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posted by martyb on Sunday November 18 2018, @12:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the everybody-should-pay-their-fair-share dept.

On Saturday, November 16th, around 282,000 people blocked roads and highways all over France. The protesters, nicknamed the gillets jaunes after the yellow warning vests they wore, had organized through Facebook. Their beef: the increase in environmental taxes on gasoline, on top of a number of other tax increases.

We don't disagree with having to pay more to help act for the environment and fight climate change, was the general opinion, but why should it be only the little folks who have to pay while the elite can easily grin and bear it -- why not tax also all that heavy fuel burned by aeroplanes and tanker ships?

The action, which persisted throughout the day, resulted in over 100 wounded and one tragic death when a mother driving her child to hospital panicked.

The protesters do have a point. While media and politics rightly, if very, very much belatedly, are warning about climate change, the alternatives proposed clearly are not to be taken seriously.

The hard choices we need to face apparently come down to cities investing in smart cameras to fine visitors based on production year and type of their automobile. Public transport investing will come, but not to the countryside where car/ride sharing, Uber and similar services simply are not viable; Tesla and relatives are on another price planet for ordinary people.

As to the EU's emission trading system (ETS) that should drive industry to climate change action: news broke on the same day as the gillets jaunes actions that Britain -- on the verge of leaving the EU -- is one of the biggest net exporters of such credits: Britain had 900 million of these credits too much, for the years 2013-2015 alone.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 18 2018, @01:00PM (9 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Sunday November 18 2018, @01:00PM (#763463) Journal

    What's the worst problem our civilization faces? Global Warming/Climate Change? Or is it within us, specifically, unrestrained greed? The behavior of the super rich is horrible. They absolutely will fiddle while the planet burns. And too many of the rest of us worship them for being "successful", without considering the ugly details-- the cons, robberies, corruption, waste, harsh treatment of the less fortunate, and all that. It;s like many of the super rich have mental disorders and brain damage, and we're not only letting them have the helm, standing by while they seize it, we're begging them to take the helm because so many of us think they must be such great drivers.

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  • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by khallow on Sunday November 18 2018, @02:09PM (6 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 18 2018, @02:09PM (#763479) Journal

    What's the worst problem our civilization faces?

    Poverty and overpopulation.

    Global Warming/Climate Change? Or is it within us, specifically, unrestrained greed?

    Cool story bro. If there are any examples of "unrestrained greed" out there, please let us know. Last I checked, all that greed was heavily regulated. Even in sexy stories like road murders in China [soylentnews.org], the greedsters had to bribe someone.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @04:25PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @04:25PM (#763525)

      Last I checked, all that greed was heavily regulated

      Citation needed. What regulation governs the salary and bonuses of top-level management? In finance? In telecom? In insurance? In tech?

      • (Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Sunday November 18 2018, @04:53PM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 18 2018, @04:53PM (#763540) Journal

        What regulation governs the salary and bonuses of top-level management?

        In the US, labor law and SEC regulations do, for example. Similar regulations exist for most of the world. Then there are the de facto regulations of shareholders and other parties with interest in the matter.

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @10:24PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @10:24PM (#763640)

          Wow, so those golden parachutes are against the law? The insanely high salaries are actually regulated?

          I must have missed that development.

          Or you're just doing the corporate shill thing. Occam's Razor in 3...2...1...

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 19 2018, @04:17AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 19 2018, @04:17AM (#763786) Journal

            Wow, so those golden parachutes are against the law?

            Why would they be against the law?

            The insanely high salaries are actually regulated?

            Yes.

            I must have missed that development.

            Indeed.

    • (Score: 2) by choose another one on Sunday November 18 2018, @05:13PM (1 child)

      by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 18 2018, @05:13PM (#763548)

      > Poverty and overpopulation.

      Absolute poverty is linked to overpopulation given finite resources.

      Relative poverty is measured in various ways, most of which make it impossible to eliminate.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 19 2018, @04:46AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 19 2018, @04:46AM (#763794) Journal
        Fair enough - by "poverty" I mean absolute poverty.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @04:26PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @04:26PM (#763526)

    It's not that simple. My vote is not for any one "worst problem", since it's very hard to compare social problems with technical problems with economic problems.

    One that hasn't been mentioned yet is a major energy crisis that we are only beginning to see, as the poor people of the world continue to increase energy use. The high-energy consumption life style of the "developed world" is the goal. Everyone wants Bucky Fuller's "energy slaves", which as much as anything have raised the standard of living everywhere these "energy slaves" are in use. Part of the solution to this is efficiency, LED lights instead of filaments, but there is a huge gap and no plans (that I've heard of) to bridge it.

    • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday November 18 2018, @07:18PM

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Sunday November 18 2018, @07:18PM (#763584) Journal

      Perhaps the problem is a "necessity is the mother of invention" cycle, in which difficulties leads to more intelligence and innovation to overcome the hardships, which makes life easier, which leads to people dumbing down because life has gotten soft and easy, which leads to life getting hard again. Or, another way to put it is "may you live in interesting times" which is regarded as a curse, and yet, are uninteresting times really any better?

      Paradise is within our grasp, but maybe, we don't actually want it because it would be too boring. It really would not be that hard to deal with our current problems if only there was the will to do it. instead, there's all this diversion, denial, lying, and foolish motivated reasoning about what our problems really are.

      The folly of the oil companies is egregious. 40 or more years ago they figured out CO2 pollution would be a problem, and what did they do about it? Tried to cover it up! And now, the whole world knows plenty about the problem and their role in trying to bury it. Most of us bear some responsibility for the situation, but by their short-sighted actions, Big Oil has put a big, big target on their backs. It's so big it will spill over into every facet of our lives-- the governing systems that allowed the corruption and propaganda, and the nations that stood by, ignoring the warnings while continuing to burn oil. BP's troubles over the Deepwater Horizon accident will be as nothing to the trouble that's coming should Greenland and Antarctica melt and sea levels rise significantly. It will be not just Big Oil being judged and found wanting, it will also be capitalism, the West, and, hell, our entire civilization. Going to be very, very hard to contain the nuclear weapons when wars break out over the famines and questions of where millions of refuges from the flooding will go.