German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.

I thought renewables were cheaper than coal. How is this possible?

  • napoleonsdumbcousin@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    While I partly agree with your argument at the end of your comment, I think your examples are really unfitting.

    Only single-use plastic straws are banned. There is also an exemption for straws that are necessary for medical reasons. The needs of disabled people are included in the exemption. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2021-003536-ASW_EN.html

    If people buy a new car, the old one (if still functional) typically enters the second-hand market, not the landfill. There is no reason why this would be different if the new car is an electric vehicle.

    The carbon footprint is a perfectly fine concept on its own, the problem is just that some people shit on it with their private jets, which are a legitimate concern. Some people also argue that “most of the pollution is done by corporations, not individuals”, completely ignoring the fact that these corporations only do it while producing goods for the people. That does not mean that we can just blame the people for it, but everybody has the responsibility to vote for policies that keep the corporations in check.

    Recycling is really bad in some countries, but works pretty well in others. For example in Germany 56% of plastic waste is recycled, 44% burned. 90% of paper is recycled. https://www.quarks.de/umwelt/muell/das-solltest-du-ueber-recycling-wissen/#lösung4

    • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      That’s a lot of words to say “I lick boot”.

      But just to address my pet peeve (mostly because I can copy pasta my own comment, and no I’m not going to edit out the “ableist” because even if you don’t mean t, advocating and making excuses for the straw ban is ableist)

      There are many reasons people can’t use different alternatives.

      Never mind that to deny access to a literal lifeline for the sake of 0.003% of the plastics in the ocean (literally a drop in an ocean) because it makes you feel better and requires zero effort or sacrifice (from you), instead of actually acting to resolve the problem (like being anti-capitalist rather than just trying to apply band aids to its symptoms) is not only gross and ableist, but also a colossal counterproductive waste of time.

      As for medical exemptions - disabled people shouldn’t need to ask for basic accessibility, nor should they have to disclose personal medical information to get it, but now that ableists like you have forced this situation to boost your own egos, they do, and are often denied, because wait staff are not medically trained, and are often abelists like you (or have bosses that would fire them for “handing out straws willy nilly” if they even have straws available which now many places don’t), so they get refused and called liars and accused of destroying the environment.
      Never mind that expecting people to always have their own accessibility aids, rather than have them freely available creates an inaccessible society.

      Which is exactly what ableists like you are fighting for.

      • napoleonsdumbcousin@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        I was exclusively talking about the EU ban, not about some random US cities’ bans (This is a thread about Germany after all). None of your points really apply to the EU ban.

        It does not ban the distribution (you can still legally buy leftover stock - my local cinema seems to have a century’s worth of supply), just the first-time sale of newly produced non-medical single-use plastic straws.

        The “medical exemption” is not on an individual basis, but an exemption for a production line of straws. Everybody can buy the straws afterwards. The EU ban is not cutting a “lifeline” for disabled people.

        The links you provided talk about bans by local city councils in the USA, which have their own (apparantly stupid) rules.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Do you think cars are immortal, and are just passed on from owner to owner for all eternity?

      • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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        1 year ago

        Only East German ones. Then the pigs eat some rotten parts off of them, and the remainder is reassembled into fewer cars. The circle of life. The last people on this planet will still be driving a Trabi.