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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.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday November 18 2018, @02:16PM (13 children)
Reminds me of water conservation in Florida. Dry season? Make up all kinds of crazy rules about even-odd car washing days based on license plate numbers, same for lawn watering, etc. Pass building codes restricting residential showers to trickle flow max. Basically, the rules hit the masses of population with fines and in-your-face DON'T WASTE WATER messaging, meanwhile, loopholes in the rules mean that people with (expensive) automatic sprinkler systems can just go program them to water even more than they ever did during the loophole times, people who have people who wash their cars for them just tell them to deal with it, plumbers get paid to install the code compliant low flow appliances for inspection, then paid again to put in something that really works.
Meanwhile, the tomatoes of Sarasota county always have, and still do, consume more fresh water than all the people put together. The strawberries of Plant City suck so hard on the aquifers that they alone can be held responsible for 90%+ of the sinkholes that have appeared in the last 20 years, etc.
Similarly, my personal vehicle in Houston which only drove 3000 miles a year / consuming 100 gallons of fuel per year in relatively efficient manner - that one had to go through inspection three times to pass the tailpipe sniffer, while driving by chemical processing plants in Pasadena which were pouring the equivalent of 100+ gallons of VOCs, monoxides, nitric oxide, ammonia, chlorine, ozone, and above all else: gummy particulate soot into the atmosphere every minute. Sure, there's a million cars like mine and only one Pasadena industrial complex, but the emissions from all the cars put together were cleaner than the chemical plants.
If we're going to "get tough on CO2 emissions" it needs to be across the board, including jet fuel, industrial processes, all energy users. This means that, until generation goes to solar and wind, the price of electricity also needs to rise to reflect the CO2 emissions it represents.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @02:46PM (3 children)
Yeah, 1 million cars produce much more pollution than some industrial complex. An industrial complex is a single point of emissions that can be checked and improved. Cars are not.
That already happens in some jurisdictions. CO2 credits or CO2 price per kWh is higher for gas than for coal. This happens as a producer cost.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 18 2018, @06:25PM (1 child)
Don't be so sure about that million cars vs on industrial complex. GP mentioned Pasadena, rather than any one chemical plant. I really don't know how many plants are in Pasadena, but I know there are several ass-tons of them. Going east out of Houston, those plants extend for miles on both US 90 and Interstate 10. Like Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and other old major polluting cities, Houston has cleaned it's act up some. But, at the same time, so has the auto industry.
It's easy for me to believe that the chem plants around Houston spew out the equivalent of several million cars each and every day. I don't know about that every minute that GP claimed, but every day, yes.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 19 2018, @02:13AM
Houston cleaned up its act in large part by pushing gasoline refinement offshore, when Rita and Katrina took out the offshore refineries they moved it back onshore and polluted worse than ever for at least a year (I don't know if/when they ever got it cleaned up again, we left town in 2006, in large part due to the lack of air quality.) Worse: when the refineries got a green light to pollute in the cause of keeping the gasoline flowing, all the other plants turned off their scrubbers too - those things are expensive to run, ya know? If just one plant is polluting, it's easy to finger it, maybe even do something about it. When they're all doing it and some have a free pass from Washington to do so, apparently the local EPA is toothless.
I knew a little about the worst offender in our neighborhood, right at the end of NASA road 1 in Seabrook, French owned plant, seemed to care about as much about the locals as Union Carbide cared about Bhopal. At every opportunity they'd be discharging something or another whether it was massive amounts of groundwater (+ who knows what) on the surface or giant billowing black clouds from the stacks when a tropical storm was approaching.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @11:46PM
15 chinese ships produce more pollution than all the cars in the world. Trump is saving us by putting tariffs on stuff transported by these ships:
http://www.industrytap.com/worlds-15-biggest-ships-create-more-pollution-than-all-the-cars-in-the-world/8182 [industrytap.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @03:03PM (4 children)
> including jet fuel
The physics of aircraft separate them from other vehicles -- they require enormous power to take off and then have much lower power requirements at cruise. Does anyone have a way to calculate the fuel savings if takeoffs were catapult assisted (as on aircraft carriers?) As soon as some of the power for acceleration is provided from the ground, the plane can carry less fuel, and have somewhat smaller engines, all in a "virtuous circle". And that full power launch could be handled by a clean stationary power source.
Note that I'm not proposing the same violent acceleration required for a carrier launch! A commercial aircraft take-off assist could approximate the same length as current take-off runs. It might be economical to accelerate a bit harder and hold the plane on the ground longer before rotation, so that the initial part of the flight would be a "zoom climb".
No cables or hooks either, those would require extra trained staff and be safety/maintenance issues. Instead, use a moving carriage that cradles the tires and drags the plane forward. The forces on the landing gear would be similar to braking forces (but reversed). Under the runway is a maglev and linear motor to support and propel the carriage.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 18 2018, @03:20PM
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday November 18 2018, @04:08PM
> The physics of aircraft separate them from other vehicles -- they require enormous power to take off and then have much lower power requirements at cruise.
How so? That is how pretty much every single vehicle works. They require far more power to accelerate then they do to keep going at a steady state. If you don't believe me, set the consumption display on your vehicle. I've done in on mine. Under acceleration onto the motorway I've seen my consumption go up to 45l/100km (5.2MPG), but when I reach the cruise speed it drops to ~8l/100km (~29mpg).
A change in velocity requires energy input, in a steady state you only need energy input to overcome frictional losses (hence, in a perfect vacuum, you would not need any extra energy input unless you want to change velocity).
As for the rest of your idea, it sounds over-complicated and error prone, not to mention a maintenance headache. Aircraft carriers have to have such catapults to overcome the lack of runway length, and they are a massive PITA they would not bother with if it wasn't for the length restriction.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 18 2018, @06:28PM
LOL at catapult takeoffs. You'll see old people dropping dead routinely. You'll see younger people dropping dead as well, just less often. If you fly, keep an eye on your fellow passengers. You'll see signs of anxiety among them, with our "regular" takeoffs now. Subject those people to 2 or 3 gravities at takeoff, and they'll fall like flies.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 19 2018, @02:16AM
Catapult launch for commercial aircraft, great idea, don't see it happening anywhere. Meanwhile, for the next 20 years, you can buy a ticket to emit more CO2 from your share of jet fuel than your car will emit all year, for the low low price of $329 round trip, cross country.
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(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Sunday November 18 2018, @03:39PM (1 child)
The output of those chemical plants are necessary to build those cars.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 19 2018, @02:18AM
Mostly those plants are taking the byproducts of refining fuel for those cars and turning them into other profit streams.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @04:34PM (1 child)
don't forget pasadena dumps it's illegal levels/compounds of shit out on sundays, making neighboring towns' houses smell like ass on the inside. your closed windows are no match for the death angel.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 19 2018, @02:21AM
Shelter in-place ;->
I really wanted to like Shoreacres, big lots, near the bay, cheap houses, close to work - cheap for one simple reason: the drive to work (and everywhere else) was obviously carcinogenic, and even if it weren't it just smelled nasty - chlorine, ammonia and that certain je ne se quoi from the French owned plants.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]