MatthewToad43
Former and hopefully future climate and poverty activist. Covid cautious. Autistic grey-ace/wtf-ro geek, software developer. Interested in green transition, green tech, activism, intersectionality, etc. I try to boost other marginalised voices while recognising my own privilege. Yorkshire, Remainer. Climate hawk on the pro-tech end: We need *appropriate* technology. Recently re-created this account after leaving for a while during an anxious period of unemployment.
@immibis @sooper_dooper_roofer @mondoman712 Why not? Elected local governments should be able to fund the maintenance of fixed speed cameras out of the fines received.
They can’t, which means, given enormous cuts in their budget largely the result of central government decisions, they could no longer afford to maintain speed cameras.
As a result, more motorists drive at unsafe speeds, and people die.
More speed cameras is a *GOOD* thing.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with enforcement paying for itself in this case.
@immibis @sooper_dooper_roofer @mondoman712 In the UK, local councils pay for fixed speed cameras.
Central government confiscates the fines.
When this was introduced the vast majority of fixed speed cameras disappeared more or less overnight: Councils could not afford to run them without a revenue stream. Their budgets had been cut ~50% by that same government.
The government justifies this by saying “the war on the motorist is over”.
But it’s a funny kind of war. The fatalities are overwhelmingly caused by motorists.
@sooper_dooper_roofer @mondoman712 Modern petrol cars contain lots of computers too.
Automatic enforcement, with the right to override it recorded in the black box to be used as evidence in crash cases, is a perfectly reasonable idea. But inevitably there will be bugs, just as there are in self-driving cars (especially the often dangerous “semi-autonomous” vehicles).
However there is a cheaper solution: Fixed, widespread speed cameras. Which right now are effectively banned in the UK, because the treasury confiscates the fines (local government pays the running costs, and therefore can’t afford to run any).
While I understand there are usability issues, and design can help with that, if you’re not able to drive your ton of metal safely and legally you shouldn’t be driving it. If people expected to get caught, they’d drive slower.
The bottom line is speed limits are the law. And lower speed limits reduce the number of serious injuries dramatically and help to push people onto public transport. Although with old cars they increase emissions slightly; with modern hybrids they reduce them.
@rm_dash_r_star My point was simply that the danger to the Global South, and people in general, from continued fossil fuel extraction is greater than that from the extraction needed for the transition.
We can reduce the material demands of the transition somewhat by demand reduction etc, but we’re not comparing a new lithium mine taking people’s land to nothing. We’re comparing it to oil wells polluting people’s drinking water *and* killing their crops with droughts and floods *and* rising sea levels destroying AOSIS etc.
By all means try to do it in a cleaner, fairer, more just way. But rare earths, or even cobalt, aren’t a reason to stop the transition, which seemed to be the agenda of the person I’ve now blocked here. We need appropriate, better technology. And we can’t eliminate all road vehicles overnight, though we can reduce them somewhat.
No doubt I’m preaching to the converted now though. 😀
@rm_dash_r_star Yeah hopefully LFP for short term grid storage, maybe iron-air for long-term, though there are a few other options. Unfortunately nearly every option for long-term storage is very immature.
@mr_washee_washee Delaying the technologies that we know work, continuing to dig up more fossil fuels, and giving it a veneer of credibility by funding more research is a classic delayer tactic. Delay being a stage of denial.
@mr_washee_washee Either way, the technologies already exist and need to be deployed rapidly.
The alternative is burning more fossil fuels.
Which is both more expensive and *vastly* more dangerous. We need rapid progress towards sustainability, because it’s the *total* carbon emitted that matters.
Emissions must peak by 2025 at the latest (in fact they must peak as soon as possible). The UK, for instance, has agreed to reduce its emissions by 68% by 2030 (compared to 1990), a target that it will almost certainly miss according to the last CCC report.
@mr_washee_washee I’ve seen people argue that nuclear actually has the lowest material requirement overall. I’m not entirely convinced by that argument though!
By all means reduce the number of cars, but some of the things we will need to do to achieve that will take significant time - especially fixing housing and building more rail.
However there will still be vehicles, even if they are only buses.
@mr_washee_washee How do you propose to balance the grid without wind?
Solar panels are indeed mostly silicon, but they’re not entirely made of silicon. They also use “minor metals” (indium, gallium etc) in smaller quantities. They certainly use copper, steel and aluminium.
The inverter for a solar panel might contain rare earths. The big ones for long range HVDC interconnectors very likely do.
Whatever we build will involve some amount of mining.
However given the enormous cost of the status quo, renewables are a step forward.
@mr_washee_washee @suodrazah So do wind farms. Are you opposed to them too?