Your comment is only technically correct, so I am gonna add to that:

Alfred Nobel did invent dynamite and was also a believer in mutually assured destruction, BUT: those two facts are not directly connected.

Dynamite in itself was not intended for warfare, but for mining. It was still relatively unstable so not really suited for warfare. (TNT, which came around 1900, solved that problem.)

Nobel did invent smokeless powder for warfare and he transformed Bofors into an arms manufacturing company though.

https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-thoughts-about-war-and-peace/

How is a diverse opinion a threat to democracy?

If the opinion is that there should not be a democracy, then that is a threat to democracy.

Excluding a portion of the population from the polls

They are not excluded. They are free to vote for a party that is in line with the constitution.

its almost exclusively a phenomena specific to the left…

I don’t even know what to say. In which world are the far-right, fascists and nazis known to value opposing views? Are you serious?

I read in another article that it is just supposed to be a first test of the feature before the global rollout.

I’m not sure if it works with YouTube

I can confirm that uBlock Origin blocks Youtube Ads.

The original contract with the company RWE was made in the 1990s and included destroying whole towns for the coal mine, which was planned to be in use until 2038.

What we see now is a compromise between RWE, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the federal government to save the remaining towns and close the mine earlier (in 2030). The wind turbines are from 2001 and are nearing the end of their lifecycle.

I was exclusively talking about the EU ban, not about some random US cities’ bans (This is a thread about Germany after all). None of your points really apply to the EU ban.

It does not ban the distribution (you can still legally buy leftover stock - my local cinema seems to have a century’s worth of supply), just the first-time sale of newly produced non-medical single-use plastic straws.

The “medical exemption” is not on an individual basis, but an exemption for a production line of straws. Everybody can buy the straws afterwards. The EU ban is not cutting a “lifeline” for disabled people.

The links you provided talk about bans by local city councils in the USA, which have their own (apparantly stupid) rules.

No? Nobody thinks that?

My comment was just a response to the following:

Replace your car with an electric one! (even though it still works fine and will end up in landfill, never mind the environmental cost of producing the new one, or the source of the electricity it uses)

…which for some reason suggests that the introduction of electric cars leads to premature scrapping of existing cars - which is bullshit.

While I partly agree with your argument at the end of your comment, I think your examples are really unfitting.

Only single-use plastic straws are banned. There is also an exemption for straws that are necessary for medical reasons. The needs of disabled people are included in the exemption. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2021-003536-ASW_EN.html

If people buy a new car, the old one (if still functional) typically enters the second-hand market, not the landfill. There is no reason why this would be different if the new car is an electric vehicle.

The carbon footprint is a perfectly fine concept on its own, the problem is just that some people shit on it with their private jets, which are a legitimate concern. Some people also argue that “most of the pollution is done by corporations, not individuals”, completely ignoring the fact that these corporations only do it while producing goods for the people. That does not mean that we can just blame the people for it, but everybody has the responsibility to vote for policies that keep the corporations in check.

Recycling is really bad in some countries, but works pretty well in others. For example in Germany 56% of plastic waste is recycled, 44% burned. 90% of paper is recycled. https://www.quarks.de/umwelt/muell/das-solltest-du-ueber-recycling-wissen/#lösung4