liberalnun’s Recent Comments

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  Linda: don't play into gender stereotypes..

  While I understand Linda Hirshman's arguments and do not doubt her feminist credentials, I'm surprised that a feminist such as her would be so quick to classify engineering and lawyering as specifically "male" jobs, with the subtext that women cannot move into them. I'm convinced that there is no biological reason why we can't move into these fields in greater numbers. (The data backs me up on this; women and men do show different average abilities on spacial tasks, for example, but the standard deviations are so huge that this difference does not at all explain the huge gender gap in engineering.) Instead, I believe the reason has more to do with society; engineering is one of the last fields that still has a male-oriented culture, and a lot of women understandably still don't feel comfortable there.

  No one doubts that our educational and social work systems need a lot of help - Linda's right that any stimulus package needs to include improvements in education and social mobility in general. But we also need to work harder to break down gender barriers in these high-demand, male-dominated fields that are going to be so essential to the country's future. I think that a lot of female-dominated fields are extremely valuable and deserve more attention, but we should not support them simply because they  currently give jobs to women. To do otherwise - to try to find more "traditional" roles for women under a green jobs program, preserving the status quo - would be sexist. On NYT op-ed says mostly men will benefit from green jobs posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago 8 Responses

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  Carrots and sicks: same diff

  I agree with the above comment. Tax credits funded by carbon tax revenues, which is what I believe you mean by "refunds to the consumers," ARE a carrot. Depending on the size of the refund, you could theoretically be better off by using energy-saving strategies than you were before the tax, as you'd be paying less on your share of the carbon tax while getting the average amount paid on the carbon tax back in return.

  British Columbia, for one, actually just started implementing the same strategy, imposing a modest carbon tax and refunding all of the revenues through a progressive tax cut. There's also an additional annual tax credit targeted toward low-income people for the purpose of helping them cope with price increases, as well as a general one-time tax credit to everyone in order to help them "transition to a greener lifestyle." I personally think the size of the tax credits is probably too small to pay for all of the improvements needed - retrofitting your home costs way more than the $100 "greener lifestyle" dividend they're giving. I think they're on the right track, though.

  FWIW, a lot of jurisdictions already provide free retrofits for low-income families.On A carbon tax has efficient sticks, but what about carrots? posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago 19 Responses

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  Re: Clean diesel cars

  Ooh, good point. For cars like the Polo, which get twice the fuel economy of average cars, the added price of diesel due to refining switches shouldn't be an economic deterrent, unless diesel actually becomes twice as expensive as gasoline. But for cars like the Jetta TDI, which "only" gets something like 50 mpg, it would be.

  I guess that's an added argument for easing import restrictions on foreign cars and letting the market figure things out, rather than making auto companies spend billions of dollars engineering cars for the US market that may or may not pan out. On NYT: Temporarily relax regulations to allow Big Three's European models in the U.S. posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago 13 Responses

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  I Can Has Fuel Efficient Cars?

  YES to the article. Especially with some of the "clean diesel" models on the European market, such as the Volkswagen Polo, which gets 70 miles to the gallon and is fun to drive. I bet the fuel savings would make up for the cost of shipping over several years - plus, I'd pay a premium for a car that eases my conscience while getting lots of torque.

  (The only problem is, their emissions controls need to be improved for the American market, and that would push up the expense. But the Polo is cheap enough that the cost of this might not be prohibitive.)On NYT: Temporarily relax regulations to allow Big Three's European models in the U.S. posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago 13 Responses

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  Shipping vs. production

  One last thing: Am I an idiot to think you may be able to buy from a local grower during the winter in Illinois? Some farm with a winter Community Supported Agriculture program? Ask around, on my idiotic behalf.

  You might be...but depending on the method the farmer uses to grow crops during the winter (e.g., heated greenhouse), it might be less carbon intensive overall to get food shipped from elsewhere.On Umbra on freezing local foods posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago 3 Responses