SUVs, commercial airlines, and industrial beef? I wouldn’t lump those in as industries that only exist to grow capital, because they are producing useful products and services for consumers beyond the super rich. I get the feeling that these were included solely for environmental reasons.
Not defending the environmental impact of SUVs and beef here, but commercial airlines can be better for the environment than cars. On average, it seems an airline emits about a quarter of a pound of CO2 per passenger per mile, which is about a third of what a passenger vehicle gives off (not per person, but not everyone vacations in groups.) Plus, they’re conveniently fast.
I’m confused… Aren’t there EV SUVs now? Why is he calling out SUV and not, say, pickup trucks? Even so, why say any specific car type vs. just saying ICE vehicles?
SUV
calling out SUV’s specifically for multiple reasons - ICE SUV’s are the worst, having the low fuel efficiency of work trucks, while being less safe than trucks or cars for passengers or pedestrians. EV SUV’s are just taking the same problems - truck frames, lots of weight, poor visibility - and adding an EV powertrain to ameliorate the fuel inefficiency. But since they have to haul around all the extra SUV weight, they’re at best a poor compromise instead of a large improvement.
I could be wrong, but I think there are other possible reasons SUVs were mentioned. I think having more walkable cities would part of (or at least adjacent to) the degrowth movement. As such, SUVs are kinda the poster child for the vehicle size arms race which makes roads less safe for pedestrians and cyclists.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see pickup trucks on that list too, however they do have a somewhat more plausible use case.
Do it without feudalism though.
thing with cruise ships is they basically can duck out taxes. Its like when casinos had to be boats and then you had them built on artificial lakes and they would go no where but detach from the dock for a period to meet the legal requirement. You could have docked cruise ships acting as all service condos if they would just let them have the same rules. Or better yet have special residential districts that just allow apartments like that to be built.
They need diesel to run. Tax the diesel. Right now fossil fuels get subsidies. Just change that.
thats the thing. since they operate mostly in international waters it gives them some sort of tax advantage and they supply from the lowest cost area and such.
Sure. But they still have to dock. If you tax it in half the countries, they will still have to pay half the time.
and they burn the worst fuel, and often burn fuel while docked when they could be hooked up to shore power.
then they take boatloads of tourists to areas that are ecologically critical - the arctic and antarctic - while their boats burn bunker oil and spew their accumulated feces into the ocean. it’s supposed to be treated but… that’s just business.