[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.