B.C. introduces law to require cars, trucks sold by 2040 be zero emission

Re:B.C. introduces law to require cars, trucks sold by 2040 ... by seanmcdirmid on Friday April 12, 2019 @01:35PM (#19647082)

The number of farmers is decreasing not because it is harder to be a farmer, but because farming is becoming more efficient and mechanized. Food is not becoming more expensive relative to everything else, it is becoming cheaper.

Rural communities are being hit because the amount of labor in key resource industries keeps going down. So kids move to the city where they can find a future, and so on. It’s been like that for a couple of hundred years.

Cities will continue to subsidize rural areas with their taxes as a result. Less density means infrastructure is used less efficiently, and so need significant transfers of wealth from the cities to keep being viable. That is probably unavoidable, but the cities can also subsidize rural areas in leveraging EVs as well.

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Re:B.C. introduces law to require cars, trucks sold by 2040 ... by core-questions on Friday April 12, 2019 @03:01PM (#19647938)

> The number of farmers is decreasing not because it is harder to be a farmer, but because farming is becoming more efficient and mechanized.

Yes, but if the children of farmers have left and aren't going to take on their parents' industry, what happens when they truly can't do it anymore? The machines don't run the farm, yet, they only make running it more efficient and easy. You still have to know what to do, and go out and get it done, and this isn't something that people can just pick up in a day.

If the natural apprenticeship mechanism that used to provide for this has been broken, what's going to replace it?

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Re:B.C. introduces law to require cars, trucks sold by 2040 ... by seanmcdirmid on Friday April 12, 2019 @03:06PM (#19647990)

Technology progresses, the amount of labor needed to run a farm decreases. Not all the kids are leaving, just lost of them. Also, the farms are increasingly becoming corporations rather than family affairs anyways, they do find people to hire if they pay enough. Otherwise, they just reduce labor needs by mechanizing.

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Re:B.C. introduces law to require cars, trucks sold by 2040 ... by saalweachter on Friday April 12, 2019 @03:10PM (#19648035)

The real kick in the pants is that when you can get away with half as many farmers, because of improvements in agricultural technology, you can only support half as many grocery stores, doctors, gas stations and the like. The empty spaces get emptier, and less comfortable.

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