Trees are naturally efficient at sucking down vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the air, but they release the carbon again when they die and rot on the ground. Sequestering trees underground could prevent this. If biomass burial works as well as hoped, it may provide a relatively cheap and easy way to pull down some share of the billions of tons of greenhouse gas that studies find may need to be removed to keep global temperatures in check in the coming decades.
This is a truly great idea. Putting great gobs of biomass and safely sequestering it underground is revolutionary. We'll need to put it deep enough that it won't decompose and we'll also meed to find a way to pressurize it to maximize the volume and prevent moisture intrusion. We probably want to put it near desserts where the naturally arid conditions will hasten the process of compaction. Perhaps we can get the Arab Countries on board?
For individuals though, it pretty much means you're supposed to take them down the street to a "donation" dumpster rather than toss them in the trash. Almost certainly, no one is going to come to your house and arrest you/fine you because they found an old t-shirt in your trash but they maybe could.
> Textiles means clothing, footwear, bedding, towels, curtains, fabric, and similar products, except for textiles that are contaminated with mold, bodily fluids, insects, oil, or hazardous substances.
Apparently it's also legal to jizz on your used clothing and then toss them in the garbage. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't make the rules!
Well that's the story. Already the value of secondhand clothes in Africa has gone way down as people have access to the internet and can see they are not the latest fashion.
Clothes that won't be worn should be recycled in the country of origin, not sent to Africa to be dumped in landfill.
> If used clothing is the problem, why not prohibit it altogether? The answer is that countries tried. In 2016, a group of East African countries joined forces to ban imports of secondhand clothing. In retaliation, the Trump administration threatened to remove the countries from the program that is at the core of U.S.-Africa trade policy if they followed through. No surprise that a lobby group representing used clothing sorters backed the move. The only country that stood firm was Rwanda and, to this day, its duty-free apparel benefits under AGOA remain suspended.
I don’t have a subscription either yet I managed to read it directly via the posted link. Please do so as well before asking more questions, unless of course, you’re just grinding an axe and the details would get in the way.
> So someone is sending free textile shipments to Africa?
Trash clothes are bundled with good clothes because proper disposal would be more costly.
> How is the demand "artificial", is someone masquerading as buyers?
There are no ultimate buyers for the trash clothes. They are imported only because they are bundled into good clothes. The importer has no export-side employee vetting the shipment. And the importer has no homeland authority with the power to ensure that the importer doesn’t eventually offload the disposal costs onto the environment and future generations. The exporter knows this and happily takes advantage (along with a little help from government power and threats to revoke “free-market” incentives, ironically).
> So is it about environmental issues, is it about protectionism, both?
It’s about protectionism and environmentalism as a reaction to the use of power in service of greed to offload home-grown externalities onto desperate third-world countries. Or, if you choose not to read the article, it’s just about environmentalism and protectionism and their evil anti-market ways. Your choice.
I'm asking because even after reading the piece[0] it's not clear.
There's no data on how "often" the clothes are soiled garbage, how does this whole value chain work, who is paying for what, and so on. But of course there's a call for AI investment to sort the threads/fibers. WTF.
Nominally the text beings by talking about this trade agreement (AGOA) which is set to expire in 2025, and then just completely nosedives into bullshit.
The only datapoint is that there was an attempt to ban import - which presumably was a violation of the agreement anyway - then the fascist monkey administration started throwing shit.
Protectionism for protectionism's sake is bad. I recommend this recently released interview with Anne Krueger, who did the study on rent-seeking in 1974 (which demonstrated how the whole import licensing was nothing more than very expensive legalized smuggling).
Yet the world is also getting more complex, and externalities are important. Like waste, dumping, or market-distorting subsidies (as on Chinese EVs). Hence tariffs on imports have their place.
How would this be different if they all were physically in the same office? Would you stop by their office and tell them to do what you prefer them to be doing? If so, is it not possible to tell them remotely over a Zoom call?
I am curious to know, what would be the various advantages of living in TN vs CA that you speak of? Have you lived in both these states for substantial periods?
TN does not have a state income tax, and no longer taxes interest/dividend income either. Cost of housing is about an order of magnitude lower. Property taxes are lower. For the most part a radically lower population density. If you cross the Atlantic a lot, you don't have to spend 6 hours crossing North America first. If you're inspired to make The Handmaid's Tale a reality, don't like a whole lot of racial diversity, and love you some guns, TN and a majority of its population are friendlier to you.
In practice the south is more "racially diverse" than the Bay Area, because minorities can actually afford to live near white people. Coming from Atlanta it was shocking to me how homogenous the Bay Area was.
55% of the Bay area is Hispanic, Asian, or Pacific Islander. The major point how they differ is that the south has far more black people and fewer hispanics and Asians, vs the bay area having far more hispanics and Asians and far fewer blacks.
But in say Palo Alto, you’ll rarely see black or Hispanic people outside service roles. It’s 85% non-Hispanic white or Asian, which is about as diverse as Wyoming. The south is economically flatter, which means people mix more. Also, because of its affordability, the south is the major destination for upwardly mobile black and Hispanic people.
> If you cross the Atlantic a lot, you don't have to spend 6 hours crossing North America first.
Unfortunately Nashville International Airport doesn't have very many non-stop transatlantic flights so the geographic proximity savings is often eaten up by time spent connecting.
Wile Tennessee does not have a corporate income tax, it does have "business taxes" that are the same thing. And they also let counties and cities impose their own "business taxes" on companies. And these combined business taxes end up being more costly and time-consuming to businesses than a single state income tax return would have been.
Property taxes are lower.
TN has an average property tax rate of 0.9x%. Los Angeles County has an average property tax rate of 0.5x% (i.e., nearly half). Property taxes in LA are only higher on an absolute basis because the property subject to tax is worth more.
There is no richest town in America as a single individual moving anywhere could make it that overnight.
Also just prima facia there is no way belle mead is as rich as billionaires row Manhattan, Pacific Heights in SF or Bel Air in LA. Let alone the Hamptons/Jackson Hole zones.
If you are on the fence on the topic of eating meat vs going vegan / vegetarian, this 2018 documentary might change your thoughts: https://watchdominion.org/
>They should be nicer to them when they kill them ... /s
An example (from Dominion) is how they typically asphyxiate cattle immediately before slaughter: using carbon monoxide (when nitrogen would be far less painful/cruel, but costs a few ¢¢¢¢ more).
I fell asleep watching this movie during that scene, and it led to horrific limbic states.
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Of course I still consume animal products, but watching that film entirely ended swine for me (and greatly reduced my overall meat consumption).
To be totally clear, I've seen it and am vegan. My comment is a sarcastic tribute to the typical response to the suggestion people learn what their dietary choices involve.
A more effective means of bringing about change might be to protest and lobby for requiring by law more humane methods of raising and killing animals for food. I think far more people would be supportive of that approach.
I wanted to sell samosa on the internet. Would YC be a good place to seek funding for such a business?
Samosa because they are versatile across many dimensions: ingredients, taste, shelf-life, and can be easily made in a combinatorics space of these dimensions. They are kind of like how Bubba describes shrimp to Gump.
I once wondered if YC is a good platform for such a business?
YC is a good platform for founders who want to build a high-growth startup (which is basically the original pg/YC definition of what a startup is). So your question reduces to whether selling samosas on the internet can be a high-growth business or not, and whether you would want to optimize for that.
We have specialized samosa delivery drones and utilize existing shipping and storage infrastructure. Our samosas are "just add water!" variety and are appropriate for a variety of events and occasions! Weddings, parties, wedding parties, parties with incidental weddings, pizza and beer and samosas, Netflix and chill, and so much more!
...
I started with a pitch and it became a late night commercial.
They could be three types on that dimension: 1. Freshly made and delivered locally on hourly scale; 2. Take and bake or fry perhaps same day; and 3. Frozen for longer term.
I find that desis and non-desis alike are samosa fans.
