Re: (ReacTor) Five SFF Books Featuring Frigid, Icy Worlds

On Thu, 18 Jul 2024 17:59:36 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
wrote:

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:

On Wed, 17 Jul 2024 17:52:49 -0500, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:
>

On 7/17/2024 10:42 AM, Paul S Person wrote:

On Tue, 16 Jul 2024 19:47:12 -0600, John Savard
<quadibloc@servername.invalid> wrote:
=20

On Mon, 15 Jul 2024 14:15:08 -0000 (UTC), jdnicoll@panix.com (James
Nicoll) wrote:
>

Five SFF Books Featuring Frigid, Icy Worlds
>
Celebrate the coldest summer of the rest of your life with some
frosty SF and fantasy novels!
>
https://reactormag.com/five-sff-books-featuring-frigid-icy-worlds/

>
I could comment that your posting is itself a dystopian SF story,
about a world where giant oil companies have managed to control the
political system and hypnotize the populace so as to prevent any
effective response to global warming...
>
if it weren't for the fact that it seems like calling that scenario
"fiction" has already proven to be over-optimistic.

=20
One of the two theories I have seen on why the Texas electrical system
died again (if that actually happened; Bing seems to know nothing
about it, being fascinated by the event in 2021) is, indeed, that the
State of Texas, having funds that could have been used to fix the
problem, chose instead to shovel it into the pockets of the Oil
Industry. Typical Republican behavior.

...
>
I do not know of any Texas state funds being used for the State Crude=20
Oil and Natural Gas industry.  On the contrary, they are the number one=20
tax payer in the state, the state universities are 100% funded by oil=20
and gas revenues, google Texas Permanent University Fund.
>
Please specify the exact amount of funds being paid from the State of=20
Texas to the Crude Oil and Natural Gas industries.

>
That is a theory I read. As I noted, it is clearly biased.

>
On the other hand, there are other methods of state support
that don't directly result in 'funds being paid from the State';
such as tax breaks.
>
 'Spring, 1990, Senator Don Henderson [...] urged his
  fellow state senators to give the oil patch some more
  love.  The Houston Republican, a lawyer closely allied
  with the fossil-fuel industry, had introduced a bill to
  slash the tax on natural gas wells deemed particularly
  tough to develop. "They can be huuuuuuge wells," he
  told the finance committee.'
>
 'If these wells were so alluring, why did taxpayers
  need to offer Texas drillers a handout? Because, Henderson
  explained, the wells were "expensive and chancy." So much for
  the image of risk-taking and self-sufficiency that the state's
  oil and gas industry liked to tout'
>
 'Its cost to other state taxpayers that year[2009, ed.], according
  to a University of Texas study: $1.5 billion, or $169 per
  household in the state.'
>
...
>
 'According to this school of thought, the fossil-fuel industry
  benefits not just from tax breaks such as Texas's provision
  for high-cost gas wells but also from not having to reimburse
  society for the myriad social and environmental costs of its
  products. Chief among those dispensations is the freedom to
  send skyward, without being taxed for them, the carbon emissions
  that scientists say are a primary cause of climate change. Economists
  have a word for such costs that should be accounted for but aren't:
  externalities. Adding a carbon price to the calculation of energy
  costs renders fossil fuels much more expensive than they now appear to be.'
>
>
 'For 2020, UT projected those [Texas State ed.] subsidies as roughly $1.8 billion for
  oil and gas ($170 per household), $1 billion for wind ($104),
  and a comparatively small $19 million ($2) for solar.'
>
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/energy-subsidies-fossil-fuels-renewables/
https://theintercept.com/2021/06/01/texas-subsidies-oil-companies/
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/03/texas-house-fossil-fuel-oil-divest/
>
 'One of the baldest attempts to kneecap renewable energy - that is, to
  indirectly subsidize fossil fuels - was a bill to add a
  penny-per-kilowatt-hour surcharge to electricity customers' bills
  for power from any source except natural gas.'

As I noted, if the Voters find the current vision of "self-reliance"
wrong-headed for any reason, they can change this by /throwing the
rascals out/, a long-standing American political position on all
sides.

Perhaps a "Texas Self-Reliance Party" is needed. Voting for a Party
that includes the Friends of Bernie is not a realistic choice for much
of Texas.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"