| Website | https://www.daivarepeckaite.com/en |
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/daivarepeckaite/ | |
| Pronouns | She/ sie/ ji / היא etc, but I like innovative pronouns too! |
There are established ways to calculate marine protected area coverage. But #Malta, which has a massive marine territory to profit from, uses some creative accounting, and as a result, protection coverage looks larger
https://www.amphora.media/2025/08/fatti-malta-protect-sea-marine-environment
#marineprotectedarea #protectourseas #marineconservation
Once, amid economic crisis, #Žižek spoke in a viceoconference with #Vilnius about how market expansion is starting to hit its natural limits, so big business will be focusing on extractivism from the public sector. What essential services could they capture that even the most frugal people will have to pay for? Recent example: #Steward #hospitals deal in #Malta
U.S. healthcare operator Steward paid over $7 million to U.K.-based intelligence firms that conducted surveillance and disinformation operations against its critics — and even a Steward employee. T...
Join The Earth Investigation Network. For seven weeks, investigative journalists supported by Journalismfund Europe from all over the planet will share their experiences and advice investigating various issues and problems related to the environment.
Informative podcast, but it is disappointing to see the @BBCWorld use dehumanising language (‘inflow’, ‘mass’). With people in a vulneable state, human-centred language really matters, so:
❌ migrant flows/ tides/ masses
✅ arrival of people who are seeking a job/ asylum/ wish to live abroad
Summary: Car bloat is terrible – for road safety, for the planet, for equity, and for road maintenance.
But bigger cars are often more profitable, so automakers like making them.
The only way out: Government action. Examples:
🔹 Tax vehicles by weight.
🔹 Test vehicles for pedestrian and cyclist safety (still doesn’t happen in the US).
🔹 Require a CDL for the most gigantic vehicles.
Left alone, this problem will only worsen. Governments must step up.
https://slate.com/business/2023/01/electric-cars-hummer-ev-tax-fees-weight-joe-biden.html
"Pushchairs, e-bikes, motorised wheelchairs and pedestrians move at starkly different speeds. By failing to consider this, cities are designing not for health, climate and jobs, but for conflict, injury and chaos." In this op-ed I analyse what happens when, in the absence of standards, authorities are throwing money at the issue of lacking #bike infrastructure around #Europe
https://euideas.eui.eu/2023/03/22/european-transports-cinderella/
Summary: Car bloat is terrible – for road safety, for the planet, for equity, and for road maintenance.
But bigger cars are often more profitable, so automakers like making them.
The only way out: Government action. Examples:
🔹 Tax vehicles by weight.
🔹 Test vehicles for pedestrian and cyclist safety (still doesn’t happen in the US).
🔹 Require a CDL for the most gigantic vehicles.
Left alone, this problem will only worsen. Governments must step up.
https://slate.com/business/2023/01/electric-cars-hummer-ev-tax-fees-weight-joe-biden.html
@enmodo @davidzipper Worth noting an EV tax isn't uncommon, Washington state has had one for several years.
Don't find myself seeking an absolute about whether it should be flat rate or usage-driven - You end up with more questions around income/commute/housing accessibility etc.
@enmodo @vivekgani @davidzipper
We live in Washington & just bought an electric car. WA state has a hefty *exemption* from its sales tax for EVs. I'm not aware of any special EV tax at all.
There was a brief period in the 2010s when WA had an electric vehicle tax. Like recent moves by Republicans in states like Texas, this was a regressive maneuver meant to punish individuals who made the decision to not consume gas, by recouping gas tax profits from them anyway.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/washington-state-ev-tax-credit-reinstated/
@chargrille @enmodo @davidzipper
Yeah, the taxes in WA changed in the past year, there has been:
(The $150 fee that stopped last year, IIRC to cover road expenses (aka gas tax) https://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.17.323
(The $75 fee, supposedly more for funding EV infrastructure) https://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=46.17.324
There has been a proposal to do a per-mile tax instead: https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=1832&Year=2023&Initiative=false
@chargrille @enmodo @davidzipper
I wouldn't try to politicize this into saying the tax is regressive - Davids original thread led to talk about taxing heavy vehicles. EVs generally are heavier and use public roads with maintenance costs, and there may be a bit of Jevon's paradox if larger EV models (e.g. 6000-7000lb truck/SUV models) become cheaper.
See also https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5stPFdegJpg for a deeper rabbit hole...
@vivekgani @enmodo @davidzipper
That's a different rationale.
The actual, stated rationale behind the WA state tax on EVs was explicitly to capture tax money that was being "lost" because EV owners weren't buying & consuming gasoline.
@chargrille @vivekgani @davidzipper
I think the practice of funding roads by a gas tax has already been shown to be flawed since overall efficiency (mpg) of gas cars has increased dramatically resulting in plummeting gas tax revenues even before you factor in the impact of EVs.
When I had a 50 mpg car I was contributing probably 1/2 of what the average car was to the tax fund but getting the exact same utility from roads and probably inflicting the same impact.
Something needs to change.
@chargrille @vivekgani @davidzipper maybe we should just declare roads to be a public good and fund them as such. And perhaps only commercial users would pay anything extra but even then you could make the argument that's also a public good?
A vehicle mile weight adjusted tax starts to make roads look like a private toll road although realistically in this day the actual fee to build and maintain roads is probably still much less than the fuel and vehicle operating costs.
@enmodo @vivekgani @davidzipper
My position is that, much like other communal resources, roads are a public good *up to a point*. And as a society we can decide what that point is.
If our publicly-provided &/or publicly-funded goods are being used to destroy public health (because some people treat cars as gas-guzzling, externality-pump, vanity projects [e.g., Hummers]; or the airwaves are used to organize lynchings [e.g., Jan 6 2021]), we can limit those uses by legislation or taxation.
@enmodo @vivekgani @davidzipper
In other words, you can just tax the externality-pumps, or just outlaw the problem - you don't have to tax everyone.
You can decide that roads are a public good for everyone except those who are imposing whatever we decide are unacceptably high/unfair costs on everyone else. Cars that are particularly wasteful of energy can pay extra. Cars that are big polluters can pay extra. Cars that are too heavy can pay extra. Incentivizing less harmful uses is good.
@enmodo @chargrille @davidzipper
Hum. Thinking aloud, I sit with a lot of perspectives these days that seem to gesture towards cosmopolitan localism, and asking what gets lost as roads get built/improved a la the 'strong towns' movement.
It's a broader cultural question I don't have quick answers to, but some starting links might be...
@enmodo @chargrille @davidzipper
- Reading Marchetti's 'Anthropological Invariants
in Travel Behavior' - https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/4071/1/RR-95-04.pdf - particularly where it talks about the pattern of how humans desire maximizing access economic activity while also going far away to tend to their own tribe/family. (Chart seen here https://twitter.com/vivekgani/status/1260445487200702465 ) . I've also seen John Urry referenced for “travel through one medium overall increases travel through other media.”
@enmodo @chargrille @davidzipper
- Bill Rees on Urban Ecological Footprint, and argues to phase out personal transportation altogether, whether it's gas or electric - https://www.youtube.com/live/Hc-AsQkunHQ?feature=share&t=2210
William Rees, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Applied Science, School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British ColumbiaAbstract: Modern...
@enmodo @chargrille @davidzipper
- Revisiting Donald Appleyard's Livable Streets: https://vimeo.com/16399180 -> https://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/hrr/1971/356/356-008.pdf basically how arterial roads make it harder for those living on them to be social with neighbors.
@enmodo @chargrille @davidzipper
I say this with a bit of feeling into personal irony and complex desires - lately have been wanting a truck if it can carry utility for land-informed projects. Reminding me of 'Rant of a Rural Progressive' by Paul Krafel which gets at the tensions between urban and rural people in regards to Trucks : https://roamingupward.net/home/the-best-of-cairns/rant-of-a-rural-progressive/
@cstross @davidzipper @JiSe I currently drive a Citroen C Zero - which is a re-badged Mitsubishi small EV - seats four - does 100km/h range of ~100km - but it weighs 1140 kg of which 236 is battery.
I'm pretty happy with it but would love double the range.
Battery GREENWASHING in MY talks these days...
Folks driving 9000 pound (electric) behemoths in the name of climate change.
Greenwashing has a mascot now-- electric cars.
Electric bikes -- 50 pounds of excess weight.
Electric mopeds -- 200 pounds of excess weight.
Electric cars -- 6000 pounds of excess weight.
There is no getting around the carbon cost of hauling around the excess pounds (kilograms) of battery for electric vehicles.
That excess is SMALLEST for bikes.
I don’t think you are disagreeing really — 50 pounds of excess weight measured against the trips they enable that avoid the 1000’s pounds of excess sounds like a lower carbon output to me. :-)
A Tesla model3 does not weigh 1060 pounds any more than your e bike battery weighs 50 pounds.
Tesla 3s weigh around 4000 pounds.
Ford Lightning 6000-7000 pounds.
Rivian R1T 7150 pounds.
Did you find the engagement you were looking for?
@atthenius You said "6000lbs of excess weight" and referenced the battery. I'm just saying that while all cars should go on a diet, and weight is obviously an issue with EVs, the difference in curb weight between an EV and a regular car is less than you seemed to be saying.
I have no idea what you mean about engagement rings.
The government should estimate the damage of global warming to the US environment, economy, and public health, in dollar terms -- and tax fossil fuels enough to recover that amount.
@davidzipper another issue is break dust and larger cars require more stopping power -> more dust.
https://www.motortrend.com/features/brake-dust-hvof-porsche-brembo/
Also
https://www.sae.org/news/2023/05/brakes-sustainability-dust-regulations
No mention of CAFE standards and small light trucks needing 45mpg to stay compliant where large trucks are allowed to get ~15 without paying a penalty?
@davidzipper Can I please go back to my 1982 Toyota Starlet? It weighed less than 1800lbs... Foot to the steel always..... and it averaged 40mpg.
Or maybe my 1886 Toyota Mr2... That was just under 2700lbs. I'll gladly accept a Lotus Elise (1980lbs) instead of the Mr2.
@davidzipper every truck driver will tell you that they think RVs should require a CDL.
We need distracted driving commercials for seniors as well. They need to be exempt from FCC regulations, and allowed to show a real bloody RV windshield. I've seen a few too many in person...
@davidzipper The IIHS death stats (reported per million registered vehicle years) are informative.
Per million registered vehicles per year, Ram 3500 crew cab trucks are involved in crashes that kill 189 other drivers but only 37 Ram drivers.
At the other extreme, Civic hatchbacks are involved in crashes that kill 20 other drivers for every 78 Civic drivers.
Ram 3500 drivers place *others* at 5x greater risk of death than they do themselves. Whereas Civic hatchback drivers place *themselves* at 4x greater risk than they do others.
These numbers are for recent model year vehicles. In some cases/categories the death rates are appear skewed by driver age — many compact and subcompact cars have very high death rates for their own drivers as well as other drivers.
A better analysis might use FARS data to limit the influence of driver age on the results. I wouldn’t be the surprised if this has already been done and I just don’t know about it.
Source: https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-model
Exactly, no need for cars the size of a truck for personal transportation. Rules are needed.
@davidzipper
We also need to make sure our safety tests factor in the car hitting pedestrians, cyclist, and people in smaller vehicles.
(I know the EuroNCAP does _some_ of this.)
A can't be marked as "very safe" if it kills everything smaller than itself..!
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