I know that in recent years Target has announced that they were investigating, in partnership with local and federal law enforcement, organized theft rings. It was publicly reported on here in Minneapolis.
That US private company was significantly enabled by a (apparently temporary) government policy of direct and indirect financial support. That company does not exist without the direct and intentional support by the US government.
Is there any (realistic) concern that plasma gasification causes an adverse incentive to generate additional waste vs waste reduction efforts because now localities are, to some degree, dependent on feeding the machine to generate electricity? Do localities with plasma gasifiers end up purchasing waste from elsewhere to maintain waste input stocks? I am not familiar with the economics here.
Until the plastic runs out. I was confused by the comment as well but I started thinking about the disposable movement - cheaper to just make and throw away plastic utensils than for McDonald's to have flatware, and remains cheap if there's buyers for the plastic.
A good solution with unfortunately perverse incentives. Probably the solution is government bans on unnecessarily wasteful uses of plastics. The market is provably incapable of tackling environmental issues without regulatory encouragement.
In Australia plastic utensils and bags have been banned for so long you'd almost forget they existed. Was a pretty big shock traveling to other countries and seeing how far behind they are on this stuff. There wasn't even a difficult transition period, it just probably costs an extra cent to use wood over plastic.
I think you’re overstating this somewhat - I took eggs home in a plastic bag from my local butcher this morning and ate with plastic forks and knives at a picnic on the weekend. Yes, in Australia.
I guess depends on the state. I haven't even seen a plastic fork in Australia for a long time. Stores were banned from selling them many years ago. I guess if you went out of your way to direct import them from overseas.
Ah yes, brought to you by "Stop These Things: The Truth About the Great Wind Power Fraud":
The great wind and solar scam was founded on lies, built on myth and runs on subsidies. But with Donald J Trump in the White House the scale of the fraud is finally being revealed.
The wood they are using comes from tree farming, not deforestation. It's pretty low density fast growing wood that's about as renewable as it gets. Worlds better than plastic at the least.
Plastics are not the only waste you can gasify. Organics, cardboard, wood, paper, medical waste, household rubbish, etc. The only materials you don’t want in the waste stream are metals, glass, rock, and brick.
> Is there any (realistic) concern that plasma gasification causes an adverse incentive to generate additional waste vs waste reduction efforts
If waste reduction is a problematic catalyst for more production and pollution, … We have a problem even bigger than I thought.
I would hope that would not be the case, but apparently recycling theater successfully reduced efforts to push back on the supply side.
Our self-created problems are becoming ridiculous. By the time the ultra rich are chocking on plastic in their caviar the rest of us will already be plasticized.
Maybe I am misunderstanding your comment, but I dont see plasma gasification as waste reduction. We are reusing the waste for energy production. We could be making efforts to reduce the overall amount of plastic waste (perhaps through legislation), but if we become reliant on the energy generated, we would be incentivized to avoid waste reduction because we want the energy. FWIW, “recycling theater” is also not waste reduction and is a separate, but related, problem that increases plastic waste.
> Do localities with plasma gasifiers end up purchasing waste from elsewhere to maintain waste input stocks?
This wouldn’t be a problem for a very long time. The reason so much of this waste ends up being landfilled or shipped overseas is due to a lack of capacity in existing waste-to-energy plants. It isn’t quite like the perverse-incentive problem introduced by biomass facilities because the waste is going to be generated regardless.
You can tax plastic also that will more than move the demand you can even use this tax for plasma gasification making more expensive to use and less to reuse.
Waste to energy plants don’t make money. They lessen the waste. So, buying trash to loose less money is postponing bankruptcy. They run on free money. Sounds fun though
I do not think that labor sentiment has a strong impact on whether or not jobs are automated away. Go watch an old movie from the 40’s or 50’s that features a hotel. The number of small, niche jobs that existed are surprisingly numerous by modern standards: porters, elevator operators, switchboard attendants, and so on. Busy places employing a lot of people. This was undoubtably true across industries, and we have automated away almost all those jobs one way or another without much fanfare. Sure - someone might have complained in the moment, but it’s death by a thousand cuts.
This sort of automation along with consolidation has been the death of small cities and towns in the US.
It's basically what's mostly killed my own small town.
My hometown, with a fairly consistent population of about 300 people, used to have a restaurant, bowling alley, full-service station, hardware store, bar, and grocery store. In my childhood, the restaurant, grocery store, and hardware store were still around. They died. And they died partially because gas got cheap and partly because goods producers increasingly jacked up their prices to small suppliers because they didn't want to deal with them. It was simply more lucrative and easier to see 1000 units to walmart than 10 to "Small town USA grocer". Near the EOL of the grocer, they'd literally buy their good from walmart because they couldn't get them anywhere else. The cheap gas led to people from my town traveling to nearby larger towns and cities to find cheaper goods.
The restaurant went out of business because it depended heavily on the prices of the local grocer. Towards the end, you'd literally call ahead the owner so they could open the doors and start cooking for you.
I can't say what the solution to all this is. The market is simply busted for small time business owners who want to move any sort of physical good. That has had knock on effects nationwide that haven't been positive, particularly for rural america.
I come from (and still leave near) a similar-sized town, and it went through the same process. And my dad remembers when it had even more businesses than I can remember, with movie theaters and the like.
It's actually gotten a little better in the last decade, I think because people got some hope again that jobs might come back, and because remote work meant fewer people were driving to the bigger town down the road every day, so there became more of a market in the small town for things like a grocery store or Dollar General-type store again. There are also more home-based businesses, started by people who work full- or part-time remotely and put their spare time into starting a local business.
But in the 90s/2000s, it was nothing more than a bedroom community for the town 20 miles away, which was sad. It's still nothing like it once was, but at least there are some signs of life now.
My father was a commercial artist in the 80’s-2000’s. He was also very early on the transition of analog desktop publishing to digital graphic design. This is exactly how the ad agency guys talked about things: at first, it was great. We could double our output and revenue, but soon we were caught in a rat race to the bottom as the tools improved and the skill floor fell away.
I was a high school English teacher for a decade. While there are texts that may be taught at the grade 12 or AP level that include sex and sexuality, “Lolita” is not being “taught often” at the HS level. I’ve never known it to be discussed in the classroom. I’ve certainly never seen it assigned.
I’m not in denial that someone somewhere at some time has taught Lolita at the HS level, but the suggestion that it’s common and “taught in a lot of high school classrooms” requires evidence. The same reason you find that idea infuriating is the same reason I don’t believe the assertion is true.
As for your evidence, only the first link has anything to do with HS classroom, and it’s a single teacher teaching it in some capacity - not a discussion of school/district/state curriculum or an indication that the text was required reading. None of your other references have anything to do with HS curriculum or indicate in any way that Lolita is being commonly taught at the HS level.
There's a lot of denial about the state of schooling. Most adults assume the school they attended in their youth is basically the same today, or maybe a bit worse, but it couldn't possibly be exponentially worse.
I was specifically speaking from my direct professional experience as a HS English teacher (in more than one state, including time doing curriculum review committee work across statewide districts).
It’s also very common for people to get therapy at free or minimal cost (<$50) when utilizing insurance. Long term relationships (off and on) are also quite common. Whether or not the therapist takes insurance is a choice, and it’s true that they almost always make more by requiring cash payment instead.
If the social policy of the progressive left were capable of wrapping itself in the messaging of Family, Community, and Freedom for rural America - there would be an appetite. Remember that for a large swath of Trump voters, Bernie Sanders was their second choice candidate.
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