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Richard Stallman's Political Notes

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Systematic lies

vendredi 2 juillet 2021 à 02:00

Fossil fuel companies caused the coming global heating disaster by systematic lies. We should focus on this, and prosecute them.

We can't save ourselves individually from climate disaster. The only way we can save ourselves is together.

To wonder where your descendants would be "most safe" in a world of climate disaster is a foolish distraction. That question will become pertinent only if civilization is failing — which means, if almost everyone is doomed. But that defeat is only a possibility; it has not happened yet. Now is the time when humanity can win, so focus on now!

Billionaires know where their descendants would be "most safe": in private enclaves intended to survive collapse of civilization. We need to show them, in a way that they can't doubt, that we won't let their families abandon the rest of us that way — that their families' fate is linked with civilization's, so they must work for civilization's survival if their own descendants are to have a chance.

Lawsuits and other pressure against planet roasting companies are starting to win in some countries.

Hiding billions

vendredi 2 juillet 2021 à 02:00

Billionaires can use Roth IRAs to hide billions of dollars of income from all taxation ever.

There is no need for Roth IRAs. It would be legitimate to wind them all up.

Military rapes in civilian courts

vendredi 2 juillet 2021 à 02:00

South Korea wants rapes committed against soldiers to be tried in civilian courts, because they are more likely to convict rapists.

Women's suicides after being raped suggest to me that patriarchal (Confucian) values, according to which rape destroys a woman's purity and calls for her (rather than the rapist) to feel shame, still have power in South Korea. If so, the solution should include confronting and rejecting those values.

Heat dome

vendredi 2 juillet 2021 à 02:00

The Pacific Northwest heat dome is being described as "once-in-a-millennium" by people who don't understand that heat that was rare in the past will be frequent in the future.

A few decades from now, the same strength of heat dome will be an every-few-years event, and worse ones will happen occasionally.

Lytton village in British Columbia suffered three days of record-breaking heat; then a wildfire destroyed it.

Making hydrogen

vendredi 2 juillet 2021 à 02:00

Is it wise to make hydrogen by burning fossil fuel and sequestering the CO2?

Any CO2 that is released into greenhouses or used to carbonate water will then go into the atmosphere — its sequestration will be temporary. Anyway, if we already bottle enough CO2 to meet those demands, whatever CO2 is sequestered this way won't get used for that.

So why grasp at that straw to make this project look good? I have a feeling that someone is trying to underestimate the cost of storing all the unwanted CO2 that this process will produce. Perhaps to make this plant look more green than it would really be.

I suggest building more wind and solar generating capacity than the average electric demand can directly use, and using the surplus (when there is a surplus) to make hydrogen. When there is need for more electricity than the wind and solar facilities are producing, burn some hydrogen to make up the shortfall.