[lbriner]

The problem that Western governments have is that everyone in the country has a vote and people don't like inconvenience. If you want to "do the right thing" and e.g. ban ICE vehicles, you get a massive backlash, so instead you water it down, kick the can down the road, pretend other less contraversial measures are just as effective or (in the case of the UK), "we are already ahead of other countries so we don't need to inconvenience ourselves too much".

Sad really because the green economy could provides lots of jobs, great opportunities to export etc. It's not a coincidence that the UK imports a lot of high-efficiency building products from Germany and Scandinavia, it is because those countries have invested in the tech and are reaping the rewards.

[unglaublich]

People are more concerned about they car they drive tomorrow than the pollution and ecological effects they experience in the future; and not concerned at all by the issues they cause for future generations.

[hef19898]

That everybody has a vote is actually a strength, and not a weakness.

And banning ICE vehicles is not up for discussion anymore, is it? Legislature or not, no company will be able to sell you a new one come 2035 anyway.

A more general thought so, one that troubles me, is that both "sides" of the public opinion cobflicts we see in the west today seem to be totally fine with using authoritarian measures for the greater good, some more than others and the far right actively advocating for it. It will be liberals that loose with that approach, as the goals of the political liberals can easily be framed as "they want to take away things", hence the far right gets a huge opening.

[aziaziazi]

What makes you troubled in an authoritarian measure for the greater good ? There’s already plenty of it and most are ok with it: speed limits, parking laws, violence, sex with children, art (graph) on public/private infrastructure… the list goes on.

Law must always adapt to the society greater good and that means adding new one and removing the obsoletes.

[hef19898]

You think a speed limit is authoritarian? Man, read some history...

The people who scare me moat, are tjose convinced to be right and morally superior. They can justify any atrocity by claiming to do it for the "greater good". The path to hell is covered by good intentions, and if I dare say so, we marched as a species already more than once.

By the way, if you want to get broad, public support for measures to fight climate change, argueing fro draconian enforxement is exaclty what people are affraid of. And what populists use to get support. In the end, you will achieve the opposite of what you want.