Solar panels are a classic “it takes money to make money” example. Pretty expensive up front. I feel like that’s the main reason.

Honestly I wouldn’t sweat it. It’s more something that seems gross than is actually going to make you sick. Pretty much ANY high traffic surface in public is gonna have way more pathogens on it than something in your house. And breathing the same air as your roommate is more likely to get you sick than touching something that they’ve touched. Still kinda gross though.

Yep, I’ve always thought that. It’s actually very sneaky of health officials, they are exploiting people’s perception of how filthy going to the bathroom is to get them to wash their hands more. Ends justify the means I guess…

Those would be harder too though. Right now we humans don’t have a material strong enough and the higher the gravity the stronger the material you would need.

Should have just used bleach if they don’t care about it actually being a viable treatment. Or, for that matter, we’ve already invented spermicidal foam…

He is also not eliminating research, a lot of research projects are closing but this seems to be more of a re-org.

Some jobs will change and some employees will be asked to move to new locations, according to a March 31 email that Thomas M. Schultz, Jr., the Forest Service chief, sent to employees of the research and development section.

“The consolidation of research stations does not mean a retreat from the agency’s research mission,” Mr. Schultz said in the email. “Forest Service R&D has produced world-class science for over a century, and that will continue. The consolidation is about organizing the research enterprise more efficiently, not diminishing it.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/climate/forest-service-research-stations.html

Yeah this is more of a re-org than an elimination. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/climate/forest-service-research-stations.html

Still seems like it might cause problems but it’s not the catastrophic change some people are making it out to be. And the Forest Service isn’t just a bunch of tree-hugging conservationists their mission is basically the sustainable exploitation of US forests. So for that reason they are very important to industry.

Yeah it is highly exaggerated.

The regional offices are being replaced with 15 state-based offices.

Same with the research program.

“The consolidation of research stations does not mean a retreat from the agency’s research mission,” Mr. Schultz said in the email. “Forest Service R&D has produced world-class science for over a century, and that will continue. The consolidation is about organizing the research enterprise more efficiently, not diminishing it.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/climate/forest-service-research-stations.html

Yeah that’s pretty misleading. The regional offices are being replaced with 15 state-based offices.

Same with the research program.

“The consolidation of research stations does not mean a retreat from the agency’s research mission,” Mr. Schultz said in the email. “Forest Service R&D has produced world-class science for over a century, and that will continue. The consolidation is about organizing the research enterprise more efficiently, not diminishing it.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/climate/forest-service-research-stations.html

Nothing wrong with that ofc, but are you sure you are straight? Sounds like bi or pan to me idk.

Yeah Lemmy has fewer layers of irony than Reddit does. I feel like reddit was more like that in the old days, but years of mockery buried that energy.

Yeah the honest answer is there is no single “American education system”. Primary education is splintered into thousands of different counties, each with their own curriculum and funding, with varying degrees of state and national oversight. Some are good, some are terrible. My public school education was pretty solid overall, despite the clear shortage of funding.

On the other hand, despite rising costs, the US university system is still world-class.

Spez is that really you

I mean, screw their economic calculus, if people stop flying they will go out of business. If people fly less, there will be fewer (and smaller) planes in the air. It’s not that complicated. I get that in practice most people can’t stop flying entirely but I’m exasperated by the leftist view that consumers are powerless because the global elites are using mind control to force us to fly to the Bahamas on holiday.

There is no “floor” to air travel, the same way there was no “floor” to passenger rail travel. Some of the most powerful and influential men in America fought tooth and nail to protect the railroad industry, but market forces (and, yes, to a lesser extent government policy, but mainly just people buying cars) eventually led to the near-collapse of the industry. Corporations can resist change but that doesn’t mean they are always successful.

That’s a bit of a gimmick related to airlines betting (correctly) that flight demand would rebound after covid ended and wanting to keep their spot in line. If there was a true societal shift and people flew less, airlines wouldn’t keep flying empty planes around for the fun of it. Also, there WERE a lot fewer flights during covid, ghost planes notwithstanding. The narrative of “we are powerless to stop climate change because corporations are evil” is lazy. Corporations aren’t evil they are just amoral-they answer to market demand, whatever that is.

Ohhh that’s your profile pic, I was really confused how you got verified haha