[tnias23]

Like almost every other goddamn problem we face, the solution is boring as hell: campaign finance reform.

If politicians actually represented their constituents, they would be able to effect the policy changes required. But they don’t, because campaign finance is broken, allowing the richest, most blood-sucking elements of society to have the biggest influence.

If you have the opportunity to vote for someone who believes strongly in getting money out of politics, please do it.

[doctorpangloss]

I don't know. It is just as likely that if Tom Steyer couldn't donate to candidates who support his idiosyncratic ecological causes, those causes would be even less relevant politically than they are now. The Green New Deal evaporated for many reasons, certainly one of which was the rising of interest rates, which caused spending everywhere, like campaign donations, to fall.

Everywhere we look, greater spending - in all sectors, including political lobbying - is almost certainly associated with support for environmental causes, because it is basically a rich man's cause. And anyway, I don't know if it even predicts the victory of the most corrupt political interests, when Trump raised just above half the amount Clinton did, and Obama raised almost twice McCain.

Like I get what you are saying, but following your logic, the problem is democracy, because in the objective reality we live in, sacrifices for the sake of the environment are unpopular.

[tacocataco]

Could we add electoral reform to the list? We need to introduce competition in our political system.

People deserve the right to vote for who best represents them, while still counting their vote if that candidate doesn't win.

The First Past the Post electoral system most states use will always result in a two party system.

Since the electoral process is run at the state level, we can pass electoral reform one state at a time. Some states have already passed reform!

CGP Grey has a great video on First Past the Post voting if you're interested in learning more.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo&pp=ygUcY2dwIGdyZXk...

[deadbolt]

How do you expect electoral reform to happen, when the people elected were elected because of the current electoral system?

Meaningful electoral reform via the current electoral system is a wish.

[93po]

This is why some political ideologies advocate that reform will never happen without revolution

[dragonwriter]

> How do you expect electoral reform to happen, when the people elected were elected because of the current electoral system?

I expect it to happen first at the state level, in states where the people have reserved the power to alter the State Constitution and laws to themselves without requiring the involvement of elected officials in other than ministerial roles.

[emodendroket]

I don't think it's actually that simple. Let's imagine money's out of the picture. How many people are eager to keep their homes at 78 degrees? That's just one tiny example of many but I think in your heart of hearts you know that many people will resist every small step tooth and nail. On this very forum I've seen people muse about starting a civil war because California put certain efficiency standards on computer power supplies.

[93po]

To what extent does 78 degree homes impact climate change? The answer is very little if we had leadership that pushed zero carbon energy production (nuclear, wind, solar) instead of being bought and paid for by fossil fuel industries

[emodendroket]

Maybe in some theoretical future world the answer is very little. In the one we actually live in, it's a great deal: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/29/the-air-...

> There are just over 1bn single-room air conditioning units in the world right now – about one for every seven people on earth. Numerous reports have projected that by 2050 there are likely to be more than 4.5bn, making them as ubiquitous as the mobile phone is today. The US already uses as much electricity for air conditioning each year as the UK uses in total. The IEA projects that as the rest of the world reaches similar levels, air conditioning will use about 13% of all electricity worldwide, and produce 2bn tonnes of CO2 a year – about the same amount as India, the world’s third-largest emitter, produces today.

[93po]

This is missing the point - AC is problematic for exactly the reason you quoted - it produces CO2. My point is that it doesn't need to, and only does because our leadership is some mixture of corrupt, incompetent, or uncaring.

There is no technical reason why 99% of the household energy produced on Earth can't be free of direct carbon emissions. It's a societal issue that it isn't.

[emodendroket]

I’d argue you are missing my point. There are other issues with A/C (refrigerants are also contributors to CO2, production is an issue), but the finer points of any one technology are not the issue. The issue is that I think it’s a fantasy that we can solve global warming simply with some technical tweaks and no changes whatsoever to our patterns of consumption. “Consume less” is not a message that goes over well.

[93po]

A quick search online shows that HFCs (refrigerants) are 2% of greenhouse gas emissions, which also accounts for them being thousands of time worse than CO2. Which is way higher than I expected, but still not exactly making-or-breaking climate change.

I really don't see the need to consume less energy if it comes from renewable or carbon-free generation. In general, energy is used for good and productive things. AC in particular lets humans live in climates that would otherwise not be used anywhere near to the extent they are without it.

Realistically with the world we live in, yes, reduction is helpful. But accountability to major producers of emissions is at minimum 100 times more helpful.

[BillyTheMage]

Voting will accomplish nothing.

The US doesn't even allow people to truly vote. It's mathematically impossible with our several layers of crap bolted onto an already mathematically-broken voting system. It's rigged to give you a choice between 2 evils, and really it's just a choice between 2 different representatives of the exact same evil.

And even if we:

- replace First-Past-The-Post with a proportional voting method

- replace single-seat districts with larger multi-seat districts

- get rid of the electoral college

- secure the rights of referendum and representative-recall

, it's unlikely that they would actually do anything meaningful enough to make a difference. More likely they would pass the same old useless hyper-specific miss-the-point regulations they always do. The only thing that will change is their advertisement methods.

Real change requires direct action.

[dmvdoug]

The problem with your voting solution is that the Supreme Court has constitutionalized the issue. Getting money out of politics in America is going to require a constitutional amendment.

[jjtheblunt]

How has the Supreme Court constitutionalized the issue?

[thebooktocome]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC and the penumbra of supporting decisions since then.

[jjtheblunt]

Thank you

[Sai_]

> represented their constituents

How would they know what the views of their constituents are?

They'd require either require exhaustive, expensive but representative polling on every topic or wait in call back mode - the constituents with the most to lose or gain will call back and help them form an opinions.

The first is impossible and actually goes against the notion of representative democracy and conscious indifference. The second is the current way of doing things.

Is there a better way? Maybe technology can be leveraged to scrape public FB, LinkedIn, and other social media posts on a subject to (hopefully) get a balanced view on a subject.

[EvanAnderson]

> How would they know what the views of their constituents are?

The number of representatives in the US House needs to be expanded. The proportion of citizens to representatives is way out of whack. Having more representatives with smaller districts would allow representatives to better know and support their district’s interests and views.

[Sai_]

Is that realistic? Even organizing a team lunch for ten involves a lot of customer discovery and tradeoffs and here too, the loudest voices (analogous to committed voters or lobbyists) usually win.

Even if the final ratio of representatives to voters is 1:10, you have only moved the problem upstream to this giant body of 33 million representatives who now need to agree on a policy. Simply voting Yes/No could lead to 50%-10 of the population feeling disenfranchised.

[EvanAnderson]

I think an expansion is logistically realistic and in the interests of voters. It’s also not in the interests of the established “ruling class” so it’ll never happen.

I found the arguments made by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to be compelling: https://www.amacad.org/ourcommonpurpose/enlarging-the-house/...

I tend to find the entire Our Common Purpose report[0] the Academy issued in 2020 to be pretty reasonable and in line with what I think the public interest is.

[0] https://www.amacad.org/ourcommonpurpose/report

[coryrc]

No use unless you replace FPTP voting with something capable of actual representation (mixed-member voting).