For a short while, sure. But who will be available to replenish their wine cellars?

History is well populated by traces of civilizations brought low by climate change, possibly including the moment when the entire human population was reduced to perhaps 1000 individuals (i.e., we almost didn't make it). So it is interesting thatthere was much rejoicing that almost the entire collection of climate change efforts, such as they were, have been eliminated by the current administration. Strange that -- almost as though MAGA meant 'make america go away'. Now I have never been one to think that a move towards electric cars and houses was going to do much to move the climate change needle into reverse. But over time there was the hope that moving away from hard hit areas and other defensive moves would moderate the impact. But refusing to do anything until the crisis is upon us does nothing but maximize the costs of survival -- sort of what has happened to FEMA. These sorts of weather extremes are already part of reality, even in the US. With the melting of the polar ice, permafrost thawing and signs that the atlantic current that warms Europe is diminishing, unpleasant new realities seem inevitable. Wonder if the species will survive this time?

There is a famous quote from early last century where a Supreme Court judge observed that he did not mind paying taxes because that is how we buy civilization. The money to pay for war, welfare and education has to come from somewhere. And if the superrich are given a free ride then it is the working poor (the rest of us) that are told to sacrifice to pay for bombing Iran... or Minneapolis. That everything seems to be falling apart from neglect and chronic underfunding should underscore the problems of letting the fox supervise the hen house. Trickle down has never ever worked... since it was first proposed by Hoovers economic advisors. But we still seem to believe them. Meanwhile, the old child killers and cripplers are staging a comeback...

Maybe so, but the king has little regard for any agreement he made previously. Thats the problem -- business needs predictability to make long term investments. And agreements as zero sum games are not appealing to any thoughtful leader. Why Carney refers to this as a rupture -- under Trump the US is pulling back from pretty much everything constructive it ever did. As for the vehical plan, it makes sense to recognize that moving from one technology to another will take time and require a bunch of infrastructure investment. Besides, doubt that the current crop of EVs represent mature technologies. Charge capacity, recharge time, cold weather behavior, etc... lots of loose ends.

wish this overcapitalized moron cleaned up after himself instead of pretending that space junk doesnt matter. Getting pretty cluttered up there and some suggest it is already at a critical level.

Needs alcohol and a good snack table to approach a Mensa gathering... (long time member here)

Nice that someone has been investing in the future. No stealing from it...

It is always an acceptable risk if no one you really care about is on board. Remember some of the early debates about the amount of shielding for nuclear reactors... amazing how the calculus changed when the execs were told that one of their kids might be working in the compartment... Not like the shuttle disasters... or the Apollo capsule fire. It is said that the Romans would have the designer stand under an arch when the forms were taken down -- solved two problems if the structure was not sound. We seem to have learned nothing.

I would imagine that mass migrations to leave places no longer cool enough or wet enough to sustain life, or where rude neighbors routinely shoot up the area, will still happen in his best of all possible worlds. Besides, there is a good chance that the next Carrington event could wipe out the technology his fortune depends on... And maybe, just maybe, I want to move because I really want to see mt.Fuji or mt.Rainier out my window instead of the backside of a factory...

In most places that I have used urban bus lines, the problem is not the frequency of stops nor the annoying delays of having to service the needs of paying passengers. Rather it it the common practice of routing busses in the general traffic to crawl along with the rest. Same applies to light rail systems. This stuff will work smoothly and efficiently if a dedicated laneway is made available. But in most places I am sure the real estate is not available. So instead we will punish the riders by making them walk further.

Truely a legend in his own mind. We are already plagued by too much artificial intelligence. What we need is the real thing, not something that will creatively cow back the mistakes of others, while adding a bit of its own fancy and marketing it as truth...

Lived there for years, loved it but found the political meddling in traffic engineering to be deadly. City is littered with half built road expansions that got abandoned by the next administration who had a different set of backers. It could have been a Chicago of the north, same lakefront and industries. But no... really sad. And the provincial government is no better. Live two hours east now in a small but highly liveable town with public transit. Much better.

Brings up fond memories of the days when I did internals for a long vanished DBMS firm on PDP-11 and Vax machines. The fine art of building overlay trees and sharing memory regions to get some of the huge programs to fit. Seems fanciful today, packaging multi-megabyte code to run in 64kw of user space. Even had to overlay file buffers and built our own swap handler. One overlay map was over 8 feet long. Modern bloatware is so wasteful and seems to have lost what us oldtimers did to make things work. A memory diet might do everyone some good.

My high school graduating class (Fenger HS Chicago) had over a thousand kids -- all out of the same big building. Its not the numbers but the socialization that has changed. Folks are being conditioned to not cooperate in ways not seen before. Too many glorifications of the lone gunman plotting revenge. And all the cameras will do nothing to prevent these incidents, just contribute video for subsequent entertainment.

Th e climate doesnt care... it will continue to do whatever it is going to do regardless of our belief. All shutting these programs down really means is that when we are finally forced to act it will be more expensive and disruptive. IMHO with stuff like permafrost melts it is far too late to change the climate by widespread emissions and other changes. But stopping research for whatever reason just maxiizes the ultimate cost and consequences.