Category: Florida

How did the 2022 elections work out for Florida?

by philg

Americans generally affirmed the idea that the country will be better with bigger government and higher taxes. Whether this is true or false, Florida’s prosperity primarily depends on the differential between Florida and other states, not the absolute quality of life in Florida. It is a bit like the ancient story of two non-binary campers:

Kendall and Arden are camping when a thin-looking brown bear approaches they/them and them/they, growling.

Kendall starts putting on their running shoes.

Arden says, “What are you doing? We don’t need to bring in Ketanji’s panel of biologists to know that, regardless of your pronouns, you can’t outrun a bear!”

Kendall says, “I don’t have to outrun the bear—I just have to outrun you!”

“The Flight of New York City’s Wealthy Was a Once-in-a-Century Shock” (NYT) did not happen because Florida v2020 and v2021 was better than Florida v2019, but because NYC v2020/2021 was so much worse than NYC v2019.

State governments became vastly more powerful in 2020, e.g., deciding whether residents of a state would be able to leave their homes, send children to school, work for a living, avoid the injection of their children with an experimental medicine designed to help 80-year-olds. An interstate move to switch overlords is therefore much more likely than when the state-to-state difference was a few dollars in tax.

Democrats kept control of New York State. Kathy Hochul would need to order a lockdown or two in order match what Florida Realtor of the Year 2020 Andrew Cuomo achieved, but her victory is an important precondition in keeping people who value liberty pointed south on Interstate 95 to their new homes in the Florida Free State (TM). I also appreciate her teaching young Puerto Ricans that rules established by elites may not apply to elites…

Massachusetts elected a Lockdown Democrat governor and passed a new higher tax rate on those who are rich enough to afford Florida waterfront (see Why did 1 million poor people vote against a higher tax rate for rich people in Massachusetts?). That should be great for residents of Palm Beach County. Even a handful of families moving into $20-100 million houses down here provide a big boost in revenue.

Colorado moved away from its flat tax by limiting deductions for those earning more than $300,000 per year. That’s not a huge nudge toward Florida, but it is a nudge. San Francisco added a tax on condos owned by rich people who leave them vacant for 183 days per year or more (53/47 vote; a mystery that it could have been that close given that hardly any voters own a condo that would be subject to this tax).

The governor’s race in Texas was the biggest disappointment for realtors in Florida. A Beto victory carried with it the prospect of rich Californians choosing Florida rather than Texas as their escape-from-Newsom destination. The silver living is that Greg Abbott’s victory was only 55/44 (compare to 56/42 in 2018 and 59/39 in 2014). Given the propensity of today’s young people to support progressive politics and the overall national trend towards bigger government, it seems likely that Texas will eventually be governed by Democrats, a huge boost to Florida’s chances of capturing fleeing successful Californians. Maybe Texas is safe from California-style government today, but people who go to the effort of moving are also interested in what a state will be like in 10-20 years.

An exchange on Facebook with one of those successful Californias who praised a college that doesn’t discriminate on the basis of skin color:

I wish my own kids were brave, and principled, and original thinking enough to consider applying instead of conforming to conventional wisdom and stupid rankings. I’ll keep trying to teach them.

But your kids have watched you conform. California politicians took away your liberties one by one starting in March 2020 and you simply stayed in California, right? And, in fact, your kids watch you pay taxes to fund all of it.

I have 2 kids I can’t move away from [California family law gave his wife millions of reason to sue him…]. But in 2 years when #2 goes to college I’ll have a lot more altitude to go elsewhere. FL is too far away and TX is too close to purple. UT is the current front runner.

The guy believes that Texas is just a few young voters away from Following the Science into lockdowns, mask orders, vaccine papers checks, etc., and maybe a new personal income tax to pay for it all! (Beto promised to use Science to protect Texans from viral threats. In fairness, so did Abbott, but he interpreted Science’s whispers differently.)

There was great news in Michigan. Lockdown Democrat Gretchen Whitmer was reelected 54/44, a clear indication that nothing is going to change in Michigan. People who don’t love the government there should move away. Wisconsin (a paradise for child support profiteers) similar reelected a Democrat governor. Pennsylvania is a great source of new residents with money for Florida. A Democrat won there by a large margin (56/42). Again, people who don’t want to be ruled by Democrats have only one realistic option: move. And once the decision to move is made, Florida is there and ready with jobs, low taxes, all-year outdoor recreation, etc.

Maine and Kansas also reelected Democrats as governors.

A Democrat victory at the Federal level should drive additional moves to Florida. A person who wants his/her/zir/their state to resist new takeovers of power by Washington, D.C. will find that in Florida, the state in which Joe Biden’s order that travelers wear masks on airplanes was found unconstitutional. A person who wants to maintain his/her/zir/their spending power in the face of Federal income tax rate increases can probably do so by moving from a medium-to-high-tax state to a state with no personal income tax and some reasonable assurance that the electorate won’t amend the constitution to impose one. That’s Florida, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Tennessee? New Hampshire actually does have an income tax (not on wages, but on dividends and interest). Texas is at risk over time of having everything that California has (see above).

What about politics here in Florida? First, the election results were available on the timeline that taxpayers expected:

(Hurricane Nicole arrived on the SE coast roughly 24 hours after the polls closed.)

The stealth scheme to raise pay for the Praetorian Guard (see Florida comes up with a scheme for increasing taxes on private workers via a property tax exemption for government workers) was approved by a majority of voters, but not above the 60 percent threshold necessary to amend the Florida constitution. Voters here in majority-Democrat Palm Beach County approved $200 million in borrowing to fund “workforce housing”. Americans everywhere believe “when the market gives you an answer you don’t like, declare market failure”. There are approximately 1.5 million people in Palm Beach County. How $200 million, the price of a couple of teardown houses in Palm Beach itself, is going to change the affordability of housing for the average person here is unclear. It looks like it will at least make a huge difference for some government cronies. From a “quick summary”:

Some non-profit and government workers will get paid. Some favored developers will get rich off the spread between the market rate for interest and this slush fund.

If the typical unit holds 2 people, that’s 2,200 people who are being housed after 16 years of government and non-profit employees being paid. That’s roughly 0.15% of the people who live in Palm Beach County (1 out of every 700).

Which of the 1 in 700 people in Palm Beach County gets to live a subsidized life?

In other words, anyone whom the non-profit folks think is deserving!

Even in majority-Democrat Palm Beach County, the all-abortion-care-all-the-time Democrat running against the Tyrant of Tallahassee could not prevail. Ron DeSantis won by 51/48 here in the county (compare to 60/40 statewide).

Full post, including comments

Checking our predictions for the Ron DeSantis-Charlie Crist race in Florida

by philg

In Democrats love elderly white guys, Florida edition (August 24), I predicted a 56:44 victory for Ron DeSantis in yesterday’s election. Ray, in the comments, predicted a 6 percent margin for DeSantis. How did we do?

The voters, including all of the new ones driven into Florida by Andrew Cuomo and other Lockdown Governors, have spoken. The all-abortion-care-all-the-time campaign of Charlie Crist resonated with only 40 percent of Floridians whose votes were not suppressed. NYT:

Ron DeSantis won by 1.5 million votes, a big improvement over the 50,000-vote margin he had in 2018 over Andrew Gillum.

Charlie Crist gave a “good congratulations to Governor DeSantis on his re-election” (YouTube). Prior to the election, Crist characterized DeSantis as a “fascist” who would “end democracy” in Florida. Is he talking about about the same Ron DeSantis?

Full post, including comments

Why did Disney want and get its own county?

by philg

Disney World opened 51 years ago, with tickets priced at $3.50 for adults, $2.50 for teens, and $1 for kids.

The company has been in the news recently for wanting to undo Florida legislature’s work in preventing public school systems from teaching sexual orientation and gender identity lessons to kids in K-3 (at the same time, Walt Disney won’t live its principles by building a 2SLGBTQQIA+ ride for K-3-age kids).

The company has also been in the news after the same legislature passed a law undoing the company’s ability to run its own county, the Reedy Creek Improvement District (WPTV). Democrats in Massachusetts and California have been predicting that this will be disastrous for ordinary taxpayers in Florida, who will be on the hook for the $1 billion that Reedy Creek has borrowed (applying the general principle that people in Florida are too stupid not to understand their own interests).

Buying Disney’s World: The Story of How Florida Swampland Became Walt Disney World, a 2021 book by Aaron Goldberg, was written before these 2022 disputes, but provides interesting background information.

First, why did Disney want to have its own county?

To pay for the infrastructure throughout the property—such as roads, sewer systems, and water lines—the Reedy Creek Improvement District sold federally subsidized tax-exempt municipal bonds.

Florida did not have a personal income tax at the time (nor does it now). Therefore, allowing Disney to borrow money tax-free did not cost Florida anything. The Federal income tax rates hit 50 percent at $22,000 per year and 70 percent at $100,000 per year, so Disney would have been able to borrow at a substantial savings compared to if the company had to issue conventional taxable corporate bonds (see discussion in the comments about whether a 50 percent tax rate implies that a muni can be sold at half the yield of a same-risk same-duration corporate bond).

How could the arrangement be justified? If it is that easy, why not have the Florida state government give every company a 1-foot-square county-like “district” to administer and then the company can use its district to issue tax-exempt bonds? Disney told the legislature that the planned primary use for the 27,000 acres it had purchased was a town: Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT). Walt in 1966:

But the most exciting, by far the most important part of our Florida project—in fact, the heart of everything we’ll be doing in Disney World—will be our experimental prototype city of tomorrow. We call it E.P.C.O.T. spelled E-P-C-O-T: Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Here it is in larger scale.

No city of today will serve as the guide for the city of tomorrow. E.P.C.O.T. will be a planned environment demonstrating to the world what American communities can accomplish through proper control of planning and design.

E.P.C.O.T. begins with an idea new among cities built since the birth of the automobile. We call it the radial plan. Picture a wheel: like the spokes of a wheel, the city fans out along a series of radials from a bustling hub at the center of E.P.C.O.T. A network of transportation systems radiate from the central hub carrying people to and from the heart of the city. These transportation systems circulate to and through four primary spheres of activity surrounding the central core. First, the area of business and commerce … next, the high-density apartment housing … then the broad greenbelt and recreation lands … and finally the low-density, neighborhood residential streets. E.P.C.O.T.’s dynamic urban center will offer the excitement and variety of activities found only in the metropolitan cities: cultural, social, business, and entertainment.

Among its major features will be a cosmopolitan hotel and convention center towering thirty or more stories. Shopping areas where stores and whole streets recreate the character and adventure of places ‘round the world … theaters for dramatic and musical productions … restaurants and a variety of nightlife attractions. And a wide range of office buildings, some containing services required by E.P.C.O.T.’s residents, but most of them designed especially to suit local and regional needs of major corporations. But most important, this entire fifty acres of city streets and buildings will be completely enclosed. In this climate-controlled environment, shoppers, theatergoers, and people just out for a stroll will enjoy ideal weather conditions, protected day and night from rain, heat and cold, and humidity.

Here the pedestrian will be king, free to walk and browse without fear of motorized vehicles. Only electric powered vehicles will travel above the streets of E.P.C.O.T.’s central city.

One of the ideas was a three-level road system. Trucks on the bottom. Cars in the middle. Pedestrians, bicycles, and electric golf carts on the top. There would be a “greenbelt” around the high-rise offices and apartment buildings. Beyond the greenbelt would be single-family homes. At least 20,000 people, which was a substantial number in a time before mass immigration, would live in E.P.C.O.T.

Since it would be primarily a municipality, in other words, it made sense for Disney to have the right to issue tax-free muni bonds.

An unrelated tidbit of potential interest is that two of the principal managers for getting Disney World ready for visitors were MIT graduates.

General Joe Potter (birth name William Potter, nickname Joe) was an integral part of the early team working on the Florida land acquisition and helped with the legislation to form the RCID.

A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in civil engineering, General Joe was a logistics planner for the invasion of Normandy and commanded the troop section of the Propaganda and Psychological Warfare Division during World War II.

Potter worked behind the scenes, overseeing the construction of the park’s infrastructure, which included underground utilities, a sewer system, and a power grid, along with water treatment plants and land reclamation measures. The other Joe, Rear Admiral Joseph W. Fowler, was at the helm of just about everything else Potter wasn’t handling, including the creation of the theme park itself, the hotels, transportation, and the like. Admiral Fowler had graduated second in his class from the US Naval Academy in 1917. Like General Potter, Fowler was also a graduate of MIT, with a master’s degree in naval architecture.

What was the land worth before Disney showed up? Somewhere between $45 and $150 per acre (950 in 2022 Bidies). By keeping its plans secret, the company paid roughly $200 per acre to buy up 43 square miles of land (2X the size of Manhattan and similar to San Francisco, but without all of the homeless encampments). As soon as word leaked out to the media, “land prices in the area skyrocketed to over $1,000 an acre.” (Disney paid $7,000 an acre in 2019 for 1,600 additional acres of swap.)

The prices on opening day in 1971?

General Admission: adult admission, $3.50; junior admission, ages twelve through seventeen, $2.50; and children three through eleven, $1.00. If you felt the need to bring man’s best friend, your four-legged friend could stay at the Disney kennel for fifty cents a day, which included a lunch. The cost of individual attractions ranged from ten cents to ninety cents. … you could spend the night at the Polynesian Village or the Contemporary for $25.00 to $44.00 a night at either hotel.

The book notes that in 2010, Disney actually did build a handful of houses inside Disney World: Golden Oak. Right now they seem to be selling for about $1,000 per square foot. A few hundred people live there, but presumably anyone with $5-20 million to spend on a house will also have additional houses in which to live.

Circling back to the original topic, Disney was able to cut its costs tremendously at the expense of the average Federal taxpayer. What’s curious is that DeSantis-hating folks in other states who’ve been paying Disney’s tax bills advocate for this arrangement to continue. They’re so against DeSantis that they’re in favor of corporate welfare that actually costs them personally (since if people who buy Disney World (“Reedy Creek”) bonds don’t have to pay tax on the interest, taxes necessary to run the Federal government will have to be extracted from ordinary schlubs) and if you ask them “How much longer do you think Disney should have the right to issue tax-free municipal bonds?” they don’t propose any end date.

From Disney World during Code Orange coronapanic (September 2021):

(I still can’t figure out how President Biden’s first executive order wasn’t shutting down all U.S. theme parks. Schools were still closed in many big U.S. cities when Biden took office. Why allow daily superspreader operations if it was too dangerous to run schools New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc.?)

Full post, including comments

Florida comes up with a scheme for increasing taxes on private workers via a property tax exemption for government workers

by philg

On the ballot this year… “Florida Amendment 3, the Additional Homestead Property Tax Exemption for Certain Public Service Workers”:

A “yes” supports authorizing the Florida State Legislature to provide an additional homestead property tax exemption on $50,000 of assessed value on property owned by certain public service workers including teachers, law enforcement officers, emergency medical personnel, active duty members of the military and Florida National Guard, and child welfare service employees.

I wonder if this will catch on nationwide as a stealth way to increase the amount of money that flows from those who aren’t part of the government to those who are. Instead of increasing property tax rates and then giving government workers a raise, which would be readily noticed, the scheme gives government workers a boost in spending power by relieving them of paying property taxes (to at least some extent). Note that this only helps government workers who are rich enough to own houses. Landlords who rent to government workers won’t get a property tax reduction so government workers who rent, like our local friend who is a police officer for a city down the coast, won’t get a rent reduction.

This could be expanded so that when government workers purchase items at retail they don’t have to pay sales tax (there is typically already a mechanism for sales tax exemption for resale, non-profit orgs, etc.).

Separately, the local police officer renter is an interesting example of someone who benefits from open borders. Without all of the crime committed in a Haitian immigrant neighborhood, the seaside city where she works wouldn’t have needed or wanted to hire additional police officers.

Full post, including comments

Should Palm Beach be renamed Elba?

by philg

One powerful obsession has been that a former leader will break out from his island exile and become an absolute ruler once again. I’m talking, of course, about Napoleon on Elba, which was indeed followed by a brief return to power (he was 46 years old at the time).

We face a somewhat analogous situation today. Donald Trump is mostly confined to the island of Palm Beach. It is common for people to express fears regarding the potential for Trump to return to power starting in January 2025 (when Trump will be a little older than 46…).

“Palm Beach” is frequently confused with the city directly across from the ritzy island (where a teardown can cost $110 million). The city has the airport, the office buildings, most of the housing (12X the population), the government offices for “Palm Beach County”, etc. It has the confusing name of “West Palm Beach”.

What about renaming the island that is home to the exiled ruler “Elba” and then we can just use “Palm Beach” to refer to the city and the region?

Speaking of Palm Beach County, here’s a 1974 newspaper article at the county’s massive Japanese garden.

He was one of the richest people in Palm Beach County with $1.5 million, mostly in land worth $10,000 per acre.

What does the garden look like? The Orange One seems to like it:

Cousin Itt’s cousin was inside the tea room exhibit (Halloween weekend):

There are some beautiful stone lanterns:

Full post, including comments

Twitter won’t suspend a politician who lies to get money?

by philg

Twitter banned Marjorie Taylor Greene for saying, without seeking cash, that the COVID-19 “vaccine” did not prevent infection and transmission (CNN). Let’s look at a politician who asks for money and supports his request by saying that he’s 1% behind in the polls:

Charlie Crist and ActBlue wouldn’t lie to us, surely? The FiveThirtyEight summary of the polls, captured on November 1:

The $5 sought doesn’t seem as though it would help bridge the 8-14-point gap in the polls. More likely, Crist would need the miraculous help of Christ in order for Science (with the explicit promise of mask orders, forced vaccination, school closures, and lockdowns) to prevail.

Why aren’t Crist and ActBlue deplatformed for spreading misinformation, particularly since they seem to be spreading misinformation in order to get money.

Maybe the argument is that Representative Greene was putting lives at risk spreading misinformation about COVID-19 by falsely claiming that the pandemic-ending vaccines would not end the pandemic. But people with less money live shorter lives. Every person who donates to Charlie Crist can expect to live a slightly shorter life as a result. Maybe the sacrifice of lives would be worth it in order to avoid the Nakba of a second DeSantis term. But if there is no practical chance of a Crist victory, lives will be shortened without any compensating benefit.

Full post, including comments

Halloween in Abacoa

by philg

Happy Halloween everyone! If you open your wallet at Home Depot, is it possible to create a spooky environment when it is 80 degrees and sunny? You can be the judge! Here are some photos from our MacArthur Foundation-created neighborhood in Jupiter, Florida:

I declare these two the winners of the costume party at the neighbor’s pirate house:

Your own faithful blog host as a British Navy officer fighting the pirates next door:

Another neighborhood, still within Abacoa:

Full post, including comments

Why isn’t Ron DeSantis dead?

by philg

It’s been a month since Team DeSantis began the Hurricane Ian rebuilding effort (“build back quickly” will not be the motto?). The hated tyrant, from a Democrat’s point of view, spent the week prior to the hurricane organizing an army of about 100,000 utility workers, soldiers, state workers (to clear roads and inspect bridges), etc. During all of this time Ron DeSantis was in close contact with other humans, many of whom were no doubt infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Here’s Ron with a taxpayer:

Neither of them is Following the Science with an N95 mask. There has been plenty of COVID-19 transmission outdoors and yet… no masks (and where is the hand sanitizer?):

Three days before the hurricane hit, “‘Make preparations now’: DeSantis urges vigilance as Ian poised to strike as major hurricane” (Tallahassee Democrat):

With a vast swath of Florida’s Gulf Coast facing the possibility of a direct strike from a major hurricane in the coming days, Gov. Ron DeSantis urged residents to finish making preparations and not focus too much on where the storm’s center currently is predicted to track, noting there still is significant uncertainty about its path.

“It’s important to point out to folks that the path of this is still uncertain,” DeSantis said Sunday during a press conference at the state Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee. “The impacts will be broad throughout the state of Florida. Don’t get too wedded to those cones where they” show the projected landfall location.

This turned out to be great advice, but what’s relevant for this post is that we see Ron DeSantis in a room full of people with… no masks (and no vaccine requirement either, since that would be illegal in Florida).

There is no evidence that the new bivalent vaccines protect against the currently circulating strains of SARS-CoV-2. In any case, it seems doubtful that Governor DeSantis would have had time to stop at CVS and then take two days off for the vaccine side effects. There is plenty of evidence that the old vaccines, which he might have gotten, do not protect against the currently circulating strains of SARS-CoV-2. Death with a COVID-19 tag is common among both the vaccinated, the vaccinated and boosted, and the vaccinated and boosted and boosted (and boosted?).

Unless we’ve been fed lies regarding SARS-CoV-2, how is it possible that Ron DeSantis has survived his contact with so many people in such a short time period? At a minimum, shouldn’t he be in bed with Long COVID?

Related:

Full post, including comments

Invite to an election night party

by philg

Here’s part of an invitation that I received to an election night party:

The party is here in South Florida, but the host is a lockdown refugee from San Francisco. Some political signs have gone up in our town. There is a lot of enthusiasm for Governor DeSantis and a bit for Congressman Brian Mast (a Republican who is somewhat hostile to civilian gun ownership). Marco Rubio is predicted to win, but I haven’t seen any signs for him (compare to 50+ for DeSantis and a handful for Mast).

Charlie Crist has run a 99% negative campaign. Here’s a recent example:

Twitter unpersoned Marjorie Taylor Greene for saying that the COVID “vaccines” did not prevent infection or transmission. Why is it okay for this Democrat to say that Ron DeSantis has “banned” abortion care for pregnant people when Florida reproductive health care providers are providing abortion care to pregnant people every day? From abortionfinder.org:

If you’re 15 weeks, 6 days pregnant or less, it is legal for you to get an abortion in Florida.

This rule allows for more abortion care than almost anywhere in the European Union (Germany has a 12-week limit, for example.) Doesn’t Crist’s statement at least merit some kind of warning sign to users that the facts are “missing context”?

Despite Crist’s crusade for freedom of the press (undoing DeSantis’s purported “banned books” action) and freedom of speech (undoing DeSantis’s purported “banned saying ‘gay'” action), he apparently has failed to generate excitement among people who live in Jupiter. I have seen no signs for him.

Who else has been invited to an election night party? I can’t remember this much excitement for the typical mid-term election. I wonder if it is because government has become larger and more pervasive and therefore there is now much more at stake than in previous decades. For example, if you have a student loan outstanding the outcome of this election can determine whether you’re going to be $10,000 richer or not. That’s a tax-free bonanza, right? If the election doesn’t go well, the gender studies graduate might have to work a second job to earn $20,000 pre-tax to be equally well off compared to if Democrats prevail and the college debt can be shifted onto the backs of the working class?

Full post, including comments

Climate change leader tosses a $110 million 6-year-old house into a landfill

by philg

Let’s start off in the Department of Sick with Envy… “Lavish Palm Beach mansion built just six years ago, then bought for $110m last year ‘by Estée Lauder boss’ will be TORN DOWN and replaced with new property” (Daily Mail):

A never-lived-in oceanfront mansion that quietly sold for $110 million last year is to be torn down and replaced with a new property.

The mansion, built in 2016 at 1071 N. Ocean Blvd, Palm Beach, is owned by a company linked to cosmetics billionaire William P. Lauder.

He owns an empty lot next door and is believed to want to combine both parcels of land before building his dream home, just six miles from former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.

The home was originally purchased for $40.42 million by Philadelphia businessman Vahan Gureghian and his wife, Danielle, an attorney, but they never moved in.

There is even room for a two-lane bowling alley in the basement – although it’s soon to be destroyed by the wrecker’s ball.

He purchased that lot, at 1063 N Ocean Blvd, for $25.4 million in April 2020 at which point he demolished the existing home which had stood there since the early 1960s.

(What kind of engineering was involved to make a watertight basement? Almost nobody in Florida has one.)

To make our envy even more intense, the article includes a photo of the dilapidated eyesore:

It is at times like these that I’m glad I voted for Bernie!

What does the guy who is throwing out a 6-year-old 36,000-square-foot house have to say about our beloved planet? A 2021 talk from the committed environmentalist:

During the pandemic, concerns about the environment have intensified and Lauder noted that, at this point, sustainability is no longer a choice for companies.

“We have to think about what we make and sell from cradle to grave,” he noted. “How can we get more recycled material in our packaging? How can we reduce the use of plastic and other components that end up in landfills?”

The entire house will go into a landfill, but that’s okay because very little of it is plastic?

It’s all about the Science:

Sustainability and science go hand-in-hand. Lauder said…

See also “Estée Lauder Companies Reaches Milestone Climate Goal, Net Zero” (2020):

The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) announced on November 2nd that it has achieved Net Zero emissions and sourced 100% renewable electricity globally for its direct operations, reaching the target it set on joining RE1001.

Building upon this achievement, the company has also met its goal to set science-based emissions reduction targets for its direct operations and value chain, positioning the company to take even more decisive action against climate change in the coming decade.

The Estée Lauder Companies commits to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 50% by 2030 from a 2018 base year. This target is consistent with reductions required to keep warming to 1.5°C, the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement. The Estée Lauder Companies also commits to reduce scope 3 GHG emissions from purchased goods and services, upstream transportation and distribution, and business travel 60% per unit revenue over the same timeframe.

It was Science who said “toss that 6-year-old house into the landfill”!

So we started off sick with envy, but ended up learning something profound about the role that each of us can play in saving Spaceship Earth.

Update, 10/26: Government moves fast in Florida! The environmentalist got a demolition permit and the house is on its way to the landfill.

Full post, including comments