• MonkderDritte@feddit.de
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    5 months ago

    So there are politicans who really believe that climate change is a conspiracy? Or they just don’t care for the future?

        • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Are we? Diesel-ev hybrid is fairly effective and proven. Making a pure ev would just mean taking the diesel out, adding more batteries and installing electrical rail or over head trolley cables to charge them. Trains run on a schedule, so logistic planning should be straight forward.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Are we?

            Recently, yes. California’s spent 16 years not building rail. The Gulf Coast states have been tearing their rail out and replacing it with highways for over a decade. The Upper Midwest has just kinda given up on doing anything useful, and just watched its transit infrastructure collapse.

            • eskimofry@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              The problem is that highway advocates don’t solve the problem of “who’s going to pay for all this?”. The reason infrastructure in America is in disrepair is that funding for highways is supposed to be gotten from tolls and road taxes. But since everywhere in America is a freeway… there’s no funding for repairs.

              Expecting the Government budget to cover maintenance of infrastructure is wishful thinking… unless you’re also willing to agree that the military is allocated too much money.

              • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                funding for highways is supposed to be gotten from tolls and road taxes.

                Regressive taxation leads to overfunded main roads and underfunded side streets.

                Expecting the Government budget to cover maintenance of infrastructure is wishful thinking

                Roads are fundamental to the operation of any government. It isn’t simply that states need to maintain roads. It is that states need roads in order to exist.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        There’s an enormous amount of money in renewable energy and battery manufacturing. That’s why Texas leads the nation in wind farm power and Atlanta, Georgia is getting a $4.3B investment at its Hyundai electric vehicle plant.

        But there’s also a ton of legacy infrastructure that generates enormous revenue streams. If you’ve just invested billions into our rapidly expanding oil pipeline network

        You’re not going to want us to give up on mineral extraction across the American northwest or central plains.

        This is a real clash of industries.