1,987 karma · joined September 18, 2009
I'm a total newbie and figured it out, but didn't find it "effortless". Lots of instructions to follow.
1. They're way ahead of everyone else in terms of energy efficiency. Compare a Model S or X to the Jaguar iPace or Audi e-tron - the Tesla gets 30-50% more range out of the same size battery. That's a big gap.
2. Super chargers - other manufacturers have to rely on really spotty networks of third-party charging stations that are unreliable, and add friction for their customers (have to have the right card and the right connector, etc.). Teslas super chargers are in all the right places, are stupid easy to use, and always work.
3. Tesla actually wants to sell EVs. The other manufacturers are hamstrung with their legacy product groups. They're just dipping their toes in the water trying to figure out how to make the transition without 'Osborning' themselves, or doing the minimum to satisfy California regulations. Tesla is all-in and innovating at a much faster pace.
I'd hypothesize that there isn't a big increase in cancer rates for pastors of Baptist churches. We've all had cell phones connected to our bodies for decades now with the main side effect apparently sore thumbs and disrupted sleep patterns. If there were a correlation, I'd expect we'd see it by now.
Now I have a tesla which can just run the AC at will, which is even better :)
There are a lot of homeless people here for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is that the 'progressives' you call out aren't making homelessness illegal. They aren't making laws against pan handling, and sleeping on sidewalks. They're not trying to bus these people away to other cities.
Oakland and other cities are doing their best to own the homeless problem and provide support to these people where they are. They've built 'tuff-shed' communities, set up sites with showers and services, recently opened a space dedicated to people living in RVs...
Are they perfect? Do they solve the problem? No. But the city of Oakland is trying to solve a problem that should not be reasonably expected to be solved by a city. This problem is bigger than Oakland - and I think the city should get credit for making the investments they do to try and help.
If every other city was doing the same thing, homelessness would probably not be the big problem it is.
Maintenance was deferred here for way too long, and now it's going to take a long time and a lot of money to get caught up.
But I think part of why you were accused of short term thinking here is that if we don't spend the carbon to build things like solar panels now, we'll never move off a carbon economy. We have to accept that manufacturing of anything isn't entirely green right now, but the solar panels we make now will enable the next solar panels to be built with less carbon, which will enable the next batch to be built with less carbon, etc.
Carbon will power the innovations that get us off carbon - no way around that. But we still have to do it so we can get to that end state where entire supply chains are electrified with renewable energy.
I've personally made the following investments to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide I'm directly emitting -- and these are the sorts of things we'll need millions of people to do in the coming years:
* 6kw of solar panels (no A/C): $22,000 * Powerwall batteries to power house when not sunny: $18,000 * Whole house insulation as part of remodel: $15,000 * Conversion of all kitchen appliances from gas to electric: $5000 * Replace gas water heater with electric heat pump: $3-4000 * Electric car: $30k+ (mine was $50+)
The remaining gas-powered appliance in the house in our furnace, which I'll get to replacing in the next few years (est $15k) - at which point we'll probably also have a second electric car, and need to increase our solar production as well to keep up.
How many people can afford the above list for their homes? In 10 years if the above items cost half what they do now, how many can afford it then? How many landlords are going to make these investments for rental properties?
The transition we face is potentially economically stimulating (there's a lot of stuff to replace!), but also has really high up-front costs (and sunk costs) that will have to be managed. This goes both for national infrastructure all the way down to people's homes.
And that's just cars - not including semi-trucks, farm equipment, buses, trains, shipping, etc.
Best case we need a decade to start manufacturing those things at scale and two decades to manufacture them at a pace that can start replacing all the existing vehicles. That's a long time for anyone stuck paying for gas.
And it's a similar situation for the Electricity sector, Cement and construction, and dozens of other industries that emit carbon. It's a really complicated transition - far more than switching media formats.
My fear is that we take a big sledgehammer to the fossil fuel industry and infrastructure, and in so doing also take a big sledgehammer to our entire economy. So big in fact that we face a generational backlash against de-carbonizing.
It takes time to make big shifts like this. People can't switch from fossil-dependent careers to renewable-dependent careers in a week, or even a year. We have to ramp up the renewable infrastructure at the same pace we wind down the legacy infrastructure, and in a way that doesn't bankrupt entire towns and even states.
Maybe it's not possible to tackle this without great pain to a lot of people. Maybe if we had a 'Pearl Harbor' type event that galvanized a super majority of americans into action and sacrifice...
I'm pessimistic that we'll have that moment, that we'll change that many minds, or that we'll have the fortitude and resolve to do what must be done.
But I'm glad Inslee is doing what he's doing, and working through the policies we'd need to get there, not just talking about doing "something".
There are two ways of doing this in Oakland, and presumably most places - the Legal proper way, and the not-legal way. Most seem to be the latter.
But we wanted to do things right. Oakland has a housing shortage and we have more square feet than we need, and we were renovating the house anyway. And according to the city, they're trying to encourage ADU's to help with that housing shortage, so we went that way.
But that means we're subject to a whole new set of zoning and construction regulations. Originally I wanted to keep a (locking) interior door between the main house and the ADU so we had the flexibility of having it as a guest room or literal mother-in-law suite if we weren't renting it. Zoning shot that down - ADU is required to be completely separate space.
Oh and that 'separate space' is quite literal. Separate HVAC, separate electrical, separate sewer plumbing to the lateral with separate cleanout, and 1-hour fire rated separation on shared walls and ceilings.
Some of that makes sense and I'd want to do anyway, but it means a simple 400sq. ft. 1 bedroom ADU in an existing building is about a $100k buildout.
The previous owner rented the downstairs space as it was - not legal, no real separation from the main house, shared everything. That was pretty much free for her.
I wonder if there's a middle ground somewhere. A 'legal' way to dense up our housing but without the great expense of rebuilding it from the inside out first. This seems like something that we'll be seeing a lot more of in the future, but I can't imagine most people will want to spend what I'm spending to do it 'legally'.
I tried Mr. Number and a couple other free options which didn't seem to block much. I paid $30/yr for RoboKiller and unwanted calls have been reduced substantially - to maybe 1 per week slipping through. It's not just doing caller ID analysis, you actually forward your calls to them and they screen them before they even get to your phone. Seems to work well.
How many online services have that many MAUs outside Facebook and Google? Even Twitter doesn't have that many in the US [1]. Seems laser targeted at Facebook, but the abuses come from many many more companies.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/274564/monthly-active-tw...
A scary game: when in stop and go traffic, have a look at the person behind you. Are their eyes on the road, or their lap? In my experience, 7 out of 10 are looking at their lap, with a quick glance up every 5 seconds or so.
I spend plenty of time on my phone, but geez, have some phone free moments every now and then.