Taiwan tax revenue will exceed targets by NT$355 billion

2 wrongs dont make a right. clean up our own house, then we can say something about our neighbours.

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You are saying if I clean up my own house, maybe my neighbor will clean up his house too? Sure that will work? I am skeptical.

Something like this has probably been suggested upthread, but I gotta think the right hongbao in the right pockets in China could do wonders for our national security.

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Don’t worry about nuclear warfare. The people about to run this country will roll out a welcome mat.

Something about glass houses

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Something about not breathing and drinking your own crap.

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Nope. I am saying you are responsible to clean up your house so that it does not pollute its inhabitants as well as not polluting your neighbours.

We dont have the right to point fingers until we fix our own shit in the sense governments judging governments. As such, if Taiwan (the country, not the people) points fingers at others about air pollution…well, I have no words.

On the flip side, saying china isnt doing fuck all so why should we care is truly a mindset that only degrades everything worldwide. We have a responsibility to clean our house. taiwan has enough health issues based on environment. Even selfishly, it makes sense to clean up.

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I am not pointing any fingers. But, I am also not compensating for my carbon footprint except through taxes already levied.

Are you saying we have no responsibilities to clean up our environment other than pay taxes and hope the government does it?

It’s not only responsibilities, who wants to stew in their own crap in their right mind ? (KAOHSIUNGERS…possibly )

Its just common sense.

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Moral responsibilities? Legal? I make efforts to meet my legal responsibilities, but I do not go awfully out of my way to do so. Other than that, morally I do not feel much obligated to do more.

More wind power, helps Taiwan and U.K. economy.

Neither, both, others. Just responsible in general. There are millions of things we can do to make changes. Loads of which really dont cause inconvenience. We ought to ha e the responsibility or in the future we might start getting rights taken away as things get worse.

Some things are insa.ely easy like buy local food instead of imported when possible. that alone gets rid of some pollution. Turning.g off electronics not in use, not idling the car etc all add up to meaningful steps. It isnt like people are saying go hungry 5 days a month…

I dont buy that the government is the only entity to clean up after the public.

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That graphic is rather misleading. It seems to be trying to suggest that the U.S. has halved its emissions since 2016 (when the Paris Agreement came into effect) while China and India have increased theirs by twofold and 4.5-fold, respectively.

A cursory analysis gives the following (per capita, from here):
USA:
CO2 emissions (2015): 15.6 metric tons
CO2 emissions (2019): 14.7 metric tons (-6%)

China:
CO2 emissions (2015): 7.15 metric tons
CO2 emissions (2019): 7.61 metric tons (+6%)

India:
CO2 emissions (2015): 1.65 metric tons
CO2 emissions (2019): 1.8 metric tons (+9%)
(It would probably be helpful to compare these with changes in GDP or whatever over the same period, but I can’t be bothered right now.)

China and India are obviously big, developing countries with huge chunks of the global population and total emissions that can be expected to increase in coming decades as they continue to develop, whereas the USA is a developed country that AFAIK has been the biggest per-capita polluter for ages. It isn’t really reasonable to expect that developing countries stay undeveloped to avoid increasing their emissions to levels comparable to Western countries.

China also still serves as a factory for the rest of the world, of course, allowing other countries to outsource their emissions and pretend their populations aren’t responsible for creating the emissions and other pollution in the first place through the (cheap) products they use.

I don’t know about India, but China isn’t doing nothing when it comes to reducing emissions/pollution. I quite frequently edit papers from Chinese academics discussing things like emissions reduction approaches and targets for power plants, industry, and so on, not to mention better environmental remediation strategies, photovoltaics, batteries, green chemistry, more sustainable plastics/polymers, HVAC systems, and all that stuff.

Say what you want about China, but some of the Chinese government’s targets are actually quite aggressive compared with those of other countries. And it’s not necessary to be pro-China to say that - I assume they’ve realized at some point that polluted land, water, and air and extreme climate events aren’t exactly beneficial for the long-term stability of a country that has 20% of the world’s population but only 7-10% of the world’s arable land and fresh water and already needs to import a shitload of fresh produce.

Air pollution, for example, is something that I understand has been improved considerably since 2013 or so (which is when I used to live there).

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it is also cherry picking dates. The States used to be clean. imagine an environmentalist first nations person talking about their history and how that meme would look :joy:

It would be better to just admit we are dirty now and need to do better. that is an objective fact and there is no shame in admitting it and at least pretending to agree we need to do more.

The excuse someone else is worse so we are good is really not acceptable after elementary school. One would hope this attitude we see around the globe is based on ignorance rather than ego. one is easier to remedy than the other.

A good start is at least being selfish enough to not want lung diseases and organ failures for oneself :melting_face: What amazing times that this statement is used in a serious way rather than comedy :+1:

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China can’t touch Taiwan, and in failing they would destroy their already weakened economy.

The money should be spent on energy security.

Yeah, no Florida roads here.

China already touches Taiwan. not with bombs or bullets, but with economics, sabotaging trade and alliances internationally. they sabotage us politically. They send over spies to interfere both short and long term with both politics and culture . To think china is not already winning is to deny things like nearly all countries formally do not recognize Taiwan regardless of every metric pointing towards they normally would and should. The only barrier being Chinese threats of war and economic sabotage. China is just smart enough not to fire first, otherwise they have been taught they can do anything else with little repercussions. They are winning.

In more ways than not, china has touched Taiwan. Even physically, they keep overstepping their bounds with air space and ocean ways.

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Not going to happen unfortunately, will be used to further paper over mismanagement cracks.
https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202212310010

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Of the NT$380 billion, the statement said, NT$100 billion will be used to support the National Health Insurance system and the labor insurance system to ease the financial problems facing the two social insurance programs.

Some of that NT$100 billion amount will also go to state-owned Taiwan Power Co. to “subsidize electricity prices” to mitigate the impact of the high costs of natural gas and oil on Taiwan’s electricity prices, the statement said.

Given what is about the happen to Russian shipping and oil production, subsidizing energy costs now seems like a very good idea.