With the EU now going centre-right (and largely at the expense of Greens) their long-standing stance on eWaste (and similar consumer-oriented regulation) is likely to be casualty.
I was at the most recent CCC conference and there was a discussion on "Spotting tech fictions as replacement for social and political change". What I heard was the same line of thinking I had heard since the COP21 Paris Climate Conference 10 years ago.
The solution is to push the green agenda through activism and pressuring politicians/corporations to enact sweeping motions. During this talk, they discussed pushing people to take the bus in place of getting an EV with a series of methods to penalize owning a vehicle.
Its funny how given yesterday's results the talk that happened in the last days of Dec (so just 6 months ago) is now looking obsolete but I saw this over the last 10 years as the promised commitments of COP21 fell by the wayside anyway. I used to joke about how conservatives in the US lived in a bubble. Now I am seeing techies like the OP are also in a bubble.
I recall speeches by British celebs in the late 90s when this sort of thing first became fashionable. Some lady told a huge crowd that they need to unplug their kettles. You are not serious people.
But I'm sure it feels great to sit around at conferences and discuss "pushing people to take the bus". Heck, it is a whole industry unto itself, isn't it?
P.S. - I do think climate change is a serious issue. Figured I'd mention that before the usual responses that shun and excommunicate me as a "denier".
This will simply not have "political solutions".
Realistically the greens are counter productive to the max and always have been. It is simply the self-flagellation remnant bits of defunct religions. Devoid of rationality.
See also: Germany and nuclear power. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Out of curiosity, what do you think should be done to mitigate the climate issue?
I personally believe in engineering solutions that are better than the current solutions. With the collapse in prices for EVs, I am drooling over these super cheap electric cars and hope to one day have a backup used car just for fun trips around town. Or maybe just pick up a single long range EV for a little bit more. Right now the repair market is still in its early stages but its getting there. I dream of owning a single EV model that lasts me for 30 years powered by solar. Plus the cost of electricity is trending towards 0. I am always trying to find ways to swap out my lifestyle with something more efficient. Am I an outlier, yes but I see technical solutions coming to the mass market and I remain optimistic a tiny bit.
Nope, normcore to the max. You've been greenwashed.
Your EV won't run on Solar. The cost of electricity is not trending towards zero.
> I am always trying to find ways to swap out my lifestyle with something more efficient.
The best thing you could personally do is squeeze out a few hundreds thousands miles out of a third hand Honda Civic. Not that your personal lifestyle matters one iota.
What should be done? Enjoy life and if you want to promote anything at all promote engineering degrees for young people. And nuclear power.
Unfortunately I am a programmer so I always am thinking of optimizing and efficiency. Sorry but its how my brain is wired! :)
>Your EV won't run on Solar. The cost of electricity is not trending towards zero.
Are you in the US? Because every year I look at prices to install solar panels and it is definitely trending in that direction. Do we have to account for the carbon to produce those panels? Yes but that part of the supply chain is also cleaning up and furthermore we are now seeing the results of the first major solar installs from 25 years ago as they reach their expected end of life. End of life for them means 80-85% of the energy generated when they were new. Given the evidence we have seen, this is definitely not greenwashing...unless you are buying the nonsense expressed in that conference where they talk about greenwashing ;)
>The best thing you could personally do is squeeze out a few hundreds thousands miles out of a third hand Honda Civic. Not that your personal lifestyle matters one iota.
You are right as personal consumption is a drop in the bucket compared to industry. If it does become the norm my hope is that continued supply and labor inflation will force businesses to cut costs wherever they can and once Solar + EV gets to a certain price point, even business will have to adopt to stay competitive.
>Enjoy life and if you want to promote anything at all promote engineering degrees for young people. And nuclear power.
I would love some Nuclear but the ship has sailed. The US has forgotten how to build reactors and China has raced past them in their own custom designs. Now in the US it is just nonsense promoted by the Oil industry pushed down to COnservatives/Libertarians to distract.
>With the EU now going centre-right (and largely at the expense of Greens)
I'm annoyed by the media coverage which all imply the Right won seats at the expense of the Left when, as you say, it's mostly the Greens (who, yes, are technically Left) who lost seats.
What's even more annoying though is I need to take a magnifying glass to even see the additional seats won by the Right. The Left still holds majority and haven't even lost an unusually large number of seats.
There obviously are exceptions when looking at the election more microscopically, like in France, but overall it's mainstream misleadia.
What's surprising to me is this disinformation campaign by the media only serves to try and empower the Right, which I always thought was something the media do not want.
Summing the votes of all parties that could be considered left (Green, S&D and The Left) you get 224 seats, which is about 31% of the European Union Parliament.
> the media only serves to try and empower the Right, which I always thought was something the media do not want
Whatever gave you that impression? A significant percentage of all media outlets are owned by very right-leaning businessmen, or otherwise entangled in capitalism to such extent that it may bias their judgement
A large portion of western media is state-funded public broadcasters (the BBC, CBC, PBS, ...), and another large swathe is under the control of various explicitly right-leaning corporations (Murdoch's News Corp and Fox, Sinclair, ...).
While there are indeed numerous liberal-leaning media outlets, it is entirely unclear to me that they have equivalent reach to their conservative counterparts.
Ground News uses bias ratings from Ad Fontes Media, All Sides, and Media Bias/Fact Check; they rate NPR as Center, Lean Left, and Lean Left respectively.
If you consider NPR to be far-far left then what is Jezebel, The Young Turks, Jacobin, or Democracy Now? That's not even getting into things like Socialist Alternative or pod casts like Chapo Trap House.
Between the ones I listed and NPR are sites like Slate and Vox which are to the left of NPR but not as far left as Democracy Now.
The BBC generally tends towards the center-left, but also takes some characteristically right-wing stances - they they have at times been vocally anti-trans), they were on balance pro-brexit, and they tend to lean right on immigration and religion.
Probably not by number of outlets, either, not that it would matter.
The dominant Western media position is center-right neoliberal corporate capitalist (unsurprisingly, reflect both the ruling class of Western society and, as its the same class, the class that predominantly owns corporations, including media corps.)
well if you want to go all conspiracy theory, the media wants clicks because that gets them ad revenue, and so are making it seem like the right is winning because it gets you to click on the article which then, after you've scrolled past a bunch of ads, tells you they didn't actually win that many seats.
The solution is to push the green agenda through activism and pressuring politicians/corporations to enact sweeping motions. During this talk, they discussed pushing people to take the bus in place of getting an EV with a series of methods to penalize owning a vehicle.
Its funny how given yesterday's results the talk that happened in the last days of Dec (so just 6 months ago) is now looking obsolete but I saw this over the last 10 years as the promised commitments of COP21 fell by the wayside anyway. I used to joke about how conservatives in the US lived in a bubble. Now I am seeing techies like the OP are also in a bubble.