www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2024/05/09/fossil-fuel-climate-change-big-oil-and-gas-industry-dana-nessel-michigan-lawsuit-private-law-firms/73624884007/
(State Attorney General) Nessel plans to sue oil and gas companies over Michigan's changing climate
NewsFederal laws prohibit states from banning trash because it is treated as a commodity. Granholm got some reduction, but other efforts have stalled over the years. Rick Synder wanted to raise the fee for trash to fund clean-up sites but was shut down by the legislator at the time
Whitmer wants to raise the same fee, so we have to wait and see if it happens.
I hope so. I used to live on a road a mile from a dump where I watched Waste Management fly by at 50+ mph trashing the road. The dump was mountainous, crowned with hoards of screeching seagulls, and if the wind blew west (luckily rare) the stench was something else. The only positive is that we had free trash pick up. We also had well water so 🤔
Lol, this made me laugh with the well water and the face. Unfortunately, the smelly trash leaking is probably less of a concern than all the plastics and pfas set to break down for eternity. Pure michigan is a nice sentiment, but a bit of an oxymoron.
Edit: I don't mean to sound doom and gloom. I have optimistism that we can find solutions to these problems, but it will take public awareness and pressure to change things.
Does exacerbate our situation with long life elements and with foreign agencies having slowed or stopped taking bulks of it. How big are the VanAndel's backyards? Maybe if we built another hadron collider and successfully synthesize a stable black hole with new science based on quantum physics we could contain a black hole in the VanAndel's backyard and begin migration.
You lost me.
They could revoke the business license of the companies that process it in the state.
There is an idea
That’s just my breakfast, sorry I’m trying to cut back
Speaking of Canadian Trash, Why are we letting them build a mine on the coast of Lake Superior? Get Copperwood the f out
thats something that falls under the Energy of Secretary's job. but then again, she's Canadian and that trash is from her country.
Because we legally can’t due to Federal Law?
It may be legal, but it isn't moral
Just sometimes I'd like to see a law circumvented for good reasons
we swap ever other year in taking their trash and giving our trash to them
ITT: People who didn't bother to read the article and instead starting complaining about vaguely related things.
I applaud her initiative, but I'm too cynical to see this going well.
I know, I suspect the oil companies will try to fill Nessel's campaign coffers with plenty of money, I mean donations. We'll have to see if she goes for it, I know most politicians can't resist the campaign money, so I'm going to pay careful attention. If she's for real, good for her we need more of this since the oil companies don't plan to do a damn thing about it.
You must have a severe mental illness if you’re still denying climate change at this point.
What happened to calling it “global warming”.
Right wingers poisoned the term, but it's also less descriptive. A whole lot of other shit is happening, not just warming.
What other shit? Shit like zero snow this past winter in the UP? Cuz that shit sucked bigtime
More frequent, severe weather. Changes in precipitation patterns leading to draught and crop failures. Mass extinctions caused by changing/dying food sources. Things like that.
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10d
My dad sends me a text every winter after a big snow storm and says "global warming? LOL"
Overall- exactly what was predicted is happening.
It's easy to say that when a million predictions are made and you ignore the ones which are wrong, like humanity being wiped out or the sea levels rising X feet by now. The predictions are just throwing mud against the wall and seeing what sticks.
But we did just finish coming out of a mini ice age about forty years ago. You also have to understand there are more potent green house gasses being released than just CO2. One is about 3,000 times more potent.
Blowing up the nord stream 2 pipeline sure released a ton of greenhouse gases. Wars also emit a ton. Annnd having 800+ military bases around the world also chip in.
climate change was a phrase made up by Frank Lutz the conservative politico. He thought it sounded less scary than global warming, it actually did describe it better though and it was picked up and used. He also came up with "Death Tax" to describe the estate tax but that one hasn't really caught on as much.
They mean two different things
the real reason is what everyone else said but also because its more apt to the whole picture - global warming leads to the ice caps melting and raising the seal level/lowering the temperature into another ice age, essentially it gets hot then cold and we're fucked
Because there’s a lot more effects than just warming.
Climate change is real. But my question is, if this is evolutionary, how can we change it? I get that we can reduce pollution, cut out the awful plastics, and try to do the right thing with our resources... but putting us into brownout and trying to take a state like ours and change it to a "car-less" state is ridiculous. We're too remote and big.
The climate is changing. That's what climate does.
I happen to believe that much of the change is anthropogenic.
However, I am not such a zealot that I refuse to acknowledge that there are many people, climate scientists among them, who do not.
It's never good to dehumanize or minimize those who agree with one. It makes one appear weak in one's convictions.
Last I heard, something like 97% of climate scientists believe humans are causing global warming, so don't equate the two as if it's an even argument or some kind of reasonable disagreement.
I didn't imply. You inferred.
You may not have a severe mental illness, but you definitely lack critical thinking skills if you can't come to grips with the fact that humanity is responsible for the climate changing so drastically right now. And you must have a lot of hubris if you believe that you are correct and 97% of climate scientists are wrong.
When you wrote "you," you actually meant "one," correct? Not me?
Otherwise, I'm thinking you may lack reading comprehension.
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10d
Removed. See rule #10 in the r/Michigan subreddit rules. AGW is real and caused by ... humans. That is not up for debate.
No one denies climate change.
That's not true; plenty of conservative voices are skeptical that climate change is real.
It’s the question of how much change is related to human activities and can it be measured against historical data.
That is also not true. The science is very clear that human activities have greatly accelerated a warming environment due to green-house gases. And they're called green-house gases for that reason. Stop with the lazy misinformation.
What? Trump just repeated once again that climate change is a hoax. He did not specify if it was human caused or not when he made the remark.
Ignore inflammatory remarks for what they are. Change the conversation back to reality.
the cause doesn't particularly matter, in either case we have to determine what we have control over and reduce where we can
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Removed. See rule #2 in the r/Michigan subreddit rules.
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10d
People have been saying this for centuries for various reasons from the Cold war to the plague
Farm land is becoming less valuable because farming has become more efficient. It's not that farmland is being taken away; it's that we just don't need as much of it. Thank Monsanto. Seriously.
Meanwhile, suburbs can actually become more sustainable by way of the native plant movement. I personally think the best arrangement for humanity is dense housing + vast nature preserves, but absent that, suburbs that provide habitat for wildlife can do a lot to mitigate the damage. /r/NativePlantGardening is a fast-growing community dedicated to that effort.
So why have kids while this is going on? Because per capita emissions are dropping and are going to keep dropping, a lot. US emissions peaked in 2005, but our population gained 40,000,000 people. Technology got us into this mess but it's getting us out as we speak.
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No, we did not outsource our emissions to China. Even then, China and India's emissions are rising while they industrialize. The world has negotiated a kind of "carbon budget," where countries are allowed to emit a set amount of CO2 and still keep us from hitting the various temperature milestones. China and India argued successfully that if the West was allowed to industrialize with fossil fuels, they should be allowed to as well. If we had rejected this argument, they would've done so anyway without ever joining the world's clean energy movement. Politics.
Never hurts to be a little more informed!
How about Nestle taking all the ground water? Like something that has a chance.
Must be an election year
Bingo
Seems like a big waste of time.
Nothing but grandstanding.
Yes, very ‘see what i tried to do.’
wish she would sue over our high car insurance and utility bills......
From the article "The oil and gas industry profited while knowingly selling products that cause climate change, Nessel’s office said in a document disclosing the coming lawsuits. The industry also deceived the public about climate change, Nessel alleged, leaving the state with the expenses of adapting to and recovering from the effects of warming." --- to me this is like when governments started going after big tobacco. The biggest thing is it helps prevent the outright lies, and maybe gets the biggest offenders to have to kick in for cleaning some stuff up. People feel it's just performative but judging from the amount of people who don't associate the advanced climate change to human involvement, obviously the campaigns against that science are effective.
That’s a great use of my tax dollars AG….:
No oil/gas means electric cars only, yeah? How can I charge my electric car if DTE can't even keep my food from spoiling when the wind blows?
I mean, with v2h support your car could help keep that fridge running.
It could, if I had a home. Apartments probably wouldn't let me do that. I'd have to buy a house, then a car, then install hookups. At the end of it all, I'm looking at what? 400k on the low end if I have to get an electric car. It's just not feasible for everyone in the state at this point.
If your not charging at home, DTE's capabilities are even less of a concern, just drive to a different charger that's working. These, admittedly unforgivable, outages are not state wide & rarely wide spread enough you'd have a hard time finding a charger.
I'm not following your argument, unless your argument is just "I no like EVs".
You're right about the fact that I don't like EVs. My reason for that though is simply that I prefer older, base model cars. I like to do my own repairs and I don't care for the bells and whistles. We have a pair of ten year old base model Fords with crank windows, AM/FM radio and a tape deck, and the repairs are easy and cheap. It's what I prefer.
And that's fine, if that's what you prefer.
We're still in the 'early adopter' phase of the EV market, but that inflection point of 'maturity' is coming up fast. The major drawback right now is battery tech, but that is advancing rapidly. I think you'll be shocked at how soon it will be that your 'base model ICE' vehicle will be a less desirable solution.
Teslas are shit, because you can't repair them. The computers are WAY too locked down & their cost cutting manufacturing makes the bodies, etc a complete write off w/minor accidents. However, EV drivetrains are far simpler than ICE cars. The key is buying ones that allow you to repair them, and that will only happen after we reach market maturity. For me, personally, I find the idea of working on an EV FAR LESS daunting than an ICE car, given it's mostly software.
Wait until you hear about gas stations.
Moving up to the UP for school in the fall. There are 14 public charging stations in the entire peninsula. Only one of those has a DC charger. There's also only a handful of 4x4 electric vehicles on the market, many of those are "luxury" vehicles. Not something a college student would be able to afford. The only way to go fully electric in this state is to create a robust public transportation system for people who can't afford more than a 15 year old beater car and rented housing, and hold the utility providers accountable for proper grid maintenance.
I'm not saying you should go out and buy an electric car right this minute. I also still have a gas car because I just don't drive enough to justify a purchase of a new vehicle. What I took issue with, though, was the suggestion that it costs $400,000 to have an electric car. It doesn't. It costs the price of the car and proximity to charging stations.
Not everyone can get one yet and that's fine. It's a transition that'll take some time.
It's unfortunately a transition I don't see working. The state government doesn't seem particularly invested in expanding public transportation, which would solve many more issues that just "poor people can't afford to go electric". In my case, it's personal, where I'm going I won't have access and most Yoopers dislike change. For low income folks, students, and rural folks, it's a disadvantage. To do this, there would need to be a safety net for people who aren't ready.
I think you're imagining a much more forceful transition than is in the works right now. Right now, production is scaling up, incentives are everywhere to get people to buy the cars, and the customer base for charging stations is fast-growing. That reaction will be self-sustaining. As it gets easier to find charging stations, more people will buy EVs, and as more people buy EVs, charging stations become more profitable, leading to more charging stations, and so on.
As that cycle happens, fewer and fewer people will use gas stations. They will become less profitable, and there will be fewer of them. That will make owning a gas car more inconvenient, as people will have fewer options for filling their tanks. That will make EVs more appealing, which will decrease the number of gas cars further, which will put further downward pressure on gas stations, and so on.
The reason why this cycle is all-but guaranteed is simple: EVs are better products than gas cars. They're easier to maintain, they're cleaner, and they're cheaper to run. There are cultural hooks that will hold people to gas cars, but holding onto things because of culture and personal appeal instead of economic appeal is and always will be the realm of the wealthy few.
As for what low-income folks will do in the interim, well, wait until you find out how cheap used EVs are. With better charging infrastructure in place -- we must get to the point where charging is just a 5 minute stop at a station -- the economical choice will be to buy an EV, and that's that.
As for what low-income folks will do in the interim, well, wait until you find out how cheap used EVs are.
$18,000 was the lowest I found. Meanwhile, I can buy a used ICE truck for about $2k
A friend of mine bought a used Volt for $8,000. The range is not good, only enough to use to get around for local errands, but I consider that pretty cheap for what is still a relatively new car.
To address the price tag, I'm saying for me personally, I'd have to purchase a home, a car, and a home charger because of where I'll be living. I estimated that figure, but homes in the area I'm moving to are around 300-325k. Not doable for me in <5 years.
I responded to your other comment, but just to add here: Nobody expects you to buy an EV tomorrow, so you may absolve yourself of whatever guilt you're feeling. Not everyone can buy one right now which is a problem that isn't for you to solve.
lmao insane reply
how so?
The solution to "our power grid is unreliable" is not "but an EV to power your home", come on. We should definitely be getting off of fossil fuels and moving to more sustainable options, but electric cars are not a silver bullet - they're barely even a net positive so long as things like lithium mining are terrible for the environment and power is coming from coal and gas.
And I say this as an EV owner. It's better for sure but "just power your house with your car" is such a silly response to me.
The solution to "our power grid is unreliable" is not "but an EV to power your home", come on.
I never even indicated it was a solution.
I said that an EV with V2H capability can keep your fridge running.
A generator is not a solution to the grid problems either, but it sure as shit makes them less impactful.
electric cars are not a silver bullet
Agree to disagree, we're in the infancy of electric cars. Solidly in "early adopter" phase of the market cycle. The battery technology is advancing at a lighting pace, and a great deal of the complaints people have about EVs are related to the current battery tech. Semi solid state battery technology is finally reaching production & we have numerous, reliable, companies declaring full solid state tech closing in on production ready. Within a decade most of the issues with EVs that people complain about today, will be a thing of the past.
"just power your house with your car" is such a silly response to me.
How is it any different then, buying a generator is helpful given the shitty state of DTE?
Solid state batteries and solutions for EVs have been "within a decade" for like twenty years now, I'm not holding my breath. Optimistic take, but I don't think it's realistic.
Buying a generator also isn't the solution, the solution is getting the power grid to be more reliable. Fix the actual problem, don't just address the symptoms. I live in a neighborhood with buried lines operated by Consumers and I can count the number of hours I've lost power with both hands and fingers leftover. It's possible, it's just not prioritized.
I don't trust people like Toyota saying that.
CATL on the other hand, I believe.
https://cnevpost.com/2024/04/29/catl-to-produce-solid-state-batteries-2027/
It seems we're getting far closer to learning how to mass produce them. mass production is the issue, not really the technology itself, as there are some very tight tolerances in making the layers of that cake.
Yeah, I agree with that, but mass production is ALWAYS the barrier for adoption. If they can make batteries that are more comparable to the energy density of gasoline but they cost ten times as much as the current batteries, that's a non starter. And even if they figure out mass production, they'll still need to roll it out, which also takes time.
I want to stress that I love this stuff, I think this technology would be awesome and completely change modern life if it can be figured out, but in the mean time, we should be working on improving the stuff we already have.
almost like car-centricity shouldn't be a thing.
It 100% shouldn't. The lack of public transportation here is disturbing.
I agree, it is also a bit rich coming from the AG of a state that has poor public transportation and was largely built to be hostile toward pedestrians/bikers in favor for personal vehicles.
what, do you travel 500 miles a day or something?
70 if I don't have class. 130 if I do.
Yes, this right here. Not to mention what batteries do and how they're produced, and disposed of.
That’s exactly the plan
I'm going to need public utilities 👌
the plan is to stop people from driving?
Go get 'em
“I need to look productive without being productive”
Sooo is this how she plans on allowing them to raise rates again? Seems like a bit of a distraction from them asking a couple months ago to raise rates a second time this year.
You must have a severe mental issue if you think this is anything but a money grab that will do nothing to help the problem but make a lot of lawyers rich.
I’m sure this will go into the W column for Nessel, right next to getting justice for the people of Flint.
She doesn’t know if there is a bigger issue facing the state of Michigan other than climate change? Is she blind? Has she seen our car insurance rates? Has she seen gas prices? Has she been grocery shopping? Has she paid attention to the rising housing costs? There’s 13% of our states population that live below the poverty line. That’s higher than the national average. Almost a third of our states residents pay 30% of their income to housing costs. You want to sue someone? Sue the insurance companies. Just another talking head that doesn’t live in the real world.
Waste of time…what a dodo brain
moving out of michigan is no longer an option. Every state is becoming like this
She better not be wasting resources for such a political stunt
Typical politician. A tornado hits, it makes the news and she uses it to her short-term advantage (Climate Change! Oil companies fault! Government is the only possible solution!).
Doesn't she have any real crimes to prosecute?
Sure but why bother doing your job when term limits mean you don't need to worry about facing voters?
Great, let's sue Big oil so they pass along those defense expenses and if Big oil loses once more having prices jacked up. They're not going to eat the losses the taxpayers are. Democrats are really stupid about money. Besides, what is she going to show as damages to Michigan. You know for an educated person she really isn't that smart.
I love the part where the article goves evidence for anything being claimed against oil and gas companies. This is bullshit. You really care about Michigans ecosystem? Who is being sued for the ridiculous amount of PFAs and PFOs in our waterways? Who's being sued for our completely irresponsible handling of landfills? What about all of herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, etc. being used that inevitably wind up in our rivers and lakes? Hell, can't even eat the fish you catch anymore. Fuck our poltiicians.
You go Dana!
She's an idiot 🙄
Wow make sure you vote or you end up with her
All bark, no bite.
People do realize that Michigan doesn't have the infrastructure, tech, people to go green right? Right?
I mean by all means turn off the ability to keep the State going and keep people warm. Why not just Thanos snap and call it a day?
And autos right? right???
Charge trump instead, do the oil and gas companies next year.
Let’s just ban gas and oil. We don’t need them in our state!
I think you lost this; /s
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Freezing temperatures? You mean that thing that happened like twice this past winter?
Yeah, read their comment histories. Not worth your time or energy. I don't get the vibe they're big on science or facts.
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Are you suggesting that children mine materials to create electric car batteries?! Which is of course true - so perhaps your issue is with capitalism and not green-facing energy alternatives.
wait till he hears about chocolate.
Or there is a Chinese company pumping millions of lobbying dollars into Lansing to build a battery factory, with a plan to import 2000 Chinese nationals to operate it. It’s not a far fetched gotion.
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Removed. See rule #10 in the r/Michigan subreddit rules. Norway has become almost entirely EV based. EV's work fine in cold, article link doesnt disprove- just talks about the range reduction that is already common knowledge.
That's great but how about we quit taking Canadian trash? (Methane, contaminated soil, and million year plastics-yum!)