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> Electric vehicles offer perhaps the most significant opportunity for the average consumer to improve the carbon emission status-quo Public transit. Electric

by door5 8y ago

> Electric vehicles offer perhaps the most significant opportunity for the average consumer to improve the carbon emission status-quo Public transit. Electric cars hardly put a dent in climate change. We need higher density cities, less sprawl, more robust public transit, and a nationwide high speed rail network. These all require political will, policy change and public money -- no private company will do this. > As individuals, we are generally quite powerless in the climate crisis. The world is being ruined by companies and governments that we generally cannot influence. Right now the green new deal is an extremely popular idea in public consciousness, and activists have pushed it to the point that nearly every Democrat running for president has signed off on it. We are not powerless, use your platform and your resources to advocate for political change.

evv 8y ago
Political change is slow and the climate is changing fast. You can't just undo urban sprawl or turn on public transit infrastructure. We need widespread adoption of (PH)EVs in addition to the improvements you mention. But you're correct that we do have the power to influence politics. Thanks to our broken democracy, the power to decide the next US president lies with a rather small number of voters: those in swing states who aren't already firmly decided. Maybe we can figure out how to identify and persuade these people to vote for the candidates that best protect their interests. Can you think of any such hacks that can compete with FB and Twitter misinformation campaigns?
shittyadmin 8y ago
> less sprawl > no private company will do this. Many cities are blocking developers from buying up homes in old neighborhoods to build apartments and condos which could house far more people closer to their jobs. Often this boils down to NIMBYs lobbying city councils while those who would buy said apartments aren't exactly in a place to do that. There's a lot of low hanging fruit like this where trivial policy fixes could go a long way without the political challenges of massive public spending, but we can't even get these set up properly. A simple shift from allowing developers to build more suburbs to more apartments and condos would do a lot of good in many cities.

by door5 8y ago

evv 8y ago

Political change is slow and the climate is changing fast. You can't just undo urban sprawl or turn on public transit infrastructure. We need widespread adoption of (PH)EVs in addition to the improvements you mention. But you're correct that we do have the power to influence politics. Thanks to our broken democracy, the power to decide the next US president lies with a rather small number of voters: those in swing states who aren't already firmly decided. Maybe we can figure out how to identify and persuade these people to vote for the candidates that best protect their interests. Can you think of any such hacks that can compete with FB and Twitter misinformation campaigns?

shittyadmin 8y ago

> less sprawl > no private company will do this. Many cities are blocking developers from buying up homes in old neighborhoods to build apartments and condos which could house far more people closer to their jobs. Often this boils down to NIMBYs lobbying city councils while those who would buy said apartments aren't exactly in a place to do that. There's a lot of low hanging fruit like this where trivial policy fixes could go a long way without the political challenges of massive public spending, but we can't even get these set up properly. A simple shift from allowing developers to build more suburbs to more apartments and condos would do a lot of good in many cities.