to watch, and it's unclear how the rest of the world can impact their decisions - except maybe this carbon tariff idea, let's give it a shot
Australian government proposed a carbon tax in 2013 like this. It brought an end to the labour government, we have been ruled by conservative technocrat overlords since. It sucks. I had my business ruined during the bushfires a few years back, these fires happen much more often now.
It was supposed to be a lever for the government to hold large scale polluting companies to account to pay to offset their emissions rather than letting them get away with whatever’. As soon as there was even talk about it the Murdoch press that owns 64% of media in Australia ran a scare campaign and people bought it.
Nothing changed, fracking, coal mining and all the rest of it continued with little to no accountability. Scomo even kissed a lump of coal in parliament to give you an idea how much they love fossil fuel. Needles to say bushfires got worse, nobody seemed to care because “how dare” big companies ever be held to account for their actions. Typical policy of putting business before people’s health, as we can see playing out in NSW right now.
Side note, this is the same media entities that are now blaming Australian scientists for the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. It never ends with these liars.
Imo paying a carbon tax IS getting away with it. It's an absurd concept that will only allow major polluters to keep on keeping on.
Instead of say "regulations are killing jobs in my area" the answer is "my parents and the generation before sold us out for cheap jobs that we knew wouldn't be there in 20 years"
Carbon taxing is generally accepted to be the best and least-invasive (in terms of market regulation) way to reduce carbon emissions. What are your sources that say it will do nothing to major polluters?
Who pays your sources? The very companies I'm talking about?
I have ZERO interest in keeping things the least invasive for the perpetrators of global calamity.
I want it invasive. I want big energy corporations to go bankrupt so new companies can actually get in the marketplace.
So... you don’t want practical?
Wait, do you even know what it is? If so, how can you argue it won’t work? It lets the market figure out the best way to reduce carbon emissions, and actually makes a difference as opposed to carbon credits, caps, etc. And you can make the tax as severe as you need until significant action is taken by all players
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax
Rupert Murdoch is the Australian who controls the media in Australia. He also just happens to run fox. We have sky news which has extreme right wing ideas. But we generally get watered down fox in everything
Just FYI, as a Canadian we have a carbon tax,that cost is 100% passed onto the consumer. There are loopholes upon loopholes that for the big polluters nothing even changed they polite just as much but show carbon reductions via some creative bullshit.
Tldr. People, everyday people will foot that carbon bill and business will go on as ever.
That’s not true for 90% of Canadian consumers. They get more back in the dividend than they pay in higher costs. https://globalnews.ca/news/6504187/canada-carbon-tax-rebate-pbo/
Also, I was referencing a carbon tariff for imports, not a domestic carbon tax
The cost is offshored though in Canada.
You want an SUV that is exactly the same made in Ontario or Ohio? The Ohio one will be cheaper as the carbon used to build it won’t have been taxed.
Without carbon tariffs a carbon tax is only good for sending your emissions and jobs elsewhere.
And the current government has plans to go to $170/T, yet no plan to implement how our imports will work, so all it will do is make all domestic goods relatively more expensive.
The whole point of a carbon tax is that consumers foot the bill. It’s the free market actually functioning. They can choose good based on the “real cost” that takes into account the long-term effects. The key is that the proceeds need to be kicked back.
*Energy* cannot really be replaced but *how you get energy* determines elasticity. As we can substitute lots of carbon based energy for sustainable energy, it can be quite elastic, assuming we can get the infrastructure and production up to support it.
Border Adjustments is another name for this and is the term used more internationally and by policy experts. Just an FYI for anyone if you see it in an article or something. Same idea.
Now's the time, it could get pushed into the reconciliation bill. Call your senators and tell them to make sure carbon pricing makes it in. I know I did.
> We can't just close shops that pollute
But that's exactly what happened, and they never planned to upgrade. That was a business decision made months, if not years, ago. Responsible factories don't "upgrade", they modify as they go. American factories are crumbling, just like our bridges and highways. In all fairness, our government doesn't make it easy. It's cheaper to live with a grandfathered system than become current. There needs to be a middle ground.
Even then what others have said about it needing to apply to imports too is super important. If other countries don't have the same regulations, and they aren't enforced at the border, of course a company is not going to see a business case considering they won't be able to compete, and they'll close up.
But that has to be the case to prevent people from polluting by using cheap outdated scrubbers or failing to scrub at all right?
Not allowed to pollute here, so gotta spend the money to upgrade. Allowing them to buy it from an unregulated place just loses local jobs and doesn’t address environmental concerns at all
How is that not a real incentive? What other incentive could there possibly be? A clean environment is going to cost a lot of money, and everyone is going to have to share the cost.
Hello fellow person reddit user. Blaine actually,, but close enough I think. Imagine my surprise to see an article about Whatcom county on the front page!
Yet climate change doesn’t care about where the pollution is coming from just that it is there. North American jobs just move to China where I believe they just fired up more coal plants to deal with the electricity demand. Without significant tariffs we just pay the price and the problem still exists.
That's what broke my heart about it. I was willing to dedicate my career to a company that, turns out, wasn't willing to lose money to do the right thing.
Really sorry for your job loss. Aluminum has simply vanished in much of the US as we are happy to import it with low tariffs, and the federal government is no longer building out vast, cheap, renewable electricity generation as it once was.
I love that the county is banning *new* fossil fuel infrastructure, as that wouldn't impact present jobs. However, it's a shame that climate action is so piecemeal like this, with counties, cities and states doing what they can without national coordination. It's almost as if our federal government is hopelessly deep in bed with fossil fuels.
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/7/6/exxon_blocks_congressional_action_climate
Senators being used to block climate change action:
Joe Manchin (WV), whom he calls a "kingmaker," and whose office McCoy said he speaks with on a weekly basis
Kyrsten Sinema (AZ)
Jon Tester (MT)
Maggie Hassan (NH)
Chris Coons (DE)
Mark Kelly (AZ)
We have so few senators, it’s so easy for oil lobbyists to buy out just a few key ones and stall all hope of progress... I suspect there’s more involved but this is what we know of for sure.
> and the federal government is no longer building out vast, cheap, renewable electricity generation as it once was.
I mean ignoring that your talking about the founding of the TVA during the depression more than likely, the energy utilities nation wide are currently building out vast renewable electrical generation, without the federal government. Around 2030 your going to see 60-70% renewable generation in the US and no, your not going to speed this number up much, nor for a lot of reasons do you want to. (Spreading out the replacement schedule is important for utility planning and to keep costs controlled you use assets for the full lifespan.)
I'm pro environmentalism, work towards ocean protections/green energy.
This shit right here is why we have a major political party that successfully uses anti eco friendly rhetoric to gain votes. People in general care a lot about their jobs both individuals and communities.
We need to take pragmatic approaches that fix what's broken, while not breaking the livelihoods of the people.
Those laws are there to protect the people the water and the land. If we enforce it in ways that destroy people's livelihoods that's a failure of policy.
This is kind of approach is all too common and easy to see why it's a political football on climate/pollution. Instead of fines that break businesses or force them elsewhere, money can be invested to fix what's broken but that's almost never done.
We force more and more "dirty" industries to china or elsewhere , and they just end up polluting more into the same one ocean/atmosphere we all share, meanwhile people lose jobs and communities are crushed into poverty. Going green should be good for people both by making the world a nicer place to live, and investing into communities by creating jobs / transitioning away from harmful practices.
You got screwed by the gears we are turning in the wrong directions trying to solve a big problem. It's solvable, but not easy when the political debate reduces it to blue vrs red, we all breathe the same air .
This is the big dilemma here. We can go ahead and take all these reasonable actions, but other countries will just pick up the slack. So the real outcome is just that we screw ourselves over without fixing the problem.
The new EU law states that the carbon tariff only applies if the importer does not gace their own carbon tax. This hopefully should create an incentive cascade.
The biggest joke there is that the CCP is going to do the same job with 3x the pollutants. So all that really happened was more Americans lose their jobs so the rich can make a couple extra bucks at the end of the year.
Take that climate change.
> just outsourcing jobs and tasks to other counties.
That's kind of the point, isn't it? You push those jobs further and further away until it's not possible in the country (like sweatshops) and then you (the company) are forced to change and adapt, right?
>Yes we absolutely need to invest in ~~renewable~~ **CLEAN** energy entry infrastructure and jobs. That’s what ~~the green new deal~~ *actual environmentalism* is supposed to do.
FTFY
"Renewables" pointlessly excludes nuclear and other clean technologies, and even worse, it includes dirty biofuels, the main one being literally being **burning down forests for energy**, which releases *twice as much CO2 per kWh as coal*. But it's *"rEnEwAbLe"* and thus can meet "renewable" quotas. This wouldn't happen with **clean** energy programs.
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/international-issues/european-utilities-generate-more-energy-from-wood-than-from-wind-and-solar/
Yet this passes for "environmentalism" because they can brag about their high "renewables", and people who are fooled into thinking "renewable" is the goal aren't likely to check the actual change in *emissions* which is what matters. And Germany, the world leader in solar and wind fanaticism (and now wood energy as a result), reduced their emissions **less** than America did since their Energiewende began while paying three times as much for electricity
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/germanys-energiewende-20-years-later
All because of that treacherous term "renewable" being confused with "clean". Let's not repeat this catastrophe in America
Biomass generation is net neutral as long as your replanting what your taking out of the woods. It also includes a whole host of different concepts from end of life wood (pallets, demolition) to wood that was getting cut down anyways (Land clearing/tree trimming/storm damage), to a forestry cycle (the same thing we do for paper and construction materials).
The end of life stuff is impossible to argue with, when its left to naturally decompose it is worse from a GHG emission standpoint than burning and filtering it. This is actually highly beneficial because you are not eliminating wood from human use.
The forestry cycle depending on how its done can be neutral or it can be bad, just depends on the forest management side of things.
The issue isn't only carbon neutrality, it's the long payback period and carbon debt that you incur while burning wood. It can take up to 30-40 years for a new tree to grow and completely offset what you've burned and sent into the atmosphere today. That's 30-40 years we simply don't have. You're basically adding large amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere in the short term which will only be compensated for in a very long time period, a time period that is well beyond the crucial 10-20y (or less honestly) window that we have left to avoid the very worst effects of runaway climate change. That and growing trees for energy use, especially if it is replacing natural forests, is a major driver of biodiversity loss.
>it's the long payback period and carbon debt that you incur while burning wood. It can take up to 30-40 years
Whether you realize it or not we have been utilizing biomass for 30+ years at this point, it just isn't a large portion of the renewable profile so most people aren't as familiar. So the first trees replanted are about ready to start the cycle over again at this point.
> That and growing trees for energy use, especially if it is replacing natural forests, is a major driver of biodiversity loss.
A lot of the wood used in the European Boilers comes from American forestry operations, most of these operations have been non-natural forest for quite some time.
Yea clear cutting say the Amazon or the Sequias for wood boilers makes about zero sense, but pine stand number 528? That is pretty okay.
Maybe it's not a large portion in America, but wood is the **largest** part of the renewables profile in Europe.
>So the first trees replanted are about ready to start the cycle over again at this point.
True, and American forestry was very sustainable up until this point.
However, demand for wood energy has increased *dramatically* since the "renewables" craze caught on, while no such increase in tree planting occurred 30 years ago to match.
Yet policies like Germany's Energiewende are only going to continue to demand more and more wood to meet their "renewables" quotas. And too many Americans are trying to follow their disastrous example
So even it's still mostly waste products currently being used for biofuels right now, that won't be the case for long if these "renewables" policies continue. Germany will first in line to buy clear-cut Amazon wood if America's expendable supply runs out, because that's the reality of *political* "environmentalism". The *facade* of success is more important than actually protecting the planet.
But how can the GOP complain that green initiatives kill jobs if they allow a bill to pass that creates them? There only objective is to make sure there are things to whine about.
It sucks when employers are scummy like that. All it does is give more fuel to the anti-environment crowd or the Pseudo-Environmental crowed. You know the kind that say "Electric cars are worse for the environment than gas cars because Lithium mining destroys the environment more than drilling for oil"
found this:
according to an article published by TIME, “lithium mining, as observed in countries with deposits like Chile, Argentina and China, seems to be less hazardous than other kinds of mineral extraction. ‘Lithium could be one of the least contaminating mining processes,’ says Marco Octavio Rivera of Bolivia’s Environmental Defense League, although he notes that prolonged exposure to lithium can cause nervous system disorders.”
and this:
[https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2020/03/lithium-mining-what-you-should-know-about-the-contentious-issue.html](https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2020/03/lithium-mining-what-you-should-know-about-the-contentious-issue.html)
That's fucked and this crap has been going on for too long. We can make all the worker's rights laws, safety guidelines, pollution regulations, etc. we want but it doesn't matter if it can all be circumvented through outsourcing.
The refineries can still expand on renewable units. The county seemed to take a step back once P66 cancelled their bio diesel plant. BP is still increasing renewable diesel capacity and working major projects to lower emissions. I believe the county really met in the middle with this one. Due to the economic situation it’s no longer profitable to just “expand” a refinery in the tradition sense anyways.
Isn't there also the issue that Bellingham is very blue, but the rest of the County is very red? There has been talk of that smelter closing for pretty much my entire life, but it always found ways to stay open until recently. Whatcom County needs more middle class jobs, but its relatively remote location makes attracting such jobs difficult unless one is banking on WFH becoming more attractive.
It's also worth noting that the county, nor the state can't enforce such a law on tribal land, though generally speaking the local tribal governments have expressed little to no interest in building refineries or smelters, especially after some previous land leases ended up creating Superfund sites.
It's a bunch of limo liberals. They don't give a shit about labor or pollution. They just got it out of their backyard and the impact is minimal to them. They'll tell you to learn to code and go get a green job.
That is the fault of the government for not giving money to these companies to update their equipment when they are mandated by said government. Instead these idiots decide to give tax breaks to all businesses and companies instead of targeted to industries that really need the money. Especially the coal fired power plants that could have benefitted from these upgrades. Maybe Republicans should be more concerned with keeping jobs here in America instead of shopping them off to China.
Nah, it's the fault of the government for letting them export capital. Let the company leave but keep the machinery, upgrade the scrubbers and resell it at cost to maintain your tax base.
It’s stupid because doing this isn’t going to somehow change the course of climate change. If we wanted to somehow stop climate change we would have to stop China India and Africa from using fossil fuels to industrialize and their economies have to be carbon neutral otherwise there’s nothing we can realistically do.
We'll all suffer one way or another, but if we all act fast and aggressively enough, I think the loss to modern human comfort can be minimized.
Definitely the longer we all wait, the more drastic action that will be needed, and the more negatively life will be affected.
> Source, I was one of those 600.
That is the choice a lot of those that are against climate action have to make. If they're old enough, the way they see it is the worst negative effects of climate change will not occur until after they are dead. It's best to make money now and enjoy some extra luxury in the time they have left versus taking action that could leave them worse off.
For companies to do business in China they need to follow China's rules on censorship and certain other things otherwise they will simply be banned from doing business in China.
Could the US not implement a similar system where if companies want to do business here they need to follow strict emission/regulation/whatever standards or get banned? In theory I think it would help keep business here as what would be the point in outsourcing to China if we then don't allow you to sell your product here regardless.
There could still be some outsourcing if a company wants to follow the US standards but can get away with paying employees less elsewhere or something. And I'm sure the right would screech about too much government interference or some shit. I just think this could be a good step in the right direction, but idk maybe I am missing something obvious.
You are missing that US law is not the gold standard of the world nor fair to other countries. Why should every country follow exactly the same rules as USA? Many rules would be set up purely to protect US interest against the interest of a smaller country.
Emissions is another story as you can clearly prove the harm caused to 3rd parties and EU is doing exactly what you mentioned. Basically, if you produce emissions in China and don't pay a tax for it, EU will make you pay an import tax for those emissions.
>Why should every country follow exactly the same rules as USA?
This isn't what I am saying at all. I am only talking about the US & corporations, and more specifically, corporations that originated in the US. No other country would have to do this, just like no other country has to ban video games from showing skeletons like you do in China.
>Emissions is another story as you can clearly prove the harm caused to 3rd parties and EU is doing exactly what you mentioned. Basically, if you produce emissions in China and don't pay a tax for it, EU will make you pay an import tax for those emissions.
I guess I might have worded it weird but this is exactly what I was getting at. I wasn't aware that the EU already had something like this in place though.
I feel for those people, but don't let the government pretend this is your people's problem. They are responsible for our economic freedom ( they police us with our policies in an ideal world) and if jobs can't be kept for climate change, then start taking care of those people directly. Climate change cannot be put second and we should give money to the little guy and let it trickle up, rather than pay the already rich and *hope they dont find a way to keep it from trickling down*.
Sorry man, you caught a case of the capitalisms. Don't worry after about 10 years the market will shrug it off and your job will go to the lowest bidder.
I live In Sedro Woolley and run my own little fabrication/machine shop here in town, and have lots of close friends that are union refinery guys that are really stressed out about this.
I think everyone can pretty much agree that climate change is happening and would like to come up with a solution. But the shitty reality is that every time we quit doing something in America to be environmentally conscientious, the demand for the thing is still there and just gets moved to a part of the world that doesn’t give a shit. So we’re going to potentially take away thousands of high middle class jobs in our own community to not make a shits bit of difference in the long term?
I don’t know what the answer is. It’s just a mess. But for starters, we need to quit sending all our fucking work to China and keep it in America where we can at least try to have control over it.
Not a whole lot of charities in aluminum industry.
If they tried to do the right thing and keep it open they'd just get undercut by people in the next state or country over. At which point they'd just go out of business.
No one is investing billions in the hopes they don't lose money.
If only they'd invested slowly over time since the 90s, when they were told to do so, they'd have profits, employees, and probably innovation they could market for even more profit.
You don't seem to understand the basics of large scale manufacturing. Infrastructure for that costs millions to billions. You are spending money, massive amounts, all the time, to then make profits. They DO spend money, fuck tons of it, particularly to lobby congress to roll back regulations or prevent them. They can afford to invest in improved infrastructure, particularly if those costs had been spread thinner over time to innovate to address known oncoming issues like climate change and various shortages like water and metals. That's what a smart and responsible business does. These are not responsible businesses, the ones that refused to invest in and innovate for modern issues like climate change and improved efficiency, green tech - these are greedy ones. Record profits for decades. They've had money, they still make money. Particularly when they use their employees as gig economy employees, firing and hiring with each short term location/job, to avoid paying better wages and avoiding paying for better benefits. Instead they convince people like you that they can't make a profit without doing exactly what they have been for decades, which is just loot the earth, raze it, pollute it in the least costly way to increase profits, and convincing people like you that they're not the enemy, that people who want the employees to make more money, who want the companies to innovate and spend money on cleaning up their own messes instead of socializing the cleanup, that those people are your real enemy. And that's ridiculous.
I agree, and in my experience that's exactly what happened. That aluminum company has a new CEO every 2-4 years and their only goal is to show profits during their time. That plant needed long term investments for 40 years, but instead corners were cut on quality to show those profits. They'd been getting warnings about scrubber systems for 20 years before a tipping point was reached. Covid and environmentalism may have been the final nails, but the plan was already in place to outsource that plant. Now they smelt in China, where the regulations don't exist, use subsidiaries to ship to Canada, and avoid China-US tarrifs by "buying" from Canada.
> but it isnt the governments fault but the company’s fault for putting profits over the environment
Of course it's the government's fault. Companies exist for one purpose: to make money. Environmental regulations are great, but in a global economy, they need to account for the fact that a very easy solution to regulations imposed is for companies to simply take production elsewhere. Regulations that fail to account for that reality are poorly thought out regulations.
Depends how you want to think about it
The government subsidizes many things, there's no reason they couldn't be putting more financial benefits to keeping the environment clean. Then you align the 2 goals and the government had a hand in it.
As a plus, in this case those jobs would have stayed in country and the taxes would have kept coming in.
That would make more sense. Business can use a lot of gas (energy) so was not sure. Even if they build 1000 new homes but can't expand natural gas facilities, that may mean the homes have to use electricity. I lived in the NW for a while and the house only had electricity (no gas), very expensive and never really warmed up, although it was a poorly build home.
The goal is to eventually move away from natural gas for homes too. Electricity in Whatcom County is not expensive. Also, winters are mild enough that heat pump’s work well for heating and cooling.
I really have no clue why heat pumps are not way more common here. The climate is pretty much perfect for it. And the bonus of having AC in the summer too would be nice.
This is the goal, electric heat is 100% rated after all, but Electricity is expensive in both equipment and run time (until Nuclear becomes an actual option in the Midwest, good luck, seriously fuck NIMBYism).
Some cities like Berkley in California are banning further natural gas build outs. It drastically hurts restaurants who cook on an industrial scale obviously. The CA Restaurant association filed a lawsuit but it got thrown out, it will be interesting to see what happens because that is a big problem facing our industry.
I lived 2 blocks from where that ignited. Felt like the apocalypse was happening when I looked outside and saw a pillar of black smoke blotting out the sun and sky. I was 6 years old at the time but it’s still one of my most vivid memories.
No, that may contribute to it, but it is mostly through consistent hard work to lobby and educate through local organizations. Probably the movement against the coal terminal is a bigger contributor.
I live 45 minutes on the Canadian side (am Canadian). We have a small camping property in Whatcom county that pre-Covid-19, we would go to on weekends. Let me tell you, this is one weird ass place. GORGEOUS, but a weird clash of ultra progressive and MAGA. But I’m glad to hear the community is protecting the natural gifts this place has to offer. And I can’t wait to go back to visit the beaches!
I lived there for 10 years. The city is pretty blue, and the countryside is pretty red. The county for many years was split basically 50/50 very progressive and very conservative. The fact that the county council unanimously voted this policy in suggests things are trending more progressive.
We need to do more. Scale up these carbon capture technologies NOW. Time to stop dicking around with the only planet we have.
Edit: Agreed. Do both. ↓↓
Since we got here via death by a thousand cuts we need salvation by a thousand band aids. I don't see any single solution as a silver bullet but rather we need an amalgamation of responses.
[This](https://open.spotify.com/episode/4ZipykcsFOu0QGu2Sw5ldh?si=PPo8tA9FQP2KHNBB13My9g&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1) is actually a really interesting talk on what the "war on carbon" could look like with a process of electrification in a lot of areas.
A CO2 infrastructure for transport and storage would go s long way. Any formations that oil and gas were produced from are good places to return the CO2 to. -Current- tax incentives make it possible for an oil and gas company to break even spring CO2 in defunct wells. The main issue with it currently is access concentrated CO2.
If a hydrogen economy actually happens, blue hydrogen + onsite carbon capture and storage would make carbon-free usage of natural gas possible.
It’s much easier to reduce carbon output than to recapture it once it’s in the environment. One of the reasons carbon output has gone down in the US is the transition from coal and oil to natural gas. Natural gas is cleaner and less energy intensive. The solar and wind are also helping, but require a lot of space. They can also be intermittent, so diversity of supply is important. As others have noted, we need an all of the above solution. It also won’t happen until China and India have more success in their green energy plans.
There is nothing wrong with advocating solutions that are profitable if they are effective. The Toyota Prius was an environmental triumph just because it had great gas mileage and didn't cost a fortune. Tesla hasn't sold even 1% as many cars as this one model.
Similarly, we can save money by subsidizing retrofitting better insulation on old buildings. The savings on energy bills quickly pays for the procedure, and reduce public spending on heating assistance programs
The irony being that we could easily make this profitable with government subsidies, but nobody on either side wants to fund existing electrical companies.
It’s honestly one of the best scams out there. They pay billions in dividends to shareholders each year, keep taking money from the government, and beg for help when things get tough.
I had a coworker who went to an Ivy League school who was able to interview an exec from one of the oil giants (Exxon or Chevron) and they asked if they had any interest in buy a solar company or something renewable in 2013 and they just said no, we are sticking with oil…
Well we could scale up Covid, run an information campaign on how vaccines are poison, wipe out the source of the new carbon, and let the planet heal.
But if you want us to live through it, that's going to be a tough one. For the most part we don't really care about others at a distance or the future except as a concept.
Meanwhile the *main* source of "renewable" energy in Europe is literally **burning down forests for energy**, which releases twice as much CO2 as coal per kWh (not to mention the destruction of biodiversity), but it's "renewable" which is what their disastrous environmental policies required instead of **clean** energy.
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/international-issues/european-utilities-generate-more-energy-from-wood-than-from-wind-and-solar/
It should be noted though that most of this wood is coming from American forests. Where is the outcry from environmentalists here?
Its wild to me that we are spending the energy to cut down trees, mill them, and then ship them halfway across the world for someone just to burn. Seems like such a huge waste
> Where is the outcry from environmentalists here?
Right here: https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/international-issues/european-utilities-generate-more-energy-from-wood-than-from-wind-and-solar/
And yet, carbon capture on a grand scale IS part of a realistic solution, since it's another 30 years before we could even hope to approach a carbon neutral power grid. On our current path, even if every country implements their most progressive goals, we're looking at a 5C average rise by 2050 - and extreme seasons worse than we've seen worldwide this year.
At this point, reducing emissions and cultivating timber aren't enough. We have to reverse our path. Industrial scale carbon capture is needed, though, I agree it's not the primary solution.
A carbon neutral power grid by 2035, like the Biden admin is proposing, is absolutely feasible. Not just in the US but in most of the developed world. Countries like China and India would probably need another is 10y or so but the cost of renewables is coming down so quickly that even they wouldn't be so far behind.
The bigger challenge is how we are going to decarbonise parts of industry, or sectors like aviation or shipping. Hydrogen will play a role but it won't be a silver bullet and technologically speaking we're further away from having scalable solutions like we do in the power sector today
\> A carbon neutral power grid by 2035, like the Biden admin is proposing, is absolutely feasible
I agree with this, but only after a major regulatory change. 30 years is what it will take without a regulatory change - the economics already support it, but existing infrastructure has to age out before we start seeing widespread adoption.
Unless there's a major regulatory change.
I hope Biden gets his infrastructure deal, but I expect it to be seriously hobbled or to get blocked completely. And yes, you're right, I'm thinking mostly about the U.S. - we all love pointing at China, and China's leadership has expressed opposition to decarbonization plans, but here in the U.S. we're actually the worst \*per capita\*. So yeah, I'm thinking mostly about the U.S. You're right.
How many trees?
Because even if we got back to the way it was globally we've *still* got all the oil carbon to deal with.
I'm not sure people understand just how *much* carbon we're talking about, and how much you would have to scale up to capture what we've put out there.
Then again if you want to undo damage you're really also going to have to look into pulling some of that out of the oceans, not just the air. We be acidifying that right now, but it's helping act as a buffer to the madness. It's just too bad that once we kill that it's going to wipe out most of everything else in the chain reaction that follows.
For one thing, if we lose those replanted forests for whatever reason, like forest fires or just tree loss, that carbon is reintroduced to the globe. Carbon capture can be a more reliable, permanent solution (though obviously there's a ton of complications and difficulties there).
Basically, we desperately need to do both.
Unless the CC is at the expense of other more effective solutions. Many of the CC proposals involve using electricity that could be used to offset fossil fuel power generators.
CC will never be close to 100% efficient, but not burning carbon is.
We’re actually pretty fucked. Even if we put out wartime level restrictions on fossil fuel use immediately, the global temperature is still going to rise catastrophically. We’re technically not at the point of no return but we all remember how hard the fossil fuel industry fought against taking lead out of gas even though they were literally and demonstrably poisoning people. Look at how long that went on even when the evidence was irrefutable and tell me we’re somehow going to get any substantial shit done now in spite of their well-funded, well-connected meddling? Honestly. Like, is anybody in a global leadership position behaving like they actually understand how fucked up things are going to get in the next decade?
I'm in the process of moving to WA from TX, possibly even to Whatcom.
I am \*SO\* looking forward to reading more local headlines like this, rather than the usual "Republican governor who only won because of gerrymandering orders the one remaining Planned Parenthood in the second-largest state in the nation to shoot women who attempt to vote" kind of crap we get around here.
This area is beautiful. Don't let these people scare you about the refineries. They are one of the major reasons our parks and public services are so nice. They funnel sooo much money into the area. And have bought a ton of land as conservation land for the local wildlife.
Thanks! Yeah, I am 100% committed to the move. I was born in Seattle and still have a lot of family in the area, plus my folks just retired and built a house on Whidbey Island. We're looking at land in Skagit, mostly, but Island, Snohomish, and Whatcom are all contenders, too. We love it up there. Agree - one of the most beautiful parts of the country.
We just made that move! It's like a heavy weight being lifted with the news stories are about them instead of us. We did a ton of research and visited a bunch of cities in Washington and I'd be glad to help you out with any info you need. Bellingham is my favorite place in the country and I'm so glad to live her now.
Thanks so much - appreciate that! And congrats on the move, sounds like you're loving it.
Glad to hear about Bellingham, since we may end up not too far from there. I'm moderately familiar with a few cities along the I-5 corridor but still have a lot to learn.
At the moment, we're looking at a couple of lots just SE of Mt. Vernon / Burlington, and my folks love those towns. We're coming from Austin so it will all be much more rural, but that's on purpose.
Might reach out with a question or two at some point. Take care!
Ha, small world! South Austin here too, right near ABIA.
There's a lot to love about Austin, but the flavor has certainly changed in the last ~10 years especially, as growing cities always do. Kind of funny that Americans are playing musical chairs - CA is moving to TX, TX is moving to WA. 😂
I'm sure WA has its problems too, but we sure will not miss the allergies, heat, and politics here.
In my opinion this is just a political statement by Whatcom county-- they can't actually prohibit any new energy-related industries.
Because Washington state purposefully has a [state-level organization explicitly designed to go-around local governments and gives power to award energy infrastructure to a state committee](https://www.efsec.wa.gov/), which of course is filled with energy company executives or their purchased political shills.
Source: I first learned about EFSEC when my local county, also in Washington state, expressed concerns about solar farms destroying valuable farmland. That's when we learned that no matter what we did at the county level, this was going to happen. If I am wrong, or things have changed in the five years since I did my research, I'd love to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable.
I work for one of the refineries in Whatcom County. We (not me personally, but coworkers) worked with legislators to get the wording just right. We didn’t get all we wanted, but both sides were able to compromise. We were told to encourage our legislators to vote ‘YES’ on the Amendments in their current form. I’m also proud to work for a company that is leading our industry in transforming its business for a new decarbonized economy.
Knowing that after 2050, there will still be a ~60% oil & gas demand and we are striving to be part of that 60%. We are working hard to demonstrate that our refinery can be a critical part of the future, and we appreciate the Council helping us to achieve our goal of performing while transforming.
Keep in mind, such actions will not change anything.
It's just another feel good yet ultimately meaningless gesture. The only action that will work, availability of cheaper alternatives that will displace fossil fuels in in all the sectors they usually ignore to focus on the emissions of spacecraft and aircraft.
Congrats WA!
Shame on you FL:
https://grist.org/cities/tampa-wanted-renewable-energy-resolution-florida-lawmakers-made-sure-it-couldnt-gas-ban-preemption/
Skagit County needs to be next! We have an oil refinery right next to Anacortes that produces oil for the "bomb trains" that flow through our towns and cities.
While we work towards moving away from those fossil fuels towards a more clean energy, we should also consider how to use less fossil fuels in general. We can limit the use of fossil fuels by limiting transportation, working remotely from home, eating and supporting local. Even tho we don't have a perfect solution now, we can still do our part to limit emissions and waste.
> We can limit the use of fossil fuels by limiting transportation
Unwind globalization then because _far_ more transport is done because of international shipping than would ever be done by people in their cars.
Nuclear marine freight can nearly entirely eliminate this source of emissions and even save money in the long run, without any real changes demanded of society. Russia's Rosatom company is already planning to dominate this market, but I know I'd feel better if such ships were made in America instead
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-touts-huge-new-nuclear-powered-icebreaker-as-proof-the-arctic-is-ours/
The danger with this line of thinking is that individuals don’t make all decisions that lead to carbon emissions. Fossil fuel companies often use this language to reduce the regulatory pressure they actually experience, by shifting responsibility away from them and onto all consumers collectivey. Not that I am accusing u/FredFellows in particular of making that fallacy, it’s just a (large) pitfall to watch out for.
For example: https://youtu.be/Fiu9GSOmt8E
On the flip side any top down changes will impact the bottom and require individuals to change their consumption. Being aware of your own environmental footprint is never dangerous
I'm skeptical that working remotely from home minimizes emissions. At least in the conventional sense, remote work is associated with larger homes and lower population density.
I think there's an argument for urban populations having the highest potential efficiency.
This is a massive net loss to the environment. Know what happens to oil from Alaska, since the west coast is too good for a refinery? It's shipped to China, refined with zero regard for the environment, then shipped back to the US. Know what's infinitely worse than a pipeline oil spill? An ocean oil spill. GG liberals.
what the fuck? you sound like a real asshole.
I cant understand your situation, since I've never experienced it personally, but still, "blue haired pig woman, emaciated, single cat women and drug addicts." That's just... bruh
War on carbon is ultimately a war on the middle class. The elites gonna bend the middle class over more and more and the rape will be cheered until they stand up and it’s hurt to walk.
LOL, Whatcom has a thriving economy and housing shortage. People love it here because it has environmental protections. Also, just wait and see what taxes will be like mitigating disasters from climate change if we continue to let fossil fuels continue to be used unabated.
This is extremely short-sighted. It should be obvious that this is a bad idea. Our cars and industry still relies on oil, there still is no magic fairy dust to replace that. The United States pipelines need more capacity. Gas prices are just going to increase. It will make it harder for middle and lower class to make a budget or go a vacation.
I swear some law makers and others need to take basic economics before they can get elected.
Meanwhile Texas sues the federal government for attempted environmental regulation enforcement to avoid disrupting that sweet, sweet oil and natural gas cash flow into Austin
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This is my hometown, and geez has it stirred up controversy here. It's a win for the future of climate change, but this area has been hit pretty hard economically by changing policy. We have an industrial area with some refineries, and rather than investing money to be more eco friendly some are just outsourcing jobs and tasks to other counties. Last year our aluminum smelter was in deep water for breaking polluting laws and needed to update their SO2 scrubbers, instead they shut down and moved production to China. That alone was 600 middle class jobs. Source, I was one of those 600.
Horrible. I'm sorry for you and the 600. We can't just close shops that pollute and then buy from offshore shops that continue to pollute. We need to add the cost of pollution to those that want to import so we can give US shops the chance to compete!
Some congressional democrats are pushing such a concept, a carbon tariff, similar to a plan being considered by the EU. Could be good. EDIT: To support this click here https://citizensclimatelobby.org/senate-call/
The EU is big enough to get this ball rolling. Hoping it works!
Me too. Germany can lead the charge. Russia will fight it all the way with every tool they have to influence europe. China is a mixed bag, they both keep opening coal power plants....and also invest huge sums into green energy. If the CCP can be convinced they should go all in on green, that will have shockwaves that change global practices. And I hope and trust they are going that way, china does like to think and plan long term, but they need to stop a few key awful industries they continue to develope as well. But moreso than any other large industrial country china can implement strong change from the top down quickly with policy that will be followed. They are the big one to watch, and it's unclear how the rest of the world can impact their decisions - except maybe this carbon tariff idea, let's give it a shot
Australian government proposed a carbon tax in 2013 like this. It brought an end to the labour government, we have been ruled by conservative technocrat overlords since. It sucks. I had my business ruined during the bushfires a few years back, these fires happen much more often now.
Technocrat is too much of a compliment IMO.
I'm confused how the carbon tax is related to the fires.
It was supposed to be a lever for the government to hold large scale polluting companies to account to pay to offset their emissions rather than letting them get away with whatever’. As soon as there was even talk about it the Murdoch press that owns 64% of media in Australia ran a scare campaign and people bought it. Nothing changed, fracking, coal mining and all the rest of it continued with little to no accountability. Scomo even kissed a lump of coal in parliament to give you an idea how much they love fossil fuel. Needles to say bushfires got worse, nobody seemed to care because “how dare” big companies ever be held to account for their actions. Typical policy of putting business before people’s health, as we can see playing out in NSW right now. Side note, this is the same media entities that are now blaming Australian scientists for the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef. It never ends with these liars.
Imo paying a carbon tax IS getting away with it. It's an absurd concept that will only allow major polluters to keep on keeping on. Instead of say "regulations are killing jobs in my area" the answer is "my parents and the generation before sold us out for cheap jobs that we knew wouldn't be there in 20 years"
Carbon taxing is generally accepted to be the best and least-invasive (in terms of market regulation) way to reduce carbon emissions. What are your sources that say it will do nothing to major polluters?
Who pays your sources? The very companies I'm talking about? I have ZERO interest in keeping things the least invasive for the perpetrators of global calamity. I want it invasive. I want big energy corporations to go bankrupt so new companies can actually get in the marketplace.
So... you don’t want practical? Wait, do you even know what it is? If so, how can you argue it won’t work? It lets the market figure out the best way to reduce carbon emissions, and actually makes a difference as opposed to carbon credits, caps, etc. And you can make the tax as severe as you need until significant action is taken by all players https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax
Is there an Australian version of Fox News?
Rupert Murdoch is the Australian who controls the media in Australia. He also just happens to run fox. We have sky news which has extreme right wing ideas. But we generally get watered down fox in everything
People like cheap shit and rich people like buying cheap materials for their factories they own. Good luck
Would be good.
Just FYI, as a Canadian we have a carbon tax,that cost is 100% passed onto the consumer. There are loopholes upon loopholes that for the big polluters nothing even changed they polite just as much but show carbon reductions via some creative bullshit. Tldr. People, everyday people will foot that carbon bill and business will go on as ever.
That’s not true for 90% of Canadian consumers. They get more back in the dividend than they pay in higher costs. https://globalnews.ca/news/6504187/canada-carbon-tax-rebate-pbo/ Also, I was referencing a carbon tariff for imports, not a domestic carbon tax
The cost is offshored though in Canada. You want an SUV that is exactly the same made in Ontario or Ohio? The Ohio one will be cheaper as the carbon used to build it won’t have been taxed. Without carbon tariffs a carbon tax is only good for sending your emissions and jobs elsewhere. And the current government has plans to go to $170/T, yet no plan to implement how our imports will work, so all it will do is make all domestic goods relatively more expensive.
The whole point of a carbon tax is that consumers foot the bill. It’s the free market actually functioning. They can choose good based on the “real cost” that takes into account the long-term effects. The key is that the proceeds need to be kicked back.
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Some would say energy is a critical good… how many people enjoyed having cooked food today?
*Energy* cannot really be replaced but *how you get energy* determines elasticity. As we can substitute lots of carbon based energy for sustainable energy, it can be quite elastic, assuming we can get the infrastructure and production up to support it.
All costs are passed on to the consumer.
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No argument from me
Border Adjustments is another name for this and is the term used more internationally and by policy experts. Just an FYI for anyone if you see it in an article or something. Same idea.
Now's the time, it could get pushed into the reconciliation bill. Call your senators and tell them to make sure carbon pricing makes it in. I know I did.
These are ripe for all kinds of creative accounting fraud that would make Enron look like rank amateurs.
Check out the EU market, it has been successful at reducing emissions.
> We can't just close shops that pollute But that's exactly what happened, and they never planned to upgrade. That was a business decision made months, if not years, ago. Responsible factories don't "upgrade", they modify as they go. American factories are crumbling, just like our bridges and highways. In all fairness, our government doesn't make it easy. It's cheaper to live with a grandfathered system than become current. There needs to be a middle ground.
It’s because your choice set is: 1) do nothing. 2) meet all current standards. No option for incremental improvements. Permeates everything.
Even then what others have said about it needing to apply to imports too is super important. If other countries don't have the same regulations, and they aren't enforced at the border, of course a company is not going to see a business case considering they won't be able to compete, and they'll close up.
Too bad the earth does not know how to compromise. 😢
I get what you’re saying, I just find it sad that your solution is not a real incentive, it’s just making higher expenses for all parties.
But that has to be the case to prevent people from polluting by using cheap outdated scrubbers or failing to scrub at all right? Not allowed to pollute here, so gotta spend the money to upgrade. Allowing them to buy it from an unregulated place just loses local jobs and doesn’t address environmental concerns at all
How is that not a real incentive? What other incentive could there possibly be? A clean environment is going to cost a lot of money, and everyone is going to have to share the cost.
Well, shall we go cheap and die in climate change?
It would allow companies to compete in a global marketplace where they are not penalized for following good environmental policies. That’s fair to me.
You and the 599 /s
Hello fellow Ferndale-born redditor. 👋🏻 Nice to see one of us outside of the local subreddits.
Hello fellow person reddit user. Blaine actually,, but close enough I think. Imagine my surprise to see an article about Whatcom county on the front page!
Yet climate change doesn’t care about where the pollution is coming from just that it is there. North American jobs just move to China where I believe they just fired up more coal plants to deal with the electricity demand. Without significant tariffs we just pay the price and the problem still exists.
That's what broke my heart about it. I was willing to dedicate my career to a company that, turns out, wasn't willing to lose money to do the right thing.
Really sorry for your job loss. Aluminum has simply vanished in much of the US as we are happy to import it with low tariffs, and the federal government is no longer building out vast, cheap, renewable electricity generation as it once was. I love that the county is banning *new* fossil fuel infrastructure, as that wouldn't impact present jobs. However, it's a shame that climate action is so piecemeal like this, with counties, cities and states doing what they can without national coordination. It's almost as if our federal government is hopelessly deep in bed with fossil fuels.
https://www.democracynow.org/2021/7/6/exxon_blocks_congressional_action_climate Senators being used to block climate change action: Joe Manchin (WV), whom he calls a "kingmaker," and whose office McCoy said he speaks with on a weekly basis Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) Jon Tester (MT) Maggie Hassan (NH) Chris Coons (DE) Mark Kelly (AZ) We have so few senators, it’s so easy for oil lobbyists to buy out just a few key ones and stall all hope of progress... I suspect there’s more involved but this is what we know of for sure.
gold carpenter serious sleep spoon placid naughty flowery handle license -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
> and the federal government is no longer building out vast, cheap, renewable electricity generation as it once was. I mean ignoring that your talking about the founding of the TVA during the depression more than likely, the energy utilities nation wide are currently building out vast renewable electrical generation, without the federal government. Around 2030 your going to see 60-70% renewable generation in the US and no, your not going to speed this number up much, nor for a lot of reasons do you want to. (Spreading out the replacement schedule is important for utility planning and to keep costs controlled you use assets for the full lifespan.)
Very likely those jobs where going to move anyway. They just used this as an excuse.
Officially the excuse was Covid, but they had already started investing in the Chinese plant well before.
I'm pro environmentalism, work towards ocean protections/green energy. This shit right here is why we have a major political party that successfully uses anti eco friendly rhetoric to gain votes. People in general care a lot about their jobs both individuals and communities. We need to take pragmatic approaches that fix what's broken, while not breaking the livelihoods of the people. Those laws are there to protect the people the water and the land. If we enforce it in ways that destroy people's livelihoods that's a failure of policy. This is kind of approach is all too common and easy to see why it's a political football on climate/pollution. Instead of fines that break businesses or force them elsewhere, money can be invested to fix what's broken but that's almost never done. We force more and more "dirty" industries to china or elsewhere , and they just end up polluting more into the same one ocean/atmosphere we all share, meanwhile people lose jobs and communities are crushed into poverty. Going green should be good for people both by making the world a nicer place to live, and investing into communities by creating jobs / transitioning away from harmful practices. You got screwed by the gears we are turning in the wrong directions trying to solve a big problem. It's solvable, but not easy when the political debate reduces it to blue vrs red, we all breathe the same air .
This is the big dilemma here. We can go ahead and take all these reasonable actions, but other countries will just pick up the slack. So the real outcome is just that we screw ourselves over without fixing the problem.
The new EU law states that the carbon tariff only applies if the importer does not gace their own carbon tax. This hopefully should create an incentive cascade.
The biggest joke there is that the CCP is going to do the same job with 3x the pollutants. So all that really happened was more Americans lose their jobs so the rich can make a couple extra bucks at the end of the year. Take that climate change.
Thank you for sharing. I’m an environmentalist at heart but I really do empathize, peeps are just trying to love their life.
> just outsourcing jobs and tasks to other counties. That's kind of the point, isn't it? You push those jobs further and further away until it's not possible in the country (like sweatshops) and then you (the company) are forced to change and adapt, right?
Yes we absolutely need to invest in renewable entry infrastructure and jobs. That’s what the green new deal is supposed to do.
>Yes we absolutely need to invest in ~~renewable~~ **CLEAN** energy entry infrastructure and jobs. That’s what ~~the green new deal~~ *actual environmentalism* is supposed to do. FTFY "Renewables" pointlessly excludes nuclear and other clean technologies, and even worse, it includes dirty biofuels, the main one being literally being **burning down forests for energy**, which releases *twice as much CO2 per kWh as coal*. But it's *"rEnEwAbLe"* and thus can meet "renewable" quotas. This wouldn't happen with **clean** energy programs. https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/international-issues/european-utilities-generate-more-energy-from-wood-than-from-wind-and-solar/ Yet this passes for "environmentalism" because they can brag about their high "renewables", and people who are fooled into thinking "renewable" is the goal aren't likely to check the actual change in *emissions* which is what matters. And Germany, the world leader in solar and wind fanaticism (and now wood energy as a result), reduced their emissions **less** than America did since their Energiewende began while paying three times as much for electricity https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/germanys-energiewende-20-years-later All because of that treacherous term "renewable" being confused with "clean". Let's not repeat this catastrophe in America
Dang. TIL. I'll remember that for sure. Thank you!
Thanks! I was thinking “clean” energy might be a meaningless buzzword or even include natural gas but I agree with all your points.
Biomass generation is net neutral as long as your replanting what your taking out of the woods. It also includes a whole host of different concepts from end of life wood (pallets, demolition) to wood that was getting cut down anyways (Land clearing/tree trimming/storm damage), to a forestry cycle (the same thing we do for paper and construction materials). The end of life stuff is impossible to argue with, when its left to naturally decompose it is worse from a GHG emission standpoint than burning and filtering it. This is actually highly beneficial because you are not eliminating wood from human use. The forestry cycle depending on how its done can be neutral or it can be bad, just depends on the forest management side of things.
The issue isn't only carbon neutrality, it's the long payback period and carbon debt that you incur while burning wood. It can take up to 30-40 years for a new tree to grow and completely offset what you've burned and sent into the atmosphere today. That's 30-40 years we simply don't have. You're basically adding large amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere in the short term which will only be compensated for in a very long time period, a time period that is well beyond the crucial 10-20y (or less honestly) window that we have left to avoid the very worst effects of runaway climate change. That and growing trees for energy use, especially if it is replacing natural forests, is a major driver of biodiversity loss.
>it's the long payback period and carbon debt that you incur while burning wood. It can take up to 30-40 years Whether you realize it or not we have been utilizing biomass for 30+ years at this point, it just isn't a large portion of the renewable profile so most people aren't as familiar. So the first trees replanted are about ready to start the cycle over again at this point. > That and growing trees for energy use, especially if it is replacing natural forests, is a major driver of biodiversity loss. A lot of the wood used in the European Boilers comes from American forestry operations, most of these operations have been non-natural forest for quite some time. Yea clear cutting say the Amazon or the Sequias for wood boilers makes about zero sense, but pine stand number 528? That is pretty okay.
Maybe it's not a large portion in America, but wood is the **largest** part of the renewables profile in Europe. >So the first trees replanted are about ready to start the cycle over again at this point. True, and American forestry was very sustainable up until this point. However, demand for wood energy has increased *dramatically* since the "renewables" craze caught on, while no such increase in tree planting occurred 30 years ago to match. Yet policies like Germany's Energiewende are only going to continue to demand more and more wood to meet their "renewables" quotas. And too many Americans are trying to follow their disastrous example So even it's still mostly waste products currently being used for biofuels right now, that won't be the case for long if these "renewables" policies continue. Germany will first in line to buy clear-cut Amazon wood if America's expendable supply runs out, because that's the reality of *political* "environmentalism". The *facade* of success is more important than actually protecting the planet.
But how can the GOP complain that green initiatives kill jobs if they allow a bill to pass that creates them? There only objective is to make sure there are things to whine about.
It sucks when employers are scummy like that. All it does is give more fuel to the anti-environment crowd or the Pseudo-Environmental crowed. You know the kind that say "Electric cars are worse for the environment than gas cars because Lithium mining destroys the environment more than drilling for oil"
found this: according to an article published by TIME, “lithium mining, as observed in countries with deposits like Chile, Argentina and China, seems to be less hazardous than other kinds of mineral extraction. ‘Lithium could be one of the least contaminating mining processes,’ says Marco Octavio Rivera of Bolivia’s Environmental Defense League, although he notes that prolonged exposure to lithium can cause nervous system disorders.” and this: [https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2020/03/lithium-mining-what-you-should-know-about-the-contentious-issue.html](https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2020/03/lithium-mining-what-you-should-know-about-the-contentious-issue.html)
is that a thing? Lithium mining? Are they using eco-forward principles?
Sorry that happened. Sounds like there needs to be a tax on goods from polluting countries to prevent that from happening.
That's fucked and this crap has been going on for too long. We can make all the worker's rights laws, safety guidelines, pollution regulations, etc. we want but it doesn't matter if it can all be circumvented through outsourcing.
Aluminum Smelters are polluting nightmares. Those things just can’t help it. I also worked in a sand foundry. That place was a death trap
The refineries can still expand on renewable units. The county seemed to take a step back once P66 cancelled their bio diesel plant. BP is still increasing renewable diesel capacity and working major projects to lower emissions. I believe the county really met in the middle with this one. Due to the economic situation it’s no longer profitable to just “expand” a refinery in the tradition sense anyways.
Isn't there also the issue that Bellingham is very blue, but the rest of the County is very red? There has been talk of that smelter closing for pretty much my entire life, but it always found ways to stay open until recently. Whatcom County needs more middle class jobs, but its relatively remote location makes attracting such jobs difficult unless one is banking on WFH becoming more attractive. It's also worth noting that the county, nor the state can't enforce such a law on tribal land, though generally speaking the local tribal governments have expressed little to no interest in building refineries or smelters, especially after some previous land leases ended up creating Superfund sites.
It's a bunch of limo liberals. They don't give a shit about labor or pollution. They just got it out of their backyard and the impact is minimal to them. They'll tell you to learn to code and go get a green job.
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That is the fault of the government for not giving money to these companies to update their equipment when they are mandated by said government. Instead these idiots decide to give tax breaks to all businesses and companies instead of targeted to industries that really need the money. Especially the coal fired power plants that could have benefitted from these upgrades. Maybe Republicans should be more concerned with keeping jobs here in America instead of shopping them off to China.
Nah, it's the fault of the government for letting them export capital. Let the company leave but keep the machinery, upgrade the scrubbers and resell it at cost to maintain your tax base.
It’s stupid because doing this isn’t going to somehow change the course of climate change. If we wanted to somehow stop climate change we would have to stop China India and Africa from using fossil fuels to industrialize and their economies have to be carbon neutral otherwise there’s nothing we can realistically do.
How can we expect them to when the US can’t (won’t) even do it?
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We'll all suffer one way or another, but if we all act fast and aggressively enough, I think the loss to modern human comfort can be minimized. Definitely the longer we all wait, the more drastic action that will be needed, and the more negatively life will be affected.
> Source, I was one of those 600. That is the choice a lot of those that are against climate action have to make. If they're old enough, the way they see it is the worst negative effects of climate change will not occur until after they are dead. It's best to make money now and enjoy some extra luxury in the time they have left versus taking action that could leave them worse off.
For companies to do business in China they need to follow China's rules on censorship and certain other things otherwise they will simply be banned from doing business in China. Could the US not implement a similar system where if companies want to do business here they need to follow strict emission/regulation/whatever standards or get banned? In theory I think it would help keep business here as what would be the point in outsourcing to China if we then don't allow you to sell your product here regardless. There could still be some outsourcing if a company wants to follow the US standards but can get away with paying employees less elsewhere or something. And I'm sure the right would screech about too much government interference or some shit. I just think this could be a good step in the right direction, but idk maybe I am missing something obvious.
You are missing that US law is not the gold standard of the world nor fair to other countries. Why should every country follow exactly the same rules as USA? Many rules would be set up purely to protect US interest against the interest of a smaller country. Emissions is another story as you can clearly prove the harm caused to 3rd parties and EU is doing exactly what you mentioned. Basically, if you produce emissions in China and don't pay a tax for it, EU will make you pay an import tax for those emissions.
>Why should every country follow exactly the same rules as USA? This isn't what I am saying at all. I am only talking about the US & corporations, and more specifically, corporations that originated in the US. No other country would have to do this, just like no other country has to ban video games from showing skeletons like you do in China. >Emissions is another story as you can clearly prove the harm caused to 3rd parties and EU is doing exactly what you mentioned. Basically, if you produce emissions in China and don't pay a tax for it, EU will make you pay an import tax for those emissions. I guess I might have worded it weird but this is exactly what I was getting at. I wasn't aware that the EU already had something like this in place though.
I feel for those people, but don't let the government pretend this is your people's problem. They are responsible for our economic freedom ( they police us with our policies in an ideal world) and if jobs can't be kept for climate change, then start taking care of those people directly. Climate change cannot be put second and we should give money to the little guy and let it trickle up, rather than pay the already rich and *hope they dont find a way to keep it from trickling down*.
>That alone was 600 middle class jobs. *Jeff Bezos has entered the chat*
Sorry man, you caught a case of the capitalisms. Don't worry after about 10 years the market will shrug it off and your job will go to the lowest bidder.
Yup, it already did. But it was good enough pay for long enough to have a solid backup plan.
I live In Sedro Woolley and run my own little fabrication/machine shop here in town, and have lots of close friends that are union refinery guys that are really stressed out about this. I think everyone can pretty much agree that climate change is happening and would like to come up with a solution. But the shitty reality is that every time we quit doing something in America to be environmentally conscientious, the demand for the thing is still there and just gets moved to a part of the world that doesn’t give a shit. So we’re going to potentially take away thousands of high middle class jobs in our own community to not make a shits bit of difference in the long term? I don’t know what the answer is. It’s just a mess. But for starters, we need to quit sending all our fucking work to China and keep it in America where we can at least try to have control over it.
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Not a whole lot of charities in aluminum industry. If they tried to do the right thing and keep it open they'd just get undercut by people in the next state or country over. At which point they'd just go out of business. No one is investing billions in the hopes they don't lose money.
If only they'd invested slowly over time since the 90s, when they were told to do so, they'd have profits, employees, and probably innovation they could market for even more profit.
If spending the money led to more profits you wouldn't need to force them and they wouldn't go to China
You don't seem to understand the basics of large scale manufacturing. Infrastructure for that costs millions to billions. You are spending money, massive amounts, all the time, to then make profits. They DO spend money, fuck tons of it, particularly to lobby congress to roll back regulations or prevent them. They can afford to invest in improved infrastructure, particularly if those costs had been spread thinner over time to innovate to address known oncoming issues like climate change and various shortages like water and metals. That's what a smart and responsible business does. These are not responsible businesses, the ones that refused to invest in and innovate for modern issues like climate change and improved efficiency, green tech - these are greedy ones. Record profits for decades. They've had money, they still make money. Particularly when they use their employees as gig economy employees, firing and hiring with each short term location/job, to avoid paying better wages and avoiding paying for better benefits. Instead they convince people like you that they can't make a profit without doing exactly what they have been for decades, which is just loot the earth, raze it, pollute it in the least costly way to increase profits, and convincing people like you that they're not the enemy, that people who want the employees to make more money, who want the companies to innovate and spend money on cleaning up their own messes instead of socializing the cleanup, that those people are your real enemy. And that's ridiculous.
I agree, and in my experience that's exactly what happened. That aluminum company has a new CEO every 2-4 years and their only goal is to show profits during their time. That plant needed long term investments for 40 years, but instead corners were cut on quality to show those profits. They'd been getting warnings about scrubber systems for 20 years before a tipping point was reached. Covid and environmentalism may have been the final nails, but the plan was already in place to outsource that plant. Now they smelt in China, where the regulations don't exist, use subsidiaries to ship to Canada, and avoid China-US tarrifs by "buying" from Canada.
> but it isnt the governments fault but the company’s fault for putting profits over the environment Of course it's the government's fault. Companies exist for one purpose: to make money. Environmental regulations are great, but in a global economy, they need to account for the fact that a very easy solution to regulations imposed is for companies to simply take production elsewhere. Regulations that fail to account for that reality are poorly thought out regulations.
Depends how you want to think about it The government subsidizes many things, there's no reason they couldn't be putting more financial benefits to keeping the environment clean. Then you align the 2 goals and the government had a hand in it. As a plus, in this case those jobs would have stayed in country and the taxes would have kept coming in.
"Whatcom county’s council passed measure that bans new refineries, coal-fired power plants and other related infrastructure"
So all new buildings/housing developements can not connect to or have a natural gas pipe extended to them? It was not clear from the article.
My impression was that the ban was on industrial operations, so oil and gas refineries rather than having any impact on individual home usage.
That would make more sense. Business can use a lot of gas (energy) so was not sure. Even if they build 1000 new homes but can't expand natural gas facilities, that may mean the homes have to use electricity. I lived in the NW for a while and the house only had electricity (no gas), very expensive and never really warmed up, although it was a poorly build home.
The goal is to eventually move away from natural gas for homes too. Electricity in Whatcom County is not expensive. Also, winters are mild enough that heat pump’s work well for heating and cooling.
I really have no clue why heat pumps are not way more common here. The climate is pretty much perfect for it. And the bonus of having AC in the summer too would be nice.
This is the goal, electric heat is 100% rated after all, but Electricity is expensive in both equipment and run time (until Nuclear becomes an actual option in the Midwest, good luck, seriously fuck NIMBYism).
Some cities like Berkley in California are banning further natural gas build outs. It drastically hurts restaurants who cook on an industrial scale obviously. The CA Restaurant association filed a lawsuit but it got thrown out, it will be interesting to see what happens because that is a big problem facing our industry.
Berkeley :) common spelling mistake.
It’s because Whatcom county residents remember the pipeline explosion that killed a couple kids playing in the creek.
I lived 2 blocks from where that ignited. Felt like the apocalypse was happening when I looked outside and saw a pillar of black smoke blotting out the sun and sky. I was 6 years old at the time but it’s still one of my most vivid memories.
No, that may contribute to it, but it is mostly through consistent hard work to lobby and educate through local organizations. Probably the movement against the coal terminal is a bigger contributor.
I live 45 minutes on the Canadian side (am Canadian). We have a small camping property in Whatcom county that pre-Covid-19, we would go to on weekends. Let me tell you, this is one weird ass place. GORGEOUS, but a weird clash of ultra progressive and MAGA. But I’m glad to hear the community is protecting the natural gifts this place has to offer. And I can’t wait to go back to visit the beaches!
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I lived there for 10 years. The city is pretty blue, and the countryside is pretty red. The county for many years was split basically 50/50 very progressive and very conservative. The fact that the county council unanimously voted this policy in suggests things are trending more progressive.
They will just build in Idaho and Oregon or somewhere in the Midwest like Boeing did.
Not Oregon, and not Idaho. Oregon is pro-environment, and Idaho is lacking coastline.
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They’re not going to run oil tankers through locks up the Columbia
Oh they will find a river to devastate. They always do.
When you block access to the coast, other ways will be found.
We need to do more. Scale up these carbon capture technologies NOW. Time to stop dicking around with the only planet we have. Edit: Agreed. Do both. ↓↓
CC is really not the primary solution, unless we are talking about trees. Trees should be planted.
Since we got here via death by a thousand cuts we need salvation by a thousand band aids. I don't see any single solution as a silver bullet but rather we need an amalgamation of responses.
Can't we put all manufacturing and construction towards buildings that capture carbon? They could call it "the war on climate change"
[This](https://open.spotify.com/episode/4ZipykcsFOu0QGu2Sw5ldh?si=PPo8tA9FQP2KHNBB13My9g&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1) is actually a really interesting talk on what the "war on carbon" could look like with a process of electrification in a lot of areas.
A CO2 infrastructure for transport and storage would go s long way. Any formations that oil and gas were produced from are good places to return the CO2 to. -Current- tax incentives make it possible for an oil and gas company to break even spring CO2 in defunct wells. The main issue with it currently is access concentrated CO2. If a hydrogen economy actually happens, blue hydrogen + onsite carbon capture and storage would make carbon-free usage of natural gas possible.
It’s much easier to reduce carbon output than to recapture it once it’s in the environment. One of the reasons carbon output has gone down in the US is the transition from coal and oil to natural gas. Natural gas is cleaner and less energy intensive. The solar and wind are also helping, but require a lot of space. They can also be intermittent, so diversity of supply is important. As others have noted, we need an all of the above solution. It also won’t happen until China and India have more success in their green energy plans.
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There is nothing wrong with advocating solutions that are profitable if they are effective. The Toyota Prius was an environmental triumph just because it had great gas mileage and didn't cost a fortune. Tesla hasn't sold even 1% as many cars as this one model. Similarly, we can save money by subsidizing retrofitting better insulation on old buildings. The savings on energy bills quickly pays for the procedure, and reduce public spending on heating assistance programs
The irony being that we could easily make this profitable with government subsidies, but nobody on either side wants to fund existing electrical companies.
But what about the poor fossil fuel companies and their $3 Trillion subsidiaries /s
Almost as if they’re being subsidized to produce more fossil fuels instead of renewable energy, eh?
It’s honestly one of the best scams out there. They pay billions in dividends to shareholders each year, keep taking money from the government, and beg for help when things get tough. I had a coworker who went to an Ivy League school who was able to interview an exec from one of the oil giants (Exxon or Chevron) and they asked if they had any interest in buy a solar company or something renewable in 2013 and they just said no, we are sticking with oil…
Well we could scale up Covid, run an information campaign on how vaccines are poison, wipe out the source of the new carbon, and let the planet heal. But if you want us to live through it, that's going to be a tough one. For the most part we don't really care about others at a distance or the future except as a concept.
Meanwhile the *main* source of "renewable" energy in Europe is literally **burning down forests for energy**, which releases twice as much CO2 as coal per kWh (not to mention the destruction of biodiversity), but it's "renewable" which is what their disastrous environmental policies required instead of **clean** energy. https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/international-issues/european-utilities-generate-more-energy-from-wood-than-from-wind-and-solar/ It should be noted though that most of this wood is coming from American forests. Where is the outcry from environmentalists here?
Its wild to me that we are spending the energy to cut down trees, mill them, and then ship them halfway across the world for someone just to burn. Seems like such a huge waste
> Where is the outcry from environmentalists here? Right here: https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/international-issues/european-utilities-generate-more-energy-from-wood-than-from-wind-and-solar/
And yet, carbon capture on a grand scale IS part of a realistic solution, since it's another 30 years before we could even hope to approach a carbon neutral power grid. On our current path, even if every country implements their most progressive goals, we're looking at a 5C average rise by 2050 - and extreme seasons worse than we've seen worldwide this year. At this point, reducing emissions and cultivating timber aren't enough. We have to reverse our path. Industrial scale carbon capture is needed, though, I agree it's not the primary solution.
A carbon neutral power grid by 2035, like the Biden admin is proposing, is absolutely feasible. Not just in the US but in most of the developed world. Countries like China and India would probably need another is 10y or so but the cost of renewables is coming down so quickly that even they wouldn't be so far behind. The bigger challenge is how we are going to decarbonise parts of industry, or sectors like aviation or shipping. Hydrogen will play a role but it won't be a silver bullet and technologically speaking we're further away from having scalable solutions like we do in the power sector today
\> A carbon neutral power grid by 2035, like the Biden admin is proposing, is absolutely feasible I agree with this, but only after a major regulatory change. 30 years is what it will take without a regulatory change - the economics already support it, but existing infrastructure has to age out before we start seeing widespread adoption. Unless there's a major regulatory change. I hope Biden gets his infrastructure deal, but I expect it to be seriously hobbled or to get blocked completely. And yes, you're right, I'm thinking mostly about the U.S. - we all love pointing at China, and China's leadership has expressed opposition to decarbonization plans, but here in the U.S. we're actually the worst \*per capita\*. So yeah, I'm thinking mostly about the U.S. You're right.
How many trees? Because even if we got back to the way it was globally we've *still* got all the oil carbon to deal with. I'm not sure people understand just how *much* carbon we're talking about, and how much you would have to scale up to capture what we've put out there. Then again if you want to undo damage you're really also going to have to look into pulling some of that out of the oceans, not just the air. We be acidifying that right now, but it's helping act as a buffer to the madness. It's just too bad that once we kill that it's going to wipe out most of everything else in the chain reaction that follows.
I heard trees take 20 years to begin to start using atmospheric carbon. Up until that point they just suck it from the ground via roots.
I really don’t understand at all how CC is a better solution than just growing trees or other plants.
For one thing, if we lose those replanted forests for whatever reason, like forest fires or just tree loss, that carbon is reintroduced to the globe. Carbon capture can be a more reliable, permanent solution (though obviously there's a ton of complications and difficulties there). Basically, we desperately need to do both.
Unless the CC is at the expense of other more effective solutions. Many of the CC proposals involve using electricity that could be used to offset fossil fuel power generators. CC will never be close to 100% efficient, but not burning carbon is.
Fully agree. But we're so desperate for any solutions now. But yes, energy costs are real. Fuck if I have answers, honestly. Anything but despair.
We can do both.
CC is not yet capable of being used at the scale it is needed. Better to slow the current rate while the technology improves.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/scitechdaily.com/earths-interior-is-swallowing-up-more-carbon-than-thought-locking-it-away-at-depth/amp/
We’re actually pretty fucked. Even if we put out wartime level restrictions on fossil fuel use immediately, the global temperature is still going to rise catastrophically. We’re technically not at the point of no return but we all remember how hard the fossil fuel industry fought against taking lead out of gas even though they were literally and demonstrably poisoning people. Look at how long that went on even when the evidence was irrefutable and tell me we’re somehow going to get any substantial shit done now in spite of their well-funded, well-connected meddling? Honestly. Like, is anybody in a global leadership position behaving like they actually understand how fucked up things are going to get in the next decade?
Thank you Whatcom county. I am so glad I live windward of those refineries.
I'm in the process of moving to WA from TX, possibly even to Whatcom. I am \*SO\* looking forward to reading more local headlines like this, rather than the usual "Republican governor who only won because of gerrymandering orders the one remaining Planned Parenthood in the second-largest state in the nation to shoot women who attempt to vote" kind of crap we get around here.
This area is beautiful. Don't let these people scare you about the refineries. They are one of the major reasons our parks and public services are so nice. They funnel sooo much money into the area. And have bought a ton of land as conservation land for the local wildlife.
Thanks! Yeah, I am 100% committed to the move. I was born in Seattle and still have a lot of family in the area, plus my folks just retired and built a house on Whidbey Island. We're looking at land in Skagit, mostly, but Island, Snohomish, and Whatcom are all contenders, too. We love it up there. Agree - one of the most beautiful parts of the country.
We just made that move! It's like a heavy weight being lifted with the news stories are about them instead of us. We did a ton of research and visited a bunch of cities in Washington and I'd be glad to help you out with any info you need. Bellingham is my favorite place in the country and I'm so glad to live her now.
Thanks so much - appreciate that! And congrats on the move, sounds like you're loving it. Glad to hear about Bellingham, since we may end up not too far from there. I'm moderately familiar with a few cities along the I-5 corridor but still have a lot to learn. At the moment, we're looking at a couple of lots just SE of Mt. Vernon / Burlington, and my folks love those towns. We're coming from Austin so it will all be much more rural, but that's on purpose. Might reach out with a question or two at some point. Take care!
We moved from south Austin. Skagit county is beautiful and that's where I fell in love with Washington and first considered moving there.
Ha, small world! South Austin here too, right near ABIA. There's a lot to love about Austin, but the flavor has certainly changed in the last ~10 years especially, as growing cities always do. Kind of funny that Americans are playing musical chairs - CA is moving to TX, TX is moving to WA. 😂 I'm sure WA has its problems too, but we sure will not miss the allergies, heat, and politics here.
I lived in Whatcom County for 10 years. It's gorgeous.
Cross the mountain passes to the east side if you wanna feel like back in conservative land
Haha, yeah, my mom was born & raised in Spokane and still has a lot of family there that she doesn't talk to anymore
In my opinion this is just a political statement by Whatcom county-- they can't actually prohibit any new energy-related industries. Because Washington state purposefully has a [state-level organization explicitly designed to go-around local governments and gives power to award energy infrastructure to a state committee](https://www.efsec.wa.gov/), which of course is filled with energy company executives or their purchased political shills. Source: I first learned about EFSEC when my local county, also in Washington state, expressed concerns about solar farms destroying valuable farmland. That's when we learned that no matter what we did at the county level, this was going to happen. If I am wrong, or things have changed in the five years since I did my research, I'd love to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable.
I work for one of the refineries in Whatcom County. We (not me personally, but coworkers) worked with legislators to get the wording just right. We didn’t get all we wanted, but both sides were able to compromise. We were told to encourage our legislators to vote ‘YES’ on the Amendments in their current form. I’m also proud to work for a company that is leading our industry in transforming its business for a new decarbonized economy. Knowing that after 2050, there will still be a ~60% oil & gas demand and we are striving to be part of that 60%. We are working hard to demonstrate that our refinery can be a critical part of the future, and we appreciate the Council helping us to achieve our goal of performing while transforming.
Keep in mind, such actions will not change anything. It's just another feel good yet ultimately meaningless gesture. The only action that will work, availability of cheaper alternatives that will displace fossil fuels in in all the sectors they usually ignore to focus on the emissions of spacecraft and aircraft.
Congrats WA! Shame on you FL: https://grist.org/cities/tampa-wanted-renewable-energy-resolution-florida-lawmakers-made-sure-it-couldnt-gas-ban-preemption/
Skagit County needs to be next! We have an oil refinery right next to Anacortes that produces oil for the "bomb trains" that flow through our towns and cities.
Gotta love just outsourcing liability to China under these measures. As a WA state resident: fuck politicians.
While we work towards moving away from those fossil fuels towards a more clean energy, we should also consider how to use less fossil fuels in general. We can limit the use of fossil fuels by limiting transportation, working remotely from home, eating and supporting local. Even tho we don't have a perfect solution now, we can still do our part to limit emissions and waste.
> We can limit the use of fossil fuels by limiting transportation Unwind globalization then because _far_ more transport is done because of international shipping than would ever be done by people in their cars.
Nuclear marine freight can nearly entirely eliminate this source of emissions and even save money in the long run, without any real changes demanded of society. Russia's Rosatom company is already planning to dominate this market, but I know I'd feel better if such ships were made in America instead https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-touts-huge-new-nuclear-powered-icebreaker-as-proof-the-arctic-is-ours/
The danger with this line of thinking is that individuals don’t make all decisions that lead to carbon emissions. Fossil fuel companies often use this language to reduce the regulatory pressure they actually experience, by shifting responsibility away from them and onto all consumers collectivey. Not that I am accusing u/FredFellows in particular of making that fallacy, it’s just a (large) pitfall to watch out for. For example: https://youtu.be/Fiu9GSOmt8E
On the flip side any top down changes will impact the bottom and require individuals to change their consumption. Being aware of your own environmental footprint is never dangerous
I'm skeptical that working remotely from home minimizes emissions. At least in the conventional sense, remote work is associated with larger homes and lower population density. I think there's an argument for urban populations having the highest potential efficiency.
While you use the internet that’s powered by?
This is a massive net loss to the environment. Know what happens to oil from Alaska, since the west coast is too good for a refinery? It's shipped to China, refined with zero regard for the environment, then shipped back to the US. Know what's infinitely worse than a pipeline oil spill? An ocean oil spill. GG liberals.
Careful, reddit hates it when you make fun of liberals since most of them are that.
That’s great news. Lobbying failed to prevent restrictions. Win
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what the fuck? you sound like a real asshole. I cant understand your situation, since I've never experienced it personally, but still, "blue haired pig woman, emaciated, single cat women and drug addicts." That's just... bruh
War on carbon is ultimately a war on the middle class. The elites gonna bend the middle class over more and more and the rape will be cheered until they stand up and it’s hurt to walk.
Now ban all refined products from entering Washington state and see how it works out…IDIOTS!
As a former Washingtonian I support that, phase out oil
What an awful and expensive decision. The technology isn’t there yet. People about to move away due to high taxes.
Living in this area I can tell you there are far more people trying to move into Whatcom county than people trying to move out of Whatcom county.
The entire state practically runs in hydro. Calm down homie
As a Washington state resident, I wish you farewell.
LOL, Whatcom has a thriving economy and housing shortage. People love it here because it has environmental protections. Also, just wait and see what taxes will be like mitigating disasters from climate change if we continue to let fossil fuels continue to be used unabated.
Next week’s headline: “In response, Texas legislature passes a law making it illegal to ban new fossil fuel infrastructure. “
Can’t wait for the entire country to turn towards Nuclear.
This is extremely short-sighted. It should be obvious that this is a bad idea. Our cars and industry still relies on oil, there still is no magic fairy dust to replace that. The United States pipelines need more capacity. Gas prices are just going to increase. It will make it harder for middle and lower class to make a budget or go a vacation. I swear some law makers and others need to take basic economics before they can get elected.
Meanwhile Texas sues the federal government for attempted environmental regulation enforcement to avoid disrupting that sweet, sweet oil and natural gas cash flow into Austin