SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
More Evidence Identifies China as The Source of Mysterious Ozone-Destroying Emissions
For years, a mystery puzzled environmental scientists. The world had banned the use of many ozone-depleting compounds in 2010. So why were global emission levels [DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0106-2] [DX] still so high?
The picture started to clear up in June. That's when The New York Times published an investigation into the issue. China, the paper claimed, was to blame for these mystery emissions. Now it turns out the paper was probably right to point a finger.
In a paper [open, DOI: 10.1029/2018GL079500] [DX] published recently in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, an international team of researchers confirms that eastern China is the source of at least half of the 40,000 tonnes of carbon tetrachloride emissions currently entering the atmosphere each year. They figured this out using a combination of ground-based and airborne atmospheric concentration data from near the Korean peninsula.
Previously: Someone, Somewhere, is Making a Banned Chemical that Destroys the Ozone Layer
Illegal Chinese Refrigerator Factories Are Selling Banned CFCs
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Monday October 29 2018, @07:49PM (32 children)
Yep. That's why we should've raised up and revolted in this country back in the mid 70's. Outlawed outsourcing by simple trade tariffs. Not designed to punish, but to remove any and all economic advantage of outsourcing production. It will cost local business the *exact* same costs for outsourced products, that it does for prevailing costs of local products. Destroy the NRLB, and put sane tariffs in place to encourage local production and consumption of resources. However, it might be too late. All of that industrial knowledge and skills we possessed are now gone.
The only things we should be importing are those things that we cannot create ourselves, or the luxury products like salami, cheeses, wines, etc. NOT STEEL. Globalism is a fucking disease of the rich that never benefits the Middle Class or poor. Never. It must be fought tooth and nail as if our very lives depended on it... because they do.
Otherwise, we have a world where all the fucking pollution is coming from China, which indirectly comes from us, and now we are all weak and poor as fuck, and *barely* able to afford those products anymore.
The avaricious are truly bound for the lowest, darkest, and hottest levels of Hell.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 29 2018, @08:08PM (14 children)
There is nothing simple about a trade tariff, or outlawing something like outsourcing - particularly when you're a piddly local jurisdiction attempting to wrangle legions of multi-billion dollar multinational corporations.
You can incentivize hiring local, which is almost as good, and much harder to circumvent (and lobby holes into) than tariffs.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday October 29 2018, @08:53PM (13 children)
Then you need to make simple tariffs, at the top level (Federal), and if necessary, we need an Article 5 convention to put those tariffs into a Constitutional Amendment.
The tariff really is simple. You don't leave it static. It is whatever it *needs* to be to eliminate the monetary benefit of choosing cheap 3rd world countries where the costs are a fraction of the U.S. If they bring in a widget, you check what a widget costs from the local manufacturers, take the lowest value, and make that the lowest possible cost of the widget. The difference between that cost and the foreign costs becomes the tariff. A whatchmacallit might have a different rate, but they're all dynamic rates.
Make the whole purpose of the law to eliminate those benefits. One way or the other, that company is going to pay those costs and cannot escape them.
It's either that are we outlaw outsourcing entirely. No tariffs required, because they are no imports.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @09:34PM (9 children)
> Then you need to make simple tariffs
You don't understand the power of lobbying, do you? Trump's tariffs have been "adjusted" all over the map already by powerful lobbies that want to protect their current "good thing".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday October 30 2018, @12:22AM (8 children)
Translation: I don't understand the power of corruption.
Bull-fucking-shit, I don't. I'm saying what we need to do to help the Middle Class. However, the only advocates for the Middle Class, or Lobbyists, ARE OUR FUCKING SENATORS IN THE FIRST PLACE. So the people who should be representing the interests of THE PEOPLE, end up representing the interests of those with $ONEY.
If the Middle Class, and average blue-collar worker were fairly represented, there is no chance in fucking hell we would all agree to kill ourselves by competing with 3rd world shitholes that have sweat shops, child labor, warlords, etc. You can't compete with those places for price, it is simply not possible.
That's what tariffs are really all about. Making the American Worker no longer in competition with foreign ones. It's not a fucking competition, it's our fucking lives. Of course we're going to lose child labor, of course we're going to lose to sweat shops, of course we're going to lose to China the way they treat their workers.
Take away all competition forcefully, and you will see America start to heal again, with factory UNION jobs coming back to U.S soil. The strongest we ever were in this country was when UNIONS WERE STRONG. We were winning, until the rich and corrupt, just as you said, used lobbyists to corrupt our government and allow them to escape the unions.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @12:50AM (7 children)
Wolf-PAC [wolf-pac.com]?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday October 30 2018, @01:30AM (6 children)
Neat. I'm all for an Article V Convention. Since it truly is bipartisan, most people here should be too. At 75%, that's a high threshold ensuring bipartisan amendments.
Thanks for sharing.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 30 2018, @12:54PM (5 children)
What would be the point of the exercise? Said corruption is not due to widespread constitutional flaws (at best, you can point to one or two election process improvements) and the convention would be subject to the same corrupt processes as the current government.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday October 30 2018, @09:13PM (4 children)
The point would be the attempt to take back our lives, and to organize as a people once again. Your point is not lost on me either. Trump and has shitbags are discussing abrogating the 14th right now. Graham is backing it with legislation, but the Orange Anus is boasting that "they're telling me I can do it with an executive order". They're talking about getting around a Constitutional Amendment as it if it nothing.
We need to do something though, and I think you can agree, that an Article V convention is a more productive use of our time than divisive civil war.
Finally, I'm not convinced the convention would suffer from the same corrupt processes. It has never be done before (IIRC), and the sheer level of involvement of the people ensures whatever they do will be watched and scrutinized. If the corruption is too apparent, than all hope in the system may evaporate.... and at that point..... I dunno. If it failed, I would openly advocate for civil war. Our government would have failed us utterly, and completely, and not deserve to live one second longer.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 31 2018, @01:00AM (3 children)
The point here is that it's baking in failure. If things are that corrupt, then any constitutional convention is easily subverted by the same powers. You have to deal with the corruption or you can't progress via open ended constitutional modification.
And that brings us to the second problem, namely that there isn't much to gain by constitutional convention. It's the wrong tool.
At that point, I'm not seeing it. Even if things went exactly as desired, it's a case of passing laws demanding parties obey the law. If they're already completely ignoring existing constitutional law, then they'll ignore this as well.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday October 31 2018, @01:20AM (2 children)
Then, pray tell, what is your solution to getting rid of the corruption? The status-quo doesn't fucking work anymore. I spent 20 years of my life not really paying attention to my country, and it died. I'm not being hyperbolic, it DIED. If things are truly as corrupt as you say they are, than you cannot disagree that true American principles of freedom and representation did in fact die.
If these people ignore the Constitution, then ignored an Article V convention to amend it, then they are not properly representing the country. We could impeach, but if they don't act like representatives anymore, why would they listen or even start the process? Especially amongst themselves.
I'm sorry, but if things are as bad as you say they are, then outright revolution is appropriate and needed. It's a valid tool for removing corruption so entrenched that more civilized and ostensibly legal processes are simply unable to mitigate. However, not everybody is ready for civil war this very second like I am. There is a growing group of people very dedicated to the idea you dismiss as naive. 5 states out of 34. Those people are still dedicated to making it happen, and organizing. That's unarguably better than 10's of the thousands of people prepping for civil war, mailing bombs, etc.
When civilized processes fail, when morals and integrity fails, you are left with violence and civil war. If all of those people are supporting organized change, and bipartisan change at that, then I will support them. Quite frankly, I think they deserve yours too. Your voice should be heard with everyone else's when we discuss these new amendments.
All of that better than violence, and I know you don't support that.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Wednesday October 31 2018, @04:33AM
I don't think anyone knows the solution... but I know what the solution isn't - inaction.
There's a lot of interesting things being tried at the moment. Political action, both inside and outside major parties (and this is not just in the USA). Also economic heretics are being widely listened to such as Steve Keen and Yanis Varoufakis... I believe Steve Keen even advises the UK central bank these days. Voices within the IMF are even coming out against the neoliberal order. I'd advise listening to someone who doesn't get enough airtime (probably because he speaks a rarified breed of academic language) : Roberto Mangabiera Unger although this primer [youtube.com] is a much more concise and intelligible intoduction to his ideas. I read his prescription for "radical innovation" in the economy as a blending of Free Software methods into places outside the I.T world... maybe some kind of open-source-developed worker-owned-Coop/franchise model.
I do think the Free Software world has some important lessons (both positive and negative) for the wider world. There certainly is people-power there, and it has attracted tech-media buyouts, perception management, unaccountable foundations and free riders.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 09 2018, @06:04AM
Cool story bro, but the problem is that you changed not the country. Corruption will always be with us because we always have conflicts of interest between what is good for us and what is a net good collectively.
Obviously, the solution is to pass a "this-time-I-mean-it" law, amirite? My point here is that you aren't fixing anything.
And what would be the point of the revolution? My view is that this is insane. What is the point of giving government more power to do this sort of thing?
The only economic problem the US really had over the past half century was that developing world labor hooked up to the global trade networks. That's it. The rest is self-inflicted - causing more problems to address some minor effect of that globalism (or of the destructive "fixes"). That includes a good portion of the corruption and the budding police state. If instead, 300 million people had manned up and sacrificed a bit for their future, it'd be a different story.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 30 2018, @01:58AM
Let me repeat: there is no such thing as simple tariffs - tariffs are penalties, taxes, things to be ducked and avoided by all means possible, legal, illegal, and infinitely creative. Those who impose tariffs invite the taxed to make fools of them.
On the flip side: incentives are sought by people and given by the authorities. One may attempt to defraud the authorities to obtain incentives not deserved, but if the rules of incentive are simple enough, that should be easily audited and corrected when abused. When one offers incentives, those incentivized seek them out and willingly provide information about and insight into the acts being incentivised, obfuscation and subterfuge are ineffective at cheating incentives.
Nothing about that is simple. If you turn this dynamic, easily defrauded adjustable rate scheme on its head as an incentive, then you put the onus of researching and documenting the appropriate incentive rates onto those seeking the incentive, instead of attempting to use the tariff income to finance a department of (easily fooled, defrauded and bribed) auditors. If you, as a domestic businessman feel that you should be incentivized to compete with country X making widget Y, then you show how your costs of materials and labor are necessarily higher domestically and how much the government should pay you for making widget Y using domestically sourced materials and labor. If you make a good case, then you get the incentive and should be able to market widget Y at a competitive price with those produced in X - much like food production is subsidized in the US today.
A version of this already goes on with minority and female owned businesses bidding for government contracts, how about instead of just directing benefits at token minority figurehead company owners we start directing the benefits toward businesses who demonstrate (prove) that they are paying competitive wages to their workers and direct these benefits toward those workers? Why not? Look at the U.S.' currently elected leadership and tell me if "benefits to the workers" seems remotely plausible as an actual delivered legislative change.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 30 2018, @02:02AM
Better shut off the internet while you're at it. That same job I worked in Texas while living in Florida I could have as easily worked from anyplace with strong enough internet to support a Skype call. That was strong six figures of "exported money" in exchange for delivered services, and if I felt like it I could have relocated to Mexico where that money would have supported a much richer lifestyle.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @11:05AM
No, you make trade agreements that force other countries to protect the environment. Seems a lot simpler than your "simple tariff". What "simple tariff" does is make everyone poorer for no reason whatsoever.
Anyway, it's quite idiotic for America to push tariffs after becoming the defacto world reserve currency. The idiot-in-chief doesn't understand how America is becoming a loser as soon as others start to turn away from the dollar. The only friend America has remaining is inertia. Sooner rather than later China (or Euro if it gets its act together) will replace USD and America will become the has-been Russia - large military and nothing else.
(Score: -1) by fakefuck39 on Monday October 29 2018, @09:05PM (14 children)
who the fuck are you idiot? I haven't seen you before. do you know what comparative advantage is? you know, from highschool econ. you want americans doing what cheap unskilled chinese labor does? yes, steel factory workers are unskilled labor.
do you know how pollution works? it doesn't go from china to here. yes, the cfcs they release do damage. all the other polution stays there, which is why they have shitty air and water quality. yes, it absolutely benefits us to move unskilled labor over there freeing us up to do smarter things (like services) . yes, it absolutely helps us to cause pollution in china and use their cheap products over here w/ the polution.
and no, they're not taking our money by providing us cheap shit. their gdp is half of ours, and their dgp per capita is less than a southern nigger collects from unemployment.
god fucking damn, I usually remember retards who post stupid shit over and over. are you new on here or something?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @11:17PM (13 children)
You're so dumb it makes me sad. You should study less highschool econ and more science. Do you realize that there is only 1 atmosphere on this planet, the one and same whether you're in China or US of fucking A. Have you ever heard about climate change buddy? Do you get TV in your cave? Makes me wonder if you're even serious or just a Russian troll paid to act like a hemorrhoid...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @12:55AM (3 children)
Gotta be some reason he's still posting even though he posts at -1.
Though can't we eliminate Russian troll since wouldn't a Russian troll move to another account as soon as their account started posting at 0, not keep going after it was posting at -1?
I guess that leaves dumbass on the table as a possibility.
(Score: -1) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday October 30 2018, @01:22AM (2 children)
my parents are originally from moscow, and I'm 90% fluent in Russian, so I guess you're right tupoy mudak. "-1"? you have your internet content censored by random people on the internet? literally everyone I know reads at -1, starting w/.in the late 90s. you're on the wrong site buddy. reddit is what you're looking for. here we wave loser hippies who preach peace of mind but can't hold a job, older nerds with managed autism, and a few like me who are mid-life corporate professionals. magic internet points are not relevant to any of those groups. reddit man. go back there - you're annoying and not very entertaining.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @02:29AM (1 child)
*sort* lol
An amusing dumbass at least. But that's cool you're almost fluent in Russian. One thing I regret in life was not learning Dutch from my great-grandma. Great-great-grandma came over to America on the boat. Great-grandma was fluent of course. Grandma was 90% fluent. Mom knew a few words. Me, I wound up studying German nearly to fluency instead because my high school offered it. Was a slacker class to most tho, but I like studying languages and wish I had more time to devote to it. I'd love to learn an African language some time.
(Score: -1) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday October 30 2018, @04:14AM
I have no idea what your first line means - I'm guessing a grammar error. I am "almost" fluent in French too, having lived there for 4 years. I am far from fluent in Korean, Ukrainian, and Spanish. I understand Polish and Romanian but don't speak them. My wife speaks 4. I have also been to ~80 countries, and lived in many. I started in Biochem, switched to Physics with a minor in Calc, and did a year in college for a sound engineer, then another year for computer graphics at one of those "nationally-accredited" expensive ripoff schools you see ads on TV for. The Dutch are a pleasant people who sound like they are talking with food in their mouth. German girls have just the right amount of slutty before approaching euro-trash, I was banging one in Bavaria for a while. Berlin is full of neo-faggots. German is a harsh ugly language that seems to make everything sound like hate speech. If you like Dutch and also like niggers, Afrikaans should be easy for you to pick up. There is a catchy band from Leningrad that sounds a lot like Die Antwoord. You should do the skibbidi challenge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDFBTdToRmw [youtube.com]
My family didn't come over on a boat. We took a large plane. Parents being Chem PhDs helps with the means to take a large plane. If you like boats, you should talk to the Mighty Buzztard - he is also into boats. Any other bright off-topic things to say that avoid replying to the content? To a battle of wits, you come unarmed. That's alright - just keep calling people dumbass. 5th grade seems to be where your level of education and insults achieved their lifetime apex.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @01:46AM (8 children)
One of the things you learn in "science" is how big the earth is. You're complaining that someone in a different state farts and it smells in your house. No, we don't really have "1 atmosphere" when it comes to pollution. We have many localized bodies of air, where the heavy pollution particles are generated and settle in the immediate area. It's why you don't want a coal plant near your house, but the one in the neighboring state is fine.
Dumping stuff into the water does travel over oceans to detectable levels. Not to levels that actually do anything, but detectable with precision equipment. Your body is not precision equipment.
Global warming - that's not caused by pollution. Another things we learned in "science" - in the 5th grade, which you should really give another try before going for your GED. Pollution is not greenhouse gasses. Actual pollution reduces global warming by blocking sunlight. Literally thousands of reputable studies - one of the more prominent ones done on airplane exhaust particles on 9/11.
To quote someone - "knowledge is power" - get some. You seem like one of those anti-vaxxer people who read headlines on the puffington post and your facebook and youtube feed, and repeat them. You seem to be some kind of a hipster who reads physics books that don't have any math in them and pretends he knows things. Please stop talking - this is annoying to the adults in the room.
As far as the politics, it would take someone really dumb to think a paid Russian troll is posting to soylent. Someone like you. Someone who does not know how to spell "high school" so he takes a typo from the comment to which he is replying and repeats the misspelling. Someone who does not speak English well. Again, 5th grade seems to be where you stopped with the schoolbooks and started with sensationalist headlines with sources for bored soccermoms for your education.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @02:59AM (5 children)
> You're complaining that someone in a different state farts and it smells in your house. No, we don't really have "1 atmosphere" when it comes to pollution. We have many localized bodies of air, where the heavy pollution particles are generated and settle in the immediate area. It's why you don't want a coal plant near your house, but the one in the neighboring state is fine.
Not so fast -- https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/0621/062135.html [csmonitor.com]
From 1984 (seriously, not a reference to Orwell's book):
I remember when this was a big deal, in NY state our crushed-limestone driveway used to bubble when it rained.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @03:59AM (4 children)
The Christian Science Monitor. Seriously - why are you on this site? This is literally not the forum for you. This is a tiny community. If you are thinking to agitate or piss off people, all you are going to do here is have a small handfull of people laugh at you. Very small. Would your idiot trolling not be more appropriate somewhere where you have an audience >20?
I didn't click the link or read your post.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday October 30 2018, @01:07PM
I don't know about the present, but the CSM has long had a reputation for accurate and remarkably unbiased journalism. It has nothing beyond the name to do with the Christian Science religion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @02:04PM
Just went looking for an older reference on acid rain and found that one from The Christian Science Monitor. There are plenty more, but as noted, this paper was highly respected for straight reporting back in the '80s.
Anyway, the point was that coal burning plants in the midwest USA were causing acid rain in the North East and it was to the point that it was damaging forests and many other things. Pollution is not as localized as the earlier poster claimed.
Oh, and I'm not new here, I'm logged in with a user number in the 3 digits, but normally post as AC.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday October 30 2018, @05:04PM (1 child)
The Christian Science Monitor is an excellent newspaper for objective news. The Christian Science stuff is restricted to one regular article which is clearly labeled as such.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31 2018, @08:18AM
Yes, idiots who read the CSM think it's an excellent newspaper for objective news. The Christian religion is an excellent guideline for your saving your soul. "How to rape little boys" is an excellent newspaper. Forget the title - they only have one article on what lube to use on the pink asshole of the little one - the rest is objective science on how CFCs cause global warming.
Now the rest of us who read and study actual science - the science with "math and shit" - do not get our science from the CSM. This is why we know that most pollution does not cause global warming and comprehend the basic concept of a particle in the atmosphere blocking sunlight from reaching the earth causing a reduction in temperature. The most famous of such studies was as noted when all the planes were grounded on 9/11, and there was a clear finding that pollution from airplanes reduces global warming. Now back to raping little boys - do you have any sons and where do they practice baseball (asking for a friend)?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @10:31AM (1 child)
Do... do you truly not understand, generally, how CFCs interact with the atmosphere and environment?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31 2018, @08:07AM
Do you... Truly not understand English?
Idiot: "Have you ever heard about climate change buddy?"
Me: "Things that break down Ozone do go up and destroy ozone - mostly over the poles. Again - not over the US."
Do you... Truly not understand that CFCs don't cause global warming and the pollution actually reduces it because particles block and reflect sunlight?
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday October 30 2018, @12:51AM
Steel... which reminds me that our common little evil Russia does not dump cheap steel on the US market (which it could easily do) but instead invests and rebuilds American steel industry. Here is an example https://nlmk.com/en/about/map-of-assets/nlmk-pennsylvania/ [nlmk.com]
Another big Russian company Severstal (Nordsteel) bought the infamous Sparrow Point but the US government forced it out and eventually run the best US steel factory into bankruptcy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparrows_Point,_Maryland [wikipedia.org]
I visited Baltimore this summer; it's sad.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday October 30 2018, @11:57AM
You can get all your salami, cheese and wine from the EU where we have very good environmental protection laws.