Stupid and evil often go hand-in-hand, especially with the current crop of incompetent grifters in the Trump Maladministration. The latest atrocity is the proposed rollback of fuel efficiency and emissions standards for automobiles. Trump and his crony capitalist kakistocrats also seek to remove California's ability to regulate in-state emissions. It's a bundle of badness, guaranteed to boost fossil fuel corporations' profits, lower the cost of automobile manufacturing, and 'own the libs' by poisoning the air and ramping up anthropogenic global warming. Never mind that a chronic heat wave is gripping much of North America, doing something to mitigate climate change cuts into profits.
Adding insult to injury is the maladministration's claim that decreasing fuel efficiency standards will save lives:
The Trump administration says people would drive more and be exposed to increased risk if their cars get better gas mileage, an argument intended to justify freezing Obama-era toughening of fuel standards.
The maladministration also claimed that heavier cars are safer:
New vehicles would be cheaper – and heavier – if they don’t have to meet more stringent fuel requirements and more people would buy them, the draft says, and that would put more drivers in safer, newer vehicles that pollute less.
The equation mass x velocity puts the lie to this assertion.
This lowering of standards benefits only large corporations- fossil fuel companies, auto manufacturers, and the various support industries that prop them up, including mercenaries to fight in petrowars. The average person suffers from the effects of pollution, from extraction, from the conflicts that surround petroleum reserves, both abroad and at home. The very idea that any nation would work to stymie, even reverse, progress on fuel efficiency and environmental standards is monstrous.
It's here where I note that Russia's economy depends heavily on fossil fuels.
Further proof that "common sense" is much too common, & seldom sensible.
ReplyDeleteOh, this one's easy. They really AREN'T that stupid.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is trying to figure out how to message unpopular and downright evil policies. Sometimes there's just nothing you can say to support your policy that isn't prima facie idiotic, because the policy itself is rationally indefensible...