America Is Backsliding Toward Its Most Polluted Era

As an outdoorsman, fisher, and hunter, I view the other party as at war my hobbies.

California banned the diesel engines being used by the fishing boat I went out on. Without 300k to retrofit, the charter went out of business and everyone lost their jobs.

Would you rather there be no outdoors for your grandchildren to hunt in? The “other party” isn’t at war with hunting, they just want a planet that’s livable for future generations.

> I view the other party as at war my hobbies.

And they think you put your hobby above other people's lungs. shrugs

I'm sorry about the charter going out of business. A better bill would've made provisions to help businesses with upgrade costs.

Think of everyone's point of view. Not just "my hobby" and "they're doing stuff to me". If you don't care about others they won't care about you. That's what society is.

They don't care - you can see it clearly in the person you're responding to that they're just thinking about their own personal wants. It's pure selfishness.

>Would you rather there be no outdoors for your grandchildren to hunt in?

Of course not. Thats the kind of lack of nuance that I object to.

I support high reward changes that protect or revitalize the environment. Banning several diesel boats instead of phasing them out at the end life/next upgrade isn't going to save the planet. It just makes the outdoors and environment inaccessible.

There are so many thoughtless and net negative policies.

Yeah, I guess that is the problem.

I do care about other people, I just dont think that some exhaust discharged into the water from a fishing boat on the ocean is really harming people's lungs.

My understanding is the issue was NOx emissions as they relate to climate, but I think there is a lot more meaningful and low hanging fruit than banning a few dozen vessels.

> If you don't care about others they won't care about you. That's what society is.

Society is others not caring about you, no matter what you do. Society doesn't tailor its treatment to individuals based on their thoughts or actions. They are invisible.

We don't have time to wait for a bunch of diesel engines to die of old age - as you know, they're quite long lived. And how long do you think is reasonable for diesel to be "phased out"? DEF became mandatory in the mid-2000s. It's been long enough.

At some point you have to draw a line and say, we're not going to allow something that spits out this much pollution just to make catching fish as cheap as it used to be.

You view them as negative because you're only thinking about how it affects you.

There are clear benefits to banning diesel engines in freshwater. That's why so many places are doing it. Lots of people support these measures because it's a very clear benefit.

If a business can't afford to operate without being subsidized by the environment, they shouldn't be allowed to operate. When you use those diesel engines, you're taking out a loan using the environment. That loan needs to be repaid, and it gets repaid in the from of destruction rebuild costs. So when you complain about how "it would cost blah blah to do this safely", what you're really saying is "I want to destroy the environment for some cheap fun" which is deeply, deeply selfish. When you hear the total cost of disasters, think about it in the form of debt being repaid. That $1 billion because of so and so fire, that's the environment coming to collect the debt we racked up because we wanted cheap stuff and recreation.

Remember, your freedom ends where mine begins.

> some exhaust discharged into the water from a fishing boat on the ocean

The concern is more about particulate pollution when the boats are in dock.

> I think there is a lot more meaningful and low hanging fruit than banning a few dozen vessels

Quite possibly. I don't know the issue as well as you.

> Society is others not caring about you, no matter what you do

Not sure where you got that idea...

> Society doesn't tailor its treatment to individuals based on their thoughts or actions

What on earth are you talking about?

I get that idea because society does not care about extremely localized costs if there is a diffuse benefit, or even a good feeling. You said society is being kind to others and it will be kind to you.

My impression is the exact opposite. Society doesn't care if you're the best person in the world if you're in the way of something it wants.

It is happy to put a freeway through your house to save a few bucks or minutes, even if it ruins your life.

Regulation is an even more attractive way to do this because society doesn't have to pay some low ball eminent domain.

Nobody cares if someone has spent their life building a fishing business and 300K loan on boat, the social consensus is haha, sucks to suck loser.

Ah kk I see what you're saying. Western society at least is based on norms like the golden rule, which I was driving at.

I guess there's a ton of overlap between "society" as an abstract idea and "the state" when it comes to regulations.

Opposing environmental regulations by saying "this is bad for my hobby" won't gain much sympathy, golden-rule-wise.

> Nobody cares if someone has spent their life building a fishing business and 300K loan on boat, the social consensus is haha, sucks to suck loser.

Hard to say what happened in this case. But usually business interests tend to win out over environmental concerns.

I'm talking about salt water diesel engine regulations that had essentially no lead in.

The benefits may be clear, but that still side steps the question of to whom the cost and benefits accrue.

>Remember, your freedom ends where mine begins.

Yes, and this boundary is perpetually in dispute. The question is always who draws the line and how change is managed.

And I'm saying the golden rule is certainly not applied in social politics. 90% of people are happy to ban pollution from a small groups, while exempting themselves and all their own hobbies. The smaller the group, the more punitive the majority is willing to be. Fishermen might not get much sympathy, but prohibition on dog ownership or international vacations is unthinkable.

In my experience, small businesses, farmers, and sole proprietors almost never win out over environmental concerns. Big business gets a pass.

I think hunters and outdoorspeople are often positioned to see the hypocrisy of all this. They see a few tiny fishing boats being banned from California harbors, while massive container ships chug through the bay endlessly full of single use garbage.

They see fishing restrictions while entire municipalities discharge wastewater into the rivers and factory ships dragnet the ocean to sell at Safeway.

All fair points. Cheers.

Why are people moving away from places like California with heavy environmental regulations? It seems like those states aren't livable for the current generations https://www.resiclubanalytics.com/p/net-domestic-migration-w... These 5 states saw the biggest net domestic migration INCREASE between July 2023 and July 2024:

Texas —> +85,267

North Carolina —> +82,288

South Carolina —> +68,043

Florida —> +64,017

Tennessee —> +48,476

These 5 states saw the biggest net domestic migration DECREASE between July 2023 and July 2024:

California —> -239,575

New York —> -120,917

Illinois —> -56,235

New Jersey —> -35,554

Massachusetts —> -27,480