It was a very big deal environmentally when car companies were required to increase fuel economy fleet wide over the last 20 years.
Not as big a deal as turning transportation electric and turning electricity into solar/wind/nuclear will be, but a big deal.
Under any kind of meaningful carbon tax that electrified system is waywayway cheaper than the one we run today. When you really think about how much work it is to acquire fossil fuels they are in no danger of being a more efficient source of energy than solar (when the sun is shining and the duck curve is the problem to fix in solar) even without a carbon tax.
The only barrier to removing an absolutely absurd % of the median human’s carbon footprint is the capital required to scale up battery production massively. The raw materials required to make batteries aren’t even rare.
Once we finally start taking climate change seriously we’re going to rapidly discover that the solution wasn’t all that painful for the general population, and the whole thing was just a scam by the Koch brothers on the planet. I wish I was kidding.
It had been trending that way since the 90’s I believe. Don’t get me wrong it was nowhere near good enough, but it was a tangible something. I forget when the automakers stopped negotiating with the oil companies as a block, but there was a specific moment when they split in the 90’s and since then they’ve been moving away from carbon granted very slowly.
I guess to spell out in formal terms what I’m saying about personal choices vs the coercive instrument of the government - either some sweeping mass-consciousness movement has to happen, or we have to do it with government power. If one of those things doesn’t happen then it doesn’t matter what you individually do. The problem is that the group of people committed to making these lifestyle changes can at best be as large as the people who are basically single issue voters for climate change, and in practice is a lot smaller, because there are members of the latter who aren’t members of the former. So long before we get to curing the problem with mass individual action, we should have reached the point where we can take serious government action. I’d concede though that action on climate change is not a binary thing and maybe individual action can at least mitigate it somewhat.
Edit: Somehow posted this draft without meaning to, just finished it now.
A close election with 100 million voters has better than a one in 10000 chance of moving into a tie or a win because of your vote.
On the other hand, even though that chance is much greater than some people realize, a well written letter to the editor has a much better chance still to change an elections outcome. Or to change other things with actions seen by many others. That’s why it’s silly to talk about Gore or Kerry’s private planes and why it should be unacceptable for smart people to confine themselves to voting or posting on small message boards.
There’s clearly some “it depends” around “close” but also the outcome of the election itself may or may not have as much effect as many think. You can probably cut your emissions in half, but the Democrats aren’t going to cut US emissions in half. Also, the same reasoning applies to personal action. Doing something quietly by yourself may not be as impactful as writing a letter to the editor about how you can and should reduce your personal emissions - and if you do that well, you aren’t even trying to get people to change things they are married to like political parties.
Indeed, and increasingly so with online transactions. I am not knowledgeable on the subject but it’s my understanding that clicking to order releases brain candy very similar to taking a drug.
Agree. If we replace his use of the word drugs with addiction I think it’s even more accurate. Because there not only is an addiction to consumption, but also an addiction to wealth accumulation.
If anyone is looking for interesting and compelling podcast content that has a focus on climate change, “How to Save the Planet” is excellent. This particular episode featured indigenous activists. It’s informative and a call to action, direct action.
The indigenous peoples of the world, having barely survived the genocidal wars of the past few hundred years, are now standing on the front lines to hopefully save us all from the same fate. They face the overwhelming firepower of the ruling class that will be brought to bear against all humans who demand that we put people>private profits. The assholes of the past who led the genocide of native peoples are the forefathers of the sociopaths of today who will stop at nothing to do the same to all of us, as long as their next quarterly profits are X% higher.
Humans can be greedy and short sighted, granted, but there is no need to support a system that encourages, rewards, and legalizes the quest for increasing profits and wealth accumulation at the expense of our ecosystem. A different world is possible.
During the early 1980s, more than 42 percent of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty (earning less than $2 a day). In the Soviet Union, for example, 20 percent of the population—over 43 million people—lived on less than 75 rubles a month (roughly $120).
Fast forward to the 21st century, and less than 10 percent of the world’s population is extremely poor—a 33 percent decrease. The left-leaning Brookings Institution estimates that someone escapes extreme poverty every 1.2 seconds.