"Absolute power attracts the absolutely corruptible" - Frank Herbert

Awesome! I posted a juvenile from nearby a few weeks back, assume this is one of the parents. Makes the city feel a bit wilder, right?

Yeah, the mergansers are around all winter! Occasionally ring-necked ducks with them as well.

Check out the emerald necklace for all sorts of cool ducks :)

The authors link to the peer-reviewed full study in the article, this is just the readable version https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.12487

This was picked up by major news outlets (WaPo most notably) when it came out.

https://theconversation.com/heres-how-your-cup-of-coffee-contributes-to-climate-change-196648

It seems like this logic would also rule out e.g. current electric vehicles, which cause permanent environmental damage in the name of reducing emissions.

Ok, I understand what you're saying here. I appreciate the really in-depth response! I'm not sure I agree 100%, but I'm at least convinced that you have really good reasons for your position.

You just aren't listening. Of course those things are bad. You haven't shown any evidence that they are worse: any comparison of the harms of additional plastic to the harms of additional energy use.

Unless you are asserting that there is no harm from energy use which could possibly be as bad as the harm from plastic, which is prima facie ludicrous.

You are asserting that the harm from a K-cup's worth of plastic waste exceeds the harms of a cup of coffee's worth of energy. That is not at all self-evident.

Right, I wholeheartedly agree that plastics are bad. But to show that they are worse, you need to compare them to the alternatives. My point is that it's so easy to point to all the harns you enumerate, and say "plastics bad! We should ban disposable plastic coffee cups!" when it's entirely possible that such a policy would cause harm to the environment on net.

> the pollution produced (the plastic itself) is worse than the energy component.

Worse on what axis? If the waste is handled appropriately, I don't see how it inherently causes harm independent of the energy and resources used in its creation .

> we shouldn't be focusing on individual choices here.

I'm not: I'm saying that theres reason not to blindly trust individual intuition as to what societal changes will actually help the environment.

Yeah, I only bring up oceans because OP specifically mentions them as the reason plastic production is bad in their letter.

Re. plastic foam, it's interesting: because it's so light, I'm guessing relatively little material is used in manufacturing what feels like so much wasted stuff. It's difficult for me at least to trust my intuitions about what policies are good for the environment: see the recent study showing that disposable K-cups use less energy than making coffee from scratch.

Almost no plastic waste in the oceans is actually from the US, right? I believe the Phillipines are the biggest contributor. I don't know if e.g. Amazon's operations are the right target here either.

BU Bridge has a great view, especially around sunset.

Yup, 3e says this explicitly. Cool!

I don't understand why the law here is so esoteric and it's impossible to find clear answers to simple questions (to be clear, not at all the fault of the other commentors engaging on these threads).

I just don't see any evidence that that is the case: I see that a landlord accepting a rent payment after the lease ends converts the tenancy to at-will (and then protection from no-fault eviction applies), but nothing that suggests that that happens automatically and without the consent of the landlord.

Ok, let's consolidate in the other thread - I'm having trouble keeping track of both. To be clear, I would love if tenants couldn't be forced out when their leases ended!

Interesting, but I don't think failure to renew is a no-fault eviction: as I linked above, no notice to quit is needed in the case of failure to renew.

This is not really true: a Notice to Quit is not required when a lease ends. https://masslegalhelp.org/housing/lt1-chapter-12-receiving-proper-notice "If your lease has an option to renew and you fail to renew it, your landlord does not need to send you a notice to quit if she wants you out at the end of your lease. In this case, the day after your lease ends, your landlord can immediately file papers in court and begin an eviction case without giving you a notice to quit."

Not true. https://www.tenantresourcecenter.org/nonrenewal_reasons

"Generally (with a few notable exceptions, below), landlords and tenants do not have to give a reason for choosing not to renew a lease."

It's not an eviction if the lease is over. That's what we're discussing, since that's when landlords would be raising rents.

It doesn't guarantee that landlords will increase by the max, but it meaningfully incentivizes them to. Since rent increases compound, not increasing rent this year limits their ability to increase next year under stabilization. That is a direct incentive to increase rent even if they wouldn't otherwise.

If a new owner wants to increase rent by 100%, in all likelihood they just wouldn't renew the existing lease regardless and find new tenants. Rent stabilization would just add another reason to push the existing tenants out.

If rent stabilization at a max of 10% per year is implemented and in fact incentivizes all landlords to raise rents by 10% per year, that will make things a lot worse for even people in stabilized apartments. 10% is substantially higher than the mean year-on-year rent increase.

Bikes and scooters are technically allowed on the sidewalk almost everywhere in Cambridge: I think everywhere they are prohibited has signage indicating so.

Obviously pedestrians have the right of way on the sidewalk with no exception though.

As an aside, going >jogging pace on the sidewalk sounds absolutely bone-jarringly miserable, and I don't understand why anyone would.