• mozz
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    8 months ago

    Mostly by corporate subsidies for things they were either already doing or wanting to do.

    This statement is, as far as I can tell, simply made up. Here’s a quantitative comparison of what they were already doing or wanting to do, versus the plan after the climate bill.

    Simply removing government subsidies from oil would be very nearly sufficient to that end, too.

    Good luck with that. Pop quiz: Which industry gives a fuck of a lot of money to congress? Follow-up question, in order for something that’s a good idea to become law, does it have to (a) go through congress or (b) nothing further, being president means you get everything you want with no other branch of government involved?

    It’s common knowledge that the climate bill is not nearly enough action. But, it’s also clear to me looking at it that (a) it was extremely impressive to be able to get that amount of climate improvement through the current US government to become law, and (b) giving Biden shit for it because the rest of government blocked him from doing more, seems almost guaranteed to weaken his ability (or anyone else’s) to do more with a second term.

    This whole mythology that “well we have to give Biden a hard time over the climate, because he’s already attempting to do a lot but more action is needed, and if Trump wins and reverses every small bit of progress anyone’s been able to make then that’s just the price of environmental success” is, to me, not very sensible. It’s like shooting allied soldiers to help win World War 2. It’s like not bringing a parachute because you’re really really sure you don’t want your plane to crash. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.

    he -personally- approved the willow project permits

    Here’s a good summary of why he might have done that.

    To me, “does he care about the climate?” boils down to, what has he done for the climate, and the best way to measure that is with the emissions impacts of his actions.

    Doing more and blocking more development projects on top of that sounds like a great idea, yes.

    The vast majority of which should have been forgiven decades ago, and wasn’t because of scammy loan services.

    Glad we’re in agreement that it’s good to have an American president who’s finally doing good things instead of just neoliberal horror! Yes, it’s nice. I would like to see more of these things happen.

      • mozz
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        158 months ago

        I am gonna use this thread as a testbed for a little AI moderation tool for observing who is operating in good faith within the discussion.

        I’ve given you a little constructive criticism on your overall debate strategy in one of the other threads, if you’re interested to hear it.

        He does just enough to mollify you while with the other hand funneling money into corporations.

        As with a lot of things you’re saying, this one seems to be simply made up. The reality is actually the complete opposite – Biden is spending literally trillions of dollars on things like the climate bill and student loan forgiveness, and funding it by raising taxes on corporations. His budget for 2025 is set to do more of the same. By way of example, Amazon went from having a $1.2 billion tax credit to now paying $3 billion per quarter after Biden’s 2022 corporate tax reforms.

          • mozz
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            8 months ago

            I am not a mod here; I think you have me confused with someone else. Have I given you the impression that I’m unable to argue for myself without resorting to asserting some sort of authority? I actually think this kind of disagreement is good for the discourse; I just think it would also be good to have a separate place that wasn’t subject to shouty bad faith people clogging up the comments in quite so high a number.

            It’s like slapping a tourniquet on an arterial laceration

            Your whole student loan analysis I’ll more or less agree with overall, and to some extent with its application to other domains. I do think if someone’s artery is cut that you should usually put a tourniquet on. It seems like Biden’s been putting tourniquets on, and the other group has been trying to fistfight him for doing even that much, and trying to go through the accident victim’s pockets and threatening bystanders. And they have weapons. And, somehow, he managed to get some important tourniquets on even so.

            You’re making a completely valid presentation of why the patient isn’t yet “fine” after the tourniquet. But going further from there to “I don’t see why I should support the tourniquet guy over the give-me-his-wallet-and-empty-your-own-pockets-while-we’re-at-it people” doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.