[asib]

Developed rich countries are hurting. See the wildfires across North America, massive amounts of flooding across Europe, etc.

Nothing will change until many of the global electorate stop burying their heads in the sand. These people don't change their minds until things affect them specifically. Then they change their mind, and all their former fellows tell them they're brainwashed.

This doesn't change until nearly everyone is affected, and by then we're so far into the catastrophe that the consequences don't even bear thinking about.

[jcfrei]

I have a different take: Things will change once a big part of the electorate no longer feels like climate change policies will hurt their pocket. A lot of the opposition to the policies are from people who aren't in the richer percentiles and probably work in a field that's related to fossil fuels (like heating engineers, car mechanics, etc.). They fear job losses and that their commute and heating bills go up.

[cogman10]

I have a different different take. It's not the electorate's pocketbook that matters, it's the political donors pocketbook that matters.

"Drill baby drill" will be echoed so long as petroleum companies and petroleum rich nations dump billions into propaganda outlets, politician campaigns, and in the US, PAC groups to support "drill baby drill" friendly politicians.

So long as that dynamic exists, it doesn't matter if 80% of the electorate screams for change. So long as the incumbent advantage exists forcing people to vote mostly on social issues, these sorts of economic and world affecting issues will simply be ignored.

There's a reason, to this day, you'll find Democrats talk about the wonders of fracking, clean coal, and carbon capture.

IDK how to change this other than first identifying the issue. Our politicians are mostly captured by their donors. That's the only will they really care about enacting.

[jcfrei]

Not sharing your take of the electorate's powerlessness at all. It's not an overwhelming majority (only 57% of voters in the US: https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54124-nearly-half-american...) which thinks they need to do more about climate change. I think most politicians are in tune with their voters - you need to change the people's minds if you want stricter policies. Refine the question a bit more and ask people if they still want to do more against climate change if some basic necessities in their life will get more expensive and you will likely even drop below 50%.

[cogman10]

Well part of that 43% I think have their opinions primarily because of propaganda from the same donors who are buying off the politicians.

But also, I'd point out that even in the Democrat party where this is more of an 80:20 issue with their constituents, the democrats are still far too friendly to fossil fuels (Biden, for example, specifically campaigned on how much he loves natural gas, fracking, and carbon capture).

This isn't the only 80:20 issue where democrat politicians are out of alignment with their base. That's also what informs my pessimism.

[triceratops]

> Biden, for example, specifically campaigned on how much he loves natural gas, fracking, and carbon capture

Can't win elections when gas is expensive. I still remember the "I did that" stickers at gas pumps.

Biden also signed the largest climate change bill in history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_Reduction_Act#Energy...

When voters are heavily propagandized it's an uphill battle to keep fossil fuels cheap, so you can win elections and phase out those same cheap fuels.

[gzread]

Solar power is cheaper than oil, but it doesn't work 24/7. If you can find a way to work with that, switching to solar is already financially incentivised. Even if you can't, we're already seeing whole countries and regions saturating at 100% solar electricity during daylight hours, significantly reducing oil usage. It doesn't matter what the oil sellers want, because it's a buyer's market for energy when the sun is out, and they're not going to throw extra money at oil companies just because.

[virgildotcodes]

The universe was not built to cater to our desires. We can't have our cake and eat it too.

Virtually all economic activity consumes resources and energy, directly or indirectly, and in the process creates ghg emissions.

If we want to curb climate change and our emissions, it necessarily means we're going to take an economic hit.

We either do that willingly with some degree of ability to exercise control along the way, or be forced by physics to take an even worse economic hit and face vastly more death and suffering without our hands on the wheel.

There's no option where we don't get our pockets hurt.

[jcfrei]

Same reply to you as the other commentator: Fully agree that not doing anything will hurt more. The hard part is finding policies that actually work without costing the lower and middle class more right now. The conservatives basically everywhere around the world are against redistribution - so they ideologically oppose anything that looks like it. At the same time if we just enact policies that limit CO2 the rich people won't really care that flying, heating, driving and some foods have gotten a bit more expensive. But the poor people will. And of the ones who would get hurt by the higher prices a lot of them are ideologically opposed to any kind of redistributing policies. So you are kind of stuck in a catch-22 for now.

[gzread]

An interesting policy proposal is negative tax. Basically take the carbon cap, divide by the number of people, and give the equivalent carbon tax price to each person. A person who uses exactly average carbon sees no change, while a person who uses less gets a tax rebate, and a person who uses more pays more. You can charge it at the source, tariffing oil by its carbon content and then reducing taxes by that amount for everyone.

[jcfrei]

Again - poor people, which:

- still drive old cars with lots of CO2 emissions

- live far away from their workplace

- probably have a poorly isolated home with oil or gas heating

will be the ones with higher than average emissions. And the rich people who do will just shrug at this minor extra expense. I feel like this is not mentioned enough in discussions (probably because wealth disparity is such a touchy subject) but your ability to reduce your carbon footprint is also directly tied to your wealth.

[gzread]

The average would also include rich people - if rich people are using far above average and poor people are using slightly above average, who's below average?

[virgildotcodes]

Rich people, even with electric cars and solar panels, are responsible for far greater emissions than poor people even with their old beaters and longer commutes. Far, far greater.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/this-study-calculated-t...

[deaux]

> The hard part is finding policies that actually work without costing the lower and middle class more right now

You imprison the current administration for treason, seize their ill-gotten gains and there you go, hundreds of billions of dollars.

It's absolutely trivial. There's just a group of people that doesn't want it.

Simultaneously institute an inheritance tax as well as an exit tax of 90% of assets above $1+ billion, at time of death or leaving. That's a cool $1+ trillion in revenue for the next few decades. Both exit taxes and inheritance taxes are very established and work fine in plenty of countries, FYI. Not like yearly wealth taxes that are always criticized as not working or untested.

It's trivial to come up with policies that don't hurt the lower nor the middle class. Laughably easy. There's however a group of people that are blocking them. Those people are the problem and their blocks need to be removed to get closer to preventing then oncoming extinction event (which has complete scientific consesus). These policies work, and what needa to be done is removing of their blockers.

Come on now everyone, at least give an argument before you downvote. Warren Buffet is set to give away 99% of his wealth, so it's clearly possible. Humanity can no longer depend on the others to have the same basic decency as he does - clearly he's the exception, the others don't have it.

[asib]

Not responding to climate change is hurting everyone's pocket. Home insurance premiums are obscene in some places. Energy insecurity due to reliance on fossil fuels sourced from overseas (particularly relevant right now with the US war on Iran and Russian war on Ukraine). Extreme temperatures mean we either spend more money on heating/cooling our homes or, if you're not wealthy enough to pay, you pay by having to endure the temperature extremes.

[jcfrei]

Not disputing that it will hurt everyone's pocket. But politically it is very fraught to push for policies that will benefit a new group of people (wind turbine engineers, solar cell installers) at the expense of an established group (gas turbine mechanics, fuel truck drivers). And for the home owners: It's not hurting them on a broad enough level - people who oppose climate change policies probably just don't care about homes in the coastal areas getting flooded - maybe because most of the opposition lives further inland.

[deaux]

> Not responding to climate change is hurting everyone's pocket

No it's not. There's a large group of people whose pockets are being lined by it. A large group of billionaires.

[siruncledrew]

Until climate plans align with short-term personal incentives, I don't see how there's going to be any serious persistent fight against climate change.

People might feel benevolent one day and do something good, but the next day when they are faced with a problem and the environment is a convenient trash can or resource bin, they'll go right back to those bad habits.

The only way things will change is if everyone's life gets made miserable by the effects.

[selectodude]

Eh, until “owning the libs” stops being a very valid electoral strategy, I think that’s optimistic.

Not sure how we fix that either.

[arrowleaf]

Wildfires across North America really scare me. I live in a valley in the west where wildfire smoke from not only our state but surrounding states comes in and settles, leaving an AQI over 150 for most of late July through September.

Not only climate change, but aggressive firefighting over the past 50 or more years has caused a lot of material low in the fire ladder to accumulate, which in natural or at least pre-Columbian forests would be cleared out by routine fires. Brush and deadfall for example. The larger trees in healthy forests don't succumb to fire, but these fires have been decimating whole stands of trees. Pair that with almost zero snowpack this year, the only positive thing I can say is that I'm glad I can enjoy spring a bit earlier this year.

[marcyb5st]

I agree. Also, we already tried to rely on the goodwill of the people and here we are with warming speeding up.

We need some mechanism that penalizes polluters, benefits low emitters, and stops/limits/taxes/... worldwide shipping when local alternatives are available to avoid these [1] abominations.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1e4zl...

[fnordpiglet]

The problem is humans are really bad at perceiving externalities at this scale, cause / effect between small actions and large effects, and effects that play out over the span of their lifetime rather than the span of their day. The denialist rationale shifted over the years from doubting the very basis of the science, to claiming its just a short term blip, to its natural long term cycles, to … everything that involves not looking up.

I think the truth is we won’t really take this seriously globally until the changes are so severe that it’ll take generations to undo if ever.

[kakacik]

Politicians, at least freely elected, are a symptom of given population at given time. Don't blame trump for trump, he made it painfully obvious to whole world who he is and who he certainly is not, sort of kudos to him for being consistent.

Blame fully the people who saw all this and voted for him twice. At least if you care about root of the problems and not just venting off. I am not offering a solution to educating half of US population which clearly doesn't care about facts, or lacks any basic moral compass... I don't have a practical solution.

US 'special' form of voted democracy failed and failed hard, lets see how far this gets in next 3 years and if any actual lessons learned happen afterwards (I don't hold my breath since reality doesn't behave just because it would be nice and viable time to act is gone I think).

[thinkcontext]

> Blame fully the people who saw all this and voted for him twice

Thrice actually

[BikiniPrince]

The wild fires are entirely because of lack of management. This is why insurance companies noped out. The crazies believe it is an environment impact to manage the lands and then it all burns down. At least someone can blame the fires on something else. I guess it’s a win?

[xienze]

Aren’t all these developed countries voluntarily self-depopulating by way of having birth rates below replacement? Seems like the problem will sort itself out if we can resist the urge to invite the entire third world to come in and instantly raise their carbon footprint to first world levels.

[adrianN]

That effect is much too slow.

[socalgal2]

What have you done? Why is it someone else’s problem?

[wing-_-nuts]

It's a collective problem that we all have to solve together. I'm doing my part. What have YOU done?

[lotsofpulp]

I don't know how much surface area you consume, but the single biggest cause of energy use is spread out living in detached single family homes in the USA and other developed countries.

All the recycling, solar panels, electric cars, whatever don't come close to making up for the fact that each family of 4 living on a 0.1+ acre lot with all the various setbacks and whatnot, commuting many miles to work and school and grocery stores and the gym, moving all that mass of people, students, workers, food, water, sewage, trash, gas, etc is orders more consumption than if people were living in dense arrangements such as apartments in 4 and 5 story buildings.

Energy = Force * distance

From what I can tell, none of it means anything as long as detached single family homes are still the expected lifestyle, at current populations. Might as well consume as much as we can while we ride into the sunset, or cull the population quickly.

[asib]

I've voted for parties that care about addressing the climate catastrophe.

It's obviously someone else's problem if that someone refuses to accept there's a climate catastrophe.

[socalgal2]

That's great but sounds about as effective as slacktivism.

[asib]

What are you trying to do here? Either you acknowledge the climate catastrophe and this is some holier than thou thing for you, or you don’t and you are the problem.

Voting is literally the only way to solve this. Nothing will happen without legislation to force the hand of greedy corps.

Maybe spend your energy trying to convince climate deniers to vote differently.

[socalgal2]

I don't agree that voting will solve it, ever.

Corps aren't the problm. They only respond to demands of their customers.

[jmye]

What an odd question. Is this just the "and yet you participate in society" meme trying to act as insightful conversation, or did you have something to actually say?

[socalgal2]

The majority of people sacrifice nothing. They won't move to a 1000sq or less apartment but instead want their 2200sqft suburban house. They won't move the place where they can use public transportation, they just keep driving their car everywhere. They won't stop flying around the world on vacation. They won't give up upgrading their phone every year or stop owning tons of clothing. They won't change their diet to eat whatever is most environmentally friendly.

Instead, they just blame the electorate. The electorate just responds to demand. Same as industry. Stop buying beef there will be no beef industry. Stop buying cars there will be no car industry. Stop buying things from the other side of the world there will be no shipping industry.

People keep expecting politicians to somehow magically do something but are usually unwilling to do anything more than separate their trash or once in a while, bring a bag to the grocery store they just drove too.

Yea, all of that is hard. But if you're not willing to do it, what makes you think the electorate could possibly pass anything no of their constituents is willing to do?

[asib]

This is incredibly outdated mate. Literally everyone I know does all the things you talk about. I don’t even really know where to start in response. You’re also conflating climate change action with environmentalism.

[redeeman]

so literally everyone you know will not fly on vacation, only uses mass transportation systems, lives in the most dense of housing, eats only the bugs, upgrades their gear only when it absolutely needs to, and then buys used to recycle. Get all their clothes from thrift stores, and all huddle under the communal blanket for heat?

I somehow very much doubt that

[deaux]

> What have you done?

Made a shitload of sacrifices, how about you?

[jmcgough]

The top three emissions sources are industry, electricity, and transportation. There have been important federal and state-wide attempts to address these, but Trump guts regulation every time he's in office. Chevron is dead, SCOTUS repeatedly rules to let big business do whatever they want, and we're now burning even more coal to meet AI energy demand.

Compare this to China, where the government is aggressively promoting green energy and electric car tech.

[socalgal2]

> Industry, electricity, and transportation

This is deflecting the problem. All of those are in response to demand. People live in suburbs instead of centrally so they need all their own personal transportation and product transportation. They want all their clothing, toys, BBQs, lawn chairs, smokers, jacuzzis, tents, gadgets, etc so both demand for industry and demand for transportation to bring that stuff to them from all over the world. And, they want all the electricity for their large 2200 sq houses (double the size of many other countries).

[tsunamifury]

China is the number one burner of coal and other dirty fuels and only growing. This type of disingenuous analysis really sets the wrong understanding of the world.

[jmcgough]

China has 4x our population and emits 1/3 less per capita. They've also been flat or falling for the last 21 months. US emissions rose by 2.4% last year.

Furthermore, because carbon emissions stay trapped in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years, one should also note that the US is responsible for more than a quarter of cumulative emissions, twice as much as China.

I'm more interested in solving the problem than assigning blame, but it baffles me when people argue that we shouldn't need to focus on this because it's really China's fault.

[gzread]

It's also the number one producer of solar energy and growing. It's just a huge country with a lot of everything. Can we help them use more solar?

[triceratops]

> only growing

This is wrong. It isn't burning more coal.

[tsunamifury]

“This is wrong”

Haha you uh believe the Chinese reporting over fatality imagery.

Dude. Get real

[kelvinjps10]

How does he has the power to change it?

[newsoftheday]

> See the wildfires across North America

I asked Gemini, "How long have wildfires across North America happened and are they truly any worse now?"

"Wildfires have occurred across North America for millions of years, predating humans entirely." It also had some very detailed information backing that up.

I then asked, "Were any of those fires in the past 20 years started by arsonists?"

"Yes, arson is a significant factor in North American wildfires, though it is often overshadowed by accidental human causes (like downed power lines or unattended campfires) and natural causes like lightning."

[islandfox100]

Well if Gemini says fires have existed, that's enough proof!!!!