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Cake day: July 24th, 2023

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  • I can’t speak for everywhere, but the UK has recently banned the approval of any more North Sea oil drilling, approved several zero carbon energy projects, and is changing planning permission so that people won’t be able to block onshore wind and energy infrastructure projects. They’re also doing an ICE car ban 5 years earlier than the EU (2030).

    Then there’s a bunch of new standards for new homes built (e.g. gas boilers not allowed anymore), grants for improving home energy efficiency, and a few other policies like that.

    The UK has done a pretty great job so far of decarbonising. Despite having more technology and a population 17% higher, the UK uses less energy now than in 2002. So the UK has been willingly using less energy for years now already. Additionally, the grid has went from being mostly coal and gas to 72% emission-free, with coal being completely eradicated.

    There will still be difficulty, though. Most homes in the UK use gas central heating, and since the UK has the oldest housing stock on planet earth by a considerable margin, most houses aren’t suited for air or ground source heat pumps. I truly don’t know what the answer is for that in regards to net zero.





  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.worldtoLord of the memes@midwest.socialBecause "reasons"
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    1 day ago

    I feel the best advice is to simply watch it and try not to let online opinions sway you until after you’ve watched it.

    I was dreading it, because I saw a lot of online voices saying it’s genuinely the worst thing that has ever been on television. Surprisingly to me, I mostly enjoyed it, although I found season 2 to be stronger than season 1.

    A few parts I didn’t like, a couple of parts I mentally even groaned and thought “…why did they do that?”, and some other parts I found great.

    Controversial, but overall I’ve liked it more than parts 2 and 3 of The Hobbit without a doubt.




  • I think a lot of Labour’s plans are good plans that will easily pay off in the medium-to-long-term, but I fear that won’t be enough if they want to make a good impression before the next GE.

    In the short term, people will be hear them say they’re lowering bills, but in real life they’ll still see energy bills rising, water bills rising, council tax rising.

    Of course it’s not Labour’s fault we’re in this mess, but the media and the right are doing a damn good job in convincing everyone that it is.

    It’s good that we finally have a government that’s thinking beyond the next quarter or two, beyond their incumbent term even, but Labour need a few irrefutable things they can point to that will be significantly better by 2028/2029, that we can observe improving in real time.


  • Yeah. I get it when the Galaxy class was designed, and at the start of the Enterprise-D’s mission, after all, the Federation had been enjoying an unprecedented era of peace. Aside from the occasional border skirmish, like the Federation-Cardassian Union war (which ships like the Enterprise wouldn’t have been deployed to anyway), there was very little to fear.

    After things start kicking off with the Romulans, Ferengi, Borg, and Federation-Klingon relations becoming complicated, it’s surprising they continued to allow it. Picard himself said he had begun to seriously consider whether that was a sound decision. Which to me screamed of classic British understatement for “what the fuck are Starfleet doing continuing to allow this?!”

    That said, later ship designs seem to move away from housing civilians, so it seems they got the message. It’s just surprising that after a year or two into the D’s service, with all of these threats, they didn’t order civilians to move off the ship.



  • Our minimum wage is indeed fairly high, and the taxes that low earners pay is very low, but we do have problems. Wage compression in this country isn’t particularly good. Most people are either minimum wage or close to it.

    Even a lot of highly skilled jobs aren’t highly paid, it’s a problem for the economy, for tax revenue, and for encouraging workers to go for better jobs/strive for progression. I don’t know what the government can do about it, but the answer certainly isn’t to pin it on young people and imply they’re lazy.

    But one thing the government can definitely impact is what you mention at the end of your comment: government policy can certainly help bring down the big costs like property costs (both for people and businesses), energy, water, council tax.