Doesn’t seem like even existing executives in agencies have any fucking backbone. The AFGE union that represents EPA employees is urging members to personally email the EPA Administrator, Michael Regan, to extend the union contract of career service employees to 2030. This would protect some worker rights under a collective bargaining agreement instead of allowing it to open back up for the Trump admin to gut. Career service employees are the ones doing inspections, developing cases, providing assistance to the public, doing research… The stuff that most people expect the EPA to do, even if they aren’t democrats. Despite what the hyperbolic mainstream and social media spaces report, even Republicans want clean air, water, and soil.

Regan has thus far refused even though he has absolutely nothing to lose since he is out by January anyway to be replaced with Lee Zeldin…I guess he thinks not doing anything to help agency employees at EPA will help his career and that’s his priority. Not actually helping the EPA succeed.

I feel like smartphones + internet peaked about 10 years ago and has now steadily become enshittified. I have never used “google assistant” because it takes less time to just type something in to my phone or tap the setup for my alarm.

So yes, definitely feel that way. Consumer tech had less bullshit masking as improvements ten years ago.

More garbage “news” from the Twitter verse to flow back to the echo chamber and reverberate with righteous, impotent, indignation. I’m not gonna take the bait like I did 4 years ago.

A lot of people don’t understand them. Others don’t care, thinking they will deal with the debt later or never.

American basic education in math doesn’t really cover financial math much.

Can confirm. Had a Finnish lapphund that lived over 12 years on kibble and frozen raw food. She was the best girl.

That was the intent of the system for water at least. The acronym for water discharge permits is NPDES. National Pollution Discharge Elimination System.

Then profit driven companies, their soulless lobbyists, amoral lawyers kept bending that.

Like just about any environmental regulation in the US - most of them are heavily influenced by the industries that are regulated. All US laws prioritize commerce and profits first and everything else second. Including the environment, workers rights, etc.

Gotta get lobbying and money as speech out of the equation. Then everything would have some chance of improving or kind of aligning with citizen expectations.

Also, most of government workers would love to have more effective regulations so we can be more effective. Despite most people shitting on them as lazy or ineffective. The ineffective is by design and under funding.

I’m no historian but I think you’re being a bit disingenuous here. Someone could have made the same comment before the tinderbox of WWI or WWII started at points.

The similarities are closer than they have been for quite some time. Hopefully you are right though and nothing escalates any further.

Doesn’t sound too sludge to me but still enjoyed it.

Bring back tax rates of 90% again for the obscenely rich - it was that way up until the late 1900s. Back when the US actually funded things that benefit most people not just tax breaks for already rich people.

I work as an environmental engineer that does inspections of industrial, government, and military facilities. Every inspection I get to tour a different place and learn how it works and how things are made. I’ve gotten to see some amazing places like

-NASA rocket testing sites -shuttered nuclear weapons production processes, -the factory that makes all the flavoring for Dr pepper/potpourri/cherry/fake almond (it’s made starting with paint thinner, yikes) -refineries -military bases

It’s fascinating to both see how the world actually works, and how stuff is made, the benefits to society/vs costs to society and environment, and every place has its own site-specific culture. I find so many people take for granted how our whole society is so dependent on a few resources, industries, and expert people working together.

I get to use soft skills to interview people and figure out if they are being honest or hiding something, use my engineering and scientific skills to assess sites, and have a mix of inside/outside work.

My work also does some good - helping develop cases to bring to enforcement. My cases have resulted in changes that improve living conditions for people near these sites, the workers at them, or the environment.

Environmental engineering doesn’t pay as much as other disciplines like a senior software engineer or something. But it’s a good income and the work isn’t as subject to boom/bust cycles as other sectors because it’s driven by regulations more than profits.

Went to school for environmental engineering almost twenty years ago and graduated with one of the first accredited degrees in the field.

For the last twenty years I’ve traveled the country helping clean up the environment or prevent land from being further contaminated. Yeah the system is fucked up, lawyers and politicians and society don’t value the environment over a quick buck. But I’ve done some good as opposed to wave a sign around at a protest.

Built up enough experience that I’m now part of a specialized team with the EPA that goes to all states and territories to help with case development on complicated or high profile sites that states and regions don’t have the resources to handle.

Doing exactly what I wanted to do for my career, and directly because I got a good education that opened the doors to do it. I make a decent salary and have a skillset that makes employment easy and secure.

They can force a vote on IVF all of the sudden but not anything else?