I am pretty sure india is taking more steps than USA. you cannot blame them anymore. They are even pushing more money into nuclear and created a breeder reactor.
You would be wrong. The IRA is projected to remove a California-sized block of US emissions by 2030. The IRA is the single strongest climate action tried by any country since the Paris Accords.
It's a graph that shows a steady and consistent increase in atmospheric CO2 for the last 40 years regardless of the elected political party in the US at the time.
In other words, it seems to indicate pretty strongly that no matter how you vote, climate change is going to destroy us.
Climate change was barely a political issue this cycle because China is the runaway leader renewable energy tech (solar, batteries) and the Biden Admin SANCTIONED them for it.
It's difficult for many people in America to accept that the "climate change" narrative is primarily a propaganda tool and wedge issue to rally votes, and that the DNC doesn't actually care about "solving" it. Just like abortion.
Two things are true: climate change and reproductive rights are genuine issues, and they are also weaponized for political nonsense. People need to be away more skeptical around these debates and stop getting so angry/depressed about them (which is the goal of those groups trying to manipulate you through powerful emotions).
> Until China and India take steps to decarbonize their economies as opposed to making empty pledges we all know will never be met, then whatever the U.S. or the rest of the West does will not matter.
This is such a bullshit way of thinking. No one snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche. "But China…", "But India…" is not an excuse for not giving a shit. I hear the same arguments over here in Germany, and they're usually coming from the "I don't want to change" crowd.
> you have to get everyone to cut as much as they can
But the point being made isn't to emphasize the importance of everyone collaborating on cutting emissions. The point being made is that we may as well not cut back because someone else might not. It's especially disingenuous to bring up India when they emit less than the US does (and especially on a per-capita basis).
Well then, the good news is Trump has the guy more responsible for electrifying American cars (a major contributor to CO2 emissions) than anyone else on his team.
Also the state that has more renewables than any other state voted for Trump.
Are you referring to Elon Musk? He also torpedoed a mass transit project in California and built the stupidest version of a train ever conceived in Las Vegas. It's not clear that Elon Musk has a good sense for efficient means to reduce climate harming activity - just that he wants, and is good at getting, government money for his projects.
> It's not clear that Elon Musk has a good sense for efficient means to reduce climate harming activity
I think that this is one of the most incorrect, and, what’s more, plainly and obviously incorrect things I’ve ever read. I am almost at a loss for words when I read it.
Are we going to pretend that people would have adopted EVs anyway in the west without Tesla? Did you think we would just abandon the entire western auto manufacturing infrastructure and start driving BYDs? Did you forget what the auto industry looked like before (and during, in the early years) Tesla?
This is like saying that he doesn’t have a good sense for building orbital rockets. The guy has basically only done two big and meaningful things with his life and attacking the #1 carbon emission source is the bigger of the two.
> Are we going to pretend that people would have adopted EVs anyway in the west without Tesla?
EVs are growing, and will continue to grow, for reasons unrelated to climate.
They are the superior product in nearly every way. Regenerative braking is a huge objective improvement. The acceleration and torque control is a huge improvement. The lack of maintenance is a huge improvement.
The only downside of EVs is range and charge time, and both of those are being actively improved.
Elon deserves some credit for joining on to Tesla in 2004, long before these benefits were clear, and for being at the first company to really demonstrate these benefits in reality with the Roadster in 2008. But I do not think the existence of Tesla accelerated the adoption of EVs by more than a couple years.
The Model S was released in 2012. The Nissan Leaf was released in 2010.
Improved private cars, electric or otherwise, are an unserious solution to climate change or a sustainable future. Simple geometry makes this obvious - they're quite literally the worst solution to moving many people. If I asked someone, "move ten thousand people ten kilometers," and they came back with "I will put each one in a 2x2 meter box with four seats, but only one will be occupied by a person. The box needs to be stored at the origin and destination, and independently operated by every single person," how could I do anything but laugh them out of the room? Addendum: "by the way, the infrastructure to sustain this means the box is required for trips of all lengths greater than 1.5 kilometers, and sometimes even less!"
Attacking cars as a carbon emission source would not mean killing an HSR project on purpose. It would mean building public transit.
Anyway EVs aren't special. Every major car manufacturer has them now, and the PRC makes shitloads too. Elon Musk probably beat the market, but it's not like his designs were genius - they lacked critical, simple safety features for example. Need I truck out the stories of people slicing their hands open on the cybertruck frame?
As for orbital rockets, that doesn't really have anything to do with climate change.
The fact that EVs aren’t special, and that every major manufacturer has them now, are almost entirely the result of his hard work. I think a lot of people forgot what the world was like before Tesla. This is sort of like saying “every phone manufacturer makes touch screen phones”. The foregone conclusion that “this is just how phones/cars are now” wasn’t foregone until someone made it that way, at scale, first to show everyone the better way.
Also, I think your idea that cars themselves are the problem is probably incorrect. Decarbonization isn’t primarily about reducing overall energy use per person, although you can possibly deflect with the argument that it requires both that and also clean energy.
In any case, American culture and cities are car culture and cities, and even if you could do the impossible and magically deploy tons of HSR between every metro in the US it wouldn’t make people stop driving. Any solution that requires first rebuilding the whole country and replacing its whole population with people who don’t want to drive a large vehicle to the grocery store is obviously a nonstarter.
What do you propose we do about the volcanoes that in a single eruption emit more methane and carbon than human activity does over a span of two centuries?
It's clear that Trump pulled out of the Paris climate accords and famously wants to start up a massive amount of drilling for oil.
Whereas recent democratic cabinets banned certain oil drilling, dedicated the US to the climate accords, installed large subsidy programs including one that prevented Tesla (fully kickstarted the electrification of the entire automotive industry indefinitely) from going bankrupt, and just recently launched the IRA which is the biggest climate change prevention investment ($3 trillion) in the history of the world, prompting the EU to follow with a similar program to compete to attract green investments and innovations.
There is simply a massive policy difference between the two parties here. And showing a graph of world emisions that have kept going up in the decades prior to mainstream climate change awareness, is grossly misleading. For one because it says nothing about US policy. Two because it happened prior significant climate change policy and a divergence between republicans and democrats on this issue. And third because without frontrunner countries there is no way that you can ever overcome the tragedy of the commons issue with climate, because India/China are certainly not going to make investments if the US doesn't and fucks the climate anyway. We can't all use that excuse, certainly not if you're the richest and most innovative country.
